#92 Your choices LEAD to freedom or LIMIT freedom

Rachel Denning (00:00.814)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. Man, I am feeling excited and motivated and fired up today. I think it's just because the sun finally came out. Now, I know you guys are gonna think I'm a baby, because I just spent two weeks in Thailand with too much sunshine, but man, we got back here with cold rain and dreary, nothing but gray clouds for days, and now the sun came out.

and I'm feeling alive and man I have been coaching and coaching and coaching multiple coaching sessions every day. It's been awesome. I got another one here in a few minutes but I had to share some thoughts. And this is like mind blowing stuff and I know like it's so simple. I get it. Like I'll say this and you'll be like thank you Mr. Obvious. Like it's so simple and yet do you ever have those moments where a simple thing just hits you with so much.

force and light. You're just blown away by like, wow, yes. It's so true. And here's what it is. It hit me so powerfully just the other day as I was again, I do this every single day I'm meeting with people and having these incredible conversations and every single day. In fact, just right now with my wife, we were going over an assessment for somebody that she's coaching and the pain and the struggle and the hurt and

And she and I, Rachel and I go through this whole range of emotions as we're working with wonderful people who are having amazing triumphs and horrendous tragedies. And we get the full spectrum of humanity. Man, it's powerful. Look, we love you guys so much. We love you so much. And literally, we live to help you and help...

Well, help our family, our own children and you and our families involved in this. Like we live as a family to help people reach their full potential and to live extraordinary family lives. That's what our life is dedicated to. I love this stuff. Love it. Okay. You ready? Here it is. Our choices do one of two things. They lead to freedom or they limit freedom. That's it.

Rachel Denning (02:28.334)
Boom, that's it. It hits all of our choices lead to freedom or they limit freedom. And we're going to dig in here and I want you to think through this. So our big choices and our small choices, but every single day you and I are making choices and every choice either leads to freedom or limits freedom. The problem is most of us are making choices blindly, unconsciously, ignorantly. We're just going along choosing because

We just feel like it and nobody ever gives us the enlightenment, the insight, the aha, the moment of seriousness and sobriety to say, hey, be careful with your choices because it can limit your freedom or it can lead you to freedom. Watch out. But who, who does that? Who talks about that? Who trains us for that? We're just rolling along like, Hey, what do you want to do? Well, I'll do that. And we get what's called the druthers. You'd rather be doing something else. And so you do it.

We just go along responding to what we feel like doing or responding to circumstances and literally we're making choices every single day Most of the time we're so unconscious of the outcomes of our choices And we don't give it the time and effort of thought and attention and a focus That we we box ourselves into these cages And we limit our freedom There's a kind of a little parable story of a guy who was out fishing

and he notices another fisherman there. And the fisherman's having a lot of success. He keeps pulling in these huge fish. And he'll let them go and toss them back out. And he's fishing for his food. And he'll pull in a small one. He'll, he'll keep a small one. And he'll catch a big one. He'll throw the big one back. And finally, the guy's like, hey, what's going on? I know you're fishing for food. You keep throwing the big ones back and only keeping the small ones. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

And the man responds, well, you know, I only have a small frying pan at home, so it's not big enough for the big fish. So I have to throw those back and keep fishing for small ones. Right. And you're just like, no, man, come on, come on, get a bigger pan. Come on. But a lot of us are doing this. We're doing it in in small ways every day. We're making these small frying pan decisions and it's limiting our freedom and our outcomes and our.

Rachel Denning (04:58.766)
and their consequences. So let's think of a few things and how this plays into our lives. Obviously, education is a gigantic one. In fact, I'll say this, one of the choices I see all of the time is more like a mindset, is that people choose to go to school and then once they graduate, they say in their heads, and they say it to other people, I got my education.

My friends, there is never a graduation from education. You stop learning and you limit your freedom. Done. End of story. That's it. And people do that. They made a choice to stop learning. And it's funny that they'll, people say to me all the time, like, why do you, why do you study so much? Are you, are you back in school? Do you have a final or something? What's going on? I'm not gonna read like crazy because I want to learn because I want.

Freedom. It leads to freedom. Education leads to freedom. And we often limit our education. And maybe you did that in high school or college or in life. We're always getting education, not only from books. You should be reading great books every single day. And the quality of the book you choose matter, right? And so that's a choice, whether I'm reading a book or not, how much I read each day matters, what kind of book I'm reading.

Right. And then, and life education doesn't just come from books, but experiences. And we often are avoiding uncomfortable or challenging experiences. That's a choice, right? Every time we avoid challenge, every time we avoid discomfort, every time we're trying to take it easy and, and kind of buffer or, or just get away from the stretch, the forced stretching that comes with education and growth, we're limiting our freedom every time.

Man, let this sink in and hit home so powerfully. Yes, it is challenging to grow.

Rachel Denning (07:05.389)
But if we choose not to, we limit our freedom. And every limiting choice confines us more and more and more until we end up completely trapped. How about our health? Boy, on this one, you could literally get down to every bite. And I'm not kidding, I'm not over exaggerating there. The more I study the cellular effect of

food and what wealth and all the stuff masquerading as food. It's just a joke.

the more I realize I'm not kidding. Every bite is going to lead to health freedom or limit health freedom. And every day exercising or not is a choice that's leading to fitness freedom or limiting fitness freedom. It matters way more than you think. And I'm gonna do a podcast here, probably the next podcast, well, don't hold me to it, but.

One of these coming podcasts I'm gonna do about all the research I've been learning about the brain. my goodness, you guys be excited about this next episode. It's gonna blow your mind. It's all about the mind and the brain and it's so fascinating, but every choice is affecting that. And obviously the same is true with like addictions and bad habits, right? Those especially are limiting, extremely so when we make choices that lead us into addictions or bad habits.

they grab hold of us and they literally rob us of our freedoms. And initially at the beginning, those are choices that lead into addictions. After that, boy, they, you start to lose your power of choice. You, you've, you often give away your freedoms and not, not that you're solely a victim, but then it's so much harder to make choices because you become an addict. And so addiction is a perfect, an easy example to see of how choice.

Rachel Denning (09:10.221)
limits freedom. The same is true with distractions though my friends. That we live in the age of distraction. You've heard me say this again and again and again. And what's crazy is that many of us, you, knowing, we know full well that things are distracting us and we still opt in. And we watch these silly videos and memes and we spend hours just wasting our time on trivial stuff and we keep making choices to...

look at our messages and check our email in the morning instead of working on our most important goals. And we keep scrolling when we know we should stop. And every time we choose into a distraction, we can be limiting our freedom. How about training? You guys have heard me talk endlessly about training. And it matters so much. And you will continue to hear Rachel and me.

Teach about training. We're gonna train you on training because it is all about training and so every choice in fact We're training ourselves every day and we're training our kids every day We're training the people around us every single day And so our choices day in and day out are leading to freedom or limiting freedom The level of training we get leads to freedom or limits freedom How about understanding and understanding goes with education, but I wanted to separate this out as its own kind of category

What we understand and what we fail to understand, like there is a literal equation for this of what I understand opens me up to freedom and possibility. And what I do not understand closes off opportunity and restricts and limits my freedom and my possibilities. Like understanding is everything and it's a choice. I can choose into understanding by,

by seeking to think about it and spend time with it and study it and research it and ask about it to seek for painful feedback and coaching and you know have somebody point out my blind spots and go through the discomfort of of making mistakes and failing right to gain understanding. But this one is a literally it is a direct equation. What I understand and what I fail to understand.

Rachel Denning (11:32.365)
has a direct impact on the level of freedom I have.

And I guess I should have gotten a little more clear about what freedom means. And freedom will have a little bit of different meaning for each of us. But it's the freedom to live life on your terms.

I guess that sums it up. It's freedom to live life on your terms and the freedom to chase down your dreams and your potential and to become your very best and to live a life that is fulfilling and exciting and rewarding in every aspect from physical and mental, emotional and spiritual, social and financial. All of those areas of life, they all require freedom.

The freedom to pursue it, the freedom to achieve and succeed, the freedom to move beyond our current limitations, limitations that are imposed upon us by ourselves or by others or by circumstances because of our choices.

And so, you know, what kind of understanding are you seeking? And again, every single day we're making choices that either lead to freedom or limit it. And we often hide behind our fears. We hide behind our limiting beliefs about ourselves. We play small. We take it easy. We embrace laziness. We just live unconsciously. Right. So we're we're.

Rachel Denning (13:05.645)
is going along in this humdrum existence or the life of, like Thoreau said, lives of quiet desperation. And we don't stand out and shine when we could. I mean, all these things down to how you start your day. Do you, the alarm goes off and you perpetually hit the snooze button. I keep meeting with clients who they literally have it down to a pattern, a formula. They hit the snooze button two or three times and they do it every single morning.

Like, hey, how do you get up? Well, alarm goes off at this time, I hit snooze three times, and then I'm like, what are you doing? You're right off the gates. You're breaking a commitment to yourself. You're starting your day off by like, no, no. Breaking a commitment instead of, hey, when the alarm goes off, I get up and I get going. I'm opting in. I'm starting my day with exercise. I'm starting my day with reading, with prayer, with meditation. I'm starting my days with planning, with goals, with affirmations, with direction.

I'm starting my day in a proactive way instead of a reactive way. Every time you respond to a child or an employee or a coworker.

Every time you utter words out of your mouth, it's a choice. If I say something mean or hurtful to my sweetheart or to my kids, I've just limited my freedom, so to speak, in that relationship. You with me on that? It's limiting my freedom or leading to freedom. There's the freedom of a beautiful, blossoming, whole, healthy...

deep relationship where we're making deposits. Every time I make a deposit in the emotional bank account with my relationships, it leads to more freedom. Right? And every time I make a huge withdrawal, it drastically limits the freedom and the goodness of that, the quality. So it's what we say, it's what we do, it's our personality. Do you realize that? You get to choose your personality. And so every day we're making choices that's cultivating our personality. And...

Rachel Denning (15:11.309)
Well, even the whole idea of victimism, right? Every time I play the victim, every time I blame or I complain or I make excuses, every time I do that, literally every time I do that, I'm moving away from freedom. Blaming, excusing, you know, like playing the victim, that limits my freedom. Every time I do that. That one literally is taking away power.

And then every time I choose to be 100 % responsible and accountable to take action to develop and cultivate and practice a growth mindset that leads to freedom.

And so I can shape my personality because I'm not a victim and I can choose to be, I can choose the personality I want. I can choose to have the personality or character traits or qualities or attributes I want that I know will lead to freedom.

Here's a big one especially, skill development.

Rachel Denning (16:11.605)
the your level and participation and choosing into skill development is probably one of the major determining factors in the quality and outcome of your life is how you choose into skill development. Because our like our capacity, everything comes down to skills. You guys have heard me talk about this before. Everything comes down to skills.

If I'm struggling in any area of my life, it's probably because I've come up to the current limit of my skill set. With marriage, with parenting, with health and fitness, with education, with earning ability and assets, and preparing for my future. It's all about skill development. And the world is changing so fast and getting so dynamic and so competitive worldwide. Every one of us has to, we have to be choosing.

to develop our skills and make improvements every day. Or we're gonna get left behind, we're gonna get toasted. And we're gonna drastically limit our freedom and our opportunities and our possibilities because we haven't prepared by cultivating our skill development. Like that's a big one. In fact, let me give a good, solid, hard example of that. I have a friend, just great people, really great people, when they were 17 or dating, he and his now wife, their boyfriend, girlfriend in high school, and they were 17.

One night they made a choice to go too far and she ended up pregnant with twins. And so now at 17, because of that choice, they were now getting married and pregnant with twins at 17 years old. Man, that's a hard way to start life. And so all of these other dreams they had, all these other goals of college and work and pursuing skill development and education.

all came to a screeching halt because he had to get a job right away to start earning money and try to provide for his new little family. And ended up stuck in that job for years and years and years and couldn't stop to go back to school or get other skills or get more. I mean, he was just doing everything he could to provide for twins at 17, 18 year old, right? And man, that really determined and dictated the course of his life.

Rachel Denning (18:32.781)
in a huge way and I've heard that kind of similar story to that again and again and again and that's a that's a big hard example of that of like one choice drastically limiting freedoms and opportunities because specifically because of education and skill development and so again there's big decisions like that and then there's little daily decisions of choosing to watch another episode on Netflix or read from a great book.

or choosing to scroll on social media or just surf the internet or watch YouTube videos instead of looking for specific ways to do skill development and to practice your craft. It's all those things. So the big takeaway here, big, big takeaway is that our choices lead to freedom or limit freedom. And

We got it. We got to be aware of that. Like literally my whole purpose and goal today was to bring this awareness right to the front of our minds. And so that today and every day we're constantly thinking, will this choice lead to freedom or limit freedom and evaluate them? And we don't have to be hyper sensitive about it, but we definitely ought to be conscious of it and cognizant of it because most of us are kind of rolling along like totally asleep. We're in a walking comatose.

And we're perpetually making choices again and again and again. They're limiting our freedoms. And then we complain, like, why am I so restricted? Why can't I do this? Why can't I do that? Why is it this way? And we look back at it. Now you're going to see this. This will hopefully give a lot of light to your circumstances. Like, my choices limited my freedom. Or these choices over here led me to freedom.

And if we'll, we'll put that formula in place for every area of your life, we can start making choices today that lead to a tremendous amount of freedom. And then you can literally build and live life on your terms. So we. Okay. Remember my friends were always training for greatness and, and part of that training is those choices we make each day, little and big, will they lead to freedom or will they limit freedom?

Rachel Denning (20:50.189)
Awesome is always an option. Reach upward.