Elevate Classics: Hal Elrod on The Miracle Morning Decade

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Our quote for today is from John Wooden. Make each day your masterpiece. My guest today, Hal Elrod has changed the way. Milk millions of people rethink their mornings. He's the best selling author of one of the highest rated, best selling books in the world, The Miracle Morning, which has been translated into dozens of languages and shares a morning routine practiced daily by millions of people worldwide. It was also just released in a special updated ten year anniversary edition. Hal's also the author of The Miracle Equation, a renowned speaker who has spoken to audiences around the world. Hal, welcome. It's great to have you back on the Elevate Podcast.

We've been here and done this before, but today is going to be different, better, new and improved.

¿Yeah, I mean, why go backwards? I was going to say I'd encourage people to check out your first appearance way back on episode, fifteen back when we were still figuring things out. ¿So one of the things I like to ask like, repeat, guess, is, a lot has gone on since particularly since two thousand, like, what's changed for you, the most in your kind of world and routine since this global pandemic?

Yeah, it's actually a perfect correlation. You mentioned there's a new updated and expanded edition of The Miracle Morning which is kind of fitting like that book came out eleven years ago. And I've always wanted to update it and expand it and rewrite it. I don't care who you are if you go back to your work eleven years ago, whether it's a video or an audio recording of you or a book you wrote, hopefully you're a little bit like, oh, man, that is who was I back then. Man, I've grown a lot since then. And so, when the pandemic hit in twenty twenty, what I realized is that, when we focus on that, which is out of our control. We feel out of control and that's what leads to stress and fear and anxiety and even depression. And in twenty twenty, that which is out of our control was just magnified and amplified and shoved down our throats if you will. And it has ever since. Like, back then, like, I didn't pay attention to the government and what they were doing. I'm just like, whatever, dude, I'm just living my life. And then it was like, oh, no, the government. You can't leave your house now. You have to do this. You can't do this. And so for me, I realized what should I be focused on right now, as a dad, as a husband, as the leader of the Miracle Morning Community. And the answer was, well, high level, I should only focus on that, which is in my control. ¿The answer, the next question is, well, what can I control? And there's only one answer. It's me. Like, I can control how I show up every day, and I can control who I become every day. The daily Miracle Morning Practice. It's becoming a better version of myself and showing up for my family, for those I love, those I lead at my best. And so I went back to the Miracle Morning Community. I'm like, let's double down. And over the last eleven years, I've been learning how to take the Miracle Morning to the next level. So this new edition has seventy pages of new content, and it really is sharing everything that I've learned over the last, not just eleven years, fifteen years of doing the Miracle Morning in terms of advanced meditation practices and affirmation practices, and visualization practices, and so on and so forth.

For people who this is the first time they're hearing of the Miracle Morning, which there can't be that many left. ¿Will you just share a brief synopsis of the story behind what started it for you? ¿And then kind of the movement?

It wasn't a book idea, like to be very clear. It wasn't like what are popular topics that people would want to book on. It was very much this organic in two thousand eight. When the US economy crashed, I crashed with it. I lost over half of my clients, half of my income lost my home. It was foreclosed on by the bank. My body fat percentage tripled. It really was like for me physically, mentally, emotionally and financially. It was rock bottom. And a series of events led me to realize that if I want to change my outer world, I got to change my inner world. I got to become the person that's capable of thriving in the great recession. ¿Right? The two thousand eight great recession. And there was a quote from Jim Rohn. He said, your level of success will rarely exceed your level of personal development. And you might have heard that quote before. I think I had, but it never clicked the way that it did. And what happened for me is, I quantified it and I went. Well, if my level of success is not going to exceed my level of personal development, I have to ask two questions. ¿What level of success do I want to? ¿And what's my level of personal development? ¿Right? Because they're gonna parallel each other. And the level of success that I want on a scale of one to ten, is the same. As if you're listening to this, it's the same that you want. Level ten. Health, happiness, financial security. You name it. Every human being has an innate drive and desire to self actualize and to experience the best that we possibly can in every area of life. So we all want level ten. So the next question I ask is, and I want you to ask this to yourself. ¿What's my level of personal development? And to define that to make it a little easier to answer that for me, personal development is what's your daily personal development, ritual and routine or routines that enable you to become a better version of yourself every single day. So that as you become better, your ability to create better results in your life, achieve higher levels of success, it parallels. And the answer to that question for me was like, I'm like, at a two or three. Like, I'm not doing much every day. Like, I'm so stressed out, just trying to survive and manage my life and my business. And so the epiphany was, I need to go study what the world's most successful people do for personal development and assemble the most effective personal development ritual arguably of all time. And so that I can quickly become that level ten version of myself. And that's where the miracle morning I assembled these six practices, timeless practices that every successful person does at least one or two, maybe three of. But I had never heard anybody, anyone that did all six. So I thought, what if I do all six practices, that would be the ultimate morning routine that would enable me to become the person I need to be as fast as humanly possible. And I was thinking like give myself six to twelve months to turn my life around. And it happened, Robert. In two months. In two months, in the worst economy of my lifetime, I doubled my income. And if you're listening right now and you're concerned with the recession, this has worked not just for me. ¿It's worked for millions of people around the world, right? And so that was it. And within two months, I went to my wife. I said, sweetheart, I signed on two more coaching clients today. This is the end of the story. Here. She said, oh, congratulations, sweetie, that's great. I said, no, you don't understand. This is a tipping point. We've officially doubled our income. Since I started that morning ritual. It feels like a miracle. And without hesitating she goes, it's your miracle morning, I go. ¿I like that, right? And then I started teaching my coaching clients. They went from, I'm not a morning person to, oh, my gosh, How this works. I'm changing my life. I'm having the best week in my career. And that's when I realized that if it changed my life and their life, it could change the world. And that's where I started writing the book. And the rest is kind of history, as they say.

So talk a little bit about the community and the reach. ¿I was amazed from our first episode, like, how far and wide had it gone in terms of languages and otherwise, and people in this community like, can you talk about a little high level? And I'd love to hear one or two anecdotes of like I always think like the far flung person in the remote part of the world who reached out to you and sort of joined the movement.

Yeah, I love that. So the book itself has sold over two million copies. My agent thinks it's over three million, but it's really hard to get accurate reporting from these forty different foreign publishers. So like, it's always delayed a year.

Getting reports a year later. Is real time, literally.

I went to Brazil to speak in Brazil. ¿And then I did a book signing with my publisher and a media tour and if you would have asked me at the time, how many copies have you sold in Brazil? I probably would have said, man, it's done really well in Brazil. I think we're over fifty thousand copies. And go, wow, that's amazing. They hand me a plaque at the book signing that says, over five hundred thousand copies sold.

¿And I'm like, you're like, where's my royalties?

¿Why not know? Yeah, and this was twenty like fifteen or something. ¿How do I not know that I've sold a half million copies in Brazil? So it's been the number one bestselling book in Brazil, in Korea, like number six in UK. So it's done really well overseas. In fact, it sold more copies overseas than it has in the US. Us is around a million, but anyway. So the Miracle Morning Community is a Facebook group with three hundred, fifty thousand people from over one hundred countries that wake up every day and support each other. And it's one of the most inspiring groups of people that are all waking up dedicating time to their morning ritual. And I want to say really quickly if you do not consider yourself to be a morning person. And you're like, i don't know if this work for me, I don't want to wake up early a. It's not the Five AM club. You could wake up ten minutes earlier and do a Miracle Morning. In fact, there's a chapter in the book in the new edition called the Six Minute Miracle Morning, which is literally on days where you are pressed for time. ¿Or if you just don't want to do more than six minutes, how do you do the six practices effectively in one minute each? And you mentioned for an anecdote, a couple that are just profound first, you said somebody on the other side of the world. So in the Miracle Morning documentary, and y' all can watch this for free at MiracleMorning dot com. And it features like Robert Kiyosaki and Mel Robbins and Brendan Burchard and Lewis Howes and Layla Ali and Joe Paulas are some big name achievers in this film talking about how their morning routine impacts their success. We also followed some ordinary folks that aren't famous or well known who have had extraordinary transformations with the Miracle Morning. One of them is Rister Mum. She is in Kenya. Her dream was the motivational speaker after she was blind and her husband left her with two kids. So she's blind. And somehow she discovers the Miracle Morning through a Google search. And now she's following her dream. She's a published author. She's following her dream being a motivational speaker. And so we sent a camera crew to Kenya and they filmed her. And it's inspiring another gentleman, Mike Eaton, had been obese his entire life and he had tried every diet and this. And that he started The Miracle Morning and he lost eighty pounds. I think it was like three months after starting The Miracle Morning. Maybe it was more than that, but six months it was profound. And the last story I'll share is Keith Minick. His son died three hours after being born. And Keith was the director of business development at Turner Home Broadcasting. He went into a deep depression for about a year and he had read books on grief and dealing with loss of a child. Nothing had helped him, and a friend said, hey, try this Miracle Morning book. It changed my life. And Keith said, and I actually opened the new edition of the book with Keith's story early on. And I put his exact words, but paraphrasing what he said, he said, his very first Miracle Morning. He went from being depressed to going, wait a minute. I'm taking control of my life. I'm not going to allow my son's death to determine my mental and emotional well being any longer. And now, almost ten years later, he still does The Miracle Morning every day. And he talks about in the book how it transformed his life in one day after a year of being depressed. And ten years later, he's still doing it, learning, growing and evolving. And I thought it was a great example of how quickly The Miracle Morning can transform someone's life and how a decade later it's still transforming their life.

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There's about ten different questions I want to ask in there. I think there's a question of sort of why the morning and why it works, But I want to ask it rhetorically. I guess. Let's talk about what the 1 miracle morning looks like for a lot of people. ¿Which is maybe I wake up to my child screaming at me or hitting me alarm, I jump out of bed, I get my phone, I check Facebook, I kind of run out frenetic, I look at my email, I turn on the news, I respond to a bunch of things kind of coming at me by that point, like, what have I lost? ¿What's the cost of me from the manic morning?

¿So at the highest level, I would just say, reactive versus proactive, right? You started the day in a reactive state and that spikes your cortisol levels from first thing, and then now you are operating at a mental and emotional deficiency all day long. ¿And to me, what the Miracle Morning does? One of the simplest explanations is it enables you to start every day in a peak physical, mental, emotional and spiritual state in a relatively short amount of time. And so that I mentioned this earlier, you can show up at your best for the people you love, the people that you lead and that starts because you show up first for yourself. ¿And it's that overly used cliche oxygen mask analogy, right? ¿Like you put the oxygen mask on in the morning, you do some reading and some journaling and some meditation and some exercise and visualization like you start every day, you're essentially utilizing six of the most timeless proven personal development practices in the history of the world, right? I mean, the world's most successful people have sworn by for centuries, and you're doing all six of them. In fact, I'll quote, I'll paraphrase Robert Kiyosaki. Robert is one of the biggest advocates for The Miracle Morning. Now, if you know who Robert is, by the way, he's the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, which is the number one personal finance book of all time. Thirty million copies sold Robert. I got to give him a copy of The Miracle Morning at an event where we both spoke. I figured he would never read it because the guy's worth like eighty million dollars. I'm like he's not gonna read my little self published book. It was like twenty fifteen, I think. Three weeks later, his assistant emailed me and said, robert's read The Miracle Morning three times. Like my jaw dropped. Right there. Wait. ¿What? One of my favorite authors has read my book three times. And she said, him and his wife, Kim, are doing The Miracle Morning almost every single day. And it's transforming his health, his mental state, I mean, on and on and on, and he wants to have you on Rich Dad radio. And I went on the show. And at the end of the interview, and for those that don't know these six practices, The Miracle Morning are organized in an acronym, savers, S A V E R S, Silence, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading and scribing. And at the end of the interview, Robert summed it up better than I ever had. And he said, hal, I kind of said this earlier, but I got this from Robert. He said, you named the book correctly The Miracle Morning. ¿I said, oh, yeah, why is that? And he said, because before you wrote The Miracle Morning and you assembled the savers acronym. He said, every successful person on the Planet swears by at least one of the savers. And many of them do two or three. ¿Maybe they wake up, they read, they journal, then they exercise, right? He said, but I've never heard of anyone that did all six of these ancient best practices in one cohesive ritual like you've taught. And he said, the reason I think you named the book correctly is because any one of the savers will change your life. He said, but when you do all six. He said, i believe it creates miracles. He said, i'm experiencing miracles in my life. Since I started this practice a few weeks ago. And so I figure if it's good enough for Robert Kiyosaki and even someone that's already successful at the highest level and by most measures. ¿Right? And someone who's a voracious learner and reader. You already read hundreds of books. Even the Miracle Morning was transformative for him.

Let's talk about, you said leaders. And there's an interesting thing I talked about in my own work and capacity building, particularly with people working from home in Hybrid Now, where I don't think we're different. ¿It's not like you are Clark Kent at home and you show up at Superman at work, right? You suck at Time management at home and money management, and you probably suck at those things at work. And so I think some leaders have embraced this. I think some leaders would feel like, oh, like this is a little. Like, not my space or kind of touchy feely, or I shouldn't be touching this. But if these are your employees and they're working from home, therefore like coming to work is just turning on their computer. How they start their day has a big impact on their attitude and their productivity. ¿And otherwise, how do you encourage more leaders? I mean, I've always done this when we've done leadership, training and otherwise, we try to model the morning as part of the training. I just think it's holistic. But now there's lines between work are very thin. If any. ¿How do you get more leaders to realize? Look, it's great to teach people A and B, but like, if you want to really talk about making people better like this could be either a huge drag on their life or an accelerant.

I'll answer it. This way. ¿My passion is keynote speaking, right? Like, I write books. But speaking is like my favorite thing to do. Writing is really hard for me. It takes a really long time. Every speech that I give is a leader that reads The Miracle Morning. And usually they have it, you know, they implement in their life. And they go, My people need this. Like this is transforming my life, like it did for Robert. My people need this. Every speech I get is somebody reaching out to me. I don't do any marketing. I'm not with Speakers Bureaus. They reach out and they go, hey, we need you to come teach The Miracle Morning to our sales team, to our HR department, whatever it is.

So they ask you to teach it. Rather than they try to preach it. ¿I guess, I just think it can be a tough topic to bring up right?

So, yeah, there's a couple things, I mean, when I speak, and we didn't talk about my story at all. But like the thirty second version, when I was twenty, I was hit head on by a drunk driver at eighty miles an hour, I was found dead at the scene of the accident. Broke eleven bones. I've got pictures to prove it. Thank God for my dad taking those pictures. They really make my keynote a lot more impactful. And then I was diagnosed with cancer seven years ago, and I was given a twenty percent chance of surviving. And so I've been through these really traumatic experiences many of us have. But the point is that when I go give my keynote, the first twenty minutes are like this emotionally engaging thing that it brings people in. And then I take them into the two thousand eight financial crash. And I say, by a show of hands, how many of you were around during the two thousand eight financial crash. And of course, everybody raises their hand, oh, that wasn't just me. ¿And they usually can remember what that was like for them, right? How stressful a time it was. Maybe they lost their house, etcetera. They're brought in emotionally. And then I'm able to go, hey, here's how the Miracle Morning transform my life. I doubled my income in two months. Here's how, and let's walk through how you can apply this in your life. And then I end the speech with a thirty day journey. ¿Right? Like a thirty day challenge, but thirty day journey. And I make it super simple. I go, you don't have to wake up an hour earlier and do all six of the savers wake up ten minutes earlier. And just do the reading part because I give every client when they book me, they get books. And so they give so everybody's like bought in hardcore. Oh, my gosh, this is amazing. We're gonna do this. And then I always say, raise your hand. If you're committed to give it a shot for thirty days, all you have to do is start by reading the book. And then when you do the chapter on Silence, add Silence into your next Miracle Morning. So now all you're doing is the r and the s of savers reading in Silence. Easy. We need the chapter on Affirmations. Add Affirmations in so it really makes it super easy for everybody in the audience to read the Miracle Morning. And now we have companies like Ruben Brown, a national CPA firm, The Miracle Morning is part of their culture. The Miracle Morning is part of their hiring process. In fact, it's their competitive advantage. Where they go, hey, we go beyond just having you come in and do accounting. We actually pour into our people. We have this thing called the Miracle Morning. Every new hire gets a book. And then we have a monthly call where we guide everybody through a thirty day challenge, month after month, after month, after month. And they're on like their thirteenth month now since I spoke at their company. So it really is becoming, and that's for us, a huge opportunity for Miracle Morning. You said, model what Ruben Brown and some other companies are doing and really take that to a lot of companies so that we can hand them the playbook. But right now, it's just get the book, read it, apply it, and then share it with your people.

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And you alluded to this before, but I found that one of the protests, it's not a five AM club, but it comes from working parents moms who say, look again. My wake up call is my three year old at five thirty in the morning. Kind of hitting me on the head, and I just can't get up any earlier. ¿And what's interesting is? ¿We've said, well, how's that working for you? And the answer is, it's terrible. And again, just, hey, do us a favor. Try when you go home. We were at a hotel for three days. You were doing this routine. You liked it. Try just get up ten minutes earlier. Make your coffee. Have a few minutes to yourself. You know that that alarm's gonna wake you at five thirty. The feedback from everyone is overwhelmingly. That was such a big change in my life that I actually decided to get up even earlier.

Yeah. It gets addicting, man. You're like, wait my me time in the morning is the best part of my day. I want as much vid as I can possibly have. And to your point, Well, I think that about the kids. I think that we have a responsibility to wake up earlier than our kids. ¿How can we give them our best if we're reacting to them waking us up? Right. We have an opportunity or responsibility to start every day and go. Okay.

Like.

I have affirmations. And I have some self imposed rules, like my reading. I'm not allowed to read a business book until I've read a family book. Meaning a book on parenting or marriage. That's my self imposed rule to remind myself every day. Family is my number one priority. One of the components of Miracle Morning is affirmations. And I think affirmations are the most misunderstood mistaught and the most effective form.

That's the one that's probably most uncomfortable for people like. Because all I can think about is Saturday at Live. Yeah. I'm smart enough. It's the only thing I can think about. ¿Dana Carvey, wasn't it?

Yeah, I'm good enough. I'm smart enough and doggone it. People like me.

It was it Dana Carvey.

Al Franken.

Oh, yeah.

Al Franken.

Yeah.

Yeah. That is just my Affirmation association. Yeah, totally.

It made a joke out of it. But here's the thing. Even if you're learning it from like a well meaning self help, author or guru, there's two problems with the way that it's often taught. Number one is we're taught to lie to ourselves about something that we wish were true, but it's not true yet. So, for example, if you're struggling financially, you'd be taught to just affirm I am wealthy. ¿Right? But the problem is, if you don't actually believe yourself to be wealthy, you're creating an internal conflict. That's unhealthy. So you go, I am wealthy and your subconscious shouts the truth you goes, Dude. No, you're not. You go. Stop it. I'm doing my affirmations right. You're fighting reality because the truth will always prevail. The second problem with Affirmations is we're taught to use this flowery passive language. That's very woo woo. And it promises some magical result independent of any effort on our part. So you've probably heard some form of this affirmation that says I am a money magnet. Money flows to me effortlessly and in abundance. ¿Right? And any sane person knows that's not how money works. ¿Right? Like you have to create value in.

The market unless you run a Ponzi scheme.

Yeah. There you go. But you have to create value in the marketplace, in your business, for your employer. ¿Right? And then, once you create value, you increase your value and you get paid more. So I think those two approaches that have been taught and repeated ad nauseam for decades, give affirmations about rap. I'm going to teach everybody three really simple but profoundly effective steps to create affirmations. That are practical, that are actionable, that are rooted in truth, that are results oriented, that will produce results in your life. Step one, affirm what you're committed to. So I am committed to blank. No matter what, there is no other option. And that blank, it could be an outcome or it could be an activity. It could be, I'm committed to losing ten pounds in the next three months. It could be, I'm committed to exercising ten minutes a day for the next three month. ¿Right? Either way, you're moving toward the result that you're committed to. And here's the thing. In life we get what we're committed to. That's it. If you're fully committed, there's always a way. You'll find a way if you just want it really bad, but you're not fully committed. So, arguably, the most important thing you could affirm every day is, I am committed to this thing, this outcome, this no matter what, there's no other option. It's a gut check every single day. And if you're taking notes by chance, or just if you want to remember this, what you affirm, becomes your reality. My marriage sucks is an affirmation. My spouse doesn't get me is an affirmation. I can't handle things is an affirmation.

I'm a victim. Which is what's going on today like, I'm a victim and then it just becomes your orientation.

Yeah. And even if you like, in two thousand eight, when the economy tanked and I crashed, my I lost over half of my income. I was pointing at the economy and I was affirming. It's the economy's fault. I have no control over my income because I'm not in control of the economy. And I would imagine that for a large amount of people, large percentage, that's a natural thing, we're very conditioned to believe that outside forces are dictating how we feel our results in our lives, etcetera. It's my boss's fault. ¿It's this fault, right? And on my very first miracle morning, that was the profound shift as I went. Oh, wait a minute. Instead of blaming the economy, I'm going to take ownership of becoming the person that I need to be that can thrive in the economy. And I did. I doubled my income in two months because I took full responsibility for doing that. ¿So, step one affirm what you're committed to step two affirm why it's a must for you, right? I'm committed to blank, no matter what, there's no other option I'm committed or. It's a must for me because. And then I like to frame it. I like to choose the people in my life that I'm doing this for. ¿So I'm number one, right? It's a must for me because I'm doing it for my wife because. ¿Right? ¿How's it gonna benefit my spouse? I'm doing it for my kids because. I'm doing it for my team that I lead because I'm doing it for humanity. Here's the example. When I had cancer seven years ago, I was given that twenty percent chance of surviving and my affirmation said, I'm committed to beating cancer and living to be one hundred plus years old, no matter what, there's no other option. I'm committed for Ursula because I promised her forever. And a day, I'm committed for Sophia and Halston, my children, because they need their Daddy's love, guidance and leadership and I want to watch them grow up. I'm committed number three for my mom and dad because they already lost a child. My sister died when I was younger, and they don't deserve to lose another one. Number four, I'm committed to beating cancer for myself because I deserve to live a long, happy, healthy life. And last but not least, I'm committed to beating cancer for the millions of people who are themselves battling cancer or some other disease and may not have the knowledge and resources that I've been blessed with, and it's my responsibility to beat cancer so I can help them on their healing journey. Robert, those five reasons, those musts for me were so meaningful and so compelling that when I didn't feel like it when I wasn't motivated. But I read those it was like, it doesn't matter if I feel like it.

Yeah. That doesn't sound fluffy. That is a very specific where you're going and why you're going. And again, I think a lot of these things are beyond money or resources. ¿Success has a lot of different definitions, right? Being alive is a version of success.

Yeah. None of the other goals mattered at that time. It's like, oh, if I don't hit this goal, like, my business goals are out, the everything's out, the window. And then step three. Affirm which actions you will take and when. And this is where the rubber meets the road. Without this third step, you might not get to that commitment. If all you do is, hey, here's what I'm committed to and here's why. But then you don't clarify. Okay. But whoa, whoa, whoa. ¿What do you have to do every day to ensure that you move forward toward that commitment that you made? ¿Right? If you're not clear on that, you may end up really frustrated at the end of the year where you're like what the heck, man. I thought I was committed and I knew my why, but you didn't decide what you were gonna do. And so, for me, during cancer journey, I had two columns, and the first one was, I will do chemotherapy and do the best that Western medicine has to offer. But there was an important distinction. I will affirm that my body is capable, it's strong enough to survive the chemo because most people die from the chemotherapy before the cancer kills them. My chemo in specific was one of the most intense regimens in the world because I had such an aggressive cancer. My lung was failing, my heart was failing, my kidneys were failing. When I went to the hospital, that's how they discovered the cancer. So for me, I did six hundred fifty hours of chemotherapy in seven months, about one hundred hours a month. Initially, I was scared. It was going to kill me. But I realized that fear doesn't serve me. I need to affirm that my body will absolutely unequivocally no other option. It will survive the chemo while the chemo kills the cancer. But the second column was the most important column. I will relentlessly research every holistic practice available and implement every single one that I can and that came with. There was a piece of that that said, I will take one hundred percent responsibility for my healing and not leave it up to the doctors. Think about that. Most people, when they're a. When they're given a grim statistic, like you're probably going to die. Most of them accept that statistic as fact. Oh, my God. Twenty percent chance of living. I told my wife, day one, I said, sweetheart, I'm not operating on a twenty percent survival rate. I'm operating on a one hundred percent survival rate because in my mind, there's a one hundred percent chance that I will be among the twenty to thirty percent of those that survive this cancer. And anybody listening, you create your own statistic in the economy, in your health, in your marriage. Don't listen to global statistics. You decide your own statistics. And so that for me was taking ownership and then applying every holistic practice. I could. I took seventy supplements a day. I juiced every day. I ate a really clean as clean as I could diet. I did ozone, sauna, lymphatic, massage, coffee, enemas. If you don't know what that is, Google it. That's the most out of your comfort zone daily practice. But I was like, man, if I do this, I deserve to survive. So, but that affirmation formula, apply it to your marriage, Apply it to your parenting, Apply it to your financial goals, Apply it to your business. Every goal and every role. You take those three steps and all it is, is. It's a few sentences. I'm committed to this. Here's why it's a must. And here's what I'm going to do to get there.

Wow. Let's address a couple things that I know you talked about in your updated version. So it's been ten years. The role of technology in our life has changed pretty dramatically. And it's become far more of a distraction, a whole generation kind of wakes up with phones next to their bed and then two. And Dan Pink talked about this in his book when, I mean, most of us are cognitively best in the morning and otherwise. But then there's some night owls for whom really the whole thing is inversed, which seems to be somewhere eight or eight percent of the population or something like that. So talk about those two things because I know you've thought about them since the first edition.

So the first thing is the phone. My phone. I keep it across from me like I have a rule where this is the irony. ¿We came out with the miracle morning app a year ago, right? And So now it's this balance between using my phone because I want to use some of the features in the app. I actually really appreciate. I don't use all of them, but there's a built in journal and built in affirmations. And there's guided, I like, the guided practices. So that's what I do. I hit play, and I set my phone away. I don't use the digital journal in the Miracle Morning app. ¿I like a physical journal, but I listen to the guided Miracle Morning practices and then I will journal by hand, Right? And that's actually not totally true, cause I do sometimes journal digitally. It just depends. One thing I talk about in the new book is flexibility. I used to be really rigid with my Miracle Morning. Like, gotta do the savers for this long in this order. ¿Now, I like, I start my day in silence, and I go, What do I need today? Sometimes I'll do I'll read for the entire Miracle Morning. Like, if I'm like, dude, I need to dive into this book because I got this. Like, this is what I need. Sometimes I'll meditate for the entire time. Sometimes I'll do three of the savers. Sometimes we'll do six. Sometimes do a guided practice in the app. It's totally flexible. And there's a whole chapter in the new book called Customizing the Miracle Morning to fit your lifestyle. And I talk about really making this your own practice. And again, whether it's six minutes or sixty or anywhere in between, do the savers in different order. In terms of the digital I'm not allowed to check anything that's not related to the Miracle Morning. So like, I have different apps. Sometimes I'll use the Miracle Morning whether it's the Miracle Morning app. I'm not allowed to scroll Facebook or do these things. That's my rule. I can only do the Miracle Morning practices and I keep the phone off as much of that as possible. As far as the night owl piece, I've done research into it. And to your point, small percentage are night owls, But I want to share. There's so many examples of people in the Miracle Morning community that say, I was a night owl until I read the Miracle Morning, and I tried it, and I realized, wow, when I start my day. Because most of them would say, I'm not doing anything highly productive at eleven o' clock at night. I'm just watching TV.

¿The True Night Owl is Like Write Novels, Like, In the middle of the night, right?

Yeah.

And so I'll give you an example. ¿Do you know who Pat Flynn is? Yeah. Yeah. So Pat Flynn is multi millionaire, entrepreneur, phenomenal dad, marathon runner. He's basically someone that thrives in almost every area of his life. And when he had me on his podcast, and this was like twenty fourteen, I mean, this was a long time ago, he started by saying, hal, I am not a morning person. I'm a night owl. In fact, I don't even set an alarm. The way that I wake up is my kids come and go. Daddy, Daddy. And he had really little kids. And he goes so basically convince me, why, I should read your book and change. ¿Then I'm going, how am I going to convince somebody that's already like thriving in every area of life? And he has the most adorable wake up system, which is his little cute kids waking him up. So I made my case for the Miracle Morning. ¿And at the end of the interview, Pat said, And he said, i get my best work done at night, right? At the end of the interview, he said, hal, what you just said makes a lot of sense I may be missing out on a level of productivity that I'm not even aware of because I'm not starting my day in a peak physical, mental, emotional, spiritual state, like you said. And he said, so I'm willing to give this thirty days. I will do the thirty day challenge or thirty day journey. And he said, i'm committing right now to my community guys. I'll be accountable. I'll post daily on my social media. And he said, and I'll see how it works. I'll give it thirty days, and then I'll decide. He said, basically, Miracle Morning became a way of life for him. He's in the Miracle Morning Movie. He's featured in the documentary talking about this. And he said, i don't remember the number it's been so long. But I think he said, his productivity increased, and I don't know how he measured it, but it was by three hundred or four hundred percent. So I think anecdotal evidence is the most underrated evidence. If you're like, hey, a thousand people are all saying this, maybe I should look into it rather than have to find some slanted study online that says this works.

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I was just going to say Jeff Bezos. I just heard that he said to someone when the data and the anecdote conflict, I go with the anecdote. And so I was like, I like that text.

Me that man, I need to remember that. That is a really good quote. And I agree like, for example, cancer statistics. Those are manipulated by the companies that make all the money off the medication. They don't make money if they tell you to oh, yeah, an organic diet will actually help you. ¿And when I asked, my oncologist What part does diet play? He said, it doesn't matter as long as you do chemotherapy. I was like, dude, come on, bro. Like that was more of a rhetorical test question and you just failed it miserably. Right. I was gonna say, last thing is this, if you're not a morning person, quote unquote you don't consider yourself a morning person. ¿I was asked a few years ago during an interview, Hal, what percentage of the Miracle Morning considered themselves to be mourning people before they read the book? So this was an easy switch for them. It was like, oh, cool, I already wake up early. No problem. Instead of checking email or social media, I'll do the miracle morning. I'll do the savers. Easy. ¿And he said, and what percentage of them had never in their life been a morning person? I said, i have no idea, man. That's a question I need to know the answer. So we've surveyed hundreds of thousands of people in the mirror community to ask before you read the book. ¿Were you a morning person already or had you never been a morning person? And seventy two percent say they had never been a morning person until they read the book and it changed it for them. And so if it worked for them, it would work for any. I think anyone that's not a morning person.

That's compelling data. And anecdote.

And anecdote both. Yeah. Double up.

All right, Hal, last question for you. ¿Since you started, what have you changed in your morning routine that had? ¿This had the biggest impact for you?

It's interesting. I got too advanced. So I'm gonna answer this question in a weird way.

You went back to simple. Yeah.

Yeah. I went too far away from my original practice. And in twenty twenty, I went through a really difficult time. After three years of chemotherapy, I was, I had sleep deprivation. Which, by the way, it's why I added a new chapter in the book called The Miracle Evening. If you struggle with sleep, this can solve it for you. But I had a really difficult time. And I'm like, wait a minute. I got depressed in twenty twenty, I was suicidal. I mean, it was, I won't go to the whole thing. We don't have time. But I was bad. I was a mess. I was only sleeping two to four hours a night. After three years of chemotherapy, my brain just like was fried. And I went okay. Wait a minute. ¿How can I overcome the depression? And I was trying to figure out everything. Wait a minute in two thousand eight I overcame depression doing the Miracle Morning. Why I still do the Miracle Morning. ¿Why is it not working like it used to? And I went and pulled out my affirmations from twenty twelve, My journal entries from twenty twelve. And I realized, man, I've gotten away from like the basics the essence of the Miracle Morning. And so I went back and I just started like total beginner's mindset learning from myself interestingly enough like I reread the original book like I just went back to basics. And so when I wrote the new edition, I had that in mind. ¿How do I write this? Where I don't overwhelm somebody and I don't lose the essence of what's made This practice and this book change millions of lives. But I also include like, hey, here's some unique like, I teach a practice called emotional optimization meditation in the new book that I created, but it doesn't take you away from the essence of the Miracle Morning. So I was very careful when I wrote this new edition to keep everything that worked in the original. And the seventy pages of new content is really bonus. It's not going to confuse somebody or overwhelm somebody. It's written in a way where I still kept it as simple as I could.

Awesome. ¿Well, how where can people learn about you and your work in the Miracle Morning and the new updated book?

Yeah, MiracleMorning Dot Com is the hub. You can get the movie there for free, you can get the app for free, you can join the community for free, You can find the book there, or, you know, anywhere that books are sold, Barnes and nobody Amazon, Walmart, Target, Whatever. But yeah, Miraclemorning Dot Com is a great hub for the entire community and the ecosystem to integrated into your life and a lot of free resources. So, Robert, man, thank you so much for this.

Hey, thanks for having us. I look forward. We'll have you back for the twentieth anniversary edition, if not sooner.

Awesome.

Brother, all right to our listeners. Thanks for tuning in to the Elevate Podcast. Today we'll include links to Hal The Miracle Morning and his work on the detailed episode page at robertglazer Dot Com.

Thanks again for your support.

Until next time, keep elevating.