The Jordan Harbinger Show - 187: Hal Elrod | Fulfill Your Goals with The Miracle Equation

Episode Date: April 18, 2019

Hal Elrod (@HalElrod) has overcome two near-death experiences, is the bestselling author of The Miracle Morning, and his latest book, The Miracle Equation: The Two Decisions That Move Your Biggest Goals from Possible, to Probable, to Inevitable, is out now. What We Discuss with Hal Elrod: How the concepts of unwavering faith and extraordinary effort combine to form The Miracle Equation. Why this equation is a quantifiable, non-woo way of achieving the incredible in spite of borrowing words like "miracle" and "faith." How to move from the emotional pain of resistance to the emotional invincibility of acceptance. Why pursuing one mission dauntlessly is worth more than setting a hundred fuzzy goals. How you can turn off your stress response and what you can do to grow from fleeting happiness to lasting inner peace. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://jordanharbinger.com/187 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Listen to Mind Pump Episode 980 to discover the five most important steps you should take to achieve your best body by summer. Find it here! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with my producer, Jason DeFilippo. Today's guest has almost died twice. He actually did die twice temporarily and has not only recovered from a severe car accident and an extremely rare form of leukemia, but he's also gone on to be one of the best-selling authors of the last few years. He's also one of the most positive and energetic guys I've ever met, which is probably why, despite him being told he'd never walk again, he not only did so, but ended up running a 52-mile ultramarathon as well. Today, Hal Elrod and I discuss the concepts of unwavering faith and extraordinary effort, how we make those consciously and consistently over an extended period of time

to overcome resistance and achieve some pretty incredible things. I've been friends with Hal for years, and he's always been so incredibly generous of spirit and has really created something special with his Miracle Morning community, and I'm excited to have him here on the show today. Hal and I both strongly believe in relationships and networking. And honestly, my network has brought me so many amazing friends, so many amazing professional opportunities.

And I'm helping you build and maintain yours for free in six-minute networking, which you can find at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. Go grab that, Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. In the meantime, enjoy this episode here with Hal Elrod. I've known you for a long time, so I'm going to give you a hard time. I love it. I mean, you're staying at my house, so you can't escape. There's a lot of, like, there's a lot of love here that I just can't wait to use against you.

Yeah. On camera and on tape. I want to know how you made a living out of telling people to get up early because my dad's been trying to do that with one, just tell one person to get up early for like 39 years and he hasn't been successful. So I want to know how you've been successful literally getting millions of people to do it. So it's interesting. So the Miracle Morning was, it wasn't a book idea. It was my own attempt in 2008 when the economy had crashed. I was like, what are the world's, or what do successful people do? A friend of ours, John Berghoff was like, hell, go find out what are the world's most successful, happy, productive people. What are they doing? Do what they do and you'll get similar results? I'm like, yeah, that's common sense, right? And so I just, I went on a Google search. I mean, right? Nothing sophisticated here. And I, it ended up being, I kept coming across morning routines and morning rituals, but I'm like, no, no, I'm not a morning person. Like swipe left. What else do they do? Like, where's the, I get up at eight, you know, or nine? Like a normal person? Like a normal person. Yeah. And I'm still.

Like where's that plan? And I literally don't remember the article headline, but some headline grabbed me about morning routines. And this was back they weren't a big deal like they weren't very prevalent. So this is before you made it a pop culture thing to talk about how you get up at 3 a.m. And do 17 different things. So 2007 was when this was happening. Economy's crashing. I'm searching Google, right? Like morning routines are they're not this big thing like they are now. But some article grabbed me and it basically framed what it's like how a morning ritual like how you start your day isn't just something you might. consider maybe to add into your toolkit for success, it's arguably the single most important determining factor, or improvement you can make, because how you start your, like one thing we all share in common is we start the day, right? And if you start it in a way, it kind of sets the tone and the context for the rest of the day. So if you win the morning, you can win the day. And I was like, I was like, all right, I have to give this a shot. And so long story short, it changed my life really quickly. I went to my wife within two months. I'm like, sweetie, this morning ritual. Like, we just doubled our income.

we you know I'm I'm going to run an ultra marathon I'm like like it my life has changed so fast it feels like a miracle she goes it's your miracle morning I'm like yeah thing miracle morning you know and then and then but yeah so sorry to answer your question it was really um the writing the book from authentically this is how it helped me hopefully it helps you I didn't think it was going to be this worldwide phenomenon I didn't think it was going to sell a million copies I just was like this will help a few people and so I owe it to share it because it helped me and then if I get real technical, it's in the weeds of the book, there's a chapter in there on how to actually beat this news button if you've never been a morning person in your entire life.

And that chapter is the lynchpin. Like, if it wasn't for those, it's a four page chapter. If it wasn't for those four pages, everybody would have read the book, then like, oh, yeah, this makes sense. I should totally be a morning person. But after the excitement wear off, they would have, they would not have done it. Right, because, of course, if you talk to Jocko, who's a good friend of mine, Jock Willing, I love that guy.

But the one sort of little tiny hitch I see in his strategy of, hey, just get up really early and do stuff. And that's not all he talks about him, obviously. But that's one of his things. He's like, just do it. And it's like, yeah, there's a lot of people, like myself included who can just do that. I'll set an alarm. I usually wake up right before the alarm anyway. I get up and I go, I don't really want to be up right now, but Jack was lifting weights.

I don't want to feel bad about myself. So here I am, right? But there's a lot of people who read The Miracle Morning or would have read the Miracle Morning or would have read the Miracle. welcome morning without your four-page chapter and gone, I just can't. Yep. So what's in that four-page chapter? I mean, there's other things in the book, so it's not going to spoil it. Sure, sure.

How the hell do you beat the snooze button? Because that's where people around the world are going, I would love to get up earlier, but F that, I'm tired. I don't want to. I need my sleep. There's a lot of excuses, and a lot of them are really good and frankly, credible. Sure. So the chapter is, it's a really long, obnoxious, silly title.

It's called the five-step snooze-proof wake-up strategy. Yeah. Right? And it's, and I think a better, I wrote an article for entrepreneur where I kind of shared it and I called it, it takes five minutes to become a morning person, which I think is more accurate. That is better. Yeah, yeah, exactly, right? So your copy game has been stepped up since I wrote that one. Your headline game. ago. But, but, but so here's it, and I'll give it all the way. I don't care. I'll give everything away that I can. But so it's five steps that take about five minutes. And, and I'll share,

here's the most significant. If you only do one. In fact, I was speaking to a group of CEOs like three years ago and the guy that introduced me, who was the CEO, David Schneerman, that brought me in. He goes, I don't know if Howl's going to share this, but like there's this one little tip he gives in the book. I've never been a morning person. If it wasn't for this one tip, he said, I hope he shares it because, you know, it, it was the game changer for me. And so here's the tip. And it's of those five steps, and I'll give all of them, but here's the one that makes all the difference. You have to move your alarm clock. And by the way, this sounds like a kindergarten can do this. Across the room as far as humanly possible. Yeah, I know that makes complete sense. You think about it. Most of us keep our alarm clock within arms reach. And when the alarm goes off in the morning, you're able to turn it off without even opening your eyes. So your level of discipline on a scale of 1 to 10 to get out of bed is that a 1. Right? But if it's across the room, now for me, I keep it in my bathroom on the counter next to where I'm going to take the next step, which is simply brushing my teeth and washing my face. I hear one of those. And here's a very, here's a fundamental understanding, which is, you have to understand,

every minute that we're awake, right? So, yeah, what I would call your wake-up motivation level or your level of discipline, just by getting up out of bed and walking to the bathroom, it's gone from a one to like a three or four. You're way more awake than you were reaching over, fumbling for your phone. This is like that whole thing. This is how I started running, right? I would get up and I'd be like, I don't want to run.

It's coal in Michigan. It's five degrees outside. It's seven, eight a.m., whatever. And I'd go, you know what, I don't have to run. I just have to go outside with my shoes on, or my gear on, or just put my gear on. Yep. And it's like right in front of my bed. So I step out.

And then I'm like, I just have to go outside and feel the cold air for like 10 seconds, stretch my calves, whatever. By the time you're out there, you're like, I'm outside in the cold and I'm dressed. I'm not going back inside and taking it off and going to bed again. Well, and that's, I learned that. That's actually one of the most important strategies, I think, you know, how do you get yourself to do what you want to do or need to do, but don't want to do, right? Don't have the motivation. John Maxwell taught that in his book Failing Forward. It's called Act Your Way Into Feeling.

And he said, most of us are sitting on the couch going, I wish I had more energy. I wish I had more motivation. And then Brenner Breschard says, you have to generate it. Like you have to move and then you create the motivation. And to your point, I always say, like, if you want to get in great shape, but you're overwhelmed, like, oh, I got to go to the gym and I got to work out. And that's overwhelming.

And so in our mind, we never get out the gate because we get overwhelmed thinking through all these steps. But all you have to do, if you want to lose. wait, get in the car every day at a specific time with a gym bag packed. What are you going to do? You're going to drive to the gym. When you're probably going to walk inside. When the music's blaring and people are on the treadmills, you're going to be, your energy is going to go, you're like, I'm going to work out. And then all you did was you packed a gym bag and jumped in the car at a time, which takes zero discipline, right? But that, that domino, that lead domino, as they talked about the one thing, right, that led to all the rest of them. What else goes into

this? Okay, you set your alarm clock a few feet away so that you can't reach it. You get up or, You start getting up early, but that's not just the thing. Like, a lot of people get up early, they read the newspaper cover to cover. Their income is not doubled. Yeah. Right. There's more going on here. So, yeah, the premise, what led to the Miracle Morning was not a, wasn't the idea for a morning routine.

It was, so I was, I was in debt. I was really, you know, right? I mean, it was, I was losing my house and I called John Berghoff, and I'm like, dude, I don't know what to do. Why were you in debt so deeply? And when 2007, when the economy crashed, you know, I always walked that fine line between optimism and delusion. I know that about you, yeah. Yeah. And people are like, dude, are you concerned with the economy?

Right, there's all this news. I don't watch the news, you know. And I literally was like, no, I create my own economy. Like, I'm empowered. I'm not going to fall prey to the government or whatever. I'm glad that we can now laugh at that not working out for you. Yeah, it didn't work. Yeah, there's actually reality.

Yeah, unfortunately. But that's an important point because there's a lot of people talking about like, no, you create your own reality. You manifest what you want. And I won't even get into that because that's like the height of bullshit. But there's a lot of people that will cross that line and they're like, no, I just create my belief system. And later on, and we'll talk about how the limits of this, but you do some of this with your emotional state, which is good. Yeah. But then, yeah, we have to kind of respect the fact

that like, like, there's still gravity and physics and things like that. Exactly. And so for me, so what, what led to the Miracle Morning was John recommended that I listened to this Jim Rohn audio, right, the godfather of self-help or whatever, Jim Rohn. And so I heard a quote, and this quote is what, I mean, I wish I could think, you know, Jim passed away. I wish I could thank him for this because it is, it's what gave birth to the miracle morning. It's what gave birth to all of this. And Jim simply says that your level of success will seldom exceed your level of personal development. Because success is something you attract by the person you become.

And of course, the word attract, little flowery. Now that's all, yeah, that word got ruined by. Yeah, but here's, because of secret. Yeah. But the point is this, right? And here's a real practical way to understand this. Jordan, if we're measuring success on a scale of one to 10, and when I say success, I mean in every area, of life, your emotional well-being, your physical well-being, your happiness, your finances,

your relationships, as a parent, on a scale of one to ten, we all want level 10. Like, human beings shared that innate desire, like, I want my life to be as good as it can possibly be. Well, when I heard Jim Rohn's quote, in my head, I went, wait a minute, I want level 10 success in every area, but I'm not a level 10 person. Like, I haven't developed the qualities, the characteristics, the knowledge, the skills, the habits, right? And that's how I define personal development, right? It's like actually who you are as a person in all of your faculties. And so. Not just how much you want something or believe that you deserve it.

Yeah. Yeah. Not just a vision board on the wall. No. Thank you. It's literally as you, and here's the way to think of it is we all want level 10 success. So through daily personal development, you develop yourself to be a level 10 person, right? Or a level five person or then level six and levels, right?

You keep developing your qualities and characteristics, your internal, the components that, will enable you to become the person that has the ability and, you know, to create the results you want in your life. And so I went, I've got to go home and create the most extraordinary personal development ritual known demand so that I can, like, I'm tired of being like struggling. I'm like this, you know, I'm losing my house. I'm just, I'm a mess. And it was because I lost half my clients because the economy affected them. I was coaching salespeople. Nobody was scheduling with them. Nobody was like, everybody's like, sorry. Everybody, it was just a trickle down effect. So I lost half my clients in two months.

And that's why I lost half my income. And then I couldn't pay my mortgage, right? So that was real, that's how I got there. And so this Jim Rome quote, I went, okay, I got to figure out what are the world's most successful people do for personal development? Like I don't, that's such, to me, that was a vague topic. I didn't understand it. And I came across six practices for like half an hour Google search.

It was meditation, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, and journaling. None of them were new. And I almost did what a lot of people do, which is dismiss it. I was like, because we're always looking for. like what's the new app? What's the quick fix? What's the, and I'm like, these are like, there's, and there's nothing new here. Our brain is always searching for like, nothing that I know of has ever worked for me, even though we usually don't actually do it. Like, I was like, and that was it. I'm like, wait, but I don't meditate. I don't read affirmations. I don't visualize

every day. I'm not exercising consistently. I'm not reading as much as I should be, and I'm not journaling at all. So what if I did, you know, some of these things? And then the epiphany was, I was trying to figure which was the best? I go, what if I did all of them? Like, what if I woke up tomorrow and did the six, most timeless proven practices that the world's most successful people in all many industries have done for centuries. And it's like that. And so that was my first mirror. It wasn't called a miracle morning. I woke up the next morning. I did all six. And even though my bank account was negative, I was 52 grand in credit card debt, my house was in foreclosure, I felt incredible.

And I thought if I start every day like this with this much like clarity and energy and, you know, passion, whatever, like, I like the word passion. But if I start with this much, your passion can be, again, a word that's been ruined by self-help people. Exactly. Well, I would say it like us, but probably not. I'm going through this whole not being part of the self-help industry at all anymore, but that's a different show for a different day. The ending with this show, but the idea that you're doing all these different things that are proven,

I mean, it kind of doesn't matter if they're proven or not. If you're doing all of them, you're sort of, you're doing it. catch-all. It's kind of like having cancer surgery and taking chemotherapy medication and de-stressing your life and eating right. You don't necessarily, you don't know which one it is that did it or if all of them did it,

but it kind of doesn't matter because now you don't have cancer anymore. Yeah. Which in your case is literally true. It's actually an accurate thing, yeah. Let's finish the morning thing, but I do want to talk about how you have the worst luck, but also the best luck somehow of any of my friends. Yeah. Oh, so the morning thing. Yeah. So yeah. Oh, yeah. The whole book thing Yeah, so the whole book I wrote Miracle Morning. So the, so yeah, I woke up the next morning. I did all six of the practices and I was terrible at them.

Like I had never meditated. Affirmations I always thought were these cheesy things. That's what I think of them, yeah. And I'd love to talk about that at some point because I've completely redefined them in a way where to me, people ask me sometimes, how do you have a favorite of these six practices? And for anybody listening, just you have a visual of this. I was writing the book one day and I went to my wife. I was frustrated and I was writing Miracle Morning and I said, she goes, what's wrong?

I said, I've got these six practices, but there's no way they're not structured or organized. They don't, like, I didn't invent any of them. And I said, and all these authors, like, you know, they have like a framework so that their reader can remember what they're teaching them or they can organize it in their brain. Like Robert Kiyosaki's got the cash flow quadrant and Stephen Covey's got the seven habits of highly effective people. And I go, I don't, I don't know how to make these sticky and memorable. And she goes, why don't you get a thesaurus and see if any of the words have other words with the same meaning? and you could create an acronym that people could remember and then just go through it in their head.

Your wife is a non-native speaker of English, right? Yeah, she polishes her first language. Okay, yeah. Because I'm thinking she came up with the title of the book. She knows English better than you, I think, at this point. I was just wondering how that... She doesn't have brain damage like I have, but... You lean on that excuse all day long.

I told you, I didn't get a financial settlement. I got a brain damage settlement. Right. But the... I remember in the hospital when brain damage was really bad. I said, I'll be smacking waitresses on. on the butt when I'm in my 60s and saying, oh, sorry, I have brain damage. Yeah, that was my

settlement. They're going to be like you're about to get some more if you smack me on the butt again. So anyway, so the six practices, so it actually, it feels like serendipity, how, you know, it's weird, it's an acronym. But if it wasn't for this acronym, I don't think Miracle Morning would have been sticky in the same way that if I hadn't taught people how to beat this news button in the book, it wouldn't have been sticky, right? It wouldn't have, it wouldn't have stuck. And so the acronym is, these are called the savers.

And meditation became silence and journaling became scribing. So it's silence, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing, or the savers. And I felt like the acronym was perfect because these are the six practices that are essentially will save us from missing out on the life like that we really want to live. Like these will enable us to develop ourselves further and be more capable and be able to create more of what we want. Right. So it's not just like get up early zero inbox. Get a head start on the day. No. That's my miracle morning, unfortunately. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a mediocre morning. Put out a bunch of fires and then I actually can do work the rest of the day because all the crap that people throw on my desk, the piles of turds are now cleaned off because I got up at 5.30.

Well, and here's the thing is like there are, you know, some people will ask me, well, how, but couldn't I do the savers any time of the day and still get the benefit? And the answer is yes and no. Yeah, you're going to get a benefit if you meditate or exercise any time of the day. Doesn't matter. Here's the difference, though. there are immediate and short-term meaning like that lasts throughout the day benefits of each of the savor so for example meditation right is proven to lower your cortisol levels it will lower your stress levels and so why would you want to miss out on that benefit throughout the day and wait in to have it before you go to bed right exercise releases endorphins you know you get blood throughout your entire system your oxygen to your brain like it increases your energy why would you not want that benefit first thing in the morning to affect your entire day. So it goes back to when you win the morning and you put yourself

in a peak physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual state to start the day, you're at your best throughout the rest of the day. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Hal Elrod. We'll be right back. And thanks for listening and supporting the show. To learn more about our sponsors and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit jordanharbinger.com slash deals. If you'd like some tips on how to subscribe to the show, just go to Jordan Harbinger.com Subscribing to the show is absolutely free. It just means that you get all of the latest episodes in your podcast players. They're released so you don't miss a single thing from the show.

And now back to our show with Hal Elrod. And I don't think any of this is going to be super new for people who've been listening to the show for a while. Of course, the way that you structure the morning is new and better. But nobody's like, get up early. I had not thought of that, right? And that's what was so funny about the book. Because at first I was like, well, how's a friend? You know, we'll talk about the Miracle Morning.

But then it was like years later, people are still like, yeah, I do this. every day. And there's just a lot of people that are not really like trendy entrepreneur circle influencer people that I follow that get up early and have really interesting things that they do in the morning. And they're all kind of from your first book. And I don't know if it, not necessarily that they got it by reading it, but there's just too much correlation between successful people and those that like get up, work out, attack the day. Totally. Get up, do the right, you know, different things. Journaling is one of those things that I found at first. The thought was like super cheesy. And then you see people who are like, no, it clarifies my thoughts and then I clarify

my priority. Even if they're journaling the same crap pretty much with the different shade of gray every morning, it just gets them focused and like cleans. It's like a defrag of the mental hard drive somehow. It doesn't. I mean, there's a million thoughts in our brain a day, right? Infinite thoughts. And when you put them in writing, you're you're forcing yourself to clarify what is most important. Otherwise, it's not going to make it into the journal. It's kind of like your emotional brain has a conversation with your thinking brain for the first time. And it's It gets really clear. You can write, like, I feel bad today because I feel like I haven't done enough in my life.

And then it's like, I realize this makes absolutely no sense. I've done a lot of stuff. Never mind. Underline, circle, smiley face, go eat breakfast. Even that kind of thing can help because you realize the negative thought loop you're in is ridiculous. Or whatever it is that you do. And that's, for me, generally, it can be like two lines. And sometimes it's just, I had a bad dream.

It was literally just a dream and has no basis. in my current reality. And I ate, obviously I ate too late last night. And that always happens when I eat too late. All right, I'm good. It can save me hours of rumination about something that's completely irrelevant that would have screwed up my mood in morning. You pull it out of your subconscious, put it on paper.

Now you've let go of it. You don't have to keep it with you. Yeah, and it's not some sort of like woo-woo my subconscious brain, blah, blah, blah. We do know that our emotional brain makes the decisions and our thinking brain rationalizes all that stuff. Sure. So if we can get whatever it is that we're, feeling out on paper, which forces us to put it into our thinking brain, our thinking brain can

then sort of rationalize it away, which is usually a good move for a guy like me who wakes up and goes, I didn't do enough to make my social media. Oh, who gives a crap? Get a grip on yourself, Jordan. Like, none of this is going to help you with your two interviews today and all the stuff you got to do. So that I've found to be really helpful. And of course, meditation, exercise, that kind of thing.

You now talk about the miracle equation. I know you're leaning into this miracle thing pretty heavy duty. I get it. It's been successful for you in the past. Tell us about this because, you know, the idea that we put forth this effort on a consistent basis is, of course, nothing super new. Sure. So what's going on here. So the miracle equation, what's interesting is, so like what you said is, to me, public perception, what it would be, right?

Which is like, oh, how's into this, like, the Miracle Morning did so well. He's now spinning off this miracle brand, right? What's interesting is that the miracle equation was something that I created six years before the Miracle Morning when I was in sales. I was 20 years old. I was trying to break an all-time sales record. And essentially, you know, and obviously I died when I was 20 for six minutes. So, like, miracle has been. You want to go ahead and talk about that for a second? Oh, yeah.

Should I not just throw that in and glossed over? Nice little one-liner. Yeah. Yeah. So when I was, what's funny. Yeah. But when I was 20 years old, I was head on by a drunk driver at 70 miles an hour and bounced off the drunk. driver my car spun off the drunk driver the car behind me crashed into my driver's side door at 70

miles an hour yeah i mean if you're listening i always say like look over your left shoulder and imagine you know put your hands on the steering wheel look over the left shoulder imagine a car hits you at 70 miles an hour in your door and what you would imagine happened is what happened i mean the entire left side of my car was smashed in the left side of my body i broke 11 bones instantaneously my femur broke in half my pelvis broken three places my humorous behind my biceeped broken half shattered my elbow severed my forearm nerve. My eye socket broke in three places. My ear was almost completely severed. The top of my skull was fractured by the ceiling buckling and cutting me, cutting through my skull. And I started bleeding to death. And it took them, the rescue crew, to pull me out of the car. When they did,

I had lost so much blood that my heart stopped. And I was clinically dead for approximately six minutes. They rushed me onto a medevac helicopter, used defibrillators, hooked me up to an IV, rushed me to the hospital. They got me back to life, breathing again on the helicopter. And then I was in a coma for six days. I flatlined twice more. Came out of the coma and was told by doctors that I had permanent brain damage. I would never walk again. And at 20 years old, I had a lot of goals that involved walking. So it was like, walking around. Yeah, I was like, ah, this is not what I wanted. I, however. You run all the time now?

No, I don't. I hate it. You don't? Why are you always breathing heavy when you come upstairs then? Because I have bad stamina for my cancer still. Oh, well, sorry. That got dark. What a jerk. Dang. I thought you were downstairs like doing some jumping jack. Okay.

Well, you're doing a little. But I ran an ultramarathon and checked it off my bucket list and was like, never again. Okay. That was afterwards. That was after. Okay, fine. So you can still run. At least I don't look like a total ailment.

No, no. Continue. Yeah. So I was told I would never walk again. And a week after I came out of the coma, so timeline, six days in a coma, week after that, week after that, so two weeks after the crash, the doctors called my parents in, and they said, we're really concerned with Hal, we think, well, we said physically, they said, we want to give you an update. He's made it through the worst. He's stable. Because I'd flatline twice more. Like,

my parents obviously was just, it was me living at that point. It was very, I was in critical condition. So they said, physically, he's stable. He's going to be with us for a long time. You know, we've made it through the worst. Mentally and emotionally, we're concerned. We believe that Hal is in denial. And this is something we see with accident victims sometimes where his new reality of never walking again is so unimaginable. He can't handle it. So instead of going into like a depression, he's like kind of gone on the other side where he's just checked out like, oh, everything's fine, everything, no big deal, right? And they said eventually he'll have to, you know, he's hiding emotions right now like anger, sadness, fear, depression, and eventually

he's going to have to face this. And we want him to do it here while he's in a safe environment and we can support him through it versus out in the real world when he could turn to drugs or alcohol or even suicide. Some, you know, right, just loses his mind. Little do they know you've already turned to drugs and alcohol without any, without any sort of prompting whatsoever. Yeah, just for fun. But no, so I, so my dad comes in that day, right? And, you know, my parents, of course, are going, oh, we thought Howell was actually doing good mentally, but now we find out he's like, he's delusional.

He's in denial. And so they come in, and my dad explained the doctor's concern. So, well, first, my dad comes in, and I look over at him, and his eyes are welled up, His face is red, and I knew he met with the doctor, but I didn't know what happened. So I'm going, oh, God, what? I'm going to die. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. I'm like, oh, God, I'm about to, I'm going to die.

You know, what did he just find out? And he asked, you know, he's real somber and he says, Hal, I want to talk to you. And he explains the doctor's concerns. And he says, Hal, I know you, like, you're a positive person, but it's okay to feel sad and scared and angry and depressed. Like, your mom and I are feeling that, and we didn't even have, you know, you went through it. We can't imagine what you're really feeling.

You've got to, the doctors say, you've got to admit these feelings. how are you really feeling hell? And, you know, looking at my dad's face and the pain and I'm in my, and so I just, I really got, went inside myself and I went, am I covering my emotions? Am I really scared and sad and angry and depressed? And it literally, Jordan, it took me 30 seconds maybe to come to a very real conclusion, which 10 years later, it's the same, or 19 years later, same conclusion.

I looked at my dad, I said, and I smiled. I said, dad, I thought you knew me better than that. He said, well, what do you mean? And I said, remember, I live my life by the first. five-minute rule. And he was like, well, remind me what that is. And I said, I've told you and mom this so many times. He's so much happier. And he's like, look, I don't listen to all your self-hopperstick or bullshit, man. That I said. I've had enough. Dad, I learned this, you know, I learned into my cut co-sales training on like day two of training. It's okay to be negative when

something goes wrong, but there's no value in dwelling on it. So our manager, my mentor, who was the top manager in the history of the company, I mean, he's a very smart guy, he would literally say when you have, when you encounter a failed expectation, a no sale, a rude customer, you set a goal, you work your ass off to get to it, you don't reach it. He said, you set your timer on your phone for five minutes and you get five minutes to bitch, moan, complain, cry, vent, punch a wall, whatever. Feel all your emotions, don't deny them. But after five minutes, he said, you turn your timer off and you take a deep breath and you say three really powerful words. Can't change it.

And he said, it's a conscious reminder as an intelligent human being that doesn't, there's probably not any value in you to be depressed or upset over something that's now in the past, whether it's five minutes or five months or whatever. He said, you take a deep breath and you remind yourself, I can't change it. So there's no value in wishing it didn't happen in feeling bad about it, feeling sorry for myself. And he said, you flip the switch and you focus all your energy on, okay, well, now that I can't change what just happened, what do I want to change or affect moving forward? And you focus all your energy on that. And I said, dad, it's been two weeks since the car accident. My five minutes is long up. And if I'm in a wheelchair, the rest of my life, like the doctors are saying, I will be the happiest person, the most grateful person you've ever seen in a wheelchair

because I won't let my circumstances define my emotional well-being and my quality of life. I said, but that's only one possibility. The second is, I will walk again. And I don't even, Dad, I don't know if that's possible. That might be impossible. I have, there's, but the doctors really, they don't know and I don't know. I said, so I've accepted the worst-case scenario so it has no control over my emotional well-being.

And all of my energy is going into, I'm visualized walking again. I'm thinking about it. I'm imagining it. Like I'm, I'm, I'm even reading up online on the mind-body connection and how our thoughts do affect our biology, right? Bruce Lipton wrote a great book, The Biology of Belief. Oh, well, don't get me started on that. Okay, we won't.

Yeah. Let's not go down that road. I haven't read it for 10 years, so I might have the same opinion you do now. But anyway, so the, and here's the thing. I don't have a graph, Jordan, that says, well, look at how my acceptance of what I couldn't change. Therefore, there was no stress over it. No, no turmoil.

inner turmoil, no pain, my acceptance of that, and my focus on what I wanted and putting all my energy into that, I don't have a graph that shows you the way that healed me. I have a picture. A week later, the doctors came in. So it's anecdotal, but it's reality, right? They came in and they go, we don't know how to explain this, how your body is healing so quickly that we're changing our diagnosis from you're never walking again to you can walk today in therapy. And I have a picture that day where I took my first three steps. That's incredible. Yeah. I mean, look, anecdotal small sample size. Totally. That said, and look, there might have been a lot of people that thought the same thing and are still in a wheelchair that said, you know, this is your story

and it makes sense that your diagnosis did change. And I know, I know you really well. And I also know you have simultaneously the worst luck and also really good luck. Like you've, you had that car crash. I've seen you, like we've gone swimming and stuff. You have like all these little holes and scars and like, you're like, oh, that's from a pin and that's from a glass and that's from the screws that hold me together right now or whatever. Yeah. And then you've also, like, you think like, what, is it two weeks ago? You got another car accident. I mean, you're fine.

A couple months ago, yeah. Totaled my car, yeah. Yeah. Okay, so it wasn't that. It's a couple months ago. All right, fair. And then you also got a, you didn't just get any cancer. You got like the rare, it's one of the most rare forms of leukemia.

Yeah. One of the most rare aggressive form, yeah, it was two years ago. I couldn't breathe. I woke up struggling to breathe. And my wife woke up, you know, and she's like, what's wrong? I'm like, I don't know. And she's like, sit up and she propped up all these pillows. And I always joke.

Like, I'm like, it was the, like, that night, I was like, I will never get on her for all these decorative pillows on her bed anymore. Like, they're actually a purpose, you know. So I'm sitting up and I couldn't breathe. And I went in to urgent care for a diagnosis the next day and they missed diagnosis with pneumonia. And they're like, take the Z-pack, you know, most generic antibiotics. And I'm like, the doctor was really unsure in his diagnosis. He's like, if you don't feel better in a couple days, like, you should go get a second opinion. I'm like, okay.

So I get a second opinion a couple days later. And the doctor calls me the next day. And the nurse does she's like, you need to come in. The doctor wants to see you. I'm like, what's, does he know what's wrong? He wants to see you. And I'm like, okay. And, you know, and I live like an anti-cancer lifestyle.

Like, I eat very healthy. I'm like a hippie. Like, I don't have any chemicals in my house. Like, I, you know, I watched a documentary years ago on how to, like, kill cancer naturally. And I'm like, I'm just going to live this way now instead of waiting. So I go in and he's like, Hal, there's definitely something wrong. It could be like an infection or virus, but it also could be a form of lymphoma, which is a cancer. And I was like, nah, okay, there's definitely can't be a cancer.

Like, no way, I've been eating the siberies for like five years. I got to eat antioxidants. I, yeah. No, so, yeah, I'm like, okay. And he's like, so we need to do more tests. And so do more test comes back that it is called acute lymphoblast. leukemia, which has a 30% survival rate, right? And adult lymphoblastic leukemia. So I always say, if you're a pessimist, that's a 70% you're going to die in the next few weeks to months.

And yeah, and so that was, you know, I had to face this a couple years ago. And I mean, I'm still dealing with it. I take chemo every day. I'm going through this still. I go get checked every few months. They stab a thick needle through my hip and take my bone marrow out, which is the most horrific, painful process. And every three months, I have to literally, my wife and I my own pins and needles going, is the cancer back? Oh, man. How long is that going to be? For, I mean, for the rest of my life, but it will eventually go to like twice a year and then once a year. And, you know, so once you at the five-year mark, that's like where they, you know, I'm like a year in remission now. And once you at the five-year mark, they consider that like your likelihood

of always staying cancer-free is much better. Thanks. But then you have all this good luck, too. And it seems like, it's a little crazy, actually. But a lot of it is what you focus on. And I think that's the thing. You know, I'm one of those people, our mutual friend, Omar, or Zenham from $100 NBA show, which is a great podcast. He, he's like, you know, Jordan, you never celebrate any wins. And I was like, that is so true. And that is such a Midwest Michigan thing. Like, you did good. And don't get, don't let it go to your head. Focus on the next thing. You know, don't celebrate the win. And you are very good at looking at all this positive things that happen and being like really thankful for it and then thanking the people that brought that to you and then it brings you more

opportunity. And it seems like something that you've kind of systemized a little bit in the new book. Yeah. You don't think of it as luck. Well, actually, do you think of it as luck? I kind of, it looks like luck from the outside until you really break it down. Yeah. I mean, I almost would, it feels like luck, you know, because I'm like, man, if that wouldn't

happen, like, you know, like, we were talking about this, right? The Miracle Morning right now is the number one bestselling. book in Brazil, and it's sold over 500,000 copies. And that's all because... In Brazil or overall? Just in Brazil. Oh, wow. It sold almost two million, I think, overall, yeah. Which I didn't know. I literally, the foreign publishers don't report. So, like, once a year I find out how many... So if someone asked me how many copies I sold in Brazil, I'd be like, probably like 50,000? And then I get down there last week, and my publisher's like, we want to present you this plaque with... You've sold 500,000 copies of the Miracle Morning

in Brazil. I'm like, what? Thanks for the plaque. Where's my check? Yeah. But here's the point. It is because one of the top reality TV stars in Brazil, Adriana Santana, her friend gave her the first ever self-help book she ever read The Miracle Morning, and she posted it to her 4 million Instagram followers because it changed your life. Like, I can't predict that.

You can't plan that. You can't write a book proposal or a business plan on that, right? And kind of with the new book, the miracle equation, it goes back to the adage that the quote or whatever you want to call it, the harder you work, the luckier you get. Right? And so I really would, instead of luck, I would call it, you know, serendipity almost. It's like, and because it's happened so consistently, so many times based on when I, you know, the way I approach life with this, this mindset, these two decisions that we talk about are going to talk about is it's like, it's like, these are what unlock that luck, that is serendipity.

And when you study the world's most successful people, and when I say study, I just listen to their interviews. They all talk about how, you know, they call it luck or they call it serendipity. They call it chance. They call it something like that. but it's part of their success. Rarely do you find someone that's like, yeah, I had an exact plan and it worked exactly as I wanted and nothing unexpected happened. Like, no, dude, I met this person.

I never could have imagined I'd meet this person and that led to this. And that's how I got to this point in my life, you know. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Hal Elrod. We'll be right back after this. Thanks for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers keeps us going and keeps us on the air. To learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit jordanharbinger.com slash deals.

And don't forget the worksheet for today's episode. That link is in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com slash podcast. And now for the conclusion of our episode with Hal Elrod. So tell us about the new book and the new equation, because I actually really like the simplicity of this. You studied a lot of achievers, innovators. And some of this, to be fair, seems like it's survivor bias because we're hearing from people who are successful. because they've done a lot of the things that we talked about and they have their morning routine or whatever.

There are plenty of people that follow that that live in their mom's basement. Yeah, right? Yeah. So how do we know that this stuff is actually working and not just sometimes it works for people who are already going to be successful? Well, here's the thing, right?

I mean, there's that, again, that old adage, right, truth is truth. Success leaves clues. You know, you go, okay, well, if you study 100 successful people or 1,000 successful people, and you go, these are the things they had in common, right? Then you go, well, if you're living in your mom's basin, you're probably not applying these things.

Because if you did, you'd probably see different results in your life, right? And I mean, yeah, it's, it's, it's, and here's a simple way to do it. Like the subtitle of the book really, I kind of teaches what it's after, which is the two decisions that move your biggest goals from possible to probable to inevitable. And so these are the two decisions where if you do study the world's most prolific achievers and maybe we'll use some athletes. I really like using a Michael Jordan as an example, like someone who achieves at the highest level is one of the best in the world, performs beyond what the average person could ever imagine performing at.

But when you actually break it down, you find that every successful, or it does not say every, but most successful people, they live by these two decisions. And they don't just make them once, like, to try to get rich quick or something. It's literally the fundamental way that they approach

every adversity that they encounter, right? You know, for me, the miracle equation is how I, walked again after my car accident, although I didn't come up with a miracle equation until two years later. But then I looked back and I'm like, oh, that's why I was able to walk again, even though they said I wouldn't, when I had cancer. And this was literally the first day that I was diagnosed with cancer. So if you can imagine, if you're listening, you're given a 30% chance of surviving. And for me, it was way harder than the accident because I have two kids now, right? I have a nine-year-old and a six-year-old, so then they were seven and four. And the thought of

losing my kids and leaving, not losing my kids, but leaving them without a dad, right? And leaving my wife without a husband. Like, that's the most horrific, scary thought or possibility in my life. The day I was diagnosed with cancer, I called my wife. She was in tears. Ursula was, you know, I mean, just terrified and devastated. And I said, sweetheart, I know this is, I know this is your, going to be hard for you to hear. You're not going to maybe believe what I'm going to say, but this is the, I believe this is the best thing that will ever happen to me. me. And I said, and I have a reference point to that where the car accident is up until this point has been the best thing that ever happened to me because it enabled me to become the person that I needed to be by overcoming those challenges that it allowed me to create what I want for my life.

But ultimately, it gave birth to my life's work. Like I wouldn't be, I wouldn't have gone into the world work that I went into helping people if I hadn't felt like, wow, I have this calling now because I went through this unbelievably, you know, ridiculous challenge, life threatening thing. And then now I have to share it with people. I said, I think the cancer is just a high, a bigger opportunity for me to reach more people and impact more people. And this, and I said, sweetheart, this will probably be the hardest thing we've ever had to do. I said, but it sounds weird. But I said, you remember my miracle equation thing that I've talked about before that I came up when I was like 20? And she's like, no. And I go, okay, well, I said, look, this is this formula that I have used to defy the odds in the past. and I've done it with so many times,

and it's worked for everyone I've taught it to, to where I have such conviction in the validity of, if I approach my cancer with these two decisions, I have unwavering faith, which is one of the decisions, right, that I will beat this, you know? And of course, there were moments of doubt. I mean, and fear every day of like, God, what if I really die?

And like you said, Jordan, I'm sure there are people that had faith or that, right, like, really tried and put forthever, but they didn't make it. that logical brain, I'm like, well, God, what if? Like, what if? What if? What if? What if? Right? Like, I couldn't stop that. But here's the point. And I want to bring this and then we can get into the decisions. If you study a Michael Jordan, right? Michael Jordan, and I'll use Michael Jordan as an example, pick any elite athlete, but we'll use athletes. Michael Jordan make a decision at some point in his life, in his career, his basketball career. Maybe it was in high school. Maybe it was thanks to a mentor. Maybe it was of his own accord. I don't know. But that he made, he decided he would have unwavering faith, and he might not even.

use that language, but basically he decided that he would make every shot that he ever took. Now, Jordan, let me ask you a rhetorical question, but has any basketball player ever made every shot they ever took? No, of course that. No, they make maybe 50%, right? So they literally miss half of the shots. But Michael Jordan and the world's most successful people, again, it's a fundamental way of living where they, they don't believe, they're going to make every shot they take. And most people, and shots a metaphor for anything we attempt in life, most people, if they miss a shot, right, in a game, a basketball player misses a shot, all of a sudden, doubt. and fear creep in.

And he's like, uh-oh, maybe I'm off today. If he misses a second shot, and again, if we miss a second shot, we go, oh, dude, and they won't shoot again. They pass the ball. But the world's most successful. I call him Miracle Mavens in the book, right? The word Maven comes from the Yiddish word maven, which means one who understands.

So it's someone who understands that this is how you create extraordinary results in your life, is that Michael Jordan, he's like, give me the ball, I'm going to shoot again. And he'll shoot over. And you see these players like LeBron or Jordan or Kobe. where they'll have three quarters, the first three quarters of the game, they don't make a single shot. Every other player would have stopped shooting a long time ago. They have unwavering faith that they can make every shot that they take.

I had unwavering faith that I was going to beat cancer, even though there's never a guarantee. And that's the thing in life is we are so, we are, we so center around certainty and comfort, that that's what keeps people stuck in the life that they're living is they go, well, I know that if I show up to work, I'm going to get a paycheck. and that's better than if I start my own business, I might fail. Right, there's an certainty. Exactly.

And so, but if you want to create the extraordinary life that you really want, that you deserve, that you've dreamt about since you, whatever, and you're tired of the rat race or the bullshit, like, you have to step out on the faith that you can do something

that you've probably never done in your life. And when you check your rear view mirror, if you will, and look at your past, there's no evidence, right? And that's, but every successful person, that's what they did. They had to step out on faith that they could do something. had never done before. I think for me I was just more like delusional in my 20s and I was like

even if this goes horribly wrong I have all this time to start another career. Yeah, but if you're 40 or you're 50 right, it's like, uh, yeah, so I get why those people have doubts. And I also think just to be clear, and I don't know if you'll agree with me, we'll see, people shouldn't do this whole, I'm quitting my job and going all in on the business thing. Okay, so you do agree. Because a lot of these entrepreneur. Burn your bridges. Yeah. Burn the ships. Maybe not the bridges. No, sorry. Definitely don't do that. But don't burn the ships either because now you're just increasing your surface area for like bad luck and uncertainty.

Yeah. When really you can scale up slowly, you have to have that on wavering faith. But if you're wrong, you don't like lose your house. Yeah, no, when I used to coach people, I haven't coached for like many years, but when I coached and people would be like, I hate my job and I want, you know, so I think I'm just going to quit and I'm going to go all in. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Save up enough money so that you have six months reserve so that you can quit and go all and not be stressed out to the max because you're trying to survive on something that you haven't even created yet. Right. Exactly. So yeah, no, that's always my advice is. And that's what I did when I left

Cutco, when I left my sales job, I saved up enough money to transition into entrepreneurship. And, you know, and that was the kind of the plan. Right. Okay, cool. So I love the idea that a lot of our emotional pain. You touched on this earlier is essentially caused by resistance, right? And the doctors thought you were actually doing that. They were like in denial. Yeah, look, it's not happening. And you discuss this emotional invincibility concept, which is essentially acceptance, right? Like, okay, this is what's what the doctors say, I'm going to focus on the upside, because if I just focus on what is never going to happen, then that essentially, you kind of flipped it on its head. Like, you're resisting in that respect. And I get that, but this has to be a practice, right?

Like, if my cat dies tomorrow, I'm going to be sad. Sure. I can't just flip the switch or whatever. Like, It doesn't matter what conversation we had this morning. How do I flip that switch? You have the five minutes sadness timer. Yeah, yeah. Or whatever. Yeah. That's a good idea.

You can't change it mantra, if you will, or whatever, right? Can't change it mantra. Yeah. Yeah. What happens when the, don't the emotions come back at some point? And you go, oh, I never really dealt with this. I sort of just like capped it at five minutes. Here's what you have to understand.

Every negative emotion that we have ever felt in our lives that we are feeling now or that we could ever feel is self-created. Like if you look at what is, it's self-created. by us and it's completely optional. I want to say completely optional, right? Because, I mean, we're human beings and we are emotional creatures. But you can literally train yourself to what I call emotional invincibility, which is where you're invincible, you're not affected by your emotions. You choose the emotions that would best serve you in any given moment. And so for me, the cause, so if all of our negative emotions or destructive emotions are self-created, you go, okay, well, what's creating them? What's the cause? And it is one word which you just mentioned, it's resistance.

To the degree that we resist our reality, which shows up, like wishing and wanting that this thing didn't happen or that it were different determines the degree of emotional pain that we create for ourselves. So the opposite of resistance, which is then the solution to free yourself from emotional pain, is acceptance. It's accepting all things that you can't change as they are. And when you accept all things as they are,

it doesn't mean you're happy. Like, I wasn't happy I was in a car accident. I wasn't happy I got cancer. When you accept all things as they are, you accept life unconditionally, it's more powerful than happiness because happiness is an emotion, which is fleeting, right? We've all been happy one minute.

phone call change that like what right you know oh yeah right so but when you accept things you can't change and you live in the state of unconditional acceptance it's it doesn't produce an emotional state it's an emotional neutrality where it's it's neutral it's in between happiness and sadness is a state of peace it's a state of unwavering peace it's a it's a state of being where you're emotionally neutral and then you can go okay I can't change it so there's no point in feeling bad about it okay, I get that. I'm a smart person. And it takes training. Like I always say, do a 30-day challenge. And at first, people, you know, I go, how many when I speak on this? I go, raise your hand. If you think five minutes feels like kind of a short time and you're going to be upset longer.

And they're like, oh, yeah, I need more than five minutes. Can I get like five hours to be pissed off? Right. And I go, that's what I thought when I learned this. And here's what happened. I set my timer for five minutes the first time. And I'm like, oh, this is bullshit. I get to, right, right. And five-minute timer goes off. I'm like, ah, I'm still mad. You know. And then, but I went, okay, I'm going to stick to the, okay, deep breath. can't change it okay still i still have these resonant negative you know emotional whatever and then after i mean it was literally a few days maybe the third fourth fifth time i i set the timer i set the timer and i'm like son of i can't believe this lady canceled the appointment this was a huge

i needed this and then i'm like ah it's bullshit man and i picked up my phone and i'm like i have four minutes and 17 more seconds and i go what what's the point of being upset for four more minutes when I could just get on the phone and schedule another two appointments and make up for this. So it was extraordinary how I went from thinking, oh, based on my current paradigm and my reality and my emotional patterns, five minutes is not enough to within a week, less than a week. I'm like, oh, I don't need five minutes. I need five seconds to like, ugh, get mad and then be like, can't change it and move on. And so you recondition this. And that's why when I had cancer, I was able to accept it within five minutes.

and not, even though you have 70% chance of dying and leaving your kids. I'm like, okay, well, if that happens, whatever, I'll deal with that. I mean, I'm going to have to process this, but I'm not going to let emotional pain be part of the journey because I don't have to. So when you hear this, it sounds foreign. It's like, I don't, you know, and let me give you one more example, Jordan, for people to really understand. And then I want to dive back into the two equations. But, I mean, the two decisions, but traffic is a great example. Most people, if I'm like, hey, raise your hand.

If you don't like, of course, I hate traffic. I'm like, well, why would you hate traffic? You can't change that the cars in front you were going slow. You can't change that you're going to be late now. You can't change any of those things, but you can choose to accept all the things that are out of your control and then just turn up the radio or smile and feel happy or focus on things you're excited about in your life

or focus on what you're grateful for, whatever. And so I love traffic because it's a microcosm for life to realize that, oh, I get to choose whether or not I enjoy the journey. I get to choose, I can be upset over the traffic, upset over the things I can't change, upset over the fact that I got cancer. I'm upset with the fact that I lost my job. I can let these destroy me and make me depressed and angry.

Or I can take a deep breath and say, hey, I can't change these things, but I can choose to be happy while I'm, and that's for me. With cancer, I said, I will be the happiest and the most grateful I've ever been in my entire life while I am in the midst of going through the most difficult thing I've ever experienced. And that was my reality that I created. Yeah, yeah. And I can see that being extremely useful when you're getting poked with needles and stuff like flying to the hospital all the time.

away from your family. I like that we've sort of redefined the word miracle in a way that gives us the ability to make this a little bit tangible. Because the word miracles, obviously, that has been laden with magical thinking and pseudo-spiritual woo garbage. Let me give you the definition that can I define,

yeah, the way I define it in the book, because that's the thing is miracle has a bad rap, right? Often it's thought of, or whether it's the magical woo-woo, or it's just thought of as random, right? So it's not reliable. It's like, oh, yeah, I hope a miracle happens. I'm praying and I'm waiting. That's the strategy. No, no, no, no. How do you make miracles? How do you redefine them so that they're

tangible and they're measurable miracles and that you have a degree of control over creating them? So the way I define a miracle, it's real practical. It's any outcome outside the realm of what you believe is probable for you. Right. So therefore, when you achieve that outcome, it does feel like a miracle because you're like, oh, I really didn't know if I could do this. I couldn't imagine. I didn't know if it was possible, right? Yeah, like restarting my entire show in business from the ground up in one year after getting fucking fired. You maintained, right, you made these two decisions. You established unwavering faith, even though you were afraid that you, you know, I mean, we talked. You called me, we talked.

You were terrified, right? Yeah. But you maintained, you established unwavering faith that you could do this. You could rebuild your show. You could rebuild an audience. Even though you didn't know for sure. You didn't know what it would look like. There was all sorts of uncertainty.

And then, Jordan, the second decision of the miracle equation is extraordinary. You put forth extraordinary effort, right? And I want to break that down a little because it is such a just, the miracle equation in general is deceptively simple in the explanation. If you just said it to someone, they're like, oh, that helps me not at all. They're like nobody wrote a book about that that's making any money, did they? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you grow rich. They talked a lot about faith and effort and all that, right? But, so anyway, the point is you before the extraordinary effort until. And that word until, you do have to circle it.

You don't have to underline it because most people, one thing is to establish the faith that something's possible. And they call it, unformed optimism. You're like, oh, yeah, I listen to Tony Robbins. Like, I can do anything, right? And then I'm like, call me in three months. An obstacle, a roadblock, you're like, the faith goes out the winter. You're like, oh, who was like kidding? I tried.

It didn't work. the people that are successful nobody it didn't work out the gate right it's like they had to maintain that's why the faith that has to be unwavering until it might take you 10 years to get where you want to go in miracle morning i wasn't some overnight sensation it took me you know years of hundreds of interviews and dozens of tv shows and dozens of speaking engagements like you know before the miracle morning actually took off right like i busted my ass and i wasn't getting paid the book sales weren't happening even though the effort was there so the faith and the the effort had to both be maintained over an extended period of time, which is what makes the

miracle equation work. So we were talking about uninformed optimism and how we've read or you've redefined miracle as any outcome that's essentially beyond what you thought possible. So it's not some sort of like freak metaphysical experience that's caused by anything. It is just the fact that you're buckling down on those two fronts. That's it. And so so if you think about the two decisions are like I said, deceptively simple in their explanation, but they're even more more rare in their execution, right? And that's like most things. It's, you know, to be successful, usually it's like, well, it's simple.

It's not easy at all, but it's really simple. Usually if you do these things, you'll line up the success you want. So with the miracle equation, like think how counterintuitive or counter to our human nature it is to do these things. Like we talk about the unwavering faith part, right? We crave certainty. And so establishing unwavering faith, most people don't do. If they're in the self-help world and they're like, oh, I believe in the optimist

credo that anything is possible, right? But possible isn't enough to get us out of bed in the morning with the drive to do what we need to do because possible is just an idea. There's no merit. There's no certainty. We have to move our goals from possible to probable. That's like the first step so that you go, okay, there's more of a likelihood. And that's what the first thing the miracle equation does is you go, well, wait, if I do what the world's most prolific achievers do and I maintain, I establish unwavering faith that I can do this thing, and then I commit. to maintain unwavering faith and move forward in the direction of this one primary objective.

In the book I talk about, you know, you've kind of along the lines of the one thing. You've got to have a mission. Like if you're scattering your focus across 10 different goals, you know, like an Olympic athlete, they major in one sport, right? They're not, unless they're a Catholic, isn't there like a multiple sport athlete or? Yeah. But anyway, but they focus on one thing until they become the best in the world at it, right? But with extraordinary effort, I think the important part is you have to make it feel ordinary.

Like just at just the name of it, it's like, okay, so I got to work hard. Like, no, I don't want to do. Either I don't want to do that or like, yeah, I know I have to work hard. Well, no, no, no. How do you make extraordinary effort feel ordinary to where you actually feel compelled to do it? And the way that if you define extraordinary, the way I define extraordinary effort is, if I put it into one word, it's what makes extraordinary is consistency. Right? It's not that you're Gary Vaynerchuk in it, 80 hours a day.

right? It's that you're simply doing, think about it. If you establish your mission, right, which is the single most important goal that will, that will, A, enrich your life the most, but also B, it will, by pursuing it with unwavering faith and extraordinary effort, it will enable you to become the type of person that you need to be with the abilities to achieve everything else that you want. Right. So the long-term benefit isn't, the goal is, it doesn't matter if you hit the goal, any individual goal, but by approaching it with these decisions, you become the type of person that can achieve anything that you put your mind to, so to speak, right?

So with extraordinary effort, it's defining what your mission is. And then it's understanding that every result, every outcome, every goal, dream, whatever word you want to use, it's preceded by a process. And the process is what makes the goal inevitable, right? If you, for example, if you want to lose weight, well, if you go exercise every day and you commit to that process and you limit your caloric intake, unless you have some weird genetic dysfunction, it's almost impossible that by burning more calories than you consume,

you will achieve that goal. It's only a matter of time. If you want to become a millionaire, right, or a billionaire, or become wealthy, if you define, okay, well, if you, here's like, this to me is like, if you want to be wealthy 1.0, read books on how to become wealthy from people that have done it and do the things that they tell you in the books every day. Schedule one hour a day and do something.

something that moves you in the direction of that wealth. Well, now it's inevitable. It might not happen in a year. It might take you five or it might take you 10 or whatever, but you inevitably now achieve the result that you're after. And I think one of the most important lessons that I've ever embodied, it's just kind of a philosophy, is that we all want instant results. We want like, quick fixes. We want, I want everything to happen now, you know, and we look at other people that we're envious of and like, well, look at where they are. And I want to get there now. when we finally, you know, if you're listening to this, right, and you want to improve your business, your life, whatever,

and you're feeling impatient, you're feeling like, I'm behind, I'm like, you're just feeling the scarcity. When you finally get to the point in your life or your business or any area that you've wanted to be for so long, or you've worked so hard for so long, it may have taken you so much longer than you wanted, when you finally get there, you almost never wish it would have happened any sooner. Like, once you get there, you look back and you're like, oh, the journey was, exactly as it had to be.

All of the challenges, the adversities, the depression, the fear, the failure, the bankrupt, like, I had to go through that. And so when you can understand that value of hindsight now, it means don't wait for 10 years to live a life where you're not stressed out every day and feeling like you're behind the eight ball and behind everybody else. Like, no, go, okay, I understand that when I finally get there, I'm going to have realized that this was all perfect and part of the journey. So what that enables me to do every day, instead of it,

feeling stress and I've been doing this for 10 years since I kind of realized this and woke up to this is I'm going to be at peace with where I'm at every single day. I'm going to maintain unwavering faith that I will get to where I'm going because I'm putting forth extraordinary effort every single day. And if I keep maintaining unwavering faith that I can get to this place, that I can create these results that I want, if I put forth extraordinary effort every day, which isn't 80 hours a day working, it's simply one hour a day doing one thing that moves me to the results. in the direction of my miracle, my mission, whatever you want to call it, I know that I'll get there. And so you can be at peace with where you are while you maintain a healthy sense of urgency

to get, move in the direction of where you want to go. And to me, that is the recipe for life. Like that's the recipe for a happy life, a fulfilled life, and creating an extraordinary life. Yeah, this is kind of a, this sounds like, I didn't even come up with this as a bumper sticker. But when I was talking with Tom Bill, you said something like, action and suffering. And what I meant by that was, if you're sitting there lamenting about where you're at right now, the one thing I found that cures that is just like move in that direction. Like, yeah, you won't have your business up and running by next week by doing this,

but at least you're going in that direction. That made me feel infinitely better. Because if you're the kind of energetic person, and I don't mean that in any metaphysical way, I mean, you just have a lot of energy. You either drive yourself crazy or you focus that laser beam at a goal and you go for that instead. Otherwise, you're just like a blender with the top off. Everything's just going everywhere. And that's where I was when I found myself starting over.

It was like, oh my gosh, social media, email list, website, show content, guest booking, all that stuff. And I was like, let's just pick out these goals and then, you know, knock them down one by one and have a plan and actually focus on that. That way I'm not spinning up in the air and doing all that. And I think that's really important to note because otherwise it just sounds like great. So all I have to do is work hard every day. It's like, well, the focus is what matters. and then putting in the effort consistently. Because what a lot of people do is lament where they're at, do an hour of work,

take tomorrow off, have a bunch of errands to do the next day. Well, I got kids. I got, well, I got a lot. And then you end up lamenting again because you didn't do anything. It's that consistency, even if you don't have that hour a day. You have to do something every day to move the ball forward. And that's what causes you to be able to move forward or allows you to move forward. There's a lot here.

We didn't nearly get into it because that's what happens when I have my friends in the show as we go off on what I hope are useful tangents instead of just focusing on the book content. But tell me about the faith effort feedback loop because I actually really like that. That was something a little bit new for me. And it 2020 hindsight worked for me because it was the action and suffering put in the work and then go, well, wait a minute. Now that I'm doing this, I see the speed at which I'm heading towards this and I don't feel like I'm trying to get lucky again or something like that. So when it comes to the two decisions of the miracle equation, there's this feedback loop where,

they feed into each other and they get easier and easier and easier over time. And that's the thing is, like I said earlier, it's counterintuitive. It's counter to our human nature to make these decisions. So with the first decision, unwavering faith, two parts to it. You've got to establish it, which is the easy part, but then you have to maintain it. But once you establish the faith that you can do something, and for me, it's by establishing it's putting it in writing, right? It's you've got to solidified in writing, which the way I phrase unwavering faith is I am committed to achieving blank result, no matter what, there is no other option, right? Or I'm committed to giving it everything I have to achieve this result. So I'm reinforcing my commitment to do whatever it takes. And that's where it

starts, right? You want to achieve something. You have to be fully committed. In the simplest term, if you're committed, you get there. If you're not committed, you don't get there. At what point, though, do we need to change that? Because if you're like, I'm going to walk again, and it's like, okay, I'm not making progress in this area. At what point do we go, this is not realistic and I'm wasting my time. I mean, I think that you constantly have, like in the book I talk about having, you know, you've got to consistently like daily reassess how is this going? Is my approach working?

Do I need to change it? So, but when you start with the unwavering faith, what it does is it fuels your effort because you go, once you start reinforcing that you can do this thing, you're like, oh, actually now I feel compelled to do something that would move me in that direction. And where it really starts to the rubber meets the road, if you will, once you put forth extraordinary effort, you start just taking one step, followed by another, each day, one thing, each day that moves you in the direction. Now you feel deserving. You feel deserving of the result that you are working towards. And when I had cancer, I started by establishing unwavering faith,

and I had a, you know, I read this in my affirmations every day, which said, I am committed to doing whatever it takes to beat cancer and live to be 100 plus years old with my wife and children, no matter what, there is no other option. So that was the unwelior. wavering faith piece. And whenever I had fear, which I had all the time and self-doubt, I pulled that out of my, you know, it was on my phone. It was this affirmation I wrote. And I read it. And it refocused my mind on instead of being consumed with fear, which most people that are given a slim chance of living live in fear. I had very little fear. Fear was 1% of my reality and 99% was unwavering faith. Then I got, okay, well, to beat cancer, I'm not just going to sit back and let the

doctors stick me with chemo and expect that that's it, I have to take responsibility for my recovery. I'm going to put forth extraordinary effort and the way that looked for me. And if anybody is listening to this that knows someone with cancer, I'd encourage you or have cancer, consider this. The doctors knew nothing about holistic practices. And there's extreme amounts of merit and people that have cured themselves naturally let their body cure themselves, not with just chemotherapy. And so I decided my extraordinary effort was, I will do every scene. natural holistic practice that's available in addition in combination with the traditional allopathic medicine that my doctors are giving me so I took 70 vetted out supplements every single day

I did acupuncture I did of course the miracle morning I meditated I did coffee in them was every day and I would say there's no effort more extraordinary than sticking a tube up your butt and shooting a liter of coffee into your colon right like and but here's the same Jordan I like I like I I say this in all seriousness. Every time I was sitting there on my bathroom floor with a tube in my butt doing a coffee in him, I want to give you the visual. Yeah, yeah.

I'll send you a selfie that I have. Yeah. Right. But I'm like, but here's the feedback loop. I go, dude, I'm going to beat cancer because I am doing everything in my power. I deserve to beat cancer, which is very different from I have a vision board that has a picture of me being healthy. Right. And so I'm going to stare at it and I'm going to pray and I'm going to wait for the cancer to heal itself.

or the higher power to heal the cancer because, right, you know, and I tapped into all that too, right? But that wasn't it. I wasn't going to rely, you know, rely on luck or chance. I was putting forth extraordinary effort and maintaining unwavering faith every day. And the doctors, just like with my car accident, they're like, we can't, we can't believe how well you're responding to this chemo. Like, to be clear, the chemotherapy regimen that I had was, if it may be the single most

aggressive that there is. You know, I have an aunt, for example, that has breast cancer, and she goes in for like an hour, a month for an infusion. I got 100 hours of chemo every three weeks. I had four drugs or five of the most powerful chemo drugs that were administered via a tube that had to go into my artery because the chemo will burn through your vein. It's that strong. And I had to get seven, you know, four days of nonstop chemo. And then the next session was five days. The next session was four days every three weeks, alternately.

And most people die. The reason my cancer is a 30% chance survival rate, most people die from the chemotherapy. Not only did I not die, my side effects were minimal compared to people to get one hour a month when I was getting over 100. It sounds so awful. It's horrific. And look, at the very least, like the most sort of pessimistic, skeptic could just say, look, all this boils down to at least you're doing something with your energy other than

freaking worrying and keeping yourself up at night freaking out. about the fact that you might die. Absolutely. Yeah. And that's like the worst case scenario, best case scenario, putting coffee in your colon, which sounds just messy and I won't get into that. You know,

at the best case scenario that actually did something, I'm skeptical of all of that stuff, but I can totally see that if I were diagnosed with, hey, there's a better than, there's a really likely chance you're going to die. I'd be like, you know, give me that tube because otherwise I'm going to sit here watching Netflix about, you know, decompose.

God, I don't even want to think about it. Like horrible, depressing things and, like, buying life insurance and trying to figure out how to make, leave money to my wife and kid. You know, that sounds like a much more energy draining thing to do than what you were doing, which knowing you, all this stuff makes you even more high-spirited. You're like, I put two coffee enemas in today. I'm doing twice the effort. I did try that. I'm like, how much can I fit up there? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And the doctors are like, look, man, we can only do so much for you. If you're going to fill your entire lower GI tract with coffee, just making it worse. I get this, right? I understand this. And I know a lot of people that are practicing this kind of thing. And looking at what we've talked about before, a lot of what you're saying is actually how I got through the last year, year and a half in a way that didn't drive me actually insane or through a hardcore depression of some kind.

Because I look back now and I'm like, why wasn't I more depressed? and the reason is because I was working my ass off and didn't have time. Yeah, you're focused on what you wanted. Right, but I'm not saying that people who suffer from depression just need to put in the, there's a level at which it's clinical, and I want to acknowledge that. And the reason I didn't, I think, get myself down to that level by just thinking about negative stuff is because I cut myself off and focused on work, which would have been unhealthy, but was less unhealthy than laying on the couch and drinking or whatever people do when they're depressed.

It depends, right? We all have our own flavor. Our own vices. So, yeah, vice is one way to do it. Well, Hal, thank you very much. I know the book is coming out really soon. The Miracle equation will link to it in the show notes. I really thank you for coming in.

And it's cool spending the last few days with you at my house and seeing how crazy you really are. I love you guys. I love you guys. And thanks for signing my copy of the book. If you're watching on YouTube and I'll read it to you. It's the Miracle Equation here. To Jordan and Jen, I love you both.

And I'm so excited that you'll soon be giving birth to you. your miracle son, although, and by the way, a lot of people might be like, what, you're having a baby? Because I haven't announced it. I just announced it for you. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's on social media, but not everybody cares about that. And he's, of course, it continues. If I know Jordan, the effort it took to conceive probably wasn't that extraordinary. If you know what I mean, love Hal. Thanks a lot, Hal. You got it for that. Great big thank you to my friend, Hal. The book title is The Miracle Equation. And if you want to know how I managed to book all these great people and manage my relationships using systems

and tiny habits, check out our six-minute networking course, which is free over at Jordanharbinger.com slash course. Don't wait, don't do it later. You got to dig the well before you get thirsty. Once you need relationships, you are way too late. And the drills are designed to just take a few minutes per day. That's why it's called six-minute networking people. So go grab that, Jordan Harbinger.com slash course.

Speaking of building relationships, tell me your number one takeaway here from Hal Elrod. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. there's a video of this interview on our YouTube channel at Jordan Harbinger.com slash YouTube. This show is produced in association with Podcast One, and this episode was co-produced by Jason Miracle Brunch to Philippo and Jen Harbinger. Show notes and worksheets are by Robert Fogarty, and I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Remember, we rise by lifting others, so the fee for this show is that you share it with friends

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