Change Your Brain Every Day - Hal Elrod Died for 6 Minutes. What He Learned About Post-Traumatic Growth Will Change How You See Adversity

Episode Date: July 27, 2026

Hal Elrod survived a devastating car accident that left him clinically dead for six minutes and facing a future doctors thought he'd never recover from. Instead of allowing trauma to define him, he transformed it into extraordinary personal growth.   In this conversation, Hal shares the mindset shifts, daily practices, and life-changing lessons that helped him move beyond survival and into post-traumatic growth. You'll discover how to find purpose after hardship, build resilience in the face of uncertainty, and use life's darkest moments as a catalyst for becoming your best self.   In this episode:   Hal's near-death experience and miraculous recovery The science and psychology of post-traumatic growth How trauma can become a turning point instead of an ending Practical tools for resilience, healing, and mental strength Why your greatest challenge may hold your greatest opportunity   If you've ever experienced loss, adversity, or a life-changing setback, this episode offers hope and a roadmap for what's possible on the other side.   For clinical help: www.amenclinics.com For more on Hal: https://halelrod.com/

A week after I came out of the coma, the doctors called my parents in, and they said, okay, Hal's stable. He's going to be with us for a long time. However, we believe he's either delusional or in denial because he's so happy and smiling and laughing and telling us jokes. That's not normal for a 20-year-old that's been hit by a drunk driver. And they said, we need you to get to the bottom, find out how he's really feeling. And my dad came in and said, hey, the doctors are concerned that you're not accepting what happened to you. The irony is they were 180 degrees wrong. Hal Elrod is a motivational speaker and best-selling author.

Best known for creating the Miracle Morning book series and routine. He shares how he overcame being found dead at the scene of a car accident and later battling aggressive cancer. So walk people through how to do this. So three steps that I practice. Step one, affirm what you're committed to. In life, you don't get what you want because you want it. Step two, affirm why it's a must for you. Get really clear on the reasons that are so important, so meaningful, so compelling.

And the third step of the affirmations formula that I teach in the book is, Every day you are making your brain better or you are making it worse. Stay with us to learn. how you can change your brain for the better every day. One of the most important lessons I've learned after helping thousands of people is that when you support your brain, you often feel the difference in your life. I love hearing stories like this one.

Happy Saffron Plus has given me the peace I've been looking for. I can't say enough about it. It has truly been a godsend. Stories like that remind me why I'm so passionate about helping people care for their brains. Visit BrainMD.com and use code podcast 20 for 20% off. Better brain, better life. You're going to be blessed today. We have Hell, Elrod, with us, and he has lived a life that would break most people, literally.

Yet he found a way to turn all of his adversities into perspectives and practices that have helped millions of people transform their lives. At eight years old, his baby sister died in front of him. At 20, a drunk driver hit his car head on at 70 miles per hour, and he was found dead at the scene. At 37, as the father of two young children, he was diagnosed with the rare, aggressive form of cancer and given a 30% chance of surviving. Now, he is an international keynote speaker and best-selling author of 12 books, including The Miracle Morning, which has been translated into 42 languages and sold over 3 million copies. Wow. Welcome. Thank you so much.

And I listened to the talk you did for Dave Asprey's conference. And I'm like, we should scan him. Yeah, I thought, you know, it's actually, I have your book. I reread it before this interview, but I read it years ago after I had cancer. And yeah, and it was like it was on my goal, get a scan. And it just, I never, it didn't follow through. The brain damage got in the way of me getting the scan I needed. You know, it's amazing that you've been through all that.

And you're just, you live the life that you live. And that's just such a testament to what you preach. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. So how did you do it? I mean, that's what people want to know because so many things that are not as bad. Yeah.

Break them. Yeah. So it's interesting. If I really look back, a couple things. My mom and dad, when my sister passed away at eight years old, I woke up one morning. My mom was screaming. I ran across the hall. I found my baby sister, Amory on the bed.

and mom performing CPR. And that morning she passed away. My parents, of course, were devastated. Within six months, though, my mom started a support group for other parents who had lost children, and she led that every month for over a decade. My dad started an annual fundraiser for the hospital that cared for my sister before she died, and we led that as a family for over a decade. So the seed was planted when I was young that you find purpose in your pain,

and you use to help other people, and then that gives you new life and fulfillment. and so on and so forth. So you fast forward 12 years after my baby sister passed away, I wake up from a coma and I'm told I'm never going to walk again. And I had permanent brain damage, you know, head on at 70 miles an hour. Second vehicle hit me, teabone me in the door at 70 miles per hour. So I was hit twice. And thankfully, a year and a half before my car accident, I had started a career in sales selling Cutco cutco, cutlery, in-home presentations, never in a million years. I was a radio DJ. You love Cutco? I love it. Everybody else got to go.

But I learned something in my techno sales training called the five-minute rule. And it was taught to me to handle adversity very quickly. It was when things go wrong, my manager, my mentor, Jesse said, you're going to experience a lot of adversity in selling. You're going to, you know, rejection and disappointment and failure and, you know, on and on. He said the five-minute rule states you set your timer for five minutes and you give yourself five minutes to fully feel and express your emotions. Get angry, get upset, feel like a victim, complain, cry. but he said when the timer goes off after five minutes,

you say three very liberating words, which are can't change it. And you acknowledge, I can't change what happened five minutes ago, so I have a choice. I can either dwell in the past, wish it were different, waste my life,

or I can accept reality exactly as it is and focus all my energy on, okay, what can I do now? I can get on the phone, I can make more calls. So I had practiced that for a year and a half, and it literally rewired my brain, which is like, I don't waste my energy

on wishing I could change things that are out of my control. So you fast forward a year and a half, And it's like God works in a mysterious ways in terms of had I not learned that, I come out of the coma. And I'm like, oh, this is a five-minute rule thing. Like, I can't change that I was in a car accident. I can't change that I broke 11 bones. And if the doctors are right and I'm in a wheelchair the rest of my life and that becomes my reality and I can't change it.

The only choice I have is to accept it, be at peace, choose to be grateful, happy, and move on. And that was kind of response. Are you telling me you did the five-minute rule? I am glad you said that because it took, it was the five-day rule. I gave myself a little bit more. more grace. I'm like, because I had to process a lot. I'm like, wait, what's dating like? That was my unit that I worked on and I'm like, if you did the five-minute rule in that but it was, I mean, it was so quickly that a week after I came out of the coma, the doctors called my

parents in for like a meeting and they sat them down and they said, okay, Hal's, you know, he's stable. Because I'd flatline twice more. Like it was very, you know, it was very touch and go and my parents were scared of losing me. They said, Hal's stable. He's going to be with us for a long time. However, we believe he's either delusional or in denial. he's so happy and smiling and laughing and telling us jokes to make Gus laugh. That's not normal for a 20-year-old that's going to hit by a drunk driver. And they said, we need you to get to the bottom, find out how he's really feeling. And my dad came in and sat down and said, hey, the doctors are concerned that you're not accepting

what happened to you. And he explained, you know, a little more. And the irony is they were literally 180 degrees wrong. I had accepted complete. I'm like, why can't change it, dad? What's the point of me feeling sad, scared, angry, and depressed that the doctors say I should feel? That's not going to do anything. That's wild. Do you know, when I was a nurse and that's the unit I worked on, we would have put you on suicide watch probably because we would have thought, okay, this isn't a normal reaction. What is he trying to not tell us? And that would have been, we would have been suspicious of that, most likely. And they were. I mean, depending on your behavior, but that's so impressive and so, so incredible. I can see why people want to harness this.

Yeah. But it's really embodying the five-minute rule. Or what our friend bar. and Katie says argue with reality, welcome to hell. Yeah. And you had been practicing it without knowing it. Without. And it really was when I read The Power of Now by Eckhart told me like five years later. And he, right, in that book he explains the source of all of our suffering is resistance. It's resisting reality and wishing you could change something you can't change.

And the five minute rule was just this super practical way of doing that. Of like, right, oh, something happens. I give myself five minutes to get upset about. it and then I accept reality and I move on. And again, a year and a half, you know, if I would have learned the five minute rule, then have the car accident, it wouldn't have worked. I don't think. You've been doing it. Yeah, it was good. It was repetition. Totally. Yeah. Because we do our habits. Yeah. We don't do what we think we should do. We do our habits. Um, okay. Keep going. Wow, that's amazing. I mean, so that's, that's it. So the doctor, well, that's not it.

but the doctors thought I was in denial, delusional. You know, I said, dad, and I told my dad, I said, dad, remember I live by the five-minute rule? And he said, remind me what that is again? And I remember I teased him. I said, dad, you and mom would be so much happier if you just listen to me. I've told you guys this so many times. And I re-explained it to him. And he went back to the doctors and I think they thought I was even more delusioned.

They were like, yeah, we're not buying it, right? But a week later. So that was that conversation, so in a coma for six days, right? right around a week. A week later, my dad and I have this conversation after the doctors, you know, told him that they thought I was not accepting reality. One week after that, so three weeks after I was found dead at the scene, I broke 11 bones, the doctors came in with routine x-rays. And I don't have a, I don't have a graph that shows my inner healing in conjunction with the mindset. I just have a picture of this, which is that morning,

they said, Hal, we don't have to explain this. Your body is healing so fast. Because I believe that. We're going to let you take your first step today. Yeah. Wild. Three weeks after the crash, I have a picture of me taking my first. step. And even as an optimist, I was like, give me a year. Like one year from now, I'm going to walk again. Not two weeks after I came out of the coma, but that's what happened. But I do believe your mindset really does change the trajectory of healing. Yeah. I mean, significantly. Did you cross when that time you were? I don't remember. Yeah, because I've been asked that a lot and the brain damage that I,

right, like the 70 mile an hour head on is basically the brain hit my front of my skull at 70 miles an hour and my frontal lobe was just destroyed. And so I don't. recall there was the time that I was there's basically two weeks of my life that I have zero memory of and it's my last memory is getting on the freeway my first memory is about a week like that conversation with my dad basically is the first memory and when you said it killed your frontal lobes do you actually know that they did an MRI and that part of your brain is missing that's what they told me it's smashed we do a functional study called spec and spec looks at blood flow and activity yeah and the question is yeah or is it sleeping? Because you just seem to have so much insight to me. And so, right? He's very thoughtful.

So to me, that doesn't sound like, it sounds like your frontal lobes work pretty well. We've done a number of people who it killed their frontal lobes. And you can sort of tell, tell it in their daily lives. So I wonder how much healing has happened. But with all these things that happened, which of the experience most profoundly reshaped you? I mean, I think that was the first experience where I went.

What else is possible? Like, you know, and I'm not going to listen to the, like, the odds of other people, right? Doctors, for example, like your statistic, your odds. I remember actually telling my dad, I said, dad, I think it was the same conversation. I said, dad, the doctors might be experts in medicine, but they're not experts in me. Like, they don't know what I'm capable of. I don't know what I'm capable of. You know what MD stands for there, right?

Minor deity. And it's like so many of my patients, they didn't follow what the doctor said they were going to do. And I have signed all of my books over the years when signing books for 35 years with hope. Because that's what I believe. You're not stuck with the brain you have. You can make it better. Well, and I won't, we might go into this later, but 17 years after the car accident, I was diagnosed with a very rare aggressive form of cancer, acute lymphoblastic leukemia,

and I was given a 20 to 30 percent chance of surviving. Now, what I told my wife, and my wife is a very logical person, right? She's very, like, left brain. And like, my husband's dead. Like, I'm, you know, like the, 70 to 80 percent chance he's going to die. So that's where she was terrified. And a couple days after I was diagnosed, we were talking about it. And I said, sweetheart, I want to reframe this for you.

This is how I've reframed it for me. And I want to reframe it for you. I say, no, you're hyper-focused on the statistic. You're scared. I said, here's the way that I'm looking at it. That is a global statistic based on every person that's ever been diagnosed with cancer, including those that live in fear, those that give up hope, as you said, on those that eat unhealthy, right?

I said, I'm not going to do any of the bad stuff. I said, I will, so here's the way I look at it. I will do everything that the 20 to 30% that survived, everything that they did and infinitely more. So therefore, there's a 100% chance that all be among the 20 to 30% of those that survive it. And that was the mindset. So it's like I have 100% survival rate, period. Yeah, that's brilliant.

Yeah. I love that. I was just, I'm having so much fun with this. This is so great. This is so good. It's so contagious. I appreciate you. Thank you.

So how do you help others catch this? So in between those two catastrophic events, right, the car. accident and the cancer was the 2008 financial crash. And this is when most people relate a lot more to. They're like, oh, yeah, because everybody. Whenever I'm giving a speech, I always go, how many were around during that time? Yeah, of course, yeah. But in 2008, I had just.

And then you got depressed because I remember you talking about that, which is so interesting. So I'm human. Yes. So in fact, there was a mild depression in 2008 and then a really bad one, which we can talk about after the three years of chemo, which I think was a chemically induced. Of my brain, just chemo brain, if they call it. But in 2008, I learned that there's a fine line between optimism and delusion, right? And I cross it often.

So, for example, in 2008, people are you watching the new? Everyone's scared of the economy. And I go, I'm like, I'm not afraid at all. I create my own economy. My positive thinking didn't change reality. And I had hit Hall of Fame with Cutco. So I was coaching salesful. That was like what I was qualified to do.

And within six months, I lost over. half of my clients because the economy affected their business. They couldn't pay me. It's like, you know, cause and effect. And I went, I got depressed. I got scared because I applied every, you know, I accepted it. I was at peace, but it's like I can only be at peace and accept it. Then I lose another client.

Then we foreclose on my house. So my wife and I are drowning in debt. We're scared. I'm depressed. I don't know what to do. And a series of events led me to, I called my good friend John. I was like, John, I'm struggling, man. What do I do?

He said, listen to this Jim Rohn audio. I go, well, tell me, make more money. And he goes, no, no, no, no, teach you to think about things. I'm like, no, I need money. I don't need to think about anything. And so I listened to Jeremy and audio and Jim said one thing that landed differently than anything I had heard before. And it was the catalyst for the miracle morning and my life's work.

He said, your level of success will seldom exceed your level of personal development. And the way that I quantified, like, it helped to quantify it. I go, okay, wait. So on a scale of one to ten, what level of success do I want? On a scale of one to ten, where's my level of personal development? And the answer to the first question, I think for all of us is 10. I don't know anyone that's like, well, I don't want to be too wealthy or too happy or two, right? Everyone wants level 10 success.

But if my level of success will not exceed my level of personal development, the next question was, what's my level of personal development, which started with a Google search? What exactly is personal development? It's kind of a vague topic. And the way I define it now, it's, you can assess that by looking at what are your daily rituals and routines that are developing you into a better version of who you were the day before, your mindset. Your brain, your habits, your skills. So basically are you continually growing? Yeah. Yeah. Learning, growing, evolving, right?

Improving. And so when I assessed that for me, it's like, yes, I want level 10 success. My level of personal development is like at a two. Like, maybe a three on a good day. And I think this is the disconnect. And you're probably more than most. Yeah. And I would be reading here or there.

I would journal a little bit and then I would put it over. You know what I mean? Like I wasn't really dialed in. And part of it is I had to achieve a level success where you're like, I don't need to do all that stuff. I'm doing okay, right? See, Cruz. And so the epiphany or the, I've got to figure out what the world's most successful people do for personal development.

And I've got to do that. And I went looking for one practice. I couldn't find one. I found six. It was meditation, affirmations, visualization, exercise reading, and journaling. And I'm like, which one's the best? And there's not a clear answer to that. It depends on who you ask.

And the real epiphany was, what if I did all of them? What if I woke up tomorrow, even though it wasn't a morning person, just a little bit earlier. And I did the six most timeless proven personal development practices. that the world's most successful people across all walks of life have sworn by for centuries. I thought that would accelerate my level of personal development. And to put a bow on the story, it was, I was thinking kind of like the walking again, give me a year.

Like one year from now, if I do this, I woke up the next morning, I did the practice. It wasn't good at it, but it was like, this is it. If I do this every day, it's only a matter of time. Within two months, I more than doubled my income. I went from being in the worst shape of my life physically because I had canceled the gym membership. I was eating terribly. I was, you know, no good habits to committing to run a 52-mile ultramarathon because I hate running. And I thought, what better way to challenge myself to grow?

And my depression went away day one because it was like, oh, this is the purpose. Now I have purpose. Now I have hope. Now I have a thing. This is going to work. And it happened so fast. I went to my wife. I said, sweetheart, in two months since I started the morning routine, we've doubled our income.

It feels like a miracle. And my wife's the one that said, it's your miracle morning. I go, love that. Miracle Morning. And I'm like, so I have a question. Do you think in that process, you changed your identity?

Because I'm really big on, like identity has a lot to do with this. I think all of these are identity. Right. Like when I, when I overcame the car accident, my identity, it was like,

oh, I did something. The doctor said I couldn't. Like, whoa, I'm empowered. What else could I do? So it's an identity thing. Totally. And then this,

this was for sure. It was the identity started this. That was the weird part is my identity was like, ever since I was 19 years old until this was like 29. For a decade was like, I can create my own success. I'm sales. I have agency over my life.

And then in 2008, it was like, so somehow you bought into it. Before you didn't buy into it. And you saw yourself as like refusing to accept that. And then suddenly your identity shifted a little bit. It was like it was chipped away, right? Over those six months, like day by day losing client by client, having calls that used to work where I would get a client and then like, oh, they said no.

And then they said no. And then they said no. And then it's like, you know. And so you ended up buying into that story. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. And Miracle Morning was like.

oh, I'm in control of how I start my day, who I become, and therefore the results that I create. And because within two months it happened so fast, I started telling my coaching clients, and most of them were resistant. Like, I'm not a morning personality. No, neither was I. Like, I've got like five tricks on how to beat the snooze button. And then when all of my clients came back and said, hey, that miracle morning, it worked for me. That's when the light ball was like, oh, if this worked for me, the miracle morning

worked for me, I wasn't a morning person. And it worked for my clients. And most of them weren't morning people. this could work for anyone. And that's when I was like, I've got to, like, I'm not a great writer, but I should try writing a book. And it took three years. I self-published it. No one knew who I was.

And then I just kept sharing it and sharing it and sharing it and sharing it. And six years later, it had reached a million people and, you know, the rest of this history. I love this. So so much of what you talk about are things that I know they make a difference in my life. And right, I get busy. I get away from him. And he, he's the first one to point out, like, I'm crankier. I'm not as, you know, it affects you.

When you do it, it works. When you don't do it, it doesn't work. It's like exercise. So walk people through how to do this. What's the routine? Yeah. Because everybody goes, I don't have time. Yeah.

And I'm like, it'll save you time. Yeah. Yep. So the routine is broken into an acronym called savers. S-A-V-E-R-S. That stands for silence, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing, which is a fancy word for journaling, but the J would have made the acronym very awkward.

And honestly, I mean, it's a funny, quick story, but when I was writing the book, I was like, none of these are new practices, meditation. These are all age-old practices? I was like, how am I going to make these anything worth, like, doing things? How are you going to remember them, organize them? You know, Robert Tiosaki's got the cash flow quadrant and Stephen Covey's got the seven habits. I'm like, I don't have anything here. And my wife's the one that said, why didn't you get a thesaurus?

and see if you can find synonyms and figure out an acronym. And when I was like, and really quickly, meditation became silence. The rest affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, say the same. And then journaling became scribing. And then when it said savers, I go, it really felt like, oh, like the light shone down. I'm like, these are saving, these saved my life. This is that's like, so that is the acronym. And silence, I actually like it over meditation because some people, it's prayer.

Some people, it's breath. Some people, it's just setting the timer for five minutes and going, I have five minutes of silence. But our life used to be filled with those moments. And the smartphone has robbed us of that. Now, that's the vacuum that sucks. Oh, I got a break right to the phone where it used to be, just thinking and feeling and imagining. So true. Yeah. So. Small changes can create meaningful results over time. One happy saffron plus customer shared, I've been taking it for about four months and feel less stressed, more calm, and better able to shift negative thoughts into positive ones. It's still a practice, but this supplement has been a great support. That's exactly the kind

of progress I love to see because lasting change happens. one healthy choice at a time. Visit BrainMD.com and use code podcast 20 for 20% off. So many things going through my head. I know. The neuroscience. I'm working on a new book on the neuroscience of the Lord's Prayer. Really?

And we've studied meditation with imaging. I'm friends with Andy Newberg, who I won't God, go away. studied Tibetan monks and Franciscan nuns and how prayer and meditation actually turn off that self-referential part of you that punishes you. And you saw in the biohacking. I actually presented prayer as one of the oldest biohacks in that speech. Yeah, because there is science that shows that right. Then you talked about breathing every morning and I put my feet up on a little box, lay on the floor. and do five minutes of diaphragmatic breathing,

just because it's fun for me. It jumps up my heart rate variability, which is a sign of heart health. And I like the little biofeedback piece to that. But the phones are dopamine destroyers. Yeah. Yeah. And they're very effective at stealing your mind and stealing your attention.

So what's the resistance? people have. And then I work with a number of NBA players and visualization, alter ego development, affirmations. They're just so helpful. Yeah. And they have a bad rap. And yeah,

I do want to get into that, especially affirmations of visualization because those have, so affirmations have a very bad rap, right, which is like, I'm a money magnet. You know what I mean? It's like, it's delusional, goofy affirmations, right?

Or like a well-meaning, self-help guru has taught us to, if you want to be wealthy, just put the word wealthy after the words, I am, right? I am wealthy. But if you're broke, if you're struggling financially, you're creating a cognitive dissonance and an inner conflict of, I am wealthy. And then you're looking at your phone, you're on your bank balance. You're like, it's not working. I'm still poor. So affirmations have to be rooted in truth. And then visualization, we're taught to just like, you know, make a vision board or visualize the end result. But that, and you can explain the science, but it tricks your brain into thinking that it's a foregone conclusion.

Like, I visualize it every day. I know it's going to happen. It's like, okay, but do you mentally rehearse yourself doing the things that are necessary today to make it happen? It's like, no, I just have a vision board and I visualize. It's like, no, no, NBA players mentally rehearse doing the thing that they need to do in a peak state and even handling the adversity when things aren't going to go their way in the game. What am I going to, how am I going to respond when we're down and I'm not at my best? And I've missed seven shots in a row.

How am I then going? So it's that mental rehearsal that's the most important part of the visualization, although I skipped ahead to your question, the resistance. The first, I think, is the obvious one, which is I'm not a morning person. In fact, when I, I wasn't a morning person. And what got me to try it, day one was one of my former mentors, Kevin Bracey, I guess I'll be a lifelong mentor, but he said it's so simple. He said, if you want your life to be different, you actually have to be willing to do something different first. Right? And very rarely, like as simple as that sounds.

But it was when I looked at the schedule, I'm like, I can't, I can't wake up early. I'm not a morning person. It was like, Kevin, if you want your life to be different, you have to do something to a different person. It's a little lie you told yourself. I'm not a morning person. That's a little lie. Well, and actually, I'll explain or my theory on why that is.

Whenever I mention the word brain, I always like, oh, I don't, I don't know what I'm talking about relative to Daniel. But it's, you think about this. When we were growing up, accountability was forced on us. by our parents to get out of bed at a certain hour and had given the choice. But we didn't know it. Oh, yeah. We would not have gotten out of it.

We slept this long and get, we got to get ready for school. Get out of bed. But you think about it, because it was forced upon us as children, while our brain was developing, re-resisted and resented the act of being woken up at any, you know, early hour. And then that lasts our entire life. It keeps developing over time. And whenever we're given the chance where nobody's holding us count like out of bed, it's like, I'm sleeping in as long as humanly.

possible. Then we leave, and this was for me, I went off to college. I'm like, I'm going to stay up till 5 o'clock in the morning, playing video games, schedule my classes at like 11, the latest possible time, right? And so I think it's like somewhat of a downward spiral into losing, you know, discipline and accountability and so on. And so I think that's why most of us resist waking up early. But if you study the world's most successful people, most of them start the day with intention, whatever the time is. Miracle morning, you don't have to get up at 5 a.m. you can wake up at six or so. So whenever you wake up, it's just starting your day, not earlier, but better.

So that's the first resistance is like, I'm not a morning person. And we have millions of people around the world that do the miracle morning. We survey our community every year. And we always ask the question. Before you read the miracle morning, were you a morning person? Right. Or were you not? And then there's usually like a, and did you never ever think you could?

You know, it's almost always like I was not or I never in a million years thought I even wanted to be a morning person. But my friend kept saying, read this book or whatever. And so that's the biggest one that people have to overcome. And the whole, I don't have time thing is there's a chapter in the book called The Six-Minute Miracle Morning. And if you think about it, imagine, you go through the savers, right? 60 seconds of silence, right?

Just a minute. Set your timer on your phone. Like, calm your nervous system, lower your stress, get some clarity for the day, get centered. And then timer goes off, reset it, affirmations. Read your most important affirmation. I'm committed to achieving this result. It's important me because of these reasons. Here's what I'm going to do today to achieve it.

It's all rooted in truth. Intention. It's practical. It's actionable. 60 seconds. You clear on your most important thing for the day. Visualization. Close your eyes.

Picture yourself doing that thing, making those calls, writing that book, going for that run, whatever it is. See it with a smile on your face. Mentally rehearse it. So when it's time to do it,

you've been there in your body and in your emotions and you're, it's not the bad, right? It's like, oh, I can do that. Then exercise. Do 60 seconds of jumping jacks, right? Blood and oxygened your brain.

You have more energy. You're thinking clearly. Grab your book. Read a page. over a minute, one idea to change your life. And then scribing, pull out your journal, write down one thing you're grateful for, put your hand in your heart and embody it and feel it,

and then start your day. Like, that's a six-minute miracle morning. Almost anyone that does miracle morning wants 30 minutes of that or 60 minutes, but that's the like, no, start with six. That's no excuse, yeah. So I want to just make a comment about the visualization thing. It's so powerful. I was practicing martial arts and I was getting my second black belt in my late 40s.

Wow. And I was a little anxious about it because where I trained was kind of intense. And I was like, I'm going to get hurt. I kept saying I'm going to get hurt. Well, you know what happens when you say you're going to get hurt. Sure. So I was like, I have to stop that. And so I started the mental training way more than the physical training.

But I did exactly what you're saying. And I found I basically adopted naltrego of someone that was a world champion female martial artist. I started watching, though, everything she did. I was watching videos like all day long of her. And I would envision myself doing it. But if I made a mistake in my mind, I would rewind it. So I think the power for me was not allowing myself to visualize the mistake.

So I would rewind it and then redo it until I did it perfectly. And so I would just, and I did that for months before my test. And so that was one of the things. And the more you do it, the more it becomes who you are. Who you are. Identity. Because there's this part of the brain called the basal ganglia that's involved in habit formation.

And so if your habit is to grab your phone, if your habit is to have wine after dinner, if your habit is to have ice cream, you just do it, even though it might not be what you want. Right. Yeah. And one other thing you said was do something that's uncomfortable. Yeah. And I remember during COVID, everyone got complacent.

And I'm like, I'm done with this. So I was not interested in cold plunge. And that's exactly what I mean. Our pool was, stop it. Our pool was like 40 degrees at the time. It was in the winter. And I needed to break out of that crazy complacent place I was in. And so I just went and jumped on the wall.

And I'm like, but I became addicted to it. Like I became a cold plunger just because, and I wasn't doing it for cold plunge. I was doing it for mental shift. But I found out that it changed my pain. It changed my mood. It changed everything about how I felt. So it's so powerful. Yeah.

Well, I mentioned, I want to share real quick the affirmations piece, right? Remember Stuart Smalley from Saturday Night Live? You never heard of Stuart Smalley? So in the 90s, I think it was, he had this show on. Saturday Night Live, you know, a fake show, obviously, called Daily Affirmations with Stuart Smalley. Oh, I know. And he would look in the mirror and say, I'm with a really like exaggerated list. He would say, I'm good enough. I'm smart enough and doggone of people like me. So it kind of gave like, you know, it made mockery of affirmations. And then the other problems I mentioned, right, is these self-help gurus will teach you like just affirm something that you want to be true as if it were true, even though it's not true.

But it's like saying there's no weeds in my garden when there's weeds in your right. Exactly. You got to pull the wheat. So the three steps, and this is after 20 years almost of affirmations, right? Like the three steps that I have landed on and that I practice, step one, affirm what you're committed to. In life, you don't get what you want because you want it. Everybody, if you said, I want to be wealthy, I want, it's like everybody wants. What are you committed to? Because that's the only thing you're ultimately going to get in your life.

Step two, affirm why it's a must for you. Get really clear on the reasons that are so important, so meaningful, so compelling that when you don't feel like it, If you affirm these every day, they're so top. You're like, it doesn't matter if I feel like it. I'm committed because of my wife, my daughter, my son, myself. Like, these are the benefits. These are the reasons. And the third step to the affirmation's formula that I teach in the book is affirm

which actions you'll take and win. And so when I had cancer, that was when I believe that the Merrick Morning saved my life. All six of the savers were focused on beating cancer. Like in 2008, they were focused on making money. Right. Yeah. And by the way, like, to break that down a little bit, reading, in 2008, I needed to get clients. So I looked online, what's the best book for getting clients?

It was called Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port. So one of the first things I always do with my savers is when I'm clear on the goal, I ordered the book on the topic. Okay, great, got the book. And then now as I'm reading, the way I started with affirmations, there wasn't even a formula. It was literally affirmations where I'd read the book and I opened up a Microsoft Word document, or a Google Doc now. And as I would read, I'd be like, oh, I need to remember that like every single day.

And what do most of us do when we read? We're like, oh, I'm going to come back to that. You never come back, right? Even if you underline it, you ever come back to it. And so I would open up my computer, which was like, as I'm reading during Miracle Morning, and I would type that quote, that sentence, right? And then, oh, I need to do that. So anything I need to think, believe, do remember, integrate into my way of being.

That was what made it my affirmations. it was just simply reminders of what I deemed important in terms of changing my psychology, my behavior, my habits, etc. So I'm reading the book. Now I'm reciting the affirmations, right? Then I'm visualizing doing the thing. You fast forward to the cancer. And again, the first time I hadn't written the book, hadn't figured out all this stuff.

I was making it up as I went along. Well, now that I have cancer and have this formula, what are you committed to? Why is it a must for you and which actions will you take? All of my savers were focused on beating cancer. I bought books on radical remission, the anti-cancer life, so all these natural books. But the affirmations were the anchor for everything. Step one, I am committed to beating cancer and living a long, happy, healthy life alongside Ursula and the kids.

No matter what, there is no other option. And let me say this. What you affirm repeatedly becomes your reality. On day one, when you affirm your commitment, you might be like, you might say it and I'm like, I don't really believe that. I'm actually kind of scared. I don't know if I'm going to, I don't, I've never really committed at this level before. So it's like I'm committing, but how can I commit to beating cancer that I have no idea.

It's rare and these doctors don't even know if I'm going to live. But by day 30, it was who I, with my identity was, I'm committed to any cancer. Like losing isn't even an option. Dying isn't even an option. The second step is I think one of the most important, they all work together. But affirming why it's a must, I had five reasons. For my wife, because I promised her forever in a day, for my mom and dad because they had already lost a child and did not deserve to lose another. one for my Sophia and Halston, my kids because they deserve their daddy's love, guidance,

and leadership for, you know, throughout their adult lives, for myself because I deserve to live a long, happy, healthy life. And for the millions of people who are themselves battling cancer or some other disease, and might not be blessed with the knowledge or resources that I have, and it's my responsibility to heal myself so I can help them. Those five reasons were so compelling. And anyone listening or watching this, take your goal in your life, whether it's improving your marriage or making money or writing a book or your health, whatever it is. What are you committed to? Why is it a must for you? It might be one reason, but for me it was five. And in that third step, which actions will you take and win? And I had, I will do, I'll follow Western medicine and I'll do

the chemo because that seems to be the only option with this particular cancer. And that's the minimum I will do. I will take full responsibility for relentlessly researching and implementing every holistic practice known to man. And I did red light. therapy, ozone sauna, lymphatic massage, coffee inamas. I took 70 supplements a day. I did diet. I did meditation. I did sun gazing. I did grounding. I did ever. I threw the kitchen sink holistically at it. And those affirmations every day were my anchor. I read those every day. And there were days where I wanted to die. Like I was so sick and miserable from 700 hours of chemotherapy. But I read those. And every day, those kept me going. They kept me alive. I love that.

Yeah. Responsibility is my favorite word. I love that. And the time we have laughed, you've written 12 books. So most known for The Miracle Morning. Yeah. And I'm most known for Change Your Rain, Change Your Life. But I've written 40 books. And so tell us about some of your other books and which ones are really important to you and why.

Yeah. So the first book I ever wrote was actually called Taking Life Head On. I always tell people, don't buy it. It's good for like a third grader. Like I still had brain damage. I was, but I wanted to share my car accident story. I've gone back and read it. I'm like, oh, this is, this used to be rewritten.

So leave that one alone. Then I wrote Miracle Morning. And then the Miracle Morning book series organically came about. My friend called me and he's like, hey, my sales team, I've given all of them the Miracle Morning and the ones that have read it and are doing it, their sales have gone up literally 100% of the people that are doing it, sales up. Rest of the group, no, no change. He said, let's do Miracle Morning for Sales people.

I was like, I love that. So there's a dozen books in the series, The Miracle Morning for Parents and Families, the Miracle Morning for College Students, the Miracle Morning for Real Estate agents, the Miracle Morning for writers, so on and so. And then the most recent, actually, is The Miracle Morning After 50, which I co-authored with one of the world's leading experts in aging. He owns Agis Living and so on and so forth. But the book that followed, I mean, it came years after, but it's called The Miracle

Equation. So my main books, I always say, are like, there's the Miracle Morning, there's the series and then the miracle equation which was my follow-up penguin random house reached out and they're like hey we want to do a book with hal it's my agent and it was after my cancer and she said hal is there any book that you like are interested in writing i said yes but i don't know if it's too like woo-woo i'm not sure i said there's this formula that i made up called the miracle i call it the miracle equation because it's how you achieve goals that are so far beyond what you even believe you can achieve that when you achieve them, they feel like miracles. I made it up when I was 20 years

old in sales to break a record that no one had ever done. And then it worked. And then I started teaching to my colleagues. And one after another, after another, they would either break a record or break their all-time best, like clockwork. And then I started studying the world. So give us the short course. The short version, yes. So the two decisions that achieve your biggest goals, number one is unwavering faith. The world's most successful people maintain the faith that they can overcome and accomplish the things that people think they can't until they do. And the second is extraordinary effort. And it's how do you make it ordinary?

How do you just break down a process that is so consistent that it makes your success inevitable? So Miracle Morning's personal development. Miracle equation is goal achievement. Love that. You know, most people never write down their goals. One exercise I do with all of my patients is called the one page miracle. On one piece of paper, what do you want? Relationships, work, money.

physical, emotional, spiritual help. And my patients just love it because, and it's like, why don't we teach kids that in third. Exactly. Like, what do you want? And ultimately, your work gives people hope. Yeah. And agency. Yeah.

Because hope is tomorrow can be better. Yeah. And I have a role in it. That's agency. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. So one last question I have is in your books, do you actually use your strategies that you learned in sales. Do you actually teach those within your books?

In the miracle morning for sales people. Yeah. Yeah. And then the miracle equation in general, I mean, it's, I share the sales origin story of that and how I used it to sell millions of books. Like I use the miracle equation. When I was diagnosed with cancer, I was like, I'm going to use the miracle equation to beat cancer. Like it, you know, I know it works. So love that. Yeah. How can people find you learn about you? Yeah. Miracle. How, Elrod.com is for my speaking, but Miraclemorning.com is the hub for the miracle morning movie, which people can watch free on Amazon or on YouTube, the books, the app, like all the miracle morning.com is like the hub for everything. You know, thank you so much for coming. You have to come back and we have to look at your brain.

I would love it. Because ultimately the brain is plastic in the sense that it can change. When you do the right thing. But mysticity is not a good or bad thing. It's just a thing. Whatever you do hardwires your brain to continue doing. And so if you do the miracle morning, whether it's the six-minute version of the 30-minute version, it's changing your brain. If you just grab your phone, it's changing your brain to hook you. As a psychiatrist, I pay attention to subtle changes because they often,

tell the biggest stories. One parent told us, my son started taking Happy Saffron Plus, and within two weeks, he was whistling around the house and seemed so much happier. I love hearing stories like that, because when one person feels better, the whole family benefits. Visit BrainMD.com and use the code, Podcast 20 for 20% off. you're here with Hal Elrod. We're so grateful to him. You can learn more about him and his book.

Where do they follow you on social? If you search Hal Elrod, you'll find me. Thank you so much for watching, listening to change your brain. Every day, leave us a comment, question. Review, subscribe. We are so grateful for you.