The Dr. Josh Axe Show - This 1 Hour Routine Will CHANGE YOUR LIFE | with Hal Elrod

Episode Date: December 14, 2023

How do you find light after trauma and adversity?  Hal Elrod beat unimaginable adversity, from a tragic car crash to a rare cancer diagnosis. Now he’s on a mission to uplift humanity through the power of mornings. How did Hal turn trauma into triumph? Tune in for an inspiring conversation about the role mental resilience, radical gratitude, and daily affirmations play in fueling Hal's uplifting personal growth teachings. You’ll discover: Perspective-shifting practices for building mental toughness amidst suffering Actionable techniques for harnessing visualization and affirmations The science-backed morning S.A.V.E.R.S. routine that will change your life Encouraging advice for non-“morning people” on self-improvement Join Dr. Axe and Hal Elrod for a wide-ranging discussion that will reframe your outlook and equip you to start achieving miracles. You’ll gain insights into maintaining peak performance, accomplishing audacious goals, and staying grounded through loving relationships. Start your day tomorrow uplifted and empowered! Want more of The Growth Lab with Dr. Josh Axe? Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Follow Dr. Josh Axe Instagram Twitter Facebook Tik-Tok Follow Hal Elrod Instagram Twitter Facebook YouTube Follow Leaders Instagram Twitter Facebook Email Newsletter Links: Hal Elrod's NEW BOOK, "The Miracle Morning: Updated and Expanded Edition → thenewmiraclemorning.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're self-creating emotional pain by resisting reality and wishing something were different that's out of our control because it's already happened or it's already happening. And I said, Dad, I can't change that I was in a car accident. I can't change that I broke 11 bones and I have permanent brain damage. And if the doctors are right, I can't change that I never walk again. And I'm in a wheelchair the rest of my life. But the five-minute rule says it's okay to be negative, but not for an extent of period of time. In fact, I was taught by my mentor.

Set your timer for five minutes. and give yourself five minutes to fully feel what's coming up. Don't suppress your emotions. Don't do what the doctor thought I was doing and go, no, no, it's fine, I'm fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine, don't worry, it's fine, right? No, feel it. This sucks. This is, I don't deserve this.

Like, I'm sad. I'm scared. I'm angry, right? Feel your emotions fully. And when the timer goes off after five minutes, you say three very powerful, liberating words. Can't change it. It's an acknowledgement.

okay, I can't change what happened five minutes ago. Now I got a choice. Am I going to continue to wish it were different, wish it didn't happen, say it's unfair, continue to be sad and scared and angry over something I can't change. Does that serve me at all? No. Or the other choices, am I going to accept my reality exactly as it is for the purpose of freeing myself from emotional pain? Hey everyone, Dr. Josh Axe here and welcome to the Growth Lab podcast where each and every week we uncover the science behind how to grow yourself, your health, your wealth, and take your career, your relationships, and your spiritual wellness to the next level.

I like to welcome Hal Elrod today. How is on a mission to help elevate people to their highest level of consciousness via one morning and one person at a time. He is a family first man. He's a bestselling author of 12 books. And one of the things I'm really excited to get into with him today is Hal has really faced some incredible adversity in his life, everything from a near fatal car accident to a rare cancer diagnosis. And so what I'm going to get into today is we're going to talk a lot about how to build resilience, how to build a stronger mindset, how to overcome adversity in your life, and talk about as well the miracle morning. He has a lot of, he has a is a really unique process for how you can have your best morning possible. And so Hal welcome the show. Josh, it's an honor, man. Thank you so much for having me. Well, great. Well, hey, again, I was really

excited to have you on because I really believe that our mindsets are so key to us being successful. You know, I call the podcast here the Growth Lab now because I really wanted to help people grow in body and mind and spirit. And I think it's so important that if we're going to grow, we're going to face trials along the way, and we've got to grow through challenges. And so when I started reading up on all the things that you faced in your life and overcame them, I knew that you'd be a great guest here to really get into how you have overcome so many things. I want to go over just a few of those that I had read about. I started reading about how when you were very young, your sister died right in front of you. I also read that you were on a head-on car accident with a drunk driver,

and your heart stopped beating for six minutes and you were in a coma for six days. And your doctor's told you may never walk again and now you're walking. And then at 37, you were diagnosed with a rare form of cancer given a 20 to 30 percent chance to live. And you're still here with us today. So the first question for you is with all of that adversity you faced in life, how is it that you made, like what were the most important things that you needed to get you through those difficult, difficulties and challenges. Yeah. Yeah. When you read all three or, you know, those three circumstances, it's like, for me, it's like, wow, you know, knock on wood, I'm, can I just,

you know, no more life and death experiences. But, um, so when I was eight, my sister passed away in front of me. Um, it was me and my mom at home and shoot, my mom was breastfeeding my, my 18 month old baby sister and she died in my mother's arms. And, uh, at that point, I, um, I was too young, I think, to fully process what was happening. The one thing that I learned was watching my parents within six months of my sister passing. My mother was leading a support group for other parents who had lost their children. So it was really the idea of turning pain into purpose, right? She was serving. She was helping other people. And then my dad, in fact, our entire family, my dad was at the forefront, but we started a fundraiser to raise money every year. We did that

for my entire childhood until I left home at 18 for to raise money for the hospital that tried to save my sister's life and cared for her. So I saw both of my parents take this tragedy, right, and then turn it into a purpose, pain into purpose, if you will, and help other people. So that was a lesson I learned when I was too young to even realize I was learning it, right? It was really in hindsight, realizing, oh, that became part of the way that I processed my challenges in the future. Now, you fast forward, I was 20 years old. I was driving home after giving a speech at a Cutco sales conference. I was a Cutco sales rep. And I was head on at 70 miles per hour by a drunk driver. My car spun off the drunk driver and the car behind me, teaboned me in my driver's side door at 70

miles per hour, crushed the left side of the car into the left side of my body and I broke 11 bones instantaneously. And as you mentioned, my heart stopped for six minutes. And when I came out of the coma six days later, I had, you know, metal rod in my leg, metal rod in my arm, screws in my elbow, metal plates in my eye. Wow. And I was told I would never walk again. And one week after I came out of the coma, so I had been awake for one week. And I'm in the hospital bed. I can't move. I'm on pain meds, on and on. And my parents were called. And at that point, I'm doing therapy. I'm meeting with doctors. I'm meeting with psychologists and counselors, right? And they're working on my mental health

and my physical health. And I was told I would never walk again. Well, my parents were called in by my doctor and and they they said we're concerned with how physically he's made it through the worst he's stable but mentally and emotionally we're concerned that he's in denial or he's delusional because he's always smiling and laughing and joking and making us laugh and they said frankly that's not normal for a 20 year old who's been told they're never going to walk again and gone through what he's gone through they said so we need you to talk to him and find out how he's really feeling so my dad comes in and I'm in my bed, watching a hospital bed watching television, and he comes next to me and he says, hey, can I talk to you? And I look over and my dad's like, faces red and his eyes are

swollen. And there's a lot of crying going on, but something was wrong. And I turned the TV off. I said, Dad, what's going on? And he explained the doctor's concern. He said, the doctor said, how it's not normal that you're positive right now. And they said, they think that's a reaction to your reality being so unimaginable and difficult that you've changed. checked out. And they said the way you should be feeling what's quote unquote normal is that you should be sad and or scared and or depressed and or angry that this happened to you. And he said, how are you really feeling? When the lights go out at night, there's nobody to talk to. There's no one to distract you. There's no television on. It's just you and your thoughts.

How are you really feeling? And so I went inside. I really was, you know, my dad I could tell was so concerned and I asked myself, am I sad, am I scared, am I angry, am I depressed? And I looked at my dad. I said, dad, I thought you knew me better than that. He said, what do you mean? I said, remember, I live my life by the five minute rule. And Josh and everyone listening, this is the lesson. Okay. So everything, this is the buildup to understand this lesson that allowed me to genuinely be happy and grateful in the midst of the most difficult circumstances of my life. and you can use this in your life and apply it to financial hardship, death of a loved one, being in a horrific car accident, told you're never going to walk again, being diagnosed with cancer

and given a 20% chance of surviving, this is universal. So the five minute rule. And my dad, he said, remind me what that is. So perfect setup for me telling you all what this is. I said, dad, I've told you this before. I wish you would listen to me. You'd be a lot happier if you would apply this to your life. And the five minute rule, I learned it in my Cutco sales training.

And it simply states that there's no value in dwelling on something that you cannot go back in time and change, whether it was five minutes ago, five months ago or five decades ago. There's no value in resisting reality and wishing it didn't happen. And later on, I learned that, oh, that's actually the cause of our emotional pain. It's not the thing that we think is causing it. We're self-creating emotional pain by resisting reality. and wishing something were different that's out of our control because it's already happened or it's already happening. And I said, Dad, I can't change that I was in a car accident. I can't change that I broke 11 bones and I have permanent brain damage. And if the doctors are right, I can't change that I never walk again.

And I'm in a wheelchair the rest of my life. But the five minute rule says it's okay to be negative, but not for an extended period of time. In fact, I was taught by my mentor. Set your timer for five minutes and give yourself five minutes to fully feel what's coming up. Don't suppress your emotions. Don't do what the doctor thought I was doing and go, no, no, it's fine, it's fine, I'm fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine, don't worry, it's fine, right? No, feel it.

This sucks. This is, I don't deserve this. This is bullshit. Like, I'm sad, I'm scared, I'm angry, right? Feel your emotions fully. And when the timer goes off after five minutes, you say three very powerful, liberating words. Can't change it.

It's an acknowledgement. Okay, I can't change what happened five minutes ago. Now I got a choice. Am I going to continue to wish it were different? Wish it didn't happen. Say it's unfair. Continue to be sad and scared and angry over something I can't change. Does that serve me at all?

No. Or the other choices, am I going to accept my reality exactly as it is for the purpose of freeing myself from emotional pain, from allowing the acceptance to give me the gift of inner peace. I might not be happy about what happened five minutes ago, or in that case, two weeks ago, but I can't change it. So I'd rather be at peace with it and then focus on the areas of my life that I have to be grateful for

and happy about. And I said, and last thing I'll share, I said, dad, if I'm in a wheelchair the rest of my life, I do not want that. but if that ends up being my unchangeable reality, I've already decided I will accept it fully, therefore I will be completely at peace with it, and I'll go further than that.

I'll be the happiest, most grateful person that you or anyone has ever seen in a wheelchair because I'm in a wheelchair either way. If that is my reality, I might as well enjoy every moment of it. And I want to ask this question for anybody listening, Josh, and you can consider it yourself. What's your wheelchair?

what is the circumstance in your life past or present that causes you emotional pain and you because society conditions us to think what happens to us determines how we feel that you allow that wheelchair that divorce that adversity that financial challenge that that terrible boss that you allow them to determine how you feel inside because no one ever told you there's a there's a better choice you could actually completely decide that no matter how they treat me, no matter what happens in my life, I'm going to choose how I feel inside because it's really, as Victor Frankel said, in man search for meaning, it's the last of humans' freedoms to choose our own attitude in any given set of circumstances. So that was

the most powerful lesson I learned and I apply it in everything from major tragedies to daily traffic where I go, I can't change it. If I need five minutes to feel upset about it, I'll give myself that, but I'm going to accept it and I'm going to move on. Yeah, it's, you know, one of your points here, and I think it's an important one is, is that you're not just glossing over the negative emotions. You know, I know for anybody who's gone through any sort of trial in life, you know, I had an experience where I had a major health issue as well. And I know that in a very similar way in handling it the way that you have and in that, you know, it was this thing where I know that I needed to feel an experience a level of mourning, you know. of being in that situation and a level of disappointment or anger and in those sort of things. And so you're not saying, hey, we just, you know, you should skip the, you know, the normal process of,

of grieving, right? And if you lose a loved one, you should grieve. But you want to be able to be in that state in the shortest amount of time possible and get on. And again, use your pain with a purpose and help, you know, contribute to others and live with a grateful mindset also we know studies show that you know when you live in that state of that positive you know positive perseverance that that gives you the greatest chance of your best outcome so you mentioned something there as well is this adding value to me is this serving me i think that's such an important part as well you know you'd mention cutco is that what where did you what sort of influenced

that principle was that cutco started it for you and it was something you took further yourself or you read something in a book or what was it that sort of allowed you to create this sort of resilient positive mindset? So initially it was literally cut co and I want to I really want to highlight this for a second. There's an important piece. So the five minute rule is what it's called, but the five minutes is arbitrary, right? In fact, when I first heard that and I want to say this because I'm sure people listening, some people are going like, give me a break. I'm not going to get over something in five minutes just because I set a timer and it goes off. And that was when I first learned this, that's what I thought.

And then I remember the first time I used the five minute rule I drove 45 minutes to this woman's house to do a cut call appointment. Normally I was trying to drive like, you know, 10 minutes max. She was way out in the boonies. And I'm like, it's my first week. I'm new. I'm excited. I'm going for my goal.

And I get to her house and there's a post-it note on the door that says, we don't want any knives, exclamation point. And I knock on the door, nobody's there. And I'm like, how, how? rude is that like she had my phone number she let me waste an hour and a half of my day so i get in my car i set my timer for five minutes and i'm just you know cursing under my breath and i'm stewing i'm like and i'm going you know how how how dare she and it felt like it was five seconds later the timer goes off i'm like i'm still mad and i snooze right i hit the snooze button on the phone and snooze for five

more minutes i did two more times and then at the end of the 15 minutes i was like all right i can't change it my manager's right i can't change it so the first few times though I felt vindicated, like, I need more than five minutes. But after two weeks of doing this every single day, every time I would have somebody not buy from me or a canceled appointment or not reach my goal for the day or make 20 phone calls and have somebody hang up on me and go, how? Don't ever call here again. I don't want to hear from you, right? Like things that hurt you as a human being, right? I would set my time over five minutes. And after two weeks, I got the biggest order of my career. and I called my mentor and I told him and he said,

Hal, that makes you number one in the office. I was so excited. I called my mom and dad. I celebrated. And that night at 9 o'clock, the woman called me and canceled the order. And I lost being number one in the office. I didn't reach my goal.

And I set my timer for five minutes. And I went, oh, I can't believe she did that. She would have loved those knives. She loved those knives. But her husband got mad or whatever. And I said, what am I going to do now? I mean, I can't change it.

All I can do is, you know, move on. and make calls tomorrow morning. And I picked up my cell phone and I had four minutes and 32 seconds left. And Josh, it was a life-changing moment because I went, wait a minute. What's the point of dwelling on something I can't change for the next four and a half minutes

when I could just say, can't change it now, accept it, and go enjoy my evening? And that was the moment where I realized the time frame is arbitrary, whether it's five minutes, five seconds,

five days, it's understanding that your liberation comes when you move from resisting reality and wishing the thing that happened didn't happen to going, you know what, it did happen. I can't change it. So I might as well just accept it and be at peace and move on. And that's what you're working towards is you're moving toward that. And like you said, as fast as is healthy. If I lose my mother, I'm probably going to grieve for a few months. You know what I mean? But let me say this last piece. this is the difference. It's, I choose the emotional state that best serves me. And that's what this five minute rule allows me to do is be conscious of what I'm choosing. My choosing to resist reality or am I choosing to be at peace? And there's a big difference between losing a loved one and going, I'm going to choose to grieve for the next few weeks or whatever's healthy. And then I'm going to be at peace with it versus I lost something that's of value to me and I have no control over the way I feel and now my life's a wreck and I'm a wreck and I'm out of control. That's the difference.

It's so good. You know, I think what what you're sharing here is is that we, you know, we have the power to control our emotions and we should. And I think sometimes people think, well, you know, I can't, there's nothing I can do about like about who I love, right? I mean, this is a narrative we see in TV today or if I get angry or if it's it's sort of like we, we are completely controlled by our feelings. when I think the reality is, you know, I think if somebody becomes incredibly emotionally mature, what they do is, is what you're saying. It's, hey, I'm going to choose to in this moment be grateful. Or I'm going to choose to mourn right now because I know that's the healthiest thing for me to do.

It'd be, even though I could choose to try and be happy throughout this funeral or losing a close friend, I'm going to choose to mourn because it's healthy. It's what I should do. I you know and so anyways I I don't think that most people think about it the way that you're sharing I think most people do feel like they're a victim yeah to their feelings and their emotions but the reality and the other thing I want to point out that it's just I love that you said this and I want everybody to get this is that um it's like it's like anything it takes practice at first it's probably going to take longer you're going to be done with five minutes and like you know what I need another five and I need another five but eventually at 30 seconds you're like okay you know you know know what? I'm good now. All right. Let's go. Yeah. So, yeah. You know, I want to ask you about some of the emotions that you tend to foster. I know when I, when I've gone through, just to share with you, I had a thing really last year where I didn't walk for a year. And I was told I may never walk again a very similar way. Oh, wow. I had a spinal infection. And when I went through it, I'd never

felt certain emotions that I started popping up. I started feeling despair and hopelessness and things like that, but I did something very similar where I said, this is not serving me. And I want to foster emotions that serve me. One of those emotions that I had was I tried to, I tried to foster gratitude and also say, well, I can't do that, but I can do this, right? And try and have the best mindset around this. You seem like a really grateful person. Talk to me about the role that gratitude plays. And are there any other emotions that you intentionally try and foster? Yeah. Yeah, gratitude. So I actually call it bliss.

I don't know if that's technically an emotion. But to me, it's gratitude, peace, and happiness. So I'm at peace with life because life's, the world's a crazy place right now. Right. And what I think in 2020, I really realize that when we focus on that, which is out of our control, we feel out of control. And when you feel out of control, it causes you to, you know, perpetuate anxiety. and stress and fear.

And so when you understand, okay, putting my mental energy and my focus and attention on things that are out of my control, that doesn't change the things, but it causes me a lot of anxiety, stress, and even leads to depression, right? And so for me, it's peace is the idea that, look, I can't change what I can't change. So the only logical choice I have is to be at peace with all that is out of my control, which is like 99.999% of what's happening in the world, right? You can't control other people, can't control the economy, can't control the government, but how many people lay awake at night stressed about other people, the economy, the government,

right? And so peace is the first one. To me, that's like the foundational, and I don't really think it's an emotion. It's more of a state of consciousness, right? When you live, as we've been talking about, where you accept reality exactly as it is, it doesn't mean you're happy about all the things going on. But being at peace is far more rooted than happiness because happiness is an emotion and it's fleeting. You could be happy one minute and get a phone call, get some bad news.

Now you're now you're distraught. But then you get another phone call. You win the lottery. Well, now you're happy, right? Like, we just jostlate between these positive and negative emotions. When you live in a state of unconditional acceptance of reality and you stop wishing things that are out of your control were different, you give yourself the gift of peace. And again, it's not an emotion because it doesn't, it doesn't, you can't jerk it way it's just a state of consciousness that you live and i'm at peace with life ooh that sucks that

caused some negative emotion but i return to this state of consciousness that is inner peace that is unwavering and then from that state i would call that state emotionally neutral to it in a sense i mean it does feel nice it feels calm so i don't know if it's neutrally but it's it's the closest thing to emotional neutrality and then from there i go how do i want to feel now that i'm at peace, what do I want, what do I aspire to? And to me, it's gratitude and, you know, call it joy, call it happiness. I call it bliss to me is the state where you're at peace. You're grateful for everything. And when I say everything, I mean everything. There's a scene in the Miracle Morning documentary, so there's a documentary, the Miracle Morning movie, if you will. And halfway through

filming that, I was diagnosed with cancer and given a 20 to 30% chance of surviving, right? And I had a seven-year-old daughter and a four-year-old son. So much harder to deal with than my car accident for that alone, that I had a family that now was, you know, the biggest part of my life. And I called our director of the film and I said, hey, Nick, you'll never believe this. I'm in the hospital right now. I'm starting chemotherapy tomorrow. I have this rare cancer. The odds are 70 to 80% chance I'm going to die in the next one to three weeks. And Nick's a friend of mine and he's like, oh my God, Hal, you know, and he's asking some questions. And after probably about 10 minutes, he goes,

Hal, look, I don't want this to come across the wrong way. Number one, if anyone, I believe you're going to beat this cancer. I know how you approach things. I know your mindset. I have no doubt that if anybody can beat this cancer, you're going to beat it. Number two, I don't think we should put the movie on hold. I would love to come film you and interview you and get footage of you beating cancer. because I think that's going to help a lot of people.

He goes, this is the movie now. You know, and I was scratching my head like, well, let me talk to my wife. I don't, this isn't even, I wasn't thinking that. Anyway, thank God he did that. And there's this scene in the movie where they, you mentioned a spinal injury. They, they were trying to inject chemotherapy in my spine and they accidentally injected into one of my nerves. And it caused the most horrific migraines I've ever had for, I think it was 11 consecutive days,

nonstop, round the clock. Morphine didn't work. Oxycontin didn't work. Nothing worked. I was in the most horrific pain. And I've been recording video blogs for like the Miracle Morning community, giving them updates on how I was doing, encouraging them. And I'm sitting there bawling my eyes out and I go, dad, I handed it myself when I said,

please record this. He said, okay, what do you want me to record? I said, I don't know what I'm going to say, but I just want people to see what, I want them to see every side of what I'm going through. And so there's a clip of it. in the movie where I say, I've never been in so much pain, but I want you to know it doesn't change that I am still grateful for every moment of my life and every experience, including this one.

Because, you know, the old cliche adage, if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger. I believe that our adversity is our greatest teacher. It is our greatest opportunity for growth and to evolve into a better version of ourselves. And so anyway, so yeah, so I mean, for me, gratitude is crucial. And like during the miracle morning, I'm using my meditation and my visualization. I'm using these practices to foster my optimal mental and emotional state so that I'm, it's like working out in the gym, but for your mind, body, and spirit, right? So that throughout the day when I'm dealing with stressful situations, in the morning, I conditioned gratitude.

I conditioned peace of mind. I conditioned resiliency. I conditioned joy so I can tap into those emotions, you know, at will. Yeah, wow. Well, you said something as you started, I want to come back to and then come back around here at the end, but it's this idea of when you try and control things that are out of control, your life feels out of control. And, and, you know, I think so much of this, what this reminds me of, a lot of it is perception, and it's sort of the way that we tend to deal with issues.

So if I think about perception, for you, it's, you know, everyone else is focusing on the pain and you're focusing on the purpose, right? So your perception of things is very, very different. And that's the thing that I think of with anybody that's successful in anything in life, the way that they perceive things, what they see in the situation is very different. You know, it's like if you have somebody come up to you, Hal, and they say something that's mean and angry towards you, I'll bet, just knowing from talking to you the past 20 minutes or so, that you're going to kind of allow that to reflect off of you.

And you may even think, well, why did that person say that hurtful thing? They must be hurting, right? So your perception is more, it's a different way of looking at things. And I think that's one of the other things I just would encourage everybody to do as Hal has shared some of these things. It's you need to really shift your perspective and also be aware, as he's talked about, that you can hone your emotional state. I think that's just a really, really important concept. And so whether they'd be gratitude or bliss, as you talked about, I think that these are things that we can all foster.

But it starts with sort of getting our perceptions right. And also you've talked about the Miracle Morning here. Walk us through what the Miracle Morning is exactly. Yeah, so the Miracle Morning, it's a six-step morning ritual that combines really six of the most timeless, proven personal development practices of all time that the world's most successful people have sworn by for centuries. To quote Robert Kiyosaki, Robert Kiyosaki is probably the biggest advocate of the Miracle Morning.

He teaches it at every speech that he gives. It's part of his speech. I gave him a copy of my book when we spoke in an event. I never thought he'd read it. And I got an email from his assistant three weeks later saying he's read it three times. It's changed his life. And I always quote, the way that he summed it up at the end of our interview is he said, how these six practices, which by the way, to give the listeners a visual, they are organized in an

acronym that is savers. So I call these the life savers, the six practices that will save you on missing out on the life that you want. But savers is the acronym. It stands for silence. That's your meditation or prayer or breathwork to get centered in the morning. A is for affirmations. And I'm going to, I want to dive into those because I teach them in a very different way than well-meaning self-help gurus that I think have ruined them for people. The V is for visualization, right? World's greatest athletes use it to show up at their best every day. So should we. The E is for exercise.

The R is for reading and the final S is for scribing, which is a fancy word for journaling, but I needed an S for the acronym to work, right? But so the way Robert said it at the end of our interview, he goes, Hal, if you study any successful person on the planet, he said, I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone that doesn't swear by at least one of the savers and attribute their success to one of those. six practices. He said, and if you do any one of these, it will change your life. He said, but I've

never heard of anyone that did all six of these timeless practices every single day in one ritual. And he said, it works for me. In my mind, I just go, okay, S, all right, I do my silence. Okay, what's next? Oh, yeah, A. And then I do my affirmations. He goes, I just run through all six every morning. And he said, it's changing my life. And so that's the miracle morning. It's those six practices and there's an entire chapter in the new book customizing the miracle morning to fit your lifestyle and achieve your goals and it talks about you could do them in as little as six minutes in fact there's a chapter in the book called the six minute miracle morning for days where you're you're really busy i don't recommend that as your daily ritual you can't go very deep you know

with one minute each but it was kind of a it helped with the all or nothing mentality we have which is like oh i wanted to do a 20 minute miracle morning but i only have 10 minutes so i'm not going to do it or I wanted to do 30 minutes but I only have 15. And it's the idea that, oh, I only have 10 minutes, but I can do one minute of silence and get really centered, one minute of affirmations and read these statements that remind me what I'm committed to in my life. I can visualize what I need to do today the most important task and put myself in a peak state while I see what it's going to look like and feel what it's going to feel like. I can stand up and do 60 seconds of jumping jacks and get my heart rate up and get my blood flowing. I can read a page out of a book in 60 seconds

get one idea to change my life and I can write down what I'm grateful for for the day. So in as little as six minutes, you can have a profound impact on the rest of your day. Most people do a 30 to 60 minute miracle morning and you can do the sabres in any order. You can start with exercise to get your blood flowing so you wake up. You know, you can do it in any order. So that's the miracle morning. I love it. I love it.

I have a similar practice. It doesn't hit on all of those. It's a little bit more for me, God focus. it's a spiritual triathlon of prayer and and gratefulness and meditation. And, but anyway, anyways, I love it. I love it. I think it's a, it's really, really powerful. Walk me through, um, a little bit.

The, uh, you know, of those practices, pick a couple exactly, giving me an example of what you might do. Um, and what that might look like exactly. Yeah. So, uh, all, I'll, I'll give you a couple. So silence, first of all. And this, and to be fair, you know, the new miracle, Morning update and you can walk through all of them by the way if you want to walk through all six

sort of and give us a breakdown that's that's great as well really only the first three need a really detailed like there's some advanced way of approaching these and the last three are kind of just you know easy to go off of but on but so the new edition of the book you know when i wrote the first the edition of Miracle Morning i was brand new to all of these practices so in some ways that really helped me when i wrote the book because a lot of people that came to the book there were two things. One, I was new, so I really made it simple because I wasn't advanced, right, in any of these. But the other thing is I'm a very practical, actionable results oriented person, right? Like, and a lot of these are woo-woo practices, you know, like make a vision board,

you know, do these affirmations where you tell yourself you're a money magnet, right? Like, that didn't work for me. So I had to figure out, like, how do I use these practices to actually generate results? I don't want to affirm that I'm a money magnet. I want to generate more income. Right. I don't want to make a vision board of stuff on the wall and then never look at it again. I want to use visualization the way the world's greatest athletes do. So when I was new to the Miracle Morning, it was approached, how do I make it simple for people, but how do I make it practical, actual results oriented? In the new edition of the book, I've now been doing these practice for 15 years.

I've gone through multiple meditation studies and courses and right. And so now it's taking the best of the original with, you know, how do you, how, what, What about how do you take it to the next level? So I'll give you a few examples. So silence is the first, right? For me, that's prayer and meditation. Now, the meditation practice that I walk you through in the new book is, I call it emotional optimization meditation.

I think I made it up, but I'm always hesitant to claim that because, Josh, you ever thought you made something up and then you're reading a book that was written like 50 years ago and you're like, oh, he got the same message from God that I did, right? Well, there's nothing new under the sun. Exactly, right? Oh, yeah. So anyway, but here's the technique that I tell myself I might have had a hand in making up.

So I call it emotional optimization meditation. Most meditations are about clearing your mind, calming your nervous system, lowering your cortisol levels, you know, focusing on your breath, right? And there's a lot of value in that. I still, that's usually how I enter into my meditation. But the emotional optimization meditation is very much an alignment. with what we talked about in the beginning of the podcast, is about optimizing your mental and emotional state every single day.

So it goes like this. Step one is asking yourself, what emotional state would best serve me today? Now, that might change based on the day. Again, my default is bliss. I want to just feel happy at peace and grateful. That's like my default state that I want to be in. But if I've got a really big, you know,

if I'm given a keynote, I gave a keynote yesterday. If I'm given a keynote speech, then I, you know, I need to be really full. focused and confident, right, that kind of thing. And so that might be the emotional state that I choose. If it is Saturday morning and I know my kids are going to be coming out of their bedrooms in about an hour and greeting me, I'll get in a state of playfulness and love and connection to my kids. So the state varies. But every day you ask yourself, what is my optimal mental and emotional

state that would best serve me today? Then you get into that state. Now in the book, I walk through ways to do that, but it might be like, when was the last time I felt confident, right? And you might, you might go back in time to, oh, yeah, I felt confident then. And then you imagine that to get yourself back into that state. Then you set your timer, whether it's for one minute or five minutes or 10, however long you're going to meditate. And you meditate, and it's almost, almost like, marinate in that emotional state. And I'll do everything from tell myself, I am at peace. I do feel grateful. I do feel playful. I do feel comfortable. I do feel comfortable. I do feel I am right. I'll get myself in that state and you know, you being much more scientific as a doctor than I am, right? You're you're creating neural pathways in your brain and you are your, you're programming your subconscious mind so that that state is more and more and more just part of who you are. You're acclimating to it and now it becomes the default state or one of the default states that you can access it will throughout the day. Any questions on that or thoughts or comments?

Well, I'm loving this. I think that this is an incredibly transformative message that you're sharing right now. In fact, when I opened up, now I had a mentor who was an incredible doctor. And in Chicago, I went up and trained under him. And one of the things he taught me to do, he said, you know, before you go in, and I had a very different clinic, it was a functional medicine clinic, but we also did chiropractic and physical therapy and nutrition consults and really tried to also help people not just heal physically, but mentally and spiritually. one of the practices I did was I would try and my mentor taught me this. He said, you know, before you go in and serve patients, you need to have that servant's heart. You need to get in the mindset of Mother Teresa or someone like Jesus where it's like you want to be in this thing where you are compassionate for the pain people have going on. You want to rush to help. You want to do everything you can. You also want to operate with a spirit of conviction knowing that you have a message that is going to help people heal. So, for instance, we were all natural in my clinic. And And I knew that there was a lot of kids getting put on Medicaid, like antibiotic drugs.

I knew all the side effects of that for them. And so I got myself in a state of conviction and compassion of. I have a message that can save and transform lives. And there's people suffering in front of me. And I will do everything in my power to help them. And so I had this little video I would play two minutes in the morning. I had a picture of Mother Teresa up and a few others. And I would just, I would sort of think to myself and say like,

I am a servant of all, and then I would go out there and treat patients. But anyways, what you just shared was something that I've practiced. And it was honestly one of the most powerful things that I've ever done in getting my mind right every single morning. But I love that you've taken this thing as well and applied it to every area of life for your kids. Hey, I'm, you know, I'm playful, Josh now. Like, I'm going to go in there and I'm going to love and encourage and challenge my kids to grow and be the best they can be. So anyways, I just wanted to say, I just, I just, I just, I'm going to go in there. I absolutely love this practice. It's so powerful.

That's awesome, Josh. Thank you. And that's what a great story. And yes, your point, you know, mindset is everything. I think you opened up with that in the beginning of the show, right? And we've all been there before where if you're in a low state of mind, right, then and something happens to you, right? You're rejected or someone's mean, right? If you're not a good state of mind, it will affect you in a really detrimental way. Whereas if you're in a really, if you're in a great state of mind, that exact same thing, you could be like, oh, whatever, and keep moving. So our state of mind is everything. And that's why that meditation practice to me is one of the most important things I do every single day to make sure that I show up at my best for the people I love, the people I lead, you know, and just and for myself. So the A in Sabres is for affirmations.

And in full disclosure, this is my favorite of the savers. Like I always joke if somebody asked, you know, do you have a favor to the savers? The politically correct answer would probably be, no, they're all equally important. but this is my favorite of the Sabres. And the reason is because, well, and I think you'll get it once I explain how I do this, but affirmations, it's, to me, I can edit them every day. I can fine tune them to be the exact words that I need to focus my subconscious mind, my conscious thoughts and my behavior to be in alignment with what I need to do to achieve

everything I want for my life. Let me start by saying the problem with affirmations, the way that a lot of well-meaning self-help gurus, let's say, have taught him. Number one is we're taught to tell ourselves something that is not necessarily true, but that we want to be true as if it were already true. So for example, let's say you, financially, you're not in a good position, right? You're struggling right now. You're in a tough season. But you want to be wealthy. So you would have been taught, well, just tell yourself, just affirm, I am wealthy. I am wealthy, right? But the problem is, is if that is not true for you,

then you're creating an internal conflict, right? You're lying into yourself essentially. And every time you tell yourself, I am wealthy, your subconscious goes, no, you're not. You're not even close. In fact, you're like in the worst financial position. And you know, you're arguing with yourself going, no, shut up.

I'm doing these affirmations that I learned, right? The second problem of affirmations is that flowery, passive language that promises a magical result, independent of any effort, does not produce results. So for example, it's that affirmation I kind of joked about earlier. I am a money magnet. Money flows to me effortlessly and in abundance.

That affirmation has stood the test of time. And I think because it deludes people into feeling better short term, right? Like if you look at your phone bank balance and it's not good, you're going, oh, my God, I'm so stressed out. I need my affirmations. I'm a money magnet. Oh, that feels better. This is like taking a drug. I mean, what you're saying is like, hey, we're covering up.

the symptom we're not getting to the root cause. Yes. I love that you said that. I'm going to add that to when I teach this. That's a great way of putting it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Money's going to flow into my life effortlessly. Oh, God, that feels better. But that doesn't actually give you more money, right? So the three steps, I'm going to teach you all three steps right now to create affirmations that are practical, actionable, and will produce measurable results. Step one, affirm what you're committed to, right? In life, we don't get what we want because we want it. We get what we want if and only if we are fully committed to it. So the way that looks in my affirmation, the template, if you will, would be I am committed to blank and that blank could be an outcome or it could be

a behavior. I'm committed to losing 20 pounds, no matter what, there's no other option. That's how I end my affirmation. I'm committed to blank, no matter what, there's no other option. So it could be an outcome or I'm committed to exercising 30 minutes a day, four days a week, right? It could be either or, but it's the commitment that will get you to where you want to go. The second step is why it's a must for you, affirm why it is an absolute must for you. In other words, what are the benefits, the reasons that are so compelling that you're willing to do whatever it takes to follow through with that commitment? So the reasons I usually pick three, four, five, I mean, I don't limit. I don't go with the hundred.

You know, quality over quantity. But if there's more than one reason, like, why are you doing this? Are you doing it for yourself? Are you doing it for your family? Are you doing it for both? Right? What are the short-term benefits? What are the long-term benefits?

So that's the second step. And the third step, affirm which specific actions you will take and when you will take them. That is where the rubber meets the road, as my coach used to say, right? Okay, you're committed to this outcome. or this behavior, you know why it's a must for you, but if you leave it at that, you might not do the right things. Now you've got to clarify step three, okay, since I'm committed to this, it's a must for me, what will I do?

Specifically, what will I do and when will I do it? I'm going to give you an example, Josh, on how this formula, I believe, saved my life. When I was diagnosed with cancer, and I mentioned it was a 20 to 30% survival rate. Horrible odds. Now, I will tell you, the day I was diagnosed, my wife was living, she was terrified of losing her husband. I don't blame her. I was scared.

But I said, sweetheart, I don't want you to listen to the doctor's odds because 20 to 30% survival rate, that means that's of every person that gets this cancer, including people with a terrible mindset, which I will not have, people that eat a horrible diet, which I will not do, people that don't do everything in their power to survive, which I absolutely will do. So sweetheart, I want you to look at it this way. In my mind, there is a 100% chance that I will be among the 20 to 30% of those who beat this cancer. Because I will do everything, everything in my power, everything that they did and more to survive. I'll do it for you. I'll do it for my family. Here's how that affirmation looked. Step one, affirm what you're committed to every morning.

And by the way, let me say this, Josh. when I first was diagnosed, I was afraid. Of course, I was scared. I thought, what if I die? What if I leave my seven-year-old daughter and my four-year-old son without a dad? That's like a parent's worst nightmare, or other than losing your child probably, right? I mean, it's between those two. And I was scared, and I thought, what if I do everything right? And I still die. Because at that time, my heart was failing, my kidneys were failing, and my lung was collapsing every other day. that's how I knew I had cancer because this cancer attacks your organs. And the doctor said I had one to three weeks to live if I didn't start chemotherapy immediately,

which I did not want to do. But some of the best, since you're a doctor, I'll mention this part of the story. I reached out to two of the best holistic oncologists in America and saying, hey, how can I beat this naturally? And they both said, there's nothing anyone can do naturally because it's such a fast acting cancer. your organs are already failing. There's nothing we can do to change your diet or supplement or anything that's going to save you. Your best course of action is chemotherapy, which killed me.

I'm like, I don't want to poison my body. And because my cancer is so aggressive, it was 650 hours of chemotherapy over seven months. So I decided, okay, I guess if the best holistic oncologists are saying chemo is my best bet, I'm not going to go rogue. I'm going to listen to their advice. I'll do the chemo. However, I will not leave my life in the hands of a doctor who doesn't, you know, doesn't know me, doesn't no skin off their back. If I make it great, if I don't, they did their best.

I take 100% responsibility for healing. I will do everything in my power, including everything holistic in addition to Western medicine. So back to the affirmations formula. Step one, what you're committed to. I said, I am committed to beating cancer. and living to be 100 plus years old, alongside Ursula and the kids, our kids, no matter what, there is no other option.

And Josh, whenever I felt fear, I would pull that affirmation. I go, fear doesn't serve me, right? That emotional state doesn't serve me. So I'd pull up the affirmation and say, I am committed to beating cancer and living to be 100 plus years old alongside Ursula and the kids, no matter what, there's no other option.

And I would say it over and over and over with so much conviction that within a week, or two, there was no fear. It had been replaced by this commitment, this faith that I was going to beat cancer. Step two, why is it a must for you? I had five reasons. Number one, I will beat cancer for Ursula because I promised her forever into day. Number two, I will beat cancer for Sophia and Halston because they need their daddy's love and guidance. And I want to watch them grow up. Number three, I'll beat cancer for my mom and dad. Sorry.

Because they already lost a child and they don't deserve to lose another one. Number four, I'll be cancer for myself because I too deserve to live a long, happy, healthy life. And number five, last but not least, I'll beat cancer for the millions of people who are themselves battling cancer or some other disease

and may not have been blessed with the knowledge and the resources that I have. And it's my responsibility to get through this. so that I can help them get through what they're going through. And as you can tell, I'm getting emotional. Those five reasons were so compelling and they were so meaningful that when I was sick after chemo or when I felt like giving up, when I read those five reasons, there was no, no, no, no, no, no.

Oh yeah, I can't give up. Oh, yeah, it doesn't matter that I'm tired. It doesn't matter that I'm sick. It doesn't. I'm committed no matter what because of these five reasons. I will do everything I possibly can. And then the third step was very simply, I'll combine the best of Western medicine and listen to my doctor while maintaining an unwavering belief that the chemo is killing the cancer, but my body will survive it. And I will combine that with the best holistic practices that I can pause. And I'll relentlessly research and pursue those. And just a, you know, I had a ton of them. It was 70 supplements a day that were vetted to be, you know, not have fillers and not have crap in them.

I did ozone sauna three times a week. I did coffee in them as three days a week. I juiced every day. I had an organic diet on and on and on. I did everything I possibly could. And kind of like the car accident, my doctors were like, whoa, you're getting better faster than we could imagine. And a big part of this was that my miracle morning, not. only the affirmations, but all six of the savers were directed toward one outcome. And it was

healing my body and surviving that cancer. That's what I applied my meditation to, my affirmations, my visualization, the books I was reading, the journaling I was doing. Plus I exercised every day. All of it was focused on one outcome. And I think, I'll just say this, that's the power of the miracle morning, is you literally take whatever your number one goal is, you literally take whatever your number one goal is in your life. You want to save your marriage? Filter all six of the savers toward that outcome. You want to be a better parent. You want to make more money. Whatever it is that you want to do in your life, you focus your miracle morning on it and you're ensuring that you're starting every day accelerating the progress that you're making and who you're becoming toward the ends that you're

working towards, the goals that you have, et cetera, the dreams that you have. Yeah, how? Well, one, I appreciate you. You know, you getting emotional, just it reminds me of going through this with my mom. My mom was diagnosed with cancer. And I remember when she, the first time she had cancer, we did all the conventional treatments. The second time she ended up doing all a whole holistic regimen. And I remember reading a study that was about the placebo effect. And the placebo effect, what a lot of people don't realize is the placebo effect is not just not, is it, it goes,

deeper than just believing this thing is helping me. In fact, in one of the, there's a breakdown here of a little bit of the way this works. And so the placebo effect is more energized when not only do you believe this thing will work, but also when you tie emotions to it. So a lot of people will kind of stuff those emotions aside and say, well, I just, I don't want to feel anything right now. I'd rather feel numb than feel, you know, heartache or feel joy or anything. It just, I'm going to kind of numb myself. And the stuff, the stuff. actually shows that if you do exactly what you said, I mean, you went through the exact process, you believe that you can. One, so you proved yourself, I believe I can be that 20, 30 percent.

The next step is I am going to tie emotions to, you know, bringing my kids to Disney, where that's what my mom did. So my mom was like, I want to see my granddaughter get married. I want to bring my grandkids to Disney World. I want to go on, like she had all of these visions and dreams, and she got emotionally charged with joy and happiness and gratitude of, this future. And then she had number three was if there's a plan of action, a step by step in order to make this thing happen. And so what anyways, I love that you're sharing this because I think that it is so powerful for healing is this, it's a type of, you know, it's a form of faith in many ways. And so it's something that again, and again, I just wanted to say this is something we used for

my mom's healing of cancer. It's something you used in your healing of cancer. And this is one of the most, if not the most powerful form of cancer treatment and healing. I feel really confident saying that along with prayer of this idea of visualization and faith in that whole process. So anyways, thanks so much for sharing that because I think it's really, really powerful, especially, you know, a lot of people in this podcast also want to get healthy. They may be dealing with health conditions for a long time. And so it's a thanks so much for sharing this. Well, yeah, and I'll follow up. I'll follow that up with Josh that I once interviewed Dr. Bernie Siegel, the famous cancer surgeon, and he's written a lot of books. One of them was called Love, Medicine, and Miracles that I read during my

cancer journey. And when I interviewed Dr. Bernie Siegel, and I think he's treated 3,000 cancer patients. And to paraphrase what he said, he said that every cancer patient that survived, including those that shouldn't have statistically, right, he said they all had one thing in common. They just decided they were going to survive and that there was no other option or it was exactly that first part of the affirmation that I did and he said but he saw a lot of patients die that shouldn't have like they had cancers that were very beatable and he said but the one thing they had in common is that they gave up they lived in fear right they were like oh no no I have cancer it's over right he's like no no no you can do this they're like no my dad died of cancer I'm going to die of cancer

right and so yeah to your point like the the I believe the mind-body connection you know I'm a doctor or a scientist, but I just think that, you know, we have trillions of cells and they just do what we tell them to through our thoughts and emotions. If you're like, oh my gosh, I'm going to die, they're like, okay, I guess that's what we're doing then. But if you're like, no, no, no, I'm going to live. You watch me. It's like, oh, okay, then that's what we're doing, right? Yeah, you're hitting the nail in the head. I remember we had over COVID. We had a, one of Chelsea's, her, one of her grandparents, he was diagnosed with COVID. And by the way, he was incredibly healthy golfing, no healthy, I mean, really no health issues.

was really healthy and he got the diagnosis of he had COVID now at the time this was kind of at the peak of COVID and and and he thought it was a death sentence and he died two weeks later but even the doctors and everyone were like no you're going to be fine just you know whatever and here's what when he got the diagnosis he goes oh no oh no and and you like he he believed he was he gave up yeah he believed he was gonna going to die. And so this is something I think that I've seen, whether it's a cancer patient or another issue, that if somebody, you're right, you said, someone's going to decide. And I think that that is, and not to say that, you know, it's, you know, that determines it 100% of the time, but I think the majority of the time, that's at, it's absolutely true. It's absolutely true. You know,

one of the things I was thinking about how switching gears just a little bit here is you talk about the miracle morning. Most people's morning. or let me say, a lot of people's mornings are chaotic and crazy. Maybe they've got five kids. How does somebody, and by the way, there's also like, I'm, I am a morning person. Like I wake up at five, you know, whenever. And I'm ready, you know, I'm ready to go and take on the day. But at night, I'm not a night person.

So at night, I'm like, you know, put me to bed at eight o'clock. Yeah, I'm the same. My wife's kind of the opposite there. But, you know, some people are like, well, you know, I'm not a morning person. What is your advice to those people? How can they still incorporate the crazy households or the not mourning people? How can they still incorporate, you know, the miracle morning? Yeah.

So it's a great question. And I'll tell you, first of all, I wasn't a morning person when I came up with the miracle morning. And not to go into the whole backstory, but it was 2008. The economy had crashed. And six months of this downward spiral where I lost half my income. I couldn't pay my mortgage. I lost my house. I wasn't a morning person.

But I started Googling, what are the world's most success? that's what people do every day. Like I realize if I want to change my life, I've got to start doing something different. And I kept coming across morning routines and morning rituals. But I'm like, no, no, no, I'm not a morning person. Where, where's the, you know, night owl success plan, right? But I don't remember the article specifically, but I read an article and it changed my it was like, look, how you start your day is arguably, if you want to improve your life,

how you start your day is arguably the single most important decision you can make the improvement you can make because how you start your day sets the tone, the context, and the direction for the rest of your day. And you said it. Most people wake up at the last possible minute to get out the door and therefore they are being reactive to life and to their day. Whereas if you wake up even just 10 minutes earlier, I tell people the miracle morning, it doesn't have to be the 5 a.m. Club or an hour earlier, if all you do is wake up 10 minutes earlier and do one or two of the savers, The whole point is that you are putting yourself in a peak physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual state first thing in the morning.

And so I decided, okay, I've got to get over this limiting belief that I'm not a morning person and wake up a half an hour earlier and go, if that means I'm going to bed 30 minutes earlier, which normally the last 30 minutes of my night is not the most productive time watching TV or whatever. It's worth a shot. And my very first miracle morning, I was like, this is amazing. I feel so energized. and I have clarity and I'm inspired.

Like if I start every day like this, it's only a matter of time before I become the person that I need to be to turn my financial situation around because that's why I started this whole thing. And in less than two months of doing the Miracle Morning, I doubled my income back in 2008. And that's why I called it the Miracle Morning because it changed my life so fast. It felt like a miracle. I now ask people when I give, well, I should not just, not just from stage,

but a couple of years ago, somebody asked me in an interview. They said, howl, what percentage? of Miracle Morning practitioners. And if somebody listening doesn't know, the Miracle Morning sold millions of copies. There's millions of people around the world that do this. And he said, what percentage of these people were like Josh Axe? They were already mourning people.

So this was not hard for them. It was like, oh, cool. Instead of checking email at 6 a.m., I'll do the savers, right? Instead of, you know. And he said, so what percentage were already mourning people? And what percentage had never in their life been a morning person, nor believe they could become a morning person.

So this was like a radical shift of not just like doing something different in the morning, but actually getting up a little earlier. And I didn't know the answer. I was like, God, I should know the answer to that question. So ever since then, we've surveyed hundreds of thousands of people and asked that question of Miracle Morning practitioners. Roughly 72% of all Miracle Morning practitioners say that before they read the book, they never thought they could become a morning person.

And then they, and that's the thing. is when I wrote the book, I was very cognizant of like, my biggest insecurity as an author is, how am I going to convince somebody? Sure, they'll be convinced it'd be a good idea, but it's not for me. I'm not a more. How am I going to convince them and actually hold their hand to make that psychological shift from not a morning person, hate waking up in the morning to, okay, this makes sense to, okay, I'm actually going to commit to do this for 30 days.

And that's where it was amazing to go, wow, 72% of Mirac morning practitioners, didn't even think they could do it, but the book effectively guides you gradually through that first mental shift to then logistical shift to then actually doing the miracle morning. And I always say, you don't start all or nothing.

You don't wake up an hour earlier and do all six of the sabers. You start waking up 10 minutes earlier and doing one of the savers. And if somebody's never read the book, like when I give a speech, I'll always say, look, you know, a lot of you guys are getting the book

or you're going to order it on Amazon. on, all you have to do is wake up 10 minutes earlier and do the R in savers, reading. And that's easy. 10 minutes is nothing. But then when you get to the chapter on silence, the next day you can add in five minutes of silence. Then you get to the chapter on affirmations. The next day you add in affirmations, right?

And it's like, instead of jumping off the cliff, right, and doing this radical change in your behavior that is contrary to what you've believed for so long, no, you're just leaning gradually into it. All right, 10 minutes. I can do that. I can read for 10 minutes. That's not hard. And then you're slowly within a week or two. Now you've got a full blown miracle morning. Right. And you didn't. And it was easy. Like literally just leaned, crawled, you know, forward to get to that point. Yeah, I love it. I think it's this idea of just these, you know, minor, minor changes in the morning. Anybody can spend five, you know, take five minutes, you know, in the morning and do one of these practices. And so it's, I think it's important.

to remember that you don't have to, we're not telling you that you have to go and spend, you know, it's not like, hey, you got to go and work out an hour a day and drive there and whatever, and it's two hours of your time. Now, we're talking about, you know, starting off with even five minutes, 10 minutes and getting going in this way. And so I love the, you know, I, I started doing a, I'm trying to remember what Tony Robbins called it. Um, I listened to CD series. That's right. You got it. Hour of power is what got me, uh, actually doing more of these mornings. This was, this was back in, oh, goodness, probably 20, anyways, I'm trying to, probably 2005. So, I mean, a long time ago, and was probably 18, 19 years ago, and I started doing these

hour of power and going through, not quite to the extent you have, because you've, I think, taken it maybe a step further than Tony did. But I started doing some of these, and it really transformed my whole life. I started having this, and someone else said this, but this, when the morning, when the day. And I would really feel like after my morning, morning routine doing something very similar to your miracle morning, I would, you know, wake up, do these practices. And then I was like, I literally by 8 a.m. in the morning, I've already won the entire day. Like I could do nothing else the rest of the day. And I already

feel like I've won. And I think when you start your day like that with that victory. Yeah. It just, it flows throughout the rest of the day. You should tell my patience this. Listen, you don't have to change everything to start, but just change breakfast. Because I found that when my patients just changed and improved their breakfast, well, then they're like, well, okay, now I'm more conscious about my lunch. And then I'm more conscious about my dinner. And so literally, and here's the other thing, changing a breakfast isn't just a small change. It's changing one third of somebody's diet.

So anyways, to your point, it's like, man, if you can start your morning off right like that, it is incredibly powerful for what it does for the rest of the day. And so I, I just, I love that. It's such a, and I want to mention everybody listening right now. And I want to encourage you to check out Howl's book. You could simply go on Amazon.com search The Miracle Morning and you'll find it on there, Hal Al Rod, and you'll find it on there. And you can also go, I mean, it's in bookstores nationwide.

If you go to any Barnes & Noble, any Amazon bookshop, any books a million, you're going to find his book. It's sold over 2 million copies. And so I think you'll love this book if you want to get it and start having a miracle morning for yourself. I had a couple other questions for you here. One is, you know, one of the things that I know I respect about you, because this is something Rory told me. I know we have a mutual friend and Rory Vaden. And Rory had said, you know, I said, hey, tell me a little bit about how. I said, well, you know, first off, it wasn't like, you didn't even mention your book. He's like,

you know, how's an incredible, you know, he's an incredible family man. That's one of the first things he said. And you've got great personal relationships. And so walk me through if you have any other advice. Obviously, we've talked a lot about the miracle morning. We've talked about really having a level of perspective and control around our emotions as well. But talk to me about living a just full life, a successful life in all of these areas, including, you know, of family life. Yeah. I mean, I think that, and thank you to Rory for the kind words. But before I, when I had, before I had cancer, I really would, I'd become a workaholic, right? The Miracle Morning was just taking off and I was getting all of these.

request to go speak in Brazil and London and, you know, and it was like, it was, it was exciting. And in my head, I was justifying, you know, it's for the family on and on and on, right? And, and then cancer taught me like, oh, we only have limited time, especially with our kids at home, you know. And so that was a big, a big shift for me. And so now, you know, whenever I speak to entrepreneurs, I always say, how many of you family is your top priority and all the hands go up? And then I say, how many of you if I looked at your schedule, that would be obvious to me. And then very few hands go up, right? And so there's a few things that I do.

Again, the miracle morning, it's such an anchor practice because I have affirmations around following the three steps I taught earlier about how to be the husband that my wife deserves, right? What am I committed to being as a husband? Why is that a must for me? And which specific actions will I take and win? I have those affirmations around being a dad, right? that's a piece of it is that it keeps me focused on that.

And then there's the, you know, getting the kids ready. And I have family time in my schedule in the morning so that, you know, from seven to eight while the kids are getting ready. I used to just delegate that to my wife and go, well, she'll get the kids ready. I can get further ahead on work, right? And now it's no. That's time that I'll never get back. I'm going to be in the kitchen, making waters, doing whatever while we're getting ready.

And then, oh, and then I have, this is a cool, super simple, self-imple. imposed rule that I have as part of my miracle morning. And it's the R reading. I'm not allowed to read a business book or any other book, which I'm gravitated toward the new business book I'm reading, right, on how to, you know, reach more people. Until I've read a book, a family book. So I have to read a book on marriage or parenting to earn the right to read the business book that's on my shelf. And it's usually just five pages, right? I want to just get one idea that I can, implement. So I'm reading either a book on marriage or a book on parenting. And then once I've done that, then I go read my, my, you know, whatever book I'm reading on business or spirituality or whatever else it is.

So yeah, so that's a nice little self-imposed rule. And it also just the rule in and of itself reminds me as I, you know, I go, I reach for my book. Oh yeah. This is my, this is my top priority, right? These people, these three people I live with with my wife, my kids, that's my highest priority. So the act itself keeps your priority in order and then the act actually helps you become a better spouse or a better parent. So those are some of the pieces that I implement to keep family first. You know, you'd mentioned earlier, you've had the opportunity to talk to some amazing people. You even mentioned Robert Kiyosaki, who I'm a big fan of. I think he's done so much great stuff with rich dad. Poor dad. That was a book that really impacted me positively with building, you know,

wealth and success in business. And you know, you've obviously given a lot of great advice so far. And I'm curious what advice you've, you know, maybe some great advice you've received in your life. What is one of the best pieces of advice that you've ever received? Yeah, I don't know if I don't know who I heard this from. It might have been in prayer. So I might have got this one from God. But it's that when you finally get to the point in your life that you've been working so hard for for so long, you almost never wish it would have happened any sooner. You always look back and you go, oh, the timing was perfect. But the problem is in the present moment, most of us are not satisfied with the life we have because we think that happiness or joy

or bliss or whatever it is is in the thing we're working towards. And so we can't get there fast enough. And so we live every day, stressed, anxious, feeling like we're not where we want to be. And to me the solution is to love the life you have while you create the life of your dreams. Like be completely at peace with, hey, this is where, again, it goes back to not resisting reality, not wishing you were something that you're not or somewhere that you're not. It's like, hey, this is my life. And be grateful. I could be upset about my life and the ways it's imperfect or the ways I wish it were different

or the things I don't like. I could live there. That could be my life. or I could look at how amazed, how blessed I am to be alive, to have people that love me, that I get to love, to have food to eat, a roof over my head, work that, like, whatever it is. Both lists of bad and good are infinitely long, but which lists we focus on determines how we feel every day.

And we only have one life. And so, yeah, so again, when you finally get to the point you've been working for so hard, you're going to look back and realize the timing was perfect. so you might as well feel that perfection in every moment that you are alive. I love it. Well, it's great advice from whoever you got it from, God. And it's also great advice for everybody who's listening. What is your last piece of advice for anybody here who's listening who wants to grow their mindset, you know, and themselves and achieve their dreams?

Yeah, I'll close with, it's usually a quote I share much earlier, but I didn't share it. So this is really fitting. This is the quote that gave birth to the mirror. morning. So again, 2008, I'm struggling financially. I'm losing my house. I'm in a bad spot. And a friend of mine sends me this Jim Rohn audio. He knew that I was struggling. He said, I want you to listen to this Jim Rohn audio and I want you to apply it. I said, okay, I'd rather you gave me some money making advice right now. That's what I need. But sure, I'll listen to your Jim Rown audio. And Jim Rohn said this. Your levels of success in every

area of life will rarely exceed your level of personal development in said area. In other words, if we're measuring success on a scale of 1 to 10 and success in our health, our fitness, our relationships, our mental state, you name it, everyone wants level 10 success. Nobody, there's an innate desire within us to, I want to be as happy as I can be. I want to be as healthy as I can be. I want my relationships be as great as they can be. So I realize, okay, I want level 10 success, but the next question was, what's my level of personal development? And Jim Rohn said your level of success is not going to exceed your level of personal development. At that time in my life, it was like a two or a three.

Like I was in scarcity mode. I was in desperation mode. I was just trying to get by, which most people trying to get by. And I realized, if I want level 10 success in every area, I need to establish a daily personal development ritual to become that level 10 version of myself. And so the point of this is if you listen to what Jim Rohn said, to create the life you want, it's not about doing more. That's what you've been conditioned to believe. I got to do more. I got to work harder.

There may be some truth to that. Yeah, you got to put effort out. But I think the secret to success isn't doing more. It's becoming more. When you become the best version of yourself, you have the mindset, the habits, the knowledge, and the skills that you. you need to create everything that you want for your life. And so that's it. It's focused on who you're becoming and the doing will take care of itself. I love it. It's great advice. It's something I've highlighted on this show because I think we're focused too much rather than have a to-do list,

have a to-be list, right? We need to focus on who we can become. And it's just wonderful, wonderful advice. I want to encourage everybody to check out How's new book. It's actually an updated edition just released this week. It's called The Miracle Morning. And if you go on right now to Amazon.com and search the Miracle Morning, you can get the updated edition. It's also, again, bookstores nationwide. And I want to say, Hal, thank you so much for coming on. I mean, there's so much wisdom today that you shared during this podcast. And so I just want to say, thanks again. Thank you, Josh. This was, I enjoyed this conversation so much, man. Thank you. So you're your fantastic interviewer and you ask thoughtful questions and you're a brilliant guy.

you reflect things back. I mean, it was it was really enjoyable. Thank you so much. Well, again, thank you. And I learned a lot. And I love that. That's one of the things I love about doing this podcast is, you know, just the wisdom that is coming forth is so great. Well, also I want to say, hey, thanks everybody for listening to this week's podcast of the Growth Lab. Remember each and every week we're covering the science behind how to grow and how you can become your best you. Also, I want to say, hey, if you liked this interview, go and check out my interview with Donald Miller, where we discuss. the hero mindset and how to gain greater self-awareness, how to grow personally. You can check

that video out right here as well. Also, hey, if you're not subscribed, hey, please subscribe to the podcast. We've got some other great guests coming out. I think you're going to love. And again, thanks so much, Hal, for sharing your wisdom with us today. I'll see you guys on the next episode.