Hal Elrod on Anesthesia: How to Be Happy No Matter What

Friends and miracle morning, practitioners. I am on anesthesia, and I thought, what better time to record a video when I am on anesthesia and totally loopy. So I am here with my mom. Mom, say hi. Hi. And I'm sorry, what's your name? All right. Okay. And then she doesn't want to be on camera. Anyway, I just got done with my bone marrow aspiration, which is quarterly. It is to test for cancer. So if you want to say a quick prayer to send some energy that that test comes back negative, there is no cancer. That'd be awesome. I'm in a wheelchair here, and we're. Yeah, my mom flew with me, and my wife had surgery recently, so she's at home covering, recovering. We can go. You can push me. I get to push you? Yeah. Or whoever. She's pushing me. Yeah. And anyway, so I just thought I'd say hi. There should be a lot. I always try to give a lesson, but I'm so loud of it, I can't think of a less.

Because if I walk, I'm gonna be in your camera, and I don't want to be in your camera. Oh, okay. All right. So I'm just trying to wait for you to finish. Okay. Well, I mean, it'll be your back, but okay. The. Anyway. All right. Miracle morning, practitioners. I love you. Whatever challenges you're dealing with, here's the secret is make the best of it like that. You know, it's kind of cliche, but the point is, I. It's something that no matter what's going on in your world, you can choose. Like, it doesn't have to define your emotional well being, no matter what the challenge is. Doesn't have to define your emotional well being. Doesn't have to define your. Sorry, my mom said I'm loud. And it doesn't find your quality of life. And, you know, when I was going through cancer, which I guess I'm still going through in some ways, even though I'm intermission. The.

What was I going to say?

This is funny. What was I going to say? Oh, when I was going through cancer. Right. I made the conscious decision to be the happiest and the most grateful that I had ever been in my life. And same thing with my car accident. You know, I was told I would never walk again. Right. You've heard the story. You're like, yeah, yeah, we know. But I was told that I would never walk again. And I decided, well, if I never walk again, I'll be the happiest person you've ever seen. In a wheelchair. Because either way, I'm in a wheelchair. I don't need to let that define my emotional well being and quality of life. And look, I'm in a wheelchair right now. And I'm the happiest, most grateful person that I could be in the wheelchair. What elevator is this? I don't know. Anyway, all right, Miracle morning, practitioners, fans, friends, I love you guys and gals. Thank you for being a part of my life and allowing me to be part of your life and hopefully, yeah, I thought of a lesson in the midst of all this and that lesson, remember, is that no matter what's going on around you, this is. I didn't say this before, but I'll sum it up with no matter what's going on around you.

Your quality of life is defined and determined. Oh, my suitcase is hitting the ground. Mom, she put it up. But it might be, I don't know. You gotta check. Anyway, no matter what's, it's not about what's going on around you, right? Meaning your circumstances, your quality of life and your emotional wellbeing is determined by what is going on inside of you. And I should say up here, right? It's your decision of what you focus on. And in life. We all have two pages to focus on. We've got one page that lists all that we have to feel bad about and the other page that lists all that we have to feel good about. And.

Again, your quality of life, you could say it really is not dependent on which page is longer, right? Meaning if you got more bad than good. My mom just ran me into the elevator wall. But you have no. Your quality of life isn't depend on which page is longer, right? Like, oh, I've got all this negative stuff. It's dependent on which page you make your reality, right? Meaning if we focus on the list of all the things we have to be good, feel good about in our lives, all the things we have to be grateful for, all the things we have to. All our strengths, the things we like about ourselves, all of the people that love us and the people that we love, right? I mean, the list is infinite on both sides. The list of negative things in life, it's infinite, right? It's, it's countless. I mean, there's a million things you focus on. You focus on war and, and, and, and politics and all sorts of, you know, aspects that make you feel bad and then that becomes your reality. Or you could focus on all the things that you have to feel good about and that becomes your reality and so my mom. You're a champion mom. She's trying to wheel her suitcases and push me in the wheelchair. But again, your. Your quality of life has everything to. So. So. So here's an action. Here's an activity for you. I would encourage you, especially if you're not feeling good about your life, if you're down, if you're sad, if you're depressed, I'd encourage you to pull out a piece of paper, pull out your journal, pull out your phone, and go to the notes tab. Right. Whatever you. Whatever works for you. And write down all the things that are. In fact, I would write two lists. I'd write all the things that are bad in your life. Right, Jabor? Right now it's 11 something already. Yeah. We can head to Deborah. I'll eat afterwards or I'll eat in there. Yeah. Where we were before, right? Yeah, it is. Ask where the leukemia ward is.

So we're gonna meet with my oncologist right now. But sorry, this video is all over the place again. Just came out of my bone marrow biopsy, anesthesia, etc. But anyway, so where were we? Yeah. So make a list. That's the activity. And I really do this. Pull out your journal. And if you're not gonna do it right now, if you're busy, schedule it to do tomorrow. But write down all the things that you have that you feel bad about. Write down all the negative things in your life. Get it out of you, and then look at it, see it, write, that's okay. And here's the thing.

You don't deny that. You don't become delusional and go, nah, nah, nah, I'm not gonna look at that. I'm positive. I'm just gonna be positive. In the past, I used to do that. I just was positive all the time. No, no, no. The list of all the things that you have to feel bad about. All the faults and shortcomings and negative circumstances, you name it. There's value in that, right? And the value is it's acknowledging it. And it's ideally learning from it.

And looking at, okay, what are the things that I did that are on this list? I don't want to experience these again. So I'm going to make changes in my life. I'm not going to make the same mistakes again. So that's the list of all the things that make you feel bad. There is value in that. Embrace that. Don't deny it. Right? And it also, when you overcome, whether you overcome those things or you learn from those Things either way, right? They are an asset because they allow you to grow and to improve and to evolve. And then look at. But here's the thing. You only spend enough time, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, half an hour looking at that list, negative. And most people dwell over there. That's the problem is they live over there. They focus all their attention and energy on all the things that make them feel bad. And this list over here, all the things that make you feel good.

Look at that list and live over there. Dwell over there. So acknowledge the negative, learn from the negative, grow from the negative. But then, but only spend, you know, let's say for general purposes, 5% of your time on the things in your life that make you feel bad, 5% of your time looking over there just to learn and grow, and then the learning and the growing should make you feel good, right? And then you look over at the list of things that make you feel good, and that's where you live. Live over there. And this is only if you want to be happy. This is only if you want to, right? Have a positive, emotional, well being, a positive quality of life. That's what this lesson is for, is look over on the things that make you feel good and live over there. Dwell over there. 5% of your time on the negative, 95% on the positive, and you might get to where you spend 1% of your time on the negative and 99% of your time on the positive. And once you train yourself to live this way, you're able to more quickly internalize, acknowledge, learn and grow from the negative and then move right over to the positive, right. And live over there. So I hope this is valuable for you. If there's anybody in your life that you know is struggling emotionally right now that they're suffering from, you know, in fear or depression, whatever it is, please share this with them and, and just realize that we all have the power to focus on the things in our life that make us feel good. And when you focus on things that make you feel good, guess how you feel. You feel good, right? And. Yeah, so my anesthesia is still on and I don't know what I'm talking about. All right. Hopefully you got some value from that. I love you. I appreciate you. Again, if you know somebody that is struggling emotionally right now, they're not, they're not happy, please share this with them and empower us all to realize that we have the power to be happy and to. Again, our quality of life has very little to what's going on around us. And mostly to do with what's going on inside of us, and that's based on what we focus our attention on and, of course, expand those things. Work on improving, growing, achieving more of the things that make you feel good. So it's easier to feel good. Right. All right. Hopefully again, you got some value. I'm a little loopy. I love you. Mom says hi. Appreciate you, and we'll talk to you next time. Love you guys.