Hal Elrod’s "Miracle Morning": Why The First Few Steps Of The Day May Be The Most Important

Hal Elrod
Yeah, the Miracle Morning came about really organically. It was never an idea for a book. You know, it was never an idea for a movement for sure that was not even a word in my vocabulary. It happened that when I hit rock bottom in 2008, when the economy crashed, I crashed with it. And I went from having bought my first new house and started a new business that was doing really well to feeling overnight, it felt like it was overnight, but it was probably a six month kind of downward spiral where boss, over half of my income, couldn’t pay my bills, couldn’t pay my mortgage, body fat percentage tripled. It was really physical, mental and emotional. The lowest point in my life, I got deeply depressed. And what turned it around was advice from my friend Jon Burge off he said, You need to go for a run every morning and put yourself in a peak physical, mental and emotional state. And while you’re in that state, and on that run, listen to a self help audio, a business audio book, something relevant to whatever whatever area of your life you want to improve the most at that time. And I hated running and I was resistant and but he goes, What do you hate worse running or your life right now that you just told me about it? I was like, Alright, okay, yeah, I’ll go for a run. And I went for run the next day. And I heard a quote from Jim Rohn. He said, your level of success will seldom exceed your level of personal development. And that led me to realize that I needed to wake up early every morning, but not even early just earlier. Instead of waiting till the last minute hitting the snooze button, I needed to wake up a little bit earlier 30 to 60 minutes, and dedicate that time to as Jim Rohn addressed my personal development. So I could learn and become the person that I needed to be to create the success I wanted in my life. And he belong story short, I never I was thinking six to 12 months of this daily ritual could

shape who I was to improve my life. It was less than two months, I more than doubled. My income went from being in the worst shape of my life physically to committing to run a 52 mile ultra marathon when I wasn’t a runner, I hated running. But I thought just through the confidence, I was gaining the morning, I thought I can do anything. And my depression went away the very first day because immediately that first day I went, if I do this every single day, it’s only a matter of time, if I start every day with the Miracle Morning. And to be clear, it wasn’t called the Miracle Morning, back then there was no name. If I start every day with this morning ritual, it’s only a matter of time before I become the person that I need to be to turn my life around and create everything I’ve ever wanted for myself. And within two months, it did it so fast. I felt like a miracle. I started calling my Miracle Morning. And you know, the rest is history as they say. I mean, the biggest challenge I faced the initial one, when I was 20 years old, I was driving home from giving a speech and I was my car was hit head on by a drunk driver at 70 miles an hour. And the worst was yet to come. Actually, I spun off the drunk driver in the car behind me that was trailing just like three car lengths behind me at 70 miles an hour, my car spun in front of that car, that car crashed into my door at 70 miles an hour and crushed the left side of my body. I broke 11 bones instantly, and I bled to death I was clinically dead for six minutes in a coma for six days flatlined twice more in the coma, and was told I would never walk again. When I came out of the coma six days later, they said I would never walk again. And all these broken bones had brain damage. That was pretty significant. I had no short term memory. And I had to decide, you know, like when we face any adversity, so the big one for me, but how am I going to respond and I decided, you know what, I can’t change that I was in a car accident. But I can choose to be the most grateful, positive, proactive I’ve ever been in my life. And if there’s any time to do that, and dig deep shits, now you know, and so I did that. And within three weeks of the crash, the doctors came in with routine x rays, they said we don’t have to explain this, but your body’s healing. So quickly, we’re going to take your first step tomorrow. Now even me being optimistic, I was thinking this would be a year of healing before I would even consider walking and it was three weeks later that I was my wheelchair I was rolled in my wheelchair by my therapist, physical therapist into the into the therapy room and with parallel bars and stood up and took a few painful steps and, and then four weeks after that after walking every day, and I went from taking a few steps to walking 10 yards to walking up and down stairs, to the doctors releasing me into my parents care at 20 years old, back home from the hospital. And, you know, the rest once again, it’s kind of history, I decided that if I could overcome that, you know, I could overcome anything. And I did have a sense of responsibility in the hospital to share that the lessons that I had learned through overcoming this what would have been a horrific tragedy and really seeing what I can be grateful for and the positive in it in a way that the doctor thought was not not normal. They thought I was in denial because I was so happy. But it was genuine because I accepted what I couldn’t change. So I gave myself permission to be happy for what I had. And by doing that, you know, I thought I’ve got to share this with the world and and that wasn’t my mission in life kind of became How can I help other people, you know, do what I’ve done or or greater and that’s ever since it’s been you know, it’s been 16 17 years since that car accident and the Miracle Morning was in the middle of that, and and that the through line is kind of my purpose in life that drives me which is to selflessly add value to the lives of every person that I come in contact with. And that way it’s universal. So some days, that might just mean being nice and listening to somebody that’s having a bad day. Some days, it’s, you know, giving a speech or sharing my book, you know, and some days it’s, it’s playing with my kids, because that’s what adds value for them that day. So just that purpose of selflessly adding value, meaning selflessly in that not that I’m altruistic, I have my own goals and desires and selfish wants and dreams, but I want the purpose to be pure, so that I am selflessly adding value, meaning I’m not adding value when it’s convenient for me only, or I’m in the mood for it, or I have the energy if somebody needs me, or I think I could help them or serve them. And I don’t feel like it. I’m in a bad mood, the energy, I try to put myself aside and go, it’s not about me, how can I serve them?

Unknown Speaker
What do I need to do to muster up the energy

Hal Elrod
shift my attitude, whatever I’ve got to do to be of service to my family, my friends, my clients, my you know, humanity as a whole. And so the most valuable lesson I’ve learned, and there really, there’s two, I’ve got to kind of, I have to narrow down to two. And the first one is that every negative emotion that we’ve ever felt is self created. And that we have control if we are aware of that and understand how to overcome negative emotions, which generally overcome them, you just allow them to pass and it’s through the power of acceptance. I actually I implemented this during the car accident, but it was that when I read the book, The Power of Now by Eckhart totally where he explains that all negative emotions are self created by our non acceptance of whatever it is that we think is causing the negative emotion. So whether it’s sadness or anger, or fear or regret, or any any any negative emotion, frustration, once we choose to accept it, and the way that I do that is through two things, the five minute rule, which is give myself five minutes to feel upset. And then after the five minutes, I literally set the timer on my phone for five minutes, five minutes to bitch moan, complain, cry, whatever, five minutes is up, I take a deep breath, and I say three really powerful words, which are, can’t change it. And it doesn’t mean I can’t change the future means I can’t change what already happened, I can’t change the past. Therefore, as an intelligent human being once you realize that we create our own negative emotions, because we wish that things were different than they are, we wish and want them to be different. Once we choose to accept all things that we can’t change, whether it’s the traffic that we’re sitting in, or the loss of a loved one, we accept it, we find peace within when we’re at peace, we truly have space to be happy, or choose to be grateful or fulfilled. But if we resist, if we’re not willing to accept it, we we blame the thing, of course, I’m angry, look at what happened with what he did look at what she did, look what was said, Look at what was lost. And we think that it’s something outside of ourselves, that’s causing us emotional pain, we’re powerless, and our emotions control us. versus when you accept what you can’t change, you find a state of peace doesn’t mean you’re happy, you might be upset, you might you might not be happy that this thing happened. Because it might not be what you wanted. But happiness is an emotion over here, sadness is over here. We’ve all been there where you’re happy one minute phone call change that now you’re upset. But when you live in peace, it’s kind of like there’s happiness and sadness or you know, positive, negative emotion. And in the middle, there’s peace, and you achieve peace through acceptance. And when you’re at peace, it’s this rooted ever present unwavering state of being that allows you to be free from emotional pain. And then you can choose the emotion that best serves you or the situation. And then you can apply it. So for example, if my wife gets a cost, and I’m not an angry person, she gets accosted, though, and there’s a man right there that’s costing her anger might be the right emotion to use in that situation. So I’ll pull out anger and I’ll get I’ll get fired up, I’ll get angry. As soon as the situation is diffused. I won’t carry the anger with me, I’ll accept it can’t change what has happened, then I’ll look at my wife. And I think what emotion does she need from you right now? Or what emotional state Do I need to be in? So to best serve her? And then only through acceptance? Do I have the space and the freedom to choose the emotions that I’m going to experience? And then maybe I’ll be I’ll be able to get down with her grief or love or comfort or

Unknown Speaker
whatever it is. The same applies to my kids same place to

Hal Elrod
every situation every day. So I guess we can leave it at that. That’s the one the other one is the Miracle Morning. I mean, it is the idea. So the quick answer on the second key and it is a shorter answer doesn’t require as much explanation because that’s what more of a complex topic. It’s just the idea that we’ve got to dedicate time every day to our personal development, because who we become as far more important than what we do. yet. It’s what we do that determines who we become. So by dedicating time every day, ideally in the morning, to learn and grow and develop your mental, physical, emotional and spiritual capacities beyond where they’ve been, in order to achieve what we would call level 10 success on a scale of one to 10. We want level 10 in every area, health, fitness, happiness relationships, we’ve got to become a level 10 person. The way to do that is through personal development each day to develop your from wherever you are, in each area, every area is different, you know, you might be financially you might be at a level 10, right. And then in your relationship, maybe you’re to two, or maybe it’s the opposite, but each day developing yourself in the areas that matter most. So you can become the person that you need to be to create the most extraordinary life that you can imagine. It doesn’t happen overnight. But it does happen quickly when you focus on who you’re becoming, rather than just what you’re doing. And that is the one thing is that we have a limiting belief that says, I’m not a morning person, I had that limiting belief for many years. And when I wrote the Miracle Morning, my biggest fear was that such a strong limiting belief people had their entire lives, they’re a little kids, I don’t know that I who might have helped them overcome it. And that’s the most amazing thing is are the Miracle Morning community, serving them 72%. So they were never in their entire lives a morning person until they started doing the Miracle Morning. And then that it freed them up to realize that Wait, I can choose to wake up in the morning and I don’t have to resist it. So it’s a mindset shift from like, waking up so bad. I think it’s crazy that his alarm clock goes off, and you’re like, No, I don’t want you hit the snooze button. It’s literally resisting life itself. You’re like, I know, I say I want an amazing life. But

Unknown Speaker
as much as I want to lay here unconscious for nine more minutes, right?

Hal Elrod
It’s like, it’s crazy when you think about it. And I think when the alarm goes off, that’s life’s first gift. It’s also life first opportunity. But it’s also life first challenge. And to get any, take advantage of any amazing opportunity, or really take advantage of any amazing gifts, we’ve got to overcome the challenges that are in between. And when you move the alarm clock across the room, you decide I’m getting up not because I have to be up a little bit earlier, I want to because I want to dedicate time to my personal development so that I can become the person that I need to be to create the life that I want and also become the person that I need to be that my kids deserve, that my spouse deserves. That the people that I love the people that I lead every human being I ever touch, they deserve a level 10 me. But that doesn’t happen by accident doesn’t happen by just doing the same thing every single day. It happens by doing something different, being different, so that we can create a different life being better as human beings better version of herself, so that we can create the life that we really want. And that we want for the people around us. You know, it’s there’s not a single mentor that has been my biggest influence, I guess I can take you know, I can I can attribute a couple, my family. My mom and dad specifically, you know, they’re they were a huge influence on me. They’re very positive people. They were entrepreneurs at a young age, they encouraged me to start my own business when I was 15 as a mobile disc jockey. And so that they really shaped a lot of, you know, my ambition and the idea that you don’t have to just follow the path of everybody else, you can kind of carve your own path, and then also overcoming adversity. When I was eight years old, my sister died. She was a year and a half and I woke up one morning at eight years old, it was me and my mom and my baby sister at home. My dad was at work, my sister was at a friend’s house. I woke up to my mother screaming, oh my baby, my baby, my baby. And as in a fog waking up, I thought, Oh, she’s playing with Amery.

Unknown Speaker
My sister, Anne Marie, she’s playing

Hal Elrod
with her. And then I quickly realized they was the were her riff, the tone of my mom’s voice was was horrific. It was terrified, ran across the hall, my sister was dead in her arms a year and a half. And within, you know, obviously was most difficult time my parents lives, maybe next to seeing me in my car. So then I don’t know. But at that time, you know that losing your youngest child, I mean, is just terrible. And my parents grieved, and there’s a lot of crying. But within a matter of months, I think was about six months, my mother founded a support group for parents that had lost children whose children had died. And even though I didn’t, I actually didn’t, wasn’t aware that this happened until much later in life after my car accident, when I reflected back on my life, and I went, Wow, that subconsciously made an impact on me to see that you can take an adversity. And the way you turn it into an advantage is you accept it as quickly as it’s healthy for you. And then you focus on how you can use that adversity that you’ve overcome, and you’ve dealt with in a positive way to help other people. And I was like, wow, mom and dad taught me I did that. That’s what I did, you know, and I really learned it from him. It also taught me as a parent, that how we live our lives is always programming other every other person that ever is a part of our life, the way we live our lives is unconsciously giving them permission to do the exact same thing. And I think that’s a responsibility and a power that we can never take lightly. And I think that’s why we owe it to the people around us to live to our full potential so that we can give them permission unconsciously to do the same and give them the the inspiration and the belief that it is possible for them. The next biggest influence on my life was my mentor, Jesse when I was 19 years old, I started a career in sales. He was my manager. Luckily, he was the number one manager in the country so he was you know, he had a he had the right mindset. And he saw in me that I could break the all time company record that my first 10 days in Cutco It was a 50 year old company 49 years at the time that he thought you could how you could break the record. And that’s how my life 19 I was a mediocre student. I didn’t get good grades. I wasn’t an athlete, I wasn’t popular, like I had never done. I had never achieved anything at a high level. And Jesse saw in me something that I didn’t see in myself. And I mean, that’s the importance of having a mentor. he mentored me, I talked to him. During those 10 days, my first day, I went over three sold nothing called him to quit, call him on my tail between my legs humiliated because I talked to the game. Yeah, I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna break the record. Jesse. I’m speechless right now. I sold nothing. I’m so sorry, I let you down. I won’t, I won’t waste your time anymore. I’m done. And he said, how there’s one of two ways you can respond right now, buddy. He said, you can do what your emotions are telling you to do, which is give up that you feel you feel like quitting right now. Right? Yeah, if I felt worse ever felt my life. And he said, That’s option one. Option two is you can do the only thing that a successful person would do. He said, How do you know? I know the answer is rhetorical. But I’d like you to consider it and you can answer it. Do you want to be a successful person in your life? Of course, I said, Yeah, I do. And he said, a successful person would accept how the day went, they can’t change it, right. I mean, I’m learning these things from him. And, and he said, and you realize that this is a numbers game, life is a numbers game, some days are terrible. Some days are amazing. Most days, you’re just kind of somewhere in the middle kind of average, today was a bad day for you. Tomorrow might be an average day, it might be another bad day might be a great day, the Great Day is coming, either whether it’s tomorrow, or the next day, it’s right around the corner. But you won’t know that unless you keep moving toward your goal. He said, If I were you, if you want to be successful, get on the phone, make the calls, we’re going to make the we’re planning on making before you over three today. And let’s see what happens tomorrow. And the next day I went seven for 10. I sold $2,768. And you know, eight days after that I broke the all time 50 year old company record. And I didn’t do it with you know, I did 60 to 90 minute sales presentations in 10 days. If you do the math, that’s, you know, nine hours a day of presentations. Let’s try like 12 hour workdays every day, like

I just I had the thing that we all have available to us, which is work ethic moving forward, overcoming obstacles, right. And, you know, and so I mean that having a mentor is crucial. If it wasn’t for Jesse, I would not have overcome that I would have gone back to being mediocre, like I had been my entire life. Because sometimes we have to believe in the belief that someone else has in us until our belief catches up. And that’s what happened for me with my mentor. And I think everyone needs a mentor if they want to fulfill their potential. So what’s next for me is it’s not even about me anymore. It’s this The Miracle Morning, started out as my morning ritual, decided to make it a book. And it is grown into this global movement. That is, it’s really elevating the consciousness of humanity one morning at a time. And we had an event A few months ago, where we brought in 200 of the world’s most dedicated Miracle Morning practitioners from around the world. And they came there not to not for what they could get out of the event. They came there knowing they were going to work and contribute. And the idea was how do we change the world? One Miracle Morning at a time? How can we literally, practically impact not millions, but billions of lives with the Miracle Morning, and then they so I was tapping into the collective genius of the community. It wasn’t me saying, here’s my vision. And that’s the thing is right. We most CEOs, whatever it’s like, their vision is their vision, and maybe it’s shared with the executive board. But for us, we went we want our community. There’s so much wisdom and brilliance in all of these people. How can we tap into the bridge the wisdom of 200, miracle practitioners versus one. And the idea is they came up with blew my mind. They’re talking about how we would end bullying, because they want to get Miracle Morning and every high school in America in the world, every school in the world, every school in the world. They said how can you beat up the kid that you meditated with in the morning, that you heard his affirmations where he shared his deepest heart’s desires with you and what he’s struggling with? And he’s being vulnerable? He’s working on? Yeah, you pick on that kid, you know, and if he will talk about how it could in the divorce rate, if we get couples doing the Miracle Morning, these people in the room are saying this saved our marriage, it saved our marriage. So So as far as what’s next with the Miracle Morning, it really is it’s continuing to tap into the wisdom of the community, and to tap into the generosity of the community to actually they’re so passionate because of the miracle wanting to change their life that they are. They’re committed to sharing it with other people. And that’s how this movement is really spreading. We’re now in 70 countries it is translated into 24 languages. We’re creating a documentary The Miracle Morning movie, where we’re interviewing world class successful individuals about their morning rituals from Robert Kiyosaki, author of rich dad poor dad to Robin Sharma to Arianna Huffington founder of Huffington Post to Marcy gray, john gray, Mark, women are from Mars, women are from Mars, women are from Venus. All right, Mars is shine off happy for and really all these brilliant people, but then we’re going to every day, folks, and we’re finding some amazing transformational stories from people who have, you know, won the the business director of CNN, lost his four month old son went into a deep depression, read every book on grieving that was given to him, none of them worked, read the Miracle Morning, got him out of his depression, he lost all the weight he had gained, followed a dream of starting a business. And so we’re sharing his story, as well as many others in the Miracle Morning film. So again, it’s a loaded answer. But I mean, there’s so many things going on within the movement. But the the purpose is the same is how to equip it’s all around the question, how do we elevate the consciousness of humanity? One Miracle Morning at a time. And I feel like if in this is a lesson for all of us in life is don’t look for and don’t look for an answer. Don’t look for just a mission statement or a purpose. Always live by a question or questions. Because when you come with an answer, and you live by the answer, you limit your creativity, you limit your resourcefulness. But instead of having an answer that you’re focused on living by have a question that you’re focused on living by, how can I grow every day? How can I improve today? How can I be a better leader? a better parent? How can I? How can I elevate the consciousness of humanity? How can I serve? When we live by questions, we tap into our own wisdom and our own resourcefulness. And it can grow every day. And we’ll tap in and, and attract new answers that we wouldn’t find if we were just focused on an answer or a statement or a mission or a purpose, frame it as a question so that we continue to grow and evolve and bring out the best in ourselves and the best of the people around us. So if you’re a fitness professional, the answer I would give you on how to take your business to the next level is really the same as I would give any professional. And the idea is that if you want to take your business to the next level, you have to first take yourself to the next level. Now what makes it different if you’re a fitness professional is you filter fitness professional successes as a professional in your industry, through your personal development. So I’d be reading books on building my business, right I mean, or books on, on how to be more effective in learning the latest cutting edge science around the practices that I’m teaching to my clients, great book, if you’re a fitness professionals Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port. That’s the book that I read that allowed me to go from losing half my coaching clients to more than doubling my coaching clients by having a simple system in place in PE is obviously one of if not the leading organization for fitness professionals to grow your business. So tap into the resources that MP has available to you tap into the resources that you know Sean Greeley and his team are providing and that are proven right there’s, I mean, look at the fitness professionals, the NPA has already created an amazing success for or I should say, has empowered to create amazing success for themselves. Look no further than that. And you’ll see that the answer you know, if you’re watching this video, if you if you if you are familiar with MP, if you’re already a member, right, stay focused, stay committed dive deeper into MP and the personal development and the professional development they provide and the resources that they provide. Right don’t that’s one thing mistake we make is we try to look everywhere, you know, we spread our focus too thin when it comes to personal development, we become personal development junkies, we’ve all been there, where you go to all these events, the seminars, you read all these books, you don’t implement the books, you’ve got binders for more seminar, I’ve been there before you have more binders on your shelf than you can your room for you’ve never looked at any of them again after you left the event. So pick one event. So for me, I chose one mastermind that is specific to my industry. And I committed to it for three years. Right and that’s right now I’m in year two. And this is the second I did one for three years, moved on to another so I committed to the highest level. And I’ll just say it’s a $25,000 a year mastermind, which is out of my comfort zone. But I committed to it because I realized that if I only did it for one year, I just be scratching the surface, I’d be scratching the surface on what I was gaining from it what I was learning, but also the relationship that I was developing. You know, it takes time to build relationships, it’s time to really master knowledge. It’s one thing to learn something, it’s another thing to master it. And I think that’s what MP offers as they offer so many resources, so much so much personal professional development, that you can go deep and if you want to achieve amazing results, you’ve got to go deeper down one path, focus on quality over quantity.

And I think that’s what NP offers for all of its clients.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai