The Miracle Morning For Addiction Recovery: Letting Go of Who You've Been for Who You Can Become - with Anna David and Joe Polish - Genius Network Episode #94

Whereas the alcoholic addict is like, I've got to figure this out. I can't take this. This pain is so great. And so when the pain is that great, you will find your drug of choice. You will find whatever it is that alleviates that pain until it stops working. And it's killing you and it's doing the opposite of what you sought it out to do. And that's when you get to recovery.

Genius Network founder Joe Polish co authored a book with New York Times bestselling authors Anna David and Hell Elrod entitled the Miracle Morning for addiction, Letting go of who you've been for who you can become. It hit number one in multiple categories at Amazon on the first day of release. In this episode, Anna David joins Joe and they discuss why they wrote it, their definitions of addiction, habits that lead to healthy recovery, and more. Remember to subscribe to the Genius Network so you don't miss a Future episode. Visit geniusnetwork.com subscribe for more.

Okay, so this is a weird thing. Joe Polish and I, Anna David, are both co hosting and co interviewing one another for each of our podcasts. It's very meta. How are you feeling about it, Joe?

You know, it's about the most exciting thing I think we're going to do in the next couple of hours.

Anna, I thought you were going to.

Say the next decade, but okay, it could be. We'll let the listeners judge that. But yeah, you know, we've, we've got a new book and it's called the Miracle Morning for Addiction Recovery. And both of us are really trying to help get the message out about addiction and recovery. And we've been through our own processes for many, many years and now we're doing what we want to do. You've been doing this for years also. You've got six books on addiction. You're a New York Times best selling author, you're a talking head all over the place on all kinds of TV and radio and podcasts and whatnot related to the subject of addiction recovery. And so now we've collaborated together and we wrote a book.

So now that Joe did my intro, I'm going to give, Obviously you guys all know who Joe Polish is, but just in case you have been living under a rock, he is the, can I say, the world's latest leading marketing expert. He runs the highest profile networking group. I should let him do this. Genius Network. He also has Genius X and people you hear about all the time are in those groups. And he's become. Are you comfortable with me saying he's become a mentor of mine. Oh, yeah, yeah. Exciting for me.

Yeah, you can say that. No, go ahead. I'll let you, I'll let you finish and then I'll, and then I'll add whatever you say to what you're saying about me.

I know. Well, I screwed, I screwed up a little bit. Joe can do his intro better. But, you know, so since you're hearing this on both of our podcasts, you will remember Joe from. I interviewed him for my podcast the day we met. And it was probably about a year and a half ago. And then of course I was on. I love marketing. So there's a lot of cross pollination here. But what you guys, if you didn't hear that episode. Joe's passion in life is changing the global conversation about addiction. His, you know, he's this brilliant marketer, that's his career, but he's decided, I think, to devote almost the rest of your life to this passion project. Is that right?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, as much as I can, I run my entrepreneurial groups and genius network and everything. And let me say this because you called me, you know, the best marketing expert or something in the world. And I certainly don't think I'm that. I mean, a lot of people know me in the field of marketing. There's a lot of brilliant marketers and everything. And at the end of the day though, I think of marketing as storytelling and if you tell a better story, you're going to enroll more people. And I'm wanting to use my marketing skills and my connection skills with other people to actually really do my best to make a dent in an area that people like you and many people are involved in trying to reduce so much of the human suffering that's at an all time insane level in human history. I mean, we're at the worst addiction crisis in human history. Although so many areas of civilizations have advance, so many things have been figured out and tackled and conquered, it seems like addiction is not, seems like it is just at its worst possible state. I mean, so many people are on drugs, legal and illegal. So many people are on antidepressants, suicide rates, overdoses. They're at an all time high. And it's just, it's literally out of control in so many areas. And so, yeah, I'm going to be working on this my whole life. And I hope that what we just did with our book and that this conversation can help give some insight and some hope and some healing to many of the people or their family members or friends that are out there that are struggling.

Yeah. And I should say that Joe and I both quit drugs before the opiate crisis and that has just been insane. 60,000 people are overdosing on opiates alone every year. And it just wasn't like this when, you know, cocaine and alcohol were my drugs of choice. And what's going on now, I could never have predicted it. And yeah, I mean, this book is. So we should explain that the Miracle Morning is part of the Miracle Morning series, Hal Elrod's extremely successful series. And yet its entire focus is on changing your life before 8am and it is completely targeted to people who are either in recovery from addiction, are struggling with addiction, or love somebody who's struggling with addiction or in recovery from addiction. So should we talk a little bit about the book, Joe?

Yeah, definitely. Let's do it. And let me mention this because, you know, all three of us collaborated on this. You know, Hal, Ana and myself and then Honore Corder. So this was like literally a group effort between, you know, several people and. And you did most of the heavy lifting when it came to the writing and putting it together because you're just an amazing writer and you've got so many years of experience with recovery. I mean, this has pretty much kind of been your field of expertise and career. And other than just teaching people how to write, I mean, you spend so much of your time in recovery. I won't even go into some of the stuff. You can talk about some things, you know, publicly, but also there's many things that you do privately that many people have no idea about. That is just immersing yourselves with helping people that struggle with addiction. So I think it's a very honorable thing. And it's, you know, a lot of people write about addiction and recovery that really don't have any experience with it or have not even done their own recovery. I mean, they haven't, you know, they've never even been at a 12 step meeting or they've never really done trauma work or they've not than forms of therapy or really immerse themselves into it. And I think me and you are more than qualified to speak to this subject. And for many years I didn't really feel like I could. I was waiting to get to this point where I arrived at a certain place and then I started realizing that I know a lot and I started telling my story publicly and I started sharing things that I was, you know, had a lot of shame with ever sharing in my life about sexual abuse and about acting out and the different ways that I did my addictions. And I just started publicly talking about it in front of rooms of, you know, people running multimillion dollar businesses, famous people, and the people that would come up to me and start telling me about their silent battles. And I realized that, yeah, there's, you know, there's a lot of people out there, most people that are living these silent battles. And if they're so difficult and so then they may be using addiction as a coping mechanism, as a solution for the pain. They may be, you know, they may be suicidal. They may be just, you know, on the surface looking like they're happy. And they may have rituals that are out of control. So going back to the miracle morning, you know, you can literally start the day that sets the stage for you to not only be more productive and have a better business and a better career and a better job or a better, better relationship, but also it's one of the key elements to working with your recovery. Because most people in active addiction, they're not going to bed early and waking up bright and early and exercising and meditating and doing affirmations and reading and journaling and all the things that we talk about in the book. And certainly I think if we share some of the rituals that are talked about in this book, everyone will get value from hearing us talk about it. But hopefully they'll support what we're doing here and go pick up a copy of it for themselves and maybe some loved ones. Because anyone that's out in the world right now, especially in America or Canada or English speaking areas, I mean, they know someone very close to them that's probably struggling with drug addiction or alcohol or sex or gambling or food or workaholism or Internet or gaming performance addiction. It goes on and on.

Anyway, I'll say that when I speak at colleges, I will say, stand up, raise your hand if your life has been impacted by addiction. And every single person raises their hand because there's somebody they know, there's somebody in their family that's suffering and or has been in recovery. And I'll also say having been at several of the Genius network events, what, you know, people are sharing marketing ideas and business ideas that are worth, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars. And yet the feedback, because people give public feedback is always, Joe, thank you so much for talking about addiction. Like, I think I come here, I tell myself I come here for business reasons. But actually what this does is help me with my personal life. I mean, I've heard so many people say It. So I'm sure you've heard it even more.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, all the time. All the time. I mean, I have a lot of people that confide in me. I mean, I've had several people whose children have been struggling with, you know, drugs and pornography and alcohol and gambling. You name all the different types of things that people can use as a scratching, the pain itch. And I've connected them with resources or with individuals or things to read or places to go. And I've had a couple people say, man, I think it saved this person's life. And there's just so many tools out there that are available. And frankly, as institutions, as drug companies, as government, they're doing a pretty piss poor job of leading people to it. So, I mean, I think it takes a lot of us civilians to just put the work in and get it out to people as best we can and at least let people know of the things that are helpful, the things that have helped us, the things that we know have helped others, and package it up in a way, you know, to make it accessible to people. And I think that's what we've done and put it into a process that, you know, really doesn't cost any money to do. I mean, some of the things we will talk about today will not cost anything. And if you want them, you know, we'll talk about them. You can just start doing them or, you know, you can just spend a few dollars and get a copy of our book. And it's all laid out there and, you know, handed to. Handed to anyone. So, I mean, we're not. All I can say is I've put a few hundred thousand dollars of my money into just building these addiction platforms just because I want to help. I really want to help. I don't even have a great monetization model out of any of this. And even with what we're doing in Genius Recovery, there's videos, there's links to podcasts, so much of that, you help me compile links to every sort of community from 12 step groups. And if someone's not into 12 steps, there's different sorts of communities because hardly anyone recovers in isolation. And we're just making so much of this available for free. And we have a book now that kind of organizes a lot of the thinking. So that's kind of where we're at. So let's get into the book. Ann, I mean, let me ask you, before we even go into the subject matter, you've done so much in the field of addiction recovery. I'd love to have you define addiction first and then maybe define recovery. And I'll add my own thoughts to that, too, so that people, you know, people that are aware of what addiction is, are actively working in their recovery. And recovery comes in many different ways. Just know there's no right or wrong way to do this. There's this. It's either effective or it's not. And different people have different levels of pain and trauma and addiction. So, you know, there's. There's all kinds of different levels, but all addiction is human suffering. So I'd love to. I'd love to have you define it and then we'll get into, you know, the miracle morning.

Yeah, I mean, I think addiction is not defined by how many drug overdoses you had or. Or. And I use words addiction and alcoholism interchangeably. Actually, to me, they're the same thing. You know, an addict is, to me, somebody who is so uncomfortable with how they feel that they'll do anything they can to change it, even if changing it means dying, because the feelings are so intense. And I always believe it's like, you know, alcoholism is humanism to an exponential degree. Like, alcoholics and addicts don't own the patent on self obsession and self hatred, but we do a really good job of owning it. And, you know, and I do think also, you know, the one commonality I notice among all the alcoholics and addicts that I know, it's just this. We've. We prioritize our feelings so much. I think, quote, unquote, normal people sort of have a feeling they're sad, they're whatever, anxious. Whereas the alcoholic addict is like, I've got to figure this out. I can't take this. This pain is so great. And so when the pain is that great, you will find your drug of choice. You will find whatever it is that alleviates that pain you until it stops working and it's killing you and it's doing the opposite of what you sought it out to do. And that's when you get to recovery. What do you think, Joe?

No, I totally agree. What I would just add is I think of it as doing something. Addiction is doing something that you don't want to do or that you do want to do, and you're not able to stop, and it has negative consequences attached to it. I also think of addiction as a solution. Like our friend Gabor Mate says, the question is not why the addiction, but why the pain. And I have thought long and hard about that statement. I'll Repeat it. I'll share it with people. Because a lot of times it's like, we need to attack addiction. We need to a war on drugs. We need to have, you know, it's like. Well, it's kind of like having a war on addicts. I mean, if addiction is actually a solution, having a war on the addict solution, although not a very good solution, a solution that could kill you, a solution that could ruin your life, a solution that could hurt yourself and others, it's not a good solution. But in the moment of that pain, it gets you out of it temporarily, or at least it gives you the illusion that it's getting you out of it. In most cases, it's making your life worse. But it is an attempt to solve a deeper problem. And that problem is associated with pain and fear and loneliness and, you know, like many of the things that come out of 12 step groups, you know, like sayings like halt if you're hungry, angry, lonely, tired. There's nothing wrong with not wanting to be hungry. Angry, lonely, tired and hungry could come in different forms. It's not just hungry for food or thirsty for water. It could be a hunger or a thirst for connection, which is, you know, addiction is the. You know, is the opposite. You know, the opposite of addiction is connection. And so it's that trying to connect with something, just that feeling. And sometimes that feeling is the inability to feel anything, or at least that's what it seems like. So, yeah, addiction is just. It's an attempt to solve a deeper problem. And we are living in a culture that is just dangling and every sort of pain reliever, which also can be called the causations of much of these pains because it just exasperates it all the time. Imagine if you're an alcoholic, if you're not. And I know that's very difficult for people that have not had a craving for something that they cannot imagine not having any control over. But that's really in its worst states. I don't believe in the choice model. I don't believe that addiction is a choice. I believe after a period, it's literally out of control. Many years of my life in that place where there's this song from this hardcore industrial band that had the lyrics. I tell myself I will not go even as I drive there. And a lot of people can relate to something. You've been in a negative or toxic relationship, and you shouldn't be seeing that person. You shouldn't be going to that place, you shouldn't be walking into that bar. You shouldn't be looking into that porn online. You tell yourself you will not go even as you drive there, even as you're doing it. So it's a drive that is driving you off the cliff. It is a drive, a drivenness that has got negative consequences. If you have a strong drive to love your children or to build your career or to write a book, or to help other people, or to get in great physical shape or to develop a deeper spiritual connection, that drive, if it has positive consequences, is good. When the drive is destructive, when it's self destructive, when it's destroying your health, destroying your emotional state, hurting other people, and you can't stop that, there's something wrong there. At that point, you have to change something, and you may have to change everything about your entire life. You have to admit that you have a problem, because all progress starts by telling the truth, as my dear friend Dan Sullivan says. And one place to start, which is why we decided, you know, a lot of people would go to the Miracle Morning and they would start reading books about what to do with morning rituals and how, you know, would get a lot of these people that were saying, yeah, I'm in recovery. I'm trying to, you know, work on my addiction. And I'm using this as a process. And he had mentioned to me, you know, we really want to do a Miracle morning book on addiction. And you, you know, Joe and Anna, you guys have so much experience in this. Can we do it together? And so that's why we ended up collaborating. So we brought our knowledge and our experience, and not just ours, the great thing. And you coordinated. This is take Dr. Drew. Dr. Drew is one of the most famous people in the world in the field of addiction and recovery, who's a friend of yours. And I've met him once before in person a couple years ago, and he wrote the foreword for the Miracle Morning. And then you have stories of a lot of people.

Well, we got the morning routines of all sorts of people. Actress Mackenzie Phillips and Jason Waller, Wes Geer, who is in the band Korn. Courtney Friel, who's a newscaster. Patty Powers, who's this sober companion, sober coach. Yes, we have the morning routines. Every single chapter ends with the morning routine of somebody who's in recovery from addiction. And, you know, one thing that I wanted to say, one of the reasons this was important to me is that it doesn't. Not to be discouraging, but it's not like all your problems get solved when you quit drugs or find recovery. You know, there are all these feelings that you've been suppressing for the years and years you were doing it, and they all come up. And so that's why so much of this is about what do we do when we're in recovery and we still feel uncomfortable and we don't have our drug of choice to go to because we've quit it. And so I, you know, and Joe and I are kind of, I would say we're both kind of into not wacky things, but, you know, we both spent some time in flotation tanks and cryotherapy little machines and you know, we talk briefly about all those sort of esoteric things we've tried, but we've both done EMDR for trauma and we're both very active meditators. So wait, let's talk about the specifics. Okay. Every Miracle Morning book talks about the Savers. And the savers are, it's an acronym for S is silence, A is affirmations, V is a visualization, E is exercise, R is reading, and S is scribing. So Joe, let's talk about our rituals around that. How do you do silence in the morning?

Okay, well, let me just talk about today as an example. I even give you some, you know, today that, the time that we're actually recording this, it is a Sunday and I woke up, I meditated for 20 minutes. I do TM, so I have a mantra. I do transcendental meditation. In the chapter where we go over the savers, there's literally, we guide people through how to meditate. If you've never had a meditation. Meditation practice before. We also list if you do want to utilize an app as an example, we recommend some different of the best apps that a lot of people love and utilize in the book for doing meditation. But I meditate that way. That's just how I do it. And then I'll come back to the other things that I have done. But just keeping it on that subject, my meditation is TM and I could never meditate for my whole life. When I say never, that's actually kind of a joke because anyone can actually meditate if they take the time and they learn the process of doing it. And like anything else, if they're able to work through the resistance to it. And I just put up a lot of self imposed resistance. And I would tell myself, I can't meditate, I can't meditate. And when I finally got trained in Fairfield, Iowa, of all places, which is where Maharishi University is, and I was given an award by the the city. And that's where the golden domes are that Oprah went and did a show on meditation. And I spoke to the university there and I met with the mayor and had dinner with him of the city. And then John Haglin, who's the CEO of TM.org, i mean, literally, it was a whole get up back, I think it was in 2013, and I've been meditating ever since. And so that's my process. But had I known how simple it really was to, to actually, you know, learn it. Simple is different than easy. Okay, but it is simple. And if you're. And it's like they say that in the program, all of the stuff that we recommend are actually simple. There's no massive complexity on anything that we write about in the book, nor what we're going to talk about now. But that's what I do. So I do TM and there's, you know, once in a while, if I'm in a really noisy place, I'll utilize an app. But most of the time I will. I don't need anything. I just need to just sit. And even if it is noisy, it's just, you know, sometimes, sometimes I'll put on an app. In most days, I meditate one time a day and I'd say probably three days out of a typical week, I'll meditate twice. Some people that do TM are very consistent. And frankly, I'll tell you, when I meditate twice, I feel better. So it's one of the things. All of this is always a work in progress. So I'm, you know, still working on just getting that in. But I also today, and I'll come to this later and go, you know, I did yoga today. I did recovery yoga class. And you know, I also went to a CODA meeting, which is codependence anonymous. I did all of that today. And so, you know, sometimes I'll meditate, you know, twice. But if I'm going to do a yoga class or exercise, there's moving. I use, I use yoga's moving meditation, which is also part of the exercise part, which we'll get to.

Yeah, we're getting to eat. Yes, I. And I do. I have been doing a version of Transcendental Meditation called Vedic meditation. And I've been really good about doing it most days, twice a day for 20 minutes for the last, I guess, 13 years. But randomly recently I have decided to switch it up and I'm doing a different form of meditation. I met this guru named Sadhguru do you know who that is? Joe?

Yeah, I've actually. Oh, boy. Many years ago, probably this must have been nine years ago, I spent four days with him in about 15 people.

Okay. So they were pitching him to be on my podcast. I didn't know who he was. And so I went to this event and met him, and everybody's freaking out about this guy. I was like, I don't know who he is. And then I met all these people at the event, and they started inviting me to their Sad Guru meditations. Now I have the Sad Guru app, and I've been doing this Isha Kriya meditation that he does. So now that's the new thing I've been doing. And he has a love manifestation meditation. That app is really awesome. We don't mention it in the book. We do mention some other apps. So, yeah, that's my version of silence. So. Okay, let me.

Let me mention this, too, as me and you discover new things. Because as this book comes out and people are on the, you know, on our, you know, on Facebook and they're sharing it, we're simply going to discoveries that other people do. We want the feedback. So anything that we say here is, you know, this is not. We're not saying this is the perfect way to do it. We're just sharing what we know works for us and has been helpful to us. And if you can add to it as a listener, as a reader of the book, please, because the more that we can compile this, we will put it out there and we'll make it, you know, we'll just recommend it. I mean, this is a lifelong process here.

Yeah. And that. Yeah. If you are on our newsletter list, we'll be sending out regular missives about this. So make sure. I mean, obviously you're on both of our lists the way. But we'll talk about at the end how to do that in case you are such a silly person that you're not on our list. Okay, we're at a. Which is affirmations. Jo, what is your experience with affirmations?

Well, here. You know what I'm going to do, because I want to read a part in the book that is about affirmations. I'm just going to literally read from, you know, the Miracle Morning. So there's this Part A is for affirmations. Have you ever wondered how some people seem to just be good at everything they do and consistently achieve at a level so high you can hardly comprehend how you'd ever join them or why others seem to Drop the ball time and time again. If it's a person's mindset that has proven to be the driving factor in their results. And then we talk about mindset and you know, Carol Direct's book Mindset and what she says. For 20 years, my research has shown that the view you adopt of yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. So that is a very important sort of thing. Now you can reinforce that with affirmations. And I'm going to get to why the old way of doing affirmations does not work. Because one of the things when, when how first even I heard the word affirmations, I had an immediate n reactions because I'm like, oh my God, it's like I can see a Saturday Night Live skit of someone just saying I love myself. I love myself. And you're like, what kind of bullshit is this?

I'm smolly.

Yeah, but there's one paragraph that says by repeatedly articulating and reinforcing to yourself what result you want to accomplish, why accomplishing it is important to you, which specific actions are required to produce the result, and most importantly, precisely when you will commit to taking these actions, your subconscious mind will shift your beliefs and your behavior. So if the way you do affirmations is what, why, which specific actions and when, you're going to literally get more clarity. And so here's the part where it says why the old way of doing affirmations does not work. For decades, countless so called experts and gurus have taught affirmations in ways that have proven to be ineffective and set people up for failure. Here are two of the most common problems with affirmations. Problem one, lying to yourself doesn't work. I am a millionaire. Really? I have 7% body fat. Do you? I have achieved all of my goals this year. Have you? Creating affirmations as if you've already become or achieved something may be the single biggest cause of affirmations not being effective for most people. With this technique, every time you recite the affirmation that isn't rooted in truth, your subconscious will resist it. An intelligent human being who isn't delusional. Lying to yourself repeatedly will never be the optimum strategy. The truth will always prevail. Problem number two, passive language doesn't produce results. Many affirmations have been designed to make you feel good by creating an empty promise or of something you desire. For example, here's a popular money affirmation that's been perpetuated by many world famous gurus. I am a money magnet. Money flows to me effortlessly and in abundance. This type of affirmation might make you feel good in the moment by giving you a false sense of relief from your financial worries, but it won't generate any income. People who sit back and wait for money to magically show up are cash poor. To generate the kind of abundance you want, or any result you desire for that matter, you've got to actually do something. Your actions must be in alignment with your desired results and your affirmations must articulate. And so, you know, without taking up more time on this one. And I will say that I have something as simple as post it notes that are on the wall in my bedroom where I literally just look at them and it takes me, I can do it in a minute. And they're triggers that just remind me of like where I'm at, where do I want to go, why I want to go there, and how I'm going to get there. And that's pretty much my affirmation process.

Well, and also you have the art, the gaping void art that is sort of affirmational, wouldn't you say?

Well, first off, I think my whole life is an affirmation because I have jumping off points all over my office. I have all kinds of triggers. I have all kinds of visual communications. I have a culture wall at my office that identifies, you know, it says, you know, things like, you know, respond, don't react. Because when you're in an addictive state, when you're in, you know, an out of control state, when you're in an angry state, you're probably not responding, you're reacting. And so in this line that comes from Al Anon that I first heard from you, where it's, that which is hysterical is historical. So whenever you underreact or overreact to something, it's rarely the thing in the moment unless someone just flat out punches you in the face. You know, the thing is, most things that trigger you aren't about the thing going on there. They just happen to be the trigger of something that happened, you know, in your past that you're just responding negatively or positively to. And so I have all kinds of things that are affirmations in terms of quotes, in terms of visuals that remind me to kind of what the hell I want in my life and how to think about things. And I got a great one in the main genius network room that says, be willing to destroy anything in your life that's not excellent. And you know, I mean, I think about that all the time. I mean If I'm in a situation where I'm just putting up with something, either change it or, you know, I mean, I have the serenity to pray up on the wall, you know, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

The wisdom to know the difference. Yeah.

Even if you're an atheist, which some people are. I mean, the term God is highly charged for some people because they, you know, a lot of their. I was raised Catholic, I had a lot of abuse that happened you, you know, in church environments and stuff. So, you know, I mean, it's all how you perceive it. But I mean, whatever, whatever is going to put you in a, in a more powerful state and that you can do it very quickly could be utilized as an affirmation. And so I'd love to hear what, how you do it.

Well, yeah, I did want to say about, about the God thing. You know, the idea is, I think it's easier for people to swallow when it's like as long as, you know, it's not you. You know, people say, oh, I don't want to be powerless. Actually what it does is sort of being able to surrender a drug and alcohol problem or a problem or whatever it is kind of just. It's like you get to wash your hands of it if you could really do it. Easier said than done. You know, most of us want what we want. Which brings us back to affirmations. And you know, what I will do is I will record some on some things that I know are true, that I just need to remember. You know, they say that people have, alcoholics have a built in forgetter and you know, and people in general tend to sort of gravitate towards the negative. So I will have to remind myself of positive things that like I'll put them on vision boards, I'll put them in voice memos, I'll listen to them just so that I can remember what's actually true. You know what I mean? Okay, so visualization is something that I'm sort of new to, but I've been doing a little bit of it. Do you do it, Joe?

Well, I can combine visualization very much with affirmations because a lot of the things that I have on the walls, a lot of the things that I aspire to do, I actually kind of combine them together. I mean, even what we do in Genius Network, I mean so much of, so much of. I think Genius Network is taking achievers and painting a bigger picture of the future that they want. I do positive focuses. I mean, you know, there's. Which is a tool that I learned through strategic coach. So, you know, I surround myself. Anyone that's ever been to my office, it's kind of, you know, it's my own little visualization world. And so, I mean, I think, you know, even my vision of. Of doing what, like, even this conversation right now, change the global conversation about how people view and treat addicts with compassion instead of judgment and find the best forms of treatment that have efficacy and share those with the world. And I have to constantly remind myself and inspire myself in order to do that. And so, you know, some people like vision boards. I mean, I think a really cool thing is digital photo albums. Not like a computer, but, like, you literally have a digital photo album that does nothing but just flip the photo, the picture, right. And it just scrolls. I think those are just really cool things to do. I'm working right now on finding a great source. So there are certain clients of mine that I want to send them because I know what their goals are, because they fill out tools in Genius Network and stuff. And I want to put together things so I can send them sort of their goals and their objectives and the things that are important to them and what they want to focus on with their friends and family and with their career and with their. Their health, with their, you know, personal and intellectual development and have things that are loaded into a, you know, a digital photo, you know, it's just like a frame that just sits on their desk and it just flips and it shows stuff.

Because I just think things like them.

Yeah, well, not only pictures of them, but quotes.

Yeah. Love it.

Yep. And I mean, anyone can buy one of those on Amazon. I mean, you can literally take, you know, so if you want visualizations of a place like a car you want to own or a body that you want to have, or a type of relationship or some sort of, you know, some sort of quote or poetry or anything that just, you know, puts your mind in that sort of direction. I mean, a lot of it is just different ways of asking yourself questions. You know, the brain cannot avoid a question. And when you present an image to it, I mean, this is going to sound like a really bizarre thing to say, but I remember reading this report and I'm trying to actually find the study because I remember reading this several years ago, where if someone does know this or finds this report, that would be great if actually, if they shared it on either the Miracle Morning Community or Genius recovery is when the only thing that makes the brain light up under a certain type of scan quicker than pornography is crystal meth. And so when someone looks at pornography, I mean, their brain changes. There's a biochemical change in the brain. When they show pictures of monkey butts to monkeys, which is the equivalent of monkey porn, the frickin monkey's brain lights up. Like when our eyes, when our senses take things in, it literally changes in a positive or negative way. So use visualization. See, addicts use visualization all the time. They just visualize destructiveness. They go into fantasy. And you know, I mean, any, any alcoholic that you know is in a bar or any sex addict that walks by a strip club or looks at porn online, I mean, it's a different form of visualization, but it's destructive. So what you want to do is harness what your subconscious is latching onto, but in things that you actually direct it, because you can direct your brain, you can shift where your attention goes. And I say all the time. One of the most important things for entrepreneurs, which is a lot of the world that I deal with in business, you got to protect their attention in order for them to be productive. What gets their attention? Well, the same thing with an addiction. So in order for an addict to not only get sober, but stay sober, you want to do things that are going to put your attention in places that are going to lead you to a much better life, more happiness and freedom from the bondage of addiction. And so that's in the best time to do it is right when you wake up in the morning.

Yes. So let's move on to E, which is exercise, which is something you and I are both, I would say, quite obsessed with. Are you still doing your burpee?

Yep, yep. I mean, I was really hardcore on it and like did not miss a day of doing at least 30 burpees a day. I mean, sometimes as many as, you know, I mean, there are a couple days I did a hundred, but you know, I would do between 30 to 70 burpees a day. And I did that for months on end. But I've kind of slowed down a little bit. When I say slowed down a little bit, I still do burpees five days a week. At least 30 to 80 is the framing. But what I've been doing more of now is I literally will go with a trainer and I'll lift weights four days a week and then I'll do yoga two to three times a week. That's pretty much my exercise ritual. When I'm traveling. Absolutely. Burpees are the best. If you do not have a lot of time and, you know, if you have to get up and go to the airport and you don't have time to go to the gym and you're in a different city, I mean, you can. You can crank out 10, 20, 30 burpees in literally a couple of minutes. And they are hard, and they will get your heart pumping, and they will put you into a different state, like, immediately. And I've gotten so many people to start doing burpees, and I will tell people, you know, it's very hard. Start with 1, then do 2, then do 5, then do, you know, and work up to it. But if you can get yourself up to doing, you know, 30 burpees a day, man, your endurance level just goes to a halt level. What people will find if they start doing that, they'll probably start other forms of exercise. They'll start doing strength training. I mean, there's a lot that burpees do. So definitely, if you don't take time out for exercise and nutrition now, you're going to take time out for it later. We talk about this in the book, and I will say this all the time. The issues are in the tissues. And so you got to get your body moving. You want to get your heart beating, you want to breathe. You have this body that contains all of this repressed emotions, and to be able to work through it and get in touch with your body is incredible. So that's. That's my form of exercise. Talk about yours.

Well, I would just like to add that. Just not joking about this burpee situation. When I stay with him, I am forced to do burpees. I have been forced to do burpees with Joe in front of the Genius network. Joe's done burpees. I think you did them at the annual event, which is to say, like, what, in front of 500 people?

Oh, yeah, we filmed it, like, with. No, it was like 400 people there at that one with Randy Zuckerberg, Mark Zuckerberg's sister, who, you know, was credited with creating Facebook Live with Boy. Who else did we have up there? We had Dima. We had the Betty Rocker, who has, like, you know, hundreds of thousands of people that follow her for fitness.

Tony Robbins spoke with. You didn't get him doing any burpees?

Nah, nah. We would have made him look bad, though. Tony would have been scared, I think. But no, Tony's hardcore.

Yeah. My form of ex. I do. I need a lot of variety in my life. So I do hip hop dance class, I do bar classes, I do a lot of hiking. You know, I sort of am switching it up all the time, but. Okay, moving on to reading. So Jo, you're a big fan of like the self help spiritual sort of books, right?

Yeah, I mean, I'm a fan of all kinds of books, but certainly I've read a ton of self help. But I mean, like right now I'm reading an advance copy of Ray Kurzweil's book Danielle's Chronicles of a Superheroine, which is a novel. And there's also two companion books that go along with it. And you know, Ray Kurzweil is a friend and he's, you know, I'm going to be interviewing him at my annual event this year. So I'm immersing. Plus I'm helping him with the marketing to this book because at the time we're recording this, it still doesn't come out for a couple of months. But I read all kinds of stuff and I don't read a book at a time. I read chunks of books and there are certain things that I will come back to. And at night, believe it or not, I actually have books on sleep because even with all the stuff that I do, I still have sleep challenges. And part of the reason I have sleep challenges, I mean, we could do a whole nother episode, which we may, we'll do follow up stuff on weird things that I've discovered. But I did a recent genetic test where I actually have determined genetically there's actually a reason that I have difficulty sleeping. So I'm working on things that can help me in that area. But I'm kind of according to my genetics, which I only buy this stuff in partially because even if someone has a genetic marker for addiction as an example, if there's not trauma there, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to express itself. So I'm still of the belief currently. I mean, my mind is always open to change and say that what I think now because what's a belief anyway? A belief just means you're not sure. So my current state of mind on this is that I know why that I have trouble sleeping and there are certain things that I can do something about and others I just have to do workarounds with. But I look at sleep as.

You.

Know, one of those things, how do you solve one problem that'll solve a hundred other problems? So when I read, I tend to read things that answer the question what needs Solved. So what do I need solved in my life or what do I want to work on? And when I do any sort of personal development or self help, it's that genre. And if I'm just reading to kind of like go to sleep, I literally have books about sleeping that are next to my bed and I will read. You know, I'm reading a book right now, why We Sleep. I have another friend, Dr. Michael Bruce, who wrote a book called the Power of Win. And he's, you know, he's one of the top sleep doctors in the world. And so I also like reading David Hawkins and Michael Singer.

I'm rereading Letting Go right now.

Letting Go is amazing.

Yeah, I mean, we talk about it in the Miracle Morning. It's like, it's just, it's so there. I have to read it slowly to take everything in and then, and then I'm like highlighting, you know, on a Kindle, I gotta say. And this is important because Miracle Morning is available on a Kindle. I just love the highlighting and then texting myself those quotes. I just love it. So, okay.

I like, I like paper though. I do. I still prefer, you know, even though from an organizational aspect, you know. And again, this is not right or wrong. I mean, some people love the organization of Kindles and what you just said. I mean, I have a Kindle also, but you know, using. Usually when I'm reading one of the things, there's just something about staring at just regular paper that I like. And so I'm always carrying books with me, but certainly in the morning just to follow the savers. Especially if you're brand new to this process. With Miracle Morning, try it. There's a section in the book on how to literally do all of these by devoting a minute each to each one in case you're ever in a rush. So I know we're talking at length and people are like, how the hell am I going to fit all of this stuff in? I mean, we literally give you the six minute version of how to do this. But you can take, you know, you can turn this into, you know, an hour. And some people are like, well, I don't have an hour to do that. If people actually, if people did, there's no perfect way to do this. We're talking about progress, not perfection. So, you know, I treat everything like a 12 step group. You know, take what you like and leave the rest. So if you, if you have a certain part of a ritual that works for you, you by all means keep doing it. If you can enhance it with what we're talking about. Do that. And we're just talking about one section of the book. I mean, even if you're not a morning person, I maybe should have said that in the beginning. I think this book will encourage you to be a morning person. But even if for some reason you're like, I don't care. I'm going to stay up till 2 in the morning and wake up at 10, you can still apply what we write about in the book.

Yeah, 10:06.

Yeah.

And I think that's such a good point because it is like, you are not. If you read this book and you're like, I'm going to do a Miracle Morning. I don't do all of these things every day. It's a little bit of a choose your own adventure and it's what you've got time for, what speaks to you, what works. Maybe you don't like writing first thing in the morning. You know, it really is what works for you. But I've been amazed. You know, I said this before, but basically when this opportunity first came up, I had actually never heard of the Miracle Morning. And I sat down to read this book going, well, you know, I've read every book out there, like, what it. What is this guy going to tell me that I don't already know? And I've told Hal this, like, he channeled something in this book. And that's why it's become one of the most successful books of all time. And that's why it spawned this, you know, series, you know, so we're just one of them. There's the Miracle Morning for entrepreneurs, for millionaires, for real estate agents. You know, it goes on and on, but it really is completely magical. And I'm not saying that so that you guys will go by our book, but if it helps you go by our book. Great.

Yeah, exactly. And it's the least that everyone could do, should buy our book. And here's the thing, by immersing ourselves in this, it's just really great. And personally, I think this is such a solid Miracle Morning book in terms of the work that we have put into it. It's really, really good. And the advanced readers that people can go see the reviews on Amazon because the first people that were able to review it were, you know, and we told them, sincerely, if you don't like it, tell us you don't like it. And the reviews so far, pretty awesome.

Yeah. And it shot not to brag to number one in substance abuse, like, immediately when it went up there. So let's keep it up there. And yeah, it is available as, you know, as an ebook, as a print book, and it will soon. I don't know if by the time you hear this, but it will be available as an Audible audiobook as well. So that's all we got for you guys.

Well, we got scribing. We got scribing.

I know. So writing. So I just didn't know if we were brushing over that one. So do you do writing in the first thing in the morning?

Well, what I do, I have a app that I do. I have a guy named Cameron Herald who's a genius network member that me and him do a thing called Commit to Three. So the one thing that I always write is we always write down the top three things that I'm going to do. Right. So I do that. The other. And here's. Here's the other way that I actually do journaling. I have used all kinds of journals almost my entire adult life. I mean, probably from the age of 16 is when I started keeping diaries and doing journals. And there's a million different ways that I would do it over the years. I actually have an app that I use called Day One that I actually, you know, every day for the last two and a half years. I mean, literally every day, I think. I think there was like three days during that time that I did not do a journal entry into this thing. And I can attach pictures and stuff, too. And it is an electronic thing. And there's still a part of me that, you know, misses that. So that's one aspect. And here's where I'm inconsistent. So I'm never going to, like, try to say, oh, I do this consistently if I really don't. Morning pages are fabulous. They're fantastic for people in recovery. I'm inconsistent. I go in spurts where. There are some times where I'll just do it for several days at a time and then I'll just stop and I don't beat myself up over it. In handwriting, I think will get much deeper into your subconscious than typing or tapping or transcribing, literally handwriting. So the. The process of doing it, I think, is meditative. And so I would encourage people, if you've never journaled, go ahead and do it and follow the processes and recommendations that we have laid out here. But I'd love, you know, you, Anna, though, are way more qualified to speak to writing than probably anyone, because that's who you are.

Well, yeah, but professional writing and this kind of writing is very different. It's interesting. I mean, I became a writer because I was kept a journalist since I was five. Like, I've always written. It's always help me heal. And then. And then as I got a career as a writer, the journaling kind of cut down. But I just started doing morning pages or writing in the morning. I have an accountability group on Facebook, and I said, hey, why don't we try to do this three times a week? Ever since then, I guess that was only, like three weeks ago. I've done it every day, and now it's just part of what I do. I just roll over and do it. But. Okay, we do have to wrap up. Joe, is there anything else that we want to tell people about the book, about us, about anything?

Well, you know, there are things. A chapter that I actually have in there too, and definitely there's a lot to it. I mean, we've only touched a tiny percentage of what's included in the book that you'll get value out of, but we wanted to cover the main processes. So you kind of get the gist of the Miracle morning process. What I've discovered through a lot of influence, like my friend Tommy Rosen, who we write about in the book and different people, is after traveling around the world for the last three years with a video camera and a camera crew filming and interviewing people, I've learned quite a few things about recovery and some very interesting things that will eventually show up in a documentary. I mean, our first documentary, Blackstar for artists for ad, which is something that I started. Artist with an S for addicts dot com. If anyone has not seen the trailer. Our first film won the audience choice awards for short films at the Sedona Film Festival. That just happened about a month ago at the time that we're doing this recording. So I've been interviewing and talking with a lot of people. We're doing a lot of things to try to help with the area. Area of addiction and using art as a force for good. And there's four areas that you need in order to not only get sober, but stay sober, in my experience, and coupled with the miracle morning. So if someone gets the book, we literally go through those four areas, and it's, you know, 12 steps as an example, is wonderful and great, and it's helped millions of people. And we, you know, I'm a big fan and big believer, and at the same time, they don't really talk about trauma work. In 12 steps, there's very little about food and nutrition and the biochemical aspect. So we touch into those things. So if you're already doing 12 steps, we're going to give you recommendations that will enhance your ability to do that. If you're not someone that wants to do that sort of community, but you want to look at alternative ways of doing it, we discuss those things. So the emphasis of the book is to use the more morning as the best way to change your life before 8am but there's a lot more to it than that, including like what you had mentioned, all kinds of different people's rituals that have helped them and have worked for them. So again, if you're an addict or you don't know, but there's an area of your life where you are self destructive and you are doing things that you don't want to do and you're not able to stop, or you have people in your life that just, no matter what, can't seem to get it together. You know, they may be addicted, they may have an addiction. And if you're an employer of people, I mean, I cannot tell you how many employers that have heard me talk about addiction and they had problem people that were working for them or co workers and they're like, what the hell? And then they, you know, then they would admit, yeah, this, you know, this person can't function without drinking coffee or this person has to go to happy hour. And then they start realizing, wow, you know, maybe this person has an addiction. And then they start talking to this person and they start connecting with them at deeper levels and all of a sudden they have a connection and they have progress that was not being made in any other way. So, you know, I think you'll, I think you'll get a lot out of, out of our book and hopefully gives you an awareness that you're probably not getting from watching, you know, or being tapped into the typical mainstream media which, you know, feeds a lot of crap to people. It just really does. So anyway, those are my. That's what I would say.

Well, thank you Joe. Thank you everybody for listening. You can go pick up our book on Amazon and we love you all.

You got it. So thanks Anna. And please give us your feedback and share this with anyone that you know that may be struggling with addiction. And thank you so much for the support if you buy our book. So do it now. Thank you.

Bye.

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