Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Hal Elrod on How You Harness ‘The Miracle Morning’ (Bonus Episode) EP 385

Episode Date: December 13, 2023

https://passionstruck.com/passion-struck-book/ - Order a copy of my new book, "Passion Struck: Twelve Powerful Principles to Unlock Your Purpose and Ignite Your Most Intentional Life," today! Picked by the Next Big Idea Club as a must-read for 2024. In this compelling episode of the Passion Struck podcast, host John R. Miles delves into an inspiring discussion with Hal Elrod, best-selling author of ”The Miracle Morning.” This episode is a profound exploration of overcoming adversity and embracing life's potential. Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://passionstruck.com/hal-elrod-morning-rituals-millionaire-mindsets/  Sponsors Brought to you by OneSkin. Get 15% off your order using code Passionstruck at https://www.oneskin.co/#oneskinpod. Brought to you by Indeed: Claim your SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR CREDIT now at Indeed dot com slash PASSIONSTRUCK. Brought to you by Lifeforce: Join me and thousands of others who have transformed their lives through Lifeforce's proactive and personalized approach to healthcare. Visit MyLifeforce.com today to start your membership and receive an exclusive $200 off. Brought to you by Hello Fresh. Use code passion 50 to get 50% off plus free shipping!  --► For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to: https://passionstruck.com/deals/ From Near-Death to Global Success: Hal Elrod's Inspiring Journey on Passion Struck Hal's insights on habit formation, the transformative power of the S.A.V.E.R.S. methodology, and the global impact of 'The Miracle Morning' are deeply explored. Additionally, the discussion covers Hal's life-threatening battle with cancer in 2016 and how this experience further shaped his outlook on life and resilience. The episode concludes with a focus on the 'Miracle Evening' and 'Miracle Life' concepts, where Hal offers guidance on taking control of one's mental and emotional state to experience life more fully and intentionally. All things Hal Elrod: https://miraclemorning.com/  Catch More of Passion Struck My solo episode on Why We All Crave To Matter: Exploring The Power Of Mattering: https://passionstruck.com/exploring-the-power-of-mattering/ Take a look at my solo episode on How To Live Intentionally With Passion And Perseverance: https://passionstruck.com/how-to-live-intentionally/ My solo episode on Master Your Mind: 6 Proven Strategies To Overcome Self-Doubt: https://passionstruck.com/6-proven-strategies-to-overcome-self-doubt/ Listen to my episode with Dr. Kara Fitzgerald on how to become a Younger You: https://passionstruck.com/dr-kara-fitzgerald-become-younger-you/ Watch my interview with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon On The 3 Keys To Being Forever Strong: https://passionstruck.com/dr-gabrielle-lyon-3-keys-to-being-forever-strong/ Catch my interview with Kara Collier On How Real-Time Glucose Monitoring Systems Can Transform Your Health: https://passionstruck.com/kara-collier-glucose-monitoring/ Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally! How to Connect with John Connect with John on Twitter at @John_RMiles and on Instagram at @john_R_Miles. Subscribe to our main YouTube Channel Here: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles Subscribe to our YouTube Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@passionstruckclips Want to uncover your profound sense of Mattering? I provide my master class on five simple steps to achieving it. Want to hear my best interviews? Check out my starter packs on intentional behavior change, women at the top of their game, longevity, and well-being, and overcoming adversity. Learn more about John: https://johnrmiles.com/ 

Hello, passion struck community. Today, we're doing a very different type of interview than I've done before. In fact, this one was supposed to be live, but we've had some technical challenges. So I'm going to bring this out to you as quickly as I can. But I wanted to welcome you to episode 385 of passion struck. And thank you, all of you who come back every single week to listen and learn how to live better, be better and impact the world. And I just want to recognize that earlier in the week, I had Lucia Arana Khan, the podcast, and she's an expert in genetics, epigenetics, and personal nutrition. And we really went, went deep into how our personalized nutrition impacts our epigen X, which impacts our longevity. So if you like that episode or this incredible special one I'm bringing you today,

please give it a five star rating in a review because I know our guests, like the one I have today, love to hear your comments and I do as well. Well, without further ado, let me do a little bit of introduction for you on today's guest, who I have wanted to have on this podcast for such a long time. You all have been asking them to join me and we actually got them. So today we are embarking on a journey of profound transformation with a guest whose life story is as remarkable as his impact. Hell, ElrAurad, the visionary, who is on a mission to elevate the consciousness of humanity,

one person at a time. And how isn't just the author of the Miracle Morning, which has been the catalyst for change, for millions of people across more than 70 countries, he's a living testament to the human spirits, resilience and power. And as the founder of the Miracle Morning book series, post of the achieve your goals podcast and the executive producer of the miracle morning movie, how continues to impact lives globally. Welcome to the show. How are

it? John, this is long overdue for us to finally connect face to face. Man, I'm so excited to be here. And thank you so much for having me. Man, I've never had to rifle through an intro like that. So I was glad I was able to do it without too many stumbles. But man, we are so overjoyed that you're here today. And I'm going to just put up a copy of your book. It's behind you.

But for those who are going to be watching this, man, this book has altered my life in so many ways. And I am just such a huge believer of the stuff that you preach. Awesome. But, oh, go ahead. So I wanted to say, in case people don't know something, one thing that I've realized,

I've seen some of the podcasts I've done, and people go, oh, Miracle Morning, I love that. And they don't realize there's a new addition of the Miracle Morning that came out yesterday. And so I just I wanted to mention that because the book you held up, it is the new updated and expanded addition with over 70 pages of new content, new chapters, so on and so forth. So anyway, I just I realized that, oh, some people just hear miracle morning and they go, oh, yeah, I read that five years ago.

And so I just I wanted to make sure people know, you know, this is the new miracle morning. So go, Oh, yeah, I read that five years ago. And so I just I wanted to make sure people know, Oh, yo, this is the new miracle morning. So anyway, continue. Well, I was about 27, 20 years old. And I remember it was my first day to work in Houston. I was going to take this new job with Arthur Anderson that probably should have been an element for me of things to come. But I remember driving down the highway and I was coming from one highway to make a turn under the next highway and there were two turning lanes. There was a tractor trailer and the one next to me and I was on the outer turning lane. And as we went to go right, I went right in the tractor trailer went straight and I remember in this instance just spinning and spinning and spinning and then

ended up facing oncoming traffic and when you were when he you had a critical moment More dramatic than that where your life took a turn you would have never imagined. Your car was hit head on by a drunk driver leading to extraordinarily severe injuries. What in the world was your initial reaction when you regained consciousness after being in a coma from such a traumatic event? Yeah, so when you know I woke up I was hit head on by the drunk drivers you mentioned. And then the worst was actually yet to come because my car spun off the drunk driver and the car behind me at 70 miles an hour crashed into my driver's side door. And

if you could imagine, if anybody listening to this, look over your left shoulder and imagine a car is coming at 70 miles an hour and just broad sides you. And, you know, the devastation, the entire left side of my car smashed and crushed and broke the left side of my body and I broke 11 bones instantaneously. My femur broke in two pieces. My pelvis broken three places, my arm broke in half. My eye socket, my ear was severed on and on and I was found dead at the scene. My heart stopped for approximately six minutes. And that was one hour after the car accident because I was pinned in the car and they had to use the jaws of life to cut me out.

And when they did, I had lost so much blood that I blood out and I stopped breathing. I had my heart stopped. And thank God the paramedics were able to on the Medevac helicopter within five or six minutes of me not having a heartbeat. They kept trying to bring me back to life and they did.

And I was rushed to the hospital. I spent six days in a coma and I flatlined twice more. And when I came out of the coma, you know, I'm 20 years old and I'm, I'm, I'm confused. Why am I in a hospital? I had brain damage, which I still suffer from to this day. So I had, I had like no short-term memory. I mean, you, you, I would wake up. My parents would tell me that I was in this horrible car accident. Then I would fall asleep, wake up an hour later, and I would not know what happened. And they'd have to keep telling, retelling me the story.

And within a few days, so the doctor said, you're probably never going to walk again. You know, you had to face this new reality. and you have permanent brain damage. And within a few days, I was smiling and I was laughing and I was joking, joking around with everybody. And the doctors called my parents in about a week after the car accident for an update on my condition. And they said, we're concerned that howl is in denial. He seems, you know, he's laughing and smiling and joking. And this isn't normal for a 20-year-old that's being told you're never going to walk again. However, it's not uncommon for an accident victim that has such a horrific, you know, outcome to just check out. Like, they can't handle this

reality. So they're just going to distract themselves with nonsense. And they said the problem is he will eventually have to face what has happened to him. And we want him to do it here in the hospital in a safe environment. Because if it's out there in six months, he could turn to drugs, alcohol, suicide, and we don't want that.

And so my dad came into the hospital room. And again, this is two weeks after the crash, one week after amount of the coma. And he said, how the doctors are a little concerned, you know, physically you're you're in the clear. But how are you feeling mentally and emotionally? They said, it's you're not normal. You're not acting normal. You should be sad and scared and angry and depressed. And we need to process these emotions. And I don't know if those are the exact words, of course, but he said, how are you really feeling at night when the lights go off and there's nobody to talk to and you're thinking about what happened to you. Are you sad? Are you scared? Are you angry? Depressed and I went, I really went inside because I'm looking at my dad and

his face is red. His eyes are welled up with tears. You know, he's this is hard for him. And so I really got on and I go, okay, am I sad? Am I scared? Am I angry? And it took probably, John, maybe 30 seconds, not very long. And I looked at my dad and I smiled. And I said, dad, I thought you knew me better than that. He said, what do you mean? I said, remember, I lived my life by the five-minute rule that I learned a year and a half prior in my cut-co sales training. And he said, remind me of what that is. I said, the five minute rule states that when something goes wrong in your life, big or small, and you set your timer for five minutes, and the times arbitrary, you might need five, I needed five days at this point,

right? I mean, it was a big, big event. But the point is this, there's no point in dwelling on something that you that is now in the past and you cannot change and feeling sorry for yourself and feeling depressed and feeling angry and like perpetuating negative self destructive emotions that don't serve you is futile. It doesn't change anything. It just makes you miserable. I said, Dad, I've been practicing the five-minute rule for a year and a half in much milder adversity granted, you know, traffic and, you know, minor disappointments and this and that. I said, but the principle is the same. I can't

change that I was in a car accident. So I've consciously decided there's no value in me wishing I could, wishing it were different, feeling sorry for myself. If I'm in a wheelchair the rest of my life and I'm not accepting that, dad, you know that. I believe I can walk again. I'm going to give it everything I have. But if I end up in a wheelchair the rest of my life and I never walk again, dad, I've decided I'll be the happiest, most grateful person you've ever seen in a wheelchair because I can't change at that time that I'm in a wheelchair, but I can choose to be at peace with my reality, grateful for what I have, and happy for the sake of being happy. And John,

I'll just close that out by saying, if you're listening to this, you've been lied to your entire life. You've been conditioned by society to believe that you only get to feel good when good things are happening in your life, and that when bad things are happening, you have to feel bad. And I'm here to offer you a different paradigm that no matter what happens, whatever has happened in the past is happening. Now I might happen in the future. You have the power to choose how you experience every moment of your life. And the question is, do you want to be at peace?

Do you want to be grateful? Do you want to be happy even in the midst of the most difficult circumstances of your life. And the question is, do you want to be at peace? Do you want to be grateful? Do you want to be happy even in the midst of the most difficult circumstances of your life? And how I hear what you're saying and it reminds me of a personal story of a friend of mine and a person I just interviewed, the personal friend of mine, Mark, we were at the Naval Academy together. We were both on the sailing team. As fate would have it this one day, we're out there sailing and there are some gale force winds happening. Just a freak accident happened and the boom just swept away.

He didn't have time to rack. Nails him in the head. He's helicoptered off the boat. And he's never the same. He has such traumatic brain injury that he has to leave the Naval Academy. And for a while, he was in a coma, almost a vegetarian state. But he used the same he used the same logic to live his life that you did. He realized that in that second, he had a choice to either accept reality or to live a miserable life the rest of his life.

And he has gone on to complete college, get married, do things that no one in a million years thought would be possible of them. And then another great example is I recently interviewed Travis Mills. You may be familiar with Travis is now a New York Times best-selling author, but when he was in Afghanistan, he was hit by an IED and became one of only five quadruple amputees that survived the war. And waking up at Walter Reed,

can you imagine without your legs, without your arms, just your body mutilated, he made the decision that not only was he going to come back, he was gonna come back to a point that he was self-sufficient. And today he is a keynote speaker. In fact, the man is doing 40 to 50 keynotes per year. He's got two bestselling books. He also drives himself all around, takes the kids to school on his own completely autonomy.

And it's just something that I want people to take from your words and these examples as you can have the worst things happen to you. And so oftentimes we choose to be miserable instead of choose to be happy. And that decision point is so important. Yeah. So your journey from the hospital bed to defying all the odds is nothing short of remarkable. Can you share with us as you were going on that journey to recovery, you've ran an altramarathon, walked again, did all these things that no one thought would ever be possible? What were the beliefs and the mindset shifts that propelled you to be able to do that and exceed every expectation set before you.

Yeah, that's a great question. Um, I think the first belief is that if another human being has done it, that's evidence of what's possible for me. Uh, and I think that's a great belief to, to, to tag onto what you just said, right? You just gave examples. I mean, I shared my story and you just gave two other examples of people that have been through horrific experiences that would break most people. But it was their mindset, their attitude, the choice they made about to not wish it didn't happen, but say, how can I make the best of what life has given me? And again, if another human being has done it, it's possible for you as well.

And then what led to, you mentioned the ultra marathon. And for those of you that hate running, I have my hand up. I hated running then. I hate running now. I don't use the word hate very often, by the way. Running might be the only thing in life that I say that about. That's why I ran the ultra marathon because I wanted to become the type of person that could overcome such a limitation, a limiting belief thinking, I hate running.

I'm not a runner. I've never run more than the high school mile that they made you do every year and I didn't like it. And so I thought, who would I have to become to run 52 consecutive miles? And that belief was born from a Jim Rohn quote or that result. Jim Rohn said, your level of success will seldom exceed your level of personal development. And that is actually the quote that gave birth to the miracle morning, because it was back in 2008 when the US economy had crashed and I had crashed with it. And like millions of Americans, I lost over half of my income, my houses foreclosed on, I'm moving

back into my parents at, you know, 29 years old. I mean, I thought I'd live the dream I had started successful business and then it all fell apart. And I heard this gemrown quote after this kind of six month downward spiral. And gemrown said, your level of success again, will sell to make seed your level of personal development. And you might have heard that before if you're listening. I think I had, but I it never hit me the way that it did. I quantified it. And I went, okay, if my level of success is not going to see my level of personal development, I need to ask myself two questions, A, what level of success do I want? And B, what is my level of personal development? And I'll kind of define that. The level of success I wanted was 10 on a scale of one to 10. And I think that's true for

all of us, you know, and I don't mean just success like the worldly success, like money and business success or career. I'm talking about your level of success and fulfillment and life satisfaction in your health and your finances and your relationships and your spirituality, right? Every area of life that matters on a scale of one to 10, I believe we all have an innate drive and desire to fulfill our potential to self actualize and experience every area of life at a level 10. So then the next question I had to ask myself, and this is the question I would ask you

to consider, is well, what's my level of personal development? And let me define that for you so you can answer it because it's kind of a vague term. To be personal development is, what are your, what's your daily rituals that are enabling you to become the person that you need to be to create the levels of success that you want? What are, how are you developing yourself every day into, let's say, a level 10 person, right? It's able to create the success at a level 10. And so for me, the answer to that question, what's my level of personal development was like a two or a three. At that time in my life, I had been depressed for six months. I was in debt. My house, I was waiting

for the final pink slip to leave my home, you know, like I was, I was really a mess. And I wasn't doing, I didn't have a dedicated personal development ritual every day to ensure that I became a better version of myself. And so that quote is what led me to go, okay, if I want level 10 success in every area of my life, I've got to develop the most effective personal development daily ritual that will enable me to accelerate how quickly I can become the level 10 version of myself or let's start with four and then five and right work my way up gradually, but I need a daily practice to become the best version of myself that would be capable of thriving even in the great recession, the 2008 great recession.

And we'll get to the practice and all that I'm sure. But within two months of doing the daily practice, in 2008, when the economy continued to plummet, I'm more than doubled my income. I went from being in the worst shape of my life physically to committing to running 52 mile ultra marathon. And my depression didn't take two months to go away. It started fading on day one because I went from feeling hopeless, thinking, I'm not in control of my life. The economy is in like my finances are being dictated by the economy. And instead I went, oh, wait a minute, I'm going to become the person that can thrive

even in the midst of this economy. And all of that happened so quickly. It felt like a miracle and I went and told my wife this morning routine is changing my life so fast. It feels like a miracle and she goes, it's your miracle morning. I go, I like that. I like that a lot. You know, and then the rest is history as they say, but we can go in any direction that you want in terms of the details.

Now I could take this in some many directions from what you just said. I'm going to back up a couple of steps actually before we unpack the miracle moment because I want to the miracle morning because I want to hunker down for those who are listening. Cornell University, as you cited in the book, thousands of people on their deathbeds to name the biggest regret in their entire life. And I love this because one of my favorite books from last year was The Power of Regret by Dan Pink. And what amazed me, and I'm gonna use this in Keynote,

is that 76% had the same answer. It was not fulfilling my ideal self, and you were just talking about self-actualization. That is such a hard number to comprehend when you think about it. 75% of the population will reach the end of their life, wishing that they had the courage to fulfill their potential. What stops people from making that choice? I think it's honestly, it's human nature. It's human nature. There's multiple reasons,

but we'll start with the fundamental, which is human nature. And's multiple reasons, but I'm going to, we'll start with the fundamental, which is human nature. And what I mean by that is human nature is to take the easy path. And if you think about it, let's go back, you know, I'm not an expert in archaeology or in like, you know, the, in the caveman era. But if you think about our ancestors, when you were, when we were, you know, cave men and women, right? When like it was, you know, we're living in, in, in, in really primitive circumstances. And our objective is to feed ourselves. It's to survive. There, there are no leaderboards.

There is no social media. You're not trying to get ahead in the corporation that you work for. You're literally trying to, you're, you're, you're kind of catch food or grow food or hunt food. And then, and then once you do that, you just enjoy the, right, the hunt and you sit back and you would spend time with your loved ones and with your family. Again, you weren't trying to hunt more than the next guy or gal. You weren't trying to beat any, but there was no competition. I'm sure maybe there was some competition, the point being we are, we are hardwired to

do the minimum necessary to survive and then just chill and then just take it easy. And so I think that's for most of us. That's hardwired in us. But in our society today, right, that doesn't, it doesn't really jive. Now, I lean more toward that. I try to. I want to go lean more toward that. I try to. I want to go back to simpler times. I want to live a simpler life.

I just want to love on my family and live with them and spend time with my kids all day. That is my ideal. However, if we want to fulfill our potential and into a society, there are many reasons you might want to do that. It might be because you want to achieve remarkable goals. You want to make a big impact in the world. You want to live your full potential. For me, it's my purpose.

My purpose is to fulfill my potential in service of other people, namely my children. I have a daughter who's 14 going on 2025 now. My son is 11. But to me, my purpose in life, and that's where the miracle morning kind of gave birth to this purpose. But it's, I'm going to dedicate time every day to becoming the best version of myself, to doing everything in my power to fulfill my potential. First selfishly, for me, so that I can show other people, I can lead by example and show them how to do

the same. But I think it's a really simple answer. If you've struggled to fulfill your potential, it's not something to beat yourself up about. If I hadn't have met a mentor when I was 19 years old and I started, you know, a career working for cut co-cultlery, my mentor taught me how to overcome all of my self-imposed limitations and all of the insecurities and the fears and the self-doubt and the laziness that I had lived my entire life with. And if it wasn't for him, I don't know that I would have been able to achieve my goals and move, you know, self-actualize to the level that I have, which, you know, I still feel like there's a long way to go. But I think that's it. I think it's human nature. And then I think the second piece is it's self-imposed limitations, which I alluded to. It's

saying, well, I've never done anything that tells me that I'm capable of doing what I want to do. I've maybe like for me, I had settled for less than I was capable of for my entire life until I finally drew my line in the sand and I went, wait a minute, why not me? Again, if another human being has done something, that's evidence of what's possible for me. That belief was born at age 19 when I started this career and I thought, I want to break some records. I want to do something I've never been done before. I'm tired of being mediocre in my life. I'm tired of accepting and struggling, accepting less than I'm capable of. And so to me, those are the two main answers to your question, which is human nature, not your fault. We're hardwired to do the minimum we need to do to survive.

And then the second piece is our self-imposed limitations, which is simply self-doubt, insecurity and fear. And that is developed throughout our childhood. Every time we get rejected, it builds self-doubt, not self-confidence. Every time we try something and we fail, it reinforces our insecurities and our limiting beliefs. And so with those two, it's kind of like the odds are stacked against us and we have to have some practices each day to consistently focus on who we're committed to being, why it's a must for us and what we need to do not to make a quantum leap, you don't have to go from where you are to this extraordinary ultra successful level 10 version yourself.

It's about gradual, simple step by step improvement and eventually you wake up 30 days from now. You can wake up and go, my gosh, I'm a different person I was 30 days ago. If that's possible in 30 days, what's possible in the next six months of my life? Now, what you're saying is something that I talk to the audience all the time about. There, becoming passion struck or becoming self-actualized isn't an end state. It's a constant direction that you're trying to guide

your life towards just as it's, I'm sure the same with you with living a level 10 life. I wanted to just make sure we hammer this point with the audience. And I'm going to do it through a quote from Seth Godin who's a friend of mine from your book that I loved. And it's, life's too short. It's's life's too short is repeated enough to be cliche, but this time it's true. You don't have enough time to be both unhappy and mediocre. It's just pointless, it's painful.

And I want to then take that quote and give some statistics that you give. The average American today is 10 pounds overweight, more than $10,000 in debt, lonely, disengaged at work, and we could go on and on. We have epidemics like you are bringing up of hopelessness, loneliness, helplessness. And we are allowing ourselves to live in this pain of mediocrity that you so well explained. And I think I just wanna come back to what Jim Roan said and just bring this home for people.

You attract the person who you become. If you want success, it is so important to do that self work. And I was listening to a podcast this morning and the guest brought up something that I hadn't really thought about. He was saying in the world today, the biggest skill gap that we are not taught is self-awareness. And I shook my head for a couple of seconds, but then thought, you know, he was kind of actually right. How often do we ever learn how to be self-aware? Yeah.

We don't. And yet, it's one of the most important things that I think we need to master. What are your thoughts on that? No, I agree. And I'll actually that brings up something for me. So the mission, the miracle morning mission is to elevate the

consciousness of humanity, one person and one morning at a time. And that mission was born out of me really, really kind of self-awareness of going, what's the miracle morning doing for me? And I had read David Hawkins' work about, you know, the scales of consciousness. And I realized that when I do the miracle morning, I elevate my own consciousness. Now, let me define that because again, kind of like personal development. It's like, what does that mean? Right? So to me, to elevate your consciousness is to become more aware and more intentional, intentional, I almost said, intentionable, making it worse. But to elevate elevate your consciousness to become more aware and more intentional about how your thoughts, words and actions impact you and the people around you. And that's

what I realized is as I'm doing the miracle morning every day and I'm spending time in silence. And I'm crafting really intentional affirmations around what I'm committed to. Why it's a must for me, which specific actions I'll take and when I will take them. And I'm reading those every day and they're keeping my highest priorities top of mind. As I'm visualizing what I want my life and what I need to do today to mentally rehearse showing up at my best today as I'm exercising and getting blood and oxygen to my brain, as I'm reading new books and gaining new insights, as I'm scribing every day, I'm journaling, I'm writing things down, what's on my mind,

what's weighing me down, what I'm grateful for, what my highest priorities are. As I'm going through the six practices in the Miracle Morning, I realize I am elevating my consciousness daily, consistently. Every single day, I am becoming more self-aware of how my thoughts, words, and actions impact other people. And by default, that makes me more intentional. Because when you become aware of, oh, this thing I'm doing is not serving me. A level of intention

is born. A heightened level of intention is born out of that awareness. You go, I need to be more intentional. I need to make a change. I need to show up differently so that that thing I'm now aware of doesn't continue because it's not serving me. And if I keep going down that path, I'm going to wake up five years from now and I'm going to be, I'm going to have a regret. I'm going to be in pain. I'm going to write. And so that is the answer is that it is crucial. Self-awareness is crucial. And it's the first half of the equation where intentionality is what is born out of that self-awareness. And you put those two together and it transforms your life. Hell, thank you for sharing that. And I did a couple podcast interviews myself for my upcoming book today.

And on one of them, the guest asked me to explain intentionality because a lot of people get the concept wrong. And I think I'm going to use something that you wrote in your book to explain it. When we are unintentional, we choose to do the easy things, which means we're choosing to do things that are out of alignment with our values and our goals. Instead of being intentional, which is when we're doing the hard things, which are the right things we need to be doing to live the life we want, which are an alignment with our values and will move us closer to our goals. I just want to end this whole section by leaving the audience with

this question that you raised in the book. What can you as an audience member do today to stop settling for less, than what you're capable of so that you can create a level 10 life that Hal has been talking about so that you can live this fulfilling life and not get to the end of it with this 75% of regret that so many people are feeling. So how I'm going to use this as kind of a transition point to now exploring the miracle morning. So in this you came up with a metaphor or an analogy and I love that you have so many of them in the book,

but your core one is called savers. Can you elaborate for us on the Savers method and how each component contributes to personal transformation? Absolutely, and I'll start by telling you how this came to be. So when I heard that Jim Rohn quote, I'll say it again, your level of success will seldom exceed your level of personal development. And I had the epiphany. I want level 10 success. My personal developments like the two or three, I need to create the most effective personal development ritual I went and googled what are the world's most successful people do for personal development? And I was just no, you know brains forming and taking ideas and I was looking for one to three practices and I ended up with a list of six and it was meditation,

affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading and journalingaling. And I'm going, I'm overwhelmed. I'm going, I can't do all of these. Which one is the best? And I'm going back and I'm reading these articles and watching videos and trying to figure it out and distill these into the best two or three. And there was an article about Fortune 500 CEOs who swear by meditation. And keep in mind, this time in my life, it's 2008. I'm six months

into this downward financial, mental, emotional, and physical spiral. I've lost over half of my income, my house is foreclosed on them, right? I'm in a bad spot. And I need money. Like that's my main, I'm in debt. I need money. So I go, okay, wait, if these Fortune 500 CEOs, they attribute their financial success and their business success to their meditation practice. I never would have thought about it. I always thought of, you know, monks in a monastery meditating, not fortune 500 CEOs. In fact, Ray Dalio, many people probably know this, right?

Billionaire investor, if you ask him the number one key to his success, he says it's his meditation practice. So I thought, well, I have to meditate. And then I came across a video interview of Ellen DeGeneres interviewing Will Smith. Now I always joke now, this is like pre-Chris Rock slap Will Smith, right? So, and I'm not taking it any way from Will Smith. He's done amazing things, but she asked him, will, you know, this is 2008, right? So we're talking 15 years ago. She said, Will, right now you've got the number one movie in the country. You've got one of the number one movie in the country.

You've got one of the top TV shows in the country. Your album is top on the charts. Everything you do is successful. Yet you grew up in a middle class Philadelphia, you know, family. How did you do it? And, you know, to paraphrase what he said, he said he learned about affirmations when he was 15 years old. But the way he explained them was different than I had heard these goofy, you know, I'm a money magnet and blah, blah, blah, these funny affirmations.

He said he clarified in writing what he wanted in his life, who he needed to be to achieve what he wanted in terms of the attributes, the habits, the values, and then what he needed to do each day to become that person to achieve what he wanted. And he said, he simply read those affirmations every day. They aligned his thoughts and his actions to live in alignment with those three components. And he eventually just simply self actualized. He lived in alignment. He became that person and achieved the results that they affirm. I thought, well, I've got to do affirmations. And essentially to keep a long story a little less long, um, it was that way

with all six practices. There was no clear winner. And then the, I, I almost threw in the towel. I got why can't do all of them. And then I went, wait a minute. What if I did all of them? What if I woke up tomorrow a little bit earlier, you know, 30 minutes, 60 minutes? I did the six most timeless, proven, personal development practices that the world's most successful people from all walks of life have sworn by for centuries.

I thought that would be the ultimate, if you will level 10, personal development routine that would enable me to become the best version of myself as soon as possible. So I woke up the next morning and John, I didn't know how to do at least half of these. I had never meditated before. I had never visualized before. I never done affirmations before. Sure, I had, you know, journaled red, whatever. But I did all six practices, you know, mediocre, poorly.

And that first day, I went from feeling depressed and hopeless, thinking, I'm, the economy is tanking. And I, I have no power over that to turning the finger that I was pointing the economy back on myself and going, wait a minute, if I do this every day, and I feel this energized and this motivated and inspired and focused and intentional, I thought it is only a matter of time before I become the person that I need to be to turn my life around. And I already mentioned earlier, I was thinking six to 12 months, it happened in less than two months. I doubled my income, even though the economy got worse, I got better.

And as I was writing the miracle morning, which I taught all my coaching clients, all of them resisted, said, I'm not a morning person, they gave it a shot two weeks later, 13 out of 14 coaching clients, said, how, oh my gosh, it's working. I'm waking up early. I'm loving it. I'm having the best weekend in my career. I'm exercising. I'm journaling. I'm meditating. And that's when the light bulb went off. And I said, if it worked for them and it worked for me, this could change anyone's life. And I started writing the book. And as I was writing the book, I hit a wall, which as an author, you know, John, like you hit writer's block and you get frustrated and you get stuck. And one day I went to my, I saw my wife in the

hallway. I said, it's weird. She noticed I was frustrated. She said, what's wrong? I said, I've got these six practices, but I didn't invent any of them. Naturally, they're hundreds, thousands of years old. I said, I don't know how to organize them. All these authors have some sort of formula. Like Robert Kiyosaki's got the cash flow quadrant. And Stephen Covey's got the seven habits, highly effective people. I just got these hodgepodge practices. She said, why don't you get a thessaurus and find synonyms and see if you can create a memorable acronym. And that's where savers was born. S-A-V-E-R-S. The first S is for silence. That's your meditation

or your prayer or your breathwork. The A is for affirmations. And I love maybe a circle back because I want to give a little mini masterclass on affirmations because I believe that master or not masterclass affirmations are the most mistot, misunderstood and the most effective form of personal development. The V in sabres is for visualization. The E is for exercise. The R is for reading and the final S is for scribing or a fancy word for writing or journaling. The sabres can be done in as little as six minutes. There's a whole chapter in the new book called the six minute miracle morning. They can be done in any order. And they're very customizable. There's a chapter in the

book on customizing the sabers to fit your lifestyle. I want to give a quick testimonial, if you will, from Robert Kiyosaki, the author of Rich Dad Ported. Sorry, not a testimonial, but what Robert said about how he uses the sabers. So Robert and I spoke at an event. I gave him a copy of the book. I thought he would never read it. And three weeks later, he emailed me and said how, or I'm sorry, he's assistant emailed me and said how, Robert has read your book three times in the last three weeks.

My jaw dropped, right? I'm like, what? That's crazy. He's doing the miracle morning every day and it's changing his life. He wants to have you on Rich Dad Radio. So I was on Rich Dad Radio a few weeks later. And here's how Robert summed it up at the end of our interview. And I had never thought of it this way. He said, how before you wrote the miracle morning and you created the

savers ritual, he said every successful person on the planet swears by at least one of the savers. Maybe they do two or three. In fact, most do. He said, but I've never heard of anyone that did all six of these timeless ancient best practices. And he said, I think you named the book correctly because any one of the savers will change your life. But he said, my experience over the last few, at that point, it was a couple of months. He said, when you do all six of the sabers, it literally creates miracles in your life. And I think that that is absolutely true. And so yeah, so those are the sabers.

And I'm happy to, we don't have to unpack them all, but whether it's affirmations or any, I'm happy to dive in and kind of give some advance teaching on any of those practices. Okay. I just want to pause there and give another quote that you say in the book because I think it fits right here. That's from Albert Einstein where he says there are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle.

The other is though nothing is a miracle. The other is though everything is a miracle. And I just love that and I think it fits so well. Hell, I thought a way we could explore this is I actually used the methodology. And I thought maybe we could take a couple of these. I kind of combined this with the 5am club to combine this with the 5am club and I kind of did both in conjunction, but like you, I was never a, I would say, morning person, even though I was in the military, it wasn't something that naturally came easy to me. But I decided that I was going to do the sabers and I decided I would just start getting up every day at 5am. And I remember the first day I got up, I was excited, but I didn't really know.

I felt like so much apprehension. Yeah. Like, how am I going to do this? And I just got into this routine and I'm going to walk you through it. Okay. That I have now done every single day for over four years. So the first thing I do is at 5 a.m., I love that the world is quiet. It's one of the few times when you can go outside and you're not bombarded by traffic or anything else.

And I just love getting out there because it's, and sometimes it's eerily quiet, but I like it when you can hear the crickets, you can hear the birds making sounds, you can hear the wind. And then the first thing I do when I go outside is I try to find the moon, I look for the stars, and I say two affirmations to myself to set up the day that I want. And I always say today is a glorious day,

and I'm going to live in an excellence because I think from the second we wake up, we have a choice to determine our mindset for that day, no matter how we feel when we get up. And then I don't put headphones in or anything else for that next 15 to 20 minutes. I try to visualize the day I want to have with the steps I want to Take and the way I want to feel at the end of the day feeling that I've accomplished what I set myself up for I'm doing this obviously while I'm exercising because I'm walking my dog while I'm doing it And then we do it typically about a three mile walk. And then at the halfway point, I then put the earphones in and I either read via listening to books or I will listen to podcasts. And if I listen to the podcast, I will then come home when some done, read for about 20, 25 minutes, and then I spend about 10 minutes journaling.

So for me, that's what I've done. I found that the two hardest things for me to learn were how to allow myself to visualize the day that I wanted and to start picturing do it. I was going to be able to do it. I was going to be able to do it. I was going to be able to do it. I was going to be able to do it. I was going to be able to do it. I was going to be able to do it. I was going to be able to do it. I was going to be able to do it. I was going to be able to do it. I was going to be able to do it.

I was going to be able to do it. I was going to be able to do it. I was going to be able to do it. I was going to be able to do it. I was going to be able to do it. I was going to be able to do it. I was going to be able to do it. I was going to be able to do it.

I was going to be able to do it. I was going to be able to do it. I was going to be able to do it. I was going to be able to do it. I was going to be able to do it. I was going to be able to do it. I was going to be able to do it. I was going to be able to do it. I was going to be able to do it. I know you wanted to touch on affirmations, but I think for each person, there's going to be an element of this.

It's probably harder for them than another one. Yeah, why relate to that? My first miracle morning, the night before I googled, I opened six windows. Actually, I probably didn't need how to exercise, but I opened windows. I wrote, how to meditate, how to do affirmations, right? I ordered tabs on my browser or opened them up

because yeah, I didn't know how to do half of the practices. Um, and well, yeah, I'd love to jump into those two. So visualization, first and foremost, um, I believe visualization, similar to affirmations is mistot. I think we're only taught half of the equation. And it's the least important half. And what I mean by that is we're taught to visualize the end result, you know, whether it's through just close your eyes and picture yourself, you know, 20 pounds thinner or or put pictures on a vision board of what you want. So you can see the end result. There's value in that, but it can also be actually counterproductive. It can actually diminish. It can be worse than better. And here's what I mean. The value in it is that when you see what you want and you visualize it vividly and you

feel the emotion of what it'll feel like to achieve that thing or experience that thing, that fuels your fire to make it a reality. The problem is if all you do is visualize the end result over and over and over and over, you are cementing an image in your subconscious that it is happening. It's as good as done. And the way that can be counterproductive is, now you've lost that healthy drive,

almost based on a little bit of fear, like if I don't do the things I need to do today and every day, I'm not gonna get there, right? If you see it so many times, without visualizing yourself each day, doing the thing you need to do today that will move you toward that vision without that second step. And I'm going to break that down. That is the most important part. I spend about 60 seconds visualizing my ideal outcomes to just fuel that fire and go that's going to feel amazing.

And I'll use an example when I was training for my ultra marathon, I would spend 60 seconds visualizing crossing the finish line with 52 miles ran behind me and how that was going to feel. And he got me excited. In fact, I printed off a color picture of the finish line of the marathon I was running so that I could look at it and close my eyes and feel it. However, I'd spend three or four minutes with step number two of Miracle Morning visualization. Step number two is the most important part. I would visualize

my phone in front of me going off at 7 a.m. which is when I had planned and committed to go for my training runs and I would literally hear it BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP and I would visualize my hand reaching out and turning off the alarm Then I would visualize myself and by this is through my own eyes. That's a question I get a lot Are you seeing yourself like a video camera filming your body or are you seeing out your eyes? For me, it's out my eyes reaching out out like a first player shooter game, right? Where you reach the hand out and you can see it, turning off the phone and then I'd visualize myself getting off the couch,

walking into my bedroom, into my closet, getting dressed in my running clothes. I wouldn't skip a step. I would picture the whole thing. Then I would visualize myself heading back through my living room, reaching down, grabbing my front door handle, opening it, seeing my sidewalk, then I would go back to recite my affirmations three steps. What I'm committed to, why it's a must for me and

which specific actions I will take and win. So I'll tie in affirmations right now. So I would, I would imagine looking out that front door and I would say to myself, I'm committed to running 52 miles on October 29th, 2009, no matter what, there is no other option. I would affirm it with conviction. Then I would affirm step two, why it's a must for me. I am committed to doing this so that I can develop the mindset and the capabilities to achieve any goal I ever set for the rest

of my life. I'm not doing it for the run. I'm doing it for who I'll become by doing this really difficult outside of my comfort zone thing. And then step three of the affirmations, which specific actions will you take and win? So as I'm visualizing myself staring at the sidewalk, I would say to myself, in order to follow through with my commitment, I will follow the training plan taught in the book, the non-runners marathon trainer to a tee every single day that it says to run, no matter what there is no other option.

And I would get myself excited as I visualize the sidewalk to go for that run. So I'd combine the affirmations with the visualization. And John, here's how that played out in real time. When the alarm on my phone actually went off at 7 a.m. and started beeping in front of me on my coffee table, human nature, which we talked about earlier, what holds us back would have been, yeah, I want to do the easy thing. I'm just going to procrastinate, right? If you're listening to this right now, raise your hand. If you ever put off doing the thing, you know you should do.

You intended to do. You said you were going to do, but when it comes time to do it, you do what you feel like, which is nothing, which is not the thing. I'm raising my hand. I do it every day. I have to override that human nature. But here's what happened when the alarm went off at 7 a.m. John, I didn't procrastinate because that's not what I mentally rehearsed during my visualization

that morning. Instead, almost like a robot in the best possible way, I stood up, I went into my closet, I got dressed in my running clothes, I walked to my front door, and as I reached out and opened the front door, and saw my sidewalk, I was flooded with the dialogue of my affirmations. I was flooded with the positive emotions

that I had generated that morning during my affirmations and visualization, and I saw the sidewalk, and I was triggered to go for that run that human nature would have prevented me from doing. That is the power of just two of the sabers affirmations combined with visualization. And you can apply that to making cold calls. If you're a salesperson, you can apply that to playing with your kids on a Saturday. If you're going to engage with the kids, you affirm it, you visualize it.

You literally can apply those two steps and the rest of the savers to every single goal you have in your life. And it will amplify your ability to achieve that goal. And every single role you have in your life, I follow that formula as a dad, as a husband, as an entrepreneur, and so on and so forth. Yeah, I love that explanation. And people have come to me, I'm sure they've come to you and said, what do you attribute your success to?

How is your podcast done, what it's done? And I come back to them and I say basically, what you're talking about, I take intentional daily action that is consistent. And in your book, you explain it this way. The key to achieving any goal or to improve any aspect of your life is harnessing your ability to make a commitment and maintain that commitment for as long as it takes. And that's exactly how you put a miracle morning into action is you just consistently practice it until it becomes second nature. And as you explained, once you start doing it, you're going to see other

areas of your life magically take off and ways that you can't even comprehend. I know that's what it did for me. And they were in areas that were completely in many ways unrelated to my morning routine, but were impacted by it. Now, your book has two new sections that you added to it. And I wanted to touch on each one quickly. The first one you talk about is Miracle Evening's. Yeah. And I know there are a ton of people in the audience right now who are trying to overcome difficulties falling or staying asleep. A lot of people go to bed with stressful thoughts or they don't

set up their environment properly to either go to bed or to wake up appropriately. And so you came up for another acronym for this called slumbers. And you just quickly go through what that is. Yeah. So this, this goes back to what you just said is so true right now. Whenever I give a speech, I always say, how many of you are struggling with sleep? Either falling or staying asleep, and it's almost always more than half the, or roughly half or more than half the audience. and it's almost always more than half the, or roughly half or more than half the audience. In 2020, I had been on chemotherapy for three years after being diagnosed with a rare aggressive form of cancer.

And it broke my brain. I don't know how, anyway, to explain it. I developed extraordinary anxiety and I started sleeping two to four hours a night for about six months. And I went through such a horrific sleep deprivation, chronically, that it almost ruined my life.

I was suicidal. And I relentlessly pursued, how do I solve my sleep problems? And I did. I finally figured it out. I hired Michael Bruce, the sleep doctor, world famous sleep doctor. I researched it on my own and I figured it out.

And so I really wanted that to be an important part of this book. The chapter is at the end of the book, it's the miracle evening, your strategy for blissful bedtime and better sleep. And I won't go through all of the slumbers. I'll just say the general, the first one is stop eating three to four hours before bed. That's how long it takes to digest a meal. And if you go to bed and you eat too late, you're not going to sleep well because your body is working all night. I'll dive in on the L and slumber, which is let go of stressful thoughts and feelings.

That's the most important piece. And there's a technique I teach where how do you, it's basically, how do you flip the switch? Meaning when it's bedtime, it doesn't serve you to ruminate over what happened during the day that you cannot go back in time and change. It doesn't serve you to stress out over things that are out of your control. And so you have to have a process to where you can, not just let go of the stressful thoughts and feelings,

but replace them with peaceful, grateful thoughts so that you drift off. Again, I call it blissful bedtime. And I went from being stressed out at bedtime. Doesn't mean my life's perfect now. I still have a million things to stress about, but it doesn't serve me. So you have to learn how do you flip the switch so that you can go to bed and literally drift off to bed. Let go of the problems and the challenges and the things in your life that are causing you stress during the day and feel genuinely grateful and happy. And here's one of the most important reasons why this is true, not just so you fall asleep and you sleep well, but so that you wake up well because your first thought in the morning is almost always

whatever the last thought was that you dwelled on before bed. When you become conscious, you go, Oh, God, I've got that meeting today. Oh, God, my life's a mess. Oh, my finances are in disarray. Instead, you go to bed, feeling peaceful, grateful, and happy. And as soon as you wake up, you wake up in that blissful state. And you enter your day, like you said, how you wake up in that blissful state. And you enter your day, like you said, how you start your day, it sets the tone and the context and the

direction for the rest of your day. So even though I've got things to stress about, I don't allow those to derail my sleep. And I wake up feeling just as peaceful, grateful, and optimistic and happy as I did when I fell asleep. And that leads into the miracle morning, which I'm then able to get really intentional and really self-aware. And that leads into showing up at my best every day for those I love and those I lead. But it starts the night before with the miracle evening. And thank you so much for going into that, Hal. And a lot more in that chapter for people to absorb when they buy the book. We're going to end on discussing the miracle life and I'm going to end kind of where we started.

And that's on the topic of self-awareness. And we oftentimes become conditioned to believe that our mental and emotional well-being are dictated by outside forces, which is a key component that you raise in this chapter. And what I loved is the miracle life offers an empowering paradigm. by outside forces, which is a key component that you raise in this chapter. And what I loved is the miracle life offers an empowering paradigm. No matter what happens, getting back to the self-awareness theme, I feel however I choose to feel. How do you recommend, as a closing thought, how the audience should take control of their

mental and emotional state so they can choose how to experience the moments that make up their life. Yeah, it starts with realizing that you only have one life, right? There's no do overs. Now, depending on your spiritual beliefs, you might believe there's multiple. I don't know, but we know that we have one life right now that we're living. And I think far too many of us are living it in fear, we're living it in stress.

And I believe my theory is that when we get to the end of our life, life's going to happen. There's going to be ups and downs and good days and bad days. I personally believe that when I get to the end of my life, I'm going to look back and I'm going to go, if I wasted too much of it, stressed out, fearful, living in an inner turmoil that a much of it is self-created, not all of it, but much of it is self-created, especially when you learn the tools that we've talked about today to optimize your mental and emotional state and choose how you experience every moment. I think at the end of my life, when I was back in Go Man, I wasted so much of my life allowing myself to be upset over things that I couldn't change when I should have just

been at peace with life exactly as it was. And so the miracle life, it's made up of what I call the ABCs of miracle life. Just like the acronyms, it's intentional to have simplicity so you can remember and implement strategies. How many books have we read where the books were all over the place and while you're reading them, you're like, oh my god, there's so many great ideas. But they weren't simplified in a cohesive manner. So you don't even remember what all you learned in those 150 or 200 pages.

For me, I'm all about how do I simplify the formulas so you never forget the ABCs, the miracle life for this. A stands for accept life exactly as it is. It's what I talked about when I came out of my coma and was faced with this reality. What if I never walk again? I will accept life exactly as it is so I can be the happiest, most grateful person anyone's ever seen in a wheelchair. And, you know, I'm grateful that I didn't end up spending my life in a wheelchair except

life exactly as it is. The B is be grateful for each moment. And we talked about that. You can literally be grateful even for the difficult moments because gratitude is a super power that enables you to find the good, find even the lesson in the challenge and live every moment in a state of gratitude. And the C in the ABC is the miracle life is to choose your optimal state of consciousness. How do you decide that that goes back to what you talked about? You literally get to decide what state of consciousness would best serve me. And then in the book, I teach you a technique as far as the silence practice for the miracle morning, and I tied into the miracle life, which is called emotional optimization meditation. It's where you identify your optimal mental, emotional, and state of consciousness.

And then you hardwire it in your nervous system so that it literally becomes your default state of consciousness. And so to me, that's it. We get one life like you quoted Albert Einstein, you can even see everything is a miracle or nothing is a miracle. To me, every moment of our life is a miracle. And if we choose to see it that way. And so to me, it's we get one life.

Let's enjoy this one life we've been blessed to live. Even though, yes, it's going to be difficult. Yes, there are going to be challenges, whether it's car accidents or cancer or losing a loved one or financial collapse, right? Those have been the big ones for me. No matter what, we get to choose how we experience this one life that we're blessed to live. And I hope and I pray that more and more people will read that miracle life chapter and they'll realize, hey, you know what?

I get one shot at this. I'm going to stop allowing myself to experience so much emotional pain and I'm going to utilize these tools to enjoy the life I'm living while I create the life that I really want. Now, thank you so much for being here today for the listener or viewer. What is the best way for them to find all things? How are all right? Yeah, you can go. You can buy the new edition of the Miracle Morning, the update and expanded edition wherever books are sold.

So Walmart, Target, Barnes and Noble, wherever you want to get the book. But the hub for everything Miracle Morning, that's the Miracle Morning movie, the Miracle Morning app, the 350,000 person Facebook group, the Miracle Morning community of people that wake up and support each other, go to Miracle Morning dot com. Miracle Morning dot com is the hub for everything. And yeah, there's this global community in over a hundred countries, millions of people, 350, thousand of which are in the Miracle Morning Community Facebook group that wake up every day like I'm talking, like they're waking up, they're fulfilling their potential, they're

helping other people do the same thing. And it's inspiring to be a part of like your community, John, a group of people that are living to their highest potential. And it's awesome. a group of people that are living to their highest potential. And it's awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here. How it was such an incredible honor. And congratulations on the relaunch of your book. Thank John. Thank I cannot thank you enough, brother. You are, you are an angel among us.

And I know that might sound cheesy, but I mean it sincerely like how you show up for people, how you show up for your listeners, for your community, your audience is extraordinary. And that's why that's why you've grown such a great following because you are authentic and you care and you serve. And I know that about you. And so yeah, the honor is mine, man. Thank you for having me.

It means so much to me. Honours, mine, man. Thank you for having me. It means so much to me. Honor is mine, man.