The Morning System Behind Millions of High Performers with Hal Elrod
In this hour‑long interview, host James Laughlin talks with bestselling author Hal Elrod about the life‑changing events that birthed the Miracle Morning and its SAVERS framework (Silence, Affirmations, Visualization, Exercise, Reading, Scribing). Hal recounts his early career at Cutco, a catastrophic car crash that left him clinically dead for six minutes, and the stoic "five‑minute rule" he learned from a sales mentor that taught him to acknowledge pain, accept reality, and move forward. He explains how that rule evolved into a broader personal‑development system during the 2008 recession, when he lost his business, home, and most clients. A single quote from Jim Rohn sparked the idea to codify six timeless practices into a daily ritual. Hal walks through each SAVER, sharing practical tips, the optional six‑minute version, and how the habit can be scaled from a single minute to an hour. He also describes his rapid physical recovery, a comeback sales competition, and the role of community, the Miracle Morning app, and a 30‑day challenge in cementing the habit. The conversation ends with advice for living purposefully and a shout‑out to a high‑performing athlete who uses the system.
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Today's special guest is number one best selling author, Hal Elrod. You will know him from his book the Miracle Morning. How to have the most epic morning to set you up for success. It has been read by millions of people and today we're going to break it down with Hal on how you can do it and maximize your days. Enjoy the show. Hal, a huge welcome to the Habits of high Performers podcast. It's been a little while since you and I caught up and I have to say I'm super excited to share this book with people that currently don't know about it. There's millions of people that do know about it, about it, but many millions that don't. So how's things going to kick start the year for you?
It's good, man. I keeping family as my top priority. My son is in basketball right now and like the highlight of my life right now are his basketball games. There's no, we had one yesterday. Nothing is more fun to me than what I mean. I'm jumping up, I'm yelling, you know, I'm just, I'm excited. It's like, so he scored two baskets yesterday, which was exciting and legend.
Yeah, I love it. Speaking of basketball, I was just, I got, I seen this recently. Steph Curry's book shot ready.
Oh, wow.
And it's phenomenal. And I've just, I haven't watched a lot of basketball, but I have to say, very inspiring, very inspiring. Read all about applying Steph Curry's lessons to your life and your business. So highly recommend it.
Oh, I'm gonna check that out. I love, I'm a fan of Steph Curry, man. He's, you know, he's just, he's one
of a kind, 100%. And I bet he's the kind of guy that has a pretty epic morning. You know, we're gonna get talking about morning routines.
Miracle Morning. It's just y. That's, that's, that's it.
100%. Now, before we talk about Miracle Morning, you know, most people in the world will know you for a morning routine, but it's way more than that. So what did life force you to learn about personal responsibility and agency that eventually became the miracle morning?
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it started at 20, when I was, I was a sales rep for Cutco Cutlery. I was selling high quality kitchen knives and I had broken quite a few of the company records and that was really the first time in my life where I wasn't lazy and I was actually dedicated and believing in myself. That I could do something. And most of the credit goes to my mentor Jesse, that hired me at Cutco. And he was the number one manager in the entire company across the country. And so he was really good at bringing out the best in other people. And he saw potential in me that I just, I didn't see in myself. I was in high school, I got in trouble all the time. I was in detention. I wasn't an athlete. I didn't get good grades. Like I was very mediocre for my whole life up until Cutco. And then Jesse was like, I see in you, you could be one of the best. And I was like, really? Right. So that was huge. And then I took, of course, ownership of, like, of my success. It was a commission based job. I only got paid based on how hard I worked and how much I sold. And so that's where it started. And then a year and a half of taking agency over my life, my success. I was driving home from giving a speech at a Cutco conference and my car was hit head on by a drunk driver at 112km per hour. I made the translation to the metric system for you.
Well done. That's 70 or 80 miles an hour.
Yeah, 70, I think 70 something miles an hour or 80 miles an hour. 112 kilometers an hour. And I was found dead at the scene. I broke 11 bones. A second car hit me in the, in the door. I spun off the drunk driver and a car crashed into my door at 70 miles an hour. And I broke 11 bones. I was found dead at the scene. It took them six minutes without. I had no heartbeat and they had to revive me. I think they had the defibrillators and they hooked me up to an IV and they brought me back to life. And I was in a coma for six days. And when I came out of the coma, the doctor said I would never walk again. And I made a decision that if I never walk again, and the doctors are right, since I can't, I won't be able to change my circumstances. That is what it is. I will be the happiest, most grateful person that anyone has ever, ever seen in a wheelchair. And that's what I told my dad. I said, dad, if I'm in a wheelchair the rest of my life, that's not what I want. But if that's what happens, there's no point in wishing it were different because that's my reality. I might as well embrace it, be at peace with it, and just find the joy in being alive. I Said, but until I'm proven that that's my only option, I'm not accepting that as my fate. I am meditating, praying, visualizing that I'm going to walk again. I'm maintaining unwavering faith in that possibility while I'm at peace with the worst case scenario. So I have no fear. I have no fear. It has no control over me. And two weeks later, after the doctor said I was in denial, they thought I was in denial because of what I was saying. They came in with routine X rays and they said, hal, we don't know how to explain this, but your body is healing fast and we're gonna let you take your first step tomorrow in therapy. And that was three weeks after I was found dead after 11 of my bones, including my leg and my pelvis, you know, broke. And three weeks later, two weeks after I came out of the coma, I took my first step. And the rest is kind of history, as they say. And the last thing I'll say on that is, thank God my dad took pictures of the car and me in a coma, because you and I are both keynote speakers. And so when I'm telling the story and I can put on the screen the picture of the car and the picture of me hooking up to tubes and the picture of me taking my first step, of course, you know, it makes it real and it brings it to life.
That's so mind blowing. And it's interesting as you're sharing this, I'm going, there's a lot of stoicism. Like when I think of the great stoics, how they would respond to challenge and adversity. I think of how you responded, like that's how like the Marcus Aurelius would respond to a situation. What led you to do that? Because many people were going to self pity, self loathing, anger, grief. Why did you do that?
I love that you're asking that. And I will say that, you know, stoicism and even Eckhart Tolle, the power of now. You know, I didn't read that until later and I went, oh, this is what I was doing without, you know, without having learned it this way. But I did learn something that I think really played a major part in it. It was on my second day of my Cutco sales training, which again, that was 18 months before the car accident. I went through my Cutco training and then giving a speech at the conference was when the accident happened. But we learned something on day two of training. And if anybody's watching or listening, this is one of the most life changing lessons that I still to this day implement. My mentor Jesse, he said sales is adversity amplified meaning he said the average person occasionally faces rejection. You're gonna get rejected like 10 times a day. You're gonna get rejected on the phone, you're gonna get rejected on sales appointments, you're gonna fail at reaching your goals. It's a lot of adversity. And he said you have to have a strategy to quickly take what happens to you, process it, move and keep moving forward. And so he taught us the fought what he called the five minute rule. And the five minute rule said that when something goes wrong, right, you don't, you don't, you know, you get rejected, you fail, you know someone's rude to you, whatever. Most people, he said, will dwell on that thing for long, unhealthy periods of time. And he said, you set your timer on your phone for literally five minutes and you give yourself five minutes to fully express and experience the worst, most painful emotions that are coming up. He goes, amplify them. Bitch, moan, cry, complain. Like, throw your hands and go, this isn't fair, I don't deserve it. Like, whatever you got to do. He said, a lot of people just shove it down and they're like, I don't have time for this right now. I got to keep moving forward. And then it comes out sideways. He said, give yourself five minutes. And then when the timer goes off, you say three very liberating words. Can't change it. It's a simple acknowledgment. The reality is I can't change what happened five minutes ago. So now I have a choice. Do I continue to be upset about it and stew over it and wish it didn't happen? None of which changes reality. It just causes me emotional turmoil. Or the second choice is you accept reality exactly as it is and then choose to just be at peace with the things that you can't change. And so when I first learned that, I thought, you know, I'm like, five minutes, I'm going to need more than five minutes. I need five hours, you know, right? I'll be upset for a while. But after I practiced it a while, five minutes was eventually more time than I needed. Something would happen. I'd go, I, I'd set the timer, I'd bitch and moan for 30 seconds, then I'd go, what's the point in wasting four and a half more minutes? Let's just get on with it, accept it, can't change it, move on. Having practiced that for A year and a half when I came out of the coma. And I'll be honest, it probably took me five days. It wasn't five minutes. I'm like, wait a minute, I'm never gonna walk again. What's that mean for my dating life? What's that like, I love basketball. So like there was a, you know, it was a life altering reality to process. And so it took me a few days, but eventually I came to the exact same conclusion. I can't change that I was in a car accident. I can't change that I broke 11 bones and I suffered permanent brain damage. So there's no point in wishing it were different, in feeling sorry for myself. The only logical choice I have is the same one when somebody cancels their cut quarter. I've got to accept my reality exactly as it is, be at peace with it and focus on what I can control, which always starts with my mindset and my attitude and being grateful and being happy with reality. And then I got to move forward. And so that is where it came from. It was that what seemed like an inconsequential little five minute rule strategy in Cutco training that ended up being stoicism and, and spiritual teachings and radical acceptance in a, in an actionable, simple, effective strategy that I got to implement every day.
That's so powerful and that's what we need as humans. We need something that is simple because the simple things are often the most powerful things. But you got taught a stoic philosophy in a very simple five minute rule. It's incredible. Now let's just for a minute, stay in that. So you, you start to walk, you take your first steps. What does the next six to 12 months look like from there? Do you take a step and then you, the rest of the time nothing happens? Or do you start to get some pretty incredible progress?
So it's three weeks after the crash. Doctors come in and give me the update that, hey, the X rays are showing they couldn't explain it, which shows the power of. I believe that's the power of whether you say it's the power of prayer, but to me it's the power of the mind, body connection and our ability to heal ourselves. And I took my first step that day. And then every day I went to therapy. My therapist Bob would wheel me in a wheelchair and I would take a few more steps and a few more steps and a few more steps. And after about a week or so I was able to, you know, start walk without. I had bars initially, like these parallel bars that I would hold onto eventually. Then I'm not using the bars at all. And then after a couple weeks I'm doing stairs and I'm, you know, and I'm literally, it's like lift one leg and lift another leg while I'm holding onto a bar. And I had no left hand. My. I severed my radial nerve. So my left hand, this was the extent of motion. I could not lift my hand. I could not open my fingers. And they didn't know if that would ever come back. That was part of my acceptance, is I may never walk again. And I only have a right hand and my left hand side does next to nothing, right? So I go to therapy every day for the next three weeks. And within three weeks, I'm now able to walk with a cane. I don't need a wheelchair. I'm walking very slowly. Little bit of pain. I'm walking to and from therapy in the hospital. And the doctors come in and they said, hal, I know we told you that you'd be in the hospital for roughly a year, but we're actually ready to let you out in a week if you're ready to go home.
Wow.
So seven weeks after the date of the crash, I went home. And I went home with a four prong cane, no wheelchair. And I left my pain meds. I said, I don't want to take pain medication. I think I took ibuprofen when the pain got bad, but I didn't want to be on oxycodone and all the crap they were giving me. And so I went home. And this is actually one of my favorite stories. I don't tell it very often, which is good to share it, but. Oh, when I was on one of my last days in the hospital, I was reminded by my friend who I sold Cutco with. He said, hal, I gotta go, I gotta get on the phone. Push period starts next week. And the push period is a two week Cutco sales competition. And that's what gets all the sales reps fired up to work as hard as they can. And you're competing against all your peers and no one is allowed to tell what they're selling. So it's like a mystery. And you don't find out until you show up at the conference. And they do the count up where they go, okay, if you sold between 500 and 1,000, step forward to the microphone and say your name and where you're from and how much you sold. And then, you know, hundreds of reps go, all right. And it keeps going up and up and up until there's only five people on stage. And then three and then two, and then you don't know who. And then the last one standing, right? And I lived for those.
Yeah.
And I said, jeremy, how crazy would it be if I found a way to sell Cutco for this push period? I'm getting out of the hospital in like a week. And he goes, dude, how? That's stupid. Just focus on healing. You don't need to sell Cutco right now, man. But I couldn't get it out of my head this. I. I'm like, what if I did that? And I remember, I'm like, nobody would do that. Nobody would go try to sell Cutco when they can. You know, my brain's not working right. I can barely walk. I'm like, I want to do that. And it was probably ego, in all honesty. It was. It was not all. Not. It was ego. Not from a place of like, I need to be better than anyone. It was like, I want to prove to myself and how cool would that be if I show up at the conference and I've, you know, and I've actually worked. And so I go home and I'm so tired. And it's hard to be motivated when you're tired. You know that. If you're exhausted, good luck. I was exhausted because when I slept at night, my body was still repairing all these broken bones and torn muscle tissue. So I'd wake up and I'd sleep for 12 hours a day and I'd wake up exhausted. And so a week goes by and Jesse calls me and he's like, hal, how's it going, man? I said, jess, I really wanted to sell Cutco for the push period, but I just am so tired. He goes, hey, there's no pressure to sell Cutco, but he goes, if you want to, why don't you just take it? Why don't you go make like five phone calls to prospects and then call me back just like, let's take it. Baby step it. I'm like, okay. So I make five phone calls, I schedule two appointments, and I'm like. I'm like, oh, my God. I call like, jesse, dude, I'm in. I'm in. I'm going, let's go. And so, long story short, there's only one week left in the two week push period. And I can't drive. I have brain damage. My license was taken away from me. So I convinced my dad, against my mom's wishes. She's begging like, no, let him heal. And My dad's going, look how excited he is. We gotta take him to appointments. So my dad drives me to my Cutco appointments. I sell $6,000 that week and I finish as like the number three rep out of 500 reps for the push period. And I go to the conference. And the coolest part was the president of our company on the very first night, push periods, day two, very first night, he's telling, he gives a speech about people that overcome adversity. And I don't know this is coming, but he's telling all these famous stories of all these people. And then he says, I have one more story to share. I get emotional thinking about it and he shares my story. And he said, I heard a rumor. Part of me doesn't believe it, but part of me does. I heard Hal has been out there selling Cutco for the push period and that he's gonna be up here tomorrow for the count up. And so the next day I do the count up. You know, I'm one of the top reps. And I get a standing ovation. Like that was just one of the high points of my life because I knew how hard it was, you know, to walk again, to believe in myself, to get on the phone to make those calls. And for me, it was like a. I remember I gave a little speech at the end. I go, hey, if I could do this. None of us have excuses as to why we can't overcome whatever excuses we're telling ourselves. They are all self imposed, as are our limitations. And we can overcome and accomplish anything that, you know, that we commit to.
That's so powerful. Hal, thank you for taking the time to share that. And I mean, all of us have our challenges and our failures and our moments of disaster, but not all of us choose to respond in a way like that. So it gives us all hope and gives us a blueprint for how we can respond. You're giving us permission, and it is quite miraculous what happened. I mean, for someone to be dead for six minutes and to be so broken and to be told you're not going to do these things in a couple of months, you're out there, you're achieving, you're giving it. And I think that says a lot about your determination and your mindset. So when we think about this before we break down Savers, because I want everyone to walk away with a tool that will change their life. Yeah. What problem was the Savers system actually designed to solve in your own life?
Yeah, I mean, it's very specific. It was Not a book idea, right? It wasn't like I went, okay, what, what's a need in the market, I'm going to, I want to write a book. Not at all. I had no intention of writing a book. It was 2008, the United States economy crashed. I was an entrepreneur. I had a coaching business. So that was how most of my income came from one on one coaching at the time. And within a matter of months, because the economy affected my clients where they're like, hey, I'm a real estate agent. And the real estate, nope, we're not selling any houses. Like all of my clients, their income was significantly affected. And so I lost over half of my clients in a matter of months. And I lost over half my income. And I was literally living on that income. I mean, I didn't have lots of reserves. So I start living on credit cards. I start going deep in debt just to pay for groceries and gas. And then I end up having to stop paying my mortgage because I can't afford mortgage, so my house gets foreclosed on. And all my positive stuff, everything, I just shared all of it. I didn't know what to do. I was scared, I was hopeless. Everything I had done to build my business, none of it was working. And my wife, she gives me a little bit of advice. I go listen to a Jim Rohn audio and Jim Rohn says a single quote that changed my entire life. I mean, it's the catalyst for the miracle morning. Jim Rohn said, your level of success will rarely exceed your level of personal development. And this is true in every area of life. And when I heard that, I quantified it. I went, okay, if my level of success will rarely exceed my level of personal development. And if you're watching or listening, there are two questions that I asked myself that I'm going to invite you to ask yourself to alongside me, sharing these questions. Number one. On a scale of 1 to 10, what level of success and fulfillment do I want in every area of my life? My health, my finances, my relationships, you name it. On a scale of 1 to 10, I think it's fair to say that every human being on the planet wants level 10 success and fulfillment. We want to be as happy and healthy and harmonious and in love and financially secure as we possibly can be. So the next question is, okay, well, if my level of success is not going to exceed my level of personal development, that would mean I would need my daily personal development to be at a level 10 to achieve level 10 success. And when I asked myself And I checked in. What's my level of personal development? I was like at a two or three. Like, I was like, yeah, I read here and there. I don't usually even finish all the books I'm reading. Sometimes I journal. But not like, I did not have a daily dialed in personal development ritual that harnessed the best practices that the world's most successful people throughout history had utilized to become the person, the individual they needed to be to achieve the success they wanted. And so I just googled what do the world's most successful people do for personal development? And I was looking for one practice, like, what's the best thing I could do? And as I'm journaling and I'm writing it down and I'm searching, I ended up with a list of six practices which became what you referenced earlier. These are the savers, the acronym S, A V, E, R. S for silence. It's your prayer, meditation, breathwork. The A for affirmations, not the way we've been taught, which are goofy and inauthentic. We'll get to that in a minute. The V for visualization. Like the world's greatest athletes, utilize visualization to mentally rehearse performing at their best. We can do and should do the exact same thing. The E in savers is for exercise right in the morning to get the blood and oxygen flowing to your brain. It's not just about getting in shape. It's about optimizing your mental clarity and your physical energy to. To show up at your best for the rest of the day. And then the R in savers is for reading. Right. We're all one book away from learning a strategy, whether it's habits of high performers or the miracle morning. Right. You know, but one book will change your life. I mean, we can all attest to that. And the final in the sabers, the final S is scribing, which is a fancy word for journaling, but the J would have made the acronym awkward. It would have been saber. Right? So we got scribing. And that's the magic of putting pen to paper. Whether you're writing down what you're grateful for so you can put it in writing, look at it, focus on it, evaluate it, feel it right at the depth of your soul, whether you're writing down what it is that you're committed to for the day. Okay, I got a to do list. 20 things on the to do list. What's the number one thing that I'm going to clarify in writing that I'm committed to do today? That'll move the needle. In my business or in my life, getting that clarity in writing is profound. It keeps you from checking email and then organizing your office and then, you know, bouncing from one thing to another using that clarity. And I'll close this part out by saying this. Any one of the savers will change your life if you do it every day. If you meditate every day, it'll change your life. If you read books every day, it'll change your life, right? If you exercise, it'll change. When you harness the six most timeless proven personal development practices in one ritual that can be done in anywhere from six minutes. There's a six minute version of the Savers in the new. In the new, you know, the updated and expanded edition of the book, it's where you focus on one minute on silence, one minute on your affirmations, one minute on visualization, one minute of exercise to move your body. Now, I don't recommend that you do the six minute version every day. That's on the days where you're pressed for time and you're using the excuse that we all use, which is, well, if I can't do it all, I just won't do it at all, versus, well, I can't do 60 minutes or 30 minutes, but I can do six, right? And so when I started this practice, I doubled my income in two months at the height of the Great Recession. And I told my wife, this morning routine is a fricking miracle. It enabled me to gain the clarity put, you know, and the motivation and the energy and the insights to transform my life. And she goes, it's your miracle morning. And that's where the idea for the book was born.
That's so incredible. I love it. And as I say, there's tons of people listening. There's probably half the audience that have your book read it and use it, and the other half are going, I need to get this miracle morning. So before we go into it, a little deeper, please, folks, in the show notes, go to miraclemorning.com where you can get lots of incredible free tools and resources. You can get the book. You can watch the movie Miracle Morning for free as well. There's a whole community in there, so please go and do that. But Hal, let's go deeper. So I'm a massive believer in habits. I believe we're all creatures of habit. Whether those are. There's no such thing as a good habit or a bad habit. But I believe in empowering habits and disempowering habits. Love it. Morning routine is everything. So I get up 5 to 5:15, and I have a very specific start to my day. Your savers is literally the way that we all need to start our day. So can we go through a little bit more detail around what stillness and silence looks like, feels like, what we can do to do that?
I'm going to answer that question in a slightly different way, James. And you know, in 2008 when I came up with the miracle morning, first of all, I was an amateur at most, if not all of these practices. I didn't know how to meditate, affirmations, felt super goofy. You know, I'm a money magnet and I am wealthy and I. It's like, no, I'm not. What am I talking about? So I really had to learn. But here's what happened. I mentioned that I doubled my income in two months at the height of the Great Recession, meaning the economy continued to get worse. But all of a sudden, instead of blaming the economy, I got better. Day by day, I got better. And here's how I want to explain these. And then we can fill in any holes. How did I do that? Because it's important to be like, okay, you did your miracle morning, you doubled your income. So if I do a miracle morning, I'm going to double my income. Not exactly. Reading is actually what led my savers, meaning I had a service based business, I was a coach. So I googled or I went to Amazon, I said, what's the best book on how to get clients? And I found the book, Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port. So I ordered that book on Amazon. Okay, so now since I told you, for the last six months, as my business has fallen apart and declining, nothing that I was doing was working. So I needed new strategies from someone that knew things I didn't know. So Michael Port's book became like, okay, this is my bible to rebuild my business. Great. I'm reading the book. However, how many of us. And the answer I think is all of us. But how many of us have read a book and implemented none, Little to none? Right, I've done it. You read it, you're like, oh, that's good. Underline dog ear. And then you keep reading, you're like, oh, that's. I'm gonna do that. Underline, right? And then, and then you finish the book and you have the best of intentions, you're gonna revisit everything in there and do all of it, and you do none of it. And you put the book down and because you're so excited about the other books that you've been waiting to read next, right? So what I did is I took as I read something that I identified. Ooh, I need to remember that or I need to do that. I opened up a Microsoft Word document. This was my first set of affirmations. It wasn't like I'm a money magnet and I'm wealthy and I'm. No, it was. I'm committed to doing this Strategy on page 84, right, to get more clients. So my affirmations, and this is how I want people to think about them, they're simply reminders of anything that you want to integrate into your thinking or into your behavior. So they might be beliefs that you need to embody, they might be habits that you need to integrate into your life. But if you leave them inside of a book on page 142 and you keep reading, you'll never do it. But if you transfer it from page 142 into your Microsoft Word document or whatever you're writing in, right? And then you re. And then you print those out and you read your affirmations every single day. What you affirm repeatedly. And if anybody's writing something down, this is a good writer downer. What you affirm repeatedly becomes your inner reality, right? It directs your thinking and it directs your behavior. So you actually affirm the things that you're going to think and do differently to transform your life. And then I want to go to the V in visualization. The world's greatest athletes don't just visualize winning the championship. That's been the biggest problem with the way visualization has been mistaken mistaught by well meaning self help gurus. Just picture the mansion or picture right, like just see what you want. Make a vision board, that's okay. But they spend more time using mental rehearsal. That is the form of visualization where they go, yeah, I see the championship I've been. I know that's what I want. I don't need to spend a lot of time on it. Maybe every day I close my eyes for 30 seconds and I go, that's going to feel good when I achieve that. But then I shake it off and I go, I'm only going to achieve that if I do X, Y and Z today and every single day. And I turn that into a habit. And so now I'm going to mentally rehearse myself doing the thing that maybe I'm afraid of. Maybe it's out of my comfort zone. Maybe there's rejection involved. So I'm going to mentally rehearse doing the thing in a peak mental and emotional state, so that when it's time to do the thing, I've already rehearsed it in a way that's compelling to do it. And normally without this intention, we rehearse the opposite. You think about the thing and you're like, oh, man, I don't want to do it. So much could go wrong. I don't like doing it. It's out of my comfort zone. I'm not good at that, right? And so then when it's. When it's time on your phone, like to do the thing, you've mentally rehearsed yourself out of doing it. So the reason I'm sharing it this way is the savers are synergistic, right? So I'm reading. So usually I start with silence. I meditate, I calm my nervous system. I connect with God. I allow insights to flow through me that I might write down in my journal, right? Then I grab the book that I need to read, and I'm reading and I'm learning. I'm putting in my affirmations. Now I'm affirming. Now I'm mentally rehearsing the thing. And then at the end of my scribing, I'm writing down, okay, of everything I just did during my miracle morning, what's the number one thing I'm going to do today to move the needle in my life and business? And that's how I doubled my income in 2008. It started with a book that taught me how to get clients. I. I took the lessons into actionable steps in the form of affirmations. I mentally rehearsed doing those things, and then I journaled about the most important thing I was going to do. And I rinsed and repeated every single day. And that's how the miracle morning works, and that's how the savers work.
Hal, that's epic. I love it. And it's interesting when people say to me, james, how do we solve problems? I'm like, every single problem in the planet can be solved with one or a number of books. If you read those books and you implement, there's so many other great minds out there that have done the thing you're trying to do. So for you, reading was a huge cornerstone. And for me, reading Miracle Morning transformed my life and I'm sure millions of others. This idea of visualization as a drummer, that was crucial. So, yes, I wanted to get the world championship gold medal. That's all I wanted. But I didn't Visualize that. I visualized the seven minute performance over and over and over and the mistakes would come up in my head, I'd redo them. That's exactly what you talked about, is exactly what I did. And with the athletes I'm fortunate enough to work with, same thing. Who cares about winning the World Championship. Let's focus on that pass. How are you doing that pass? How are you doing that tackle? Let's visualize the process that's really powerful and how there's people out there that are going to get your book today, they're going to start doing savers tomorrow, and they're going to do it for three weeks and then something's going to happen in their life and they go off on a tangent and they miss two days and they go, well, what's the point? I'm not going to start again.
Is it okay.
And have you possibly experienced yourself a few days where you don't do the whole routine, but you just come back to it gently when you're ready?
Yeah, yeah. I always, my mantra for that or my reminder is never let one missed day turn into two. Which is what we often do, right? Where we're like, I missed it. And then we, like, we start to backslide away from the commitment. And then that applies to never let one missed week turn into two or one missed month turn into two. And in the book, I think one of the reasons that millions of people have done the miracle morning, in fact, today we had hundreds of miracle morning practitioners on a call. We did a call for all of our app users. And the Miracle Morning app is also a great way to hold yourself accountable because it's gamified where you commit to a 30 day challenge, it guides you through it, it sends you reminders, it allows you to track your streaks, celebrates, right? So, like, that's a great tool to keep you on track for your miracle morning. But I think one of the things that made the book so effective is my biggest fear or insecurity was how am I going to convince someone who does not believe they are a morning person doesn't like being the idea of being a morning person, right? Like, how am I gonna convince them so, because I was so concerned with that, that's part of what the book does so well, is if you're a morning person, it'll guide you right into enhancing your morning routine. If you have never been a morning person, it will hold your hand mentally and emotionally and bring you along so that you feel ready. And then your first miracle morning won't be 60 minutes and all six savers. It'll be five minutes and one savor and you'll gradually build your routine over time and then you'll commit to a 30 day challenge so that it can become a lifelong habit. And on the call today, we had people that had done their miracle morning for 10 years and she's done thousands of miracle mornings. Just one Galsonia and other people for six years. And then people started a month ago or started three months ago. Right. So yeah, it really is about making a commitment to a 30 day challenge that gives you enough time to overcome all those inconsistencies and the self doubt and the negative mindset. And I always say there's three phases of a 30 day challenge. Phase one, days one through 10, is I call the unbearable phase where you're telling yourself it's going to be unbearable. It's not, but that's what you tell yourself. But as you're doing it, you acclimate. Days 11 through 20 is the uncomfortable phase where you're like, it's still easier to do nothing. But I know that phase three is where the magic happens. That's the unstoppable phase. Unstoppable because once you in those final 10 days, you're like, oh my gosh, I'm a morning person. I've been waking up a little bit earlier and even a little earlier for 20 days now. 25, wow, I can do it. And you overcome that limiting belief that says I'm not a morning person. Which literally, it's nothing more. And the last thing I'll say on that, James, we surveyed the miracle morning community. Hundreds of thousands of people every year, multiple surveys. One of the questions we always ask is, before you read the miracle morning, were you a morning person or was that something you never thought you could become? 72% over the last 17 years have said they never thought they could become a morning person and now they are. So if it works for them, it can work for anybody listening.
That's huge. And I want to be respectful of your time. But a couple of things, everyone go to miraclemorning.com it's in the show notes. Get the book, the app. There's so many free things you can get. Watch the movie.
That's probably the coolest, easiest way to get started with the miracle morning is order the book. I always say order the book on Amazon or wherever you get books and then go watch the movie while you're waiting for the book to arrive or the audiobook or whatever. But you'll be 10 times more fired up. And Mel Robbins, Robin Sharma. You know, there's a bunch of incredibly well known, successful people that are sharing their morning routines in the Miracle Morning movie.
I love it. And I want to shout out someone, a friend of mine called Adam Whitelock. So he is an all Blacks Sevens world champion rugby player here from New Zealand. He is one of your biggest advocates. He talks about the miracle morning. He has practiced a miracle morning for years and years. He has a journal with his wake times, which I think on average is about 4:30am he has a journal that tracks it for years. And he is an example of someone whose career was stopped short through several major concussions. And as you can imagine, when you get your career taken away from you early, it's devastating. And the miracle morning is a thing that's really given him grounding. It's given him discipline that he's carried on from his sport to his amazing career.
Adam Whitelock, if you are watching this, brother, I send you so much love and gratitude and I'm so grateful that the miracle morning has played a part in your life. And thank you so much for. Yeah, for implementing it and living to your full potential, brother. I appreciate you, even though we don't know each other yet, but I'll call us soul brothers if you will.
James, I love it. You're a good man, Hal. And one very quick question. If you and I were to fast forward many years into the future and you're highly aware that it's your last day here on earth and someone very young comes into the room and says, hal, how do I go about leading my life on purpose? What advice would you give them?
Dedicate time each day to becoming the best version of yourself. Learning, growing, improving, evolving. And enjoy every moment of this one life that you've been blessed to live. That's it. Become a better version of yourself every day. Enjoy every moment of this one life you've been blessed to live.
That's beautiful. Thank you for bringing Miracle Morning to the world. Everyone go to miraclemorning.com Hal, we love you.
James. I love you, brother. Thank you so much.
Thanks, my man.
