Top Episodes

When Greg Denning was out on his own as a teenager it wasn’t difficult for him to realize that his life sucked… but he desperately wanted it to be better and different. Nobody wants to live a sucky life and stay there. But it was so interesting to him to watch people live a sucky life — and stay there. They would keep doing the same things that would produce the same sucky results. As a 16-year-old he was able — miraculously enough — to look around and say, “Dude, stop doing what you’re do...

You may have seen or heard that we’re planning a move to Portugal — and hoping to travel while making the transition. We received some questions about this: “We would love to travel more, even long term, but I am getting more hesitant because of predictions about downturns in the economy, warfare, etc. I see a lot of people encouraging self-reliance and preparation at this point in time (ie growing and storing your own food). This seems like it would be hard to do while traveling. I want to pro...

We all have blind spots. We all have things we’re doing (or not doing) that are causing or contributing to our own problems. In our coaching, we often work with people who keep doing (or not doing) the things that are keeping them miserable and unhappy. If they could just STOP then they could drastically change their life. Of course, this is easier said than done, otherwise, you would ALREADY have stopped or started the things that need to be done and wouldn’t be suffering from the current chall...

Understanding YOURSELF and the other human beings around you is one of the trickiest and most complex aspects of life and relationships — Your personality begins to form from conception, in the womb, and as you grow as a child. You don’t start to become aware of this until much later in life (and some people never gain awareness of who they are and what makes them do the things they do.) For a long time, Greg and I were not fans of personality tests — until Jordan Peterson’s Big 5 Personal...

Have you ever had that inner feeling of discontent, frustration, guilt, or dissatisfaction? (I know I have.) Have you ever thought — what’s the point of setting goals? I’ll just be disappointed. Or have you ever tried to achieve something — losing weight, earning more money, or improving your marriage — only to finally give up and accept yourself and your circumstances? In this episode we’re going to dive into why many people feel and think this way — and how ‘accepting things as they are’...

We received some great questions about parenting that we’re addressing today. We love it receiving questions so if you have one please don’t hesitate to ask us. You can leave a voice message for us on our podcast page, or you can email us support@extraordinaryfamilylife.com The first question is about teen device usage and sneaky behavior. We are having an issue with our son's cell phone usage…We limit it and have always made him turn in his cellphone at night to promote good, healthy habi...

We regularly receive questions from parents and spouses on all sorts of topics — and we love it! If you have a question please don’t hesitate to ask us. You can leave a voice message for us on our podcast page, or you can email us support@extraordinaryfamilylife.com Recently we received some questions about marriage — specifically how to have more engaging conversations and intellectual connections with your spouse as opposed to discussing the mundane life logistics all the time? Along those ...

Greg and I are always fascinated by ideas, the search for truth, intellectual discussion, and meaningful connection. As intentionally as we have designed our lifestyle, it’s still rare for us to have all of those things in one evening. But we got the chance last week when we drove to Birmingham, AL to listen to Jordan Peterson present a live lecture at the Alabama Theater. He discussed a chapter from his new book, Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life about the importance of beauty and art. In t...

Greg and I just returned from an incredible trip to Portugal to celebrate our 21st anniversary and we’re excited to record an episode about it. We’re going to share all the romance, magic, and serendipity we experienced that surprised even us. It’s difficult for us to put in words the super special experience we shared together during this trip. But we’re going to unpack it for you, explain the key ingredients that made it so meaningful, and outline some foundational principles for creating m...

Welcome to the podcast! We’re discussing something today that is crucially important to raising healthy, well-adjusted kids. We want to teach them to NOT be quitters, to follow through, and to have grit and perseverance. But in this episode, we lay out some arguments which show that the way many parents are trying to accomplish this is actually having the opposite effect. When we make a six-year-old take dance class even though she hates it but we don’t want her to be a ‘quitter’, what ...

Hey everyone. We hope you’re having a great week. I know Greg and I are excited to have some sunshine and warmer weather after two cloudy and cold weeks. Today we’re discussing something which — at first glance — seems overly simplistic. We’re talking about HOW to wake up. And yet, waking up is something every one of us does and we do it every single day of our life. There’s an incredible power that comes when we can learn to do BETTER the things we do consistently. One of those things is ...

Today we are diving into a detailed look at what living an ‘extraordinary’ life looks like on the day-to-day. The majority of your life — and ours — is spent in daily activities that can be mundane. Dishes, laundry, errands. Even with a travel lifestyle like ours, we spend most of our time sitting in a vehicle on a road trip or waiting in an airport. How do you make the ordinary, routine, ‘boring’ daily interactions more meaningful and purpose-filled? We’ll share specific strategies that we’v...

Welcome to the podcast! In this episode Greg and I are answering a question about clashing cultures — what to do when the status quo conflicts with your unconventional lifestyle choices — especially if the clash is happening in your own family. It’s not uncommon for someone like you to try to do life differently and then to get ‘thrown under the bus’ by the naysayers and ‘reality checkers’. Maybe you want to homeschool, travel with your family, eat a different way than you were raised, or ...

Welcome back to the podcast! In this episode Greg and I are answering some often asked questions about how to get your spouse on board. This could be getting them on board with your big dreams and goals, or simply on board with the process of growing and improving. There’s nothing worse than starting to learn, grow, and develop as a person but then to feel that your spouse is getting left behind or, even worse, creating their own self-sabotage. One question we received said, As I’ve foc...

Are you ready to start dreaming bigger and living more intentionally — both for yourself and your family? In this episode, Greg and I dive into one of our favorite topics — dreaming BIG and setting bold, meaningful goals that challenge you to grow into the person capable of achieving them. We talk about why dreaming is not just a nice idea — it's essential. Big dreams expand your vision and help you rise above the limitations of your current reality. As Greg often says, “The size of your dream...

Welcome to this episode where we will be discussing a sensitive and sometimes frightening topic to many parents — and that’s WHY and HOW to expose your children to the darkness in order to help them be stronger and more prepared to face and fight evil and malice in the world (which does exist, in case you’re like I used to be and naively thought there are no ‘bad people’ in the world or that bad things don’t happen to me or my family. We’ll also touch on the Law of Attraction or Expectation a...

In this episode, we’re discussing teen mental health and strategies for helping them not only overcome mental health challenges but to learn to thrive despite their difficult circumstances. We’re empathetic to the real struggles and suffering that parents and youth are dealing with and want to provide hope in this episode. Through personal experience, as well as from working with thousands of youth, and doing decades of research, we’ve discovered what actually works to help teens deal with th...

In this episode, we’re talking about Failure to Launch syndrome — a significant growing phenomenon among young adults who are not successfully making the transition to adulthood. Its symptoms include young adults who continue to live at home or to be supported by their parents, YA who don’t contribute financially to their own living expenses and begin to withdraw from the world and society. Failure to launch — known as Peter Pan syndrome in the U.S. -- can take the form of unrealistic (or ...

We often receive emails from parents or spouses asking questions -- we love it. (Email us your questions at support @ extraordinaryfamilylife.com) This email asked us: “How can our family create balance and not feel guilty for doing things we enjoy (Netflix, video games, etc.) that aren’t necessarily productive (toward achieving our goals)?” Great question! We've also experienced the 'gap' between the reality of where we are and where we want to go/be (our BIG dream or goal). Sometim...

Under duress, Greg agreed to do ANOTHER podcast touching on issues around C*vid -- but only because someone was confused about our 'statement' and position during the last one. They also believed there were some holes in our arguments. We address those in this episode. We also encourage you to take 100% responsibility for your health, your life, your family, and your circle of influence. Stop wasting your energy on trying to get others to understand, agree, or conform and put it back into ...

It IS true that 'you are good enough the way you are'. You are special. You are lovable. You are allowed to just be YOU. But those ideas are INCOMPLETE truths. You were also designed, created, and evolved to continually aim to become YOUR best version of you. So you'll never feel completely content remaining the way you are now. No matter how many times you tell it to yourself. The only way to be completely fulfilled is to regularly work on letting your inner light shine....

"Rebellion of basically any kind stems from needs that are not being met." "Which needs are commonly not met that are likely to lead to rebellion?" Is there a difference between healthy and unhealthy rebellion? Do you consider some kind of rebellion necessary in a person’s life? In this episode, we discuss these and other parenting topics and how 'restaurant parenting' (as I call it) may contribute to future teen rebellion. We also talk about rule-breaking and why we encourage a healthy...

In our last episode (#158), Greg hinted at doing another episode about the v*ccine. I wasn't so sure. But after thinking and discussing it, we decided to do it together -- partly because our individual views balance each other out and help us both to come to a more centered truth. We discuss how C*vid and the v*ccine have become politicized and what implications that has. We also examine C*vid's significance now compared to other times in history, and examine how politicizing a topic can s...

What happens when you share a 'controversial' meme on social media? Lots of comments and ensuing arguments. In this podcast, Greg and Rachel respond to comments on a meme that was shared which said: "If you've ever wondered if you would have complied during 1930s Germany, now you know." The reactions included words and phrases including: incomprehensibly stupid asinine comparing people who have been vaccinated to Nazi Germans and a lot more... An adequate response was not feasible in a F...