Hal Elrod Interview!

Today is a big day! This is the very first Excel Still More Interview! I couldn't think of anyone better than Hal Elrod. A you will hear today, his story is incredible! Three times he went through traumatic events. His attitude through those things, and growth after them... well, it is simply transformational. Today Hal shows you how to grow through struggles by taking control of every day of your life. Every single day can be your very best day. And it all starts at the beginning... that is, with The Miracle Morning.

Let me provide some links that can help you benefit from Hal's great work:

The Miracle Morning Website

The Miracle Morning Book

The Miracle Equation Book

The Miracle Morning MOVIE

Achieve Your Goals Podcast

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:05

Welcome to the Excel Still More podcast. I am your host, Chris Emerson. I'm here to encourage you in your walk with God. Thank you for joining in. Today's podcast is sponsored by a wonderful company, Creation to Revelation. This group of Christians believe it is extremely important that we teach the Word of God to our kids. They have original graphic illustrations from the beginning of the Bible to the end, featuring the beautiful and consistent presence of Jesus throughout. You can explore all of that at Creation2revelation.com. I'm so thankful you're here, so let's get started. Welcome to today's podcast. This is a special episode, the first interview I've ever conducted for the program with a guy who was a major inspiration for me when I first got started. His side of the audio track came out better than mine, but that's perfect because I just want you to hear some of the things this author and public speaker has to offer. So I hope you enjoy this interview with my new buddy Hal, and I'll hop back in to say a few words at the end. Hey everyone, it's uh my pleasure today to introduce to you Hal Elrod. Hal, thank you very much for joining today.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Chris, it is my pleasure, man. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Man, it is so good to have you here. First interview for the Excel Still More podcast, but could not have been a better choice. You are a true inspiration for what this is all about. And I just want to tell everybody a little bit about you. If you don't know about Hal, you're gonna hear about him today. Uh his book, The Miracle Morning, was transformational for me and really set some things in motion on daily monitoring and progress that really led to this podcast. Man, it goes back a little further for me. It was like 2018, late in the year. I just happened on YouTube to come across a presentation you did at a company somewhere. It was like a 90-minute presentation. You captured my attention, ordered and read the book, and started implementing the morning things. I'm the typical not the morning guy, but you said you weren't either. Yeah. And I followed your lead. And then as 2019 started, I was reading and listening to your podcast and thinking the Achieve Your Goals podcast, by the way, excellent. And I was thinking, what if we take these great ideas that Al has, like so practical, daytime increments, and just take the things of the gospel and God and put them together and see if it can connect with people. And I think it did. And I really just owe you tons of thankfulness because you're influencing people beyond really even maybe what you know. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Yeah, you're you're welcome, and and it's you know truly is a privilege. I feel like uh it comes through me, if you will, right? Like uh, you know, um from God, from infinite intelligence, the the inspiration I always say, like uh it's hard to take credit for an idea because where the heck did that thing come from? I don't know, but I was I was the one that was blessed to you know to uh to to share it. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Yeah. Well, I uh it's gonna be great today for people who don't know about three, I think at least three very traumatic marked events in your past that that has brought you to a point of exceptional influence. And so I just kind of want to jump on in with that. Your your first real near-death experience took place in I think it was December of 99. You were 20 years old and you actually died according to record for like six minutes. Can you tell us what happened to you and what are the most valuable lessons that you learned from that that experience?

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Yeah, well, so I was 20 years old and I was working for a company called Cutco. Uh, they make high-quality um American-made kitchen cutlery. And I had been with them for about a year and a half, and as one of their I had become one of their top representatives. And so I was asked to give speeches at almost every event that they had, whether it was local or regional or national. Um, and this particular night I gave a speech at a division meeting. So there's probably 50 or so of my peers there, and most of us were in college, you know, working at this uh career. And uh that night after my speech, I was driving home in uh a brand new Ford Mustang. I just bought it with my you know commissions from work. It was my first new car, three weeks uh off the lot. And driving home that night, uh, my car was I was uh a drunk driver came barreling down the freeway toward me. I don't remember seeing the headlights coming at me. I don't know what I was thinking. Uh I I think apparently, based on the the the collision, there was I swerved at the last minute because we collided head on on the driver's sides, and my car spun off the drunk driver, and I was at, you know, by seven 70 miles an hour from that car. And then I spun off the drunk driver, another car hit me in the door at 70 miles an hour, my driver's side door. And, you know, if you look over your left shoulder, anybody listening, and imagine a car coming 70 miles an hour and crashing into your door. Uh, the entire left side of the car smashed into the left side of my body, and I broke 11 bones uh instantaneously. I broke my femur, the biggest bone in the human body, it broke in half. Uh, I broke my pelvis in three places. It was smashed between the door and the center console. Uh, I broke my feet, my humorous bone behind my bicep, shattered my elbow, severed the nerve in my arm, uh, fractured my eye socket, almost completely lost my left ear and the ceiling buckled, and it it sliced a V in the top of my head. And uh, you mentioned earlier I was clinically uh I was found dead at the scene when they pulled me out of the car. The the fire department arrived about an uh, you know, I don't know, 10 minutes later, but it took them almost an hour to get me out of the car. They had to use the jaws of life, and when they did, they pulled me out, and I had lost so much blood that my heart stopped beating, I stopped breathing, and I was clinically dead for approximately six minutes. They rushed me onto a helicopter, uh, used the defibrillators, hooked me up to an IV, you know, tried to bring me back to life, and thankfully they did. And uh, I then went to the hospital. I spent six days in a coma, flatlined twice more. And when I came out of the coma, the doctor said I would never walk again. And the biggest lesson that I learned, which led to me walking again three weeks later, um, is to accept all the things that you can't change and to focus your energy on what you can change. And when I came out of the hospital or came out of the coma, you know, it was a pretty unimaginable reality. I'm I'm I'm I'm being told I'm never gonna walk again. Um, so I'll spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair. I have permanent brain damage. And I just decided that I'm going to accept what I can't change. If I never walk again, I am not going to let something that's out of my control determine the one thing that's in my control, which is how I feel, how I experience life. And most of us are conditioned to think, well, bad things happen to us and we feel bad. And then if good things happen, then we feel good. But for me, I went, I want to choose how I feel, no matter what my circumstances. Because I and I feel like, right, I was that was my feet were to the fire. It's like, all right, these are pretty difficult circumstances. And so I told my dad, I said, Dad, if I'm in a wheelchair the rest of my life, I will be the, I've decided I will be the happiest, most grateful person that you've ever seen in a wheelchair. Because I'm in a wheelchair either way. Why would I let something that I can't change determine my emotional well-being? I said, if I'm in a wheelchair, I'll be happy and grateful, genuinely. I said, but, and this is the caveat, I said, um, I'm not ready to accept that because to me, there's still time. I don't know what's possible. So I'm not gonna accept that I'm never gonna walk again until I'm absolutely proven that that is the only possibility. I said, Dad, I'm gonna pray about it every day. I'm gonna visualize walking again every day. I'm gonna affirm every day that my body is healing, that I am, you know, that it that walking is a miracle that's in my future. I'm just gonna give it everything I have. I'm gonna put all my energy into walking again while I simultaneously know and accept if it doesn't happen. So it kind of, if you were to sum that up in a really simple, memorable phrase, it's expect the best and accept the rest. Expect, have unwavering faith in your life, expecting the best of everything. And then knowing that there's gonna be ups and downs and peaks and valleys and good days and bad days, and some goals you're gonna achieve or exceed, some goals you're gonna fail miserably. But you can enjoy every moment if you are accepting of all the things that are out of your control and focusing all your energy on what you can control. And so my dad went back to the doctor and he he shared this, what I had said. And the doctor said, We believe your son is in denial. Um, you know, he needs to accept what we're telling him. And uh, and then three weeks later, they came in with routine x-rays and they said, Hal, we don't know how to explain this, but your body has healed so quickly that we're going to let you take your first step tomorrow in therapy. So it went from the doctor saying I would never walk again and me saying, Well, we'll see. I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna maintain faith that I will uh and accept that I might not. And uh three weeks after, I mean, the night of the crash, after I was found dead, after my leg broke in half, and all of the three weeks later, the doctors came in and I took my first step that next day. And um, you know, the rest is kind of history, as they say.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

I remember you telling on a couple of occasions how the doctors told your dad there might be something wrong with you because of your your incessant positivity and hopefulness, which is coming through in your your description. You've said on other occasions that that accident was the best thing that happened to you. And can you take a minute and and walk through a statement like that and what that represents for you?

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Yeah, one, and I yeah, I'll I will, and I can also I I I've had you know more difficult things happen since then that I also decided would be the best thing that ever happened to me. So the decision was made before the before time passed, right? Meaning I decided, okay, look, this is the most difficult circumstance of my life. So I'm going to choose to use this as an opportunity for me to become a better version of myself, to learn, to grow, to evolve, to become a better version of who I am now. Uh and I believe that the greater the adversity, the greater the opportunity for growth. So if you have a really extreme adversity, well, that could be the best thing that ever happened to you because it's it's the greatest opportunity you've ever had to grow. And uh, you know, and I kind of thought too, I thought if I could overcome this, shoot, like I can overcome anything, you know? Um, and when I was diagnosed with cancer, I know we'll get to that later, but I was diagnosed with a really rare aggressive form of cancer. And the day that I was diagnosed, I was like, I'll make, I'm gonna choose to see this as the best thing that ever happened to me. And and here's what I want to here, here's uh I'll sum up that lesson, which is you know, one of the oldest adages of uh, you know, that I'm aware of is everything happens for a reason, right? You always hear that. I think though people misunderstand that. And or they look at it in a way that's disempowering, meaning something, you know, tragic happens to you. And I think most people throw their hands up or look up to God and go, why, why, why? I'm a good person. They like they go into a victim mentality. I don't deserve this. How could this have happened? I I I had my whole life ahead of me, right? Like and obviously those thoughts cross my mind for sure, but they weren't empowering me. And so here's my take on the whole everything happens for a reason. I believe that yes, everything happens for a reason. However, it is our responsibility to choose the reasons for the challenges that we face in our lives. And I and I believe and we can either choose disempowering, discouraging reasons that make us feel like a victim, or we can choose empowering reasons that that give us purpose and that fuel us and that and allow us to tap into our unlimited strength and and the strength of you know of God to really show up in ways that maybe we didn't even know we were capable of. I mean, if you would have asked me before the accident happened, hey, if you were hit head on by a drunk driver and found dead at the scene and told you'd never walk again, how would you have handled that? I would probably have been like, I don't even want to think about it. Are you I I couldn't handle it, you know? Right. So we often don't know what we're capable of until we endure the tragedy. But um, but yeah, but that for me, you know, the best thing that ever happened to me, to me, it's a mentality that you decide. It's a mindset. Uh, and it goes, you know, and I can bring it into the let me let me take a minute to bring it into day-to-day life. Um, I choose to decide when I wake up that every day of my life is the best day of my life. And it has nothing to do with what happened that day because I don't know what's gonna happen that day. I mean, I got a plan and it might go according to plan, but it might not. But it's just a it's a mentality decision that, hey, every day I get to choose how I show up. It's the best day of my life, not because of what happens to me, but because of how I'm showing up. And in that same token, I believe ever for me, every moment is the best moment of my life. Most people, if you were to ask, what's what's the best moment of your life? They'd probably go, gosh, that's a great question. And they'd rack their memory. They'd go, hmm, you know, probably my wedding day, or oh no, you know what? It was the birth of my first child. It's some external event that they that they would attribute to the best moment of their life. This is the best moment of my life, Chris, because I'm talking to you right now. This is the best moment of my life before I was talking to you was because I was eating the salad. I love that salad, right? Like, so so think about that. It's just a different way of approaching life where you're not at the mercy of life's events. You're choosing. I'm gonna enjoy every moment. Every moment of my life is the best moment of my life because of whatever I'm doing in that moment. It could be the most mundane thing. I'm staring at the wall, but it's the best moment of my life because they said it is.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Yeah, I'm thankful for that and that attitude and the way that you you look at that. And it reminds me of James 1, like the Bible talks about consider it all joy when you encounter various trials because that's how you grow. That's where endurance comes from, and that's really how we show that our faith is the lead of our lives. Uh, there's the test of prosperity, things go well in your life, and it allows you to prove that God is still above that, and then there's difficulties, which is another test like Job had to try to try to prove it. I want to forward about eight years to 2008. There are three, I would say, significant, really marked moments, like I said. And so you forward to 2008, you're feeling better, and uh you're active in your work, and then of course there's the big financial fallout, everybody suffered in in the world of the 2008 financial break. And and it seems like you you came out of that hurt by it. It it definitely got its licks in on you, but it's almost like that was a moment that allowed you to move to where we know you now, which is really digging into the miracle morning format and finding a way to rebound with daily purpose. So if you want to talk about 2008, you can. But I'm really interested in how it bridged to the book, The Miracle Morning, and maybe it's a good time to introduce to everyone kind of your your basic premise of that.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Yeah, yeah, there's a great we can we can kind of kill two birds with one stone there. Um so 2008, yeah, the economy was crashing and and I crashed with it. Uh, I was a at that time my number one income source was coaching. I had one-on-one private coaching clients, uh, probably about a dozen uh coaching clients. And the um uh it Sam it seemed like it was overnight, but it was really a matter of a few months. I lost over half of my coaching clients, and they simply were affecting feeling the if they were all in sales or business, and their business was suffering because of the economy, and then it trickled down, they couldn't afford to pay me. And so I went from, you know, I just bought my first new house about a year prior. I could not pay my mortgage, I could not pay the bills. I went from being debt-free to living on credit cards. My house was foreclosed on by the bank. I had to move back in with my dad at, you know, almost 30 years old. Uh, it wasn't part of my plan. I was grateful that he was there to catch me when I fell. But, you know, again, having gone from, you know, just buying a house and, you know, living my dream life and had a business thriving to losing it all, uh, I got really depressed and I didn't know what to do. And I, uh, a series of events led me to go on a run and hear a quote from Jim Rohn. And this quote, it's worth writing down, this changed everything for me. Jim Rohn said, your level of success will seldom exceed your level of personal development. Simple. I had probably heard it before, but it never landed until that day. And here's the way it landed for me, and I quantified it, which to me makes it helpful to really grasp this, which is on a scale of one to 10, if we're measuring success in any area of our life, you know, our marriage, our health, our faith, our family, you know, fitness, you name it, our finances. Uh, in fact, let me ask you kind of a rhetorical question, Chris, but play along and answer. On a scale of one to 10, if 10 is the most successful and fulfilled you can be in an area, and one is, you know, terrible, um, what where do people want to be in every area of their life?

SPEAKER_01 16:48

They want to be their best, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Yeah, they want to be at a 10, right? Um, I've never met anybody that's like, well, I don't want to be too happy. I'm I'm good with like a seven, or I don't want too much money. I'm getting no, like people go, no, there's this innate desire and drive in people to manifest the glory of God, to fulfill our potential in every way, right? And uh so I asked myself, okay, I want level 10 success, but what's my level of personal development? Because remember, Jim Rohn said, your level of success, which we all want level 10, will seldom exceed your level of personal development. And I went, my level of personal development at that time, because I was, you know, I was depressed, I was in fear mode. I was just every day I'd wake up, I'd go into my office, I would stare at my computer, I would answer emails, I would, you know, work, I would make calls, and then I would do that until I couldn't anymore, until I couldn't stare at the computer, probably seven in the evening, eight, nine. And then I would eat some food, I would go to bed and repeat. And so my level of personal development development was like at a two, like maybe a three on a good day. And I went, oh, that's the disconnect for me. And I think it is for most people. I want level 10 success, but my level of personal development, meaning my knowledge, my skills, my confidence, my habits, my beliefs, are at like a two or three. And that's the disconnect. I figured I need to become a level 10 person in terms of developing my beliefs and my mindset and my confidence and my habits and my skills and my knowledge. I need to develop myself to a level 10, and then I'll be able to achieve and sustain level 10 success. And so I ran home and I just I started Googling phrases like, what do the world's most successful people do for their personal development? You know, what do millionaires do and philanthropists and champions and you know, innovators? And I wanted to find out what was the best personal development practice. And I ended up, after about an hour of searching online, I ended up with a list of six practices. And I started to get a little bit overwhelmed. I went, well, obviously I can't do all six of these. What's the best one? Like which of these is the most beneficial that's going to change my life the fastest? Because I was in such a bad state, like I wanted to turn it around quick. And so I went back and I reread these articles, watched some videos, and there was no clear-cut answer as to which of these six practices, which by the way were meditation, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, and journaling. And depending on who you read about or who you asked, they would swear by this one, you know, meditation transformed my life, or journaling was the most effective thing for me. Or it was that morning exercise that gave me energy and mental clarity, right? Or visualization, like the top athletes in the world swear by visualization. And so I almost threw in the towel and went, I don't know which one I should do. And then the epiphany was this. I went, oh, wait a minute. What if instead of picking one of these, what if I did all of these? What if I woke up tomorrow an hour earlier than normal? And Chris, like you, you and I talked earlier, I was not a morning person. So this is like a, this is, you know, this is a grand, you know, gesture by me. What if I woke up an hour earlier and I did 10 minutes of meditation, followed by 10 minutes of affirmations, followed by visualization, you know, 10 minutes of each. I thought that would be, that's the best of the best of the best. That's what the world's most successful people have done for centuries to be successful. Uh, what if I did all of them? That'd be the ultimate morning routine. I woke up the next morning. I was like a kid on Christmas morning. I woke up with so much excitement, which now keep in mind, the day before I woke up depressed and scared and hopeless. And so it was the day before that, and the day before that, and the day, and every day for the last six months before that. This first day I thought, if I do, if this could be the thing. This could be the one thing that changes it all. I woke up the next morning and, in full disclosure, I didn't know how to meditate. I'd never done it before. So I wasn't very good at it. I got a little discouraged, but I went, okay, I still feel feel pretty good, right? Affirmations felt really goofy and phony, saying, I am awesome, I am a millionaire, like all these cheesy online affirmations I found. But even after one hour of these six practices in a relatively mediocre fashion, I felt incredible. I thought, I have so much clarity and energy and motivation. And if I start every day like this, it's only a matter of time before I become the person that I need to be to create the success I want and turn my financial situation around, turn my life around. And Chris, I was thinking it would be six to 12 months. And in less than two months, I more than doubled my income in a declining economy, mind you. So if you're listening to this right now, you know, later, and then the economy is declining. Like if you can focus on getting better, even if the economy gets worse, you get better, you can find those opportunities in any economy, right? And in every crashed economy, more millionaires are almost always made than at any other time. And so uh I doubled my income. I went from being in the worst shape of my life physically to committing to run a 52 mile ultra marathon. I had never run before. So I thought, what a better way to challenge myself to become more than I am now. And my depression went away, not in two months. My depression was fading on day one and even more on day two and day three. I got more and more hopeful each day. And I went to my wife, I said, sweetheart. I just signed on two more clients today. We have officially doubled our income. It's all because of this morning routine. It feels like a miracle. And she goes, It's your miracle morning. I go, Yeah, I like that. Miracle morning. Um, and then uh, and then, you know, the rest, I could say the rest is history, but I, you know, I decided I have to share this with other people. I taught my coaching clients. They all resisted saying I'm not a morning person. And 13 out of 14 clients at that time all uh came back to their next weekly call and said, Oh my gosh, the miracle morning works. I'm a morning person. I just started running again. I read a book, I had my best week in my sales career, on and on and on. And that's when I went, okay, wait a minute. If this worked for me and I wasn't a morning person and it worked for my clients and they weren't morning people, I have to share this with the world. I have to write a book about it. And, you know, it took me three years. I'm a slow writer, self-published the book, didn't have a publisher, didn't have an audience, nobody knew who I was. Um, it it was really slow going for the first few years, but I was committed. I knew that if I got this practice into someone's hands and got the Miracle Morning book, that it would change their life because I was seeing it every single day. And um, you know, and it took six years, a million copies sold, and now two million copies and translated in 37 languages. And I am just, you know, for me, like I said earlier, uh like I the credit really it goes to God. It goes, I I don't know, the ideas came through me, the inspiration came through me, my wife is my muse, you know. Um my mentor taught me how to work hard. I mean, all of these, you know, I credit all these people in my life. But um, last thing I want to say is that the miracle morning is made up of these six practices, and they are organized into an acronym for you to remember to make it easy. Savors. These are the savers. The first S is for silence. That's your meditation or your prayer time breath work you can do during the silence. And that allows you to start your day calm, peaceful, and centered. The A is for affirmations. Affirmations are often mistaught by self-help gurus where they're, you know, they teach you to affirm either lie to yourself, like just if you want to be wealthy, say, I am wealthy or I am a millionaire, right? And it doesn't work that way. You you typically you're you're tr deluding yourself. It's better to say, I am committed to blank, right? So don't affirm something that isn't true yet. Affirm what you're committed to making true. And then the V in Savers is for visualization. And just like I said, the world's greatest athletes, they visualize themselves performing at their peak before they step on the court. And in the same way we can do that before we step into the family room with our kids, right? Or or you know, or greet our wife in the morning, or or or make, you know, head out into our to work. Visualize yourself showing up at your best before you actually have to show up. And that way you've already rehearsed that, and it's easy to go there in real time. The E in Sabers is for exercise. And again, not rocket science there, but just you don't have to go to the gym in the morning, but just do, you know, five minutes of jumping jacks and stretching, some push-ups, some crunches. Get the blood flowing so you have more energy and you'll think clearly, get that blood flow into your brain, have better mental clarity. The R in Sabers is for reading. And again, not rocket science here, just you're one book away, though, from any area of your life you want to improve. You want to be happier? There's a thousand books to do that. You wanna, you wanna, you know, you wanna improve your faith? I mean, you want to grow closer to your spouse, whatever you want to do. There's infinite books to help you do it. And the final S in Savors is for scribing, which is a fancy word for writing, but I I needed the uh the S for the acronym to be complete. Journaling would have been weird, right? Saborja. So, and that's simply the power of clarifying your thoughts in in pin. I I heard a great, I was reading something this morning, and uh they read, uh they talked about, you know, we have ideas, a lot of ideas, and uh, and if you don't write them down, if you only make mental notes, the ink wears out real fast on mental notes, right? So um so those six practices make up the miracle morning, and you can do it in an hour, you can do it in 30 minutes, you can do it in there's a chapter in the book called the six-minute miracle morning that on days you're rushed, literally do one minute for each of the savers, get centered, get focused, remind yourself what you're committed to, and then go out and crush your day.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

Man, that's so great. Thanks for introducing that to us. And I remember you talking, I think it's in the movie, the Miracle Morning movie, which I'll have tagged and linked so people can get to, where you talked about how in the midst of that 2008, you're talking to a friend and and the friend gave you two pieces of advice. Get up in the morning and go for a run and listen to something that can educate you and inspire you. And I think that's when you said, I don't do mornings and I don't do running. And he said something like, you know, what's more miserable, the idea of running or the mental state you're in presently, which is a great question because you you want to change where you are, you need to do something challenging to do that, and to see that it changed so quickly over the months. One of the things that I try to emphasize that I drew very directly from you and Carnegie and so many great guys that have written over the years is daytight increments. Like you're making the most of that day from jump street to the end, and the multiplying factor of that just is seen in in so many lives. So it's good to see it in yours as well. Now, someone may be listening saying, Wow, he's so enthusiastic and things went so well for him. But I two problems, and I'll let you address both. One, I don't do mornings, I stay up late, I'm not good in the morning, but I'm gonna add a second one to it, and you can work them both in if you would. Just busyness. I just my schedule is jam-packed. I could probably do mornings, but I'm already getting up early. So those are two obstacles I know people will face. I'm here to say this works, and you win the day, and you're gonna win your whole life. Yeah, and your life is a testimony to that. So let's try to help people overcome these two obstacles.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

Yeah, so yeah, the first one, uh, and they do kind of go hand in hand, um, but I'm not a morning person. That was my biggest obstacle, right? When I sat down. In fact, the yeah, those those two obstacles. So when I sat down, the first thing was, when am I gonna do this? Like, uh, how am I gonna find time? And and the first thing I thought was, well, maybe in the evening after work. Because I was already, you know, I'd wake up and I would work and I was trying to make money. So it was like that time was protected, even though it was inefficient because I wasn't doing a morning routine. I wasn't starting in a peak state, I was starting in a fearful state. So I thought, well, maybe I'll do it in the evening. But then I went, well, it's the only time my fiance and I really have time to hang out because I'm working all day. Um, not to mention in the evening, you know, I'm mentally fatigued. I'm not coherent. That's not gonna be the optimal time to work on my growth and you know, and really optimizing that. So the evening was out. Then I went, okay, well, what about the afternoon? Um and then kind of I go, well, I'm not, I can't find extra time in the afternoon. Um I've got calls, I've got, you know, I'm I got emails to respond to, I'm busy, I'm working. But I but like I didn't even want to look at the morning, right? I didn't even want to consider that because I am I was a classic night owl. You know, I resisted waking up in the morning, I hit the snooze button a few times every morning, and I only got up when I had to, otherwise I would sleep in. And then I started looking at the morning, and a few things started to make too much sense to ignore. Uh, one was that to if I did my my miracle or my personal development in the morning, it wasn't called the miracle morning, of course, at that point, but if I did my personal development in the morning, I'd be starting each day in a peak physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual state. In other words, I'd be starting at my best, and that would then carry over into everything that I did. So I was like, that makes, you know, that makes too much sense to ignore that if I'm gonna do this, I should start the day in this optimal way. And then I bring a better version of who I was when I went to bed the night before into each and every single day. And so that was the big, that was a big wake-up call. And then I Googled how to beat the snooze button, right? Like that was my big thing is how do I get over the snooze button? How do I beat that? I'm I'm addicted to it, you know? And uh what I ended up coming across, I don't know, remember where this was, or maybe it was my own idea, I don't know. But I move it was moving my alarm clock across the room into my into my master bath. So normally the bed, the alarm clock was on my bedside table. And I think most people relate to this. We keep our phone there. And when the alarm goes off in the morning, we're not even coherent when we're reaching over on that table to turn it off and decide whether or not we're gonna wake up. And I don't care who you are. I mean, 9.5 times out of 10, even to this day, if I leave my phone, then I'm gonna turn it off and I'm gonna hit this news button. So I put it across the room in the bathroom. And then it's amazing how if you actually have to get out of bed and walk across the room, you're 10 times more awake than you were if you were just reaching over the bedside table and falling right back asleep. And so I made a commitment that I would, I had to get up and turn off the phone, obviously. But then I decided I wouldn't snooze and go back to bed, that I was gonna immediately, it was by my bathroom counter. I poured a glass of water. So I was gonna rehydrate first thing, and then I was gonna brush my teeth, wash my face, put on my workout clothes for, you know, later that morning. And that way it was like allowing myself to wake up. And here's what I realized every minute that you stay awake, it makes it that much easier to stay awake, right? It's the hardest to decide on staying awake within the first minute or two, maybe three of the day. But once you're drink that water, face wash, teeth brush, like yeah, yeah, I'm up, I'm awake now, right? And then the other piece was moving into the other room, right? Not doing the miracle morning in my bed, where it's real tempting to fall back asleep, but on my living room. I had my journal out, I had, you know, a book out, I had all everything, my laptop, everything there that I needed to do the miracle morning. So that that's that's an important process that you actually follow to beat that snooze button. And the last thing I want to say on this is um if you well, two last things that go together. Number one is if you think I'm not a morning person, welcome to the club. We surveyed our community once. The miracle morning community community is made up of millions of people. Uh, we have in a in a Facebook group called the Miracle Morning Community, that that alone there's 300,000 something people in that group. We surveyed our community and said, what percentage of you, this was a few years ago, what percentage of you, um, or were you a morning person before you read the miracle morning? So this was already something that you you already woke up early, you just weren't, you know, maybe you were checking email. Now you're doing the savers. And then what, what, or were you not a morning person at all before the miracle morning? And 72% of miracle morning, you know, practitioners, fanatics, uh said, I was not a morning person until I read the book and and followed the wake-up tips and and these strategies. Um, so yeah, so you absolutely, you know, if you don't run every day, you're not a runner, but it doesn't mean you can't become one, you know. And that's what I realized is that the whole I'm not a morning person, that is a self-imposed limiting belief. And I it's one that I adhered to for most of my life. And then I started waking up early and I realized the benefits and I went, oh, this is amazing. Like, yes, I'm a morning person, right? And if that means you got to go to bed 30 minutes earlier to wake up 30 minutes earlier, for those that say I'm too busy, right? I I don't know. Most of us in the evening aren't, you know, it's not our highly productive time. We're usually kind of vegging out, watching TV, scrolling our phone, that sort of thing. So if going to bed 30 minutes earlier for the benefit of waking up and dedicating time each morning to becoming the best version of yourself, to evolving to a point where you can create anything you want for your life, you know, I'll trade that last half hour of the day, uh, any day of the week.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

Yeah. I can see where that applies to busyness too, because you're talking about building slowly. Maybe an hour in the morning is impossible, but like you said, you can take six minutes in the morning. Yeah. I've tried to work it, I had to work both ends of it. I had to go to bed a little bit earlier over a course of time, 10 minutes tonight, 10 more minutes next week or something, and then back up the alarm clock slowly and and make it easy and automatic by moving it across the room like you suggested, and and just creating that time. But I I want people to see that starting your day intentionally and trying to access your your best connection to God and your most optimistic view, no matter how much time you can give to that, it's going to change the nature of every single thing that happens that day and every single interaction. And immediately you won't just be like, Can I find time for that? You will always make time for that as your schedule adjusts. So I I think that that that's really helpful. So thank you for for explaining that.

SPEAKER_00 34:12

Yeah, my pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

So I want to fast forward a little bit. It's interesting your story to me because it it's like uh it's it's almost the year 2000, and and you're selling knives like crazy, and then an accident teaches you valuable lessons and really helps to shape your life. And then we forward to 2008 and and you're you're speaking and influencing people, and then there's a big change in burden that makes you re-evaluate how to really fortify your footing. And then we move forward eight more years, and it's 2016, and you're in production of the Miracle Morning movie, which uh you know is going to help really just bring this visual representation. You have so many wonderful interviews in it, and we get to see people's lives change. Tell us a little bit about what happened during the filming of that movie and the and the months and years that followed, and how that has had an impact on your faith and on your life.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

Yeah. Um, so what ended up happening? I woke up in the middle of the night, struggling to breathe, and uh went to the ER and found out they didn't know what was wrong, but my lung was filled with fluid and um and I had to get it drained. It was like a liter and a half of fluid. And uh a day and a half later, uh, it happened again. And then it happened, and it basically my lung just kept filling with fluid. And a series of hospitals and and mint tests, and in about 11 days of this happening, they finally diagnosed me with a really rare aggressive form of cancer called acute lymphoblastic leukemia. It uh it's uh the the real scary part is the survival rate for that cancer is 20 to 30 percent. And uh, you know, my daughter was seven at the time, my son was four, and to be, you know, essentially told that there's a 70 to 80 percent chance I was going to die, according to doctors, um, is you know, was was was scary. It was terrifying, of course. Uh, but it goes back, the same thing in the car accident. You know, I went, okay, well, you know, I can't change what I can't change, so I'm gonna be at peace with whatever happens. Um, but uh, but I'm gonna choose to, and I told my wife, she was my wife was devastated. I said, I'm gonna be the happiest and most grateful I've ever been while I endured the most difficult time in my life. Um and I said, Sweetheart, I live by this thing called the miracle equation. And uh the miracle equation is is something I'm I created when I was 20 years old, um, right kind of during the right after the accident, looking back at how I took my first step again, and then looking at how I was breaking some of the company sales records I worked for, I realized, oh, there are two decisions that I've made that I've made repeatedly that have enabled me to create what I would call some miracles in my life, just these things that are really beyond what you could predict or or expect. And it was number one, unwavering faith. I maintained unwavering faith that I could walk again. Then when I went back to Cutco, I maintained unwavering faith that I could, you know, do things that no people have never done before in our company. Um, you know, and then uh and moving forward, I went, I'm gonna maintain unwavering faith that I am going to beat this cancer. And I told my wife, I said, sweetheart, I know that the survival rate is 20 to 30 percent, but I'm telling you, in my mind, there is a 100% chance that I will be amongst the 20 to 30% of those that survive this cancer. There's no other option. Um, the second decision is extraordinary effort, right? Extraordinary effort, going above and beyond, doing whatever you can in your power to create, achieve, accomplish the thing you want to accomplish. And I thought, I'm gonna do the chemotherapy because the doctors essentially I reached out to some holistic doctors. They said, that's your best bet. I no, no holistic doctor would take me on. They said your cancer is so rare and aggressive, because I really didn't want to do chemo. I wanted to to beat this naturally, but nobody would take me on. And so it's kind of I was left to my, you know, on my own. And I decided I'm going to do everything in my power holistically, in addition to the chemo, as if I weren't doing chemo. So I did um lymphatic massage and ozone therapy and um acupuncture and coffee enemas, which those that's the most extraordinary effort, you know, you you can you can do. Um I took, I did, I did juicing and you know, change my diet, and I took 70 supplements a day. Um, you name it. I did everything that I could possibly think to do. And uh, and once again, I kind of defied the odds and and you know, I ended up getting into remission and and and was was ended up was cancer free, but they kept me on the chemo. And once you get into that world, it's really hard to get out. And I don't want to go too far down that rabbit hole, but um I did 700 hours of chemotherapy over eight months, or 650 hours of chemotherapy because it's one of the most aggressive cancers, they hit it the hardest with the chemo. And uh I was on death's doorway many times during those eight months, um, not because of cancer, but because of chemotherapy. I developed all sorts of infections. I was in the ER, I had 104 degree fevers, um, I had no immune system because the chemotherapy completely destroys your immune system. So I had nothing to fight off any of the infections that I would get. And the only way to fight it off was through big pharma, right? They would fight it off with, you know, their drugs. And uh, and I it was that or nothing, it was that or die. So put in a tough, pretty tough spot. And um, after three years of of maintenance chemotherapy, I finally, I mentioned this to you earlier, um, I finally uh reached out to my doctor and I was experiencing just horrific mental and emotional challenges that were not circumstantial. It was, it was chemical. And I told my doctor, I said, I don't want to do this anymore. And he said, Hal, I want you to stay on the chemo as long as you can tolerate it. And I said, Well, doctor, I'm feel like killing myself every day. I literally am suicidal. I feel horrible, I'm unhappy, I can't, I feel out of control, my marriage is falling apart because I'm not the same person my wife married. Uh, I'd say that I can't tolerate it anymore. And so against doctor's orders, I uh I quit taking 100% of my pharmaceutical drugs, all of them. And uh, and that was May of 2020. And um, you know, what are we a year almost going on almost two years since then? And um every checkup's been great. I just I I've built back to be healthy, you know, naturally, without any pharmaceutical drugs. And um, yeah, and I don't I don't mean to go in that much detail, but uh but uh but but that's where I'm at now. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Well, that's a blessing from the Lord. I prayed for you and I know others did as well. Yeah, thank you. And I'm really thankful for what has happened and how God is using you on highs and lows to demonstrate things. And that leads me to a word that you use so often in your book and in your podcast, and I have such an appreciation for, and that's gratitude. You talk about daily gratitude and thankfulness for every day, and I've read a lot about that. I think that's sort of a block one for lots of people trying to encourage others, is gratitude. One of my challenges, and I just want to ask you about faith a little bit, is it seems odd to me to get up every day and say, I'm thankful for the day, if there's not a source from which the day is derived. Uh, gratitude to me has that directionality to it. Like, thank you for getting me through this, thank you for this healing. Because there's a power greater than me and someone who loves me, who has sent this my way, as I can see he has in your life. So I want to ask you a little bit about the power of gratitude through every part of your life and where your relationship with God works to give that substance.

SPEAKER_00 41:32

Yeah, absolutely. Gratitude to me is a lens to view life. Um, grateful for every moment. And it really is in alignment with what I was sharing earlier about how, you know, every moment is the best moment of my life, every day is the best day of my life. Um, and that's really just every every moment I am grateful for. And when I was in the hospital, um, even when I was in the mo, you know, there's that one scene in the movie where I'm bawling my eyes out. I'm in so much pain. Um, but if you if you remember what I said, I said, this doesn't, you know, as I'm like trying to talk through my tears, I said, This doesn't change that I'm grateful for all of this. This doesn't change that, you know, this is all making me stronger, you know? Um, so yeah, I mean, literally experiencing gratitude in the midst of horrific pain. Uh, so yeah, that's a lens that I view all of life. And in terms of directing it toward some, you know, God or something, um, that that for me is I I will express gratitude sometimes, just like I'm just grateful for life. Um, but to your point, uh, when I when I do say God, I'm so thank you, God, thank you. Instead of just thank you, you know, thank you, you know, just in general, thank you, God, for this. There is something where it's almost like you're empowering that source to continue helping you, right? You know, if you're thank you just out there in the ether, it's like, I don't know, I don't know where that's going, right? But when you direct it toward, it's almost like this cyclical energy that you're expressing gratitude toward God and you continue to receive blessings and you continue to express gratitude and you continue to receive blessings and right on and on and on it goes. And um, and I think that you know, ever since I was a you know young, young kid, um, I would express gratitude to God on a daily basis and and um for my blessings and then for the the you know the the blessings in disguise, the the challenges that uh that end up being blessings.

SPEAKER_01 43:23

Yeah, I love that idea. And and when you first introduced that and I was reading the book, there's something that grew out of that that still has a daily presence for me. I do some journaling and kind of created a journal that really tried to work some of your concepts in. And I talk about a thing called level three gratitude, where level one is easy, it's just being thankful for a thing. It's not super easy for everyone, you should say, but it ought to be easy to be thankful for something. Level two is when you know to whom you are thankful and you really kind of give that allegiance. And then level three, like in Hebrews 12, the Bible talks about like showing gratitude. And one of the things I love to Try to do every day is say, God, I'm thankful for this. And I write down one thing every day, I'm thankful to you for this because here's what you possessed that made it possible. And here's something I'm gonna go out and do today. And this is kind of your visualization, which I love so much. Like I see myself going out today and doing something to show God how thankful that I am. So a lot of that sprung off of the foundational ideas of gratitude that you you share so well. And I'm just thankful for what you've gotten started for me. So thank you, Hal, for that.

SPEAKER_00 44:29

Oh Chris, you're welcome, man. Thanks for living it.

SPEAKER_01 44:31

Yeah, I love it. I love it. A couple of wrap-up things that I think might be helpful to people. Uh, I can recommend and will be recommending, of course, that you check out the Miracle Morning book, which I pushed a lot a couple of years ago and again earlier this year. The miracle equation that Hal talked about a little bit with the two ideas working together. I have that book now and recommend that as well. And we'll have a link to that. So there's sort of some planning you can do, but if somebody's listening right now and they're just thinking, oh man, I want this and and I want to start right this moment, what would you say is the most effective way that someone could get started with with a better direction, like right now? How can the miracle morning begin today?

SPEAKER_00 45:13

Yeah, I mean, so we set up, if you go to miraclemorning.com uh and you put in your name and email, you'll you'll get the I call it the fast start, actually, or the crash course. I don't know what I call it. It's either the fast start or the crash course, but same thing. Um you get a you get a sneak peek of the book, so you get the first few chapters of the book to get you started. Um, you also get a 15-minute video uh presentation of me teaching the miracle morning, and you get a 60-minute audio uh training of the miracle morning. And it's an interview that I did a while back. And that is enough, that'll get you started. And then move your alarm clock back 30 minutes, right? That's I say the miracle morning is simple. You don't have to do all of the savers. You just have to wake up before you have to get up, which is when most people get up, when they have to get up. No, no, no. Get up, you know, 30 minutes before you have to and dedicate that first 30 minutes to your personal development. And that can be just one of the savers, right? Just you could just you can meditate or you can just read. In fact, a lot of people when they start their miracle morning until they've gotten to the part on the savers, they just do, well, I'm gonna wake up 30 minutes and I'm gonna do the R. I'll just read the Miracle Morning, right? And then when I get to the chapter on silence, I will integrate that into my miracle morning and then and then one at a time, affirmations, and kind of build on it. Um so that's a you know totally free, easy way to get started, miracle morning.com. The other way to do it, and this is kind of a cool way that people can do now, which is the movie. So miraclemorningmovie.com, uh, you can, you know, you can get the movie, it's on iTunes, it's on Apple, but Miraclemorning Movie.com is the hub to link to all those spots. But that's 90 minutes long, right? And then that you can watch that movie, and it'll give you a, you know, it'll go through all of the savers, it'll interview some of the, you know, really successful people in all walks of life in that movie. Um, Layla Ali's in the movie, Brin um uh Muhammad Ali's daughter, uh Brendan Breshard, Robin Sharma, Mel Robbins, author of the five-second rule, a lot of you know famous um authors and entrepreneurs, Robert Kiyosaki, uh, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. So they're in the movie too, and you find out what what they do for their morning routine, um, and then you get to hear from members of the Miracle Morning community, and you get to see their transformative stories of how they've overcome and accomplished incredible things as a result of the Miracle Morning, and then that's a great way to start as well.

SPEAKER_01 47:33

Yeah, awesome. Thanks for that. Good guidance on that. The movie, one of the things I had the toughest time seeing in action was visualization and visualization boards. Uh, I try to just sort of plan out the day and write in some daily highlights. But in that movie, there's this great scene where a guy is on his treadmill, just kind of walking, and in front of him is this board with just things that he he kind of puts those images in his mind of the writing out of positivity and direction. And uh, I wanted to do that. So the movie helped to put some images to some thoughts. So well done on that. And thank you for if you haven't seen that yet or or read his book, you've been listening today. Hal is very open and honest about his life and his challenges, and I think that's a really important part of what makes you so influential as well. As we get to the end of this time, which has been amazing, thank you very much. Uh, is there anything that you'd like to share? Otherwise, just any final thoughts uh for this audience and my audience are people who probably many of which have read your stuff, they've heard a lot about you, they also love Jesus and they just want to live lives of genuine gratitude and and are inspired by your work. So any final thoughts for the listeners today?

SPEAKER_00 48:44

Yeah, um enjoy every moment. You know, you we we all we have one life, and uh, and I believe that God intended us to enjoy it. And yes, there are trials and tribulations and challenges, um, but if you can even just find those pockets of time throughout the day to just take a breath, put your hand on your heart or in prayer position and just feel gratitude. Because when you're feeling gratitude, I believe that you're experiencing heaven on earth. You're experiencing life as it's meant to be experienced. Um, and so while yes, there may be things throughout our life that we're dealing with right now, we got some challenges and we got bills to pay, and maybe some of us are struggling with, you know, um sickness or financial burden, whatever it may be. Um, but we can give ourselves that gift every single day of gratitude, of really expressing and embodying those feelings of being grateful. And then we can get back to working on, you know, the other the things we got to figure out in life, but make sure that you're taking time, especially first thing in the morning, to begin your day in a state of gratitude and then book into that at the end of the day. And for me, that's my miracle evening, is I just simply go to bed thanking God for all the things I had to be grateful for. And I go to bed with a smile on my face, even though I got a million problems I could think about. I feel like it doesn't serve me when I'm trying to rest my mind and rest my body. So I book in my days with gratitude and then I interject as many moments as I can throughout the day.

SPEAKER_01 50:13

Excellent. Thanks for that. And anybody who's seen How's Material before and it's been a while, give it another go. Man, going back through the movie, I'm just ready to re-up some things because what you're saying resonates with me and a lot of people. Before we go, is it okay if we pray together? Can we do that, House? Yeah, absolutely. Love to do that with you. Great God in heaven, we love you, Father, and we're thankful that you see us and you know us and you love us and you bless us and you challenge us and you seek to make us useful and you seek to make us vessels that can share your spirit with others. We're thankful for the way you work in our lives and how you're always drawing us to you in ways that you know that we need, that even goes beyond what we can understand. Father, help us to trust you. Help us to take Hal's comments today and his thoughts about the beauty and blessing of every day, and let it illuminate our lives, change our relationships, make everyone around us better because of the light of Jesus shining through us and making every day the best that it can be. I'm thankful for his work, and I'm praying blessings upon Hal and his health and his ongoing remission, and we pray that he can be healthy and for his family and for the way that he influences people, especially in the ways that draw people to you, the great giver of blessings. We're thankful for you and for your son Jesus, and it's in his name we pray. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 51:37

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 51:39

Alright, hey, thanks again. Means a lot to me, and on behalf of everyone listening, we just appreciate the time that you've you've given over to inspire us today.

SPEAKER_00 51:48

I do too, Chris. Thank you for having me, and thank you everybody for listening.

SPEAKER_01 51:52

Okay, so there it was, the very first time on the program. I have a ton to learn on how to make it work better, but it was a really cool experience. Hal spent like half an hour before we hit the record button answering questions and just generally proving himself to be a great guy. I hope you can put into action immediately the things that he taught us to help you with your daily walk. And hey, if you get a chance, reach out and let me know if you enjoyed today's interview with Hal Elrod. Thank you so much for joining in today. If you enjoyed this program, consider sharing it with your family and your friends. As always, you can go to excelstillmore.life to sign up for the email, order the three-month journal, or just catch up on old episodes. And also, if you are looking for financial advice or future planning, give John Cunningham a call today, 205 913 1720. And remember this whatever you choose to do today in the name of the Lord Jesus, excel still more.