Hal Elrod's "Miracle Morning" Keynote - Arbonne UK

Okay, so next, I'm really excited to introduce our external guest speaker, Hal Elrod.

As the author of one of the highest rated books in the world, the Miracle Morning, which has been translated into 37 languages, sold over 2 million copies, and has over 4,000 five star reviews, and is practiced daily by over 1 million people in more than 70 countries. He's doing exactly that. Hal Elrod is on a mission to elevate the consciousness of humanity one person at a time. What's incredible is Hal actually died age 20. His car was hit head on by a drunk driver at 70 miles an hour. His heart stopped beating for six minutes. He broke 11 bones and woke up after being in a coma for six days to be told by his doctors he would never walk again.

Not only did he walk again, he bounced back to run a 52 mile ultramarathon. Then in November 2016, Howe nearly died again. His kidneys, lungs and heart were failing and he was diagnosed with a rare and very aggressive form of cancer and given a 20 to 30% chance of survival. Well, Hal is here with us today and grateful to be alive, living his mission alongside his wife and their two young children in Austin, Texas. He's here today to share his unbelievable true story of coming back from the dead. But more importantly, he's here to show you the fastest way to take your levels of personal and professional success beyond where they've ever been before. But before we bring Hal up, we have a special surprise for you. Hal sent us a sneak peek of the brand new Miracle Morning movie. Let's take a look.

So December 3, 1999. We went home that night. At about 11:30 at night, we got a call from Hals good friend Jeremy, and he had indicated that Hal had been in a car accident.

So the night of Hal's accident, we were at a conference and we were coming back from it. He gets in the car, I get in my car and we head out.

He got ahead of me and I.

Caught a red light.

Hal was driving about 65 miles per hour.

The drunk driver was going 80 miles an hour.

Someone crossed the median and hit them head on.

His Ford Mustang spun around and the oncoming driver T boned him.

There was like all this debris in the middle of the freeway and my buddy looks out the window and says, I think there was a Mustang on the side of the road. I was like, dude, I couldn't even tell. And as I kind of started driving, he's like, no, ma', am. I think that was Hal's mother.

When I talked To Jeremy. I told him to tell Hal that we loved him and, you know, that he had to hang in there and that, you know, we were all coming.

The fire department, everyone showed up. They had to cut through the car to have to pull him out.

His heart had stopped for about six to seven minutes.

I remember walking through the door and it was like they'd been waiting for us. And it, you know, there was whispers and it was like, the lrods are here. And then we were rushed into a room.

The damage that was done to his body was horrific. I did not expect him to live through the weekend.

He's probably not gonna be able to hear because of the damage to his ear. He might not be able to see because he had shattered bones around his eye. He'll never walk again.

There was so much brain trauma. And they told us that, you know, he would be a vegetable.

I think he was in lycoma for about a week.

First it was like, say goodbye. Then they were like, oh, looks like he might make it, sort of.

We knew he was alive inside. His brain was still working. It wasn't a vegetable. And he woke up the next day talking.

When Hal woke up, his short term memory was completely impacted. So it was like Groundhog Day every day. I remember one time he's like, did I get in a plane crash? And I think we went with that story for a while. I was like, tomorrow he'll just. We'll retell the real story again. You know, he just. He took his first step, and it was just another one of those things where people were just shocked at how fast he was coming back.

He just defied everything the doctors said.

We laughed through all of it. You know, you always kind of found humor, and I think that helped him survive.

When Hal got out of the hospital four months later, his high school principal called and he said, I know this is crazy, but he goes, do you think Hal would speak to the student body? And so that was the start, really, of Hal's speaking career.

I just feel like Hal had another purpose. He wasn't done yet. I still believe that now. It was a miracle.

Arbonne, please welcome Hal Elrod.

I was a king under your control.

And oh.

I want to feel.

Good morning, everybody.

I feel like I've already met half of you at the hotel, in the elevators.

Backstage, in the bathroom. I met a couple folks.

Yeah, this is fun. I spoke to Arbonne in Canada a few years back, and one of my favorite audiences ever. You're just the culture in this company. Is phenomenal. Your energy, your spirit, it's all phenomenal.

You know, today we've heard from Andrea and Ian and Alice, the panel. I don't know all their names by heart. And then, of course, Kelly a couple of times. And.

I want to point something out. We often create separation when we see people that we deem to be more successful than we are. We see people on stage and we admire them and we go, oh, wow, if only I could be like that. They're so much further along than I am. Or we might create separation around specific attributes. Oh, they're better looking than me. If only I was that young or that old or that experienced or whatever it is. We create separation. And I would encourage all of you to consider that every person that you've seen on stage today, myself included, is evidence of what's possible for you.

Evidence of what's possible for you.

Every single person up on stage was born as a newborn. They were a baby. They had never sold Arbonne.

Then they had to learn to walk. Still had never even heard of Arbonne.

Right? And then they started selling Arbonne. And they were insecure and they were nervous and they doubted themselves. And to this day, I can almost promise you, every single one of those people coming on stage was still insecure, was still nervous, and still doubting themselves.

And every day they simply wake up and decide, today I'm going to give the best of of myself. I'm going to face my fears. Even if I don't feel like getting on the phone or getting online, making appointments, I'm going to do it anyway. And what's exciting about that for all of us is that there is nothing stopping you from being as successful as you choose to be, other than you. And you get to get out of your own way whenever you want to. And so today, I'm gonna share the Miracle Morning. How you can start every day in a peak physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual state. Every single day. Start at your best so that you can take on the day and create the success that you deserve. If y' all are ready, say we're ready.

All right, quick question. How many of you, by a show of hands, have already read the Miracle Morning? Holy cow. That's like the whole room. Has anybody not read the Miracle Morning yet? Oh, that's. You should be ashamed. Don't raise your hand. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. That's cool. That's cool. So that helps inform the message, right? If most of the Audience hasn't read the book, that changes a bit. But since most of you have read the book, you're familiar. How many of you do the miracle morning? There's a good question. Okay, all right. Less hands. I appreciate the honesty. Less hands. All right, cool.

All right, let's see. Where are we at with the slides? Hey, hey. Quick inside story. So on the front, that looks like me, it's actually a stock photo. And right before the book came out, I had this slide. I said, hey, I was speaking at an event. I said, I have a book coming out in, like a month. I wanna tell you about it. And they said, is that you on the COVID And the guy had very flat hair. I said, no. I said, I. The spiky hair. He said, you should reach out to your graphic designer and see if he could Photoshop your head onto that image. So there's a little bit of behind the scenes for y'. All. That's exactly what happened.

So I want to start with this question. What did you want to be when you grew up? Think about anybody. Arbonne consultant up there on the list? No, probably not, right? So my dream was to be a radio DJ. When I was 15 years old, I started DJing school dances. And then I thought, wow, I love playing music for people. I'd love to be on the radio someday. And at 15 years old, I get a phone call one day from Larry Gamble. He was well known in my hometown. I grew up in a small town. He owned the radio station, so he's kind of famous in town. And he called me and he had one of those radio DJ voices. You know what I'm talking about, right? Hey, Hal, it's Larry Gamble down here at 103.7 FM. How are you doing, my friend?

And I'm going through puberty, so I'm like, I'm good, Larry. What's going on?

And he said, hey, I heard you're a dj. Is that right? I said, yeah. He said, we want a high school student to host a weekly radio show. Would you come down and interview for the position? I'd love to talk to you about it.

And I'm like, jaw. This is my dream. I didn't think it was happening at 15. And I go, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. So a couple days later, my mom drives me. I'm only 15. My mom drives me to the radio station and I go and I interview for the position. I don't think there was anybody else interviewing. And so I got it, and I was excited, and I'm walking out of the office, I'm on cloud nine. And Larry says, hal, one more thing. Do you have a nickname? I said, there's some stuff the kids at school call me, but it's not really appropriate. Why? What were you thinking? And he said, Radio DJs always have a cool nickname. It's called a moniker. Can you think of a moniker by next Thursday when you start on the air? I said, sure, yeah, sure, of course. No problem. And I went from being really excited to being really nervous and insecure, thinking I don't have a cool moniker. Like, what am I gonna call myself? Like, Hip Hop Hal? Or, like, Happy Hal? And so I'm in my head about it, and I walk out to the car. My mom's driving, right? And I get in the car, and I'm in my head thinking, what's my nickname gonna be for the radio? And I don't say anything. So my mom assumes what, I didn't get the job, right? She says, it's okay, sweetheart. Everything happens for a reason. I was like, what are you. What? What are you talking about? Oh, no, no. I got the job, but I have to have a cool nickname. It's called a moniker. And, mom, you guys named me Hal. That's like the dorkiest name ever.

So I don't know what I'm gonna do. And she goes, I can help you think of a cool nickname. I was like, okay, mom, this should be good. What's your idea? She said, I know. Just rhyme it with Hal. Be like my pal Hal. Or ooh, I know. Use slang. Make it really cool. Be yo pal Hal.

I said, mom, no offense, but you're 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.

And number two, always keep an open mind, right? We think we have things kind of figured out. Or like, the way we see the world as the way the world is. And I think right now, in a real serious way that's dividing our society is because society half thinks this is right, half thinks this is right, when the truth is usually somewhere in between. And so, yes, mom is always right. And also, keep an open mind.

This is a quote that for me, was a wake up call. Robin Sharma, one of the world's greatest leadership authors, he said, one of the saddest things in life.

And realizing you could have been done and had so much more. This resonated with me. I thought, I don't want to wake up One day and look back and realize I could have been done and had so much more.

But the thing about this quote is he says, you could wake up one day and look back with regret. There's no urgency in that, right? When is one day you go, yeah, that would suck. To wake up one day and look back and know I could have been done and had so much more. But that's not today. I can accept less than my best today, maybe even tomorrow. There's so much time. So I like to take this quote and give it a little twist and say, one of the saddest things in life is to wake up every single day.

To know you could have be and do so much more, and then to accept anything less than that from yourself. One of the reasons that this quote becomes true, that people, you know, turn 30 and look back and go, man, I gotta get something going. I'm not where I wanted to be. And then they turn 40 and they go, wow, gosh, is this all there is for life? What am I doing? And they turn 50 and they're like, oh, man, I'm. I'm past the halfway point. What am I getting right? The reason that happens is a lack of urgency. It's a result of never deciding that now matters more than any other time in our life, because it's what we're doing today that is determining who we're becoming and the life that we're not just creating, but that we're living. And so my message today is about, how do you wake up every day and dedicate the first part of your day? The first 30 to 60 minutes, even if you're not a morning person, how do you wake up every day and dedicate the first part of your day to elevating who you are? On a scale of 1 to 10, we all want level 10 success in every area of our life. But what nobody taught us growing up is that the secret to achieving level 10 success in your life is you have to dedicate time to becoming a level 10 person.

And when you elevate yourself each day To a Level 10 person, Level 10 success becomes your norm. It becomes your default. It's a reflection of who you are and how you show up every day, single day. So if one of the saddest things in life is to wake up every day and know that you could have, be, and do so much more, my question for you is, why did you wake up this morning? Think about that for a second. Why do you wake up most mornings at the exact time that you decide to wake up, there's usually one of two camps. Number one, this is most people.

We look at our schedule and you go, okay, what's the last possible minute.

That I could wake up.

And not lose my children.

Go broke, have my marriage fault, right? Like we literally, I call that a mediocre morning. But that's how we do it. We're like, what's the last possible minute? And then you're like, okay, I want to snooze at least three times. So I'll back that up by 27 minutes to get my three nine minute snoozes in. That's when I'm going to wake up. But then this other camp, and if you study the world's most successful people in all walks of life, you find that most of them fall into this camp, they don't wake up at the last possible minute. They give themselves a cushion of time to dedicate time to becoming the person that they are capable of being so that they can show up at their best every day. That's what the miracle morning is about.

Today, there's really three things that I would, that I'm sharing with you, that I want you to walk away with today. There's three objectives. Number one, develop emotional enlightenment. What does that have to do with the miracle morning? It doesn't. It has to do with who you are and how you experience every moment of your life. Emotional enlightenment is the ability to choose how you feel in any given moment, regardless of your circumstances.

We all want to be happy. We all want to feel good. But we were lied to. We were conditioned to think good things happen.

And I have permission to feel good. But bad things happen and I feel bad. I'm here to share with you that no matter what happens, you have the power within you to choose how you feel, to choose how you experience life. I am living proof of that. I was hit by a drunk driver and told I would never walk again. And when I was in the hospital, I decided I will be the happiest and most grateful I've ever been while I endure the most difficult time in my life.

And again, don't separate and think, wow, I wish I could think like that. Oh, you can. Evidence of what's possible for you. All of this. The day that I was diagnosed with cancer and given a 20 to 30% chance of surviving, I referenced the car accident and I told my wife. She was terrified. My wife was, as you might imagine, she was devastated. She was terrified. I said, sweetheart, two things. Number one, I'm going to beat this cancer, I know the doctor said it's a 20 to 30% survival rate, but I'm telling you, there's a 100% chance that I will be in the 20 to 30% of those that survive the cancer.

Don't ever let anyone tell you what your fate is. Right. Doctors might be experts in medicine or whatever they do. They're not experts in you. And the second thing I told my wife is I will be the happiest and the most grateful I have ever been and lead our family through what I am imagining is going to be a very different, difficult time. And it was. But that's emotional enlightenment. It's. I can't change what I can't change. There are many things out of our control. In fact, a hell of a lot more that's out of our control than that's in our control. But the one thing that's in our control is how we experience every moment of our lives, even the painful ones, even the difficult ones. So that's emotional enlightenment.

Oh. Oh. I think I. We're gonna talk about your miracle morning ritual and how to create it. Or, since most of you have one, how to optimize it. And if you fell off, which many of you I'm sure that did, the miracle morning, you fell off, we'll get back on. And then number three, how to achieve level 10 success in every area of your life, of course, including Arbonne. Again, on a scale of one to 10, we all want level 10 success. Everything we're talking about today is about you and how you can every day dedicate time to becoming a level 10 person, elevating where you are now and who you are now to where you want to be and who you're capable of becoming.

So part one on emotional enlightenment, you see there, if you want the definition, the ability to choose one's optimal emotional state in any set of circumstances. First story that I want to share, you already got a preview of it in that video. But at age 20, I was in direct sales, very similar to Arbonne, but I was selling Cutco cutlery. Anybody familiar with Cutco? Not that many of you. Wow. Is it not over in the uk? I don't know. So Cutco is made in America. It is the world's finest cutlery. It's kitchen cutlery. How many of you like to cook? Show of hands. Okay. How many of you have to cook? Okay. Some of the same hands, but. So I started selling Cutco when I was 19 years old. I actually gave up my dream job I was a DJ on 97.1 FM. But like many of you, I saw a financial opportunity with no ceiling. Right. It was a commission position. I was paid based on how hard I worked, how much I sold. It wasn't an hourly wage that I had no control over. That was really appealing to me. So I started selling Cutco. And in my first 10 days, I broke the all time company record. I sold $12,000 of Cutco kitchen knives. And I broke the record. And what's important about that is who I was when I showed up to my first day of Cutco training. I was a kid that got in trouble all throughout school. I was never popular. I wasn't an athlete. I didn't get good grades. I never excelled at anything except DJing on the radio. I guess that was kind of cool. But on my second day of training, I saw something within Cutco. I learned about the first 10 days, this contest, this challenge to go out and do something major in your first 10 days. And I decided I'm going to let go of the mediocrity that I've settled for my entire life. I'm going to draw my line in the sand. And from this day forward, I'm committed to giving it everything I have. I'm committed to seeing what I'm capable of when I commit at a level I've never been committed before. That's that same decision that all of you get to make when you leave this event.

I am no longer willing to settle for less than I am capable of.

A year and a half into my Cutco career, I gave a speech at a conference. Driving home that night, I was hit head on by a drunk driver at 70 miles per hour, which I believe is 112 kilometers. You guys do kilometers here, right? Metric system. Okay. No, no. Oh, miles. Okay. All right.

So that was a few days after the car accident.

My dad took some pictures, which I was grateful for.

When I came out of the coma, the doctor said I would never walk again. And I decided to hold two possibilities in my mind at the same time. If the doctors are right and I never walk again. I already mentioned this. I decided I'll be the happiest, most grateful person you've ever seen in a wheelchair. Because I will never let my circumstances that I can't control determine my mental and emotional well being that I can control.

And so, for all of you, I wanna ask you a question. What's your wheelchair?

What's that experience in your life, past, present, or that you're worried about for the future, that's out of your control.

And you therefore were thinking, that is the reason that I feel the way that I feel. Many of us are still suffering over childhood trauma. I forgot who said it right, but that it's our response. It's not your fault that you suffered trauma. It's your responsibility to heal it. And so for me, I thought, if I'm in a wheelchair the rest of my life, I could either be a victim and I could be miserable, but that wouldn't serve anybody. That wouldn't help me, that wouldn't help anybody else. So I thought, if I'm in a wheelchair the rest of my life, why don't I just be the most positive person anyone's ever seen in a wheelchair and genuinely embody that so I can enjoy my life. That was possibility number one. But possibility number two, maybe I can walk again. And so I decided I was going to accept the worst case scenario and, and be completely at peace with it. Even if I never took another step, it wasn't gonna affect my mental and emotional quality of life. But I wasn't accepting that as the only option. All of my energy went into what I wanted. I visualized walking every single day. I prayed that I could walk. Every day I meditated in a state of my body being completely healed and imagining what that would be like.

Two weeks after the car accident, the doctors brought in routine X rays and they said, we don't know how to explain this.

But, Hal, your body is healing so quickly that you can take your first step today in therapy.

That was my reaction.

And even for me, being optimistic, I was thinking like I was a. You know, maybe in one year my body would heal to the point where I could walk. But two weeks after the crash, actually, I'm sorry, it was three weeks after the crash. Two weeks after I came out of the coma, this picture was taken. And that was my therapist, Bob. And he wheeled me up to the parallel bars.

And I took my first. I just took like three painful steps. I mean, I had broken my femur in half, my pelvis had broken in three places, right? So I had a lot of trauma down there and it was nerve wracking. But I took those first few steps and kind of went onto the road to recovery, if you will. And the doctors called my parents in and they expressed they were concerned that I was.

Either in denial or delusional.

Because they said I was always happy and smiling and joking and making them laugh. And they said, we need Hal to face what's happened to him. And my dad came in and he expressed the doctor's concerns. And what they didn't realize was that it wasn't that I couldn't accept it or I was denying it. It was the opposite. It was, I can't change that. I was in a car accident. So I'm going to choose how I want to experience my life. And for all of us, we've all experienced adversity. And if the way I'm sharing this is kind of a new perspective, you've probably allowed your adversity to really impact you mentally and emotionally. In fact, there was a TikTok video. I was doing an interview talking about this and it went viral. And I was reading through the comments, and one of the comments, she said, I don't know who this guy is, but he's obviously never had cancer because I have cancer. And so it's not so easy to be positive when you have cancer. And you know, I didn't want to get in there and be like, actually. But I was like, you know, I just, I said, hey, I understand where you're coming from. I actually did have cancer. And it was more important than ever for me to apply what I'm talking about. And here's the thing.

The distinction to understand here is that every painful emotion that you have ever experienced in your life.

Has been self created.

By your resistance to your reality. Let me explain that.

Resisting reality as imagine something bad happens and you go, no, no, God, why? No, this can't happen. I wanted it to be different. It was supposed to be different. I wish this didn't happen. All of these are just forms of resisting reality, wishing it didn't happen. And to the degree that we resist, reality determines the degree of emotional pain that we experience.

This happens in traffic. Raise your hand if you don't like traffic.

So this is low level adversity that we can all relate to, right? It's nothing major, but think about this. How do most of us spend time in traffic? Imagine that you leave the house, you gotta be somewhere. Now you're running late because you slept through your alarm, whatever, and you hit traffic. And what do we do? We go, no, no, not today, damn it, come on, Go fat. Come on. Right? And we spend the entire time in the car resisting reality, wishing the car in front of us were going faster, riding their bumper. And we spend the time in the car frustrated, tense, because we're resisting reality. What's the opposite of resistance? It's acceptance. That's what will set you free. You go, oh, traffic, that sucks. I'm gonna be late. That's not good. Well, but I can't change it, so I might as well enjoy the ride. I might as well enjoy every moment in this car.

Going to my destination, even though I'm late, and even though there's a consequence, I might lose a customer, whatever, but I can't change it. So the only logical choice we have is to accept life exactly as it is and then enjoy every moment of it, even when it's difficult, even when it's painful. And I love the traffic example because it's a microcosm for life. That's how we go through life. Things happen that we don't like. No. Why did that happen? No. Why did you say that? No. I wish this was different. Right, we're resisting reality and creating unnecessary emotional pain for ourselves. And acceptance is the key that unlocks the door to emotional freedom. You see it on the screen.

Now when I'm in traffic and I go, oh, no, God, come on, not today. I'm gonna be late. I go, oh, wait, I can't change it. And those are the three words.

That remind me to accept all things I can't change.

Minor or major. Whether it's traffic or being hit by a drunk driver and told I would never walk again, or losing someone I loved.

I take the appropriate time to experience those painful emotions.

And for me, I live by this thing called the five minute rule. I learned this in my Cutco training. Believe it or not.

The five minute rule says it's okay to be negative when things go wrong, but not for more than five minutes. How many minutes? Five. Five. So we were taught in Cutco, when you have a no sale, right? You go to an appointment, you think, oh, this customer's gonna buy for sure. Let's look how big this house is, right? They're gonna buy the whole catalog, and they buy nothing.

And we're taught to set our timer for five minutes, and you get five minutes to bitch, moan, complain, cry, like, punch something, right? Feel your feelings completely so you don't suppress them. But when the timer goes off, you say three very powerful words.

Change it.

I can't change what happened five minutes ago. So there's no point in dwelling on it. There's no point in wishing it didn't happen. All forms of resisting my reality instead. The only logical choice I have if I want to be happy, at peace, and move forward with my life is to accept what happened and be at peace with it. And think about that. Think about a time in your life, like when you were younger in grade school when you were heartbroken. Anybody ever had their heartbroken in grade school, right? You know, you were dating somebody for two weeks in sixth grade, and then they broke up with you, and you were like, no, I thought we were going to get married, right?

When did the pain stop? It stopped when you stopped resisting that it happened often. It was because your next fling showed up, right? You're like, no, I was supposed to be with this person. I thought we were going to go to the school dance and we were going to get. Oh, hey, hey. No, I'm at peace with that. That's fine. Right? It's the moment we accept what we can't change, that we unlock the door.

To inner peace. Because being at peace with life exactly as it is. And so the five minute rule, I applied that in my Cutco for a year and a half, and then I had my car accident.

And I told my dad, dad, I live by the five minute rule. This was when he told me the doctors thought I was in denial. I said, no, I'm not in denial. I live by the five minute rule. It's okay to be negative, but not for the five minutes. I said, I've accepted it. I can't change that. I was in a car accident, so I'm just gonna choose to be happy. And he goes, hal, I know you live by that five minute rule, but that's for, like, Cutco challenges.

What you're going through now is much more serious. You can have more than five minutes. I go, dad, I've taken, like, five days for sure. It took me a little more time. But the principle is the same. I cannot change what happened to me. I can choose how I feel inside and how I experience it. I want to be happy. So I will not allow the car accident that I can't change to determine how I feel inside.

And ultimately.

Oh, I'll get to that in a sec. Can't change it. And the five minute rule eventually became the five second rule. And here's what I mean, for some of you, if you hear the five minute rule, you go, five minutes. I need way longer than that to feel sorry for myself and bitch and moan and complain. Like, come on, can I get five hours? Like, I need five hours. Maybe five days, right? I thought that too. When I learned this, I was like, five minutes. How are you gonna get over something in five minutes? But here's what this did. It elevated my consciousness, my awareness. So here's what I mean. I would set the timer for five minutes on My phone. And I'd have like a lady not buy from me or cancel the appointment, or even worse, she'd buy from me. It'd be a huge order. I'd be celebrating, spending the money in my mind. And then she would call and hey, my husband said no. I'm like, no, right? And so I set my timer for five minutes and I go, ah, I can't believe this. I needed that order. This was such a man. No, like I have my goals and now I'm not on track and I'm gonna fall behind for the week. And the timer would go off, beep, beep, beep, beep. Like screw you, like I need more time, I'm mad, right? And so five minutes wasn't enough. But here's what happened. After a few weeks, I became conscious to how I was in control of my response, of how I felt. Because eventually the timer would go off after five minutes and I would go, okay, can't change it, let's move on. And I was able to do that. But after a few weeks, I'd set my timer. I literally can remember the. I'm in my apartment, I can picture this happening. I set the timer and I was like, ah, son of a bitch, I can't believe this happened. Oh man, what am I gonna do? I guess I gotta make up for it, get on the phone, schedule more appointments. And I looked at my phone and it was like 4 minutes and 32 seconds left. And I went.

Why don't I just accept it now?

What's the point in dwelling on it for four and a half more minutes?

And then it became all I needed. Once something happened, I go, okay, since emotional pain is self created and I don't need to feel emotional pain, right? I'm gonna just accept life before it even happens. And that's why the day I was diagnosed with cancer, I was able to completely be at peace with it before I even got the official diagnosis. Cause I've already accepted that there are things in life that are going to happen that are going to be, not meet my expectations, unwanted, undesirable, difficult and painful. And I'm gonna be however I wanna be the entire time. I'm gonna be happy, grateful, focused, heart centered, service oriented. Like who I am will not change when circumstances do. And all of you have that ability. And by the end of this message, we've got 25 more minutes. You're gonna have the tools. Now we're gonna talk about the tools to do that first. There's one more part of the Story I gave this, I shared the can't change it message to a college up in Canada. And this gal emailed me a few days later and said, hey, when you talked about can't change it, it made me realize how I get upset over things I can't change all the time. And I wanted a permanent reminder that I wasn't gonna do that anymore. So I got it tattooed into my wrist.

And I had a few thoughts about this. One, wow. I am so honored that my message inspired her to permanently tattoo those words into my wrist. Number two, I thought her parents must hate me. Like, this gal goes to this motivational speaker at her college and comes home with a tattoo. And number three, I thought this woman is pretty eccentric. Like, I don't think that's gonna happen again. A few weeks later I get another email.

But this woman put me in tears.

And I'll paraphrase what her email said. She said, hal, Yesterday was the 10 year anniversary of my dad's death. I'm 27 now. I was 17 when he committed suicide.

I've spent the last 10 years feeling like a victim and having everyone around me reassure me that that was okay. I felt depressed, hopeless, that this wasn't fair, I didn't deserve this, how could this happen to me? And when you said.

That every painful emotion is self created.

She said, I got angry.

She said, I didn't create this. My dad died.

I deserve to feel however I wanna feel. She said. But the more I listened, the more I thought about it. I thought maybe I've spent the last 10 years.

Depressed not because my dad died, but because no one ever told me that I could find peace by accepting that he's gone. She said. So on the 10 year anniversary of his death, I got this tattooed in my wrist as a permanent reminder that I will never again let the memory of my dad cause me pain, cause me depression.

But instead it will be a reminder that I'm alive and to be grateful for my life. Because nothing will ever change that he's my dad and I have my life because of him. She said. So I just wanted to thank you because what was painful for 10 years is now liberating.

And when I read her email, it made me realize that whether it's traffic or going through a major tragedy yourself, or losing arguably the most important person in your life at a pivotal time.

Every painful emotion we experience is self created. And we right now have the ability to unlock the door to emotional enlightenment, to be free from the pain that we've allowed ourselves to experience.

And you don't have to feel it anymore. Feel it, as long as it's valuable. I'm not saying don't feel painful emotions, but most of us don't have control over them. So they overtake us and it becomes this spiral.

Yes, acknowledge I feel hurt, I feel sad, I feel angry. And then ask yourself, what's the value in that emotion? Why am I feeling that? Set your timer for five minutes. And for those five minutes, bitch, moan, complain. But also ask, what's the purpose in this experience? What's the value in this emotion? Learn from it, acknowledge it. Maybe write it down. And then say, can't change it and let it go.

And just as a summary, three steps to emotional enlightenment. Start with the five minute rule. Give yourself time to cuss, bitch, moan, whatever. Feel your feelings completely. Once the timer goes off, if you need to set it again, you need five more minutes, that's okay. But ultimately, get to the place where you can simply acknowledge. Can't change it. I can't change it. Therefore, I'm going to be at peace with it. And then ultimately, the evolution is to accept life before it happens. Where once you practice this and you realize that you can do it, you go, wow. No matter what happens in the future, no matter how scary or difficult or painful.

I accept life exactly as it is. And therefore, I can be at peace from this day forward for the rest of your life.

All right, we're gonna talk about how to create your miracle morning, or if you already have one, how to optimize it, some advanced strategies.

So this is anybody Robert Kiyosaki fan?

So Robert reached out. His assistant reached out to me. This was like five years ago. She said, Hal Roberts read the Miracle Morning three times. And after I picked my jaw up off the floor. For those of you that don't know, Robert Kiyosaki wrote one of the best selling personal finance books of all time called Rich Dad, Poor dad and changed my life. So when one of your favorite authors emails you and is like, your book changed my life, it's like, what? What? This is crazy. But here's what he said. The miracle morning has been magical in my life. If you want to maximize every day of your life, do the miracle morning. Robert, at the time that he sent me this, I had googled him to see he was worth $80 million. Now, when I created the miracle morning, I was broke, I was in debt. So if you're wondering if this message and this miracle morning thing applies to you, if you're anywhere between zero and $80 million. You're in the range, okay? You're in the range. It applies to you. Now, if you're over 80 million, I don't. I can't. I don't know.

All right, second rock bottom. Surprisingly worse than the first, right? Most people would think being in a car accident and being found dead and breaking 11 bones, it'd, like, be hard to top that. The difference was when I came out of the coma, a, it couldn't get worse. It could really only get better, right? My body was heated every day. My mind was healing. But the other thing was in the car accident, I was just showered with love and taking, like, doctors and nurses taking care of me, my family by my bedside, friends coming to visit, right? Everybody was taking care of everything. My food was brought to me. In 2008, when the United States economy crashed.

Everybody else had their own problems, and I crashed with the economy. I lost over half of my income, half of my coaching clients, which is how I made my money at the time. And I could not pay my mortgage. I started living on credit cards. I went from being debt free, which I was like a Dave Ramsey debt free person, never went into debt, to acquiring, adding $52,000 in credit card debt over six months. Almost $10,000 a month just to survive my house. I couldn't pay the mortgage, so I lost my house. And I got really depressed for the first time in my life. This was harder to deal with than anything else because I felt like I should be able to do things to change this. But nothing I was doing was working. And so I went for a run. And I heard the following quote from Jim Rohn on that run. And this quote changed my entire life. And to this day, it's fundamental in how I live. Jim said, your levels of success will seldom exceed your level of personal development, because success is something you attract by the person you become. So I mentioned earlier, on a scale of 1 to 10, what level of success do we want in every area of our life? 10. Like, I've never met anybody that's like, I don't want to be too successful. Like, I'll take like a seven, right? No. I believe that human beings, we all have this innate drive and desire within us to fulfill our potential. But very few of us do because most of us are trying to achieve level 10 success without getting any better ourselves. We're just showing up every day and being like, all right, I wanna be as successful as that person. It's like, well, what are you doing every day behind the scenes to become a better version of yourself, to elevate yourself so that your success is elevated. I go, well, nothing really. I just want to be successful. So when I heard this quote, I realized I need to go home and create the most effective personal development practice in the history of humanity. That was my epiphany. I'm going to go home and find out what the world's most successful people do for their personal development. I started Googling Jim Rohn. He said journaling. Journaling was his favorite practice. By putting getting his thoughts out of his head and writing them down, he gained clarity through that process. And so I thought, all right, I'll start journaling. Then I kept Googling, what do the world's most successful people do for their personal development? I came across an article, Fortune 500 CEOs who swear by meditation. And I was scratching my head. I'm going, meditation, Fortune 500 CEOs. I always thought meditation was like, you know, I just pictured like a monk or something and just, you know, just spiritual pursuits. But these Fortune 500 CEOs were saying that it helped them get their. The greatest clarity, the biggest ideas that transformed their companies and made them a fortune. And I was struggling financially, so I thought, okay, well, I guess meditations life. Then I saw a video of Ellen DeGeneres interviewing when I say this now, it has a different impact than it did a few months ago. Will Smith.

Asking him how he became one of the most successful actors in Hollywood. And he said, written affirmations. He said, when I was 15, I learned to write affirmations that articulated what I wanted to create for my life, who I needed to be and what I needed to do. And he said, I read those every day. They programmed my brain with what I needed to focus on. And then he goes, I simply lived in alignment with what I affirmed. I go, God, that makes so much sense. I've gotta start doing affirmations. So I had journaling, I had affirmations, and I just kept searching, and I found visualization. I found reading, exercising, right. Nothing new, by the way. None of these practices were new. And as I looked at this list, I had six practices, and I'm going, well, which one should I do? Which one's the best? There was no clear answer. And the epiphany was when I went, wait a minute.

Every successful person on the planet does at least one of these, But I haven't met anyone or seen anyone that does all of them in one ritual. I thought that would be the ultimate personal development routine.

And I committed to wake up the next day one hour earlier, even though I wasn't a morning person. And do all six practices. 10 minutes of meditation, 10 minutes of affirmations, 10 minutes of visualization, 10 minutes of exercise, 10 minutes of reading and 10 minutes of.

And that night I felt like a kid on Christmas Eve. I was like, I went from. And keep in mind, at this time in my life, I was in debt, my house was being foreclosed on, I was depressed. But this was the first glimmer of hope. I thought if I do this every day, it's only a matter of time before I become. I elevate myself to be a level 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10, the best version of myself. And then level 10 success theoretically should be what I'm able to sustain. And that next morning I woke up, I did all six practices and I wasn't good at any of them. Like I had never meditated before. My mind's racing. The affirmations I found online felt super inauthentic. I'm like, I am a millionaire.

Dude. I'm not even a thousandaire. Like, okay, I am wealthy, I am okay, whatever. But at the end of that hour, if I start every day like this, it's only a matter of time before I become that person. And I was thinking again, about a year, right? In a year I could turn things around. It was less than two months of doing the miracle morning. By the way, this was in 2008 when the economy continued to get worse and worse and worse and worse. So theoretically, my success should have continued to go down. I was right. Because of the miracle morning, in those two months, I more than doubled my income. I went from being in the worst shape of my life where I hadn't exercised in six months, to committing to running 52 mile ultramarathon that Kelly mentioned. And my depression that had been getting worse and worse and worse as I felt more and more hopeless every single day. My depression went away because I knew that this practice would ensure that I became the person that I needed to be to create the success I wanted in my life. And it will do the exact same for you. And I went to my wife and I said, sweetheart, I just signed on two more coaching clients today. We've officially doubled our income in the last two months. It feels like a frickin miracle. It's all because of this morning routine. She goes, it's your miracle morning. I go, yeah, I like that miracle morning. And the rest is history. As they say.

We're Gonna go through the lifesavers right now. And by the way, my wife gets a little bit more credit. She's my muse. I've realized. It took me a while to figure that out, but I was writing the book one day, and I had the six practices. Meditation, affirmations, right? All the way down to journaling. And I was like, how do I get these in a way where they're, like, memorable or they flow together? And I was frustrated, and I got up to just take a little walk from my computer, and I saw my wife in the hallway. She goes, how's it going? I go, I'm frustrated. She said, why? I said, cause I have these six practices. None of them are new, and I don't know how to articulate them in a way that's memorable and cohesive. She said, why don't you get a thesaurus and see if you can swap out any of the words and make an acronym that people could remember. I gave her a big kiss, and I was like, that's brilliant. I love that. And. And so meditation became silence, which is good. Cause the mavers would have been weird, right?

And I will tell you this. It almost felt like it was meant to be, like it was destiny. Because I quickly figured out the Savior's acronym, and I realized these are the six practices that saved me from a life of struggle. They saved me from missing out on my full potential. And again, that's what they've done for millions of people. I know many of you are in this room, so that's your meditation or your prayer or your breath work or your quiet contemplation time. Most people don't start the day in silence, although silence is where our best ideas come from. Anybody had the shower ideas, right? Like, your best ideas are in the shower, or your best ideas are when you're falling asleep at night, right? And there's no stimulation. But how do most of us start our day? Do we give ourselves space for silence and clarity, or do we reach over to our bedside table and go, right. How many seconds before we open our eyes are we scrolling on the phone? And there may not be auditory sound, right? But it's visual. We're overstimulating ourselves. So I have a rule that I don't do open my phone until I've done my silence, unless I'm doing a guided meditation on my phone, which that happens sometimes.

The A is for affirmations. And affirmations have been taught in a way where there's two problems. Number one, we're taught to Lie to ourselves until we trick ourselves into believing something is true.

One of the affirmations I found is if you want to be wealthy or if you want to be a millionaire, just say, I am a millionaire and step into that. But the truth will always prevail, right? Like if you go, I. If you're saying I am blank and it's not true, then your subconscious is gonna go, you're lying to yourself, right? And then you're fighting, you're adding an inner conflict. Like, we need one more, right?

So the second problem with affirmations is we're taught to use this flowery passive language that promises magical result independent of any effort. You've probably heard one like this, I am a money magnet.

Money flows to me effortlessly and in abundance.

Sorry, that's not how money works, right? I wish it was, right? We just sit back and just read out for, ah, I'm a magnet. No, you gotta produce value, put forth effort, right? And then you'll. Now, why do people like that affirmation? Because it gives them temporary relief. That's literally delusion, right? You go, oh, thank. Like, I looked at my bank balance, it's negative. Oh, God, I'm gonna do my affirmations. Money is gonna flow to me effortlessly and in abundance. Oh, that feels way better.

Right? That's not how money works. Here are. Oh, that's what I just covered for you, right? The affirmations, why they've failed you. Lying to yourself doesn't work. And passive language doesn't produce measurable results. So what does? Here are three steps to create affirmations that produce results. Number one, affirm what you're committed to in life. You don't get what you want because you want it. We get what we're committed to. In fact, I could give a whole hour long talk about on. The single determining factor in your success is whether or not you're committed. That's it. If you're committed, you'll find a way. If you're not, you'll make excuses. That's it. So for me, my affirmations are my North Star. I affirm I am committed to these things.

Step two, why is it meaningful to you? Why are you committing? What? What are the reasons and the benefits that are so compelling that you will do whatever it takes to make your commitment a reality? And number three, which actions will you take to ensure your success and when are you committed to taking those actions?

I wanted to double my income when I was in Cutco my last year. I wanted to double my best Year ever. And it was super simple. I just realized I just have to double the number of prospecting calls I make. That's it. So I committed to make 20 calls a day, five days a week, minimum. And what do you know? The year before, I had averaged like 9.4 calls. I doubled my calls and I doubled my sales. It was that easy. And I doubled my income. So what are you committed to? Why is it important to you? Why is it a must for you? Why is it meaningful to you? And which actions will you take? And when.

The V is for visualization, think about this. The world's greatest athletes visualize themselves performing at their best before they step onto the field or step onto the court. And you should do the same before you step out into your day.

Why? Visualizing can be counterproductive. We've been taught to visualize the end result, and that's it. The problem with that is when all you do is see the end result, you can trick yourself into thinking it's a foregone conclusion independent of your effort.

So here are two steps, two parts to effective visualization. Number one. Yes. Visualize the ideal outcome. Because when you see it, it becomes real for you, and you generate emotions toward what it's going to feel like. When I ran that ultramarathon, I visualize myself crossing the finish line, and I got excited about that outcome so that I was compelled to do whatever was necessary to get there. But that's the most important part of your visualization, is. Step 2. Visualize yourself engaged in your ideal activity with optimum emotion, whatever you need to do. So the most important part of my visualization for the marathon was not seeing myself cross the finish line. That got me excited, but that didn't get me out on a run. What got me on a run was I would visualize myself. Literally, I'd sit in my chair in the morning, and I'd visualize myself getting up. I would see my phone alarm going off at 7am that's when I committed to run. I'd go into my closet, get my running shoes on. I would see this. I would see myself go through my living room, out the front door. I can still see it. And then I would visualize opening the door and seeing the sidewalk. And then I would usually combine affirmations. I would go, I'm gonna go for a run today. It's gonna be the best run of my life. I can do this. I'm becoming better and better with every step that I take. Something like that, right? I'd get Myself excited as I saw the sidewalk. And then guess what happened at 7am when the alarm went off. I hated running, but I didn't visualize hating running that morning. What happened was automatic. Oh, it's seven. Like a robot. I'd be like.

Go into my closet, get dressed, walk through the living room, open the front door, see the sidewalk. And I was flooded with the emotions that I rehearsed that morning. Those affirmations. I'm excited. I'm gonna go for this run. I'm gonna become better and better with every step that I take. You can apply that to cold calling people. You can apply that to anything. Visualize yourself doing the activity that's gonna get you where you wanna be. And when you see yourself doing it, generate positive emotions that will compel you to take action.

The E in savers is for exercise. Real simple. You don't need to go to the gym in the morning. I'm talking five to 10 minutes of jumping jacks, some stretching, yoga. Like the point is to get blood and oxygen from flowing through your body so you feel more awake and you have blood and oxygen to your brain so you think clearer and you have more energy. So I just do like five minutes of jumping jacks and like punching the air and whatever. I just move my body. Really important in the morning. The R is for reading. A lot of people when they do their Miracle Morning 30 day challenge, which we're gonna get to they for the to start, all they do is wake up 30 minutes earlier and then read the miracle morning and then when they get to the chapter. So you might need to reread the miracle morning. I would encourage you to reread. I reread books all the time. I get more value when I reread a book because I'm already familiar with the content and now I can just deepen my understanding so the reading is not again rocket science. But I have a rule. I'm not allowed to read a business book until I read a book on parenting or marriage. And that reminds me that they my family is my highest priority. I learned something to help me be a better dad or husband before I focus on the business. And the final S is for scribing, which again I owe my wife and the thesaurus for that word. I didn't even know what it was.

Here's how I scribe every morning. Really simple one to three things I'm grateful for.

And then I look at my ever growing to do list. Anybody else have one of those? Which has more things on it than I can get done in any given day. And I'm tempted to gravitate toward the easiest things. Not the consequential things, the easy things. So I do this every day. I look at that to do list and I go, okay, out of the 20 things, what are the three that are gonna make the biggest difference in my business, in my life, even if I'm scared of them. And that's what I commit to doing.

So those are the six savers. You can do them in any order. Some people like to start with exercise to get the blood flowing right. I like to start with meditation. It's just a really nice way to kind of ease into the day. You can do them in any order. You can do them in any timeframe. You can do a 30 minute miracle morning, five minutes each. You can do a 60 minute miracle morning. You can do 10 minutes each, or you can do 20 minutes of exercise, 20 minutes of reading, and five minutes of each of the others. You can completely customize your miracle morning to fit your preferences and your lifestyle. And we're gonna wrap up with a 30 day challenge. Super simple. Wake up 30 minutes earlier. Can you do the full hour? Absolutely. But when we're trying to change our behavior, it's much better to take baby steps than quantum leaps. It's much easier to sustain small changes than it is big ones. So I'm inviting you to, at the very minimum, 30 minutes earlier and just do one of the savers to start. You don't have to do all six. Like I said, if you're brand new to the miracle morning or if you're rereading the book, just start with the r. And then when you get to the chapter on silence, integrate that in. And then affirmations and visualization. And again, this is minimal. You can start out. My first miracle morning was one hour, all six practices, and it always has been.

And then last but not least, join the miracle morning community@miraclemorning.com. it's a free Facebook group. How many of you are already in that community? There's a UK one as well. But it's a great way to tap into, you know, tens of thousands of people or hundreds of thousands of people that are doing the miracle morning so that you don't feel alone.

And I want to wrap up with this. This picture was taken with my family a few months after I was diagnosed with cancer. And this quote.

Reminds me why I do what I do. When I started the miracle morning, it was a selfish pursuit. I was struggling financially, I was struggling mentally. And emotionally. I was struggling physically and I needed to get my stuff together. But now I've realized the miracle morning is not just about me. It's about.

Every person that I love and the impact that I can have in their life, Every person that I lead.

And the impact that I can have in their life. The miracle morning helps me become the husband that my wife deserves, the kid, the dad that my kids deserve. And so the greatest gift you can give to those you love and those you lead is to fulfill your potential so that you can show them how to fulfill theirs. And that's what the miracle morning is about. Elevating yourself to the highest level so you can elevate those around you. And together, we can elevate the consciousness of humanity one morning and one person at a time. And today, you are that person. So thank you for being here, and thanks for allowing me to share this message.