Hala Taha: [00:00:00] [00:01:00] Yap gang. Okay. Be honest. How many times did you hit snooze this week? Yeah, same for me. But what if I told you that your entire life could start changing before 8:00 AM Today's guest says it can. He's got those seeds. To prove it, Hal Elrod is an entrepreneur, keynote speaker, and the author of The Miracle Morning, a book that has sold millions of copies and sparked a global movement.

His six step morning routine known as Lifesavers, has helped people around the world wake up with more energy, clarity, and purpose. But Hal's story goes way deeper than that. He was pronounced dead for six minutes after a car crash. Told that he would never walk again, and he did. He lost everything in 2008 and rebuilt.

Then in his thirties, he was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer and he beat it. Throughout it all, Hal has developed [00:02:00] a powerful mindset and framework that helped him not only survive but thrive. In this conversation, we'll unpack how he built the Miracle Morning. How entrepreneurs can design mornings that supercharge their productivity and how anyone, no matter where they're starting, can build unstoppable habits and a resilient mindset.

Hal, welcome to Young and Profiting podcast. 

Holly, it is so nice to be here. 

I'm really excited for this conversation. I feel like we've gotten to know each other a bit over the last few months. Yeah, and now we get to do this in person. We're neighbors in Austin, so that's been pretty cool. 

Hal Elrod: Yeah, 

Hala Taha: so I was doing some research about your journey, and I was really surprised to find out how many tragedies you've really had in your life.

Car accident, bankruptcy, cancer. When you think of rock bottom, what is the memory that really stands out to you? 

Hal Elrod: I think that rock bottoms are relative to who you are at any given moment. One adversity for two different people. One, it might be a rock bottom one, it might be like, I can handle this. I've been there [00:03:00] before.

I. So for me, my first rock bottom was at age 20. I was hit head on by a drunk driver at 70 miles per hour. I broke 11 bones. I was found dead at the scene. My heart stopped for six minutes. Oh my God. Came outta a coma six days later to be told I would never walk again in a wheelchair the rest of my life.

And I had permanent brain damage, so that was for sure. Like it doesn't get any lower Yeah. Than that for me. And so that was the first one. But here's how I look at it. When I see rock bottoms are relative. They're relative to the individual, meaning when I share my story, sometimes people go, oh my gosh, I've never been through anything quite like that.

And I said, whatever we've been through. Like if you're a child and your parent is abusive, or you're bullied, or even you're. Outcast in your friend group. Mm-hmm. That can be a rock bottom. It's those moments that test you, that challenge you and that challenge your faith in yourself, your faith in God.

Right. so I think that from those, of course, either those can destroy you. And create lasting trauma. Or they become a launching pad for you to learn and grow and become a better version [00:04:00] of yourself. 

Hala Taha: And for you, it's certainly the latter, right? Yeah. You became a better version of yourself, so you got hit by a car, 20 years old, pronounced dead, told you were never gonna walk again.

How did you then overcome that? 'cause here you are walking into the studio and, 

Hal Elrod: yeah. 

Hala Taha: Had a really thriving life since then. 

Hal Elrod: A year and a half before my car accident, I started selling Cutco cutlery. it's interesting. We have so much in common. At 19 years old, you started on Hot 97. 

Hala Taha: Yeah, 

Hal Elrod: I started on Q 97.

Hala Taha: Oh, wow. 

Hal Elrod: And I DJ'ed midnight to 6:00 AM 'cause I was the new person. Right. It was the bru shift. And then I got hired to sell Cutco. And the opportunity to make income with Cutco was significantly greater at the time than on the radio. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. Radio. I had no money. 

Hal Elrod: Yeah. 

 so with Cutco, I started doing really, really well. And on my second day of training, my mentor that hired me, Jesse, he taught. The training class, there was about 25 of us, something called the Five Minute Rule. And it simply said when things go wrong, and, and he was using it for sales, like, you're gonna face a lot of rejection and adversity and you're gonna set [00:05:00] goals and miss 'em he said, you need a strategy to quickly move through the challenges that you face so that you don't get emotionally bogged down, but you can just.

Dust yourself off and keep going. And so he said, the five minute rules. When you find yourself upset, something doesn't go your way. Set your timer for five minutes and give yourself five minutes to bitch, moan, cry, complain, vent, fully express and feel the emotions. Don't suppress them. Don't say, no, no, no, I, I don't have time for this.

Feel them fully. Mm-hmm. And when the timer goes off after five minutes, he taught us to say three really powerful words. It's can't change it. It's a simple acknowledgement. I can't change what happened five minutes ago, so now I got a choice. I can continue to dwell on it. Mm-hmm. Wish it didn't happen. Be upset about it.

Feel sorry for myself, or I can accept my reality exactly as it is. Can't change it. Let's move forward. 

Hala Taha: 

Hal Elrod: So a year and a half of practicing that five minute rule, I came outta the coma, told I'd never walk again, and within it took more than five minutes. But within a few days I realized, well, I can't change this.

So I can either be depressed and upset and sad and feel sorry for myself, or [00:06:00] I can accept my new reality exactly as it is. And I told my mom and dad. If I'm in a wheelchair the rest of my life, you guys, I live by the five minute rule. I can't change it. I'll be the happiest, most grateful person that you've ever seen in a wheelchair.

Mm, but I'm not accepting that as my fate. I'm going to visualize, I'm going to pray, I'm going to affirm. I'm going to put all my energy into walking again while I'm also at peace with the worst case scenario. And three weeks later, the doctors came in and they looked at the x-rays and they said. We dunno how to explain this.

Your body is healing so fast that I know we told you three weeks ago you'd never walk again. You can take your first step in therapy today. God. And the rest was, oh my God. Yeah, it was called a miracle and I wasn't thinking it could happen that fast, but you know, the rest is kinda history as they say.

Hala Taha: Amazing. So was this a starting point of you figuring out your Miracle Mornings? 

Hal Elrod: Not my Miracle Mornings, but it was. My starting point of figuring out my new career. My dad came in after meeting with the doctors and said, the doctors believe you're in denial, Hal, or You're delusional 'cause you're so happy.

And this was before I knew I would ever walk again. I was still two weeks after the [00:07:00] crash, but I'd already lived that five minute rule and accepted it. And I said, dad. They say everything happens for a reason, but I think that we have to choose the reasons. I don't think that they're predetermined and we're supposed to figure them out, asked to.

What are the, I'm deciding. I always wanted to be a motivational speaker ever since I started selling Cutco and I would get to give speeches at the conferences. I said, but I don't have to do that. I never had anything to talk about. I said, I believe that's why this happened to me. I'm supposed to overcome this, learn from it, and then teach other people.

And so that's where I thought about writing a book. Mm. And my first book, which was called Taking Life Head On that, came out six years later and thought about launching my speaking career. And that started in high schools and then colleges, and then eventually I. Big stages with companies, but it did in that hospital bed.

Start with how can I use this adversity to help other people? 

Hala Taha: Yeah. What a positive way to kind of reframe everything going on, use it as a way to help other people overcome what they're dealing with. I. So then fast forward to your mid to late thirties, you were diagnosed with cancer. 

Hal Elrod: 

Hala Taha: And your [00:08:00] whole body was basically failing.

Hal Elrod: 

Hala Taha: And I think you had bankruptcy around that time as well, or at some point in your career. So talk to us about those two adversities and how you dealt with them. 

Hal Elrod: The first one in, in chronological order. Ooh, it was 2007, 2008 when the US economy crashed. I had hit Hall of Fame with Cutco, so I had, I wanted to move on and I wanted to be an entrepreneur.

Cutco was selling somebody else's product. 

Hala Taha: How long were you at Cutco? 

Hal Elrod: Six years. 

Hala Taha: Wow. 

Hal Elrod: Yeah. I was an entrepreneur when I was 15. I started my first DJ business. I always wanted my own business and I loved Cutco and what provided, but I'm like, I wanna create something from thin air, you know? Yeah. And so I left Cutco and I started a coaching business.

That was the first thing I did. I thought, what am I qualified to do? Well, I was really successful with Cutco. I'll teach other salespeople how to be successful. Hmm. So that was the first thing. And my business was taking off. And then 2008 happened. And all of my clients, their sales dried up and so they quit coaching.

And so I lost over half of my income within a few months. That was a real rock bottom. It was really scary. It was [00:09:00] depressing. I had bought my first house, now I'm foreclosing on the house. Oh no, I'm losing my home. I'm going deep into credit card debt to pay my bills, and that's where the Miracle Morning was born.

I, I realized that I have to become the person that I need to be. To turn my financial situation around. And so I created a morning routine. It was the ultimate I want to do, not just one morning practice, but what are the most timeless, proven personal development practices. 

Hala Taha: 

Hal Elrod: And I had a list of six.

They became the savers, silence, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing. And within two months of doing those every morning, and keep in mind, this is 2008, I'm depressed. 

Hala Taha: 

Hal Elrod: I'm outta shape really, physically, mentally, emotionally, financially in the lowest point of my life. Mm-hmm. And within two months, I doubled my income.

Wow. I started training for a 52 mile ultra marathon, and I had never run before in my life. And my life changed so fast. I went to my wife, I can remember the moment in our hallway, she was coming outta the bedroom, folding laundry. I said, sweetheart, we signed on two more coaching clients today. She goes, that's great.

Good news. I said, no, no, you don't understand. It's monumental news. [00:10:00] That second client put us over doubling our income before the economy crashed two months ago. And I said, it's all because of this morning routine. It feels like a miracle. And she goes, it's your miracle Morning. And I go, I love it Miracle.

So I wrote in my schedule, miracle Morning I, it wasn't a book idea, but then I taught it to my coaching clients. It worked for them. And I thought, I have to. Share this with the world. Yeah. So that was the Miracle Morning piece, and then happy to dive back into that, but it was eight years after that that I was diagnosed with this rare, aggressive form of cancer, acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

My heart was failing, my lungs were failing, my kidneys were failing, and they gave me a 30% chance of survival if I did chemotherapy. And so I reached out to some of the best holistic doctors in America hoping like, I don't wanna do all this. It's 700 hours of chemo. Wow. I said, I, I do not want to. You die from the chemo as much than the cancer.

Yeah. And the best holistic of doctors in the country, two of them said, it's your best bet. Your organs are failing this cancer, you don't have time to do anything holistic to recover. You do after, [00:11:00] but you have to do chemo to stop the cancer. Yeah. So I just combine the best holistic practices that I could.

Chemo 30% chance of survival with two young kids was by far the hardest thing I'd ever dealt with. Knowing there was a. The doctors say most likely, 70% chance you're going to die and leave your 7-year-old daughter and your 4-year-old son without a dad. I use my miracle mourning to beat the cancer as well.

That was a big part of it. But yeah, now that was seven or eight years ago and I'm cancer free. 

Hala Taha: Oh my gosh. Thank God you're cancer free and. When I think about that, I feel like so many people would've just been like, you know what, why me? I almost was dead at 20 years old. Like, yeah, I take care of myself.

I wake up every morning and I exercise and I journal, and I have gratitude. And did you feel any sense of why me at this point? Or did you just have so many tools in your toolbox to know that okay, I gotta just be positive and 

Hal Elrod: both. 

there were for sure moments where I'm like. God, I've already been on the edge of [00:12:00] death.

 What else could I possibly learn? You know, and the answer was a lot actually. Right? Like it was a whole new evolution. the car accident was such a rare thing where most people can't relate to that. There's a huge distance between like I. Wow, that's wild. But that's not something I would ever go through.

Cancer almost that touched almost everyone's life. And so whenever I go through something, and I think this is important for anybody to consider, I believe the purpose of adversity, or at least a purpose, is for us to learn, grow, evolve, become a better version of ourselves for. Ourselves, but in service of other people.

Hala Taha: 

Hal Elrod: And I learned that from my mom when I was eight years old. My sister, who was 18 months old, she was a baby on a Saturday morning, I woke up to my mother screaming across the hall. It was just me, my mom, and my baby sister, Emory home. She was screaming, my baby, my baby, my baby. And I went in and my sister was dead in her arms and my mom was performing mouth to mouth, trying to resuscitate her.

Hala Taha: Oh my God. 

Hal Elrod: I mean, it was obviously devastating. My sister died that morning at eight years old it was, I didn't know how to process it, but of course for my mom it was. She was 30 at the [00:13:00] time. It wasn't just the worst nightmare for a parent. within a year, my mother was leading a support group for other parents who had lost children.

My mom and dad were leading a fundraiser every year, which we did that for like 12 years, our whole family every year to raise money for the hospital that cared for my sister. So I learned from my mom and my dad that, oh, when you go through tragedy or adversity. You find purpose in your pain, you find a way to help other people.

And now it's like, yes, this sucks. Yes, I didn't want this, but it's what's supposed to happen so that I can help the most amount of people. 

Hala Taha: That reminds me of what I went through. I'm Palestinian, right? Yeah. And what I went through with everything happening in Gaza, I. The way that I dealt with it was, how can I raise money? How can I help people? How can I educate? How can I just do something positive, even though it feels so terrible? 

Hal Elrod: 

Hala Taha: But all you can do is just try to help other people. It's the best thing for your mental health. 

Hal Elrod: It is. It is. Yeah. Because if you're focusing on Why me, why'd this happen to me? I don't deserve that.

Right. You're just. Perpetuating [00:14:00] emotional pain. 

Hala Taha: 

Hal Elrod: And as soon as you get off of yourself and find a purpose, whether that's a purpose to be the best parent for your kids or mm-hmm. The purpose, even just to evolve yourself, whatever your purpose, you've gotta turn the pain into a purpose. And once you have a purpose, now it completely shifts your mental health.

It shifts your focus. You're like, okay, there's a reason for this that is beneficial. And if you can find the benefit in the tragedy, then everything changes. 

Hala Taha: So you were mentioning that you didn't think you were gonna learn anything else from cancer, but you did. Yeah. So what is one belief that you had before you had cancer that you no longer subscribed to?

Hal Elrod: It was a belief that my mission is to help millions of people. Okay. That's my number one mission in life, is to help millions of people. 

Hala Taha: Okay. 

Hal Elrod: Because that's what was happening with the Miracle Mourning. 

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. 

Hal Elrod: And when I went through the cancer journey, I realized, oh no. My mission is to help three people.

Hala Taha: It's my wife and my kids. And I was confusing quantity over quality. I was living this like. I'm on a mission from God to help Mil and I [00:15:00] still believe I'm helped to help millions of people, but only after I've served the three most important people in my life and they were getting put on the back burner, I'd become a workaholic unknowingly.

Hal Elrod: Where if you would've asked me what's the most important thing in your life? Of course, my family, my, my wife and my kids. Of course. Yeah. If you would've looked at my schedule, you'd been like, well, wait a minute. You sure do miss a lot of Saturdays? 'cause you got a speech or 'cause you, you're writing another book.

You sure. A working lit So. It was one thing to believe or think that I had my family as my number one priority. I wasn't living in alignment with it. And so that was the big shift was, oh, all those millions of people, I'll get to them once I've made sure my family's taken care of. And so now it's like I only work when my kids aren't in school.

I drive one child to school every day. Yep. I pick one child up every day. Right. That, to me, those are my greatest accomplishments, not. The miracle Morning. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. Even with this interview, you're like, I have to be done by three so I can go get my daughter, my daughter, daughter. My, my, oh yeah, you're right. So you're a man of your word.

 so let's go back to the Cutco days because a lot of my audience are [00:16:00] entrepreneurs. Sales is the lifeblood of entrepreneurship. Yeah. One of the most beneficial things I think you could do as an entrepreneur is to actually work at a big company and get your feet wet. Yeah. Learn on somebody else's dime.

So sales wise or just. Career wise, what are some of the important lessons that you learned at Cutco? 

Hal Elrod: The first lesson that I learned day two of training back to when I learned that five minute rule. Same day we learned about something called the Fast Start. And it's the first 10 days every sales rep starts at Cutco.

And again, there's like 20 people in my training class. So it's like every week they're like, they're launching 20 people, you know, 30 people, 40 people outta the training class. And the first 10 days, Cutco has it set up very smart. There's all these additional incentives. If you hit a thousand dollars in your first 10 days, you get this bonus and you get this Cutco.

And at that time, Cutco was so cool for us, we're like, awesome. I get a free knife. Yeah, I would love that. And then 2000 you get right? And the bonuses just increased. And then the highest reward was if you break the fast start record, which at that time was a [00:17:00] woman had just broken it, 50-year-old company.

She had broken it the week before. And she lived an hour and a half south of me in Bakersfield, and she sold $12,000 in change. And for my whole life I was very mediocre. I did not get good grades. I didn't excel in school. I didn't excel in sports. I wasn't popular like I was a very roughly or relatively mediocre kid.

Hala Taha: 

Hal Elrod: And I didn't have a lot of belief that I was capable of anything that I had beyond what I had done in the past, which wasn't much.

Hala Taha: 

Hal Elrod: And on my second day of training, I dunno where it came from, but it was like. Wait, this girl just sold $12,000 a Cutco. She just broke the record. She lives in Bakersfield.

That's not Beverly Hills. She's not. 'cause I lived in Fresno. Right? Yeah. You're thinking I'm like, she didn't live in like some fancy ancy place. She lived in Bakersfield. If she could do it, why not me? 

Hala Taha: And I believe that's the first and most important belief for all of us to embody for success.

Hal Elrod: That every human being that's overcome or accomplish something. They're not different than us. They're not better than us. They're not more capable than us. They're not more qualified. They're human beings and they are evidence of what's possible for [00:18:00] us. And I think we create separation. We're like, we always find the reasons.

Well, but they're younger, they're they're smarter, they're better looking, or they've got more experience or whatever. You've gotta realize that we all have limitless potential, right? And that's not cliche, that's legit. We have limitless potential and look toward people, like if you wanted to be in podcasting, you'd look at holla and be like, Hey, your evidence.

Especially when I know your story, right? You were let go and you were fired from this and that, and you just kept pursuing your dreams and your goals and you made 'em happen. And so your evidence, and we're all evidence of what's possible for every single one of us.

Hala Taha: Let's talk about your morning routine, because I'm sure it would be beneficial for all my listeners.

So it stands as savers. Yeah. So talk to us about what that stands for. 

Hal Elrod: So it started where I Googled what do the world's most successful people do during their morning routine. And I was looking for like one or two practices. And I came up with journaling and meditation and affirmations and visualization and reading and, you know, and, and I had a list of six.

And again, keep in mind, 2008, I'm like rock bottom. [00:19:00] And so I'm like, well, I can't do all of these. And then I had the epiphany. I was trying to go, which one's best? Which one's the best? And then I went. Wait, what if I did all of them? What if I woke up tomorrow, 30 minutes earlier and I did five minutes of the six most timeless, proven personal development practices that the world's most successful people have sworn by for centuries.

And so that was the start of the Miracle Morning. And I didn't know how to do any of them. I didn't know how to meditate. I didn't know how to do affirmations. Felt goofy, right? And so over the last, what is it, 17 years I've. Studied each of these individually. So the first S for silence. 

Hala Taha: Yep. 

Hal Elrod: That is meditation or prayer or breath work.

You think about when do our biggest breakthroughs come? They come in the shower. 

When we're in a period of silence, we're falling asleep at night. It's in those moments of peaceful, purposeful, silence it. So rather than letting those be haphazardly happen by chance it's engineering your day that it starts.

With that, and for most of us, what do our days start with? They start with our smartphone. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. 

Hal Elrod: We put ourselves in a state of reactivity, our nervous system. We go, you try [00:20:00] get off airplane mode. Now you're reacting to notifications. You're reacting to text messages and emails and social media, and you're literally putting your nervous system in a state of reactivity versus proactivity.

So starting your day in a period of silence enables you to. Calm your mind, calm your nervous system, lower your blood pressure, right? Mm-hmm. And listen to the wisdom of God or higher intelligence. And I always have my journal next to me because my best ideas come during those periods of peaceful silence.

And again, whether you meditate or you pray or you do both, and there's countless forms of meditation, I do all different styles sometimes. Yeah. It's a specific intention, like, God, I need a solution to this issue. And then I just get quiet and I just wait for it. And it always comes. I always get the ideas.

Hala Taha: So you, you talk about emotional optimization meditation. I talked to so many experts. I've talked about meditation a hundred times. Never heard of that. So what that and why does it help? 

Hal Elrod: Yeah, I think I made it up. I always say, I think I made it up, but I Oh, you made it up. That's why I never heard of it.

Yeah. So most forms of meditation are about clearing your mind, [00:21:00] focusing on your breath. I'm a result oriented person as you are. I know. And so for me, emotional optimization meditation is where I'll look at my schedule briefly and I'll go, okay, what's on my agenda today? And then I'll ask myself, what is the optimal mental and or emotional state I.

That would best serve me today based on who, who, what I'm doing. My default is bliss, by the way. Like if it's just a general day and I've got nothing, I need to, you know, specifically get into a specific state of like, I need to be confident 'cause I have a keynote speech in front of 12,000 people. Right?

But if it's just general, it's bliss, which to me is love, contentment, gratitude and peace, those four components of bliss. And so I'll just sit there. Sometimes I'll put my hand on my heart and I'll just get in States of love. Gratitude, and I'll set my timer for five minutes or 10 minutes or 20 minutes, and I'll just meditate, if you will.

Meditate or marinate in that state. And what you're doing is you're hard wiring your nervous system. You're creating new neural pathways in your brain so that those states that you [00:22:00] intentionally choose in the morning and meditate in, become your default states that you can access at will. And again, for me, I wanna live life in a state of bliss.

I want heaven on earth. And it comes to me from the internal state is how you create that heaven on earth and that bliss. 

Hala Taha: So are you like thinking of past memories where you felt blissful and re-imagining yourself in those situations? 

Hal Elrod: Yeah, so in the new edition of The Miracle Morning, which is where I teach this, and I talk about, there's different ways to get yourself into that state.

And so for example, let's say I'm giving a speech and I wanna get a state of confidence. Yeah. I'll go. When was the last time I felt really confident in front of an audience? And I'll go, oh, it was last month when I spoke for Leadercast. All right. What'd that feel like? I'll bring in the other savers.

I'll visualize that. Right? Yeah. All firm. I am a phenomenal speaker. I am going to make a phenomenal impact today, or I am at peace. I am grateful. So yeah, it's using visual imagery, it's using memories, it's using affirmations, and here's the beauty of it. Once you do this for a while, [00:23:00] you don't even need those anymore.

I know how to access the state of bliss like that. I can just put my hand on my heart and close my eyes and I can just sink into a state of bliss because I've done it so many times. Hmm. It's literally like. Exercising, right? Yeah. You get physically stronger, you get spiritually, mentally, and emotionally stronger through that form of meditation.

So that's my favorite. 

Hala Taha: And when it comes to silence, is it also stillness or can you do your silence while you're doing other things? Or is it more of like be really intentional and be still and silent? 

Hal Elrod: I've done walking meditations. and that's usually where I'm walking outside, right. When the weather's nice. Which in Texas is a short window. It's either too hot or too cold. 

Hala Taha: Not from sunny for New York, Texas is, that's true. Yeah. 

Hal Elrod: Um, but, and that's usually like, I'll usually do a typical meditation where I'm just literally listening. I'm listening to every sound that I can. I'm being totally present to my environment.

I'm letting my vision almost blur where I'm just seeing the field in front of me. I'm hearing the sounds. That's a walking meditation, but I [00:24:00] would say 99% of the time, or 95%, I'm sitting in a chair. I've got my feet on the ground, my hands on my knees, or sometimes up, and I'm totally still 

Hala Taha: Okay. Affirmations. 

Hal Elrod: I'm gonna go a little deep here. Okay. This is my 

 favorite of the practices, and I think it's the most, number one, it's the most misunderstood. Affirmations are usually thought of as cheesy, ineffective, goofy, either because if you grew up in the nineties, you watched Stewart Smalley on Saturday Night Live, and he had that skit where he is like.

It was Daily Affirmations with Stuart Smalley. Did you ever watch that? 

Hala Taha: No, but I, I know what you're talking about in terms of like how it's kind of like woo woo. 

Hal Elrod: Yeah. Well, and here's the two. I'll give you two really specific reasons. I think affirmations have not worked for people. Number one. Lying to yourself doesn't work.

 We've been taught to affirm something that's not true, that we wish were true, as if it were true. Mm. So for example, if you're struggling financially, a well-meaning self-help guru may have said, just affirm, I am wealthy. Yeah. And if you say I am and it's followed by something that isn't factually true, I.

Then you're creating an internal [00:25:00] conflict as if we don't have enough of them, right? Already. Yeah. And so you go, I am wealthy. And then your reality is like, no, my bank account balance is negative. And so you're going, shut up. I'm doing my affirmations. You're fighting reality. So the first problem with affirmations, they have to be rooted in truth.

You can't lie to yourself. The second problem with affirmations is flowery. Passive language does not produce results. So a really popular affirmation is, I am a money magnet. Money flows to me effortlessly and in abundance. 

Hala Taha: I've said this a lot of times, I can't lie. Yeah. 

Hal Elrod: It's so popular. And the reason I think it's popular, Holly, is because if you're looking at your, you're checking your bank balance on your phone and you're like, oh my God, I'm overdrawn.

I can't do my affirmations. It's literally like taking a pill, like antidepressant or something where you're covering up reality where you're going, I'm a money magnet. Oh, that feels better. Money is going to flow to me effortlessly. Thank God I have no motivation right now. It's delusional. You're deluding yourself into thinking everything's gonna be okay.

 And then it doesn't get any better, and then you're like, oh, I gotta do it again. You're putting a bandaid on, you're not getting to the root cause. [00:26:00] So here are three steps to create affirmations that are rooted in truth, okay? That are practical and that are actionable and will produce results. Step one, affirm what you're committed to.

If you wanna be wealthy, don't say, I am wealthy. Say I'm committed to becoming wealthy, or I'm committed to earning specifically this amount of money this year, or increasing my income by this or getting that raise, commit to a habit or an outcome. I am committed to blank no matter what. There is no other option.

Number two. Step two is. Why is it important to you? Why is it a must? Why is it meaningful? You've gotta fuel the commitment. So why is it so important that by reminding yourself of those reasons, and I usually have three to five why's for any commitment. It could be one, but it's usually three to five. Why is this important for me personally?

Why is it important for my wife, Ursula, for our kids, for my community, for my company, for the world? Why is this a must for me in these different areas? When you read those, that's what fuels you to keep going. You're like, I [00:27:00] don't feel like it today. And then you read the why. You're like, oh yeah. It's not even about whether I feel like it.

I'm committed to this for my wife. Mm-hmm. And I'm committed for my family. I'm doing it. And then step three is which actions you will take and when you will take them. So you're affirming, okay, here's what I'm committed to, here's why it's so important, and in order to make it a reality, these are the actions I'm going to take and when I am going to take them.

Mm. And last thing I'll say is that I use that affirmations formula. For each of my goals. So every goal I have, it's what am I committed to in terms of the goal and the goal. Again, it could be an outcome, but it could also be a result. Like you could say, I'm committed to losing 20 pounds, or I'm committed to exercising for 20 minutes five days a week.

 And then. Two, why it's a must, and then three, and I have that for each goal in my life and for each role in my life. So as a husband, as a father, as a CEO, as an author, all of those things. 

Hala Taha: So are you also using this as a way to like plan your day then? Is the affirmation portion a way to plan your daily goals?

Hal Elrod: It's almost like it's pre-planned. So Yeah, literally every day you think about this, you're [00:28:00] affirming. What I'm, you're committed to. And as we know, the only thing in life, we get what we're committed to, not what we want. And so every day you're literally reinforcing and programming your subconscious mind to the commitment.

You're reinforcing the why behind it, and then you're directing your action. You're like, oh yeah, here's exactly what I need to do. So you look at your schedule, if anything from the affirmations is missing, right? So the affirma like to me, it's the anchor of the miracle morning. It's the foundation and the only way you can fail to achieve everything you want in your life.

Is to live out of integrity with what you're affirming every day. As long as you live in alignment with your affirmations, you can't fail. And the last thing I'll say is that what you affirm repeatedly becomes your internal reality. When I had cancer, I. Immediately. I used these three steps and I created affirmations.

I'm committed to beating cancer no matter what. There is no other option. I'm committed to beating cancer for Ursula because I promised her forever into day. It's part of our wedding vows. 

Hala Taha: Aw. 

Hal Elrod: I'm committed for my Sophia and Halston, my kids, because [00:29:00] they need their daddy's love, guidance and leadership, and I wanna watch 'em grow up.

I'm committed for my mom and dad because they already lost a child when Emory died, and I can't bear for them to lose another one. I'm committed for myself. Right? So I had all these reasons, and then I had specifically which actions I was going to take in terms of. Holistic medicine as well as western medicine.

And I had specific things I was going to do. And so I believe the affirmation saved my life. 'cause when I felt afraid, what if I die? I read those every day and after a few weeks, that wasn't even a possibility to me because what I affirmed repeatedly became my reality. 

Hala Taha: That was my next question. So you write them down and do you say them out loud or do you just read them in your head?

Hal Elrod: I read 'em in my head. A lot of people do 'em out loud. I've even heard of people that will read their affirmations into their voice note. Yeah. Or read voice recorder. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. That's what I do. Yeah. 

Hal Elrod: And then play them back. 

Hala Taha: 

Hal Elrod: Yeah. So there's different ways for me, it works for me if I read 'em. But I will say this, I do read them with conviction and I guess sometimes I'll say 'em out loud.

Everybody's sleeping nearby, so I don't yell 'em, you know? But I will like under my breath, go, I am committed to blank no matter what. There is [00:30:00] no other option. So I guess, 

Hala Taha: yeah, even when you read something, you're basically sing it in your head, right? So, totally. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Visualization. I know we've heard a lot about this, but do you have a different spin on it?

Hal Elrod: I do. We've been taught to visualize the end result. Back in the day, the secret made vision boards very popular, and I think vision boards are fun craft projects, and I think there is value in having a picture of what outcome you want in your life to generate the inspiration, et cetera. But I find that my vision boards become invisible boards.

It just becomes background because I've, it's like I see it so many times. I believe there are two parts to effective visualization, and the first part is the vision board. It's seeing that outcome, but it's the least important part.

I just spent 60 seconds, like when I was training for that ultra marathon, I printed out a picture of the Atlantic City Marathon. That's the finish line that I was going to cross. So I saw it every morning and I closed my eyes and I would imagine triumphantly busting through it after 26 miles, but that just took less than a minute to do that.

The most important part of visualization is [00:31:00] what I call, and I didn't invent this term, it's mental rehearsal. So it's not about seeing the end result. Like Yeah, get that in your mind. So you go, oh yeah, I'm excited about that. We're gonna do that now. It's about mentally rehearsing what you need to do today to take one step closer to what's on the vision board, what the ultimate vision is.

And so for me, I literally would close my eyes. I was sitting on my couch with a miracle morning, and what I would, the way I'd visualize. I would close my eyes and mentally rehearse the alarm on my phone going off at 7:00 AM which is when it was time to go for a run. And then I would see myself getting off the couch, like an out-of-body experience.

And then I would walk into my bedroom closet. I would picture myself getting dressed in my running clothes, walking through the living room, opening my front door of my house, seeing the sidewalk, and then I would repeat the affirmations. By the way, you see how these all these savers connect? I would, as I'm visualizing the sidewalk, I would say.

Those three steps. Number one, I'm committed to running 52 consecutive miles on October 29th, 2009. There is no other option. [00:32:00] I'm doing this to overcome the limiting belief that I'm not a runner, so that I can overcome every limiting belief that I ever have in my life. I. Moving forward and to follow through with this, I will read the book, the Non-Runners Marathon trainer, and follow the training plan to a T every day, whether I feel like it or not.

Mm. That was those three steps in action. And I read 'em before I visualized, and then as I visualized, I read 'em one more time and I saw myself feeling excited to do the thing that I hated doing. Mm. And if I hadn't gone through that mental rehearsal, that visualization process, I would Alarm would've gone off at seven.

I'd go. I'll, I'll run to, I don't wanna, I'll run tomorrow, which we all can relate to that. 

Hala Taha: 

Hal Elrod: But because I didn't mentally rehearse procrastinating, that's not what I did When the alarm went off, I did exactly what I visualized day after day after day. And that's the power of visualization in the form of mental rehearsal.

Hala Taha: Do you feel like sleeping on it? Also helped support your visualization. I'll give you an [00:33:00] example. So I got asked to speak at Funnel Hacking Live, and it was on stage with Tony Robbins. It was 6,000 people. Russell Brunson is my client. Yeah, he invited me to this. I've done a lot of speaking, but this is by far the biggest stage I was ever on and I just had three weeks to prepare.

Plus I'm running a company and a podcast, so really I had like a week and a half 

Hal Elrod: 

Hala Taha: To prepare, memorize everything like this, and I found myself visualizing. I would visualize me getting a standing ovation, doing a great job, flawless. I found myself dreaming about it all the time. And I remember I finalized my speech just the day before.

Yeah. Okay. 'cause I had like a lot of edits and was just like really obsessed with the, and I remember on the Uber to the venue, I started just saying my speech and I had memorized all 30 minutes. Wow. And my team was like. What? How did you memorize this? This was just yesterday and I was like, I think I just dreamed all night about it.

Wow. [00:34:00] And then I just did it perfectly and I was on stage and the notes didn't work. And. I had memorized memory. Yeah. Yeah. So it didn't matter. Like nobody knew. Yeah. And AF even afterwards, I told the technical staff the notes weren't working. They're like, you did great. Yeah. And I was like, well, yeah, thank God I memorized it in my sleep.

So I find that my brain will go over these scenarios when it's really important and it's not really the best to get really restful sleep. Yeah. But it helps me really perform when it matters the most. So I don't know if you've relate to that in any way. 

Hal Elrod: Yes, Anne. I think it was Maxwell Malt in the book, Psycho-Cybernetics.

I forgot the term he used, but he talked a lot about programming your mind before bed and that your subconscious would go to work on. So every night before bed, he would think of something he needed a solution to. He would set the intention for it, and then he'd wake up and he is like, it was always there.

Like my subconscious worked overnight. So that speaks what you're talking about. My relating to that is, so I don't dream ever since my car accident and the brain damage, I've dreamt maybe a [00:35:00] dozen times in the last 20 years. I don't exactly know why, but I created bedtime affirmations when I started doing the Miracle Morning.

And so before I would go to bed, here's what I realized. I. Our first thought in the morning and our first feeling in the morning is almost always whatever thought we dwelled on before bed and whatever emotional state we dwell on before bed. Right. And a lot of people go to bed, feel, oh my gosh, I'm only getting six hours of sleep.

I'm gonna be so tired in the morning. I got a big project. I'm so stressed. Right. And that's the intention. They're setting. And then their first thought in the morning is, oh my gosh, I only slept six hours. I have that project coming right. I'm gonna be a mess. So I realized how important it was to program our subconscious mind before bed with the thoughts, the beliefs, the intentions, the emotions, the energy that we needed.

And so I crafted these word, and these are in the Miracle Morning book. I crafted these word for bedtime affirmations to set myself up that, hey, no matter how many hours of sleep I'm getting, my brain is a miraculous organ that can regenerate cells. I'm gonna wake up feeling rested, excited, ready to take on the day.

And that was my first thought in the morning was. Oh, [00:36:00] it's the morning. It's exactly what I thought. I slept for seven hours or six hours. I'm gonna feel great. Let's go. And I jumped outta bed. So really your thoughts before bed become a self filling prophecy in the morning. So I love that you brought that up.

Hala Taha: Okay, so the next one is exercise, right? 

Hal Elrod: Yeah. And this isn't rocket science, so I won't spend more time on it, but. The idea that when you move your body in the morning, right, or anytime you generate not only physical energy, but you generate mental clarity, right?

You get blood and oxygen flowing through your brain and you think better, you have more physical and mental energy. And so I. The idea is not that you need to go to the gym in the morning, it's that you do 60 seconds of jumping jacks. So I do a five minute little workout in the morning and I, and I, this is what I'm doing now.

It e evolves over the years. Yeah. But I do 60 seconds of plank and then 60 seconds of toe touches just to stretch out. And then 60 seconds of back bend where I lay on my stomach and I pull my shoulders back and my, my legs up. Then I go do 45 seconds of each of those and then I go do 30 seconds of each.

So it takes like five minutes total? Yeah. But [00:37:00] my whole body is warmed up and I feel awake and alert. I'll answer a question right now that might come up later, which is, do you have to do the savers in order? S-A-V-E-R-S? And the answer is no. You can do 'em in any order you want. Some people like to follow just 'cause they can remember them.

Just follow the S-A-V-E-R-S. But like exercise, for example, if you wake up, you know those mornings where you wake up and you were like right in the middle of a REM cycle and you're like, oh my God, I, I feel like I was hit by a truck. 

Hala Taha: 

Hal Elrod: That's where I move e to the front and I immediately do 60 seconds of jumping jacks or something to wake myself up.

And now I go from like a. You know, at a scale of one to 10 of alertness, I'm at a one, when I wake up, now I'm at a a seven, and now I can do the rest of a miracle morning with more energy, more clarity, and get more out of it. 

Hala Taha: I've never really been a great morning person, but lately I've been forcing myself to wake up and I do 10 to 20 minutes of Pilates.

Mm. Now I workout every day. Yeah. And I like to do my hard workouts at night, but I was like, I want a way to feel like refreshed in the morning, to feel more alert in the morning and. Even just 10 minutes, like people don't [00:38:00] realize it. Totally. 10 minutes of exercise is a decent amount of exercise and you wouldn't have done that anyway, right?

Yeah. So I feel like it's just really good for your physical health and people don't realize that you could just get it done in such a short amount of time. 

Hal Elrod: there was a Miracle Morning documentary and Robin Sharma was in the movie and he said in the film that science has proven that the benefits of exercise last as long as 13 hours after the initial exercise.

Another question I get is, can I do the savers later in the day? Yeah. But you could, but you're missing out on a, the 13 hours of benefit from that, the calming of your nervous system from silence, the clarity from affirmations. Yeah. The, you know, I mean the emotional reset from visuals. All, all of these things.

Hala Taha: Okay, so the next one is reading. Yeah. Right. 

Hal Elrod: And not rocket science, I think most of your listeners probably read, I, I would guess that's your audience. The average person does not read self-help books. You know, it's a very small percentage, but I just think that whatever area of our life we want to improve or anything we want to accomplish, right?

Somebody spent a lot of time learning through trial and error, and then putting their best knowledge into a book. I have one self-imposed [00:39:00] rule, and this came from cancer. And realizing that work was my first priority, even though I thought it was family, it was work before cancer. Now it is family. I have to read a book on marriage or parenting to earn the right to read a book on business.

So that's a little self-imposed rule that I have in the morning. It reminds me a, it reminds me, oh yeah, family's number one. This is what I read first, and then number two, I learn something so I actually get to be a better dad or a better husband that I can apply that day. 

Hala Taha: And this is really like the learning step.

So it can be an audio book, it could be a podcast. Totally. It doesn't have to be like a physical book. 

Hal Elrod: Yeah. And you can definitely stack habits, right? Where people go, I'll listen to an audio book while I do my exercise, right? Or I'll listen to my affirmation, like, let's say you wanna. Exercise for 20 minutes on the treadmill or at the bike.

You can have your audio affirmations that you're listening to. You can listen to an audio book. If you can write in a journal or do a, you know, lots of different ways you can do it. 

Hala Taha: Okay. The last one is scribing. 

Hal Elrod: Yeah. 

Hala Taha: Journaling. Right. 

Hal Elrod: And it's, it's funny, this acronym started with my wife again. She thought of the Miracle Morning title. Right. Even though it wasn't a book title, it was just the name of [00:40:00] the, my, uh, morning routine. And then I was writing the book one day and she goes. I said, sweetheart, I've got these six practices and there's no rhyme or reason. Robert Kiyosaki has the Cashflow Quadrant andyou gotta have, I need a catchy way people can remember this.

And she goes, well, I didn't get a thesaurus and see if there's any synonyms for those six practices. And so journaling became, scribing would've made the acronym Awkward Savor J. Yeah. Um, so for me, three things I journal in the morning. Number one is, is there anything that I am holding onto that I need to let go of?

Am I stressed? Am I upset? Am I right? If it is, I write it out I just vent on paper and then I always end it with, and I accept all of that. Exactly. It is so I'm completely at peace. It's that five minute rule, right? I can't change it. That's what's going on. I'm at peace with it, and now I have, that's not weighing me down the rest of the day, and it's there in case I need to revisit it to figure out solutions or whatever.

Then the second thing is I write down what I'm grateful for and I put my hand on my heart. When I'm done writing each one down, I'll write down 1, 2, 3, and I just close my eyes and I [00:41:00] picture the thing that I wrote down and I, I really strive to feel gratitude at a deep level. And then the third is I look at my to-do list.

It's usually there's 10, 20 things on there. And I go, okay, just to get clarity, what's my number one most important needle moving activity that I'm committed to, to do first before I move on to the rest? Hmm. And I usually that for the top three and just get clarity that way every day. I'm not just busy, but I'm really being productive and it's a beautiful way.

'cause by keeping scribing at the end of the savers, it's like the transition from, okay, I just did my personal development, my inner work. Now I'm transitioning into the most productive workday that I can have. 

Hala Taha: Do you know who Case Kenny is? 

Hal Elrod: I don't, 

Hala Taha: he's like a big Instagram influencer. He talks a lot about mindfulness.

Hal Elrod: Mm-hmm. 

Hala Taha: And he taught me something that really stuck with me. And he was saying that mindfulness is really just self q and a. And it's just trying to figure out why you're feeling certain emotions. And I've always struggled with journaling and I think it's because, you know, I'm a millennial, we grew up on phones and the computer, I'm just [00:42:00] really used to typing.

And when I try to write, it's just really foreign. I can like do like chicken scratch notes and stuff, but like writing a journal, I feel like I could never stick with it. But now with chat, GBT. I use AI as like, wow, my way to journal, and it's just been so helpful. Like anytime I'm having a problem and I need to think through it, yeah, I just go into chat, GBT, start a new session.

It knows all the other exactly knows you, me, it knows me wild. So it will start asking me, well, why do you think this? And do you want help with this scenario or let's. Write these things down and it's been helping me get so much clarity. It is like a therapist on steroids, 

Hal Elrod: It is brilliant. We have a Miracle Morning app, which came out a few years ago. That is one thing, like the digital journal, right? There is a benefit to being able to search entries, to being able to quickly access things, to be able to talk your entries so that it's done much faster. And sometimes when I'm handwriting my journal entry, I don't write that fast.

By the time I get to the end of the sentence, I'm like, wait, where [00:43:00] was I going with that? Mm-hmm. Whereas if I could have just spoken it. So yeah, I think that finding whatever works for you, whether it's a digital journal, whether it's speaking to type, whether it's handwritten, you know, I think whatever works best.

Hala Taha: Yeah. And so what are some. Prompts that you give yourself when you're doing ascribing? Do you ever give yourself certain prompts? 

Hal Elrod: I mean, I would say the three examples I gave is what, right? Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, um, yeah, what do I need to let go of? What am I grateful for? What's my top priority followed by my second and third for the day?

 so in the Miracle Morning app, they're over 500 journaling prompts. in the app we call 'em Journeys, where you're like, okay, what area of your life do you need to improve?

And you're like. I need to make more money. And you choose that as your journey, and then now it sets you up with all six savers focused on that one area. So you've got meditations that are focused on abundance consciousness and so on and so forth. Affirmations that are focused on what you need to do to make more money, what to visualize.

So it all is combined with that. So yeah, so figuring out what you wanna accomplish and then aligning your journaling prompts with that. 

Hala Taha: [00:44:00] What do you feel like entrepreneurs struggle with most when it comes to actually getting started with a morning routine like this? 

Hal Elrod: I'm not a morning person. That's probably the biggest limiting belief, and I've examined the heck out of where that came from.

In fact, when I wrote The Miracle Morning. That was my biggest insecurity. As I was writing the book. It took me three years to write the book. I'm a very slow writer and I go, okay, this all makes sense, but how am I gonna get someone to change a lifetime limiting belief that says I'm not a morning person, even I've tried it, didn't work.

The entire book is holding someone's hand psychologically and emotionally from I hate mornings. In fact, I don't even know why my friend recommended this book to me. I don't even want to do this to. Alright, I'll do it to 30 days later. Oh my gosh, I've done the Miracle Morning. 25 outta 30 days. This is changing my life, right?

So it was holding their hand through that. I'll give you my favorite example, A real life story. So Pat Flynn is someone that I love. I just love him as an entrepreneur. I love him as how he is as a dad. I love Pat and, uh, we didn't know each other. When I wrote The Miracle Morning, I [00:45:00] reached out to be on the show and he said, I think I got declined by his assistant.

And then months later he reached out to me and said, Hey. A bunch of people keep telling me, I have to have you on my show. They know that I am not a morning person. And they've read your book and they're like, you know, he might convince you you have to have him on the show. So I go on the show and I find out, you know, Pat's, I dunno, he's probably making a million dollars a year more at the time.

He's running marathons. He's like a phenomenal dad. And he tells me, Hal. I am not a morning person. My best work gets done at night and he said, the way I wake up in the morning, I don't wake up to an alarm clock. I wait till my kids come in and shake me awake. Daddy, daddy wake up. I go, how am I gonna convince this guy that has it all that he should forget the kids waking him up, which is the sweetest thing I've ever heard.

Yeah. And use an alarm by the end of the episode. He goes, how? I've never been a morning person, but based on what you said, I think I'm missing a level of productivity by not starting my day in a peak physical, mental, and emotional state before the kids wake up. I'm committed right now in front of my audience, 30 days.

I will do this, and if [00:46:00] you've seen The Miracle Morning documentary, the movie I. Pat's in there talking about how the Miracle Morning changed his life. He is now a full blown morning person. And I love that story as opposed to me trying to convince somebody. 'cause it's like this is someone who had one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world who swore that being a night owl was, that's what had worked for him.

He gave the Miracle Morning and shot for 30 days and never looked back, and it became a permanent part of his life. 

Hala Taha: So I also identify as a night owl. 

Hal Elrod: Yeah. 

Hala Taha: I get so creative at 11:00 PM at night. If I've got a project due, my favorite thing to do is stay up till two in the morning and do it. Yeah.

You know, I'm the boss of a company. I can tell my team we're starting our meeting at 10 and not eight, like, you know, and. I feel like once you reach a certain level of entrepreneurship, I know in my gut, that's why I was saying now I'm starting to wake up earlier. Mm-hmm. And like really trying to be a morning person.

Yeah. I know in my gut that I'm holding myself back now. Yeah. It did work for a while because I feel like I did need to just hustle and sacrifice and kind of just get things off the ground. But now I [00:47:00] have a team. There's no reason for me to do that. I'm better off managing my energy, making sure I'm the most positive, productive version of myself and just living a healthier life, you know?

Yeah. So I feel like as a startup entrepreneur, it's really easy to fall into that trap of I need to just stay up and get things done. Yeah. And it might be beneficial when you're first starting a company, but once you start evolving as an entrepreneur and you've got a foundation, I feel like you've gotta step it up and start to fix the way that you wake up in the morning basically.

Hal Elrod: Here's the thing. The Miracle Morning doesn't have to be an hour long. It's really not an either or. It's not like I either stay up really late or I have to wake up really early. Like it's not the 5:00 AM club, it's the, okay, I wake up every day, you know, I stay up till midnight and I wake up at eight.

Okay, great. I'm gonna go to bed at 1130 and wake up at seven 30 for a miracle morning. Right? So it's like a very small trade off for like, I'm gonna go to bed a little earlier, just to wake up a little earlier. And then start my day in a peak physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual state. [00:48:00] And one of my favorite examples of this, you know Robert Kiyosaki, rich at Port Ad?

Hala Taha: Yeah. Yep. 

Hal Elrod: So I met Robert at an event. I gave him a copy of The Miracle Morning back when it was a self-published book. And I'm thinking he's never gonna read this. And three weeks later I got an email from his assistant and said, Roberts read the Miracle Morning three times. 

Hala Taha: Wow. 

Hal Elrod: Which right there, my jaw hit the floor.

'cause I was like. A huge fan of his book and he wants to have you on his show. And so I go on his show, I Google what's Robert's net worth? I'm like, I'm just curious. $80 million, right? Wow. Yeah. So I go, if this guy who is a world class entrepreneur worth $80 million realized that by implementing the Miracle Morning, he could achieve a, and he told me, he goes, how you named a book correctly?

Because he goes, since I've started practicing the savers three weeks ago, I'm experiencing miracles in my marriage, in my health, and in my business. And I was like, if it's good enough for Robert, it's good enough. Yeah. It's good enough for the rest of us. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. And he's a hard, he came on the show and he is a Oh yeah. He's a hard guy to please, so, totally. He did a good job. 

Hal Elrod: Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't believe it. 

Hala Taha: So I know that you're also an expert in habit formation. Mm. I mean, you started this, you [00:49:00] weren't even a morning person. Now you've got this miracle morning. You've helped hundreds of, thousands of people have better mornings. So what is your approach to habit formation? 

Hal Elrod: Definitely something I've studied. And you know, there's a very popular philosophy that it takes 21 days to form a new habit. And actually, I believe it's the same book I quoted earlier that was perpetuated or talked about in Psycho Cybernetics by Maxwell Mulch, which I think was 1968 

And then it got quoted and quoted and quoted and quoted, um, becoming part of our lexicon. Also though the most recent research is from Harvard that it takes 66 days to change a habit. I'm a big believer in it takes however many days I decide that it takes, like I believe so much in, we create our own reality through the beliefs that we embody and the actions that we take.

And if you tell yourself it's gonna take me 66 days, then that's what it'll take. If you say it's gonna take 21, that's what it'll take. I personally have found that 30 days is my favorite approach to changing a habit. Whether it's getting rid of a bad habit, starting a new habit, and I break it into three 10 day phases, and I call this process from [00:50:00] unbearable to unstoppable.

 So the first 10 days of changing a habit can feel unbearable because it's new. It's like I, I've never done this before, and our identity is at stake. It's like, I'm not a morning person. Or for me, when I was doing training for that marathon. I'm not a runner. I don't think I could do this. And as I'm running, I'm like, oh my God, I'm so sore.

I, I have no, I don't have any stamina. I can't do this. Right. There's so much negative talk during those first 10 days. It can feel unbearable, but if you understand that, oh, that's only a 10 day phase, I can do anything for 10 days no matter how, how hard it is, if there's a payoff at the end, the second 10 day phase days, 11 through 20.

Or what I call the uncomfortable phase. It's no longer unbearable. You're starting to acclimate, but it's still easier to not do it. But if you can push through those 10 days and go, okay, I'm gonna keep doing it because I'm committed for 30 days no matter what, and that can be part of your affirmation.

I'm committed to do this new habit for 30 days no matter what. There's another option. Here's why I am doing it. Here's which actions I'll take and win, right? I'll wake up, and so on and so forth. Like for your Miracle Morning, you could say, I'm committed to the Miracle Morning for 30 days. Yeah. Here's why.

I want [00:51:00] to become the person I need to be to create everything else I want for my life. I wanna start every day in a peak state. So in order to do that, I will go to bed a 30 minutes earlier and set my alarm 30 minutes earlier. Here's what I'll do to make sure I'm set up for success, the final 10 days. Of the 30 days is what I call the unstoppable phase, because somewhere during that point, you wake up, there's no resistance anymore.

You like, forget that you didn't know how to do it 20 days ago. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. 

Hal Elrod: And you just get up and you just do it. And then all of a sudden you're like, you're halfway through the, you're like, wait a minute. This was automatic. Oh my gosh. It takes no effort anymore. And that's what happened for me when I was training for the marathon, is I just got up, got my dress suit and I'm running and I'm like.

And I get through the run and I go, wait a minute. I didn't have one negative thought during that run. And that's when you become unstoppable because you have fully acclimated the habit. There is no more resistance. So that 21 days may be true that it takes 21 days to implement a habit, but you need those extra 10 days to reinforce it in a positive way without the negative talk or the resistance [00:52:00] so that it becomes something that you're excited to continue. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. And that you actually enjoy. And I love the fact that. If we know that the first 10 days we're gonna have imposter syndrome, yeah, it's gonna feel like crap because we're not good at it yet. We don't know what we're doing yet. If that's like on our radar, yeah, we won't feel as bad. We'll just be like, oh, okay.

I'm supposed to feel like this. Exactly. First 10 days, let me just try to get through this. 

Hal Elrod: Exactly right. But if you don't have that, what happens? Here's what people do. They go on day two or day three, they go, oh my God, this is so hard. I don't want to do this. I don't feel like it. And here's what our brain is not good at doing.

It's not good at playing how things will be in the future. It literally just, it lives in the moment. And so we go, oh, this is what the new habit's gonna be like. Nevermind. 

Hala Taha: 

Hal Elrod: We think unbearable iss forever. We literally are like, oh, this is what running feels like. Oh, this is what waking up early feels like.

Nevermind. I can't do this forever. It's like, no, no, it's not like that forever. It's only hard for a little bit and it's so worth it. When this becomes a lifelong habit that's automatic, that [00:53:00] takes no effort and it changes your life. Day after day after day, year after year. 

Hala Taha: I'm really excited to try to do the Savers morning routine with this 30 day challenge.

I feel like I'm the perfect candidate. Yeah, 

Hal Elrod: I'm excited. Yeah. Yeah. You got, you gotta do what Pat Flynn did. Commit on air. 

Hala Taha: I'll, I promise guys, I'm gonna do this savors morning routine for the next 30 days no matter what. Awesome. And hopefully it will become a habit. 

Hal Elrod: I love it. 

Hala Taha: So I am in Austin, Texas, and something that's become extremely popular here is cold plunges.

So now that there's this new thing that everybody loves to do in the morning, I don't hear that being a part of your routine. So tell me why. 

Hal Elrod: No, I don't. Cold plunge. It's funny, I'm speaking of the biohacking conference next month. I'm still working through the message because I don't wanna step on the toes of like vendors.

Yeah. But I'm gonna be like, Hey, start with all the free stuff. You could buy a red light therapy device, or you could just go stand in the sunshine in the morning for 15 minutes. You could buy A-P-E-M-F machine or you could just go ground on the earth. Right. Like, which [00:54:00] also feels like more natural. Yeah.

And then the saver. So I'm, I'm doing right now, I'm researching all the scientific proof of how. Every single one of the savers is hacking your internal biology, both physical biology, psychological biology, rewiring your brain, so on and so forth. So I don't cold plunge and I have cold plunged and, uh, it doesn't also, I'll cold shower occasionally, but yeah, it's not part of, 

Hala Taha: I'm not into that either.

Okay. All right. Good. I feel better. I'm not, yeah, I'm not into it. I, I never have, and I actually don't think it's good for women. I heard somebody on Mel Robbins podcast that was saying, women actually shouldn't cold punch. We get colder than men. And so I feel like because biohacking is led by so many men, women just like are getting this guidance from men and what makes them feel good.

Yeah. But we don't really have anybody to look up to in that space yet who can talk from a woman's perspective. So I thought that was interesting. 

Hal Elrod: That's interesting. And it makes me think, even for men though, one thing that trends often miss is long-term. Studies, right. I've read, obviously there's all this buzz about [00:55:00] cold plunging, but I've read it actually puts your nervous system in fight or flight.

There's actually negative consequences. So who knows? Who knows what it's gonna be in the long run. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. Hal, this was such an awesome conversation. Thank you so much for joining us on the show. I end my show with two questions that I ask all my guests. It doesn't have to be about what we talked about today. Just answer from your heart. 

Hal Elrod: 

Hala Taha: So what is one actionable thing our young and profits can do today to become more profitable tomorrow? 

Hal Elrod: It honestly is wake up 30 minutes earlier. Mm-hmm. Uh, if you wanna do a full hour, go for it and just do one of the savers. Like, you don't have to start with all six.

It's not this all or nothing thing where, uh, a lot of folks, if you've never read the Miracle Morning, order the book, get the audio book, get the Kindle, or download the app, and then. During your first miracle morning, just wake up like 15 minutes earlier and just do the R just read. And then as you get to the chapter on silence, you can add that in and build your miracle morning over time.

But whenever you're trying to change a habit, the easier it is, the more successful you'll be. So just wake up a little bit earlier, 15, 20, 30 minutes and do one of the savers and then build it over time. 

Hala Taha: Yeah, I love that you're saying you don't have to wake up at 5:00 AM to [00:56:00] do this. 

Hal Elrod: Exactly. 

Hala Taha: Anytime you wake up, it's fine. And what would you say your secret to profiting in life is? And this can go beyond financial. 

Hal Elrod: So it's a philosophy that I came up with in Cutco. I was struggling. I was in a period of my Cutco career where I was at three weeks of in a slump. I couldn't get appointments scheduled, I couldn't sell, and I was ready to quit because I was emotionally attached to my results and my results were bad, and I had an epiphany.

I went, wait a minute. At the end of this year, how much Cutco I sold. This is true across all industries, is not based on how any individual day or week went in sales. It's based on how many phone calls I make this year. Mm. It's the process that determines the result and the outcome, and so my epiphany was, okay, I got the calculator out.

How many calls do I need to make to sell my, hit my sales goal this year? And I go, okay, I need to average 20 calls a day. Okay, got it. I've made 20 calls in a day. That's easy. If I make 20 calls a day, five days a week. If I commit to that process without being emotionally attached to my day-to-day and week to week results, statistically at the end [00:57:00] of the year, I will hit my goal.

And so that was my epiphany as I went. I'm gonna change the game that I'm playing. I'm no longer gonna worry about my day-to-day sales. I'm going to focus on making 20 phone calls per day, five days per week, and not care, not worry, not give it a second thought. How any given phone time session goes. 

And know that at the end of the year, I hit my goal. And that's what happened. At the end of the year, I hit my goal. In fact, I was the number six rep in the entire company. And here's the best part. Everybody else was so stressed out. Entrepreneurs are so stressed out. Because they're looking at the short term results.

Uh, I'm not where I want to be. It's not happening as fast as I want it to. Right? Everybody else that I was competing with was living that same stressful life. I had no stress. I made 20 calls a day. Then I went to the pool and I hung out inside my first appointment, I. It was the easiest life because I committed to the process without being emotionally attached to the results. So that for me as an entrepreneur was the big game changer. 

Hala Taha: I teach that to my students all the time. I do sales webinars and I call it Bottoms up sales. I love it. So you just figure out what are the actions you need to do to do. 

Hal Elrod: We have so much in common. I know the more we hang out, the more we're gonna find out. That's true. 

Hala Taha: I know. Where can [00:58:00] everybody learn more about you and everything that you do? And I know you also have a podcast, so tell people about that. 

Hal Elrod: Achieve Your Goals podcast. That's my podcast I've had for. 10 plus years and Miracle morning.com is the hub for everything. You can find the books on Amazon,miracle morning.com.

You can watch the Miracle Morning movie there, which features Mel Robbins, Brendan Burchard, Lewis Howes, Robert Kiyosaki, bunch of Cool folks, captures my Cancer journey. And then, uh, you can download the app as well in the app store or miracle morning.com is the hub for all of it. 

Hala Taha: Thank you so much. You definitely inspired me. I'm really excited for my Miracle Mornings. 

Hala Taha: Well Gap gang. That's it for today's show. Hal, LOD has led such a difficult but rewarding life. He reminds us that rock bottoms are truly relative. What feels like the end for one person might just be another challenge for somebody else. But what really matters isn't how low you go, it's how you respond.

And even though I'm not really a morning person, I'm really excited to try some of Hal's Miracle Morning Strategies, his Savers Framework, silence, [00:59:00] affirmation, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing. Is a useful personal growth toolkit no matter what time you get up. Starting your day with silence helps you slow down reset your nervous system and actually hear yourself.

Think affirmations. Don't forget, aren't about lying to yourself with cheesy mantras. They're statements of commitment, not wishful thinking. Don't fight reality. Root your affirmations in the truth. Visualization may not also be what you thought. It's not just about dreaming big according to how it's about mentally rehearsing what success actually looks like in action, and also getting in a few minutes of exercise and movement at the start of your day can be a total game changer.

Whether it's just stretching or like what I like to do Pilates, it helps get your brain awake and your body online. Next is reading, whether it's a podcast, an audio book, or a classic self-help book. Give yourself a few minutes to draw from the wisdom that somebody else has earned the hard way, and finally writing or scribing.

This can help you check [01:00:00] in and clear space for what's next. Warming up your brain for the workday ahead. I hope you walk away from this episode, feeling inspired to take that first step, bright and gnarly, and I'll catch you on the next episode. Thanks for listening to this episode of Young and Profiting.

If you listen, learn, have profited from this conversation with the inspiring Hal Elrod. Be sure to share this episode with your friends and family, and if you enjoyed this show and you picked up something new, then drop us a review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to this podcast. It really helps us grow and keep the content coming.

If you wanna watch your podcast episodes instead, you can head over to YouTube. We're also now on Spotify video for premium users. You'll find all of our video episodes on YouTube and we'll be releasing new in-person episodes on Spotify video. Moving forward. If you guys wanna find me, you can catch me on Instagram at yap with Holla or LinkedIn.

Just search for my name, of course, I gotta thank my amazing production team. Thank you so much for all that you do. This is your host, Taha, AKA, the podcast princess signing off. [01:01:00]