319. Hal Elrod — Unlocking Success Through Daily Habits [Encore Edition]

Foreign.

Don't write down what you want. I want a better life. I want more money. I want more clients. I want to be happier. I want to be healthier. We don't get what we want. We get what we're committed to, right? I mean, the list of what we want is infinite. The list of what we committed to. It can't be infinite.

That's Hal Elrod, worldwide best selling author of the Miracle Morning and the Miracle Equation, personal development coach, top rated motivational keynote speaker and all around miracle maker.

I'm not going to resist my reality. I'm going to accept, okay, this is where I'm at now. As bad as it sucks, this is my reality. So I'm going to be at peace with it. I'm not going to allow my reality to define my internal state of being, my emotional well being.

I'm Michael Mogul, founder and CEO of Krisp, the nation's number one law firm growth company. I've built my business through practice, not theory. Krisp started with just $500 to my name and has grown to over eight figures in revenue over the last few years, earning a spot on the Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing private companies in America. Our approach has been to take everything we've learned about generating massive growth within our own organization and help the country's most ambitious and committed law firm owners do the same for theirs. In each episode of this podcast, I sit down with innovative market leaders from the legal industry and beyond to learn from those who thrive in the face of adversity, challenge the status quo, and define what it means to be a true game changer. Today we're revisiting one of our most popular episodes from the podcast where I sat down with Hal Elrod to talk about the daily habits of the world's most successful people, the actionable steps you can start taking today to transform both your professional and personal life, and why mindset is the key to overcoming any obstacle imaginable.

I developed myself every morning to be a better version of the person I was when I went to bed the night before. And through that personal development, that aggressive, systematic, intentional personal development, I was able to take my income to levels that I never imagined.

That's coming up on the Game Changing Attorney podcast.

Before we begin today's episode, I want to remind you that we aren't beholden to any sponsors or run any ads on this podcast. This allows us to present all of our episodes raw and unfiltered. I'm not going to push any made.

To order meal services on you or.

Try to save you any money on your car insurance. That being said, I have one small request. If you receive any value from this podcast, please give it a five star review. Pay the fee so we can keep this podcast free. Today, Hal is known around the world as a thought leader on personal development and positive change. He brings light to millions around the globe, each on a journey of transformational growth. But Hal's personal journey began in the most unimaginable darkness.

Yeah, so there was a few what I would call rock bottoms in my life and a rock bottom I think we can all relate to. It's those times of adversity that are beyond where we've, what we've ever experienced before. So they really test us that mostly they test us mentally and emotionally. Right. Test our resilience, our faith, so on and so forth. So for me, there's a few that I'd point to that led to the miracle morning. Number one is my baby sister died when I was nine years old. I woke up, I ran across the hall, I heard my mother screaming and my mom was giving my 18 month old sister Anne Marie mouth to mouth and she died that morning. And, and that, that I really saw my mom within six months was leading a support group for other parents who had lost children, was doing fundraisers for the hospital that tried to save my sister's life. Like I really saw that, oh, you can take your own adversity, your own tragedy and turn it into an advantage, into a triumph, you know, for other people. So that really the seed was planted when I was young. And then when I was 20 years old, driving home from a conference, I gave a speech at an event. I was in sales at the time. And driving home at 11:30 at night, my brand new Ford Mustang I'd bought with my own money. It was like, you know, the 20 year old's dream car. And I was hit head on by a drunk driver at over 70 miles an hour. And I bounced off the drunk driver, the car behind me hit me in the door. Instantly, I broke 11 bones. I began bleeding to death. An hour later I died. I was clinically dead for six minutes. Came out of the, woke in a hospital six days later out of a coma and I was told I would never walk again and that I had permanent brain damage. And I always joke my wife will vouch for the brain damage. And I, but I did take my first step three weeks later and the doctors couldn't explain it. And then most recently, well not most most recently, but in 2008, when the U.S. economy crashed, that was kind of my third rock bottom. And that was a one that people can relate to a lot more in that it was a financial rock bottom, right? I lost over half of my clients. I was a coach at the time, business coach. And I lost over half my income, therefore couldn't pay the mortgage, right? Lost my house. Bank took the house away. You know, I was in credit card debt. My credit score plummeted from almost 800 down to 500. I mean, it was, it was bad.

Through overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Hal realized that the only way to change his life was the first change himself. So he began looking for answers. He wanted to know what the world's most successful and fulfilled people had in common. Which other practices could he incorporate into his life to create lasting change? Hal found that while some people swear by meditation, others prioritize journaling or exercise or reading. Which got him thinking, why not incorporate.

All of them if one of these will change your life? All six of them would be the ultimate morning ritual. And so woke up the next morning, did all six of these practices, and within two months I had more than doubled my income. I went from being in the worst shape of my life, physically having not exercised in six months, to committing to run a 52 mile ultramarathon. And my depression went away that day. And I just, I realized, I started telling my wife, this is like a miracle. This morning ritual is like a miracle. It's changed my life so fast. And she goes, it's your miracle morning. And I was like, yeah, sweetie, I like that. So I started putting the schedule with Miracle Morning and started teaching it to my coaching clients, you know, and then now the book itself, it took three years to write it. It's now been translated into 37 languages. Self published book, by the way. We've sold over 2 million copies. And I think what's most profound is there is this global Miracle Morning community made up of millions of people that wake up every day for their own personal evolution and then they support the evolution of our global community.

So I'm a part of the community you mentioned. I think it's one of the most supportive communities. And I guess the first question is just that, you know, sometimes people hear this stuff. They hear about like meditation and journaling and all these different things and they think, okay, like that's cute, right? But I'm broke or I'm experiencing this hardship and I don't have time for meditation or I don't have time for journaling. Or whatever it is. Like, what do you say to those people?

Yeah, I say a join the club. Meaning, like, that was my thought when I thought, when I was googling, like, what are the best personal development practices? Or what. What are the personal development practices of millionaires or of billionaires or of, you know, of world champions of. Right. I'm just trying to figure out, like, what are the best practices for personal development? And this was all based on a quote from Jim Rohn. Jim Rohn said, your level of success will seldom exceed your level of personal development because success is something you attract by the person that you become. And that's a real game changer. Most of us are conditioned to think that if I want to be more successful, I have to do more. And while there's some truth to that, the real secret to success is not found in doing more. It's found in becoming more.

Hal found that setting a lofty goal isn't where the transformation happens. It's not even in achieving those goals. It's the consistent practice of those daily rituals and all the growth that happens along the way.

I focused my affirmations, I focused my visualization. I focused what I was reading around the outcome of increasing my income. Right. Keep in mind, in fact, the timing for this couldn't be more perfect. Michael, I'm just realizing this, where we're potentially in the midst of. We're about to go into a recession. Right. The stock market has had the greatest plunge in history a few weeks ago. Well, 2008 was the when the economy. Or 2007 was when I started the miracle morning. 2008 is when I really started writing the book. And I was practicing it every day. And that's the last time that we had an economic crash. I doubled my income in the midst of an economic crash. Like, the economy didn't get better, it got worse during that time. But I was focused on reading books on. Okay, I was a coach. I needed to get more clients. In fact, the first book I read was called Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port. It was how to Get Clients. Right. How to Get Clients. And then I read Get Clients now by. I can't remember the name, her name, but. Right. Real simple. I wasn't just doing the same things I had always done, trying to do more of it to turn my income around, because that wasn't working. Doing more of what had gotten me where I was just kept. I just kept digging a deeper hole. It was, I need new knowledge. I need new strategies. I need new skill sets in order to add to my. My toolkit, right, that I don't have right now. Because if I had, if, if what I know was working, I'd be fine. But it wasn't. So. Utilizing this Miracle Morning to develop myself intellectually and in every other way, physically, mentally, emotional, emotionally, you name it. I develop myself every morning to be a better version of the person I was when I went to bed the night before. A more knowledgeable, capable version of who I was yesterday. And through that personal development, that aggressive, systematic, intentional personal development, I was able to take my income to levels that I never imagined.

I believe that one of the most impactful things that you can do as a leader is to lead by example. Hal has been hugely influential within the Miracle Morning community and outside of it. One of the reasons his work is so powerful is in his authentic approach. He openly shares his challenges and his rock bottom moments so others can learn from his experiences. I wanted to know how somebody in such a significant period of pain and suffering can find the impetus to make a change.

Number one, and I talked a lot about this during my keynote at your event is you have to accept everything that you cannot change. That is the first step. And that's based on the understanding that all emotional pain, every painful emotion that you have ever felt in your entire life or that you are feeling right now, or that you could ever feel in the future, is self created. It's self created by your resistance to your reality. So think about that for a second. Something happens to you and you go, no, no. Like, you don't, you don't want it to happen. You wish it didn't happen. You. You wish it were different, right? And to the degree that you resist, your reality determines the degree of emotional pain that you feel. Now, the opposite of resistance, which will help you understand how this is true, is acceptance. So let's imagine that the same tragedy befalls two different people, right? Economic hardship, whatever it is. And one person goes, no, come on, this isn't fair. I need money. I right, they're resisting their reality. And then the other person goes, man, this, yeah, this isn't fair. This sucks. This is the worst thing that ever happened. But you know what? I can't change it. So I'm not going to wish that I could. I'm not going to resist my reality. I'm going to accept, okay, this is where I'm at now. As bad as it sucks, this is my reality, so I'm going to be at peace with it. I'm not going to allow my reality to Define my internal state of being, my emotional well being. And for me, when I was hit by a drunk driver and I was told I would never walk again by doctors. The doctors thought I was in denial because I was so happy all the time. I was all positive and happy. And they told my parents, they're like, they said, your son, how we think he's delusional, where he's in denial because he's always smiling and laughing and joking and what they didn't realize. My dad came in and talked to me about what I was, you know, he was. Hal, how are you really feeling? Like the doctors, you know, they think you're delusional or you're in denial and they think you need to accept what's happened to you. And I go, dad, they have it backwards. I've accepted it fully. I said, there's only one of two possibilities. Number one, I'm in a wheelchair the rest of my life. And number two, I might walk again. Let's say possibly, number one, I'm in a wheelchair the rest of my life. I've already thought that through and I decided I'll be the happiest, most grateful person that you've ever seen in a wheelchair because I'm in a wheelchair. Either way, I'm not going to let my, my circumstances that are out of my control define my inner well being, which is in my control, right? And so I said if they are right on that, I never walk again. I'm not going to feel sad about it for a second. I've already accepted it. But the second option is I will walk again. And I don't know if that's even a possibility, dad, like I don't have a crystal ball, right? Kind of like for all of us right now, none of us, we don't know what the future holds.

Hal says that if we can stop resisting reality and learn to accept it, we're partway there. But how should we react if our reality is something seemingly insurmountable? After all, we're living in particularly unpredictable times. The way Hal looks at it, you can't control what's going on around you, but you can control what's going on inside of you. You can control your mindset, take responsibility.

For your inner world. You can't control your outer world, at least most of it. The only thing we can always control is our inner world. And, and it reminds me of. I'm, I'm rereading a book right now called Man Search for Meaning, which is written by Victor Frankl, Nazi Concentration camp survivor who watched his dad die, brother die, sister die, and wife die. I believe in the concentration camp. And he decided that he would be the happiest he had ever been. He decided. And the philosophy from that book is the last of a human's freedom is to choose one's own attitude in any given set of circumstances. And so remember that. That, you know, Michael Singer talks about it as your vow of happiness, that you, however you want to feel, ultimately, that's up to you. And ultimately, most people blame things outside of themselves as to why they don't feel good. I, of course I'm upset. Look at what's going on in the world. Look at what happened. Of course I'm sad. Look at what I lost. Of course I'm angry. Look at what he or she did. No, no, no, no, no. You have to take responsibility for your inner world. And so for me, the one way I do that is every morning I start my day. When I wake up, I lay in bed for about 10, sometimes up to 30 minutes, and I just smile. Even if I have a bunch of stuff on my plate that day that's stressful, if I'm having financial challenges, I spend the first 10 to 30 minutes just laying there smiling and thinking thoughts that make me feel good, just to condition myself to feel good. Because that's what we all really want. We all want to feel good. And then at the end of the day, before I go to bed for the last 10 to 30 minutes, as I drift off to sleep, I just smile and I think thoughts that make me feel good. I think about what I'm grateful for. I'll recite some affirmations. I am life. I am love. I am grateful. I have a wife who I love dearly. I'm blessed with children. I have my health. I have this bed. I get to sleep tonight, right? Like, I just sit there feeling good. And so that's taking ownership of your inner world. And then the third piece, once you've accepted everything, you can't change. Once you've taken full responsibility and ownership for your inner world and feeling the way that you want to feel, the third piece is getting clarity on what you want to create, what circumstances you do want to change, you do want to shift, you do want to improve, what aspects of you that you want to improve, you want to change, you want to evolve or any part of your life. Get clear on that and then simplify it, right? Just do one thing every day that moves you in the direction of a predetermined outcome. That for you is meaningful, that will enrich your life in some way. And so those three components, if each day we accept what we can't change, we focus on our inner world, and then we focus on what we need to do to create better circumstances in our life that can be filtered through that miracle morning practice that we talked about earlier. Right? Start every day by looking at what are the things causing me stress? Okay. How can I breathe and accept those things? Right? And then how do I want to feel today? How do I need to feel? What do I need to think? Focus on experience, Feel inside to optimize my day today as a parent, as a leader, as. As a friend, as an entrepreneur, as a coworker, as a. Right. And then focus your miracle morning on optimizing your inner world. And then as you transition from your miracle morning into your. Your day, it's okay. What is the one thing I'm going to do today that will move me closer to the most important outcomes in my life and in my business?

So much of this starts with managing ourselves first and that there are going to be people that listen to this because, you know, anytime you're spreading a message like this, people could say, okay. One person sees it as optimistic, the other looks at it and says, well, that's delusional. Right? People are suffering. People are going through really tough times. So how do you approach that? Because oftentimes I think when people are in pain, it's very difficult for them to be receptive to positive messaging.

I usually speak in anecdotal evidence, right? Meaning, which I think is the most underrated evidence. It's like, hey, if this, you know, like miracle morning is a great example, we have millions of people that are doing the miracle morning. Like I said, I don't need a scientific study to say, well, it's through word of mouth, because it's actually working for them. And so for me personally, I was deeply depressed when I decided I had to do something. In fact, there's a. There's a very simple quote, a, A philosophy from a mentor of mine, my mentor, Kevin Bracey. He said, if you want your life to be different, you have to be willing to do something different first. I read that quote while I was feeling, you know, not motivated, unenergized, depressed, lethargic, scared of my financial situation. Think about at the time, I was losing my house. I was $52,000 in personal credit card debt, right? My credit score plummeted. Physically, I was in horrible shape, right? My body fat percentage had tripled in Six months, literally. And I listen to Kevin's words and I go, if I want my life to be different, I have to be willing to do something different first. And I opened up my planner and I wrote in 5am Morning routine. And I'm like, I'm doing it. I'm willing to do something different first so that my life can be different. I can't keep doing the same thing and expect things to change. And so that's what I would share, if you're listening, is follow the, you know, millions of other people that have done it, even though it was difficult, in fact, I was asked, probably it's been a year or two now. Someone said, how. What percentage of the miracle morning community, what percentage of these individuals were already, you know, quote, morning people, end quote, before they read your book? So it wasn't like a big paradigm shift. It was like, oh, yeah, this is better than checking email in the morning. I should do these things when I wake up early. They said, what percentage were already waking up early? And then what percentage were not had never been a morning person. So this was like a radical overcoming of a limiting belief, most likely of like, I'm not a morning person. And I did not know. I was kind of embarrassed. I didn't know the answer. So I surveyed our community, which at the time was, you know, in the hundreds of thousands, and 72% said that they had never been a morning person in their entire life. So, you know, for me, I like anecdotal evidence because I go, man, if they did it, I can do it too. I think it's one of those important beliefs that we can have, which is if another human being has done something that we aspire to do, that doesn't mean they're better than us or different than us. In fact, every human being is more like you than they are not, no matter what they've done or how they've. What. How they grew up or where they were born into. Right? We're all human beings. And so if another human being can do it, so can I. So can you. Yeah. And I would just say realize that if you want your life to be different, if you want it to be better, you have to be willing to do something different first that makes you better.

I'm also a big believer in changing yourself to change your life. After all, old ways won't open new doors. And if you want to transform any area of your life, you must transform yourself first. Hal found an incredible recipe for success with the miracle morning. And in 2019, he published another book to share the most impactful ways to achieve transformational growth.

I am often asked, hal, do you have a favorite of the six practices that, you know, that make up the morning routine? And the. The politically correct answer would probably be like, no. They're all equally important, right? But for me, there is one that stands out above the rest, and it's the one that is the most misunderstood by the majority of people, and that is affirmations. Now, if you were around in the 90s and watching Saturday Night Live, there was a character named Stuart Smalley, and he had a show called Positive Affirmations with Stuart Smalley. And it was really cheesy. Like, he looked in the mirror himself and he's like, I. I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me, right? And affirmations have been taught to us in a way that's really ineffective over the years. It's typically been, you know, just tell yourself something is true until you trick yourself into believing it's true, right? Like, if you're struggling financially, just tell yourself that you're wealthy, right? And so if you go, you know, I am wealthy. I am wealthy. I am wealthy. Like, but if you're, if you're not wealthy and if you're broke or you're really struggling financially, your subconscious is gonna. Is gonna pile liar onto that, right? Like, you're not wealthy. You're. You're broke. You're literally creating inner conflict, which is not what you need more of, right? When you're, when you're, when you're not in a great place, you don't need more of an internal conflict where you're lying to yourself, but your subconscious knows the truth. And as they say, the truth will always prevail. So the first problem with affirmations, as they've been taught, is that they are, is to lie to yourself, essentially, right? Speak something as if that's not true, as if it is, and you trick yourself through repetition. Never. The optimum strategy is going to be lying. The second problem with affirmations is they're often. We're taught to do them in this flowery way that promises something for nothing, right? And so, meaning you tell yourself, money is flowing to me, life's going to get better. Like, like that'll make you feel better for a few moment moments, but that. That's not going to actually bring income into your life, right? You asked about the importance of having a why, so I'm going to share four steps to creating affirmations. That are actionable and will produce measurable results. Number one, write down, what are you committed to? What are you committed to? Don't write down what you want. I want a better life. I want more money. I want more clients. I want to be happier. I want to be healthier. We don't get what we want. We get what we're committed to, right? I mean, the list of what we want is infinite. The list of what we committed to a. It can't be infinite. And it's the only thing that typically we will create in our lives. Is that committed to list? Not the want list. Right. The want list is infinite. The committed to list is where we actually see results. So, number one, what are you committed to? Number two, why is that deeply meaningful to you? And I'll use it an example for my own life. When I was 20, I wanted to be a millionaire. I started in sales. I was. I was a top salesperson. I was like, this is. I'm gonna. I'm gonna be rich. You know, like, sky was the limit. And I thought, all right, I wanna be a millionaire by the time I'm 25. 5 years old. And then I turned 25, and I wasn't anywhere close. I mean, I wasn't even a hundred thousand there. Like, I wasn't. You know, I maybe had, like 10 grand saved or something, right? I'm like, man, I am way off. So then I go, okay, I'm gonna. I'll be a millionaire by the time I'm 30. And by the time I was 30, right, I had gone through the economic crash. I had, like, you know, I was in debt. I was. My credit was ruined. I'm like, okay. But then I had a baby or my wife had a baby I didn't have. My wife had the baby. And then my affirmations evolve to include a deeply meaningful why? And I thought, by the time I'm 35, I'm committed to becoming a millionaire so that I can provide financial freedom for my wife and my. And our daughter, because I deserve that. They deserve that, and they're counting on me for that, right? I'm the sole. The sole provider in our family financially. And then I wasn't quite there at 35, but. But I was. I was on. On my way. And here's the point. Once I had a deeply meaningful why, which, by the way, our deeply meaningful why usually has more power when it's not just about us, and it's about people in our lives that we love that we would die for, right? The people in our lives that we love. And it can be, it can be about us, by the way, right? Like if you don't have a, you know, a family and you're like, you know, you're a lone wolf, you're, you're a solo art, that's fine, but it's got to be this meaningful. Why? And then quickly, number three is what actions will you take to ensure that you get there? And number four, when will you take those actions? So number one, what you're committed to, Number two, why it's deeply meaningful. Number three, which actions you're committed to take. And number four, when you'll take those actions. That is an affirmation, a formula for an affirmation. And do one for every area of your life. Create an affirmation for your finances, for your relationships, for if you're a parent, right? If you're in business, if you're, if you're for your health, create an affirmation that starts with the outcome you're committed to and ends with the actions you're going to take and when you're going to take them.

I used to hear things like this and I remember like, you know, in the, the Brian Tracy books and all these different things that I used to read years and years ago. And at first I'd hear that stuff and say, hey, that's nice, but it doesn't seem practical, it just seems nice. It wasn't until I fully started buying into that and I was seeing the most successful people around me that were doing things like this, that were practicing affirmations, that were journaling, that were meditating, that were being very intentional about what it is that they want their life to be, how they want it to look like, who they want to impact. And then we're disciplining themselves in a way to drive themselves towards that. Because a lot of what we're talking about is really productive ways of thinking and acting, right? I mean, because there's all sorts of non productive ways that you can have, right? You can fall victim to yourself, you can believe it's somebody else's fault. You can do all these different things that may make you feel better but ultimately may not make you better, right? So it's like the line for the people that want to feel better is very long. And the line for the people that actually want harsh truths, that one's a fairly short line. But you broke this down. And I love this because I want to talk about this briefly with the miracle equation and talk about miracles of what it actually takes to make things happen. And it's not a complex equation. There's no calculus really involved here. But as I'm reading this, I'm like, yes, it's like a simple thing. And then I'm like, how did Hal write a whole book about this?

Right?

Because I read the intro and I was like, okay, I agree, but it's phenomenal. And I really encourage everyone to read the Miracle Morning to also read the miracle equation. But if you could talk about that, because this is really how miracles really get accomplished. And true, like transformational goals get achieved first.

Yeah. And first, let's define miracle because it's a really loaded word and I think it has a maybe a negative connotation for achievers. Right. For someone that is, if you're a result oriented person, it's a woo woo word. Or you know, it might be. Even if you are, even if you believe in miracles, most people look at a miracle as like some random passive event that's out of their control and that you would just kind of hope, pray, sit back and wait for a miracle. It's very passive approach. The way I define a miracle is a miracle is any measurable, meaningful outcome that is beyond the realm of what you believe is probable for you. And I use the word probable very intentionally because we don't pursue that which is possible, we only pursue that which is probable. And for most people, these radical outcomes, these outlandish, you know, goals and dreams are so far off. We just stay in our comfort zone. So when you do achieve an outcome that is beyond the realm of what you believe is probable for you, it feels like a miracle. Right? You look back, oh my gosh, I can't believe I did that. The miracle equation is made up of these two really simple decisions that I applied to my life when I was in sales to break all these company sales records. That's where it started, interestingly enough, when I was 20 years old, right after my car accident. And then I applied it to reaching millions of people with the miracle Morning, even though I didn't know how to, you know, I didn't know how to do that. And then I applied it to beating cancer. Three years ago when I was diagnosed with this really rare and aggressive cancer, I was given a 10 to 30% chance of surviving. I was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. And, and this miracle equation is the same approach that I applied to walking again. So I've applied it both to business and personal life and health and physical, you know, impossibilities and Again, I defy the logic of doctors. Here are the two decisions that make up the miracle equation. Unwavering faith and extraordinary effort. That's it, Michael, like you said, they're very simple, too simple almost, because they are deceptively simple in their explanation, but extremely rare in their understanding and in their execution. Let, let's start this. Unwavering faith is not, I'm not talking about faith in a higher power. I'm also not discounting faith in a higher power. So faith in God. I'm not. But that's not, that's not where I'm talking about directing your faith as much as I'm talking about directing your faith in yourself. This is faith in your ability to commit, to follow through, to do whatever it takes to overcome or accomplish and anything that you are committed to in your life. Right? So for me, I was committed to walking again and I had unwavering faith in myself, in my body's ability to heal. Unwavering faith in God, like, right, there's no limiter or confinement on the faith. Right? It should be faith in all things that you believe, but it centers around yourself and what you can do. Because most people that have faith, they have. I'm going to put faith in God and I'm going to, I'm going to do nothing. I'm just going to sit back and wait for God to fix all my problems. Like, right? No, right. You have to fix your problems. Right? And so the first piece is faith in yourself and your ability and your commitment, your resolve to follow through. And the important piece to understand is most people live in fear. Fear is the opposite of faith. And when you have fear, right, fear is what stops us from moving forward. So we have to replace that fear with that faith. The second piece, and maybe the most important for all you left brain individuals. Extraordinary effort doesn't mean working, you know, 60 hours a week. Extraordinary effort. What makes it extraordinary is consistency. Let's say you're already busy, you're overwhelmed, you go, yeah, I'd love to start a business. I'd love to get in better shape. I'd love to improve my health, my marriage, but I'm so busy I can't even think. Think about it. If you just do one thing every day that moves you in the direction of a predetermined meaningful outcome for you, the only variable is timing. You really can't fail.

Many people allow fear to rule their decision making and to paralyze them, preventing them from taking any action at all. Hal and I agreed that all of the progress that you make in life and in business is by making your commitment to your goals a non negotiable. After all, it's a privilege to be in the process. And the journey towards your most transformational goals is often the reward itself.

When you finally get to the place in your life or your business that you've been working so hard for for so long, when you finally get there by applying this miracle equation for as long as it takes, you almost never wish it would have happened any sooner. Instead, you can look back in hindsight and go, oh man, I wasted a lot of energy wishing and wanting that things would happen faster than they were. Because now I see the journey was necessary. Every part of it. The ups, the downs, the setbacks, the diversions, all of it was necessary for me to become the person that I needed to be, that you need to be to create everything that you want for your life. This is right. We're in it for the long game. This isn't a overnight get rich quick, change your, you know, right. This is start working on yourself, applying the miracle equation to develop yourself, or the miracle morning to develop yourself, the miracle equation to essentially create the results that you want in your life and do both of those things for as long as it takes. And that's how you create, in my opinion, a fulfilling life every day and ultimately get to where it is that you want to go in your life long term.

How you are a rock star, man. I mean, I, I truly, truly enjoy like all these conversations. And I will say that, you know, anybody, well, I think anybody needs to be hearing this message and taking notes, but especially those that through periods of adversity and periods of pain, you're speaking the truth and you see it play out, you know, all over the world, just not only just in the miracle of morning community, but just really just across some of the most successful people, period. And what makes them successful is not the fact that they just were successful, it's just that they were willing to be very intentional, be willing to adapt, be willing to grow and innovate and do the things necessary to become those people, to become the leaders that they had to be. So to close this out, you know, this is obviously the game changing podcast and you're truly a great game changer. But what is being a game changer mean to you?

To me, being a game changer is about optimizing your, or fulfilling either word, your potential while leading other people to do the same. To me, that's a game changer, A game changer you first put your oxygen mask on, as they say, right? And you focus on becoming the best version of yourself. And you do that in service of other people. So, like, when I created the miracle morning, it was a very selfish thing. I was like, man, I'm struggling financially, I'm struggling mentally and emotionally. I'm struggling physically. Like, I need to get myself in a better place, right? I wasn't married yet, didn't have kids yet, but now, and I've done the miracle morning almost every day, five, six days a week for the last 12 years, 13 years. But now it's a bit for, not just now, for the last decade, my daughter's 10, it's been, oh, this isn't just about me, right? I think this is the evolution of just in general, like, as we learn and realize, oh, life's not just about me. It's about the impact I make for other people. And so for me, the miracle morning now is about optimizing myself for myself. But just as much, if not more, it's about optimizing myself every morning for the people that I love and the people that I lead. So to me, that is what a game changer is all about.

I hope you enjoyed revisiting this episode of the Game Changing Attorney podcast with our guest Hal Elrod and have gained new insights from our timeless conversation.

If you found this episode valuable, here are three free ways that I can help you grow your law firm. Number one, download the first chapter of my book absolutely free@gamechangingattorney.com number two, you can shoot shoot me a text at 404-531-7691 and I'll answer any question that you've got for me. And finally, number three, if you can leave this podcast a five star review, it'll help us gain access to more influential thought leaders and bring their lessons learned here to you. For more information on our interview with Hal Elrod, see the show notes for this episode in your podcast app or visit legalpodcast.com.