Hal Elrod Keynote: "The Miracle Morning" for Rapid Crush AMAZON Event

Our speaker today died at the age of 20. He was hit head on by a drunk driver at 70 miles per hour, died for six minutes, broke 11 bones, suffered permanent brain damage and was told he would never walk again.

However, defying the logic of doctors, not only did Hal Elrod walk again, he went on to become an ultra marathon run runner running 52 consecutive miles to raise money for a charity. He's also a hall of fame business achiever, international keynote speaker, a world renowned success coach, a hip hop recording artist. Have to ask him about that one. And he's the number one best selling author of what's being called one of the most life changing books ever written. I love this book, the miracle morning. The the not so obvious secret guaranteed to transform your life before 8am.

Which.

You can get a personally signed copy of in the back of the room, I believe back there. Yes. He's also one of the most.

He's also one of the top personal development podcasts on itunes called achieve your goals with Hal Elrod. Most importantly, Hal is a devoted husband and father, grateful to be living the life of his dreams and and his family down in Southern California. He's here today to not only share his unbelievable true story of coming back from the dead, but we really brought in Hal to give you some game changing strategies and take your success to the next level. I hope you're ready for a once in a lifetime experience. Please help me welcome Mr. Hal Elrod.

We didn't get a hug. Hugged. We didn't get hugged.

Woo. Good morning.

Glad I have to follow that.

Thanks. Rapid crush. That was a real way to tee that up. Real easy for me. You guys ready to have some fun? All right, I have nothing fun planned for you so unfortunately.

Let's see what's on the screen. Oh, it's me.

So we'll get to that in a second. I'm excited to be here for a few reasons. Number one, I love speaking to big crowds and this is a big crowd. I also love selling products on Amazon. Anybody else with me?

I'm a professional speaker but my number one source of income is Amazon sales and specifically it's sales of my book the Miracle Morning. Also the book series The Miracle Morning 4 blank. There's a few other books that are out and that for me and I know for many of you you've seen it as kind of a doorway to a lifestyle that you want to live a lifestyle of freedom. And some of you are already there. You're like, I'm already making an enormous amount of Money every month, the bills are paid. A lot of it's automated. I've scaled it and I don't have to invest a lot of time. Some of you are already there and then some of you are on your way there, right? Maybe you just started, maybe you've been at it for a couple years, but you're on the way. And I want to share a quote that.

For me has been helpful during those times. And this is really for those of you that are not there yet, not where you want to be, but the quote is, it takes 10 years to be an overnight success.

And it's a quote that none of us want to hear, right, if we're not there where we want to be yet. But for me, I realized that it took me nine years after I left my sales position and became a full time entrepreneur to get myself to where I was able to have a scalable business that paid all of the bills and then some. So remember that if you've only been at it for two, three, four, even five years, obviously the automatic selling machine will accelerate that for you. That's why you got it, that's why you're here. But just remember, be patient with where you are. And I'll share this last kind of philosophy.

Whenever you finally get to the place that you've been working so hard for for so long, you almost never wish that it would have happened any sooner. Instead you see that the timing was perfect. That all the hurdles and the challenges and the obstacles and the self doubt and those times you wanted to give up, all of that contributed to the journey you were on to create the most extraordinary life that you can imagine. So be at peace with where you are and actively create progress towards where you want to go. If you guys are with me, you're ready to get started. Say we're ready. All right, so first I have to start with a quick brag. I'm not a real bragging person, but this is kind of exciting. If you look at the screen, you'll see this is a quote from Robert Kiyosaki. Anybody who's read by a show of hands, rich dad, poor dad, so most of you. So that was a book that changed my life and the way that I saw money and finances. Robert Kiyosaki, I met him, we spoke at a conference a few months ago and I gave him a copy of the Miracle Morning and signed it to him. Now when you give a multimillionaire who's 65 years old, who's read over a thousand of the best Personal development books in the world, a copy of your self published book. The odds of him reading it aren't very good. So it was a shit. But you miss all the shots you don't take. So I'm like, robert, hey, I'm a big fan. Here you go. And I figured the odds of him reading it, slim to none. A few weeks later I got an email from his manager and they booked me on the radio show Rich Dad Radio. And I had no idea. But he says, right off the bat, Hal, I want you to know I've read the miracle morning three times. Today is my 60th consecutive day of doing the miracle morning without missing a single day. And it's completely changed my life. And I went, thank you.

I was blown away. I'm still blown away. It's still, to me, surreal to share that with you. So anyway, he sent me this quote and said, you can put this in the book or whatever you want to do. So I use it anywhere and everywhere I can. I read it to my wife every night. She's in the back. She'll tell you. It's kind of annoying.

So the miracle morning, the not so obvious secret guaranteed to transform your life before 8am that's the title of the message today. It's the title of the book question. I want to survey the audience by a show of hands. How many of you do not consider yourself a morning person? Raise your hands high.

So it's again about half now, thank you very much. On the other hand, how many of you, you wake up early. It's easy. You love getting up early. You are a morning person, show of hands. So it's about half and half, give or take, whatever camp you're in. What I've found is that for people that are not morning people, the miracle morning is a total game changer because it teaches you how to become a morning person faster than you ever thought possible and then what to do in the morning to accelerate your success. If you're already a morning person, like Robert Kiyosaki was already a morning person, but he said that doing the miracle morning is like adding rocket fuel to his mind, body and spirit every single day. So if you're already a morning person, this will give you more structure, more purpose to make sure that when you start the day that you really crush every single day of your life. I'm gonna start with two quotes and two questions. This is from Robin Sharma. He said, the saddest thing in life is to wake up one day and realize that you could have Been done and had so much more. I slightly disagree with Robin in that I don't think the saddest thing in life is to wake up one day, but it's to wake up every day, any given day of your life, and to realize that you could be doing, having, creating, achieving, giving so much more, and then settling for less than your best. That, to me, is the greatest strategy. And it's not about one day in the future. It's about today. It's about how you wake up tomorrow. So my question is, why did you wake up this morning? Most people wake up because either they have to. Most people wake up because they have to. They have to be somewhere, do something, answer to, or take care of someone else. And then there's a small camp of people, maybe even half in this room, that they don't wake up because they have to. They actually set their alarm an hour earlier to when they want to wake up. To dedicate time to becoming the person that you need to be, to create everything you want for your life, to develop the acquire the knowledge, develop the skills, the beliefs, the mindset, the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual vitality that will take you to levels of success that you've never. You have yet to experience. And that's the essence of the miracle morning. The next quote is from Oprah Winfrey. Anybody know who Oprah is? So Oprah said, the biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams. And this group is different than most of the groups that I speak to because you're literally doing that. You're living the life of your dreams. I'm guessing Amazon wasn't something you were forced into, right? No one hired you. And they're like, you have to sell products on Amazon. You're like, dang it. Okay. No, you were like, wow, this is a great. This will lead to the life of my dreams. But if you ask most people, hey, are you living the life of your dreams? What do they say? They roll their eyes like, pssh, are you kidding me? I hate my job. I'm just trying to survive. So my question is, what is the life of your dreams? And the way that I define that, by the way, is not like, if you always wanted to be in a boy band or be an actress or something, right? But the life of your dreams, meaning the life you're living right now, there's arguably areas that you're settling for. Maybe business is great, but your relationship is suffering. Maybe your relationship is great, but you're not making the money that you Want to make maybe your relationship's phenomenal, you're making great money, but your health has taken a back seat because you're such a workaholic. So the life of your dreams, I would define that as how do you achieve level 10 success on a scale of 1 to 10? Level 10 in every single area of your life, Your happiness, your health, your finances, spiritually, your relationships, every area. That, to me, is the life of our dreams. And that is a large part of what we're gonna talk about today. Now, this is a picture of me on the screen living my dream. At age 15, I wanted to be a nationally syndicated radio disc jockey. Like Howard Stern, but not vulgar. Or for you older folks, Casey Kasem.

But keep in mind, at 15 years old, I thought this dream wouldn't happen for many, many years. Like, maybe after college, I could get an internship and start pursuing it. Well, I was a DJ in my local community in Oakhurst, California, Northern California, up near Yosemite National Park. I DJed, school dances, car shows, weddings, you name it. And one day I got a phone call from Larry gamble at KTNS 103.7 FM. I answered the phone at home. Hello. I was 15, you know, and he had one of those radio voices. Larry had one of those DJ voices. You know what I'm talking about? Hey, Hal, it's Larry Gamble down here at 103.7 FM. How are you, my friend? Hey, I heard you're a DJ all around town doing all sorts of events. Is that true? I said, yeah. He said, well, hey, we want a high school student to host a local radio show here every week, three hours on Thursday. You'll play whatever you want. No foul language, of course, give away concert tickets. How do you feel about coming down and interviewing for that job?

I said, yes, that's like, that's my dream. Yes, yes. Tell me where to come, when to come down. And my mom drove me down to the appointment. Naturally, I was 15 years old. Mom drives me down and I go in. Mom waits in the car. I go in, I interview, I get the job. I think I was the only person interviewing for the job, but whatever. And as I'm leaving, Larry Gamble says, hal, one more thing. DJs have what's known as an on air moniker. It's kind of a cool way of saying a nickname. So make sure you think of your on air moniker by next Thursday.

I said, oh, oh, okay.

And I go from being excited to being stressed out because I'm thinking I don't have A moniker. And I get into the car and I'm just quiet. And my mom looks at me and she goes, sweetie, what happened? I said, oh, I got the job. I start next Thursday.

She said, well, why aren't you excited? I said, mom, I have to have an on air moniker like a cool nickname. And you guys name me Hal. That's like the dorkiest name ever.

What am I supposed to do with Hal?

And she goes, oh, sweetie, you're named after your grandfather. Don't say that.

And I'll help you think of a cool DJ name.

Okay, mom, this should be good. What's your idea for a cool DJ name? She said, well, just rhyme it with Hal, silly. Be Hal my pal or your pal Hal or ooh, I know, use slang. Be yo pal Hal.

Mom, you are such a dork. I will never be yo pal Hal. Nice try.

And I think this next slide teaches us two lessons. Number one, mom is always right. Yes or yes. Okay.

And number two, we should all be more open minded. I think that we have this weird thing and I'm not very worldly. I don't travel the world, I pretty much stay within the North America. So I don't know if it's just our culture or if it's everywhere, but we think that we've got it figured out in terms of the way we see the world is the way the world is. Think about that. Like our opinions, our beliefs, we all have this. And I do it too, by the way. I'm not saying it's all. I'm not guilty of it too. But we think that the way we see the world, our opinions and our beliefs are correct and everyone else is crazy. And so I think one of the most important lessons that we can learn is that every human being that we ever come in contact with is our superior in some way. And therefore there's some value they can add to our lives because they've had different life experiences than we have. But it's our responsibility to seek that value.

Not to judge, not to condemn, but to seek the value that every person can add to our lives. And it's on that note that we're gonna go forward and ask a question. Does everything really happen for a reason? Raise your hand if you've heard this before. Everything happens for a reason, right? And it's always when you don't wanna hear it, like you're having the worst day and a well meaning friend or family member goes, hey buddy, I know it sucks, but everything happens for a reason. You'll See?

And you're just like, shut up. I don't want to hear that right now. So I'm gonna share a perspective that I hope we can all agree on. And this is my opinion. I'm not saying this is a fact. But what I've found is that everything does happen for a reason, but not the way that most of us have been conditioned to think. We've been conditioned to think that it's some predetermined reason and we have to figure out what it is. We ask God, why did this happen to me? We ask our neighbor, why did this happen? What I found is that everything happens for a reason. But it is 100% our responsibility to choose the reason to decide the reason not to figure it out. Not to go through life banging our head going, why did this happen to me? Why doesn't my life work out the way I want it to? Why haven't I got the sales on Amazon that I want to? Well, we decide the reasons for the challenges of our lives and we can decide reasons that discourage us and disempower us and defeat us or the exact same adversity. We can choose reasons that inspire us and empower us and fuel us to move forward.

In my life, I've had two rock bottoms. How many have had a rock bottom? Raise your hand. We all have. I define a rock bottom as simply, there are many of them in our lives. It's whenever you encounter a level of adversity that is beyond what you've ever experienced before, causes you to question yourself, causes you to doubt yourself, you don't even know, can I handle this? Can I manage this? Sometimes it causes you to curl up in a ball and cry. We've all had rock bottoms. My first rock bottom, when I was 20 years old, I was at a career in sales. I had been selling Cutco kitchen cutlery for a year and a half. We have some Cutco fans in the audience. Some of you probably sold Cutco in college.

Well, I got hired at 19 to sell Cutco and I gave up my dream of being a radio DJ because of the success I saw. My first 10 days, I sold more Cutco than almost Anyone in the 50 year history of the company before me. I broke the all time company record in the western half of the United States. And that was. I was an average kid my whole life. I wasn't a good student. I wasn't an achiever. You know how some people are achievers? Like they're good at everything they do? I wasn't that at 19. I became that in a moment of decision when I kind of drew my line in the sand and I said, I'm gonna go for something. I'm gonna give it everything I have. I'm gonna be all in. Who's all in?

I'm gonna be all in. And I went up to my manager and I said, hey, I want to break the record. I know you said, the most anyone has ever sold in 50 years is $12,000 of Cutco. I want to sell $13,000 of Cutco in my first 10 days. And I thought he was going to be excited for me. And he goes, hal, I'll be honest with you, that's great. But I hear that every week. He said, every week somebody tells me they're going to break the record. And guess how many have done it? None. Zero. No one's ever broken the record with me. He said, but if you're committed, another way of saying, if you're all in.

You can do it, I can help you. I believe in you, but you've got to be committed at a level you've never been committed before.

And to be honest with you, if he wasn't looking me in the face, I would have said, I don't even know what that looks like. I've never been all in on anything. But I was embarrassed because I just spoke up, talked real big, and I said, I'm in. I'll do it. Ten days later, I had done 62 sales presentations, and if you do the Math, that's about 12 hours a day of presentations, plus driving time. I didn't really sleep very much in my first 10 days, but I was all in. And what I realized is that when you're committed to something at a level you've never been committed before, there is nothing that you can't achieve.

And I want you to think, in your life right now, what is it that you've thought about being all in on? You've contemplated it, you've talked about it, but your actions haven't reflected being all in. And today, when we go into the miracle morning, that is going to ensure the miracle morning will virtually guarantee that you wake up and start every day all in. And how you start your day sets the context for how you live your day and how you live your life. If you start by hitting the snooze button a few times, right, that's starting your day with a lack of self discipline and procrastination. I love what one of my favorite comedians, Demetri Martin, says, hitting the snooze button doesn't even make sense. It's like saying I hate waking up in the morning. So I do it over and over and over and over again.

So back to my story at, at 20 years old, I had been breaking company records for Cutco and I was asked to give a speech at a conference. I gave a speech that night, I got a standing ovation, which I had given dozens of speeches but never had people stood and applauded. It was a very, you know, at 20 years old I was on top of the world, staring at my peers as they were applauding. I leave that meeting floating. I get into my brand new Ford Mustang.

I was driving this time. I was 20, I was old enough to drive, started the car. It was December 3rd, I was freezing cold. I turned the heater on and I wanted to call my mom and dad to tell them that I got a standing ovation and how great the night went. But I looked at the dash on my car, it said 11:32pm And I thought, you know what, they might be asleep, I better wait till morning.

I got on the freeway, I set the Cruise control at 70 miles an hour, had the radio blasting and I'm just feeling on top of the world. I'm feeling great.

And that was my last memory that night. And what I'm going to share with you for the next few minutes, I don't remember. I only know this from eyewitnesses, from police reports and from hospital records. But as I'm driving down the freeway around 11:36pm A full size Chevy truck, much larger than my little Ford Mustang, got on the freeway as well. Only he got on the wrong ramp. He was estimated traveling at around 70-80mph as well in the lane that I was driving in. And again, I don't remember if I saw the headlights coming at me, but they did. And between the two of us, 150 mile an hour head on collision ensued. The front of my car was smashed, the airbags exploded, it sent me spinning and the car behind me would actually do the most damage. Innocent family of three didn't have time to even hit their brakes or swerve. They crashed into my door at 70 miles an hour and the left side of my car was smashed into the left side of my body. Immediately I broke 11 bones. And if you look at the screen, you can see what the car looked like.

And you see it looks like half a car. And it's not that it's missing one half, it's that one half was smashed into the left side of my body. And I'm gonna take just 30 seconds to list my injuries, because if I don't, 100 of you will ask me afterwards, and this is a much faster way to do it. Now, if you're someone that is squeamish, this is the part where you might want to plug your ears, close your eyes, just for 30 seconds. Actually, you don't have to close your eyes. I don't know why I said that. I'm not gonna, like, derobe and show you my scars.

So the car hits me in the side. My eye socket was crushed so bad that it's rebuilt in titanium. My ear was almost completely severed. It was attached by about a half of an inch. My humerus bone in my arm broke in half, and one half came out through the back of my arm. My elbow was crushed. I severed the radial nerve in my left arm. I punctured my lung, I ruptured my spleen. My pelvis was crushed between the center console and it broke three times. And my femur, the biggest bone in the human body, snapped in half and shot out of my thigh. And unable to withstand the pain immediately, I was in a coma. And thankfully, I was in a coma. This next slide shows you a picture of what the car looked like from the top down after the paramedics ripped the roof off to get me out. It took them about an hour to do that. I. I was trapped in the car bleeding for an hour, and when they finally pulled me out of the car, I had lost so much blood that I died. My heart stopped beating, I stopped breathing, and I was clinically dead on the side of the freeway as they worked to revive me. It took about six minutes, and thankfully they didn't give up because within six minutes they brought me back to life and they rushed me to the hospital. My best friend Jeremy was only a few minutes behind me on the freeway, and he came there to the scene of the accident before the paramedics did. He called my mom and dad and said, get here as soon as you can. Hal's in critical condition, and this is a picture of what my mom and dad saw when they got to the hospital.

I flatlined twice more while I was in the coma, and again mom and dad had to see that. Now I was 20 years old when this happened. I didn't have kids for another 10 years. I didn't fully get what my mom and dad went through, and I'll never fully get it. But I've got a six year old daughter, Sophie, and A three year old son, Halston. And now I have some perspective and I really believe that what my mom and dad went through was worse than what I went through. I was unconscious for the first six days, in a coma. I came out of the coma six days later and had to face this reality right. We've all had again that rock bottom that I don't know if I can handle this. I can't believe this is actually happening to me. The doctor said permanent brain damage and I might never walk again. And I'm thinking I can't even fathom this, never walking again. You know, my last memory was I just got a standing ovation. What's going on? And I'll tell you. After a few days went by, I was able to draw upon one of the most important lessons that I had ever learned in my life. And it enabled me to overcome this, that the accident faster than I ever thought possible. And then the doctors imagined the lesson was something called the five minute rule. And what had happened was my mom, I had been out of the coma for a week. So it had been two weeks since the crash. My mom and dad were called in by the doctors. They sat them down, they said, Mr. And Mrs. Elrod, Hal is doing great physically. His vitals are good, he's stabilized. You know, he'll be healing from this point forward, they said. But mentally and emotionally we're a little bit concerned because every time we interact with Hal, he's always smiling and laughing and joking and making us laugh. And they said that's not normal.

They said, not normal for a 20 year old who's being told he might never walk again. But we've seen this before. We believe Hal is in denial, he's delusional because his reality is so painful for him to accept that. He can't accept it. He just checked out of it. He's just pretending everything's okay. He doesn't want to feel the emotions that he's bottling up. That feeling fear, that sadness, being depressed, being angry. He doesn't like the way that feels. So he's just pretending everything's okay. But eventually it'll catch up to him and we want to nip it in the bud here in the hospital, in a safe environment. We want you to find out how he's really feeling so that we can work with him through those emotions and begin that emotional healing process. And of course my mom and dad were very concerned. My dad comes in that night, I'm laying in my hospital bed. Keep in mind it's About a week after that picture was taken, so I'm not in very good condition.

And my dad comes in and sits down and he says, hal, can I talk to you for a minute? I said, yeah, of course. And as I look at him, his eyes are red and watery and swollen. And I knew he had been crying, but it looked like either he was about to cry or. And I said, what's going on? What's wrong? He said, hal, I know that when your friends are here, you guys are laughing and joking and reminiscing and you're telling stories, and that is great. He said, but how are you really feeling when the lights go out at night and it's just you and you're thinking about what happened to you, you're thinking about your body, and you're thinking about what the doctors are saying, that you might never walk again. How are you really feeling? Are you sad? Are you scared? Are you angry? Are you depressed? The doctors say those are normal emotions to feel, but let's feel them. Let's talk about them. It's important to get through that so you can heal.

And I could tell he was very concerned.

So I thought about it.

Am I sad?

Am I angry? Depressed, scared?

I said, dad, I thought you knew me better than that.

Remember, I live my life by the five minute rule. And it's been two weeks. I'm past my five minutes. He said, remind me again, what is the five minute rule?

I said, I've told you and mom this so many times.

Remember? I learned it in my Cutco training. The five minute rule says it's okay to be negative when things go wrong, but not for more than five minutes. There's no value in dwelling on something that is now in the past. Unless you're Marty McFly with a DeLorean, you can't go back and change it. The only logical, intelligent choice is to accept all things that are out of our control that we can't change. Now, granted, I learned the five minute rule in my sales training for much milder adversity.

Like canceled orders, rude customers not dying, and being told you'd never walk again. But the principle was the same. And I told my dad, I said, dad, the way I see it, there's only one of two options. Number one, the doctors are right, and I will never walk again. And I've already thought through that, and based on the five minute rule, there's no point in me wishing I could walk if I can't walk. So I said, if the doctors are right, if possibility, number One is right. I will be the happiest person you've ever seen in a wheelchair. I said, you and mom don't need to worry about me. Because if I'm in a wheelchair, I can either be miserable or. Or I can be happy. Either way, I'm rolling around in a wheelchair, right? And my question, by the way, for everybody is, what's your wheelchair? What are the circumstances in your life, the challenges, the adversities that you've allowed or you continue to allow to cause you emotional pain? Because you're not willing to accept and be at peace with them. You're still wishing they were different. You're still angry that they happened because you're a good person. You don't deserve it, or it wasn't your plan. When you accept all things you can't change, you literally achieve emotional freedom.

Because when that bad things happen, it's not the bad thing that's causing us pain. It's our resistance to that thing. It's our wishing and wanting it. We're different when it can't be different. I said, dad, if the doctors are right and I can never walk again, I've accepted that I'll be at peace with it, and I'll be the happiest person you've ever seen rolling around in a wheelchair. I said, but possibility number two, I will walk again. I said, dad, and that's where all my energy is going. I'm not dwelling on the not walking. I'm not worrying about it. I'm not thinking about it. That's not where my energy goes. I've already accepted that if that becomes what I can't change. But all my energy is going into just pause. I didn't get up and walk at this point. Just so you know, this is part of. They're like. And then you just got up and walked. That's powerful.

No.

I'm still laying in the hospital bed. I said, dad, every day I visualize walking again. I think about it, I pray about it. All my energy goes into what I want while I've accepted what I don't want. So therefore, what I don't want doesn't cause me worry and fear and drag me down and hold me back. I've accepted it, and I can focus on what I want.

And my dad was a little bit in disbelief. And he continued to kind of grill me and ask me questions. And finally he realized, no, this is real. And he went back to the doctors and he said, my sons accepted it. See the doctors. Here's the interesting Part, they were literally 180 degrees wrong because they thought I couldn't accept my reality. So I was checked out of it, pretending to be happy when the reality was I had fully accepted my reality and I had the freedom to be happy.

And I use this every day in. Well, we'll get there in a second. A week later, I don't think this is a coincidence, but a week later, the doctors came in with routine X rays and they said, we don't know how to explain this, but Hal's body is healing rapidly and we're gonna let him take his first step tomorrow in therapy. It went from never walking again to tomorrow. Three weeks after the crash, this next picture was taken.

And you'll see.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

You'll see the quote, don't let the limiting beliefs of others limit what's possible for you. I'm sure you've had friends and family members tell you that you're crazy to sell products on Amazon and that you should get a real job. Anybody ever been told they should get a real job? Maybe you've thought it right. You have a bad week or month and you go, maybe I should get a real job. When I was in sales, I had that all the time. Every time I had a bad week, it's like, I just want a job where I don't have all this stress and I just show up and I just punch the clock and I just pretend to be working for eight hours and then I punch it again and I go home. That'd be so much easier, right? Risk to reward. There's not a lot of reward in that.

You'll see three life changing words. This is a wristband that I used to wear. And I don't have to wear it anymore because it's become part of my thinking. Can't change it. That's how I applied the five minute rule is five minutes would go. I would literally. And this is how you can apply it. When something goes wrong, quote, unquote, wrong in your life, or something happens that you don't wish for, you've set the timer on your phone for five minutes. You get to bitch, moan, complain, you know, kick something for five minutes. When the five minutes is up, you take a deep breath and you say, can't change it. And that reminds you that if I can't change it, there's no point in wishing I could. There's no point in being sad, angry, mad, name a negative emotion, there's no value to that. And those three words to me are Kind of the key key to unlock the door to emotional freedom. Can't change it. And by the way, here's an example for everyday use. How many of you don't like traffic? Raise your hands.

All right, so this will be the game changer. I might walk off stage after I just share this.

So I used to hate traffic. I used to get frustrated in traffic. And then when I learned this philosophy of accepting the things I can't change, I realized how serious, silly it was to get upset in traffic. You can't change the speed of the cars in front of you, but you could choose to be the happiest person in that car in that traffic jam. So when I get traffic now.

I say, can't change it. I'm going to be late. No reason wishing I. No reason to ride the guy's bumper in front of me. Did anybody find that if you do that enough, it moves the cars?

Like if you get mad enough, frustrated enough, then like the cars just clear out. You're like, thank you, and you just drive through. No. So when I'm in the car and I hit traffic, I think, number one, the odds of me getting into another deadly head on collision are not very good at 5 miles per hour on this freeway.

But number two, I'm gonna be, I'm in this ride. I'm in this car for the next 30 minutes. I get to choose whether or not I enjoy the ride. And that to me is a metaphor for life. Every day. It's a ride, right? You're riding from the morning till the night. You get to choose how you experience the ride. You can be the happiest, most grateful person, even going through the most difficult time in your life.

And ultimately, at the end of the day, the quality of your life isn't about what happens around you or what happens to you, but it's what happens inside of you that matters.

I got an email, I used to speak at colleges quite a bit and I shared this message and I got an email from this girl and she had gotten a permanent can't change it tattoo on her wrist.

And I had two thoughts. Number one, wow, I am moved that part of my message inspired her to get a permanent tattoo. And my second thought was, should I call some authority? Like, should I call her parents? Like, this is kind of intense, kind of crazy. And.

I hung onto the inspiration part. I thought it was a one time thing. And a few weeks later, another college student, who, by the way, I didn't share this story, you think if I shared the story other People might do the same thing. I didn't share the story. A few months later, another college student emailed me. She was 19 years old. And she said the email put me in tears.

And it said, hal.

My dad died 10 years ago yesterday.

I saw you speak a week ago. For the last 10 years, I've been depressed. I've been on medication for depression and anxiety. I've tried to commit suicide multiple times.

And I blamed it on my dad's death. I thought because he had died, that's why I was justified in being depressed, miserable. And it wasn't until I heard your message that I realized it wasn't that he died. The reason I was still feeling pain 10 years later. It was because I hadn't been willing to accept that he was gone and to be at peace with that. She said, so your little can't change at philosophy. The last week of my life has been the first week in the last 10 years that I've been at peace and that I've been able to be happy, that I've given myself permission to be happy. She said. So I wanted a permanent reminder of that. So Yesterday, on the 10 year anniversary of my dad's death, I got this tattoo.

The words can't change it tattooed into my wrist. And she said they're a reminder that I will never, ever allow myself to feel pain, to create pain over something that I can't change, especially my dad's death. Thank you. And if you look at her wrist.

You'Ll see a scar. I'm guessing that's why she put that can't change it tattoo there to remind her that she doesn't ever have to feel that way again. And that's the greatest lesson that I learned from my car accident. In fact, here's the three greatest lessons. And then we're going to dive into the miracle morning for the remainder of the message. I call these the ABCs of taking life head on. The A is accept all things you can't change. We talked about that. When you do that, and it takes practice, by the way. If you're used to getting upset over things, it's gonna not be natural for you to be like, oh, that happened. I can't change it. Try the five minute rule to help give you that time to feel it. And eventually you'll realize that five minutes is too long at first. It feels too short. You're like, can I get like a five week rule? Like five minutes, come on. But here's what happens the first few times you set your timer you're like, ah, I'm so mad. And the five minutes goes off and you're like, I'm still mad. I can't change it. And you do this for a few weeks and here's what happens. Something goes wrong. You set your timer for five minutes and you go, I'm so mad. I can't believe this happened. I had these plans in place and this person did this and it's not even my fault. And I'm so angry. Oh, man.

Four minutes and 28 more seconds. I mean, this is what happens. And you're like, I guess I'll be mad for another. It makes no sense. You're like, I can't change it. Why would I put myself through that? I mean, this is how it happens. And eventually the five minute rule becomes the five second rule, where you go, son of a. Ugh. All right, can't change it. Let's figure out what I can do now. That's how it works. The B is be grateful for everything. Be grateful for everything, including your adversity, because that's what makes you stronger. As I said, when you get to the point in your life, in your business that you've been working so hard for, you never wish it would've happened sooner, right? All of the adversity, all of this is intended to be. It's part of your journey. My car accident was the greatest thing that ever happened to me, and I'm so grateful for that. So can you be grateful not only for the things that are easy to be grateful for, you're frustrated, and your family, your home, can you be grateful for your adversity, grateful for your challenges, grateful for the people in your life that you might not like, but they help you develop your character, if you see it that way. And the final C is create progress daily towards becoming a level 10 person. I mentioned the essence of the miracle morning is about starting every day by dedicating time to becoming the person that you need to be to create everything you want for your life. Acquiring the knowledge, developing the skills, the mindset, the beliefs, the habits. That's what the miracle morning is designed to do. It's designed to do that. Create progress daily towards becoming a level 10 person. Because when you become a level 10 person, level 10 success meets you head on. But if your level of personal development is at a two or a three, if your emotional, physical, mental vitality, all of those things, if your knowledge, your. If it's not where you want it to be, that's the disconnect is we Want this level of success in every area of our lives. But if this is who we are, we're always gonna be looking up at people that are where we wanna be going. Why do they have what I want? Why can't I get there? It's not about doing more, it's about becoming more.

All right, my second rock bottom. I'm gonna share with you one more story. Now, don't worry, this is much shorter. You're like, oh, we gotta go through another story.

And by the way, many of you can probably relate to this one a little bit better. In 2008, I had hit hall of fame with my company and I had started my first entrepreneurial journey. I had launched a coaching business doing sales coaching, success coaching. I had written my first best selling book, Taking life head on. How to love the life you have while you create the life of your dreams. Leveraging kind of my story that I've shared so far.

And I became a professional speaker. I started getting paid to do my dream, which was to speak for audiences. So that was in 2008. That's what I was doing. I was making great money. I had just bought my first house, bought a brand new house, which was a dream, of course, for a long time. And I had bought kind of my dream car, not like the Ferrari dream car, but the one that I could afford. It was a little Infiniti two door sports car. And.

Then the US economy crashed. Anybody remember that?

And it felt like it happened almost overnight. But it was really a six month downward spiral where in a six month period, I lost over half of my coaching clients because the economy affected them. They couldn't afford to pay me, therefore I lost over half of my income. Then I couldn't pay my mortgage and I lost my house. I canceled my gym membership because I couldn't afford anything. I stopped exercising completely for six months. I didn't exercise for a minute. I was in the worst shape of my life, physically, mentally, emotionally, financially. And I didn't want to tell anybody because I was a success coach.

Does that make sense? Right?

I mean, I did think about the angle at one point. I thought, what if I tell people, hey, I'm struggling, I'm failing miserably. Do you know anyone that needs a success coach that really gets what they're going through? And I just decided it wasn't a good strategy. And then my beautiful girlfriend, who is now my wife Ursula, she stuck with me through the toughest times.

She said, sweetheart, I hate seeing you like this. You have some friends that are Brilliant business people. Why don't you call your friend John Bergoff? John is a brilliant business person. I'm sure he could tell you how to turn this around and get your business going again and making income.

And she said, he loves you, he wouldn't judge you. No reason not to tell him. And I said, you're right. And I called John.

And I told him everything. I said, john, are you sitting down, man, I need you right now. I've been kind of living a lie. I've been keeping this a secret. And I unloaded, I told him everything. And I said, john, I'm sitting here with my laptop and I'm ready to take notes. You tell me the steps I need to do to take my business, get it back to where it was, make money again, I'll do anything you tell me to do.

And he says, hey, buddy, I'm sorry to hear all that. Are you exercising every day?

And I go, what the hell does that have to do with anything? I just told you.

I said, you better not be playing a game on your phone or something right now.

And he said, no, no, no. He said, hal, I'm serious. He said, look, you're a smart guy, but if you're feeling depressed every day and you're not putting your. You're not exercising, you're not getting blood and oxygen to your brain and releasing endorphins, he said, if you're not putting yourself in a peak physical, mental and emotional state every day before you go to work, you're not gonna be optimally effective if you're not learning. He said, are you reading books? I said, no. He said, if you're not gaining new knowledge, you're not gonna have any new strategies to apply. He said, if I were you, there's two things that I believe can change your circumstances faster than you thought think you're possible. I said, okay. He said, every morning, go for a run, even 10 minutes, go for a 10 minute run, get the blood flowing right, you'll think clearer, you'll make better decisions. And he said, while you're on that run, listen to an audiobook, a business audiobook, a podcast, or go home and read right when you get home, when you're in that peak state. He said, if you do that, you'll learn what you need to do to achieve and overcome what's holding you back. And I said, john, I hate running. Is there anything else I can do?

And he said without hesitation, what do you hate worse, running or the circumstances that you just described to me? And I Was like, all right, touche. I'll go for a run. And that next morning, I laced up my Michael Jordan, my Air Jordan basketball shoes. I wasn't a runner. I put on big baggy shorts and a Nike sleeveless. I wasn't a runner. I grabbed my ipod and I headed out the front door, begrudgingly thinking to myself, this is so stupid. I need to make money.

Not run. And two minutes into my run, I hear this quote from Jim Rohn that changes my entire life. He said, you, level of success will seldom exceed your level of personal development, because success is something you attract by the person you become. And in that moment, I stopped and I realized, I'm not doing that. I'm not dedicating time every day to my personal development to become the person that I need to be to create or as Jim says, attract the levels of success I want in my life.

And then it hits me. I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna spend an hour online doing some research, which is really just a fancy way of Google searching, right? Or G search, as I call it, tm, but.

It'S not really trademarked. But. So I go, I do an hour of G search, right? And I basically Google things like, what do the world's most successful people do every day for personal development? That's the essence of my searching. And I come up with. I'm writing down practices, I'm reading articles, and I'm writing down a list of six practices.

And then I try to figure out which one of these is the best. I don't have time to do all six. I gotta figure out what the biggest return on investment will be of these six practices. And I'm going through and I'm reading articles, and there was no clear answer, because it depends on who you ask. If you ask Ray Dalio, who is a billionaire, he runs the largest hedge fund in the world. If you ask Ray, he. He says the number one key to his financial success is meditation. Not his spiritual success, his financial success. So I dug a little deeper and I found an article, Fortune 500 CEOs who swear by Meditation. And I'm going, that totally changed my paradigm. Cause I thought meditation was just a spiritual or religious practice, some eastern philosophy kind of woo woo. You know, I didn't realize it was practical for putting yourself in a peak mindset every day to win the day. So I thought, well, meditation's gotta be part of it. And then I'm reading and I'm watching videos on YouTube and I'm finding that will Smith says affirmations were the key, the number one cause of his being paid $20 million a movie. Affirmations. So I go through the list of six, and then it hits me. I go, I can't figure out which one's the best. What if I did all of them?

No research that I've found is anyone that does maybe more than 1, 2, 3 at the most? What if I woke up tomorrow morning and I did all six of these? That would be like the ultimate personal development ritual known to man. I think maybe I'll try it. I wasn't a morning person, though, but I thought, you know, what? If I want my life to improve, I've got to improve. If I want my life to be different, I have to be willing to do something different first. And that's true for all of us. If we keep doing what we've always done, we'll keep getting what we've always got, right? So I went to my alarm, which was set for 6am because that was when I had to wake up based on my schedule. And my finger was kind of quivering as I moved it back to 5am and I went, set.

And then I prepared for my first morning. It wasn't called the miracle morning. It wasn't going to be a book. It wasn't going to be something I was on stage sharing. This was like my desperate attempt to turn my life around. And so I got ready, I had my computer out and I didn't know how to do any of this stuff. So I googled how to meditate, New window, how to do affirmations, new window, how to do visualization. Pulled out a book, pulled out a journal. And that night, going to bed was when the first miracle started. Instead of going to bed stressed out, going, I gotta wake up at 5am and face my day. I felt like I did when I was a kid on Christmas morning, Christmas Eve, at that point thinking, I can't wait to try this. This could be the one thing that changes everything. The alarm clock went off at 5am and it was one of those, you know, when you're excited to wake up in the morning, your eyes open almost simultaneously with the alarm, like you don't even know which happened first. You're like, did I open before the alarm? I don't know. So I woke up, I went and I sat in the living room and I thought, okay, here goes. And I went through all six practices.

And I was terrible at all of them. But by 6am my life would never be the same because the way That I felt on the inside. I felt like a level 10 person. For the first time in six months, I felt inspired and confident and motivated and energized, like I could overcome or accomplish anything. Anything. Now, my life on the outside was not at a level 10. It was still at a 2. But that morning, I went from waking up every day feeling like I was at a 2 or a 3 or maybe a 4 on a good day, to I felt like a level 10. And I thought, if I start every day feeling like this, it's only a matter of time before my outer world reflects my inner world. But I didn't know how fast it would happen. It was less than two months. I more than doubled my income. I didn't get a new job. I didn't get a promotion. I didn't have some financial windfall. It's by doing this miracle morning every morning, the clarity that I was gaining, the knowledge that I was acquiring the energy, the motivation to implement it. I just scaled my current business model, which, for everyone in the room, is very applicable, because it's like if you can scale your current business model and simply double what you're getting now, the amount of income and revenue without necessarily doing a lot more work, that's a game changer. And that's what happened for me. Less than two months, I went from being in the worst shape of my life physically, as I mentioned, to going, you know what? I hate running. But two minutes of running got me more clarity than six months of not running. I thought, I'm gonna run a marathon to challenge myself. And then I thought, wait a minute. No, I really hate running. I'm gonna do a double marathon where I just run a marathon, and then I just keep running for another 26 miles.

If I knew then what I knew now, I would have never accomplished that. I would have never even attempted it. But five months later, I completed that, and I went from being depressed, deeply, deeply depressed for six months, getting worse every day, to it didn't take two months for that to go away. It was like day one, day one, I woke up 6am felt amazing. And every day, I kept getting to hit the reset button. Even if I had a bad day, I got to go to bed excited about my miracle morning.

These are the six practices if you want to jot down some notes.

The first S is for silence. Starting your day with meditation or prayer, putting yourself in a peaceful state, getting centered again. The benefits of meditation scientifically are pretty profound. The A is for affirmations and affirmations by the way. I'll just mention this. The way that they've been taught by gurus for decades, in my opinion, is not very effective. And some of you might have even seen the word and been like, nah, I've tried those. They're silly. The way they've been taught over the years is one of two ways. Typically are the techniques that they've been taught. According to. Number one is lie to yourself. You want to be a millionaire? Just say it with emotion, over and over and over again until you trick yourself into believing it. Right? I am a millionaire. No, I'm not. I am a millionaire. Not even close. I am a. Right? Like that's the voice of your subconscious. The truth will always prevail. So lying to yourself is never the optimum strategy. The second way that affirmations are taught is using this passive language that gives you a false sense of a promise of what you want. Here's a paraphrased example. There's an affirmation. You probably heard it. You sit there and you affirm, money flows to me effortlessly and in abundance.

What is that crap like? No, it doesn't.

I don't know anyone that sits on their couch and does that. And they're like, oh, stacks of cash just keep showing up. I'm gonna keep affirming that it flows effortlessly. I don't know about you, but I think that you've gotta do something and add some value to someone's life for them to give you their money. Correct?

So the way I teach affirmations in the Miracle Morning book are very different. They're very actionable. They're what are your goals, what do you want? Why do you want it? What do you need to do specifically to virtually guarantee that you achieve what you want and when will you do that thing and for what duration? So the affirmation, everything in the miracle morning, from the meditation to the affirmations to the visualization, is extreme, extraordinarily practical and actionable. Not some sort of feel good fantasy. The V is for visualization and we don't have time to go in depth on this. But similar. Instead of just visualizing some dream and thinking it's gonna be attracted to you cause you put it on a vision board. If you have a vision board that you don't even look at anymore, you forget it's there, right? So I teach you how to visualize daily what you need to do that day in the optimum way that you need to do it so that it's easier to follow through with your Actions, especially the ones you don't like. Like running. I hated running. So I visualized running every day, heading out the front door with a smile on my face, feeling good. To the point where when I thought about running later that day, it wasn't so unpleasant. It was like, I've already seen this. It's gonna be a great day. Much easier. The E is for exercise.

And you don't need to do a lot. Robert Kiyosaki, when he interviewed me, said he only does three minutes of exercise for his sabers. It's just enough to get the blood flowing to your brain. And again, it doesn't have to be a long time. The R is for reading. And I don't mean like 50 shades of gray.

Or Harry Potter books, right? But think of this. You're only one book away.

From what you need to know to create anything you want for your life. You're only one book away from everything you need to know to create anything that you want for your life in any area. Finances. Pick a financial book. Right? Relationships. Pick a relationship book. Every book. That's a good book. It contains the knowledge, the strategies that you need to take your life to the next level. And I'm not just saying that because my books are available at the end of the presentation, but if that helps. And the final S is for scribing. Scribing. I owe that to my wife. And the thesaurus. I didn't even know what that word meant, but it's a fancy word for writing or journaling. Now, here's the thing. If you study the world's most successful people, you'd be hard pressed to find one that doesn't do at least one of these. Most of them do two or three, but according to Robert Kiyosaki, he said that until the miracle morning, he had never seen all six of the best personal development practices of all time put into one ritual. And he said that's why it's a part of his daily life. Now.

This is a quote from a friend. Not a friend. He doesn't know me. What am I talking about? I wish he was my friend, a mentor of mine, someone I've learned a lot from. Evan Pagan. He's a multimillionaire. He works from a similar to you. He works from home. He sells products. Anyone know who Eben Pagan is? Show of hands. Great. Yeah, Eben's brilliant. So Tony Robbins was interviewing Eben, and he asked him the question, what's your number one key to success? At the very end of an interview, what's the number one thing that our listeners can do to take their life to the next level. Eben said, create a morning success ritual. And then he went on to say what's on the screen. Your first ritual that you do each day is your highest leverage ritual by far because it sets your mindset and the context for the rest of your day.

Before I wrap up, I want to do two things. Number one, I want to issue a challenge to you. And number two, this slide, which is how we can stay in touch. As John mentioned, I do an achieve your goals podcast every week. I have a weekly podcast. You also get the miracle morning video and audio training series for free if you text your first name and email address to that number.

But what I really want to do is issue a 30 day challenge to everyone in this room.

The 30 day challenge is simply that you wake up 30 minutes earlier than you do now. So whenever you wake up now, if you wake up, when you have to wake up, set your alarm clock back tonight 30 minutes earlier. If you're ambitious, you want to be an overachiever, go 60 minutes earlier, wake up and do one of the savers for that 30 to 60 minutes. Don't worry about mastering all of them. Do one of the savers. Read a book for 30 minutes, exercise for 30 minutes, right? Journal, whatever, pick a savor or combine. You could do 15 minutes of exercise, 15 minutes of journaling, but until you master the savers or learn the savers, in fact, most people, when they do their miracle morning challenge in the beginning, if they just got the miracle morning book, that's what they do. They wake up 30 minutes earlier and they read the miracle morning for their challenge. So wake up 30 minutes earlier. And the purpose of this, the essence of this, remember, is about waking up not because you want to or not because you have to, but because you want to. And dedicating time to becoming the level 10 person that you need to be to achieve level 10 success in every area of your life. And I want to close with a quote.

The number one cause of unfulfilled potential is never deciding that now matters more than any other time in your life. Because it does. Don't wait to be great. Make tomorrow your first miracle morning. And there's nothing that you cannot do or be in your life. And the last thing I want to share is I know that I only have 160 books in the back of the room. I it's all I could fit on the plane and I didn't have time to ship them anyway long story. But here's the deal. Sophia saw this slide and she said, Hal, what's the price on Amazon? I said I don't know. I have to look. The retail price is $20 and it was $16. She said because these are Amazon sellers, you might want to beat the Amazon price.

So with a little finagling on my phone and I calculate everything, this is incorrect in that it's only $15. So it's a dollar cheaper than Amazon. If you want to get a book, my wife is back there. I'll be back there to sign them in a minute. And the other thing is because we have a limited supply, the buy 4 and buy 2010 free is not available unless there's more books left at the end. So that's it. Thank you everyone. Thank you, Rapid Crush for bringing me in. It means more to me than you know. I appreciate you. Thank you.