#91 Life Changing Lessons From Thailand

Rachel Denning (00:01.07)
Hey my friends, welcome to another episode of the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. Rachel and I just got back from leading our couples trip to Thailand over Valentine's. man, it was so good. So, so good. What a great experience. I'm gonna share some fantastic life lessons from that whole trip and I hope you'll invest in your marriage in ways like that. Like...

You can't go big all the time, but you can go big sometimes with, with your marriage, with your parenting, which is things that matter. It's creating adventures. And we'll talk about that, but it was, it was an extraordinary experience. And just a powerful reminder that when we get out and we create, we create memories, that's what life is all about. And that's what my life is particularly all about is creating experiences and memories. Like that's what I want to invest in. That's what I want to gather.

That's what I want to create more than anything else. I want to create memories and experiences because we can learn and grow so much from, from doing that intentionally and deliberately. And what it does is it becomes a pattern interrupter and a wake up call and a reality check and a reminder about life and people and big picture thinking. And it's just, it's so fun when you do it well, that it just helps you.

become a better person and expand your mind. And like we know a man, a mind that once is expanded can no longer return to its former dimensions. So the more often we can expand our reality in our mind and our experiences and our new neural connections and these wake up calls, like the more alert we are, the more alive we are. And man, we just want to be alive. Whoa. So good.

Now obviously there's a cost here. We are feeling the jet lag. Whoa! man, nothing like 24 hours on an airplane coming across that ocean to hit you hard. It is crazy. And so we're just, we're getting back in the game, getting, you know, managing energy levels and recovery and being real strategic about that. It's awesome. But let me share some life -changing lessons.

Rachel Denning (02:25.486)
from our trip to Thailand. When we first landed, Rachel and I got there a day early. Actually, let me back up even. There's some more lessons before that. Like two days before we started to fly out, we get an email saying they've canceled our flights, because originally we'd bought tickets that had a layover in Beijing. And we got an email just saying, nope, that's no longer available. And so like two days before our trip, we'd planned these, we'd bought those tickets like,

couple months in advance. So two days before we're like, And so we're scrambling, we had to buy new tickets, find a new airline, a new way to get through there that didn't have anything to do with China. And all because of the scare of the coronavirus. And it was interesting people's reactions, the fear they were experiencing. Some people were, you know, canceling their trips altogether to go anywhere near Asia. And...

It was just interesting. And we saw that throughout the whole trip of we heard a lot of different responses from people and a lot of it about about the mindset and perspective. It's pretty interesting. You know, and this is a tragedy. It really truly is a tragedy and we ought to be cautious and careful about it. But we ought also to keep it in perspective. You know, more people, people are dying every day from the influenza virus, right from the flu and.

a lot and you know half over half a million people die every year just the United States alone from exposure to tobacco products. Just that. That's unreal. And then preventable cancer is dramatically on the rise. Just exposure exposure to harmful foods and harmful chemicals. This is.

There's so much there and you guys got to listen to the book superhuman and there's another one called Chris beat cancer. Also just like all these evidences, just clear evidences of products we have in our lives that we're using every day that are known cancer causing agents and we have them in our lives. And then, you know, over half a million people die every year of heart disease, preventable heart disease from all the things we're putting in our mouths. And so it's interesting. And again, I don't want to, I don't want to downplay it because it's a serious thing, but then.

Rachel Denning (04:50.189)
You know, you also see how people respond to it mentally and emotionally. And there was all kinds of people living over in Thailand or working over there and they're like, look man, just like be healthy and take care of your body and take care of yourself and be in a healthy condition and don't live in fear. And it was just, it actually ended up bringing up some cool life lessons and conversations just about perspective and paradigm and keeping things in reality that way. Anyways, that's how it all started, but.

So originally land over there and we got running our first day. We're a day early before the group gets there and we got running and I love to do this. My absolute favorite thing to do when I get to new places, go for a run. And, and actually I do that whenever we're wherever we are in the world, I'll just constantly do running or bike biking. And it helps me to get connected with the people in the place. And so we go running from our hotel. And then of course in almost every area, depending,

on how far you run, you can, you can get into different kinds of environments and different kinds of, socioeconomic status and man, you, you get to see so much. And on this run, we ended up going through the, there was a shortcut, Google maps, let us on a shortcut. Cause we want to go to a grocery store and then try to find a grocery store in Bangkok is crazy. And just Bangkok itself is crazy.

But we end up running past this place, and I think I told this story already, but we just ran past this little shack on the side of the road. It was filthy, just piled with junk. And there was a guy living there, living there in a pile of junk in a little fort he'd build out of stuff, plastic boards and pieces of metal. That was his world. And...

big reality check and reminder. And I ended up seeing several situations like that while we were there. And it's so easy to lose contact with situations and scenarios like that when, you guys, we live good lives. We live very good lives. We as in you and me and all of us, we live these great lives and we live in great conditions and we're so blessed and our life is so.

Rachel Denning (07:12.557)
affluent and so comfortable, which is a wonderful thing. It really, it's a great thing and I hope we can do that. But I also am constantly reminded that we need to have a reality check and connect with good people who are in tough situations. And sometimes it's because of poor choices they made. Sometimes it's because of conditions they were born into. Sometimes it's because of psychological problems, but sometimes it's just...

rough circumstances and you meet really good, genuinely good people that are just dealt a really hard lot and they don't know how to get out of it. And I think you and I ought to be in pretty regular contact with people who live in their whole existence is outside of our current reality. You know what I'm saying there?

where we ought to have these reality checks where we bump up against conditions and ideas and circumstances that are very drastically different than our own because it force if if we're open to it, it'll force us to think and act and live differently. Even if nothing else, it just fills us with gratitude, not with pride, not with that comparison of pride, but with deep, deep gratitude. And hopefully with

this noblesse oblige effort. That's a French phrase that means our nobility obligates us because we've been given so much because we have the opportunity to create so much. Even if you take credit for your efforts and say, well, I did this, you know, I did. Okay, fantastic. You have the privilege opportunity to do that, to create this kind of life. Then I think you also have the moral obligation to help, to help teach and train others and share your gifts and talents and abilities. And it,

It's just a good reminder because if not, it's easy to forget. We surround ourselves. We live in these nice neighborhoods and we drive nice cars and we're around people living like us and we forget how much is out there. man. So many, so many great lessons. Okay. Another lesson. So we were, we were actually, this was a married, it was a trip for couples, right? They're married couples and we talked, we had a lot of great conversations and one of the conversations we had was about the

Rachel Denning (09:33.933)
three sets that determine the quality of our marriage. And those sets are mindset, heart set, and skill set. Now I did three different podcast episodes about that. If you haven't listened to those, go listen to those ones. And then I did three videos. I recorded them while I was in Thailand. I did three videos for my Instagram TV channel. So it's greg .denning is the Instagram handle there. And they're on my IGTV.

about them, but there's just, it's just a powerful reminder of specifically in marriage about how our mindset, our heart set and our skillset is affecting the quality and outcome of our marriage and everything else in life too. But for marriage, especially we got to, we got to be cognizant of our mindset and how we're thinking. Like we can get a God in this and I'm reading the book mindset again by Carol Dweck. If you've not read that one, please, please, please read that book. And if you've read it before, reread it.

It is worth it. It's so powerful. I'm actually using it right now to teach one of the classes I do for youth, to help them gain the mindset. And there's a fixed mindset and there's a growth mindset. And it's easy to get these fixed mindsets about, well, this is just the way I am. There's a fixed mindset. That's just the way my spouse's is a fixed mindset. This is just the way our marriages is a fixed mindset or

Even even you can get a fixed mindset about what marriage itself is as an institution. And if we're not careful, we can get all these little mindsets in there that actually cause a lot of problems. And we don't realize that the problem is in us in the mindset. Same with the heart set we can get. We can get these little funky little heart sets, these emotional sets that we actually end up generating a lot of the problems and difficulties and the frustration, the pain is self generated. It's because.

You guys are, our feelings are real, but they're not always right. Let that sink in. Our feelings are real. Like we're feeling them. You can feel the intensity of a feeling, but they're not always right. They're not always accurate. They're not always true. You ever had that before? You've had this feeling. You got all upset about something or you're angry or hurt or whatever. And then shortly after you realized that you were wrong, you'd misunderstood the situation or circumstance or the person.

Rachel Denning (11:57.133)
And then you're like, man, I was totally wrong. That didn't change the realness of the feeling. You've just felt all this pain or anguish or hurt or whatever it is. And then afterwards you're like, oops, I totally misunderstood that totally misread it. Right. And, and it's interesting because we can still have the power of the feeling. It can be real, but not right. And sometimes we'll get stuck in these heart sets. We, we always react emotionally a certain way. We.

You might even be numb. That's a heart set. Some people just have given up feeling. Other people are hypersensitive. That's a heart set. And so you're, you're just overreacting. Some people explode. Some people implode. There's all kinds of different heart sets and it's easy to kind of settle into a certain pattern and get stuck there. And ma 'am, what a...

What a dramatic effect that will have on your marriage and your life and all your relationships if you get stuck in a heart set. And some of us, most of us actually are just actually underdeveloped. We have an underdeveloped heart set. We just haven't cultivated our heart set in the best way possible. It's just, I guess, again, the best way to describe it is underdeveloped. It's not cultivated or practiced or...

Educated we can actually educate our emotions and we just haven't done that yet. And so it stays small and limited so we limit our emotional experience Man, this is good. Isn't this awesome? This stuff is awesome and then of course skill set is the third set that is dramatically affecting the quality and outcome of our marriage and Very few people actually think of it like this that that you you don't think marriage is a you know, it's a skill set. What are my?

marriage skills, like how am I, in fact, there's a lot of skill sets in marriage. Like it takes, it takes a significant amount of skills to be married well, right? To be good in marriage. And most of us, when we're having any kind of strain or difficulty or struggle in our marriages, it's because we've reached the limits of our current skill set. And so in order to change that, all we have to do is increase our skills. The skills.

Rachel Denning (14:19.181)
When there's a lot of them in marriage, especially even the skill of managing our time of managing our energy of leading, right? Being a leader. You have to be a leader in marriage of managing ourselves and managing our emotions of being able to listen really well to being able to empathize, to be able to understand, to be able to communicate and express ourselves honestly and openly the skill of having tough conversations.

without getting upset or saying mean things. The skill of living with another human being. That one's challenging, right? Holy guacamole. Just living with other people. It takes skills. Right, of getting our own education, of providing, of managing a household and a family, and now adding the parenting and still being able to have a phenomenal marriage while being a parent. Many people, that's just beyond their current skill set.

And so they often it's one or the other. And they focus on parenting to the neglect of their marriage and they focus on their marriage and neglect to their parenting. And we've got to be able to do both and provide for the family and lead out and contribute. I mean, there's a lot there. And so it's our skill set, but that was just, I was, we reiterated that. I was reminded of it, how important it is. We talked about, I had this conversation. So let, let that be a part of, of your journey that you're always focusing on the three sets. There are three sets of marriage and of life.

All right. More lessons, more lessons from Thailand. So we landed Bangkok and Bangkok has, I can't remember millions. Was it five, six, seven, eight million? I can't remember, but it is a big sprawling, pretty, I mean it was clean, but it was also dirty and the traffic's crazy. It's intense street food everywhere and pretty good food. Thai massages everywhere for like five or six bucks.

which was so funny my whole, like for years and years and years, people talked about, Thai massage is the best. You can get a massage for so cheap. It's so awesome. Just go get a massage. For me, my experience with Thai massage was Rachel and I were like, this isn't Thai massage. This is Thai torture. And man, they're just, they roll you up like a pretzel and they, these, these cute little, you know, just meek Thai women, they look just so harmless. But man, when they are giving you massage,

Rachel Denning (16:44.909)
It's like they flip a switch and they're trying to torture you and especially with me, it was so funny. They would laugh and giggle and they were just trying to make me wince and cry out in pain. man, they were fighting every sore muscle and every knot and just, But we ended up getting some massages with our friends and it was actually quite fun and funny and it's very different. They.

Literally grab your legs and your arms and twist you up in a ball and smash you and man. It was fun And we had we had some great time massage. It was super it was it was a cool experience but with the city, especially and this is true with all major cities and Especially in in developing countries Here are some big takeaways I love to visit cities because it's just this

bustling hustle of humanity and it's often so real and so raw and in a big city there's so much creativity and wonder and greatness and you also see the the worst part of humanity shows up in a city as well so you almost get the best and the worst compiled in the city and I and I personally I'm not a city guy to live there love visiting cities all around the world but not to live and and here are some takeaways

We ended up on taxis or subways going for miles and miles and miles and miles. And it was interesting in Bangkok and other cities I've been in, like Kathmandu was like this and Tamil Nadu or Chennai in Tamil Nadu in India and others where you can go literally go you guys for miles and miles and miles and there's no beauty.

There's no nature. There's no wonder. It's just jam packed with human beings in every direction for a long ways. And we were able to contrast that by leaving the city. We went out to Phuket and Krabi, and then we went and stayed in a, in a elephant retreat center for, in the mountains, just way out in the mountains. And the contrast,

Rachel Denning (19:07.693)
of the feeling that, that is in the city and the feeling that is out in nature. It was, it was a beautiful thing. We literally flew in, you know, hour and a half flight and it was a totally different experience. And it was just having the contrast in front of us was so powerful that there's so much to be gained in the city, but there's also so much that can be lost in a city. And it was just a reminder to me. And here's the life lesson that we need to constantly expose ourselves.

to nature, to beauty, and to peacefulness. Now that is possible in some major cities. There's ways to get peacefulness, there's ways to find beauty, and there's ways to connect with nature. But what's interesting, you guys, is maybe we don't even live in a big city, maybe we're on the outside of a city or in a neighborhood or something, but how often do we neglect the power that comes from really connecting with nature or beauty or peacefulness? Sometimes we just are...

Like our houses are so big and our lives are so comfortable and so busy. We go from our house to our car to the store, to the office, to the car, to the house. And we're actually not spending that much time outside. And even when we're outside, we're not really connecting with nature. We might be on our devices or we might be preoccupied with something or we're not really focusing in, like just slowing down enough to really connect with beautiful things, whether plants or animals or.

people or creations or whatever. And then with peacefulness too, there's an energy. Big, big cities have big energy and there's, there's lit, you can feel the contrast of being out in nature where there are hardly any people and being in a big city where there's tons of people. And so there was a, having the contrast was another just great reminder for all of us that we need to do it consistently. It needs to be a part of our life. Like human beings,

There's something beautiful and wonderful about connecting with nature. So can I give you a challenge, a little challenge with, with today's podcast to, to be intentional. And actually if I were you, I would schedule it, get it on your calendars for backpacking trips or hikes or bike rides or a walk. And it can be in a park or it can be in the woods or on a beach or wherever, wherever you need to go. Like just connect with, with nature, beauty and.

Rachel Denning (21:31.789)
peacefulness. Wow. It's so powerful. And there's, there's so many big takeaways with that. These are, these are simple things you guys, but when I'm coaching and working with people all the time, I constantly meeting with people that are just so worn out and so tense and so they're wound so tight. And it's these little things you see it. And we start to feel a little bit of despair and discouragement and overwhelm.

And these little habits that if, if we don't like we usually neglect them, but if we keep them in place, these little habits, it actually helps you feel alive and feel peaceful. And it's so revitalizing and reenergizing to do that. All right. Next lesson is to create adventure and awe. So we went out, we went out on this, this elephant track and it was,

awesome. We spent three days out there and we went canoeing down this river in the middle of nowhere. We went out and worked with elephants that had been rescued and learned. It was fascinating to learn about animals that are going extinct and are struggling and the whole journey there and what we can do about it as humanity to protect earth and animals. But like creating an adventure. So we got to see and feed these beautiful, powerful animals. Then we went on this hike.

out into nature and we actually came across a big male elephant that was out there, these workers and he, he was uncomfortable with us. but he was out there working and helping, clear this land using his strength. It was, it was awesome. He was so majestic and so powerful just standing there in the woods and really the rainforest jungle of India. It just, it was so cool. It was so cool. we, we went,

out on a hundred I think it was like 130 year old they're called a junk It was like a chinese junk or tai junk and it was these old sailing ships and we took that out and we went snorkeling and You know, we were dude I was doing back flips off the top of this thing climbed up on the sail and we went around and watched the sunset out over the ocean and these islands and all these beautiful tropical fish and had these amazing meals just

Rachel Denning (23:57.325)
Just these epic adventures you guys. And again, I keep coming back to this. I, I, this is kind of inadvertent lesson here is like, it makes you feel alive. And so plan for adventures like that. Look for opportunities to have extraordinary adventures from your own backyard to the distant exotic places of the world, but make sure you're having adventures. Be strategic about it. Get them on your calendar. When was the last time you had an adventure? Most of the people I talked to, they haven't had one in years.

years. Get out and have an epic adventure. Go see the beauties and the wonders of the world even if they're in your own backyard where you may have not seen them. Right? There's things right around here that I haven't seen that I need to go see. I fly across the earth to go see other ones but I haven't seen the ones that are right here. So we need to do both I think. But have some adventures and have some fun and feel alive and have some excitement and try new things. Again.

Man, I keep coming back to this. This is the big takeaway, I think. It makes you feel alive. Now there's another piece of this is like introduce yourself to some awe and some wonder and almost like shock value. We, and Rachel is the best at this. She's one of the best travel planners in the world. My wife, Rachel, and she found this restaurant. It's in, it was in Phuket. Went down to the.

stunning beach and spent the afternoon on the beach, watched the sunset. Then we go to this restaurant and we walk up and the setting is unreal. It's a little protected island. The restaurant was an island in this lagoon and the only way to get across was on this floating platform. They had a worker that was there and he would pull the platform over on a rope.

and he'd pick you up, you'd come onto the platform and then he'd pull you back across. That was the only way to get in and out of the restaurant. And it was all the whole restaurant was black. It was called the black something. I can't remember the name, but it was, it was crazy. Cool. The food was awesome. But the whole setting was so unique and so different and so much on wonder and beauty. Like there's, there's power in doing things and exposing ourselves to things, interacting with things that are just different. They're just,

Rachel Denning (26:20.749)
special. And I hope I hope you're part of creating something special. I hope you think about the legacy you're leaving. What are you what are you building? What are you working on that's going to outlive you that's going to inspire and and give it's going to keep giving that's where what are you creating that's going to keep giving after even after you're gone? What are you doing right now?

even with your spouse, with your children in your home and your neighborhood, your community, your church, your group, like your organization, your workplace, your school. What are you doing now that's contributing to awe and wonder and greatness and uniqueness? We love really unique things, but it's interesting. We kind of get caught up in this, this whole idea of be like everybody else, you know,

Create another little fast food chain just like all the rest of them and open another little store that's just like everybody else and act like, act like, dress like, be like everybody else, right? But what, what is there that's unique and special and wonderful that just stands out? Right? Create adventure and awe in your life. And then that fits perfectly with our experience at The Ritz. And I just finished a book called Excellence Wins. Well, I finished a few weeks ago.

And I highly recommend it. If you've not read or listened to that one, please do. It is fantastic. It's a story of this little German boy who ends up creating or co -founding the Ritz -Carlton Empire. And so we, after reading that, we're like, yes, this needs to be a part of our experience. And so on Valentine's day, we went and had dinner at the Ritz in Krabi, Thailand. And the setting is...

absolutely stunning. Just on this beautiful beach at the very end of the road, overlooking these those majestic, unique islands that Thailand has, they just pop out of the earth, these limestone towers and pillars of rock and beauty. man, they're amazing. And so you're overlooking this, and you go in and the whole idea around the Ritz Carlton Empire is

Rachel Denning (28:39.981)
is all about excellence. And this whole motto is that we are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen. And we just do everything with excellence, everything, every single thing we do, we create excellence and it's about the entire experience. And so literally from the Mo, you guys, and we rented mopeds. It was so awesome. And the fact is one of our, it's one of the fun adventures we like to do is like, I love it. It's just, you go somewhere and rent a little moped and just cruise around and experience it.

that way. It is so, so fun. So we ran a moped and we're cruising around Thailand and around the peninsula. It was a blast. So we wrote our mopeds out there and we get there and literally from the guard who meets us at the gate, every single interaction the entire night was done with excellence. You can tell they have been trained so thoroughly and how to create a complete experience. It wasn't just the meal.

that was unbelievable. And with the presentation and the taste and everything, but every single interaction was special. And they went out of their way to make it an extraordinary experience. And those of you who stayed at the Ritz or stayed at other fancy hotels or restaurants, you know what I'm talking about. It's they create an experience. You know, Rachel and I, one of our favorite things is to eat at some of the nicest restaurants in the world. Every year they publish a list of the top 50 restaurants in the world. And

Go to them save up if you have to and go to have the experience we ate at a three a three star Michelin star right you three stars at the top we made it ate at one of those in Paris and at like 13 or 14 courses just blow your mind awesome we ate it at number number four restaurant in the world in Peru and Lima and again multiple courses with presentation and the people and the food and it's a whole experience and same with it this way so the guy met us at the gate in a in a fancy golf cart and he

He said, may I please give you a tour of the grounds? And he tours, he gives a tour of the whole, all the grounds, explaining all the places and the rooms and the setting and the history and, and the culture and why they're doing it and, and what it looks like and what it represents. And there's, there's fountains and waterfalls and ponds and, creeks and flowers and bushes and trees and buildings. I mean, everything was just stunning. And he's explaining it all. And then we were there a few minutes early. And so he sits us down.

Rachel Denning (31:07.501)
in this wonderful setting with a little gazebo on the beach and brings us some drinks and some amazing snacks like blow your mind snacks like it was just these little it was a little tray like here's a couple snacks before your meal and i was like this is amazing it was so good as we're sitting there and there's a little ocean breeze coming in the sun setting over those islands and they keep bringing it to us and they bring us a cold towel to

you know, to cool off your neck and then a hot towel to wash your hands before your meal. And I mean, just these little, the little details that make a big difference. And then of course we go down when it's time we walk down and have this fantastic meal with incredible service, attention to every detail going out of the way to serve you. They're standing there waiting, watching, looking for any opportunity to help you. And I thought, what a

What a difference, right? It's the noblesse oblige. It's the winning with excellence. It's doing things in a great way and really, really being alert and attentive to how we can make a difference. And again, how can you and I do that in our lives with our families, with our friends, with people we interact with, how can we make them feel special? That was a big takeaway for me that I'm it's, it's in my philosophy journal. And I've done a couple of recordings on that if you haven't listened to those, but I'm, I'm adding another piece to the philosophy journal.

of that very thing of making people, anyone you interact with, everyone you interact with, making them feel special.

We have to do that.

Rachel Denning (32:45.421)
And there might be people that you're annoyed with and you don't like and you don't want them to feel special. But that's not the best of who you are.

That's not us at our best. When we're playing small, we're being petty.

Make everyone feel special. And sometimes my friends, the reason people are annoying is because they don't feel special.

And many times because they felt neglected as a child, they didn't get the attention they needed, they didn't get the love they needed, they're hurting. And people who are hurting often hurt others.

Rachel Denning (33:31.789)
And so I almost want to say especially people who bother you, annoy you, make them feel special. Make them feel acknowledged and hurt. And I'm not, don't, don't allow yourself to be mistreated or bullied or, or any way disrespected. I'm not talking about that. Don't let people push you around.

Rachel Denning (33:56.173)
But the higher way is to make people feel special.

and it will soften hearts.

And there are extreme examples of this, of like the hiding place and man's search for meaning and there was light, these wartime books and examples of people who were prisoners and yet they were kind and compassionate and thoughtful to their guards, to the mean ones and were actually able in some cases to soften their hearts.

And if they can do it in extreme examples, then you and I can do it in our everyday of being there like in the Ritz experience where they're...

Not, and I don't want to be misunderstood here, not to our own neglect, but that we make it part of our way of being to be thoughtful and caring and looking for opportunities to serve and give and help people feel special.

Rachel Denning (35:05.901)
Now some people sometimes they'll often neglect themselves. They lack self -care because they're always trying to serve and give to others. But what I'm encouraging us to do is to be operating at our very best and then looking for opportunities to really make people feel special. Because we're taking care of ourselves and we feel alive. It's like this whole combination of all these lessons we're talking about today.

all these just great life lessons here that we're feeling alive and we're taking care of ourselves and we're growing and we're learning, we're developing, we're having these pattern interruptions and we're looking at our mindset, our heart set, our skill set. We're exposing ourselves to nature, to beauty, to peacefulness. We're creating adventure and awe and wonder and doing things in a unique and powerful and beautiful way. And then we're winning with excellence.

Rachel Denning (36:03.917)
then we're charged, we're energized, we're empowered, and we can, our interactions with other people will make them feel special. So how can you do that? How can you make your spouse feel really special? What are the little things you can do?

I bought a card before the trip and I kept it hidden. And then I wrote the morning of Valentine's morning, I wrote a beautiful, thoughtful card of expressing honor and gratitude and love and admiration to my wife. And I gave it to her that morning and she loved it. She absolutely loved it. And well, and I'd been paying attention. She loves handwritten notes for me. And so I got out, just a little bit, got out of my way to make her feel special.

and it makes a difference. And so how can you do it with each of your children? How can you do it with the people you work with, the people you work for, your customers or clients, your teachers, professors, students?

coworkers, you know what I'm saying? Make people feel special and do, do whatever you do. Anything and everything you do that's worthwhile, do it with excellence. Do it with excellence. my goodness. It'll change the course of our lives. We live with excellence. Now the last lesson is that sometimes things go wrong. And when, man, when you're traveling internationally, especially, even the best laid plans.

can go wrong and we had planned out this incredible experience on our last day to go over to this ancient city, which was mind blowing. Awesome. Like over 300 acres of this recreation of ancient Siam and the buildings and the gardens and the grounds. And wow, it was stunning. And we rented a golf cart and we were driving around it, taking pictures, exploring, learning about ancient Siam and such a cool experience. And then we were going to have this last beautiful dinner in this floating marketplace.

Rachel Denning (38:01.933)
And we get there and the market place is empty and drained and under construction. And it was just a dust bowl of broken dreams and plans. And it was all ruined. So like, no. So then we go out. We're like, okay, where are we going to eat? And we were all hot and tired and traveling and like, we just need some food. It's like, well, let's go back. And of course we ended up, there was so much traffic. The taxi drivers wouldn't even take us through. They're like, Nope, there's so much traffic right now. We won't even go.

And so we're kind of stuck and we're like, well, let's try to find a restaurant. And there's nothing around like, come on. So then we can't find a place to go. We're, we can't get back to our hotel and we're like, this is ridiculous. And so we're, we're scrambling. We're trying our phones. Batteries are dead. The internet's not working well. And like all of our plans of ending, you know, on this beautiful note, we're just flopped. So we ended up walking out of place, walking down this main busy, crazy road over a foot bridge.

And then we just jumped in the back of this truck that was going along. In some of the countries, your public transportation is in the back of a pickup truck. And that's one of them. So we jumped in the back of this pickup truck. We go down a little ways. And we can't find any taxis, so we end up walking. And we're walking just through this normal neighborhood. And it was an area where there's no tourism. There's no tourism. And so we were quite the spectacle.

And it was interesting just walking through it and there was some of it was pretty dirty and some run down and some of them, you know, you can tell they're keeping up their houses, but it was a, it was kind of a, it was, well, it wasn't a really poor area, but it wasn't a wealthy area either. And so we're walking through it and then we got, it was a Saturday night and so we just got to see life in a neighborhood, in a big city, in Thailand and Bangkok on a Saturday night. And we saw the people interacting with each other and sitting out, they had a little,

pick the tables up and like this literally like we'd see like this pile of junk, but it was just beautiful. It ended up being this beautiful experience of like connecting with people in their world at that moment and like being observers and we walked past and they would just light up with these big smiles and look at us and wave and they're like, man, we don't see tourists down here. Like, what are you guys lost? And we ended up going to this restaurant around the beach and it ended up being a great meal and a great experience. And I,

Rachel Denning (40:25.517)
took a bite of something that burned my face off. It was so spicy hot. But we were the only foreigners in there. It was a nice restaurant, but really locals only. I mean, only locals knew about it in this area. And it ended up being just an awesome experience. Totally unplanned, unexpected, and nothing like we had anticipated, but it was awesome. Things go wrong.

And we could have gotten pretty frustrated about it. We could have gotten irritated or bothered. But when things go wrong, you say, okay, now what are we gonna do about it? And again, there's a mindset, heart set, skill set there. Like, what am I gonna do with my emotions? What am I gonna do with my thoughts? What am I gonna do with my skills to find a solution when things go wrong? And then we ended up sitting in a taxi with tons of ridiculous traffic anyways, and then we went back to the hotel. We had this cool hotel in Bangkok, and I jumped in.

They had this infinity pool, but it was all it's all black and the nights all lights were off and it was awesome and they were like bats flying around. It was so cool. And then we had an awesome discussion to finish up the trip. But when things go wrong, another life lesson there, when things go wrong, how you gonna respond? How are you going to make something beautiful? or like my kids say, how are you going to make lemonade out of the lemons? Right. When something doesn't work out like you anticipate. So those are just a few thoughts I want to share today. You guys, thanks for, thanks for being here. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being awesome people.

and being a part of this awesome community that we're building with extraordinary family life and, and just sharing this whole message of, of really living and being intentional and deliberate and learning these great lessons in life. You guys that just help us feel alive. That's the big takeaway. It's the little things done consistently and well that make us feel alive and we can do it all the time because awesome is always an option. It really is.

We just have to be more intentional and intentional and deliberate about it to feel alive, to be our best. So do something today to make it magical and wonderful to connect with nature or beauty or peacefulness, to create an adventure, to expose yourself to some awe and wonder, to do something in a very unique or different way, or just to do it with excellence. And if something goes wrong today, roll with it. Don't let it ruin your day or your week.

Rachel Denning (42:49.709)
Just like, okay, it happened. What am I going to do about it? What am I going to do with my mindset, my heart set and my skill set and boom, back in it, back in the game and make sure that let's do this. You guys do it with me, join the share and share this message, share the podcast, share the videos. Like let's create a movement here of helping people feel alive because so many people are going through life dead and they're not really living.

Like Earl Nightingale said that most men die at 25 but aren't buried till they're 80. They're just in a comatose and they're just existing. They're not really living. So let's help. Let's show, let's lead out, set the example, model for them, encourage them, share this stuff. Let's really live life. Reach upper.