Heroic Chat with Hal Elrod (Recorded at Areté: Activate Your Heroic Potential — The Live Experience)

Hey heroes. Today's episode features a mastery level chat with one of our friends and world class experts sharing how they show up as the best version of themselves. This heroic chat with Brian was recorded live in front of a virtual audience of heroic community members and coaches. To learn more about this series as well as how you can join Brian's daily live coaching sessions at 1:01pm Central Time. Plus get access to a ton more to help you move from theory to practice to mastery and express the best, most heroic version of yourself. Head to Heroic Us today and if you like this episode, please leave a positive review and hit the subscribe button. Wherever you get your podcasts now, here's your host, Brian Johnson.

We can hear you and we can see you. Good to see you brother Brian.

Dude, has everybody seen this book? I can't get enough of this book, Brian. I catch myself in interviews where I'm supposed to talk about the Miracle Morning, the new book, and I just keep. Have you read Arete though? What are we going to grow? I'm seriously, man, I've told you. I just, I'm so proud of you. Incredible, man.

Oh, dude. Well, there's one way to start. Bless you, man. Big hugs and appreciate you taking the time bright and early on a Sunday morning to, to spend the day with us. How's your morning, dude? I heard you like to create miracles. Yeah.

Every morning. Yeah, Yeah, a little under the weather. I started to come down with something last night and then, yeah, this morning I voice text. I was like, hey, I'm, I'm in. I'll, I'll push through. I'll be there. But out of respect for everybody in the audience, just want to let you know and you know, so thanks for looking out for all of them. And I got to be honest, I'm like, oh, that's, that's nice. I can just be home.

Yeah, it's great, man. And I appreciate you still making the time and I love you, dude. I appreciate you. You've impacted my life deeply. Who you are, how you've shown up, your own hero's journey I want to talk a little bit about. And then we're going to come back to that and talk about it in our one on one when we do a master chat as well. But just for those who don't know, Hal Elrod, Miracle Morning, among many other things in the chat, in the live stream, throw up the link, check out the note on it, talk about Hal in the book, etc. There we go. Miracle Morning. And you've got Your new. Let's just go there. Two million copies sold. Let's go. Revised edition. Just tell us about the book and then we'll get into, you know, some details in terms of how we can go about creating a Miracle Morning, what arete means for you, and some other fun things.

Yeah, so if you look back here on my wall, that's the original self published Miracle Morning book that Brian you did a philosopher's note on came out 11 years ago. And then right now, coming out in a month from, I think today, the Miracle Morning updated and expanded edition. And So I added 70 pages of new content, plus rewrote almost every page. And there's two new chapters. The Miracle Evening, which is your strategy for blissful bedtime and better sleep, and the Miracle Life, which is the path to inner freedom. And so really excited about this. And Brian, I'm just so honored that you featured Miracle Morning in your book. It's an honor.

Oh, dude. And that's so exciting. I'm so happy that you're bringing in the PM Bookend is what we call it. So I like to say that your day started the night before. Right. And how you ended your day yesterday is going to directly impact, obviously, I mean, this is an obvious statement, but to really get it and then to operationalize the truth of that is everything. Let's go straight there. So tell us about that. Tell us about that distinction, how you would frame it up for us.

Yeah, so I've been asked for years, people always go, hal, what's your evening routine? And I've always been a little bit embarrassed when I'm like, I don't really, I don't really have one. I just, I just kind of go to bed and then, you know, just like you said. And I realizing that, well, how I end the day might be as important as how I started. And I kind of realized, oh, I actually do have a routine. I just didn't realize it was routine. It was just what I do, you know. So where this really came from, though, is in 2020, I finished my third year of chemotherapy and they call it chemo brain, but it's poisoning your brain. And it really took a toll on me to where I lost a lot of my cognitive function. I feel like my IQ dropped 30 points and I stopped sleeping. I was sleeping like two to four hours a night for good. Four, five, six months. And if you ever sleep two hours in a night, you're a wreck the next day. If you compound that for four, five, six months. I was delusional. I was a mess. I was depressed, I was suicidal, Brian. I was a mess. And so I went relentlessly pursuing, how do I cure this? How do I cure this severe sleep deprivation, this insomnia? I reached out to some of the best sleep doctors in the world, and I figured it out. And then I started. When I would speak at events, I would say, hey, by a show of hands, how many of you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep? How many of you struggle with sleep? And it's over half the hands consistently that go up in audiences, right? And that's when I realized, man, this is a big deal. And so this evening routine wasn't just about, like, you know, having a nice way to end the day. This is really about, like, if you struggle with, you know, sleep deprivation, insomnia, if you do, if you're like, probably 90% of people, where you end your day focusing on things that are out of your control. Because when you lay down to bed, you got one thing you can control, which is falling asleep. But most of us are thinking about what went wrong that day. The conflict we had earlier with our spouse, what's going on in the world that's out of our control, what the government's doing, what the economy's doing, what's on our agenda for tomorrow and next week. And all of that is a recipe for poor sleep or not being able to get to sleep at all. And so the miracle evening is a seven step ritual that includes everything from, and it's organized in acronyms, slumbers, S, L U M B E R S. We got the savers for the morning and the slumbers for the night. But like, the first S is stop eating three to four hours before bedtime and actually go into, like, digestion. And what does that look like? And what does that do to your body? If you eat close to bed, you might be asleep, but your body's working all night long. And then you feel like you were hit by a truck in the morning, right? You don't get that restorative sleep that you want. And then I talk about letting go of just stressful thoughts. How do you. And for me, it's like, I want to go to bed feeling blissful. I want to go to bed totally at peace with all the things that I can't change because I can't control them. Who cares? And I want to just feel grateful and joyful and drift off to sleep feeling that way. Because one of the things that I realized years ago is that your last thought before bed and your Mental and emotional state as you fall asleep is almost always what you wake up with. You wake up with that same thought you went to bed thinking and that same emotional state that you dwelt in. And I'll tell you, when I go to bed using the miracle evening, that blissful bedtime, the benefit of that is I wake up in a blissful state and I'd say 9 out of 10 days now that's what I get to do. And that's a far cry from being suicidal after being sleep deprived to this. And so that's why I wrote the chapter. It's a 22 page chapter. And I was like, I want to pay this forward because I know people are struggling with sleep and I want to share what I did to overcome that.

Let's go through. I'm seeing people taking notes. We got slumber real quick. Stop eating. Let go.

Oh, dude, I'd have to open the book. I don't even remember all the acronyms.

Dude, you're an acronym machine. We've got the savers too. But let's step back then open the book, find the page. Because I do want to go through it real quick and obviously get the book.

Okay, I got it. I did find it.

I got you. Putting you on the spot. Yeah, actually, yeah, go there. Then we'll step back and I want to talk about your. I'm going to plant the seed, though. How is the embodiment of antifragility? So we'll talk more about his near death experience with his cancer and how he battled that and then how he has gone through that and alchemized it into the humble yet heroic wisdom that he's now sharing. So I just want to make that explicit that this is what heroes do. Heroes face those dragons that they feel may kill them at times literally. In Cal's case. There's other stories in your life in which you experience this and you struggle. You're not always winning and you're not always learning. You're just getting your butt kicked. Yet the hero moves from that victim to the creator to the hero. And your arc on that is just. It's so inspiring, man.

Thank you.

And thank you for sharing that. To have the humility to share it and let us know we're not alone. Stop eating. Let go. What else did this guy Hal Elrod have to say about slumber?

Thoughts and feelings. That's the L. Wait, wait.

Sorry, sorry, sorry. I was speaking over you. Say it again, please.

So, yeah, so the first is stop eating. Three to four hours before bed, the L is let go of stressful thoughts and feelings. Right? And I teach how to like, I call it flipping the switch, where it's like, oh, wait, this doesn't serve me. Okay, the only point. Do you hear the.

Do you hear the laughter in the audience? We also call it flip the switch, baby, let's go. I tell you, we're brothers.

There are no new ideas. All right? The U is use natural sleep aids if needed. And I just felt like I'd be. I should let people know, like, hey, there were supplements as part of my healing. So I wanted to share that. The M is for map out your next day, right? And that's just get it out of your head, get it on paper, write it in the journal. Make sure you don't have to think about what you're doing tomorrow because you already wrote it down. The B is for boycott blue light. That's pretty self explanatory. The E is for enter a blissful state with bedtime affirmations. And I give the bedtime affirmations that I use to allow me to enter that state. Right? And so that way it's what you talked about, targeted thinking, right? In arete, you talk about targeted thinking. And that's what those affirmations do. It's like these. I've already decided in advance and edited those affirmations. Like, this is exactly what I should focus on and think about and affirm right before I go to bed. The R is for read a book that makes you feel good. And I have a drawer full. My bedside table. I've got a drawer full of books that are. That fit the bill. I've got Loving what is Byron, Katie Lincoln.

Yep. Byron, Byron, Katie. Yep.

I've got Michael Singer, right? I've got some Michael Singer books. I've got some Eckhart Tolle books. I've got so many. And here's an important distinction, is they're books I've already read and they're underlined. Because there's a difference between reading something that's brand new for you and you're like, oh my God, this is. And then now I've got to contemplate it. I've got to think about it. I've got it right? Versus I'm only reading things I've already read. They're underlined. I don't have to remember them, right? So it takes that pressure and stress off of overworking your brain right before bed. And then the S is for sleep like a baby. And I mean that in a Couple of ways.

Your baby slept well. I got my wife back here. Is she still in here? Oh, my goodness. But go on. Yeah. Sleep like a baby that sleeps well. Go on.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's right. I've had somebody some pushback on that. Yeah.

Oh, no, we're good, dude.

The point being that the, you know, a baby's state of consciousness is one without worry. Right? That's the essence of that, is that they're not thinking about their to do list. They're not worried about the future. And so that's it. It's getting back to that state of innocence and of safety. Right. And so. Yeah, so that's it. And so those slumbers, those six or seven practices. Right, Those kind of seven steps. Yeah. That's the essence of the miracle evening. And then the underlying theme, of course, is just the idea that at bedtime, you only have one objective, and it's to prepare your mind and body for restful sleep. So how can you set it up so everything that you do leading up to bedtime is aligned with that singular objective?

Brilliant. Dude, I'm so happy that this is in your new book or the updated edition. This is so good. So to repeat, team slumbers sounds a lot familiar to what we talk about, huh? But framed up so good. Stop eating three to four hours before you go to bed. Let go of stressful thoughts and feelings. Use natural sleep aids as necessary. Map out your next day. See it, get it out of your head. Visualize it. Boycott blue light. That is fantastic. Way to frame that up. Enter a blissful state with positive affirmations. I want to come back to that for you and hear what you do there. Then we've got read a book that makes you feel good. I love the distinction. On you're not reading Arete for the first time before you go to bed. All right. Whoa. Brian's in my head. Let's go. You know Michael Singer. Great call for the end of the evening. You know, Thich Nhat Hanh, whoever you got. And then we've got sleep like a baby that sleeps great. But that consciousness, that's free, that's just relaxed in a state of calm. Let's go. Let's sleep quickly before we go back in. Targeted thinking. I love that you connected it to targeted thinking. So the end of the day routine is, we're done. The day's done. You may or may not have done everything. Well, you certainly didn't do everything you wanted to do at the highest possible level. That's a given so have the wisdom to know that, but let it go, you know, and then your next target is a good night of sleep. So I have this ritual too. And I'm going to integrate some of the ideas that you've shared that I do implicitly. I'll make it more explicit in what I do. But literally I wear earplugs at night because our dogs can get a little nuts. Put on my whatever little eye mask thing. But as I put my earplugs in, I'm like, today's over. Boom. Today was a great day. It's like a ritualistic thing of nope, dropping in. And then when and if. And I do a certain breath and kind of affirmation in my own way. But when and if I get up in the middle of the night, which is pretty much every night because I'm on right now and I'm thinking and sometimes it's celebratory, sometimes it's real creative. But I remind myself of what I want. So I go targeted thinking, what do I want? I want to get back to sleep. I want to have a great night of sleep. Perfect. Then I work that protocol. But that targeted thinking at the end of the day is so cool. What are your affirmations to the extent you're open to sharing some of them that you use to get into that blissful state?

Yeah. Essentially the first thing that I affirm is that no matter how many hours of sleep I'm getting tonight, my body is going to. It's a miraculous organism that is going to rest and rejuvenate and repair and I'm going to wake up feeling incredible. And that's part of the idea that your first thought in the morning is the same as your last thought before bed. And if you go to bed going, oh my God, I got so much to do tomorrow, I'm going to be exhausted. Or if you have a belief that you need eight hours of sleep but you're only getting seven, then how you feel in the morning becomes a self fulfilling prophecy which is like, oh my God, I need eight hours of sleep, but I have to get up early, I only get seven now I'm going to be tired, I'm not getting enough sleep. Well then when you wake up in the morning, that's exactly how you feel versus oh wow, I'm only getting seven hours of sleep, but that's perfect tonight. Right. And it's just deciding like I'm going to tell my body what it's going to experience throughout the night and I'm going To decide how I'm going to feel in the morning. Right. As opposed to letting some uncontrollable circumstance at this point decide that. And then the other is I actually, I just go through tonight. I am focusing on what I have to be grateful for as I fall asleep. And as I go to sleep, that's what I do as I drift off. You know, it's the old counting your blessings, I guess. Right. But I just think about what I'm grateful for. And sometimes I'll replay a conversation I had with my daughter in the evening, you know, connecting with her. I'll be grateful for my wife. If I had a tough day, if I had, like, let's say you have the worst day ever, right? It was just a bad day. You know, you had some conflicts. It was stressful. You didn't get done what you wanted to get done. If there's not much to replay during the day that actually lets you feel rested, then I will simply be grateful for the bed. I will go deep into gratitude for the pillow, and I will hug the pillow, and I will go, thank you for giving me a place to rest. I will go, thank you for this bed. And I'll stretch. God, so comfortable. And then a really important part of this, and I recognize this a few months back, or I guess while I was a few months ago, six months ago, actually, when I was writing the book. But is one of, if not the most important thing to affirm as we fall asleep is I am safe. I am safe. If you don't feel safe, then your body, your brain cannot shut down and allow you to fall asleep. And there's many. Not feeling safe shows up in a lot of forms. You might not feel safe in your finances. Right. You might not feel safe in a relationship. You might not feel safe in the fact that maybe there's, you know, crime is up in your city. So it's a literal state. Right. Whatever it is. And so going back to. My singular objective is to prepare my mind and body for restful sleep. Well, feeling safe is the only way to effectively do that. And so that's become a really important affirmation, is not only I am safe, but thank you, God. Right? So it's combining the safety, the feeling of safety with gratitude that I am grateful that I am safe in my home, in this bed. And I'm gonna get a great night's rest.

Beautiful. I'm feeling safe in your presence, and I'm feeling excited in a calm, tranquil way. We did a cold plunge with one of Our dear coaches here we did Wim Hof. So he was. I'm excited to go hop into that cold plunge fueled by 4,000 pounds of ice. I feel excited to put this into work tonight. So much we can talk about there. I've already seen a bunch of people say, got the book. Get the book. It's great. Hal's got the same conversational, humble, non pretentious communication of really practical ideas, which is why I loved it when I first read it. Miracle morning forever ago. And he just, he concretizes these ideas really, really well. So if you're enjoying this, get the book. I want to talk. I don't want to talk about my book per se, but I want to talk about what Arete means for you. So. And I know that you've. And if you haven't seen my interviews with Hal, each of them that we've done. Have we done three so far?

I think so. Two on Arete maybe, and then one before forever ago.

They're tied for first for my all time favorite conversations. Hal has a similar style in being able to elicit the best from me in our conversations. So I'm really, really proud of those conversations and I'm really excited to share them. So check those out. We'll put those in the live stream. We'll follow up with this here. I know that Arete has resonated with you and I would just like to hear kind of, I guess on the highest level, why, like, what is it that you found to be such a deep connection in the form of that book?

So first, and it's, you know, as I'm reading it, I just have to mention, like, when you read a book as an author, right. You're reading it in two different lenses always. Right. You're reading it through the lens of like, okay, how does this content impact my life? And then how does this author write his book? Right? Like, what might I learn from his writing style or her writing style or. Right. And so, you know, just mentioned everything when I first got the book, I told you, like, it's the only book I've ever rubbed on my face because it's so soft. Like, that's weird. But it's, it's like you just, you just did such a beautiful job with the book before I even opened it up, I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is, this is gorgeous. This is special. Right? Like, and that's. I know that was your objective, so congratulations. Right? It's that.

Did you lick it? That was the goal.

I'm a germ freak, so I couldn't lick it. The face Rob was the closest I could get.

Hey, hero. Have you heard the news about Brian's book? Activate youe Heroic Potential? Head to Heroic US Book to learn more and get your copy, as well as check out exclusive content and bonuses. That's Heroic US Book. Now back to today's episode.

So here's the deal. First, it's your writing style. You are the most conversational writer possibly ever, and in such a fun way. And that's one thing that I actually, again, going back, I'm like, oh, I wish I could model that more in my writing. I love that you don't obey the. I forget the name of it, but the proper grammar. You capitalize words because you're like this. And I get that as I'm reading your book, I just hear you talking the entire time. It's like, I have the audiobook. Even though I'm not listening to the audiobook I'm reading. And I get your voice, and I hear when a word's in all caps, I just. I hear, you know, hey, Hiro, day one. Let's go. Like, I just feel your energy, and it's. You have a really amazing writing style. So that was. That was one. So it's really enjoyable. And I, like. I love coming back to it. In fact, I broke my own rule. You actually said, let's not. Yeah, don't read Arete at night. No, I broke my own rule. I, like, started reading it in the morning, and I'm like, this could actually be a nighttime read. Even though I'm gonna have to underline a lot. Right? Like, so I've gone back and forth. I've been having it. I've had it on the bedside table. Then I take it out in the morning. You know, it kind of goes back and forth. But the other piece is, I love how you made it so personal. And you like the way you're the story of Emerson and you in the beginning. And I love how the flow between chapters, like, you're just taking me on a journey. Whereas most chapters in most books are very disjointed, right? It's like, topic, begin, end, right? Topic, begin, end. And you're taking me on this journey. And then the fact that your chapters are so short. I love that because, you know, like, at night sometimes I'm like, oh, I'm tired, man. I don't have time to do a bunch of reading. But I can knock out a chapter in Arete, right? I can read three Pages. Get some wisdom, get some that. Feel that Brian. Energy and love as I'm reading. So, I mean, I could go on and on, man. But, yeah, I told you the other day, I don't ever say this until the end of a book. Right. I want to. I want to, you know, but it is so far, it is one of my favorite books of all time.

So much I can say in response to that. Thank you. As a writer, as a creator, as a guy that's worked hard to be worthy of those kind words, to see the things I really wanted to create reflected back from you, someone I respect and admire so much, means so much to me. So bless you. Thank you. And I'm loving the image of you rubbing that up. No, truly, though, thank you. That's exactly what we hope to do with the book. What does arete mean for you? I asked this question to my dear friend Mark Devine, former Navy SEAL commander, and he gave me an answer that was just. And us an answer that was just so beautiful. What is? Because again, why I'm excited about the idea of arete is, you know, what is that word? How do you spell it? You know what I mean? How do you pronounce it? And from my vantage point, that word should have never left our cultural vernacular. This was the philosophy of the ancient Greek and Roman eras. Why is it that we have all these other words and we don't have this word that was preserved? So it was a bold choice to do what I did with the book, to go as deep as I did, as many ideas, et cetera. But I think one of the things I'm excited about with the book is it taps into a universal felt sense of. That's just right. There's something there of, yeah, yeah, yeah. When I live with virtue or excellence or express my best self, I feel a certain way, you know, But I want to hear. I would love to hear your thoughts on what that means for you. And then I want to connect it to anti fragility, which, of course is a big theme that I think you are one of the most beautiful living embodiments of. But can you frame that up for us of how arete what it means for you?

Yeah. When you and I talked on our last conversation on my podcast, it reminded me of, and this is how I think that where I link it is a book I read years ago when I was writing the Miracle Morning. I read Matthew Kelly's the Rhythm of Life, and his definition of life's purpose is to become the best version of Yourself. And as I was writing the miracle morning, I was like, oh, that's what the miracle morning is. It's like, this is a daily practice that enables you to become a better version of the person you were the night before. And if you do that every single day, you become the best version of yourself. And to me, that's what Arete means to me, right? It's fulfilling your potential. It's becoming the best version of yourself. And the other piece that I would add to it is the to what end? Why, Arete? Why become the best version of yourself? Why fulfill your potential? And to me, fulfilling your potential is the greatest gift you can give to the people that you love and the people that you lead, because that is what enables you to lead by example and to inspire and empower and encourage and show them how to fulfill their potential, right? So us embodying Are ate is the greatest gift we can give to those we love and those we lead because it's what enables us to help them embody. Arete. And then, like Phil Stutt said, if enough people commit to this, it will change the world. And that's it.

So beautiful, dude, I love that you brought it to loving and leading. And, you know, Cal Newport, Hal Elrod. Hal has a great blurb that we have in the book. Cal Newport has one about, you know, optimization for the sake of the self. Ultimately, he doesn't use the word narcissistic, but at the end of the day, what's that for? That's shallow to use his frame, but we need to commit to something bigger than ourselves. So I want to hear from you what it means to be heroic, as I also try to redefine what that means, that it isn't the famous, wealthy, hot people you're looking on who have all the most Instagram followers like that, isn't it? You know, but your phrase of to love and lead, this is what Mark Devine said, former Navy SEAL commander, very integrated, spiritual guy. He said, arte is love in action, you know, and to hear you talk about doing the hard work to forge the strength for two, as I would say, to love and to lead is ultimately what it's all about. And then also that the hero becoming the guide is a theme I'm making more and more explicit in our work. So the number of heroic quests you've been on personally and how you've used that to become the guide to train the heroes who become the guides who train the heroes is also a beautiful thing. I want to hear more about your story And I want to hear more about you embodying antifragility. But start by saying what antifragility means for you. And then if you're open to sharing some stories in your life and you touched on your cancer journey and those things, of how you've alchemized those challenges and operationalized that wisdom, we'd just love to hear you frame that up.

Yeah, yeah. Antifragility. I think it's being courageous. You mentioned. You asked about my definition of heroic. To me, it's doing the right thing, not the easy thing. That's something that I learned when I was 20 years old from a mentor. And he said, hal, the secret to success in life is do the right thing, not the easy thing. And that was so simple and so memorable that it never left me. And to this day, when I'm like, what should I do? I'm really tempted to stay up super late, or I'm tempted to eat this food because it's full of sugar and that's really yummy. But in my heart, and I think that for all of us, very rarely do we not know the difference between the easy thing and the right thing. We almost always know if we just stop and get quiet and go, you just know. And to me, that's whether you call it your intuition or the voice of God, right? Or higher consciousness, whatever you want to call it, or just your own inner wisdom that being heroic is doing the right thing, not the easy thing, because it's always easier to do the easy thing. And that can be in the midst of little choices, like what you eat, right? Like, okay, the right thing is the thing that contributes to my energy and my longevity and my health and will enable me to be around for my kids for a long, long, long time. When you really unpack it, that's the right thing. It might seem like a little choice, do I eat this food or this food? But if I actually realize the implications of these little choices. And there's something I talked about in the miracle morning called one of the causes of mediocrity. And let me define mediocrity really quickly, because I've had some people get offended by that word. How dare you call me mediocre. Well, to me, mediocrity is not about how we compare to other people, right? Like, if you compare yourself to certain people, you're like, everybody. I'm mediocre compared to all these other people. Mediocrity is simply a gauge against your full potential, right? And if you accept less than your best you are accepting a degree of mediocrity for yourself. And by the way, I do it every day. We all do it every day, right? There is no one that's impervious. Perfect. And I always accept less than my best, which is that striving with arete to consistently try to uplevel and get better and better and better and be okay with progress, not perfection. Where was I going with. I diverted from my point.

We were talking about mediocrity and some people get offended, which is when I often glitch too. It's like, oh wait, that time I did offend that person saying that. That's funny.

Yeah, yeah. Ye. Now in the new edition of the book, I have a little section that's like, hey, don't let this word offend you. Let me explain what it means. Right? But doing the right thing, not the easy thing, I think was the part of it I said. So whether it's small choices like the food that you're going to eat or. And I'll transition real quick into these.

Stories and then let me actually reflect back after you wrap this one up because there's some stuff I want to reflect on because we're so aligned again. But go on.

Okay, so I'll do a real high level overview and we can unpack all these. But so three really life or death situations that I've had in, in my life. The, the first was when I was 8 years old. I woke up to my mother screaming across the hall and I ran into her bedroom and my 18 month old baby sister was dead in her arms. My mom was performing cpr, you know, breathing into her little mouth, trying to, just to save her. And at 8 years old, I didn't fully process what that, you know, like, I didn't, I didn't get it. I mean, I know our family was devastated. My mom was a mess, my dad was. We're all, we're all, you know, just. We lost our sis, my sister and their daughter. But within six months, my mom was leading a support group for other parents who had lost children. And to me that's heroic, right? It's like the right thing is to turn her, you know, she decided to turn her pain into purpose and help other people. And that planted the seed for how I would take, you know, lead my future adversities. Now you fast forward 12 years later. I was 20 years old, driving home after giving a speech at a sales conference that I was a salesperson for. And my car was hit head on by a drunk driver at 70 mph. My car spun off. The drunk driver, the car behind me crashed into my driver's side door at 70 miles per hour. And I broke 11 bones on the left side of my body and was found dead at the scene. I bled to death. My heart stopped for six minutes. I ended up revived on a helicopter with the defibrillator and with blood pumped back in me, I was brought back to life, rushed to the hospital, spent six days in a coma, and came out of the coma to be told I would never walk again and that I had permanent brain damage. And again, we can unpack that, but that's the high level. And of course my mindset was I will walk again, but if I never walk again, because I don't know what I don't know, and maybe they're right, maybe I will never walk again. If I'm in a wheelchair the rest of my life, I will be the happiest, most grateful human being that you've ever seen in a wheelchair. And I want to add, just to connect with everybody, what's your wheelchair? What's the experience in your life, either in the past or in the present, that causes you emotional pain and you think it's because of the wheelchair or the divorce or the bankruptcy and what I learned in the car accident and that experience is like, no, I can actually choose to be the happiest. We can choose to be the happiest, most grateful we've ever been in the midst of the darkest, most difficult times we ever experienced. In fact, to me, that's the only choice to make. Why make any? Why make a lesser choice than that? Right? And then the third adversity was six years ago, seven years ago, at age 37, I was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive form of cancer. I was given a 20 to 30% chance of surviving. The stakes were a lot higher because I had kids. I had a 7 year old daughter, 4 year old son and my wife, of course. And I made the same decision, two decisions. The doctors say there's a 20 to 30% chance that I'm going to survive it. No, that's not that I'm going to survive it. Those are the statistics globally, for every human being that's diagnosed with this cancer, including those that give up the faith that they can win, that they can live, that they can survive, including those that live in fear, including those that don't do everything in their power, holistically, naturally, in every possible way to beat the cancer. And I told my wife and I decided there's a 100% chance that I will be among the 20 to 30% of those that survive this. And I encourage all of you to consider that no one sets your statistics. Anytime you get a statistic that's a global statistic, it has very little to do with you. You decide and you create your own statistics. And so yeah, so those are the three major life, you know, life and death experiences that I had, Brian. And you know, learned a lot from them.

Other than that, not a lot going on that we can talk about. All right. Wow, what a beautiful story with your mom. I'm so sorry, of course, to hear that. And the heart wrenching experience for each of you and the antifragility, the pain to purpose, the. All right, well, I'm going to be the absolute best steward of the wisdom that I have gained in this tragic incident to help those who are going through it who may not have the same wisdom that I've been blessed to have. What an amazing modeling. And then your story as a young man going through that and I loved your all in not attached. You couldn't say that you're going to get out of the wheelchair yet. Okay, perfect. I mean this is. I'm sure at that point you hadn't been into stoicism, but this is the embodiment of the stoic philosophy. I'm looking at sweary stoic Lydia here who approves radical acceptance. You cannot change that which has happened to you. But you do have control over your thoughts and your behavior. So what are you going to think? How are you going to perceive the situation and what are you going to do about it? And then most recently with your cancer journey, my brother went through something similar with stage 4 pancreatic. Very different attitude, very different lifestyle. But it was one of the things I pulled out in conquering cancer 101 and 102, which is. Stats mean nothing for the individual. They're an interesting thing certainly, and they're useful to an extent for a general population. But goosebumps, the intensity with which you describe that and Ray Dalio believability here, folks. It's one thing to talk about these ideas in the abstract. It's an entirely different thing to be connecting to a person that's been there, done that. You know, we've all got our challenges, we can bring them up, but mine aren't going to compete with Hal's. Yours might. But here's Hal's embodiment of these ideals. I found that to be just beautiful. How did you do that? So this is the definition again of antifragility. The wind extinguishes a candle, it fuels a fire. So Hal literally exited that cancer treatment healthier than he went into it. That's a profound thing. It's an incredible demonstration. That's really easy to say and to get intellectually, but then to miss, and I'm certain of that, that you today are healthier physically, psychologically, emotionally than you were the day before you got the diagnosis. Is that accurate?

Yes. And I would say that the three years of chemotherapy took a toll on my body. And that's actually just in full transparency. That's a disheartening piece. I didn't want to do chemotherapy. And the first day I met with my oncologist and he said, because your cancer is so aggressive and right now your organs are already failing, the chemotherapy regimen is one of the most intense chemotherapy regimens in existence. So they wanted me to do roughly, I think it's 700 hours of chemotherapy over a seven month period. I ended up getting through seven of the eight sessions. The last, they thought I would die. They didn't think my body could survive the final session, so they canceled it. So I was very close to death. I went from being £170 to £125. You can imagine that, right? I mean, just losing my bone density, my body mass. And anyway, I didn't want to do chemotherapy. And the very first day that I was told I had to do that, I said, hey doc, give me 24 hours to, you know, to do a little research. He said, okay, but you only have one to three weeks to live. So I would decide quickly. And I kind of thought it was a scare tactic a little bit. I was like, all right, you're trying to get me to do your chemo, but I don't even know you. I'm going to do a little research. So, Brian, I reached out to two of the best holistic oncologists in America, and one was Dr. Brzezinski in Houston. And I thought, oh, I'm in Houston, I'm getting my chemo treatment here. He's here. It must be meant to be. And I reached out to these two holistic oncologists and they both said, hall, your organs are failing. There's nothing we can do for you. Your best bet is actually you've got to do that chemotherapy. So it's very difficult. Like, I know that it's going to do irreversible harm to my or I don't know if it's Irreversible, but it's going to do some major damage to my body. But it sounds like it's my only choice. If these two holistic doctors aren't going to take me on, I can't go rogue. So here's the decision I made. Number one, okay, I'm doing chemotherapy. Number two, I am not leaving my life in the hands of some doctors that have no skin in the game. Right? I am not. I am not leaving it up to them to save me. I am taking 100% responsibility for saving my life. And so I will do the best Western medicine has to offer, but I will do it with my using my miracle morning to maintain an optimal mindset that the chemo is killing the cancer, but my body is strong enough to survive. It's. And then, number three, I will relentlessly research every holistic practice known to man, and I will implement everything I can to counteract the negative effects of the chemo. So I took 70 supplements a day. You know, I juiced every single day. I had, you know, a phenomenal diet. I did ozone sauna multiple times a week. I did lymphatic massage. I meditated every day. I used all of my miracle morning practices. Meditation, affirmations, visualization, all targeted toward healing my body from within. And I did three coffee enemas a week. And if you don't know what that is, Google it. It is not comfortable. But when you're doing it, you're thinking, man, if I'm willing to do this, I'm gonna beat this cancer. There is no other option. Yeah. And once again, kind of like the car accident and walking again, the doctors were kind of blown away by how well my body was responding and how quickly I was responding to the treatment and so on and so forth. And if it wasn't for the holistic practices, which began with my 100% responsibility to take ownership of my healing, I do not think I would be here today, Brian. I do not think I would have survived the chemo. And that's the thing. The reason that it's such grim odds is because it's such an intense chemotherapy regimen, and the average person is doing only what their doctor tells them. And I will tell you, I asked my doctor on day one, hey, what part does diet play in my healing? He said, it doesn't matter as long as you do the chemotherapy. And it took everything to bite my tongue and go, how dare you not tell people that what they eat has no effect on their healing? Anyway, sorry, I'm on my.

I'M on a rant.

But yeah, man, that was the journey.

Again. The goosebumps, the wisdom with which you're communicating this, you know, and the humility and the deference to Western medicines is heroic. I mean, it's a miraculous thing that again, I've got mundane, ridiculous example. But if I didn't, I have 20 screws in my arm. You may not know that, but I shattered my arm. And had this been 100 years ago, I'd be the dude that's got part of an arm. There's no possible way that my arm would have been salvaged. Acute trauma like what you were experiencing, what I was experiencing and you experienced a couple times, you know, in the most acute situation. My goodness, what a blessing that these men and women have dedicated their lives and their teams to save our lives. And one of the other themes and frames that I learned as I was working with my brother is patient. Patient goes to a doctor. The word patient means to submit, essentially. So you basically said, yeah, yeah, we're going to partner on this and I'm going to do my best to be a great co creator of my health. But I'm a conqueror, so the opposite of one who submits. And again, with deference to the medical industry and all the other things that are going on and those trying to help us, we are conquerors going out and claiming victory for our health. So I love that. And then there's a book I haven't done a note on yet, so I don't recall the author or the title, but it's a Navy SEAL who is just ambushed and blown up and shouldn't have died, shouldn't have lived. There no situation where he should have lived, fought to the last second, somehow made it through, but he's just blown up. He's just a mess and he's in the hospital and people are feeling sorry for him. He puts up a sign on the thing. Do not come in here if you feel sorry for me. I nearly died doing exactly what I wanted to be doing, serving my brothers and serving my country and don't get it. Do not come in here unless you're coming in with a positive attitude. Because I'm going to do all the things that you just described how. But he also makes the point that after things like that, your 12 inch ruler gets cut back sometimes to 11 inches or 10 inches or 9 inches and you simply can't do the things you did before. So there are, quote, irreversible wheelchair kind of limitations that are imposed on us that didn't exist before. But then you say to that. Perfect. I radically accept that I'm going to be the happiest version of me I can possibly be within the new constraints of my reality. But, man, so inspired by you and who you are and how you show up, what else can you share with us in terms of how we can take your experiences and forge our own antifragile confidence that we have what it takes to meet life's challenges?

Yeah, I think that one of a couple things I want to take just a few minutes to share the five minute rule, because I feel like this is so important, and this is the. How did you get to the place where, at 20 years old, you were totally at peace with a car? You know, being told you're never going to walk again, like, that's not normal. It was because a year and a half prior, I had learned the five minute rule in my Cutco sales training. And the five minute rule simply says that when things go wrong, it's okay to be negative, but not for more than five minutes. And we were literally taught to set our timer on our phone for five minutes whenever we had some sort of adversity, be it major or minor. Normally it was like your customer didn't show up for the appointment. You really needed that appointment, or they canceled their order, or you called and they were rude on the phone, and they hung up, and you have this pit in your stomach like, oh, my God, how could they be so mean to me? And you go, all right, five minutes. Process the emotion, move through it. And that was what my mentor taught me, is he said, sales is a microcosm for life's adversity, Amplified, meaning the average person occasionally faces rejection. The average person fails every so often. You know, maybe annually they fail to reach a goal. He said, a salesperson, you're going to be rejected every day, and you're going to fail multiple times a week. Definitely multiple times a month. He said, you need a strategy, a tool, a method to quickly move through challenges, adversities, disappointments, and just keep going forward. And so that was that five minute rule. And after the timer went off, after five minutes, he taught us to say three really powerful words which are can't change it. It's a simple acknowledgement that I can't change what happened five minutes ago. And by the way, this is true for any time frame, y'. All, if you're still suffering, feeling pain over something that happened five months ago or five years ago or five decades ago, which many of us have the Timeframe is arbitrary, but after the five minutes, it's the can't change it is the decision, okay, I can't change what's happened in my past. So I only have two choices. I can continue to suffer, wishing it didn't happen, resisting my reality. And we have to understand that every painful emotion that we experience is a result of resisting reality. Wishing and wanting something, we're different that's out of our control. Whether it's a past experience, a current experience, another person and how they treat you right. And just imagine the degree that you resist reality and go, no, it can't be this way. They can't be this way. Why are this way? Why is life this way? It's not fair. The degree that you resist reality determines the degree of emotional pain that you create within yourself. That's choice number one. It doesn't serve us. Choice number two is I can accept my reality exactly as it is. Accept reality exactly as it is. Now why would you do that? Because acceptance is the doorway to peace, inner peace. It's only once we accept life as it is that we liberate ourselves from that resistance and that self created suffering. And we can then choose consciously elevate our consciousness to a state of peace. I can't change that I was in a car accident, but I can be at peace with it. And I want to be happy, I want to move forward, I want to enjoy life. So the only logical choice I have is to completely be at peace with my reality exactly as it is. And there's one important distinction here. Being at peace does not mean you're happy about it. I wasn't happy that I was in a car accident. I wasn't happy when I wasn't sleeping through the night. Right, you're not happy if you go through horrible things in your life. But there's a major difference between happiness, which is a positive, short lived, fleeting emotion, and any of your negative emotions. And then in between positive and negative emotions is the state of consciousness known as peace. Or you can call it inner peace and it's emotionally neutral. I don't have to be happy that I was in a car accident, but I can acknowledge I can't change it. So the only choice I really have if I want to live a good life is to be at peace with that which I can't change. And from that place of peace, now I'm free to choose the mental and emotional states that would best serve me in this moment, on this day, on my journey, going in the direction that I want to go. And so that lesson, that five minute rule, was the greatest lesson I learned. And I use it not just in major things, but in traffic. If you hit traffic, and most of us can relate, if you hit traffic and you know you need to be somewhere in 20 minutes and now you're going to be there in 40. Most of us spend those 40 minutes just emotionally tumultuous, right? Just, oh, go faster. Gosh dang it, I'm going to be late and my boss is going to be upset. Or Right? You spend that 40 minutes and that's how too many of us are spending our lives. We're focusing on things that are out of our control, which causes us to feel out of control, which perpetuates feelings of stress, fear, anxiety, and depression. And the key to all of that, to the freedom from all of that, is to accept the unchangeable and work on changing the changeable. It's the serenity prayer, right? God grant me the wisdom to accept the things I cannot change, to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. And so that, to me, has been the greatest lesson I've learned. And I applied it to cancer. It's why when I was diagnosed, I'm like, well, I can't change it. I might as well choose to be the happiest, most grateful human being that's ever gone through cancer. Because I'm going through cancer either way. And it's going to make it that much easier to go through that experience.

We're going to give Hal a real big round of applause in a moment. Hal, dude, I'm so inspired. I'm so humbled by your presence and your wisdom and your commitment and your demonstration. You're a good one, dude. I love you. I appreciate you. Thank you for being you, dude. Thank you for living your hero's journeys over and over again with so much wisdom, discipline, love, courage, gratitude, hope, curiosity, and zest. And then more love, man. Bless you, team. If you can give it up for Hal, I would appreciate it.

Thank you, everybody. I love you so much, Brian. I love you, man. Thank you guys and gals.

Omg, dude. I mean, you've written so many great books, but I'm. And you share some of your story in all of your books, but I'm really, really excited about your next book. You know what I mean? Everybody's gonna go get Miracle Morning. We're gonna do everything we can to support you with that. And there's just, there's. There's so much wisdom, you know, in you and your essence and your story that. Just feel blessed, man, to be connected, do everything I can to support you and amplify your wisdom. Thank you. Bless you and hugs in person soon.

Dude, I can't wait to see you and everybody. This is one of the greatest books ever written by any philosopher, living or dead. And thankfully, he's living and he's right here in front of us, Brian, so I love you, man. Thanks, buddy.

Oh, dude, can I ask you one more question?

Yes.

Who are your two favorite heroes?

Oh, my mom and dad. I mean, I think that's an easy answer. My mom and dad. Yeah. When I had cancer, my dad gave up everything. He. He's an executive for a company, and he just called in and he's like, hey, I got to go to Texas. My son, you know, I got to go help my son beat this. We got in a. We got an apartment next to the hospital. And he just told his. He told his boss, you know, if you can. If you can let me do this, great. If I can come back, great. But, like, this takes priority. And he was willing enough to give up everything to save me. And so, yeah, mom and Dad.

We're so proud of you, dude. And I like to say that we are the. My goodness, we are the kind of the integrated integration of the best qualities in our two heroes. And just to feel the truth of that, you know, this story you shared about your mom before, I asked you who your hero was, you know, and how she handled the tragedy you all experienced as a young boy. And then to feel the love of your dad being there, man, and to see you so fiercely committed to making him proud, you know, and to be in the best version of yourself. Matthew Kelly style. We both love him so much. In service to them, you know, and as a demonstration of the qualities that they so gracefully and graciously gave to us. Bless you, man. Love you, appreciate you. And day one, all in. Let's go, hero. All right, everybody.

Take care.

All right.

Hey, hero. We hope you enjoyed this heroic chat. To learn more about this series, as well as how you can join Brian's daily live coaching sessions at 1:01pm Central Time. Plus, get access to a ton more to help you move from theory to practice to mastery and express the best, most heroic version of yourself. Head to heroic us today. And if you liked this episode, please leave a positive review and hit the subscribe button on your platform of choice. Have a fantastic day.