Overcoming Your Fears: What It Really Takes to Live Your Dream Life

In order to succeed, you have to fail more. Either way, you have problems. So, why not live an awesome life, right? That is literally the thing that ends up keeping you small. I'll either find a way or I'll make one. The obstacles will transform you into the person who can have that dream life. Why would anyone choose to live a boring life? Hey there, this is Greg Denning. We want to reach as many people as possible and help as many families as possible with these conversations. And we want to keep this podcast adree forever. You can help us do that by subscribing on Spotify or Apple Podcast or wherever you listen, your favorite platform and on YouTube. And leave a quick review and share your favorite episodes with friends and family. It makes a big difference. Thank you for being a part of this very important movement. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. We are your hosts, Greg and Rachel Denning. We have been thinking a lot um you know, for the last 23 years or more about this idea, but we we're having adventures all the time. We're making big decisions often as we've leaned into living an extraordinary life. We've leaned into making big decisions often. Yes. And I think part of a catalyst is while we were at the beach today, I got a really great question from a friend that sparked this conversation with us. And I think it's important and necessary to address here because it really is a key element or ingredient to the basis of our podcast, an extraordinary family life. You know, we have to be able to understand this process and embrace it and and move forward with it because without it, we end up living a life that's less than extraordinary. We end up living a life that's maybe not full of what it is we actually truly desire or actually want. And so for me, that's that's the catalyst of this conversation. The question is along the lines of do you ever have you ever specifically referring to our family come upon some adventure or experience or goal that you're pursuing and felt so overwhelmed by it that you decided not to do it. I feel that all of us have faced that feeling at some point where we want to do something but then when we get to the reality of doing it the challenge of it is so overwhelming right like the word that was used that we just are like I I can't do this I it's not possible and so we don't do it part of my answer to her at the time was well yeah we have. But I I couldn't think of a time right then when we backed away from it because we're going to go into that why. But that's just not how we approach things in life. Well, the why is initially was my craziness. I was I just became a ready, fire, aim guy. That definitely plays a part of it. I would just go, right? Like no, no. Like what about all this stuff? I don't care. Let's go. We'll figure it out. When we started our crazy unconventional life, we were both very young. We were in our 20s and we were there was a lot of that. You were the impetus as far as that goes. And I just kind of was like, "Okay, let's go." And so when the challenges came, which they did, trust me, they came. You just did whatever you had to to make it work and did it with a smile so that it worked out. It was hard. It was so hard, but that's also what made it fun. So that plays a huge role and you can't just recommend that to everyone because if someone doesn't have that capability, yeah, it's not going to work. Someone has to be able to have that metal to carry everyone through when you get to the sucky part. Yep. Because it's going to happen. I adopted this ancient belief of I'll either find a way or I'll make one. Mh. Everything we have faced has felt overwhelming. Every big decision will every big decision, every big dream, every big trip we've planned, it's always felt overwhelming at the beginning. But I can't remember anything in the last 10 or 15 years that we faced that was overwhelming that because it was overwhelming, we decided not to do it. That has not happened. There are things we have decided not to do because we believed the amount of effort and work required to do it was not worth it for us for that thing. What this example is illustrating is one aspect of how we make decisions. Like we don't we don't back away because it's overwhelming. We'll totally back away if we feel like the exchange rate is what we call the exchange rate is too much. like if it's going to sacrifice too much of our health or our family or happiness, we're out. One of the success principles I think in Jack Canfield success principles is like in order to succeed, you have to fail more. And we did a lot of failing in those early years. But because of the mindset we had, because of our situation in life, we just did it anyways. And that gave us so much life experience. Anything that you pursue that's worth doing is going to be way harder than you imagined it would be. A lot of people don't realize that when you start pursuing your dream life, what you're actually doing doing is signing up for solving problems. That's actually what a dream life is. Solving problems, learning how to think and make decisions and overcome and and handle things step by step by step. That's the only way to actually achieve your dream life. But for so many people that just looks like and feels like overwhelm, right? And for many people just to hear that they're like, "I'm out, right? I'm out." Wait, hold up. You're telling me a dream life is just bigger problems? Like more work? I'm out. As though again, it's ironic and naive, but as though like if I don't pursue my dreams, I won't have any problems. Like that's going to happen. You're going to have problems. So you're like, "Well, if I if I chase my goals and my targets, I'm going to have problems. So I'm not going to." And so you stay home and have problems. Well, either way you have problems. Either way you have challenges. So why not live an awesome life, right? I don't get this. I truly don't. I I cannot wrap my head around it. Why would anyone choose to live a boring life? Mhm. I I can't. And I And I've heard people talk about it, but still I'm like, I don't get it. If an awesome experience is available, why would you choose a boring one? Right. On a psychological level, we do understand it because we know it's fear and essentially overwhelm that's holding people back. That is what's they don't want to be uncomfortable. They're they don't want change. They they want what's familiar. This is what's always been done. They're kind of living unconsciously. It's facing those fears and breaking down the overwhelm bite-sized pieces, or rather, it's a lack of doing those things. Right? That's causing them that's causing the failure of pursuing. Exact. Okay. Yes. Exactly. It's causing them to fail to pursue those things that they want because ultimately people do want those things. Well, didn't one of your coaching clients just the other day say, "You're just literally making my life harder, Greg." Right. And well, well, they all say that to me all the time. And because it looks like it looks initially more demanding. The simplicity is on the far side of the complexity. The ease is on the other side of difficulty. It's like setting up the system and putting it in place. Then on the other side, it's like, wow, this is it's actually easier and better, way better and happier and more fun and like all of the things you want. You know, one of the patterns of pursuing your dreams is that you're going to face these obstacles that feel insurmountable, right? That's simply the price tag. The price tag of the dream you want and the life you want to live are all of those obstacles you have to go through because those are the obstacles that will transform you as a person into the person who can have that dream life. That's the pattern. Now, it's difficult to see that though, especially if it's like your first time, especially if you've never had that experience. We have learned and it started by us being impetuous to not turn away from that because it's overwhelming, but to see like this is the pathway. This is the way to actually achieving the thing that we want. And so now in a way when we see those obstacles and that overwhelm, we're like, "Woohoo! Yes, that means this is the right path." Bring it on. that means this is the way to achieving everything it is we want. When we started chasing our dreams like that and we were facing our fears cuz there was a lot of fears. I often remember getting on the other side and be like that wasn't near as scary as we thought it was going to be. In fact, I remember that my fear of the thing was way worse than the thing itself. Yes. And that happened to us so many times simply because we were trying so many things. It seemed scary then we did it and we're like that wasn't very scary. So that was a pattern I think that got cemented in my psyche. So I started I started processing things differently. I'm like, "Oh, I'm feeling nervous or afraid." I'm like, "Wait a minute." But but over and over and over and over and over again endlessly, I was afraid of something and it didn't turn out to be that scary. So why am I allowing fear to dictate my decision? The majority of people are operating through fear. They're basing so many of their decisions and their actions on fear. When you have thousands and thousands and thousands of experiences, you can't not be developed, right? You get the growth and the expansion and you can't go back to your former dimensions. And so you understand mentally, emotionally, physically, socially, financially, all of spiritually, all of it. So you you get things now because you you've touched it, tasted it, felt it. Like you perceive things in a way that that other people can't. If they have an experience, you can't. So then we don't have the experiences mostly because of fear or overwhelm or worry or whatever it is. And so then we stay small. The default for most people, including for us when we started out, is to back away from those fears and they leave the boundaries in place. Yeah. Exactly. Our default is to, oh my gosh, that's scary. I'm just going to retreat. But what we have learned firsthand again and again and again that that is literally the thing that ends up keeping you small. Yep. It ends up keeping you underdeveloped. And the only way to actually become the person you want to be is to push through those boundaries. Now we have learned that when our family faces those boundaries and and it's happened. I'm like okay here we are. This is the edge. This is the edge of the comfort zone. What we do here and now matters so much. So much because we directly and deliberately face the fear. Exactly. So you and I have learned to take that role of like, okay, yeah, legit, there's fear here. There's overwhelm. There's this. Let us break this down and figure out how we can move forward step by step by doing the one little thing that we know we can do to move forward rather than, oh my gosh, we're scared. Let's go back to the comfort zone. Yep. That is the pattern that we have I mean we live by that now like everything we do is essentially following that pattern and that's the thing that has made all the difference like our fears aren't facts and so you stop and say is there something truly truly scary here and your survival brain's like yes of course run through your life we're all going to die you're like wait a minute stop just calm down for a second is there something truly scary and and you look like Well, have other people do it done it right. Are they doing it? That's that's where you stop. Say, okay, well, this seems scary. Are other people doing it? And you're like, well, bro, there's a lot of people doing it. Mhm. And okay, let's look at the results. Yeah. Okay. So, this must be my imagination making this scarier than it actually is. So, in some ways, I guess visually, just to walk through this, you and I will walk up to the barrier and start looking around like, okay, it feels scary. It feels like it feels uncomfortable. Let's look around. Let's let's peek over the barrier. Well, in a lot of ways, there's analogies to cliff jumping. It's a very similar thing physiologically for us to face that unknown, to look over the edge, to be afraid of what's over there, to feel like it is dangerous because yeah, there is potential danger. But then the thrill of pushing through, of taking that leap, that's where the power lies. And if we refuse to go through that process, we literally can't grow. We cannot develop. We cannot become a more fully enlightened person. It's such a valuable experience that that is now what we seek out. Most of us, we want to desperately cling to our fears. Yeah. We want to hold on to them. I I I see this a lot when I'm um when we're inviting people to try new things and make changes and attempt things, have go out and have new experiences, which is essentially our whole life in business. whole life is this and we're like, "Hey, we'll try this." It's exposure to something new and uncomfortable. And it it's so fascinating to be an observer in that process because the survival brain kicks in and people will cling and claw desperately to hang on to their fear. But I I want to say that, you know, I feel that it's understandable because that is how the human body works. And I mean, if you think about our history as as human beings, there's value in holding on to some of those experiences because then that's how we learn. Our society is so comfortable and easy now and we we literally have so little experience in everything's overprotected. Yeah. doing real dangerous adventurous activities that it's it for some people it becomes very traumatic when anything happens to them that's not safe and comfortable. I think we've learned through experience that everything's connected. And if you have one area of your life where you're afraid to face it, you're afraid to embrace the challenge, it really does end up limiting you in multiple areas of your life. Absolutely. I suspect that we as human beings are walking around with many, many, many examples of like that in our heads, in our psyche. all these fears, all this old programming, and we just need to go through and rewrite them, update them, upgrade them, right? Again and again and again and again because too many good people are just living behind their fears. When you decide to face that fear and then you have to go through the process of bit by bit unlocking and figuring out how to move past it, there's all these nuances of things that occur. One of which would be learning how to tell the difference between a legit dangerous dog and just a friendly dog. And and when you have I'm afraid of dogs as the automatic approach to things, it's actually like part of your brain shuts off and you're not able to tell the difference between a friendly dog and a mean dog and not even willing to think about it and not even willing to think about it or face it. And that is an analogy of things that are happening in other areas of your life because I I've I've experienced this myself that once you then go through that process now like you said you now have a new framework of being able to approach other parts of your life in a similar way of like well wait maybe even with my spouse here I'm you know putting up this thing of like my spouse is this way all the time rather than learning to see the nuances of how they're interacting and how you know we can be interact. act in a better way simply because I've learned a new skill of facing a fear and moving through it and and gaining new tools for being able to face something I used to be afraid of. And again, I I I'm want to really emphasize this, those of you you who are listening and every one of us, we have hundreds if not thousands of these little limiters, these little boundaries, and we need to start working through each of them. And the more we work through and we the better we get at it and the faster we start eliminating them. And I know because I've experienced myself and I've helped others. Some of them when you eliminate it, you eliminate one and it automatically dissolves four or five. Yeah. It just takes them out. So you're like, let's get rid of this one. And bam, immediately when that's gone, five to 10 others are immediately gone as well. And you're like, now I have so much freedom in my life and I can try all these new things. I'm actually enjoying an experience that I used to hate. Besides the fact that you actually, and this is real metaphysically, you free up energy that was previously stuck to now focus on different things. So, you have all of this because it takes energy to be afraid and to resist something that that requires energy. We think we don't really think that that's a thing. It's automatic and we're just doing it. But it really is requiring it's using mental, emotional, physical energy to resist and to be afraid. And when you overcome that, you now can take all of that energy to use towards mastery of whatever it was you were afraid of. But if you have that your entire life and you never face that fear and learn how to push through it, you miss out on gaining the skill of how to overcome your fears, which is one of the most valuable things you can ever learn. If you can't learn how to face and overcome your fears, you will live a limited life big time. It that it's just that simple. And so will your kids because they will follow your lead. You have to face those fears and you have to move through them if for nothing else to gain the skill of being able to do it. Exactly. And so for us at this point in our life, anytime we do face those fears, okay, most of the time when we do face those fears, we push through them. We move ahead because we've learned to recognize this pattern to know that this is the the key. This is the way. this is the way to becoming the person I want to become to achieving all of the things I want to achieve. Yes, I think it's worth um adding to this so that we understand the because you might be like you guys are making a big deal out of these little things like I can go my whole life and it's not a big deal but I think there's un unexpected collateral consequences for simple things even let's do the fear of a dog or the fear of water the fear of fire the fear of motorcycles whatever it is pick your fear and your little thing and you think I I I I don't need to fix that I don't need to face that it's not a big deal it's not going to it's not going to limit my life. What you're automatically doing is just closing off these sections of life opportunity. An opportunity. So, you're closing the door on this this this opening that goes all these opportunities across the globe. It is a portal. Lots of worlds. Yes, it is. And you're closing that. If you keep bumping up against something like that, you know, you're invited to go somewhere. Oh, but I have to fly and I don't want to do that. or you're invited to go do something, but no, I I don't do that thing. Even if you're not invited, the passing thought of like, we should go there and you go, "Oh, no, we shouldn't. Oh, it's scary." Right? I think for me, those are more of the clues. Mhm. The indicators or the indicators that that is the specific thing for you that you need to address. And and for me, that shows up in lots of ways. It shows up as opportunity, right? If I have the opportunity for something and then I don't take advantage of it specifically because of fear, that's like, okay, I'm literally limiting my life and my and my portals by not facing this specific fear, especially because it's right here in my face. Here's what's concerning to me because I've seen it so many times is all of that is happening subconsciously or unconsciously. Yes. True. And we get to see it a lot because we're leading trips, having adventures. I'm just we're observing people all the time. We're coaching people. And so we're rolling along and opportunity pops up. We're like, "Let's do that." And somebody's like, "No, let's not." And and that's it's unconscious. No, we're not going to do that. And I said, "Well, okay, wait a minute. Let's talk through this. Why? Yeah, I just don't want to." Well, why? Just it's okay. Talk me through this. Okay. I'm afraid. What are you afraid of? Oh, this thing. Ah, interesting. Why are you afraid of that? When I was a kid, this okay, there it is. But all of that was subconscious or unconscious. I see it all the time. So, even those of you listening, you you might be listening to podcast say, "Yeah, that's great, Dennings. We're going to do that. That's fantastic." But first, you have to have very heightened awareness of what's going on. You're literally choosing not to do things or choosing to do something else. And if you stop and really think through why you're choosing something else, it's because you're afraid of the thing you really want. But it's all happening so quickly and so subconsciously, unless somebody's there to say, "Hey, wait, why not?" Well, and I think that that is a key because I know we've talked, you know, I've mentioned in passing about being able to break it down into stepby-step actions. That's a key part of this because when you can bring when you can vocalize what it is exactly that you're feeling and what it is that you're afraid of, when you can name that thing, there's a lot of power there. Because now I've even noticed for myself that sometimes just naming it all of a sudden is like, "Oh yeah, that's silly. Why am I afraid of that? That's not really that big of a deal." And then you realize, "Okay, you know what? if I do this small little action, this big huge thing is not going to happen. You know, we tend to catastrophize and you're like, okay, I'm gonna take that small action. I can do that one little thing. You know, and we we might think that, well, that's not a big deal because I'm really afraid of XYZ. Well, as long as you can take one step in the right direction, you're on the right path. The worse off we'll be in the long run. We have to move toward what we're afraid of rather than moving away from especially because we've seen this and maybe those of you listening experienced it when you step back your your limiters um they follow you and they start to enclose you and you become more afraid and more enclosed and more isolated. Yeah, we know people or know of people who have done that continually again and again to a point where now leaving their house scary is scary. Yeah, they're afraid to go out. If you refuse to engage with the world, keeping and all the things in front of you, then your world just gets smaller and smaller and so more and more and more things become terrifying. Yep. Exactly. But the more you engage with the world, the less terrifying it becomes. If you if you spend time a good chunk of time with somebody who's consistently doing things that bump up against your limiting factors and the same is true for me and you like if we go spend time with somebody else who's consistently doing something that bumps up against our fears or worries or limitations there's that friction that bumping and it's like man it's it's getting uncomfortable around here and you you know you might hang for a couple days but then afterwards like and I guess my invitation to all of you listening is face them. Face them all. Put yourself in situations where you're going to feel it. And I know a bunch of you listening are coming to stay with us, right? We we open up the World School family resort. We have a steady flow of families coming for the next 6, eight months. Mhm. And so a lot of you are coming to stay. And when you get here, you know, we're going to have a blast. But I promise you can't not bump up against those fears and those those limits, those the barriers. We have to. An expanded life is a great life. Mhm. Where a constricted limited life is is weak. And if you don't examine your limitations, your fears, your worries, the things that are holding you back, then you're not going to live very much, right? You're you're going to be alive. Mhm. But you're not living. Yeah, maybe there's more risks involved, but you're not really living if you're not trying. If you're not doing things and taking on risks, that's not really living. That's just not dying. But I wanted to talk about exposure therapy for a minute because that you know if you study psychology that's one of the basic tenants that if you have a fear of something if you have a phobia or you feel even a lack of competence the key to overcoming that is through exposure therapy which essentially means you just expose yourself to the thing you're afraid of. Yep. That is how you overcome. Now, this is true even with serious trauma, you know, serious, you know, because we're talking about all these things and some of them seem trivial, but we know, we're fully aware that there's real trauma that exists. What I want to emphasize is that this is this is used in clinical psychology. It's not just something we're making up. This is a real technique to help you even with those difficult challenges. There is a way to safely expose yourself to the thing that you're afraid of so that you can gain the competence and the confidence to know that you can face that and to be able to handle it. That right there is real power. And that's in essence the emphasis we're trying to make that real power really the power to live the life of your dreams comes by gaining competence and confidence which comes from facing and overcoming your fears y or at least moving through your fears even if you never overcome them per se. And and I guess I want to say that with love but also with some frankness. We got a bunch of wonderful human beings that are living these super limited lives because of a bunch of the Spanish word just came to my mind tontas. It's just like just a bunch of dumb little things. Just dumb things, right? And it's true. And it's not that I'm like judging. It's that I've worked with so many clients that when they say it out loud, they're like, "That's really dumb." That's really silly. It's It's really It's kind of pathetic. like why why am I still letting that be a factor in my life? And so right now I I to those of you listening I I want to give that invitation like examine all those things. Look at them. Say them out loud. Set them on the table so to speak and be like well that's lame. That's super lame. Why am I letting my life be limited and restricted because of all these little dumb things? I'm done. I'm I'm going to be a grown man here or a grown woman and stop being childish about what some random person at the store might think of you if you do something or or if we bring those things out on the table and they are a big deal because there are going to be some of those excuse me then we go through this process. Yeah. We go through this process of walking through you know what are we catastrophizing here? what are we thinking is the worst case scenario that's going to happen and and and convince ourselves that we're right or that we're wrong and and kind of dispel that fear by by speaking about it and talking through it so that we can really bring clarity to what it is that we're afraid of. Again, I say that as a silly example, but sometimes like there's there's a squirrel. What is that squirrel going to do to So really all we're afraid of is the thing that might happen. But when we can vocalize overactive imagination creating things that aren't real and and we come back in a way to reality and we're like oh okay yeah actually that is just a squirrel or it is just some water or it is just a cute little dog you know then we realize okay here I am now in the present reality and I actually don't have anything to be afraid of. That is a type of the exposure therapy I'm talking about where get out of our heads and get into the real world and then realize, oh, I'm actually capable of doing this thing or taking this step or or looking at that dog. You know, little by little as you take those steps that you think you can't take because you're so afraid, that's how you actually get over being afraid. When you start contrasting it, you realize, man, my my fears that I think are so real, at least feel real to me, they're actually ridiculous and they're not a real threat at all. Like the things, especially when contrasted against history, right? And and real things that real people were facing. Now, you guys, if you're new here, welcome. You if you've been around, you know I'm a a tear the band-aid off kind of guy. and and you know, baby steps are for babies. Let's take some big leaps. And with a bunch of these small fears, you could do that. You could take a bunch of leaps. And no joke, I've done this. And I can I can recommend this because I've done this. You might line up a a list of these little fears you have, little insecurities, and crud, you could face five or 10 of them in a week. You could you could orchestrate an experience that just completely annihilates several of your fears in one swoop. Gone. Like they're no longer a part of your life because you went in hardcore, faced them all, came out the other side, realized, "Huh? Yeah, I should not have been afraid of that. I should not have let that thing hold me back for months or years or decades even." Like, how ridiculous. Living an extraordinary life is worth every effort. Mhm. It's worth whatever it costs us. It's worth facing all the fears that are keeping us from that, right? When you're not realizing that that right there is the path to everything you want. Yep. So, okay, here here's this. Your spouse will point these things out sometimes. Don't resist it. Your friends, family members, total strangers will point it out to you sometimes. Don't resist it. I wholeheartedly believe one of the worst things we can do is live within limits. Stop right there. Live within limits. Yeah. That's one of the worst things we do, right? Because you condemn yourself and your posterity to your current limitations. Many times the parents are the major limit for the kids. Yeah. Right. And they're like, "Well, I want my kids to do things." I'm like, "Well, then you have to you have to do you have to lead the way. Do not expect your kids to do things that you're not willing to do. It's on you. If my kids are unwilling to do things because of limits that I passed along, it's on me. And if I want them to go past those limits, then I have to lead the way through that limiting barrier. Yeah. So important. So powerful. Okay. If you guys have any specific questions about this or any specific fears or worries and you want us to walk through it, send us a question. This would be a good one. This would be very very fun. I would love that. Yeah. So, if you've got one you're like, "Hey, I don't know how to get over this or this is one that's tormented me or just reach out to us. Share those things." Love you guys. Thanks for listening. Reach upward.