How To Make Your Life A Miracle Feat. Hal Elrod

Resistance is what creates emotional pain. Let me put that another way. To the degree that you resist, your reality is the degree of emotional pain that you create for yourself. And most of us weren't told that. So we usually have a. We point the finger at why we're feeling the way that we're feeling. You go, of course I'm angry. It's her fault. Didn't you hear what she said? Of course I'm disappointed he didn't follow through. Of course I'm sad. Look at what I lost. We think it's the thing that's causing our emotional pain, but the reality is it's our resisting the fact that she didn't do the things she said she would do, or he did something to us, or we lost that thing. And as soon as we trade in resistance for unconditional acceptance, we give ourselves the gift of complete peace with all.

Things and do something like this that changes lives. So welcome, Hal. If you want to start by just giving a little introduction of who you are and then we'll go into our connection conversation.

Yeah, absolutely. Lee, it's beautiful to see you. And I was just telling Timothy and some other folks on the Zoom that I'm actually a little jealous. I go, I should have flown in for this. I'm seeing the Genius office and it's an anchor of all these good feelings. So, yeah, it's really great to be with you. And for those of you that don't know me or who I am, I'm best known for this book I wrote called the Miracle Morning. It's one of these are the series of different books in the series, but that's kind of become my life's work and our mission with the Miracle Morning and this global community that we have. The book has sold about 3 million copies in 37 languages, and it's self published as well. But the mission is to elevate the consciousness of humanity one morning and one person at a time. And the premise is simply that if you start your day with meditation, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading and journaling, if you start every day by elevating your consciousness, putting yourself in a peak physical, mental, emotional and spiritual state, then you are the best version of you to go out and impact everything that you do in your life. And so that's it. That's my work. So we have Miracle Morning books. We have a Miracle Morning documentary that came out that Joe is featured in and some other Genius Network members. And I'm just really grateful to be here and honored Lee that You invited me.

Yeah.

You were at the top of my list, and I'm honored you said yes. And part of that is because of our connection. Meeting you in person, learning more about you, inspired me to pay attention to how I start my day every day. So do you want to give us a little bit of tidbit of what you've learned? After selling all these millions of copies of books, what have you learned that you want to share with the group right now that can be impactful for them?

In what context? Because I could dive into personal development and morning routines or selling a lot of books just so I have a little bit of direction.

You know, we were talking about stress earlier. We're talking about entrepreneurship. So I think personal development is the topic for right now.

I love that for the last year and a half, and maybe some of you can relate to this, but I have. I think struggled is a fair word. I've struggled with my messaging. I've struggled with what should I share right now? How can I best serve humanity? How can I best serve the most amount of people? And then also it's, what do I have to. What should I not share? Because I might offend half of my audience now because everyone is so sensitive, and then now I lose the ability to help them in the future because I was trying to help them in the short term. So it's been this real delicate balancing act. And where I landed a year and a half ago was the topic was inner freedom. And for the last year and a half, that's been my topic is teaching people. The way I define inner freedom is. Inner freedom is your ability to choose how you experience every moment of your life. Even if life is chaotic, if it's crazy, if horrible things are happening in the world. All of us have the ability to choose how we experience life in any given moment. And if we take ownership of that and responsibility of that, then that ability, we win. Like, that's the. That's the most important ability. Because life's always going to have challenges and adversity and. And chaos and disharmony. It's also gonna have a lot of beautiful things. But for us to be able to go, I choose to be grateful in this moment. I choose to be at peace in this moment. There's some chaos over there, but I choose to be happy, to be generous, to be compassionate, to be loving, to be forgiving. I choose how I show up in any given moment. So that, for me, is one of, if not the most important areas for us to focus on. And that is what the miracle morning is. The miracle morning is I wake up every day and instead of diving into emails and feeling reactive, I meditate. And then I pull out my affirmations that articulate who I am committed to being the highest version of myself. And then I visualize myself showing up in my day in an optimal way. And then I pull out a book, I read something I journal, I go for a bike ride, and I start my day with inner freedom. I choose. I intentionally choose and create who I'm going to be for the day. So that's been my message for the last year and a half, and I've still struggled with my messaging. And about a week or two ago, I got the next phase. I actually went into a deep, like, meditative day. My wife and kids were out of town, and rather than watch TV all day, I meditated all day. And I asked God or the universe. The question was, what is the next phase of my destiny? What is the next step, the next phase of how I'm supposed to show up and impact humanity? And the word that came up for me was unity. It was that right now, humanity is divided in ways that I don't know about you, but I don't think any of us have ever seen this before. I've never seen people wishing harm upon strangers for having a different opinion or making different decisions and vilifying them for those decisions. It's scary to me. It's really scary what's happening in the world right now. And so for me, where I've landed and the messaging, I would invite all of us to bring this into your messaging, which is unity. How can every message that you give a appeal to all people, regardless of their opinion or their belief or their stance on any one issue? And how can you unify people to remind us of the finest values that humanity has to offer, like love, like compassion, like seeing every person as a human being that's just as deserving of love and respect and that compassion as anybody else. And so that for me is the focus now is how can I. And every word that I utter, every breath, every message, every social media post, how can I unify people rather than divide?

I love it. So Dan Sullivan says, right now in the world, there's two camps. There's the people who have hope for a better future and the people who do not. And so what you're doing is you're unifying and giving all of us the opportunity to have hope for a better future and thinking about bringing other people along with us, right? Those who are left behind. Let's bring them with us. So I love how you're sharing that perspective. That's really brilliant. Hal, I'm wondering if you were in Mexico tomorrow and you're with your family and you're at the Four Seasons and something happens and you get disappointed. How do you handle. How do you handle something where you're in a magical place and everything should feel amazing, but you have a little setback or something that doesn't play out? How do you go and manage your temperament and manage yourself in front of your children and your family and reset and get back on track?

I love this question. This is maybe one of my favorite topics. Just a quick backstory. So for those of you that don't know, when I was 20 years old, I was driving home from giving a speech at a conference and I was hit head on by a drunk driver at 80 miles an hour, broadsided by another car. And I was found dead at the scene. I broke 11 bones. I died for six minutes. I was clinically dead. I was rushed to a helicopter took me to the hospital and I spent six days in a coma and woke to the news I would never walk again. And I share that because that was the first opportunity that I had where life was great and then it was like my worst nightmare. And the way that I responded, it's the same way that I would respond at the Four Seasons. But this is a more dramatic example, is it's three really powerful, simple words, which I think might be the title of my next book. I'm noodling on that, but can't change it. I learned this when I was in my sales training at age 20 is our manager said, look, when you're in sales, it's like it's a microcosm for life, but it's more intense. You're going to have more rejection, more failure, more disappointment sometimes in one week than you've had in your entire life up until this point. And we're like, oh God, this is the wrong occupation. We're going to do something else. And he said, here he goes, live your life by the five minute rule. He says it's okay to be negative when something goes wrong, but not for more than five minutes. And he literally taught us to set our timer on our phone for five minutes when something bad happened. Some sort of disappointment that, you know, that Four Seasons example that you gave. He would teach us to set our timer for five minutes. And we got five minutes to feel all the feelings to bitch, moan, complain, cry, feel Sorry for ourself. Punch a wall, like, whatever, feel it. But when the five minute timer went off, we said those three words that changed everything. Can't change was a simple acknowledgment that I can't change what happened five minutes ago. So if I want to be happy and I want to be free and I want to move forward in my life, the only logical choice I have is to completely accept life exactly as it is, without an ounce of resistance. Because resistance is what creates emotional pain. Think about that, you guys.

Again. Say that again. Resistance.

Resistance is what creates emotional pain. Let me put that another way. To the degree that you resist, your reality is the degree of emotional pain that you create for yourself. And most of us weren't told that. So we usually have a. We point the finger at why we're feeling the way that we're feeling. You go, of course I'm angry. It's her fault. Didn't you hear what she said? Of course I'm disappointed he didn't follow through. Of course I am sad. Look at what I lost. We think it's the thing that's causing our emotional pain, but the reality is it's our resisting the fact that she didn't do the things she said she would do, or he did something to us, or we lost that thing. And as soon as we trade in resistance for unconditional acceptance, we give ourselves the gift of complete peace with all things. And that's what happened when I woke up from that coma and I was told I would never walk again. Thank God I had been practicing that five minute rule and those three that can't change at philosophy for a year and a half. Because within literally a day or two, I went, okay, I may never walk again. I'll be in a wheelchair the rest of my life. I'm only 20 years old. That's not what I was planning on. But if that's what happens and I can't change it, then the only logical choice I have is to completely unconditionally accept my circumstances and be at peace with them and focus on what I can control. And so that is what I would do if I were in Mexico at the Four Seasons having a great vacation, just like we are all having a great life. And then boom, life throws us a curveball. Life hits us with adversity. Sometimes it is extreme and it is sudden and it's major. Sometimes it's subtle. But either way, all emotional pain that we have ever experienced that we are experiencing now or we could ever experience in the future consider it is self created by our resistance to our reality. And it's simply flipping resistance upside down and consciously choosing acceptance. And now to the degree that you accept your reality, determines the degree of peace that you create within yourself.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video. And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video, or you can Simply go to joe'sfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

Hal, that was.

That was amazing. And by the way, if I was in Mexico at the Four Seasons, I would throw my pina colada at my limo driver. But that's probably not the answer you're looking for. No, what he just said reminded me.

Of one of my favorite quotes, which.

I have right here, and this is by James Stockdale, who was the highest ranking naval officer held as a POW in Vietnam. He was held for seven years. He also ran. He was a vice presidential candidate, if you remember. But he said this. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end, which you can never afford to lose, with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be. Which I think is exactly what you're saying.

Al, I love it. And I want you guys to hear one other. I want to hear it one other way, too. I had a PhD friend of mine, his name's Donnie Illiam, he's written books and he taught me the same thing in a different manner, which was if you look through all the human emotions when you're going through challenges and you have fear and anger and all of that, he says at the end, the answer is always the same. It is what it is and I have to deal with it. It is what it is and I have to deal with it. So I just go straight to that answer as fast as possible. And I think that's what you're saying. We're saying it the different ways, so who knows which one is gonna fit with your brain? But hear it. It's your choice. I mean, one of the things Hal said earlier is happiness is your choice. Abundance is your choice. Your choice of your life is based on your decisions. So every one of your decisions has brought you here today. Cameron, did you have something you would like to add, please?

I just wanted to. Yes. Cameron. Harold, ladies and gentlemen.

How are you? So this is more of a comment on The Genius Network. And how when you go out this little back door by the kitchen area and the bathroom is there. About three or four years ago, I was going to the bathroom and Hal was coming out from the bathroom and he kind of pinned me against the wall and he said, would you want to co author the Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs with me? I was like, yeah, you're the guy that wrote the original Miracle Morning. We ended up co authoring Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs together. I think it's the number two or number three every single month in the entire series after his being number one. But it shows the value of this network that what you expect when you're coming in isn't necessarily what comes out. Because Hal and I met because of this network and then we're able to co author a book together. And the impact it's made on my business and my career. My life has been valuable. And Hal, good to see you living well and having fun with your family and everything. And wish you were here too.

You too, brother. Great to see you, Cam.

And our theme, what would you like to share with us today that could help us have a better end of this year, but also look into 2022 with a perspective of abundance and happiness and those things that we get to choose?

Yeah, for me, and this is coming from. I don't have this one nailed right now. It's really an area of improvement, so I'll speak on it so I can hear myself try to work through it. But it's making plans for the future. And some of you might be way better at this than me. But what I'm saying is I feel like our future is so uncertain right now. Right. Like with the economy and with lockdowns and like, I had a live event planned for October. They push it to June. They're like, things will be back to normal. I'm like, eh, I don't know if you're paying attention. Do you think that things are going to be back to normal in June? Some of you might think they are. I don't know. But the point is it's been. It's felt really hard to plan. And so what I, you know, friend of mine, really, he reminded me of this. He's like, Hal, what's your 1-3-5-year goals? I'm like, I kind of feel paralyzed. I'm kind of on hold. He's like, no, don't live that way. Set them. If you got to adjust them, you got to adjust them. But he said, create your vision as if the world were the way it's always been. And he said, and then live into that vision. He said it's going to influence how you live every day of your life. And I realized I've been living in certain ways in a very. I've been limiting myself. I felt kind of confined to this, this sense of uncertainty about the future. And maybe some of you might be able to relate to that. But I think that for all of us, and like I said, I need to get better at this. But it really is just get back to making plans, throw caution to the wind, so to speak. Make plans as if the future is yours to create. And it ultimately is. And it's better to have a plan that you have to adjust right then not make the plan because you don't feel like you know what next year is going to hold for you.

I love it. That is very brilliant. And you're right. You know what, you get to plan it and design it and adjust as needed, but at least have it on the drawing board. That's when we get things done. The other thing I wanted to ask you is what's up next for you? I heard you say you might have a title for your next book or with your family, with your faith, with your books, with anything. What is up for you and how can we support you?

I appreciate that. So I'm on sabbatical right now. I took a sabbatical for the summer. Joe polish style. Except he did it right. I like fe into it and realized I wasn't prepared and that I should have talked to Joe ahead of time. But during the summer I decided, hey, when my kids are not in school or when my kids are, when they're not in school, I'm not working. And so this was the first few months I did a sabbatical with them and then now that they're back in school, I'm still extending the sabbatical. Just where I can kind of work on stuff without pressure. So I don't have a team right now. I don't have anyone that I have to answer to. This is. This is like the first interview I've done in probably three months. So shows how much I love Yuli and genius and wanting to contribute wherever I can. But yeah, for me it's my family. We just moved onto 30 acres. We want to be self sufficient and be able to grow our own food and take care of ourselves. And so that has been. I have shied away from manual labor my entire life and now I'll work like seven hour days digging ditches. Building structures. And I'm loving it. It's such a form of meditation of. It's like I'm just totally present. I'm not stressed about all the 20 different things in my business. I just got to build this wall right now. And making sure this nail is properly placed requires 100% of my presence and focus and attention. So that's been a really beautiful shift, is just to focus on living on the land and being present and building with my family. I've got. My wife's stepfather and her dad are here. It's just a big family event. And anyway, so that's been a lot of fun, and I just want to keep my family number one. I think that for a long time, I was a businessman with a family, and now I want to be a family man with a business. And I feel like I've really. This last year or so, I've really leaned further and further into that. And. Yeah, and to me, you know, I think for all of us entrepreneurs, if you ask what was most important, I think that most of us would say family. But if you then asked to say, hey, can I see your schedule? I think that most entrepreneurs, you'd look at it and go, wait a minute. I thought family was most important. Why do you work, like, all the time and. And you carve out an hour a day for the family and maybe a little bit on the weekends, but then you. Sometimes, you know, for me, at least in the past, I would. I would throw. Hey, guys, Sorry. This Saturday, I've got a book launch coming up, so I can't. I got to work. And, you know, can you take the kids, sweetheart? And I just think that's bullshit. And I think that, you know, if we're doing this for our family, we need to be with our family. Uh, it's not about doing it for some point in the future. You know, my daughter's 12 now. My son is nine. And she's 12 going on 17. And I mean, you know, for those of you that have grown kids, you always hear that it's good. Goes by so fast. And when your kids are little, you're like, man, we got so much time. But. But, yeah, I just. I think for all of us, like, really get clear on what matters most to you, whether it's your family or it's your health or it's both or something else. And make sure that your schedule tells the story of your priorities. Make sure your schedule tells the story of your priorities. And for me, it's. I will only work while My kids are in school and I will not work when they are not in school. And that goes for holidays. It goes for, you know, I pick them up every day at 3pm it goes for, you know, for summer vacations, it goes for the weekends, all of it. You know, if they have a play like, you know, they are, that is my number one priority. And it just feels good when you live in a alignment with that. That and health. Health and family. Those are my top two. And just making sure I'm living in alignment. That's the future. And professionally, the Miracle Morning movie came out in December. That is still like I feel the Miracle Morning, the movie and the book and the series, it's really still my North Star. Like everything I do is in alignment with reaching 1 billion people. We've reached 3 million people, which is great. But if we want to elevate the consciousness of humanity, I feel like a billion is going to be the tipping point or at least close to it. So I have a lot of work to do and the rest of my life to do it.

You have some people in here who want to help you for sure. And 300 million is right on the way to a billion. You're on your way. I will say on the calendar thing, I learned a long time ago when you do your calendar to color code it. So even my daughter has her own color, which is purple. And then I could see how much time am I spending with her. And you know, green is making money and blue is at the gym and whatever it is. So if you color code it, you could look at the month and see how well it's balanced. Cameron, did you. I actually want to ask Nick Sonnenberg, do you have anything you want to add to that? Because you are the king at making sure we manage our calendars properly. But if you have something to add, I want to have you up here at the end. Okay. Anything else that we want to ask Hal before we tune off because this is such an honor to have you with Randy.

Add a quick question. Hi, how are you? How I have read your book long time ago. It was very instrumental in helping me change the way I started my days and the way I looked at things. And I was curious, where did you decide to move?

So I was living in Austin and we just moved like 40 minutes outside of Austin. Okay.

So just out in the country, basically.

Yeah. Close enough to the city and the airport that, you know, we, yeah, we're not too much outcast. But yeah. So just a little bit.

I'm proud of you for making super good choices so young in life. I raised five kids with my wife, and there's just nothing better than having close relationships when you're older with your kids. I've seen so many families I've dealt with where there was somebody in the family that there was no relationship with a kid. And then they don't want the grandkids to see the parents either. And it's like it is nightmare, let me tell you. So this is the way you save those relationships. You invest in them when you're young and you prioritize so they know you're important to them.

Yeah.

Randy, thank you for that. I think.

This helps in business too. Scott. Donald was actually just telling me a story last night where he had to cancel an appointment with someone because something happened where he could be with his son at a school. And when he called the person back a couple hours later and said, I'm really sorry, I had to cancel, I had to be at my son's school, that person said, I want to do business with you more because you get the priorities in life. So I'm glad you're sharing this because we all need to hear it. One of the things I got to do earlier, about a year ago, Jim Dew and I got to spend some time with Magic Johnson. And we talked to Magic Johnson about how do you run multi billion dollar companies and stay happy? And he says every August, he takes the entire month off. He rents a yacht. He has four weeks. One week is with his family, one week is with other couples, one week is with his wife, and one week is with his friends. But he's running multi billion dollar companies. He's taking that month sabbatical. Everyone knows he's there, and he set it up so his family is first. And I think you've learned the same thing. But here he is running multi billion dollar companies and showing us it's important to take time and make your family first. So thank you for sharing that. Halloween. Cameron, did you want to add anything else? Nope. Okay. Because you're getting ready to change your life a lot and you're creating miracle mornings. So you're like an example for me of how to pay attention. I would love you to because I'm sure Hal would love to hear it too. Hal, I'll have Cameron back up here because he's in transition in his life creating new miracle mornings. And if he doesn't mind sharing, I'd love him to.

I'm skinny. I'm down £40 from my peak. So something I'm doing, and I talked about this in the miracle morning for entrepreneurs was I often suck at my mornings. They're often not the best part of my day. And I work hard at that. And I wanted people to realize that just because we try to practice the morning savers, don't beat yourself up. If you get two or three days in and you haven't done it, start again like tomorrow's the new day. But one thing I've done about prioritizing family like Hal is doing is I've now had 11 weeks vacation this year. Since January, I've already had 11 weeks off. I talked to my team because I felt guilty about it a month or two ago and they said, no, no, we're really engaged. We love that you're still working it and driving it forward. And the company's growing like crazy. Tomorrow my girlfriend and I leave for Italy. We'll be living there for the next six weeks. We've sold everything in Arizona. I'm giving back my green card in November. So we're completely unplugging. I haven't worked a night after 5:30 or a Saturday or Sunday in seven years. So not a single night after 5:30 or a Saturday or Sunday in seven years. When we get to Italy on Monday, I will only be working 1 o' clock till 7 o'. Clock. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Italy time. No Thursdays, no Fridays, no Saturday, no Sundays. We've got the entire business delegated or set up to be able to do that now and continuing to scale. But I just don't compromise that stuff. And then the time with my kids. I was just offered a big speaking event, but it's the day that I'm flying back from Italy to see my one son in Montreal. I said no to the speaking event and the guy's scrambling going, but we need you, we need you. And I said no, I'm spending time with my son. And he goes, I'll tell you what, I'll shift my event in November. Can you do it the day before? I'm like, yeah, we can make that happen. So, like, to Lee's point. But I think if you have to keep that priority and really focus on it, most of us are lying to ourself when we say that we're just trying to catch up. When you're working at night to try to catch up or you're working at weekend to try to catch up, we'll never catch up. Because as soon as we catch up, we're going to have bigger goals. We'll Buy another company. We'll expand more. We'll start another business. So you're not catching up. You're avoiding your spouse, you're avoiding your kids, you're avoiding your insecurities, your pain. And you're getting the dopamine rush from working. So just try to find it in some other place.

So that's all I'm doing.

Thank you.

That is so valuable.

Thank you.

He's moving to Italy tomorrow. Do you guys hear that? Thank you, Cam Wilson, for designing your life. Did you know he was moving to Italy tomorrow? Or is this news for you, Hal?

This is the first I've heard of it.

I wanted him to tell you because I know you're so close, but, I mean, that's a big deal, right? That's a big deal. So I want to give you a moment to wrap up. Anything that you want to share, Hal, before we sign off and we have another question in the room and do you have something online you want to ask? We're right on time, though. I love it. So come on up. This is David. Welcome, David.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

This is David Hill, one of our members here at Genius.

Thanks. And congrats on. Congrats on your success, man. The question is around when you said you were, you know, you woke up in the hospital and they told you you weren't going to walk away and you had acceptance. Do you. It's a two part question. Number one is, do you believe the reason you were able to recover was because you accepted it? And then second is, you know, I'm guessing you had that mindset going in where a lot of people aren't going to have that type of mindset. So what would you say is something people could do if they woke up in that situation? They didn't have that type of mindset.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you for those questions. So the first question, I already forgot it. Say it again.

It's do you believe that because of your mindset?

Oh, the mindset. Yeah, yeah, yes. And by the way, I do have brain damage from the accident, so that the struggle is real.

Well, the acceptance, you said I woke up. I accepted it. And I find that difficult. Personally, I'd love to know, is that why you believe you recovered?

So, yes, I believe very much in the mind, body connection. And to elaborate a little bit on the story of when that happened, the doctors came in a week after I was in a coma for six days out of the coma and every day I was talking to psychiatrists and physical therapists and occupational therapists. And the doctors called my parents in a week after I was out of the coma. And they said, we're concerned with Hal. We believe that he is in denial because every time we talk to him, he's always smiling and laughing and telling jokes and making us laugh. And he's ha. He pretends to be happy. And they said, that's not normal. That's not normal for an accident victim that's being told he's never going to walk again. They go, he's just delusional or he's in denial. And ultimately, I wasn't. I then explained to them, no, no, no, I accept all the things I can't change, so I can't change this. So I'm genuinely choosing to be happy over the fact that I'm still alive and all these other things. The other thing that I did is I said, look, I know the doctor. I told my dad, I said, I know the doctors say I won't walk again, but that's only their opinion. That's their best guess. I said, I'm committed to walking again no matter what. There's no other option. And yet simultaneously, I know that there's another option. I might not walk again. So it's this interesting kind of dichotomy where I went. But until proven otherwise, I am putting all of my energy, mental, emotional energy, into walking again. I think about it all the time. I pray about it all the time. I visualize it all the time. I tell my friend that it's going to happen all the time, and if it doesn't, well, then I can't change it and I'll be at peace. So again, most people, I think they want a sure bet, right? And so it's like, well, the doctor said I won't walk again, so I can't invest energy in believing I will or I'll set myself up for disappointment. It's like, well, that's not the only option. You could actually put all your energy into walking again. And, by the way, apply this to anything. Put all your energy and expectation into what you want while simultaneously accepting the possibility that it might not work out as planned. And maybe that's for the best in the end. Who knows? But. So the point is, a week after that conversation, the doctors called. They came into our room with X rays that I had just taken that that morning. And they said, we don't know how to explain this, Hal, but your body is healing so fast that you're ready to take your first step in therapy today. And even for me, I Was blown away. I was thinking I was like a year away from that. Right. And this was three weeks after I was found dead, after my femur broke in half, my pelvis broke in three places. And I don't have a graph to show you. Like, look at how my positive expectation and my healing parallel to each other. Like, I don't have that graph. I just have the anecdotal evidence. But here is just one more piece that brings it home is just under five years ago, I was diagnosed with a very rare, aggressive form of cancer. And I was given a 20 to 30% chance of surviving. It was leukemia, so it was blood cancers through my whole body. And it was a 20 to 30% survival rate. And the day that I was diagnosed with cancer, and the doctors told me that you have a 20% to 30% chance of surviving, which. Right. If you flip that, it is a 70 to 80% chance you are dying and you are leaving your wife and your kids without a dad. Right. And of course that crossed my mind, but when my wife was out of town, I had to call her and tell her over the phone my diagnosis. And she is bawling her eyes out. And I said, sweetheart, I know you are scared, but I want you to know I am not scared at all. In my mind, there is a 100% chance that I will be in the 20 to 30% of the people that survive this cancer. To me, there is no other option. And I will be the happiest and the most grateful I have ever been. Wall I figure this out and I figure out how to heal. And so again, I don't have a graph that shows the correlation. Right. But I was in remission within a month. The doctors once again were like, we can't explain this. And so having it happen multiple times, I just really do believe. And it's a long answer to your question, but I believe so much from my own personal experience on multiple, you know, occasions, the car accident, the cancer, and even others, the mind, body connection, and that we create our reality. Mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, we create our reality. So I hope that's helpful. And then. I'm sorry, the second, the second question was, how do you help somebody to kind of get there if they didn't have that background?

Yeah. Maybe the. A tactic or in some way, even if it's picking up a book or something to get you in that space where if you are laid up, you're going to have that wherewithal to look at it from a different perspective.

Yeah.

What'd you say the Miracle Morning book is a good place to start.

So it is. I'd be biased to say it, but I guess here's the point and you actually said it. It's sharing a resource from a third party, typically that is very influential. So, meaning that if you try to tell somebody that you know and that knows you how to think differently. Right. Usually we all know how that goes. Right? It's usually like in one ear, out the other, like, blah, blah, blah, I'm not hearing you. And so, for example, I. Whether it's a book that you've read or like, I have my keynote, my keynote is on YouTube. So if you type in Hal Elrod, the Miracle Morning keynote, that's a kind of an easy way where someone, because a lot of people don't read and they're not going to get through the whole book if you just send them a video like that, Right? And the video, it shows pictures of me in the hospital in a coma, pictures of my car wreck. So it's pretty impactful, it's funny, it's intense, it's dramatic, it's right. And you get that lesson about the five minute rule and they can't change it. Like all of that is in there. And so again, I know it's like self promotional, but I'm just saying that that would be. I would share that video and go, hey, look, this guy went through something horrific and he had this mindset that allowed him to defy the logic of doctors and heal and be happy the whole way. Right? So that is an example. And again, if you can find that video or other videos that you could send to anybody and get them to watch it, that could shift their mindset. I think that's one of the best ways to do it. Rather than us trying to, no matter what we say, they're going to view us in a certain light. And that may or may not limit our influence on those people. Love it.

Love it, man. I'm going to actually find that video and share it at our next team meeting. So appreciate you. Thank you.

Thank you, brother. Appreciate you.

Gina did put the link in the chat to your movie as well. So before there's any problems in your life, go ahead and watch that and have the resources ready. So did you have a question, Darrell? Did you want to come up? We have a couple minutes. Come on up, Hal. We do feel very honored and grateful you're here. And by the way, I didn't think of it as self promotional. I actually thought of it as generous. So thank you for being so generous with us.

Thank you.

Yeah, it's true. I guess I don't really make any money. If you watch my YouTube video, it's already written.

It's already written.

He wrote it.

Yeah, it's already in his first book. Darrell, one of our members here, I don't know if you guys have met in person, but he's one of my favorite people on the planet. We've had several trips together. So what would you like to ask.

Today about the sabbatical concept? So I actually took a 10 year sabbatical May of 05 to May of 15. And if I didn't do that, there's no question my life, I'd be dead. I was 100 pounds of weight, alcohol and food addictions, things of that nature. I was free, built a very successful company and then I needed to fix.

Myself.

Wanted to be there to raise my kids and experience everything I could. And I learned so much about myself that I never would have expected. And so my question to you is, I mean, 10 years, people say, how the hell could you take off your business for 10 years?

And.

I didn't know how to do it. I just did it. And I didn't know if I'd make it 10 years. I certainly wouldn't be alive if I didn't. So my question to you is, what did you learn or what did you learn about yourself so far on your sabbatical that you didn't expect? And is this something that you're going to do on a consistent basis after you've experienced this? And I did the same thing digging dirt, but I usually like bigger tools. So I bought a dump truck and a backhoe and a track hoe and spent a lot of time on our estate, my wife and I, planting the dirt as well, and building walls and all that kind of stuff. So maybe there's a theme in entrepreneurship here. What, what have you learned about yourself that you didn't expect? And would you recommend other people, especially hard drivers, as entrepreneurs to take a sabbatical and maybe. How long would that sabbatical be?

Yeah. Yeah. Great questions. I learned that I am addicted to productivity in what can be an unhealthy way. Day one of my sabbatical, I woke up and I'm like, I need to do something. I need to answer emails. I need to do something. Right? And then I almost felt a sense of depression a little bit because that's where I got my dopamine hits, as Cameron was saying. Right. Or I was saying that, but that it was like productivity, being productive. The more I got done, the better I felt about myself and my accomplishments. And so that really. I mean, I'd say the first maybe month of my sabbatical, it was like unwinding that, and that was unexpected, and it was challenging in terms of will I do it again? Was it really originally going to be just the summer, and then now it's through the end of the year, and then you just inspired me. I think it's going to be 10 years. So my son is nine, so I'm thinking at least nine more years. And I really think so. There's two things I would say that I can recommend for everybody around taking a sabbatical. Number one is I think that everyone should do it. And it does need to be for an extended period of time, at least a few months, because you're going to have to unprogram who you all have been for the last decade or decades of your life, Right? Just needing to be productive and get things done, to just relax and play and engage with your family and all of these things. Right? So, but here's what. Going into the sabbatical, this was my intention. I thought, what would I do? What would I think? How would I show up for my family if I woke up every day and they were the only thing that I had to think about? They were the only thing that I had to engage with. Because when I spend time with my family and I'm in work mode, which we can all relate to this, right? Well, there's other things that need to get done. And so time with your family is almost like just a hurdle or even a space between the next thing that you got to get done. And so I thought, what would life be like if I woke up and I just went. The only thing I got to figure out is how I could be the best dad that I've ever been for my kids today. Hmm. All my creative energy, 100% of it, gets to go into that. How fun. How different, how cool. Ooh, Today, how can I be the best husband that I've ever been? How can I be more romantic and be better for my wife? What would that look like? I don't have any emails to answer. I don't have any meetings to plan. I. I don't have any launches to do. There's no interviews this week. I got no travel this week. I just got me and my family. And then how can I evolve to be the best version of myself? What does that look like? What is the next level of Spirituality and physical fitness look like. For me, that's all I got. I got time to focus on it. So that is where a sabbatical, it allows you to uncover what really matters most to you and for you to actually have the time and the mental and emotional bandwidth to invest into that. And so the last thing I'll say on it is, once I do believe that having the full on 3 month, 6 month, 12 month sabbatical is crucial because you need the space to unpack and pull off all the layers of who you've been, the identity you've created. And that takes time. But then once you go back to work, it's about a reinvention of what might a sabbatical life look like where I don't work nearly as much and I spend much more time. It's what I call. It's in my schedule every day. Total time freedom where I have nothing to do, I have nothing I have to do and I just get to go. What do I feel like doing in this moment? Maybe I want to go putter around town like an old man and run errands sometimes that feels really fun. Ooh, the farmer's market. I'm going to go to the farmer's market, you know, Oh, I want to go like, whatever you go to your kids. What do you guys want to do? Let's do something fun. So, yeah, so I really, for me, it is now reinventing that. How can I live the sabbatical life indefinitely?

Oh, I think that's your next book actually. How can I Live the Sabbatical Life. Do you guys like that one? I want to request that anyone who has been in speaker to take a sabbatical because of Joe to make sure you write him a note or do that, get bravo and let him know this conversation. This community has given you the permission and the inspiration to take that time for yourself. I am so inspired by you, Hal. I love meeting with you. You and I have a very similar story with that car accident. And that's one of the reasons I bonded with you, is because I had that same thing hit head on in the hospital, helicoptered in. And you know what? The mindset is everything. And I did break 15 bones. My femur, my back. They said I had a 7% chance to live or 7% chance to live. Once I lived, they said I had 7% chance to walk. And that's what you and I talked about that day at our annual meeting, was having the mindset to get us through. And the doctors did tell me it was my brain and my mindset that saved me through the accident. So start early before you need it, so that you have it when you do need it. And definitely support your friends. Like you were asking earlier what resources to have in place. Have them in place, be ready, because things happen and it is what it is and I have to deal with it.

Hi, Hal.

Hey, John.

I'm a big fan. And at first was a comment. Miracle Morning really did kind of change my life. It changed how I looked in the morning. But then what I realized is I suck at the follow through and the consistency of it. And there was two other books that are related to Genius Network that made a material huge impact on being able to implement, and that was Ben Hardy's Willpower isn't Enough or whatever the right name is.

And BJ Fogg.

And BJ Fogg with tiny habits.

Thank you, BJ for that.

Yeah. And that really setting myself up to be able to do the miracle morning had a lot more to do with how I was framing it and what I was doing to prepare for the morning than it actually did about knowing what to do. And I thought all of those were important. How have you seen those kinds of techniques, how people best use them to implement for the, for the miracle morning in your experience?

How you mean, how have they implemented which techniques?

Well, I mean, at first I start off with the checklist that comes out of the book, right? You know, you want to do affirmations, you're doing all the different pieces. But how have people been successful in implementing that? To actually get it done and not get distracted in the middle, I guess is maybe the simpler version.

Yeah, no, that's a great question. And actually in the book I talk about that when you implement any new habit, right. And BJ's more the expert than I am in this, but my layman's explanation is that you go through three phases and I broke them down into three 10 day phases, although there's no exact science. But the first 10 days is what I call the unbearable phase. The next 10 days is the uncomfortable phase, and the final 10 days is the unstoppable phase. Obvious alliteration there. But the general idea is that unbearable means when you're trying to make a change. They say change is painful. Change is difficult because you're having to completely do something and, or see yourself in a way that you never have before. And so those first 10 days though, if you go into something, aware of what you're getting into, it's much easier to endure the challenges and follow through. So if you go in going, okay, the first 10 days might feel unbearable. But even if something is unbearable, I can do anything for 10 days. Now, there are some little hacks in terms of moving your alarm clock across the room, specific to getting yourself out of bed. I think that is one of the most underrated strategies in the book. It's a game changer in that if your alarm clock is within arm's reach, your level of discipline, those first few moments when the alarm goes off and you're still half asleep, you're going to reach over on the nightstand and you're going to turn it off almost every time and hit the snooze button. But if it's in the bathroom and you've got to get up out of bed and you have to walk over to the bathroom, you're literally, you're five times more awake than you were when you were reaching over, fumbling in the dark with your hand to find the snooze button. So by having to wake up and go across the room, and then if the alarm clock is right next to the bathroom counter, the sink, I mean, right, I'm here, I'm going to brush my teeth, wash my face, I'm awake now I'm up, right? So that little hack's important. But back to the general mindset. Those first 10 days, realize it might feel unbearable at times, but either you're committed or you're not. And then the second piece is the uncomfortable phase, which is where it's not, it's now you're acclimating to it, but it's easy. You almost can talk yourself out of it, go, well, I made it this far. So if for me it's committing to a 30 day block and there's, I think it was the book, the one thing that Harvard showed that it took 66 days to change a habit. So there's different psychology on this. It goes back to the mind body connection. If you believe you can change a habit in a week, damn it, I believe that you can too. And that's going to be your reality that you create. If you believe it takes you 66 days, then that's how long it's going to take you. I like 30. It's kind of the sweet spot for me. And so that 30 day challenge for me is the game changer. Knowing that after you get through the unbearable and the uncomfortable phase, once you get into that unstoppable phase, it's where you wake up and you all of a sudden go, wait, this is effortless. I'm actually looking forward to this. There was no resistance. I didn't want to go back to bed today. And that's when your identity has been reshaped. You're a different person and then it's easy to stay for the rest of your life.

Hi.

Howdy.

Okay, so my question is, were you always positive since you were a child, or did you train yourself to be like that?

Great question. In general, I was like the class clown. So I was kind of, you know, upbeat and funny and such. But I wouldn't say I was a positive thinker. Had a positive mindset. When I started at 19 years old, I got hired at Cutco Cutlery. Anybody familiar with Cutco? Right. Probably many of you. And so I got hired in sales and we went through a three day, like eight hour a day training. And on day one, one of the first things our manager, who became my mentor, taught me is the power of positive thinking. I had never heard of the concept. And he explained, he taught us the five minute rule. Hey, don't dwell on this don't be negative explanation. Be negative for 5 minutes, accept it and move on. Be proactive. And so it was funny. I went home and after I learned about how you know positive thinking, I went home and I'm like, my parents are so negative. Like they're generally positive people. But I started to notice, I'm like, they're complaining about all this little stuff all the time. And I started calling them out on it. So, yeah, so I mean, that's the answer is, I know I wasn't, wasn't super positive my whole life. I learned positive thinking when I was 19. Although I will say, though quickly, big picture. When I was nine years old, I woke up to my mother screaming and my baby sister Amory was dead in her arms. She was 18 months old. She was just a year and a half. And so I was there and my mom was giving her mouth to mouth, trying to revive her. And I called 911 and it was this, you know, this, this morning where I lost my sister that day. And I watched my mom. Within a matter of months, my mom was leading a support group to help bereaved parents who had lost children. So she's like six months, less than six months into her grieving and she is leading other people to support them. So in terms of positive thinking, I don't know if I'd call that positive thinking, but my mom taught me when I was really young that you take your tragedy, you take your adversity and you find meaning and purpose in it, and you use it to serve for other people. And looking back, I realized that that shaped kind of everything that I've done with all the tragedies I've gone through. It's like, how can I help people with this? How can I help people with this? You know that. That mindset came from my mom.

Thank you for that question.

Thank you.

So we're a little bit over time, so we're going to wrap up in a second, but I do want to see Joel Weldon. Are you on there? I want to talk to you. And I think that is such a powerful thing that you just said. Everyone should be writing that down and remembering it. Do not forget that. And so much of it, it just starts in our head. That's where it starts. So, Joel, are you here on.

Yes, I am, Lee.

Excellent. So we wanted to give you a minute to debrief this conversation. Anything that you want to add or ask.

This is one of the worst presentations I've ever seen in seven years. The guy is dull, he's boring, he's monotone. I don't know why you gave him so much time to do this. Based on Connor's 10 Minute Talk, now you've got some negative feedback that you can use to grow and sell even more books. Let's see if he can get 10,000 in the next 24 hours.

700,000 to hit his billion. So all of us will pitch in with that.

All right, let me give him even more negative feedback. No, this was terrific. And this is a great example. As you watch this presentation. He had no slides, he had no script. He talked to you. And that's what speaking is about, being yourself. We know he's high energy. We know he's fast talking. That's how you should be. And if you're dull, boring and monotone, that's exactly how you should be. When you try to be somebody else, you're not going to make it. This was such a great, organized message and the fact that he had such great content, even though if everybody went on sabbatical, we'll have nobody left at Genius Network. So I'm sure that's not going to happen. Now, I only have one suggestion. Would you look at me now on the screen?

Yes, looking at you.

Okay, so you're looking to your left. Look at the camera.

There we go.

Okay, that's where you should have been talking. You don't have an audience on the screen. I'm going to look at you now. So let me give you some feedback. Can you see how I'm really connecting with you? No. Your eyes are the key. So as you're watching this, remember, don't talk to the person asking you the question. Talk to the camera, because that's where your audience is. And, Al, if I could be that, give you a big hug and a kiss for that. Congratulations. Great message.

Thank you, Joel. I appreciate you, brother. Appreciate the feedback, too.

Okay. I hope you found that video awesome and useful. So if you want to get a free copy of my book, I want you to click here. And if you want to watch some more videos that will be useful and awesome, click here.

Go ahead. You're over here. Do it now. Come on.

Thank you.

Watch them.