Hal Elrod – Why The First Steps Of The Day May Be The Most Important

Sean Greeley
Sit down. We’re gonna get started.

Sean Greeley
Okay, yep, come on in, grab a seat. Alright, so very excited to introduce our keynote speaker. For today, how Elrod I first got introduced to the Miracle Morning. I don’t even remember how I got the book. But I remember ordering it through Amazon. And it came to my my home. And I had I had sitting on the counter just came in through Amazon night before and one of my friends from England had come to visit. And so he comes in the door and it’s on my counter. He says, What’s this book? I said, it’s Miracle Morning. I just picked it up. And he said, What’s this about? And so he starts reading, I start telling him about the books that I read stuff online and heard about the savers and any, and we’re very competitive with one another. I mean, this friend of mine, so he said, Look, I’ll challenge you to a 30 day Miracle Morning challenge. How about that? I said, game on, you know, and he’s in England. So he would get up do his Miracle Morning before I would then text me I did mine, Where’s yours. And we did a 30 day Miracle Morning challenge. And it was awesome. It absolutely helped me really level up personal development and multiple key areas that I’ve been doing for many years, but inconsistent in the practice of them simultaneously, and transform things for me, I started telling my friends about it, start telling my family about it. I started sharing it with our team, with our clients, I had Sondra reach out, we ordered a bunch of books, we started giving out books to many of our top clients at different events. And then this year, I said we got to have How come speak at mega training, and was fortunate enough to reach out to him and and have him here. So this is a tremendous message of personal development, you’re going to hear from not a guy who’s had it easy. But a guy who’s faced a lot of challenges, near death experiences. And more. And out of that is come something beautiful. That is here to support you to support your clients, your team, your friends, your family, your loved ones. With with the Miracle Morning, so please put your hands together for how I’ll run.

Hal Elrod
Alright, good morning.

Doesn’t matter what time of day, it’s just always Good morning. It’s a more friendly greeting, isn’t it? It’s like, you know, say good morning. And but it’s like, you know, good afternoon, and you know, Good evening. Good Mornings more fun. So I have to tell you, I just did this, you know, the book signing with a lot of you and the photo op and realized that I need to get in shape.

People are fit, you know,

I need to get in shape. Right. So I’m going to start with and I mentioned this to a few people that were like, I can’t wait to hear your message. I said me too, because I just make it up every time. And and there’s a very true like I used to, you know, I have like a scripted message that I tried to give and it caused a lot of stress like line by line by line. And then I met the speaker and he said, what’s interesting is I’ve never opened a great example. I’ve never opened a speech by telling this before so but he said, he said, you know, we were talking about like I was asking all these questions on how to be a professional speaker and how he did his speaking and he said I don’t have a script at all, he goes I’ve got like three points that I just make sure that I hit those three points. And he said I hit him differently every time and he goes and I try to get very much in tune with the energy of the people that I’m speaking with and he goes all even you know, pray or meditate and go Hey, whatever, whatever words or stories, you know, this this room these people need to hear from me in these moments. Let that come through me right and I thought that’s a way better way to do it. You know, a it’s a lot less stressful enough to remember word for word. You’re gonna say I got brain damage what you heard about that, but but also Yeah, just it’s much more authentic to me. And it’s you know, and it’s fun. And so but you’ll notice I, there’s one so you’ll notice that I’ll kind of go off sometimes on tangents. And I’ll forget what I was talking about that happen sometimes. So this is a team effort. Okay, it makes sure you’re paying really close attention because a lot of times I’ll go What was I just was just talking about. So if you look at the quote here from Robert Kiyosaki who wrote the book Rich Dad Poor Dad, which I googled has sold 26 million copies. One of the best selling books of all time, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, any Rich Dad, Poor Dad fans in the room. Wow. Look around the room. A lot of you. Okay, so I went and spoken and I met Robert was the headliner, and I was opening up for him and I got to have dinner with him and a few other people and I had a copy of my book that I had signed. To him, and it was like under the on my lap, and I’m going, I want to give it to him. But he’s, he’s not going to read it. You know, he’s right, Google, he’s worth $80 million. Like, I don’t think he’s looking to get to the next level in his life. Plus, he’s like, 70 at this point, you know, I don’t know that he’s looking for like the new personal development, you know, and but you miss all the shots that you don’t want to take. So like, Robert, hey, I wrote this little book, and I signed it for you. And like a month later, I get an email from his assistant. She says, Robert has read the Miracle Morning three times. And like jaw hit the floor right there. When he read it three times. I haven’t even read it three times.

What? And

did he read it three times. It’s totally changed his life. He and his wife do it every day. And he would like to have you on Rich Dad radio. And when he interviewed nourish at Radio, he was just edifying. Like, this is the most one of the best books ever, blah, blah, changed my life. And what that made me realize is how universal The Miracle Morning is. Because I didn’t write it for people, like I said that were worth 80 million to go to the next level. I wrote it and well, you know, again, a little story, but I was at rock bottom really low point in my life in 2008, when the US economy crashed anybody else around during that time? Yeah, that’s just me. And I lost, you know, kind of everything and I got really depressed and, and then I created the Miracle Morning out of necessity by figuring out that the world’s most successful people swear by their morning ritual. And I didn’t have one mine was hitting the snooze button, and waiting to the last possible minute to get out of bed. Anybody else? You I won’t even ask. Right? But we’ve all been there before. I call that a mediocre morning, where you look at your schedule, and you’re like, we’ve all been there. Some of you were there this morning. Right? You look at it. And you’re like, Okay, when do I have to leave the house? And the Okay, how long will it take me to get ready? Okay, how many times don’t want to snooze? Okay, what’s the last possible second, that I can wake up and get out of bed and not get fired, I lose my business, lose my family and my children taken away from me get a divorce, right? Like, it’s a mediocre morning. And then. And then what I found is these people that were very successful, the majority of them and I mean, I’m talking we’re talking like for hundreds of years like this has been like an unknown kind of secret. So the subtitle the book is the not so obvious secret is because I realized that if I wake up early, and I start my day with purpose and intention, and growth. In other words, the Miracle Morning is not about waking up super early is about waking up better. And dedicating the first part of your day to becoming the person that you need to be to create everything that you want for your life. And what I mean by that is, if we’re measuring success on a scale of one to 10, in any area, right, not just our business, like we think success, you often think of finances, money, career business, but if we’re measuring success in our relationships, right, as a parent, as a spouse, as a friend, right? Or if we’re measuring our happiness on a scale of one to 10, if we’re entering any area of our life on a scale of one to 10, what level do we all want? 10 right. I never met anybody who was like, I don’t want to be too happy. Like I don’t want you know, people that are so happy. They’re annoying. Like, I don’t want to be like that. I’ll be like a seven like, I can do seven, right? I don’t want to have too much money. Yeah, I don’t want Okay, who needs the hassle? There’s so much more money, more problems. Like I’ll just take like, a level six, right? So we all want level 10 success. And I realized that that was the key that these people woke up every morning, they dedicated time to becoming a level 10 person through various practices like meditation, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading or journaling, right one of these practices. And that’s kind of what led to this Miracle Morning. But to bring it back to Robert Kiyosaki. I created it to get me out of rock bottom. Three years later, I decided I had to share it. And I wrote a book about it. But it was for it was really in my mind it was for the average person, right? I say average, successful or unsuccessful, average meaning people that were settling for less than our potential, which I think is the story of the human race. Even people that are very successful in one area typically there’s they’re lacking in another right? They’re, they’re out of balance, or all the times in the job and their kids aren’t seen very often, or whatever it is. So I thought how can we create level 10 success in every area, and when Robert reached out, I went, Wow, this really is universal, whether you’re where I was, which is losing your house and depressed and out of shape and struggling, or you’re worth $80 million, and you’re you know, best selling author of all time, anywhere in between, it applies. And if you’re not a morning person, I know a lot of you you’re already doing the recording, which is really cool. But suppose if there are any of you love that are like yeah, like I just I’m not a morning person. Like, I don’t think I can do it. I don’t know if I can. The majority of people 72% of people that we’ve surveyed that do the Miracle Morning every day were not morning people before they started the Miracle Morning. So I’m going to start with two quotes and two questions, how many quotes? How many questions? Okay, the first quote is from Robin Sharma. And Robin Sharma and Robin Sharma fans by Yeah, so not probably There’s Kiyosaki. But he’s sold over 10 million books and wrote, he wrote the book, the monk Who Sold His Ferrari leader without a title, right? So really great author. But he’s big in the morning rituals. And I started studying him. And this quote is one of my favorite, it’s, it’s me, it’s a reminder to live to my full potential because Robin says, one of the saddest things in life is to wake up one day, and realize that you could have been done and had so much more.

And I think if you look at most people, it ends up being that it’s like, they wake up at 30. And they’re like, what happened? My 20s. Like, what happened? I, you know, I had some big goals and dreams, and I kind of settled these last 10 years, but they don’t do anything differently. They wake up at 40. And you’re like, what it? Let’s go, this isn’t right, you know, and they just keep living the same, and not doing anything to change. And then life just keeps passing by. And this quote from Robin becomes true for too many of us. And what I don’t like about this quote, or what I would change is the, to me, there’s a lack of urgency. It says one of the saddest things in life is to wake up one day, and realize you could have been done and had so much more like when’s one day? You know, thankfully, it’s not today, right? Like we can, we can just chill out for a little longer today. And then there’s always tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, right? So So I reframe this quote, and I just say the saddest thing in life is to wake up every single day of our lives, to realize that we could have been do so much more, and then settle for less in any area in any area. I just came back from a dads retreat for me, I just spent two days with 34 other men, fathers who are dedicated to becoming the best fathers they can possibly be. And we brainstorm, do we mastermind and we learned and we shared the best practices, right? So for me that that there’s no area of my life that is more important to be able to level 10 then as a father to my two kids, anybody else have kids? Yeah, right. Yeah. Cool. Congratulations. So here’s my question for you if one of the saddest things in life is to wake up every day, no, we can be have do so much more. The question is, why did you wake up this morning? So think about that, right? Was it the whole because you had to be somewhere, do something or answer to somebody and be here is that when you woke up? Or did you do the setting your alarm a little earlier than that. So you could dedicate time to your personal development before you had to rush and get started for your day. That space in the morning, before the rest of world get started to put yourself in a peak physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual state. So you could become your best every morning to give your best in everything that you did throughout the day. The next quote is from Oprah and the Oprah fans. In the Oprah haters, there’s always a few, there’s a few, a few. So Oprah said, one of the big or the biggest adventure you can take ever is to live the life of your dreams. And this is my invitation. We’ve got about 49 minutes left 49 and a half minutes left. And my invitation for everybody, my invitation, my encouragement is to think about the life of your dreams in one area. So let me make this really practical. When I say the life your dream is very cliche statement, right. And so when I talk about the life of your dreams, actually pause for a second, you may have you’re already doing this, but in case you’re not anything that I shared today, or that you read in the Miracle Morning, obviously, being health professionals is something that you can do with your clients. And I know a lot of you are already doing with your clients. I know I have talked to a lot of even just like life coaches that are using the first thing that I do for my new coaching clients is I make sure that they have you know, to the Miracle Morning or their own version of it a morning ritual. And that’s what I instill in them, so that they start each day into peak physical, mental, emotional state. And then they have more energy when they even if they’re working out in the afternoon or the evening, right? They’ve started the day they’ve won the morning, so they can win the day, they can make better choices. If we win the morning, if we have the discipline to get out of bed when the alarm clock goes off. Instead hitting the snooze button three or four times we are becoming a disciplined person. They’ll make better eating choices, right? We’ll make better choices on what we eat on what we just every area of our lives. We’re developing willpower. Think about that when the alarm goes off. That’s life’s first gift to us. It’s also life first challenge.

And it’s how are we going to respond? How are we going to embrace the gift? How are we gonna respond to the challenge? Right? The challenge is, do we do what’s right, we get up with that discipline? Or do we just go back to bed and do the easy thing. So that for those first moments really are pivotal in our identity, who we see ourselves as is someone that has the discipline to get out of bed or to not? So Oprah said the biggest adventure he can take is living life, your dreams. And so to make that practical and not cliche, the way that I defined the life of our dreams is on a scale of one to 10. As we talked about, we all I think pretty unanimously agreed. We all want level 10 success in every area. That’s the life of your dreams. Whatever your level 10 is, in every area, that’s the life your dreams and you can compartmentalize it, right you can go well level 10 relationship would be where me and my spouse did this talk this way how this time together on on as a level 10 in my career would mean I was earning X amount of dollars I had X amount of clients, I was impacting X amount of lives, right. So you can compartmentalize the life of your dreams, aka level 10 success in each and every single area. So here’s my my invitation is that you pick one area for the next 46. And Time flies 46 minutes, 54 seconds that we have left, pick one area of your life. That and maybe it’s an area that you’re excited about right now, maybe it’s an area that you’ve been really focused on, maybe it’s an area that you actually haven’t been focused on. So you’re feeling a little bit, you’re not feeling fulfilled in that area, or you’re even feeling guilty because you’re neglecting it, you know, so pick one area, and for the next 50 minutes that we have together. Think of everything that I share, apply it to that area. And at the end of this, there’s gonna be a 30 day challenge. I’m not about teaching a bunch of cool stuff and then saying bye. And then you forget 90% of it. As soon as you know, the the by the time the events over. I’m all about action, right? I want you to take action change behavior and implement the stuff that we talked about in a way that’s simple. That’s that actually adds to your world adds to your life simplifies your life, not adds to the to do list not makes it more complex, but actually makes everything better, everything easier. So think about that. What’s that one area for you, that you can focus on in the next 30 days, I’m going to I’m going to teach you to filter that one goal that one area through the practices of the Miracle Morning to accelerate your success in that area. And it’s amazing, because 30 days from now, if you really focus your Miracle Morning on that one area, and you can do more than one, but really having one that that stands at the forefront. That’s your top priority every day for those 30 days. And for that Miracle Morning, you see amazing transformation and amazing results. So you know, at the end of 30 days, it’s like wow. And many of you probably do 30 day challenges with your clients. So it’s nothing new to you. I’m going to share a couple stories with you today. First is this is a picture of speaking of life of our dreams when I was 15 I wanted to be a nationally syndicated radio DJ, can

I borrow this? Thank you.

Like Ryan Seacrest are for you older folks, Casey Kay some.

But

that was my dream. I started DJing school dances. I grew up in a small town in northern California oakhurst but 30,000 people up near Yosemite National Park after I grew up and where she owned the ochreous market, I lived in a grocery store. It’s a whole nother story. But I wanted to be a DJ. And so I started doing school dances, weddings, car shows, and at 15 I started my own little business. My parents hooked me up, they helped me and bought financing equipment, I had to pay the monthly payment to pay it off. And I started you know, getting $100 a night to do a wedding or whatever, which is 1500 bucks for four hours of playing music was like a dream come true. And but I wanted to be on the radio. I thought that’s a way that I could you know, get nationally syndicated I could make it a career, you know. And at 15 I thought it was a long ways off for that would happen. But I get a phone call one day from the local radio station manager Larry gamble. He owned the the radio station in oakhurst. And he had one of those radio voices. And I’m talking about, hey, it’s Larry gamble, dendrite. 103 point seven FM How are you my friend? Hey, I heard your DJ, is that right? And I’m going through puberty sounds like Yeah, yes. Mr. gamble, you know? And he says, Hey, we want to need you to host a high school or radio show every week. Three hours do a concert tickets, play whatever you want no curse words, of course. Would you get for interviewing for that job? Come down to the station. I’d love to meet you. Of course, I’m on cloud nine. You know, my own radio show, of course. So you’re my mom will drive me I’m only 15 my mom will drive me down today. And so mom drives me down. And I am so excited. So nervous. I go in I meet Mr. gamble. And he says you’re hired. And I think it was the only one interviewing for the job. But whatever. I didn’t care. And he said and then as I’m like floating out of his office on cloud nine, he goes how one more thing. deejays always have what’s known as an mot an on air moniker. It’s like a fancy way of saying a nickname. Do you have a nickname hell? their stuff. The kids at school call me but it’s not appropriate for the air. And he said, Well, why don’t you? Why don’t you think of a nickname by next Thursday. Can you do that? I said, Yeah,

Unknown Speaker
sure.

Hal Elrod
Sure. Sure. And I left and I was so nervous now going. I don’t have a cool moniker and nickname and I get into the car, you know, mom’s driving, and I’m quiet and she assumes

Unknown Speaker
didn’t go well. And she says, sweetie, what’s wrong?

Hal Elrod
No, no, I’m sorry. She actually. She said, sweetie, everything happens for a reason. You remember, you ever hear that? Right? It’s like, we don’t want Hear it.

Unknown Speaker
You’re like Shut up. I don’t Yeah,

Hal Elrod
I know got it blah blah, like not now, right? And, and so I said no mom. No, actually I got the radios job I start next Thursday. She was Well, isn’t that what you want? Where are you? You look upset. I said I’m not upset. I’m just stressed out because I have to have a moniker. It’s like a nickname. And you guys named me how and that’s like the dorkiest name ever. No offense, but it’s really not it’s not a very cool name. And she said, sweetheart, first of all, you’re named after your grandfather. It’s not a dorky name.

Unknown Speaker
Second of all, you think of a cool DJ name.

Hal Elrod
Okay, Mom, this should be good. What’s your idea for a cool DJ name? She goes, bless you. She said, Why don’t you rhyme it with hell? Be like my pal. How are your pal? How are you? I know making cool be yo pal hell. Again, no offense, but you’re such a dork. I will never be yo pal. How nice try. And I think this next slide teaches us two lessons. Number one mom is always right. Yes, sir. Yes. And number two is it really is it’s a lesson I learned later from a mentor which is learn something from everyone like be open minded and be curious. In the world. You know, I think we think the way like we have it kind of figured out like our model of the world is the way the world is and you know, our beliefs are right and right. If they don’t believe what I believe, well, then they don’t get it or they didn’t figure it out. And one of the best things I learned when I was 19, my mentor, he said I was kind of a cocky salesperson at 19 I started selling Cutco cutlery and he Cutco fans started selling Cutco. And my first 10 days I broke the all time company record and so became one of their top salespeople. And I got kind of cocky, you know, 19 making great money right? Like I was, I thought I knew more than everybody else in you know, around me and any and he called me out one day his good friend and mentor and he just said how, you know, learn something from everyone because I don’t care what age they are. I don’t anybody learn from their kids every day, right? You know, the day my daughter’s like, Dad quit donut. I’m like, sweetie, you guys appreciate this being healthy. I’m very healthy eater to fall almost. I said, sweetie, no, you don’t need a doughnut. You know, it’s just bleached flour and sugar. She goes, dad, she’s seven. Sophie. She goes, Dad,

Unknown Speaker
you eat so

Hal Elrod
healthy. You make us eat so healthy all the time. We could have a doughnut every once in a while. I was like, You’re totally right. Let’s go get it. Not gonna kill you to have one doughnut. Okay. So, but But anyway, so yeah, being open minded and learning something from everyone. And that’s I’m interested because I don’t care if it’s a homeless person. Like don’t prejudge anyone, because every human being on the planet has different life experiences. Therefore they have value to share. They have things they can teach you. But it’s not their job to tell you what that you know, you’ve got to just remain open and curious. I’m gonna share with you. Well, this is a you heard my mom say does everything happened for a reason? Everything happens for a reason, right? And how many of you by the way, you believe that everything happens for a reason? Okay, how many aren’t sure? Either you don’t believe it? Or you’re you’re maybe maybe not. See, I think that were the challenges. And I’ll share a distinction here and it might bring everybody in the room together. Whether you don’t believe it, you do believe it? Or maybe you’re you’re not sure is we’ve been conditioned to think that everything happens for a reason, like that phrase, like we’re supposed to go figure out what that reason is right? And we often bang our head against the proverbial wall, when bad things happen when adversity strikes. It’s like, why did this happen to me? Right? Like we’re searching for answers. We’re searching for reasons. I’m a good person, I don’t deserve this. How can this happen to me?

Unknown Speaker
So, I believe,

Hal Elrod
and I don’t think that I’m right, you know, or wrong, but just to consider that everything does happen for a reason, however, not the way that we’ve been conditioned. But it’s instead our responsibility to choose the reason for everything that happens in our lives. And the reasons that we choose determine the quality and the direction of our lives. So for example, person number one, something bad happens and you go, why do you think that that tragedy befell you know, why did that adversity? How could be a job loss to be anything? And they go, they’ve got the reasons all figured out, right? Like, oh, bad things always happened to me. I go on victim reasons, you know, life’s unfair, you know, it’s the government it’s the this is my employer, my bosses and asshole. Like, right, it’s, it’s all these reasons that there’s no empowerment and the reasons it’s like, it’s because of this and this and this and this and this and all things that have nothing to do with me. And then person number two, you go, Wow, you had the exact same tragedy happened to you at the exact same moment. Do you feel the same? person number two goes, you know, honestly, no, I think there’s, there’s an opportunity here for me to learn, you know, and for me to grow, and to become better than I’ve ever been before. You know, that that on the other side of this adversity if I take it head on And I’d find a way to get through it and maintain a positive attitude in the midst of the adversity, I can overcome it. And I’ll there’ll be a better version of myself, you know, on the other side of that adversity. So same adversity, but our mindset, our attitude, the reasons that we choose, for what’s going on or going wrong in our lives, really determines our quality, our mental and emotional state at the moment, but it also determines our direction, because the choices that person one makes, when they don’t feel that it’s their fault, or they have any control, very different than the choice of the person to makes, who’s looking for the lesson, they’re looking for how they can overcome that adversity. So when I was 20 years old, I’ll share with you guys two rock bottoms, two stories, two rock bottoms, that kind of frame the Miracle Morning and this whole message, and we hit a rock bottom before. Let me define it. And and I think that the most hands went up, which is great, thank you. But I think that every hand would go up, if you will, under this definition, this context, which is that a rock bottom is simply any moment of adversity that tests you beyond where you’ve been tested before. So it’s very relative, right? Meaning, you know, your rock bottom isn’t worse than yours. And yours isn’t worse than mine. And mine is on worse. It’s all relative based on our own life experience. So like, this isn’t the story that I’m gonna tell. But when I was in, you know, seventh grade, I got my heart broken by a girl. And I thought that was like my first rock bottom, because we’d been together for two weeks, it was going to be like, I thought I was gonna marry her. And, and, you know, and like, but at that time, my response was, like, I tell my parents, and I’m, like, devastated and telling my parents, like, I’m not going to school ever again, you know, like, little bit of a dramatic response. But um, but at that time, it felt very real, right. So it’s very relative to our experience. And that’s why I try not to, here’s a bonus lesson that I don’t often share, but I always should. But I was telling someone this yesterday at the dads retreat, so I’m glad I’m remembering this.

We’re really quick to judge people based on our life experience. someone does something I would never, that’s terrible, there would have been a bad person that they would say or do that. But I had a realization A while back, which is that, how do we live their life? We’d probably say and do the exact same thing. Yeah, they were bad. But maybe you didn’t grow up in a game or weren’t beat up as a kid or you know what I mean? Like, and even if you were, you weren’t born with their brain, so you know what I mean? I really just think that we have no, there’s no room to judge, I think we need to love people, like unconditionally love all people and replace judgment with empathy. Because how do we walked in their shoes and live their life, we’d probably do and say the same exact things, even if though things in our reality seem horrible. So there’s a quick tangent soap box slash bonus lesson. But my first rock bottom was in 2000, and I’m sorry, 1999. I was 20 years old. And I was driving home from a Cutco meeting, I’d given a speech and I’ve actually gotten a standing ovation, which was very special moment for me because as a very insecure, 20 year old, every time I give a speech, I was very nervous. And I had this dream, being a professional speaker, but thinking I wasn’t probably wasn’t good enough. You know, and I got a standing ovation that night. And I was like, wow, maybe other human beings would, you know, also get value from what I might present, you know, from stage. And so that’s where I kind of had a little bit of confidence, a little boost of like, maybe I could do this one day. And I left the meeting, it was 1130. At night, I was in Northern California, driving from Modesto to Fresno, I just bought a brand new Ford Mustang, which at 20 with my own money, that was like my Ferrari that I could afford, you know, I was like the dream car. And so I get into the Mustang and it’s it’s a white Ford Mustang five speed, and it was freezing cold. And I started the car, turn the heater on. And I wanted to call my mom and dad because when something great happens, don’t you want like you want to tell somebody you know? So I want to call mom and dad and tell him that like guys, I’m going to be the next Tony Robbins. Like I just got a standing ovation. And I looked at the dash on the Mustang it said 11:32pm and I thought I might

Unknown Speaker
be in bed, probably in bed shouldn’t wake them up.

Hal Elrod
You know, and it’s interesting looking back to that night’s events. You know, hindsight is what? 2020 right? I probably wouldn’t be here. So I mean, everything happens for a reason. And so I start the car and I get on the freeway. And as I’m getting on the freeway, my last memory from that night is my rearview mirror. My best friend Jeremy, I see him get stuck at the red light in his little green Ford Ranger pickup. And my last memory was seeing that and going as sucks for Jeremy in hindsight is 2020. And little did I know it was about to happen. I get onto the freeway cruise control set at 70 miles an hour. And I got music. I remember I was listening to classical music at the time. And I was just like, like pretending I was orchestrating and just bouncing around in the car, having a great time. And what I’m going to share with you now for the next few minutes. I don’t remember this. This is all from eyewitnesses. with Jeremy being one of them, which we’ll hear about, it’s from police reports, hospital records, I don’t remember I have no memory of that after I saw Jeremy and got on the freeway, and then two weeks of my life, there’s zero memory. And as I got onto the freeway, a drunk driver, a man I had never met before. And drunk is a you know, it’s a pretty relative term in term. He had two beers, according to the bartender, so pricey, he was a bus driver, right? He got onto the freeway in a full size Chevy truck much larger than my little Ford Mustang. Problem was he got on the freeway going the wrong way. So instead of getting on an on ramp, he was a little buzz, a little tired, and he got on an off ramp. And so he merges all the way over to the right to go nice and you know, take take a little drive home, and estimated he was going about 70 miles an hour 70 to 80 miles an hour as well. But he wasn’t in the slow lane because he was going the wrong way, which meant he was in the fast lane, and I don’t remember the headlights coming at me. I don’t know, you know, if I if I didn’t see him, or I didn’t believe it, or my mind couldn’t comprehend it. But around 11:37pm this full size Chevy truck comes barreling down the highway, right at my Ford Mustang. And based on the impact, apparently at the last minute, I think I swerved because instead of hitting head on directly, we hit head on on the to driver sides. And my airbag exploded, you know, windshield I believe shattered. And the worst was yet to come as my car spun off the drunk driver and the car behind me. Also traveling 70 miles an hour, it was a family of three, they were according to them three car lengths behind me and they were also going 70 and I my car just in a second spun in front of them. And without hitting the brake, they just crashed into my door at 70 miles an hour into my driver side door. And instantly the left side of my body was just crushed by the car, broke 11 bones and started losing a lot of blood. And they feel like this picture this is what the car looked like from the front. And you know you might be going well where’s the like the driver’s side of the car and it’s not gone it was in the side of me and that’s my friend Peter shoes just kind of weird guy and you know when my dad to the junkyard and he’s like oh, and put the shoe in the picture. So yeah, case anyone’s wondering.

Unknown Speaker
But

Hal Elrod
so I’m going to tell you real quick my injuries because I always have a lot of who that are curious. Some of you who may not want to hear it You may be kind of squeamish I want to play your ears and close your eyes for just like you know, like 30 seconds it’ll be over fast. Actually Don’t close your eyes. I don’t know I plug it I’m not going to disrobe and like show you my scars or anything so but in an instant from that side impact my femur, you know biggest bone in the human body is you know, I had a compound fracture broken half came out the side of my thigh. my pelvis was crushed between the center console and I fractured it three separate places. Complete fractures my humerus bone also snapped in half. Human femur, humerus, humerus, bone, broken half came out behind my elbow, my elbow was shattered, I severed the radial nerve in my left arm, I socket was destroyed so bad that it was this is all made of titanium. And other than you know, a miracle, I don’t know how you get hit in the eye at 70 miles an hour, so bad that it crushes all the bones. And then the eyeball is you know preserved which the doctors really did didn’t really know how to explain it. My ear was almost completely severed it was hanging on but by but half of an inch. And the ceiling buckle because of the impact the top of the ceiling, the metal slice through the cloth roof of my car, and it’s slice of D and the top of my head. And instantly or very quickly. I was in a coma right away, unable to withstand the pain, very grateful that my body and brain you know, shut each other down or whatever. And I’m slumped over bleeding from head to toe all over. And my car’s just kind of rolling on the freeway and Jeremy, my best friend pulls up. And it’s 1130 at night it’s pretty dark out. He just sees the car and goes oh my god, there’s been no slows down there. That car is mangled. There’s been a horrible accident. And then he quickly realizes Oh my God, that’s Hell’s car. And he jumps out my window was shattered, you know? And he looks in. He’s got his cell phone and you know, I’m just covered in blood and I’m unresponsive because I’m in a coma. So as he’s yelling, how can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you hear me buddy? Jeremy and I’m not responding. So he assumes that I’m What? Dead? Right? And but he checked my pulse. And I had a pulse I was alive. So he calls 911. Paramedics come and it takes them an hour to cut the roof off and pull me out of the car. They use the jaws of life. And so I was sitting there for almost an hour, you know losing blood and when they Finally, were able to get me out of the car. And there’s a picture of what it looks like from the top down after I was pulled out of the car. You can see where my femur, you know, there’s no separation between the front left side of the driver’s seat and the car, you can see where the center console is pushed over to the right and for my pelvis broke, you know, up against that. But when they pulled me out, that’s when I bled to death, I bled out. And I was clinically dead for approximately six minutes on the side of the freeway. And then they rushed me on to the medevac helicopter and use the simulators and hooked up, you know, to an IV and all the emergency procedures to bring you back to life. And thankfully, they didn’t give up after a few minutes. They kept working in I, I started breathing again, rushed to the hospital, Jeremy called my parents and told them to get there as soon as they could. They had a two hour drive not knowing if I’d be dead or alive. When they got to the hospital. When they got to the hospital, they met Jeremy and this is how they found me essentially. And the prognosis wasn’t good. I mean, at first, it was just I was in critical condition. They’re trying to keep me alive. And I clinically died, I flatlined if you will, two more times in the first six days of being in the hospital. So it was very touching go. And the doctor said to be in the hospital for probably or they’d be in the coma for six to 12 months. And six days later, I started wiggling my fingers. My sister Haley a year and a half younger than me She caught she saw that. And she goes nurse nurse, Comerica America, Marin is you know, he might be waking up or what’s going on? And she said, Oh, he might have he having some muscle spasms. You know, let’s, let’s see. And she said, talk to him and ask him say, hell, if you can hear me, it’s your sister, Haley. You can hear me, you know, lift two fingers up. And I lifted two fingers up, you know, and then that was the day I woke up that day. So instead of six to 12 months in a coma for six days came out of the coma to face an unimaginable reality. Right? You know, I’m in pain I my eyes bandaged, you know, sewn over are my ears sewn on. And I’ve got a metal 14 inch titanium rod in my leg, two screws in my elbow rod in my arm three plates in my eye. You know, I was in bad condition. I mean, it was I woke up just a few days after this picture was taken. And

I don’t remember waking up. Like I said, there’s two weeks of my life I don’t remember there’s six days in a coma. And then there’s a week out of the coma, which you don’t have any memory of. But my parents and my sister and my friends, there was all these visitors there. They’ve kind of reconstructed what it was like for me. So honestly, I don’t really know where my, the stories I’ve been told in and my memories begin to it’s very blurry. But according to my mom and dad, the first few days, I was just really lethargic and tired and like my eyes were barely open. And as they’re telling me what’s going on, I’m trying to process it. And they said within a few days, I started to kind of, you know, wake up and perk up a little more and open my eyes a little more. And they said very quickly. I was making jokes and like I’m a very sarcastic person. I was back to my sarcasm. And they said I was trying to sell Cutco to the doctors and nurses. And like I was going like, because I had done, you know, over 1000 sales presentations. I think in that last year and a half. It was ingrained. Like the questions the whole presentation was deep in my subconscious. So I’m like, you know, Dr. Johnson, how many nights a week do you and your wife cook? Right as I’m going through the motions asking all the questions. And my parents are like mortified. They’re like help. Doctor We’re sorry, how this is so inappropriate. Stop it not the time or places I’ll Cutco. I might do you know much doctors and nurses like make Mrs. Mom, this is a perfect time to do it. And so I was kind of upbeat and kind of positive. And the doctors did not buy it. They didn’t they did not buy it. And they called my parents in a week after he came out of the coma. So the week after this picture was taken or so. And they sat them down and they said we’re concerned with how or no no, they said we want to give an update on how physically he’s stable. We’ve made it through the worst he you know, I think he’s new with us for a long time. And at that point, that’s all my parents were like walk again don’t walk again like you know that point right? You just you want your child to be alive and that they said he’s alive he’s gonna stay alive and you know the other physical things Only time will tell we don’t know if he’s ever gonna walk again. He has no short term memory as you can see that should heal over time. And they said we’re we’re concerned is mentally and emotionally. Every time we interact with hell, we were leaving the doctors, the nurses, the staff, the psychologists, me, the physician. He’s always smiling and laughing and telling jokes and making us laugh.

Unknown Speaker
And that’s not normal.

Hal Elrod
They said that’s not normal for a 20 year old young man is being told you’re never gonna walk again. They said However, it’s it’s not unheard of. It’s a very small percentage of accidents. That they that they cannot handle it a reality. It’s so painful to them so unimaginable, they can’t deal with it, they can’t accept it. So they just check out, they just go into lala land for a while. They’re just delusional. They’re in denial. And eventually though, how we’ll have to face this, we want him to face the emotions that he’s bottling up, which are likely fear seaspray scared, he’s sad, maybe depressed, he’s angry. All these emotions, negative emotions that, you know, are probably very strong. He’s, he’s, he’s just bottling them up or push them to the side. And they will surface and we need it to be in here when he’s in a safe environment. And not out in the real world when he get turned to drugs or alcohol or all these things. They said, So can you talk to him find out how he’s really feeling. And my parents are, you know, they were really reality check. Because they were, I think, kind of encouraged that I was upbeat. Now they’re going, Oh, gosh, it’s a facade and we’ve got to figure this out. Or he’s going to, you know, kill himself. We get out of the hospital, okay. And they come in, my dad comes in, and I’m laying in my hospital bed watching Oprah for inspiration, literally. And drink and drinking Donald Duck orange juice, which I never drink in my life. For some reason. That’s all I wanted to drink. Oprah and Donald Duck oranges. If you know anyone who finished up her accident, that seems to be a recipe for healing, just Oprah and Donald Duck orange juice. But I, my dad comes in and he sits down and I look over and he’s just like, you know, his faces white slash reds, you know, eyes are watery. And I get turned off the TV that would that would that what’s wrong. And I knew he was mean to the doctor. So I was really nervous. I thought he had some bad news. And he said physically, how you’re doing, you’re doing great, you’re stable, you know, you’ve made it through the worse. And we’re going to be very optimistic and hopeful for your healing and your recovery in you. But you’re you’re you’ve made it through the toughest part, you know, and I said,

Unknown Speaker
that’s good, right? What, what, what’s going on what else you know,

Hal Elrod
and explain the doctor is concerned that I, you know, was really deep down depressed and angry and scared and sad. And I was covering it up and delusional and denial, and I couldn’t face it, but I needed to, and he wanted me to talk about how I was really feeling. And so I really went inside because he was so concerned. And I went, am I sad? Am I scared? Am I angry? Am I depressed? And I’m like, Am I just am I covering it up? And I’m just, I can’t handle it. So I just brushed us. Why don’t you know, I really was honest with myself. And I looked at my dad and I said, Dad, I thought you knew me better than that. I’m alive, and I am great. I said remember I live by the five minute rule that I learned in my Cutco training. And he said remind me of the five minute rule again and I was like your mom would be so much happier if you listen to the stuff I’ve been teaching you from Cutco. I said, it’s okay to be negative, but not for more than five minutes. Like we learned that in Cutco training, when something goes wrong, you set your timer on your phone for five minutes, you get five minutes to bitch moan, complain, kick something cry, like feel the emotion. But after five minutes, we were taught there’s no value as a human being in dwelling on something that is in the past. Even if it’s only five minutes in the past, unless you’re Marty McFly with a DeLorean you can’t change it. So if you can’t change it, the only intelligent choice we have as human beings that want to be happy is to accept it, make peace, be at peace with it, and focus on what we can control. And my dad said, got it how but that was, you know that that’s great. But that was for much milder adversity that you were taught that for that was like customers that were canceling their order or not buying from you or missing an appointment or whatever.

Unknown Speaker
And

Unknown Speaker
I looked at him and I said no.

Hal Elrod
Yes and No, daddy. Yes, it was for milder adversity. But the principle is the same. I can’t change that I was in a car accident. But I can choose to be the happiest, most grateful that I’ve ever been while I go through this process of healing. And I said and I’ve already thought through the future. And there’s one of two possibilities. Number one, I’ll be stuck in a wheelchair the rest of my life. Number two, I’m going to walk again, I don’t know which possibility will happen. I I have no way of knowing. I can be hopeful like me optimistic, but I really have no way of knowing doctors might be right like, never walked in. I said but here’s what I’ve decided. And it’s very freeing. It’s very empowering. If I am in a wheelchair the rest of my life Dad, I promise you, I will be the happiest person you’ve ever seen in a

Unknown Speaker
wheelchair. Because I’m

Hal Elrod
in a wheelchair. Either way. I can either be a miserable victim in my wheelchair for the rest of my life. Or I can be the happiest, most grateful positive person who’s brightening up those days. For the rest of my life though it has nothing to do with the wheelchair. All it is is that I accept what happened to me Don’t put any energy into wishing it didn’t happen to me. Because that would be futile. There’s no wishing and wanting it to be different when it can’t be different, doesn’t make a difference. It just causes emotional pain for me, just makes me feel all the things the doctor says I should feel sad, mad, angry, depressed. why this happened? Me, I don’t deserve this. I had so many plans that didn’t involve right like, and here’s here’s kind of a summary of what I what I didn’t articulate it this way at the time. But to the degree that we resist our reality is the degree that we create emotional pain for ourselves. Think about that, when you go God, no, no, that wasn’t supposed to happen. That’s right, whether it’s losing a loved one, or losing a job or losing a client or you know, or whether it’s a major thing or

Unknown Speaker
a minor thing like traffic. Who doesn’t

Unknown Speaker
like traffic? Raise your hand.

Unknown Speaker
Okay, this is why I came here.

Hal Elrod
So, but in all seriousness, I share this every time. So there are some things I share every time, the but this example this analogy to me is so powerful. Because it’s it’s very simple. We can all relate to it. But it’s very profound. It’s a metaphor for life. And that is this. Let’s pretend we left the house late. And whenever done that, right, you woke up late, you didn’t hear your alarm, you forgot to set your alarm, you were just running late, it was someone else’s fault, which is always a good scapegoat. If we could blame it on somebody else. That’s always good. But think about that. So we leave the house 15 minutes late. If we go full speed, and there’s no traffic, we’re already gonna be probably a few minutes late. And then we hit bumper to bumper dead still traffic. We’ve all been there, right? And think about our typical experience for the let’s say, instead of 15 minutes in the car. Now we’re in for 30 minutes because of this traffic. So think about how we spend up to 30 minutes. No, it starts out with Oh, no, no, no, no, not today of all days. What is that? Like? It’s the traffic’s fault that we left late that day. No, not today. Come on. And we’re like, we’re mad at the traffic, you know. And then we were the whole time. We’re like

Unknown Speaker
writing the bumper, like, does anybody

Unknown Speaker
find that? That that works?

Hal Elrod
Like, if you ride it hard enough, and you get frustrated enough, like there’s like, Whoa, that guy’s really mad. Let’s just get out of his way and let him go to work and No. So here’s what I realized. I hit traffic and go, and then I go, Wait a minute. I’m going to be in the car for 30 minutes. I’m in traffic, I’m going to be late. There’s a consequence. I cannot change any of those things. But I get to choose how I spend these 30 minutes. I can spend them stressed out frustrated, literally shortening my life span. You’re all health professionals. Right? Stress is the way it was number one killer. So again, there’s been time and traffic shortening my lifespan, causing myself stress being frustrated, or I can be stressed out for 30 minutes, or I can be blissed out for 30 minutes. Either one totally up to me nothing to do with the traffic. And when I realized that it was already the one most empowering things I ever learned was that every negative emotion that we’ve ever felt is self created by our resistance to the thing that we think is causing the emotion. Because it’s not the thing. It’s our resistance. If we resist it a little, it creates a negative emotion like annoyance. Not too bad, not too painful. Like, ah, gosh, darn it. I really didn’t want that to happen. Son of a gun. Right? It’s a little bit of resistance, not painful. But when you’re you know dropping to your knees going How could you take him Lord? How could you take her Lord? How could you How could this happen? How could I lose that my job Mike income, right? How that degree of resistance creates terrible emotional pain. And you think about every negative emotion that we felt not always itself created, but it’s created based on something that already happened. Think about that. Rarely. I mean now fears and negative emotion right? You call it negative and that it’s really projecting the future. But almost every other negative emotion regret, sadness, anger, depression. It’s all based on something that already happened. So it’s not happening anymore. So then how are we creating? How are we feeling emotional pain, we think it’s the thing, it’s our resistance. Something happened you know, we A lot of us have suffered from things that happen in our childhood. We’re still suffering because we haven’t only to accept it and often we justify non acceptance because we have this weird thing where we think that accepting it let makes it Okay. That doesn’t make it okay for them. I’m not I can’t accept what she did to me is wrong. What he did to me is you no one should ever have to go through that. I will never accept that. But accepting doesn’t let them off the hook. They’re already off the hook. They don’t know that we’re we’re still feeling pain over it. They’re all off the hook. Since the you know it’s been done. It’s acceptance doesn’t let them off the hook. It lets us off the hook. It allows us to feel peace. And the reason I share this by the way, you might realize we Haven’t got into the Miracle Morning yet. Partly because y’all have the books I don’t need to give you guys a super in depth, you know thing but but but the other reason is because this is arguably the most important lesson I’ve learned in my life because everything that we do everything we’re doing, we’re trying to strive to achieve every day we’re all everyone in this room is a success minded, probably type, you know, a lot of Taipei’s, right personality, everyday we’re trying to accomplish, improve and grow and grow our wealth, or business, etc. And ultimately, when you look at why we’re doing it, it’s all this we’re looking for some sort of emotional response, some sort of fulfillment, we’re looking for happiness, right. And what I found is that until we understand that, we must accept all the things that we can’t change. Until we do that, all that resistance of all the things that we can’t change, whether it was from five minutes ago, or five months, or five years or five decades, it fills us up with negative emotion, and all the things we’re working so hard for, we don’t actually get to ever enjoy them. Because there’s no space, the joy that we might feel from an accomplishment, there’s no space for to fill us up. So then we focused so it doesn’t show doesn’t work. I achieved it. It doesn’t feel the way I thought it would feel, I better go achieve something else. I better who create more I got to a certain level of wealth.

It was exciting. You know, we celebrated a dinner but like, now what got to do something else. And I really believe this is the most important fundamental lesson that I’ve ever learned that has given me freedom from emotional pain. And to wrap up the story, so we can segue into the Miracle Morning. I accepted fully what had happened to me. So there was no emotional pain. If I never walked in, I was okay with that. If I walked in, I was more than okay with that. I was excited about that. Right. And here’s the thing, by the way, one last distinction is that acceptance doesn’t mean happiness, it means peace, which is much more powerful. What’s the difference? Over here are all the positive emotions that we’re striving for happiness, excitement, joy, right over here, all the negative emotions that we that we’re trying to stay away from. But who’s ever been in a really great mood, like you’re experiencing some of these emotions, and a phone call changes that, right? Like in a second emotions are fleeting, in one second, you can flip from one to the other, like, you know, you’re like, what, what, know what, you know, it’s like, so emotions are fleeting. But here’s the deal, when you accept when and this is I’m gonna give you some tangibles on how to do this and practical, actionable. But when you accept everything you can’t change in between happiness, and sadness, is peace. And that’s what acceptance gives you. It gives you an unwavering state of peace. Peace is rooted, it doesn’t waver. If somebody gives you a phone call and says, Hey, this bad thing happened. You’re like, why can’t change it. So I accept it. And you just stay in a state of peace. And when your state of peace, you have you it’s like a blank canvas. And you decide what emotions you want. When I’m in traffic, instead of getting frustrated, when I’m frustrated. There’s no space for happiness or joy or, or anything. But as soon as you go, can’t change it. I mean, the traffic for half an hour is gonna be a piece of it. And I’m late, I’ll deal with that when I get there. But right now the present and at peace, then I get to go. I’ve got 30 minutes, what do I want to feel right now? What do I want to feel? What do I want to think? What do I want to do? You know, focus on my goals, you’ll do some some planning. They’ll just focus on what I’m grateful for. It’s called my car, the gratitude mobile, as a reminder to just every time I hit traffic, just go, what am I grateful? Like? That’s the question, What am I grateful for. And I just, I just felt grateful for 30 minutes, much better way to spend in traffic. One thing I was grateful for is I’m like, hey, the odds of getting in a head on collision and dying at two miles an hour, are very, very, very nil. So I don’t have a graph to show you that thinking, accepting what you can’t change and all this positive thinking. I don’t think it solves all your problems. We can sit here and think about our bank accounts growing probably wouldn’t happen. Right? So doesn’t solve all of our problems, positive thinking, but here’s what it does. Positive Thinking puts us in a peak physical, mental and emotional state to solve our problems. The doctors came in with x rays a week after they sent my parents to talk to me. My parents went back and reported the doctors did not believe it. They said we’ll keep working with them. Get him to admit how he’s really feeling. And the doctors came up with routine x rays A week later and they said they sat me down and we have some pretty great news. We don’t know how to explain this. How your body is healing so quickly. We’re gonna let you take your first step tomorrow. So this was three weeks after my femur broken half my pelvis. Three weeks later, they an episode I never walked in that I went and actually this next picture was taken as my therapist Bob. Bob rolled me up to the parallel bars. I didn’t do a routine.

I took a few steps like this, you know with a lot of fear in my femur like oh my gosh, And then I sat down. And then after a few days, I did a few more steps. And then I was walking and then I was doing stairs. And then, you know, four weeks after this picture was taken, the doctors released me from the hospital and I went home. And a few days later, I started selling Cutco again, and that’s against doctor’s orders. But that’s another story that you’ll see the quote, their acceptance is the key that unlocks the door to Emotional Freedom, freedom from emotional pain. And I, here’s here’s how I originally learned this, and I’ll share with you the five minute rule. It’s okay to be negative not for more than five minutes, I encourage you to all start with the five minute rule, set your timer for five minutes when something goes wrong, and give yourself five minutes to feel it. And when the five minutes is up, you probably won’t feel like intellectually, you just won’t think you’re ready to move on. You’re like, I need five hours like this is bullshit. I’m upset still. But what happens is this at first five minutes seems too short. And then your timer goes off and you go, you say these three words, can’t, can’t change it. And that reminds you, if I can’t change it, I don’t have to feel bad about it. I get to accept it and be at peace with it. And what happens is, after a few weeks of this five minutes becomes too long. You set your timer for five minutes, and you go, gosh, I can’t believe this happened. Man, it’s so not what I wanted. So not what I expected. Oh, what am I gonna do, okay, I need to do this and this. And then you pick up your phone and you’re like, four minutes and 32 more seconds. And you go, I don’t want to sit here and be upset for four minutes, I’m going to go do the thing that I just thought of that I can do to actually start turning the situation around improvement. So five minute rule becomes the five second rule. And you just learned that acceptance is default way of operating. That’s the wristband I worked for two years, until I didn’t need to anymore because I didn’t even when something happened that was out of my control. I immediately a train myself to acknowledge it. And I just like it was instant acceptance. It was just it kind of just passed through me. Right? Like I might do like a five second rule like son of them. Okay, can’t change it right. This girl sent me an email saying that they can’t change a philosophy tattoo or change her life. So she got a permanent tattoo of it. Because you realize how everyday she caused emotional pain for herself over getting frustrated, angry, all these emotions that she thought were because everyone in her life was a pain in the butt or parents or pain in the butt and all this stuff. I speak at colleges. So that’s where I used to share this at. And I thought two things. Number one, I was inspired that she got a permanent tattoo of something I said in my speech. Number two, I thought her parents must hate me. Like they must want to kill me. And then this next email I got just a few weeks later from another college student different College. This put me in tears she I’ll paraphrase what she said, but she said that how my dad died when I was nine years old. I’ve spent the last 10 years on every depression medication that is available on the market. I’ve been in and out of therapy. I’ve tried to kill myself three times. And if you look at her wrist, you can see one of those attempts. She said I spent the last 10 years deeply depressed. And I thought it was because my dad had died when I was nine. And everyone I talked to about it patted me on the back and said You poor thing. And they reinforce that my dad had died and justified it. She said, when you share the five minute rule that can’t change philosophy, this idea of we create our own emotional pain and we can accept it. That’s how we find peace. I considered maybe I’m not I haven’t been depressed for 10 years because my dad died. But because no one told me that I could accept that and make peace with it. He said so I got that little wristband after your speech a week ago. And it’s the first week in 10 years that I have been happy. And I gave that to myself by just simply accepting it. Whenever I got those feelings around my dad, those feelings of sadness. She goes, there’s they’re so programmed. Now they’re not I didn’t think of my dad, I just feel them. And I looked at my wrist and went, can’t change it. And I smiled and I realized I can be free from all this emotional pain that I’ve been carrying for 10 years. And she said, So yesterday was the 10 year anniversary of my dad’s death. And I wanted a permanent reminder that his memory would never cause me pain again. In fact, it only cost me gratitude for the fact that I was his daughter. And nothing could ever take that away. Nothing could ever change that. And when I got that email, and I read that, as you can imagine, I mean, I was very touched and and realize that whether it’s traffic, you know, using this philosophy, this five minute rule, this can’t change it or losing one of if not the most important person in your life. It’s universal, where we can be in control of our emotions. And by the way, let me the last thing I’ll say on this is not saying that negative emotions are bad. Not saying that you shouldn’t feel sad or No. But here’s the difference is do your emotions own you? Do they control you? Are you at the mercy of them? Or have you accepted what you can’t change so you can choose the emotion that best serves you that serves your family that serves your clients. So if if I lose a loved one,

grief may be the emotion that I want to experience because that’s what serves me too. Feel grief. Right? If somebody costs my wife, I’m gonna pull anger out. Right? Anybody seen the movie? That was the movie Disney movie? Inside Out? Yeah, right, I’m gonna pull anger out. right but but only because it serves the purpose. And as soon as you know that situation is dissolved, I’m not going to stew over the anger, it’ll be gone instantly. Because, yeah, that happened, I can’t change it, I accepted it. And then I’m going to focus on whatever emotion best serves my wife to comfort her, in that in that situation. That makes sense. So acceptance is the foundation of all of that. And we’re gonna, we’re gonna transition here as we wrap up into my second rock bottom, and it’s a much shorter story. Some of you are like, dude, you’re like, how long is the story? The second rock bottom 2008 the economy crashes. And at that time, I bought my first brand new house at the peak of the California real estate market. Anybody else in that boat? I bought in 2006. Like, right, well, but I refined it in 2007 when I could get more money out of it. And I, I went from being you know, like, I had left Cutco. I had Hall of Fame, which was like a big milestone, started a coaching business, life was great, I was achieving the success of my dreams, I had met the woman of my dreams, who I’m married to now. Life was in best shape of my life. And it felt like overnight, it was really the six months. downward spiral. I lost over half of my clients very quickly. I tried to can’t change the philosophy after I lost the first one, I can’t change it. There are lots of clients will painful but can’t change it. You know, the next week, I lost two or three more, and I was like, oh, what’s going on. And then once I couldn’t pay my mortgage anymore, can’t change. It wasn’t getting me clients. And I didn’t know how to turn that around. And I had never applied this can’t change philosophy in this downward spiral. And in six months, I lost over half my clients or half my income I was being a Dave Ramsey student debt free, you know, paid the credit card off every month, to having not having that ability. And an eight in six months, I had $52,000 on my credit cards, personal credit cards just just just to get by just to buy groceries and stuff. And I got really depressed my body fat percentage tripled in those six months, when bringing the best shape my life to the worst shape my life. And finally, a series of events led me to go on a run and hear a quote from Jim Rohn that changed my entire life. Jim Rohn said your level of success will seldom exceed your level of personal development, because success is something you attract by the person you become. And to bring us back to one of the things we touched on when we first opened up. If we’re measuring success in ourselves to the success on a scale of one to 10 we all want level 10 success. And I realized that day my level of personal development which I I define that as kind of who we are physically, mentally, emotionally, you know, or knowledge or beliefs or confidence all of it. Mine was it like a two or three. And that I believe is the disconnect for most of our society, including all of your clients. If we want level 10 success, we have to dedicate time every day to developing our mental, physical, emotional and spiritual capacities to be a level 10 person. And only then does level 10 success. Do we earn it? Do we deserve it? does it become our operate, you know just how we operate. But it’s more important who we become, then it is what we’re out there doing every day and the grind. The irony is that who you become is far more important than what you do yet. It’s what you do that determines who you become. And so I ran home and I thought I’ve got to create a ritual. That is the most effective personal development ritual known demand wasn’t called the Miracle Morning. It involves six practices. And these are the six practices. And this came from me just googling what are the best personal development practices that the world’s most successful people do every day that I’m not doing? And I was looking for one by the way to be really clear, I was looking for the number one most effective personal development practice. And as I was searching, I kept coming across meditation, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading and journaling. And you know, all these successful people they swear by exercise or they swear by meditation, or in fact, Ray Dalio who’s a billionaire, one of the richest men in the world, he said, meditation is the number one key to his financial success. When I read that, I wrote it down like I’m struggling financially, this guy says meditation. I never thought of that way. But okay. And, and then as I’m looking at these six practices, and I’m going, which one should I do? The breakthrough came when I went, What if I did all of these? What if I woke up tomorrow? An hour earlier, which at that time, I didn’t believe I was a morning person. I didn’t know that I can do it. But I thought I don’t have time anywhere else in the day. I’m busy. I’m working right. I got an eye in the night. I’m not in a peak physical mental motions, and I’m tired. I’m drained. It’s got to be in the morning, but I have to get up an hour earlier.

And I got started to get optimistic and excited. I thought this could be the one thing that changes everything. I woke up the next morning An hour earlier at 5am, which felt crazy to me some years like, nobody deal for me, that was crazy. 5am I did all six of those practices, I was terrible at all of them. I was the worst meditator ever. And I’m like, clear your mind, I can’t even clear my mind, say clear mind what didn’t make any sense. I was terrible. But that was the day my entire life changed. Because I thought, wow, the way that I felt, my mental clarity, my motivation, my physical energy, my presence, at the end of that hour, of really, the, you know, the very low level of these of these practices, because I’ve done them. I thought, if I do this every day, it’s only a matter of time before my outer world reflects my inner world. And I had no idea how fast would happen, I was thinking, compound effect six to 12 months of this every day, chipping away sharpening the axe, I’ll get a little better, I’ll become a level two person, then a level three, then a level four, and level five, six, and eventually I’ll become a level you know, as I grow who I am as a person, my outer world success will parallel it. And I had no idea how fast would happen, it was less than two months that I more than doubled my income. I went from being in the worst shape of my life physically, had never run more than a mile. He did running to committing to run a 52 mile ultra marathon, which I completed five months later. And the way I did it is I put on Facebook, I’m going to run a 50 mile ultra marathon to raise money for this charity post. And then I was like, I’ve never run more than a mile. But I got but but after a couple of months of this, I got really like the Miracle Morning was addicting. And I thought who like that What better way to force myself to grow like rapidly, physically, mentally, emotionally, like my capacity, my beliefs, than to commit to run 50 miles and figure out how, you know, I knew it had been done. I had a friend that died. That’s what inspired me to do it. And so I did that. And then my depression that I was suffering, it went away the first day because depression they say is a result of not having a compelling future. Once you lose hope once you think it’s never going to get better. You get depressed, right? Or if you’re downward spiraling like Iowa’s it gets depressing, because you’re like, not only is it not getting better, it keeps getting worse and worse and worse. But the depression were the first day because I thought if I do this morning ritual every day, it’s only a matter of time. And because my life changed so fast, I start calling it my Miracle Morning. But that wasn’t a book title. It wasn’t gonna be something I shared with the world. It was just everyday at 5am Miracle Morning. And then Time went by I taught it to a coaching client, it changed her life. And today, over 200,000 people in 70 countries do the Miracle Morning, every single day. I the stories that come in anybody in the Miracle Morning community, the Facebook group already, is it isn’t it profound. I’ve never seen such an engaged online community. But people the stories come in of you know, I just went and spoke in four cities where most people were doing the Miracle Morning, and I had dozens of people come up to me crying, many of them shaking, saying how this saved my marriage. At a gentleman at a conference I was speaking at come up and he goes, he just starts crying. He goes, You gave me my son’s back. And they said, what do you what do you mean? And he had a falling out with his sons because of an affair with their mother when they were young. And they hadn’t spoken to him in like seven years. He read the Miracle Morning, it changed his life. So he found a way to through their mother to get them a copy of the book in hopes that it would help them. And they said, We read the Miracle Morning and we started doing it and we just do our affirmations in our daily meditation, we’ve realized that you made a mistake, and you deserve to be forgiven, and we can’t change it was part of it. So we’re going to accept it, we’re at peace, and we love you and want you back in our lives. So this whole Miracle Morning thing, like I said in the beginning, whether you’re worth $80 million,

anywhere in between rock bottom and 80 million net worth, it applies to you only if you fit in that category. Right? So So that’s it. But here’s the Miracle Morning 30 Day Challenge. And it’s what I want to close with, like I said, I want you guys to take action, I want us all to take action. And so and three simple thing. It’s also your you know, you’re probably very clear as health professionals as trainers, that the simpler something is and the clearer it is, the more likely someone is to do it right. There’s been a lot of research in science that proves the more we try to take on at one time, the less likely we are to even get started. And if we are getting started, the more we’re spreading our focus. And and we’re less effective in all the things that we’re doing. So real simple, wake up 30 minutes earlier. So this is the challenge. It starts tomorrow morning with your Miracle Morning. But it starts today with setting your alarm clock back 30 minutes, and it can be an hour. If you undo a full hour, that’s fine, but I’m keeping it simple 30 minutes for 30 days. So set your alarm clock back for 30 minutes and do one of the savers. You don’t have to do all of them. By the way. This is very common. I bet many of you probably are thinking this, which is,

Unknown Speaker
well, I’m gonna wait till I read the book,

Hal Elrod
like, because I want to, I want to really understand it all. And then I’ll get started, right? You know, we do that we’re like we our brain has done this where it looks for any reason to put it off and justify

Unknown Speaker
why that’s a

Hal Elrod
better, smarter, more responsible idea. So I’m saying, don’t do that your Miracle Morning, pick one of the savers. And if you have the book in your hands,

Unknown Speaker
and you go, Well, I haven’t read it yet,

Hal Elrod
I’m just going to do the are gonna wake up 30 minutes earlier, and I’m going to read. Now if you have trouble beating that snooze button, a little bonus tip, it’s one of five in the book, move the alarm clock as far across the room as you possibly can. Because the alarm goes off in the morning, and it’s within arm’s reach. I don’t care who you are, your level of willpower is the lowest it will ever be at any point in your day. In fact, how many of you turn off the alarm and not even realize you turn it off until you overslept, right? So when it’s across the room, you have to get up, walk over, and then I recommend turn it off and brush your teeth, wash your face and get your day started. Right. So that’s the the simple challenge. And then the third part is join the Miracle Morning community. And it’s a free Facebook group, totally optional. But there are 63,000 people from 70 countries in that group. And they’re so supportive. There’s so engaging, like we had a lady, not even Miracle Morning stuff. We had a lady the other day that joined and she was like my husband’s going in for surgery, she had just joined, like Can anybody please say Think positive thoughts or prayers, it’s a very serious surgery. And she had over 800 comments in a matter of like 24 hours from people in the community that didn’t know she was saying we’re praying for you is that a lot of positive energy going toward her husband going into surgery.

Unknown Speaker
So just for support, encouragement,

Unknown Speaker
joining the community is a cool idea. And I want to close with these thoughts. And you might want to write this down and share this with your clients when you’re when you’re getting them into action. The number one cause of unfulfilled potential is never deciding that now matters more than any other time in your life. Because it does. And you like that Robin Sharma quote in the beginning that one of the saddest things in life is to wake up one day and realize you could have been done had so much more, I believe this quote is the cause of that quote, right? It’s because we never decide that now is the most important day because there’s always tomorrow, there’s always the day after that, and we can always do things later. And again, even if you’re highly successful in a few areas of life, even if you’re to level 10 in your physical fitness or like I’m at a level 10 maybe finances are at a level 10 right? Well, even if you’re to level 10 in a few areas. I think that we owe it to the people that we love and the people that we lead to fulfill our potential in every single area of our lives, physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, relationally, spiritually, every area, striving to be a level 10 so that we can unconscionably give permission to other people to live the way that we live. So I invite all of you to start the Miracle Morning 30 Day Challenge. pick that one area of your life where you’re going to create that level 10 success, the life of your dreams, so to speak in that area, you can do more than one

Unknown Speaker
but again,

Hal Elrod
keeping it simple, 30 minutes 30 days, one savor one area of your life that you focus on accelerating your success so that you get to level 10 as fast as you possibly can. And I look forward to being a part of your journey. I look forward to connecting with you whether it’s in the Miracle Morning community, online or offline. I love and appreciate every single one of you and thank you for allowing me to share the Miracle Morning with you today. And thank you, Shawn, for bringing me on. I really appreciate it.

Unknown Speaker
Thank you. Thank you.

Sean Greeley
All right, thank you. House gonna be around for just a little bit and he’s taken off, but we’re gonna tighten up a little bit of the end of our day. Our next session is going to be 15 minutes, not 90 minutes. We’re going to hit hard some good stuff, all the VIPs and partners are going to be in here with me working on advanced

Transcribed by https://otter.ai