Episode 33: Personal and Business Growth with Hal Elrod

Come on. Spontaneity.

Spontaneity.

What's the word?

It's spontaneity.

That's a tongue twister right there.

You're listening to the Profit first podcast.

It's so nice they named it twice. Episode 33. Yes. Ow.

Is it easier or harder to grunt sitting next to your wife?

I know she's listening in.

That wasn't a bad question, Christina. Welcome, everyone, to the Profit first podcast.

I'm Chris Curran, and I'm stepping on.

Founder of Mike Michalowicz.

And I'm Mike Michalitz, Finder founder of Chris Curran. We are proud to have you here. I'm the author of Profit first too, dude.

Yes, you are. It's. It's a whirlwind phenomena across the globe.

I know at least of one reader. Easily one or two.

I know a guy who bought. Oh, no, I'm not going to say.

You can't psych us out like that.

I can't do it.

You can't do that, because sometimes I. Oh, that's too loud.

Wow.

That's too loud.

Sorry. I'll bring you down there.

All right, thanks.

So this is the show where we.

Oh, my gosh, I totally forgot my script here. This is a show where we talk about profitability. It's like, I like to say, it's the alpha and the omega. It's every element of business. And, you know, today's episode's gonna be pretty freaking cool because we're gonna talk about the wake up. What do you want me to do?

You're so, like, your movements, your hands, you're so.

Oh, I'm so into it. Oh, you're just busting my chops. I thought you wanted me to say something. We're going to talk about your wake schedule, your sleep schedule, and actually how that influences profitability. Christine makes his big face like, oh, this is going to sound really, really interesting.

We're waiting for the genius. Come on, impress us, Mike Michalowitz.

Okay, well, I got something to impress you later.

Hey, by the way, you can find our podcast on itunes and Stitcher and also Tunein. Rad.

What's up with Tune In Radio? They're like, they heard about us. They called us.

They called us. They said, you guys are lighting up the Internet. We want you, so. And also our website, profitfirstpodcast.com. it redirects to your site, but don't worry about that.

Which then re. Redirects you back to profitfirstpodcast.com and you go in this loop For a few minutes, and then it lands somewhere. And some guy said it landed on, like, some German workout site. Oh, right. Did you hear about that?

Okay, terrific. No. So we've had a lot of great guests on our show, and we're happy that you enjoy it. So, Mike, how's life, man?

Life is good. Your bathroom is not. So I'm down there. I've never seen this. This is the most bizarre bathroom ever. I go in there, I use the bathroom, I wash my hands in that order. I come out and I'm like, hold on. There's two doors to, like, one. You know what I'm talking about?

Did you walk into the woman's?

No, no, no, no. This is coming out of the bathroom. There's two doors. I'm like, which one did I come in? Both of them go outside, but they're spaced apart. So I'm like, what the hell? I look on the other side. One says, for handicaps, people, and one's regular bathroom. So I'm like, this is the most bizarre thing. One's the handicap entrance to the exact same bathroom to the exact same spot.

What's up with it?

It's a little weird. And I must say, we're not in my home. It's not my bathroom. To clarify, we're in a building.

That's a good point.

That is a good point. What have you been up to?

Just, you know what? I'm doing the Mystic Show. You know that, right?

Yeah.

I do this other podcast called the mystic show.

Yeah, I listen to it. Do you solo. You do it solo, right?

I do it solo, yeah. Sometimes I interview people. Yeah, Sometimes I read stuff too.

Yep. I listen to.

But it's really deep stuff. And I interviewed a couple cool people lately.

So what's the deepest thing you did? Well, recently.

Wow. It's like Hollywood.

What's the most recent?

I interviewed a woman named Rona Post, and she's all about living from the heart and being mindful. It's pretty cool.

Okay.

Did I bring the show down, Christina?

No, you kind of did. Not at all.

Not at all.

Can we have the kid laughing?

Oh, sure.

Can we?

Christina's happy again. So before we introduce our guest, who, let me give you a hint, wrote the miracle morning, Hal Elrod. Oh, my book is awesome. But before we introduce Hal, I want to tell you about our corporate partners. Dude, what's up with two things? I nailed the word corporate partners.

He wanted you to slip up.

Oh, you want me to slip up? There's two things about you. You start Laughing at the weirdest spots. And you gotta clear your throat when you ask a question. Like, you'll start asking a question and be like, I have a great. Okay, here it is. Fundera T Sheets. Nexteven. We'll touch all of them in a little bit.

The trifecta.

Talk about them. Yep.

We love our corporate partners.

So I find this book out from a friend. He's like, you got to read the Miracle Morning. I start reading it and thank God Hal's muted. Because at first I'm like, I don't know if I like this. I tell you, I'm honest. I was not enjoying the book. I even told my wife who's listening right now. I said, you know, I don't know if I can make it through this book. And I'm like, you're two chapters in. Next morning, though, I'm like, well, I'm going to get up a little early, whatever, within a week. And you know this. Within a week, I'm up every morning at 5:30 cranking things out. This book changed my life and it started off with me being all negative about it. So I'll tell you, a good book is not necessarily one that you say, oh, it's a flowery, fun read. It's one that actually kicks you in the butt and makes you do something.

Totally. I want to read it.

You have to read it.

No, I haven't.

Here's the deal. Hal Elrod, the author, died at age 20. Oh, but wow.

Weird.

Well, no, but we're interviewing him. Something must have happened from the office. He was hit by a drunk driver. He broke 11 bones in his body. His heart stopped beating for beating or botting one of the two, stopped beating for six minutes, was in a coma for six days and told never to walk again. Now he ran 52 miles. He competes in all his competitions, and he writes this book that literally is changing lives. I think it's sold over 100,000 copies. I want to say now it is a popular book that is changing lives. With no further ado, Mr. Hell.

Hell.

Run.

Woo.

Woo. I have really two questions. Number one, how drunk are you? Is everybody on the line?

We're pretty wasted.

We're pretty wasted. I feel like I gotta go. I want to redo this and after I have a few shots. And number two, I love how you guys are trying to play off the baby laugh like it's not Mike laughing and it's some sort of sound, you know, some sort of track or something. But Mike, I think you have an adorable laugh. Buddy, keep it up. Don't, don't be embarrassed.

I appreciate it.

Hal. Yeah, before the shows today, Christina and I held them down, right? And take a look me in the belly.

So. So Hal, you're out in California today, right?

So Cal, it is beautiful weather today. Yeah, typical sunny Southern California.

What time did you get up this morning?

3:30. I told you, I have lunch. When you wake up in the morning.

Now are you regularly getting up at 3:30 in the morning?

Seven days a week, unless I'm up late for date night or I'm speaking at an event or something that goes late. But otherwise kind of my daily standard routine is seven days a week, 3.30am.

Alright, so we lost half our listeners right now. So one listener's gone, they're saying this guy is absurd. Getting up at 3:30 in the morning.

Yeah, and I'm glad you said that because quick disclaimer, that's not what the miracle morning is. You know, when I first was doing the miracle morning for my own accountability, I would be. Cause I started it at 5 and then I went to 4:30, then I went to 3 and whatever, 3:30. And I used to post every day doing my miracle morning at 3:30, up at 3:30am for the miracle morning. I put it on Facebook. It's kind of an accountability to check in every day. And then it was probably six months of doing that as I was working on the book and somebody goes, yeah, you know your miracle morning? I listened to one of your, the audios about it, it sounds great, but I just couldn't get up at 3:30. I just wouldn't, I don't want to even try. And I go, well you don't have to. Why do you? Why would you? They go, isn't that what the miracle morning is? You wake up at 3:30 and I go, oh my God, how many thousands of people on Facebook and Twitter think that's what it is. So anyway, so yeah, definitely that's not the case.

So why don't you start by telling us really what is the miracle morning?

So the miracle morning, you know, if you study the world's most successful people in virtually every area, you find a commonality is their morning ritual. In fact, I was able to ask Tim Ferriss a few weeks ago, maybe last month up in Napa, I was at an event and he was doing a Q and A. And I asked him, I said, you ask every single person on your podcast, or virtually every person it seems, about their morning ritual. Can you talk about the importance of morning Rituals, and you know, what's yours like? And you know, if you look at that, it's something that almost every person, the way that they start their day, they've got this ritual, this routine, and it's different for everybody. But it's a key part where if you win the morning, you put yourself in a peak physical, mental, emotional and intellectual space to win the day. But here's the problem is that if you study any influencer or self help guru or genius, it's always one of many lessons that they teach. No one had ever extracted that, hey, this is not just one of 10 things that you want to try on this year. How you start your day is arguably the single most important thing that you can upgrade to upgrade any area of your life. And so that's kind of what it was. I was at a rock bottom at one point. I created this ritual for myself. It was based on, I took the six most proven personal development practices known to man, and rather than do one or two of them, I thought, what if I did all of them? That would be like personal development on steroids. I did it my first morning. And at that time in my Life, I was $53,000 in credit card debt. I had lost over half my clients. I was in the worst shape of my life physically. I was deeply depressed and I was in the middle of losing my house. And in one morning I went, whoa, if I start every day this way, I don't feel depressed. And within two months, I had tripled my income. On and on and on. And that's why I started calling it the miracle morning. It was never like a book idea. It was my thing that I did for me. And then it just kind of grew into what it is today.

Now in the book, you talk about the savers steps. Those are the steps you're referring. Tell us what those are exactly.

Yeah. So the way that those evolved is my first inclination. I was listening to the self help audio from Jim Rohn, my very first day of running, when a friend of mine who I finally confessed to how bad my life had gotten, he said, hal, are you exercising every day? I said, dude, I could barely get out of bed in the morning, man, I'm not exercising. I canceled my gym membership. I can't even afford it. And he said, hal, if you're not putting yourself in a peak physical, mental and emotional state every day and then learning something, you're going to stay stuck. So I heard this quote from Jim Rohn. I went on a run that day, first run since High school, literally, you know, since you had to run a mile. And I heard the quote, jim says, your level of success will seldom exceed your level of personal development. And in that moment, I realized I'm not dedicating time every day to my personal development. To create the success I want, I've got to figure out what are the best in personal development practices that the world's most successful people do. And after about an hour of what I call G search, which is just Google searches, research. G Search.

I have a new term now. I love it.

Yeah, I need to trademark that. I basically come with a list of six. Every article I'm reading, cross references. It's either meditation, it's affirmations, it's visualization, it's exercise, it's reading, it's journaling. These are the six practices. And my first inclination was, okay, let me go back to my G search and figure out which of these is the best one. Which of these should I start every day with to have, like, the biggest bang for my buck and nothing could, Depending on who you asked, right? This billionaire says meditation. You know, Ray Dalio, multi billionaire, runs the largest hedge fund in the world, says meditation is the key to his financial success. Not his spiritual success, right? But financial. But then you read, you know, you read. Will Smith says, it's affirmation. So I'm going, man, I can't decide which is better. I go, whoa, what if I did all of them? You know? And so here are the savers. This is the acronym that, with my wife and the thesaurus help, came up with this.

I gave you that order that you attributed it to your wife first. Very smart.

Well, it was literally, I was frustrated writing the book one day, and she goes, why? I go, sweetie, I need some kind of, like, framework or something so you could remember these six practices and organize them. And she goes, why don't you get the thesaurus and see if you can make an acronym with the words? And I'm like, you're fricking brilliant. Right? So. So I'm happy you don't call her.

G babe, by the way.

Yeah, she's my. Yeah, she's my. My number one spot for G search. I just go to my wife. But she. She. Yeah, so where was I going with that?

I throw it to, like, three.

Yeah. So the S is for silence. So rather than starting your day with, you know, hitting the snooze button, I call that a mediocre morning. Right? You just waste the morning and rush out the front door having no personal Development, you start the day with silence, whether that's meditation, which the benefits are so extraordinary, proven and undeniable that you're crazy not to at least give it a 30 day challenge and try some meditation or prayer or. For most people, it's a combination of both. The A is for affirmations and not the way they've been taught over the years. In fact, I'm writing an article for entrepreneur.com right now that I'll finish today and publish probably next week. And it's on how to create affirmations that actually work. Because the way they've been taught over the years, it's real flowery language. Like money flows to me effortlessly and in abundance. I'm a money magnet. Like, what the hell does that mean?

I'm smart enough, I'm good enough, and gosh darn it, people like me.

So how do you affirmations that articulate what you want, why you want it and what specific actions and when you're going to take those actions that you need to make sure it's a success, that you achieve it. The V is for visualization. The E is for exercise. And I'm not saying that you trade in your. If you like to go to the gym in the evening for an hour, great. But again, the benefits of morning exercise, getting your heart rate up first thing when the day starts increases your the blood and the oxygen to your brain. You think clearer, you make better decisions, you have more energy throughout the entire day. So it's five or 10 minutes in the morning. The R in savers is for reading and not like 50 shades of gray or Harry Potter books that actually will improve your intellect in the areas that you want to improve. And the final S. And this is a big word for me. I owe the thesaurus for this one is scribing. And that's a. Originally it was journaling. Right. But that's a fancy word for. For writing. So those are the savers. And you can do them in the book. I have a whole chapter on how to do them in six minutes or how to do them in 60 minutes. You can really customize it anywhere in between for your schedule.

So let's talk about the timing first. I mean, I know you're the 3:30 guy, but you kind of got to be. You're the king of this methodology. You're the guy who brought it back. But for the average person starting it up, is there a perfect time? You can't start the morning Miracle at 12:01 in the afternoon. I know that when's a good time to get started.

Yeah, I will say that I do. And there's a chapter in the book on customizing the miracle morning, and it's all about, like, okay, if you're a shift worker and you're going, dude, I work at, like, from midnight to six, what am I? You know, whatever. So you literally could do a miracle afternoon or evening, and do the lifesavers, you know, at different parts of the day. But the benefits of doing them first thing in the morning, they impact your whole day. So, you know, when people say, can I just do them later in the day? I go, well, you can, but you're missing out on. You've missed out on. Your entire day has now not been impacted by having done that in the morning, if you would've done it in the morning. So the premise is waking up a little earlier than you do now. And there's a big. Here, let me pull back. There's a big picture philosophy to this, too. How you start your day sets the context and your mindset for the entire day. If you start your day by hitting the snooze button, you're literally sending a message to the universe and your subconscious that says, number one, I don't have the discipline to get my butt out of bed in the morning, let alone the discipline that I need to achieve my goals. That's number one. Number two, you're sending a message to the universe that says, yeah, I know. I say I want an extraordinary life, but not as bad as I want to lay here unconscious for nine more minutes.

Right?

Which makes no sense. But then, on the other hand, right? T Harve Eker said, how you do anything is how you do everything. So if you start your day with discipline, purpose, focus, growth, et cetera, right? That sets the tone and the context for you to crush. So it could be 30 minutes or 60 minutes earlier than you wake up now, and that's it. It's the way it's waking. It's setting your alarm. And that's what I tell everybody. Before the podcast is over. Your challenge. Don't wait till you've read the book or you know the savers and you mastered them and you took a meditation class from, like, right now. Schedule your alarm clock 30 to 60 minutes before it is set now. Because right now, it's probably set for when you have to wake up. Set it for when you want to wake up to become the person that you need to be. That can easily create and sustain the levels of success that you want in every single area of your life that's really the essence of the miracle morning.

Now, I hear or see article after article that says people aren't getting enough sleep and they're compromising their health because of that. How do you address that challenge?

Yeah, there's a couple negative reviews on the book that are like, I'm sorry.

About that, by the way.

But they said they're like, he advocates sleep deprivation and da da, da, da. And I was like, I was like, when I read that on the review, I'm like, did I really do that? And I went back and of course I didn't do that. And I copied and pasted the text they were referring to. I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about, but here you go. But. And by the way, your review is not helpful. Thank you. But what happened?

Mike, that was a little late there I am.

Yeah, so. Mike, you're adorable. So what, what, what happened? Oh, so in the book though, I talk about how the mind body connection and that, that I experimented with various quantities of sleep. But the difference was I tried four hours of sleep, five hours of sleep, six, seven and eight hours of sleep, telling myself before bed that I was gonna be exhausted in the morning. And what you find is that your first thought in the morning is almost always the last thought you had before bed. Think about it, if you go to bed excited about like Christmas morning or a vacation or whatever, as soon as your eyes open, you're like, oh my gosh, go time. It's here. If you go to bed and you're only getting six hours of sleep and you've created a limiting belief that says, no, no, no, I can't function on anything less than eight hours, then it's a self fulfilling prophecy. You literally program your body, your biology that when the alarm goes off you're like, oh my God, I only got six hours of sleep, of course I'm exhausted. So I experimented, trying different durations of sleep, saying I'm going to be exhausted in the morning and really feeling that before I went to bed. Then I flipped it and I tried the same variation, saying I'm going to be on fire in the morning. And what I found is it wasn't the amount of sleep as much as it was the intention that I put into my body before I woke up. So I'm not a scientist, there's evidence that says you need eight hours. But if you look at some of the greatest minds in human history, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, they're notorious for sleeping like four or five hours a night. So I tell everybody. I'm not going to tell you how many hours of sleep you need. You need to experiment and see what works for you.

And so how much sleep do you personally get?

I get six hours a night.

Okay.

I go to bed at 9:30pm, put the kids down at like 8:30, spend an hour with my wife and then I get to bed at 9:30 for six hours of sleep. Although I found that five and a half hours sometimes for whatever reason I feel great off five and a half hours as well.

So you got up at 3:30 this morning. I assume it's total silence in your house, there's no calls coming in, maybe some east coast business because it'd be 6:30 here. But what do you do for your miracle morning?

Yeah, so the, so the lifesavers is still the essence of it. I wake up. So when I wake up at 3:30 it used to be four and what would happen is, you know, I would get up, have to brush my teeth, wash my face, make some tea or some coffee, you know, get situated, grab my book and my notebook, whatever, journal and I'd end up starting the miracle morning like the lifesavers at 4:12am and I'm kind of obsessive compulsive and I just, I was like I want to start right on the dot. At 4 so 3:30 I wake up and I just kind of sometimes like if I'm not feeling real awake, I'll, I'll do a little few jumping jacks, get the heart rate going or sometimes.

On the bed while your wife is sleeping there.

Yeah, I'm definitely downstairs for this one. So I get ready and then at 4am I hit the ground running. I dive into the lifesavers and I do saves. So if you take out the R for reading I do saves from 4 to 4:30. So five minutes for each of those practices and then I do reading for 30 minutes and then at 5am I usually do my writing. So I either I'm working on my next book or I'm writing for entrepreneur or one of those things that's usually my writing time. 6am typically is my goal review. So I'll review my goals, I'll prioritize, I'll look at my actions, et cetera, I'll get clarity. And then at 6:30 I dive into my first priority, my highest priority for the day. I crack that open so I don't procrastinate on throughout the day. And it's half an hour Is not a lot of time, but I kind of take that first step or get something started. And then 7am, I do emails from 7 to 8. That's when I check my emails and that's also when my kids come downstairs and I make them a smoothie. And my daughter and I actually started doing the Miracle morning. She's five years old and we do yoga together and we do meditation together and affirmations and her and I agreed like a week ago. I said, sweetie, do you want to co author the Miracle Morning for Kids with me?

Oh, good idea.

And she goes, what does that mean? And I said, you know, daddy writes books. Like do you want to write a book with me? And she goes, could I do the drawings in it? And I said, done. You know, we shook on it. So you know, watch out for that. Probably year or so from now.

But we have a recording of her actually.

Oh, I'm sorry. So what about profitability? I mean, let me just stage that for you. Every person listening to the show is looking to improve the profitability in their business in some regard. When we were talking offline, besides you busting my balls, you were saying, yeah, this miracle morning makes you more profitable.

Prove it.

Prove it, man, prove it.

So, alright, so. Well, first of all, for me, when I started the miracle morning, I was at rock bottom. I was again, I explained, 50 grand in debt, lost half my clients, couldn't pay my bills. That's why I had, I went from being debt free to 50 to 50 grand in six months, living on credit cards because I couldn't pay my bills. Right? And so that was my number one thing that I needed to improve in less than two months of doing my first miracle morning. I did it seven days a week and I think I did five days a week in the beginning. Then I went to six, then I went to seven. But in less than two months, I almost tripled my income. I more than doubled it. Almost tripled it. And here's the deal. I was a business owner, I was a solopreneur, I ran a coaching business, I was still a speaker and an author and I didn't get a promotion. My income didn't triple because I got a promotion or I got another stream. I literally, the knowledge, the confidence, the clarity that I was gaining from my miracle morning allowed me to scale my current business. I was reading books on increasing your income and growing your business. Right. That was a part of it, but also it was the clarity, the motivation, the energy, all of the things that are also required for you to start scaling. That was what I gained from the miracle morning. I was recently asked in an interview. They said, hal, you created the miracle morning because you were at rock bottom. And it turned it around really quickly. They said, but you're not at rock bottom anymore. By most measures, you're relatively successful. Why do you still do it? And I was like, interesting. That's a great question. Well, I'll tell you this. I doubled. My last year was my best year in income. And I dou. No. Or the year before, I doubled from one year to the next. That's my goal every year, is to double my income. And I don't hit it every year. Right. But the miracle morning, I believe, is the single most important component for that to be true.

Okay, so you have me convinced. You have listeners convinced. Why don't we go step by step through savers and give me one tip for each one. So the first one's silence. Do you have a tip if someone wants to implement this? How to achieve silence meditation?

Yeah, I mean, so here's where I would suggest starting. If you're like, dude, I tried meditating before and it doesn't work. I, you know, I can't quiet my thoughts. I like, like, for me, I, you know, sorry, like, I suck at meditation. And so I recommend guided meditation. And there's, you know, if you have an iPhone. If you don't have an iPhone, why don't you have an iPhone? I teased my friend once. I said, I said, dude, I'm gonna start a charity, like, getting iPhones for children in third world countries. And he's like, hal, I think there are more important causes than that. I'm like, dude, I'm obviously joking.

So I love that you let it with a dude.

There's that. So there's. Yeah, there's some great. There's some great apps. One is called Omvana. That's my favorite meditation app. It's O M as in meditation, V as in Victor, A N as in Nancy, A om Vana. There's one called calm. There's one called headspace. So that's my recommendation if you're, you know, if you want to before you are a master meditation, start with guided meditation so you don't have to do anything except for listen and follow the prompts of the expert.

Love it.

The A for affirmations. I kind of dove in a little bit to that. Right. They're usually written one of two ways that affirmations have been taught over the years. That's given them a bad rapid. Either Lying to yourself, saying, I am a millionaire. I am a millionaire. No, you're not. And unless you're delusional, if you're an intelligent person, your subconscious mind is going to resist that type of affirmation every time you're going to call BS on yourself. The other type of affirmation is that flowery language, Money flows to me effortlessly. No, it doesn't. You have to put effort. So those affirmations, they might make you feel good by a false promise of a benefit that you desire, but they don't generate real results in your life. So the way I teach and I give this, like step by step in the book on how to do an affirmation that creates results. Well, here's the essence of it. Number one, what do you want, right? Essentially, having your goals or whatever it is that you want, having clarity on that in writing. Why do you want it? What is the compelling reason or benefit? Number three, and this is one that most people don't address, what's holding you back from achieving it? You know, the military, when they go in for a mission, they plan for contingencies, right? Which means that they assess what's everything that could go wrong, and they try to cover everything that could possibly go wrong, and then they go, okay, how will we address each of these possible adversities that we might face on this mission? And then they plan for contingencies. Well, we need to do that too in our lives. If you're not clear on what's holding you back from achieving your goals, then that very thing is going to continue to hold you back from achieving your goals. But when you can put a face to it, you can put it in writing, review it every day. It keeps you aware if it's happening, so you can adjust and correct course as needed. Love it. And then the fourth component of affirmations is, what do you need to commit? What's the action you're committed to taking? What's the frequency of that action, and what's the duration of that action? So see, instead of an affirmation that says money flows to me while I sit here on my butt and don't do anything, right, because I'm a money magnet, the affirmation is, I know exactly what I want, why I want it, what could hold me back from achieving it, and what specifically I need to do for how long I need to do it and how often I need to do it. And when you read that every day, it's like if you program a computer to do something, it does what you tell it to do. And our subconscious mind is the same way. So that's an action oriented affirmation.

I love it. Give me the visual, the V, the visualization.

The gurus have taught it for years as visualize the end result. See yourself in your dream house or with your spouse, whatever it is. Right? And the problem is there's been research at Harvard that has shown your. I actually don't know who was at Harvard. I just said, I love that though.

All of a sudden what he's about to say is the real shit. Exactly.

But I'm a trans. I'm trying to be authentic. But it was. I did read a study, I forgot where it was from. But research has shown when you visualize the end result, it actually has the opposite effect because you trick yourself into thinking it's as good as done and you remove the desire, the need and the drive to make it happen. So in the book I teach you visualize the end result. But the second and most important half of the visualization process is see yourself doing the thing today, the action today that you need to do. Lacing up your running shoes, heading out your front door with a smile on your face to go on that run, picking up the phone call, calling that prospect with a smile on your face to schedule the appointment. Whatever the thing is, see yourself taking the action. That's the most important in my opinion and experience aspect of visualization.

Have you heard that story? I don't know if it was Cal Ripken. There was someone, I don't even know if Cal Ripken was a pitcher, but there was, who said he pitched a perfect game in the World Series. And during the interview they said, how did you ever do this? He says, oh, this was my thousandth time. I visualized it over and over and over again.

The guy that ran the four minute mile said the exact same thing. They thought they, you know, is this Roger Bannister? Roger Bannister, both Harvard graduates, by the way. How did you do it? It was considered physically impossible. He goes, I've seen myself do that, you know, over and over and over again. And most of the world's best athletes, right, Tiger woods back in the day.

You'Re going to qualify that.

Now, before the incident when he was the best golfer in the world, I mean, he talks about Jack Nicholas too. They visualize the entire course playing it perfectly. And when you see yourself taking an action in a certain way, whether it's executing it perfectly or doing something that you tend to resist doing, like cold calling or whatever, or Running or exercising, when you see yourself doing it and you feel the way you want it to feel, smile on your face, confidence, a pep in your step, right then when you actually consider, should I lace up my running shoes, go out the door? That emotional, that's anchored in there. And you go, that visualization created this emotional response. He goes, yeah, you know what's gonna be fun? I already saw what it was gonna be like, I felt what it's gonna be like and I'm ready to make it happen in real life now, you.

Know, so we talk about celebrities, Tiger woods and stuff. My son was running at a track meet and he ran this great race and I looked at him seriously, authentically, I go, son, you are the next Bruce Jenner. And I'm like, oh, isn't it funny? Like, you know, the next Tiger woods was a good thing at a certain point. All Hal tip for exercise. What's your one tip?

So just if you don't have an iPhone, get an iPhone and get the app. Seven minute workout. Greatest full body workout in seven minutes. You don't do anything for longer than 30 seconds at a time. It's like it's exercise for people with ADD and no self discipline. Get the seven minute workout out.

My wife and I've done that.

If you're an Android user, they probably have it for Android now too. I don't.

Now I know how you tripled your income. It's being an Apple salesman.

Are there, are there apps on Android phone? Do they have apps yet?

No, they don't. They don't. They've just figured out that rotary phones are no longer cool.

Got it. All right, give me. Okay, so and then reading, you know, here's here, I'll just quantify this. So reading people often. Well, I don't have time to read or you know, I get home at night and I intended to read but it's late, I gotta go to bed. Read 10, you know, 10 minutes a day. That's the miracle morning. 10 minutes a day of reading time. And the, if you, if you quantify, let's say you read a page a minute, that's ten pages a day. And if you quantify that over the now you might think what's only 10 pages a day? That's really, is that going to change my life over the course of a year? That's 3650 pages. That's 18200 page self help books. If you read one 200 page self help book, you're ahead of 95% of our society. Right.

Yeah.

If you're reading a book a month, you're going to be a different person and you're going to see your outer world quickly start to reflect your inner world. And the final tip, the final s is for scribing. I'll just again, I'll give you a resource. My favorite journal is called the five minute Journal and they make both an app for the iPhone and they.

Of course they do.

It's really iPhone heavy. I don't normally talk about the iPhone so much, but they also make a hardcover. If you go to F I V E5 minutejournal.com, they make a hardcover version, which I have. I've got hardcover versions in my nightstands for my wife and I. But I travel a lot. So on my app, a lot. But then by the way, if this doesn't tell you how authentic this is, I actually there is a Miracle Morning journal available on Amazon.com I believe so much in the. I think this journal is better. So instead of recommending the journal that I spent time and energy creating and that I make money off of and I don't make money on the 5 Minute Journal, but highly recommend that. And it's a great, it's a great journaling process and it takes five minutes a day, so it's great.

Yeah, no, I love it. And Harvard researchers proved that the. Just give us a quick insight on that new book you got coming out. What is it? What is it?

I don't even know. I have so many, so.

But you said you're writing though for children. Yeah, it's for children, isn't it?

That one won't come out for a while. But Miracle Morning is throw me off.

I know we know how to mess you up now we just keep on throwing sound effects. You're like, what the hell was I talking about?

Yeah, exactly. It's funny. I used to do a group coaching with a buddy of mine and he used to do that when I was taught in the middle of my talk. Like I'd be teaching something really profound and he would do that and it would totally screw me up and. But anyway, so the Miracle Morning for Real estate agents came out in December and really interesting niche. It just happens that this took fire. Some top producing real estate team leaders got a hold of the book and it went like the original book and it went like wildfire in the real estate community. So all these realtors were ordering copies from me, 50, 100 at a time. And it just was like, dude, go where the, you know, go with the flow. So I partnered with one of the top producing real estate agents in the country and then another one who's one of the top trainers. We wrote the book the Miracle Morning for Salespeople comes out next month. Oh, I love it. And that's my background is I'm a hall of fame salesperson. So that was kind of near to me. And, and then, and then I'm really passionate, probably most of all. But I haven't even started on this one. Is the miracle morning for teens. You know, looking at the suicide rate and bullying and all these, how hard it is to be a teenager when we were kids, let alone now. That is the book that I really believe could change some teenagers lives and literally save some teenagers lives. So that's the one that I will probably focus on next in terms of the one that I'll start.

I love it. You know, I want to actually offline talk with you because I want to learn how you're doing that, co authoring on kind of the niche books. So I have profit first, but I can do profit first for accountants, profit first for contractors.

Yes.

All right, so what's for our listeners? What's the one biggest action item they can take? You knew this was coming for the Miracle Morning.

Yeah, it is. Honestly, I covered it earlier. I touched on it. It's set your alarm clock. Like do not wait. My mentor Kevin Bracey said don't wait to be great. Don't wait. Set your alarm clock back an hour or 30 minutes if you're a wuss. Right? An hour if you're serious, 30 minutes if you're half serious. Either one is fine. But wake up in the morning and dedicate time to your personal development. Remember Jim Rohn said, your level of success will seldom exceed your level of personal development. And it is so TR. If you want level 10 success in every area of your life, your health, your relationships, your finances, you've got to develop yourself to be a level 10 person in each and every area of your life. How do you do that? Through daily personal development. So again, don't wait till you've read the Miracle Morning. Wake up and 30 minutes 60 minutes earlier and do something. You can read a book every morning, do a little exercise, whatever. You don't have to master the lifesavers. In fact, most people, their first miracle mornings are just, they wake up 30 or 60 minutes earlier and they read their miracle morning book, right? And they just keep doing that until they like go, oh, now I know the lifesavers. I'm going to try to implement those and, you know, gradually evolve that practice. But it starts with simply nothing more than waking up before you have to be up and dedicating time to your personal development. That's it.

And where's the best place to pick up your book and to g search you?

Yeah, Amazon.com is the best place to buy the book. I would invite everybody listening to join the miracle morning community on Facebook. It has become. I don't know if you guys have checked it out yet, but it will. It'll blow your mind. We have over 15,000 people in that Facebook group from around the world and about 100 a day asked to join. And literally from everywhere, like India, Netherlands, you know, California, everywhere exotic. But it's become the most engaged and supportive Facebook group that I've ever seen. So I invite you to check that out. And then my website isjust my name.comhalelrod.com.

Great, Hal, absolute pleasure having you. Thank you. Your energy is awesome. Clearly, 3:30 in the morning doesn't deplete energy, so thank you.

I'm gonna go take a nap, guys. Thanks for having me.

That's the first time you ever said that one.

The iPhone has an app for that, by the way.

I will see you.

Thank you.

So, you know, one of my favorite interviews. One of my favorite interviews. I just love the energy. You know, the words matter, but the energy just conveys something great.

It's inspiring. It really is.

Makes such a big difference. Just like our corporate partner, National Public.

Radio, for a second. It really is inspiring. Makes a difference. Makes a big difference.

Really massive thank you to Hal Elrod for appearing on our show.

It made a big. Yeah, no, it was a nice kind of a difference. I mean, he's a nice, I don't.

Know, onto our corporate partners.

Powerful stuff.

Some wacky, wild stuff. Now let's do the great Karzniak. Okay. Do you know who that was that my invitation?

No.

So we go to this true story. We go to New York City, Christina and I to go on. I'm on msnbc, to go up in the studio and when you walk down the hallway, there's all the past stars that have been a Rockefeller Center. And I point up and I said, I gotta ask you, do you know who that is? And she looks. She's like, no, I'm like, you recognize him? No, I'm like, that's Bob Hope.

Really?

Yeah, yeah. I said, what about the guy next to him? No, that's David Letterman. Let's keep going.

I recognize him.

You had no idea what his name was.

Yeah, yeah.

What about that guy? No. Dan Aykroyd. You're still like, who the hell's Dan Aykroyd? Right. Isn't that funny? God.

Youth is wasted on the youthful spies like us. That's all I gotta say.

Oh, best movie.

Just the classic.

All right, Doctor.

Doctor.

Doctor.

Doctor.

Doctor. That scene is. We will now make the first incision. He keeps looking around. Watch that movie. Listeners, if you have not seen that, our sponsors. Give me the first one.

Fundera.

Fundera.

How awesome are they?

That's right. Cause if businesses need funding, you know, you can go and knock on 7,000 doors if you want. But why don't you just go to Fundera? They'll do all the shopping for you. They'll present it to you on a silver platter. No.

Yeah, yeah. They actually. I think they actually do present your contract on a silver platter. I mean, that's really distinct about that.

The UPS guy shows up with his silver platter.

Yeah.

And he's got white gloves on. And he sits there awkwardly and he's like, there's something from a company called Fundera.

Then he just throws it over the fence.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And he kicks it a few times. Cable guy. That's a great movie, too.

I've seen that one.

That's a good one. All right, second sponsor, nextiva. Nextiva, Voiceover ip. Why do you want a UPS guy, Ness? Why does he have to carry your message on a silver platter when he could just make a phone call over the next Diva phones or something?

Right?

Great phone system. Awesome, awesome company.

Yeah.

And then, of course, there's T sheets. T sheets.

T sheets. Time tracking for businesses. Because time is money. Thank you.

And you know what, dude? We have been talking about T sheets a company called 911 poop rescue. Or poop 911 poop. 911. This is a franchise. Or 9 rescue. You gotta poop. They'll rescue from that situation. They have a national franchise and one of their early adopters, one of the franchisees heard on this show, they're using it now. And now I understand there's talks about rolling out nationally. Bam.

Canine poop, by the way, just to clarify. Oh, not canine K9 poop.

Yeah. If there's humans pooping in your yard, they will not touch that. All right, what did we learn from today's show? Christina?

It's so obviously simple, but just because he said the way you start your day defines the rest of it. And that's actually. I've been doing that myself. I noticed I always used to hit the snooze button all the time and I'd run late and I would just be lagging. And now over the past couple months, I get up earlier and I take my dogs for a long walk and I'm just so much more energized and focused. It's crazy simple.

At our morning huddle, you announced a couple days ago you had a great physical, personal success that you've been achieving. And I even told you something happened about two months ago. I'm like the energy. And you just kicked up another notch.

Can't get your head in the game.

Yeah, it must be. So you're doing earlier morning. Earlier morning starts. Yeah, there you go. What about you? Would you learn?

Right? The mind is a powerful thing. I learned that he talked about, you know, waking up early and that most people think, oh, I'm gonna be tired and all this stuff. But he, he explained that when he sets his intention that when he sets his intention that he's gonna be fully energized when he wakes up. And it's just the mind over matter thing. It's totally, I mean that's applicable anywhere. You know, we talked last episode about how sometimes when you have to do your do the accounting books, it's like a day, the one day of the month you sort of dread sitting down to do do the books. But hey, use Hal's techniques. Imagine yourself doing it where it's actually good and you see good numbers and you feel good about doing it. It would make it easier. So intention, very powerful.

Yeah, I love that. I love his affirmation tip. You know, a lot of affirmations are like, I'm wealthy, I'm wealthy, I'm wealthy. And your mind says, I don't believe it, I don't believe it. So it's total nonsense. I love that he it very specific activities. I have a little add on though. If you do use that, you know, I am rich. If you add this little thing to any of those kind of affirmations, it helps just say, yet the world just I am rich, but the world just doesn't know it yet. If you add those words the world just doesn't know it yet, it becomes believable to you. And when an affirmation becomes believable to you, you start achieving it. So if you are saying something like I'm rich or I have the perfect marriage or whatever, and then you say just the world doesn't know it yet, it becomes believable. To you. I say that as my point to my wife, who's in the studio for next week's episode that we record in a few minutes.

Yes, she's sitting here for Nicely sexy.

I already set myself up to get slammed.

So our show, the Profit first podcast, is awesome. It's just that the world doesn't know it yet.

No, dude, you know how many people know it. No, you're totally right. Actually, no. We had one day, one episode, 600 downloads in the first hour. We've passed, I think, 20 or 30,000 downs. I don't know if you know, dude, we started recording this January. The first episode went live January 1st. We're only seven months into this now, and the show's crushing it.

It's May, isn't it?

No, this broadcast in July. This won't broadcast in July.

Oh, okay.

It's May.

He's thinking ahead.

Still June. Actually, still June.

Oh, still June, but close. Six months.

Sorry.

Bunch of crackers.

I'm lagging. Hey, we need a hashtag.

That's your effin hashtag, you big dude.

We need a hashtag.

That's what we do. Profit first.

And we need. Ron. Ron, wait. Profit. Hashtag Profit first.

Every time when we promote our episodes, once they go live, we always do profit first and then podcast.

So if you're listening to this, go on Twitter or Facebook. Facebook still does hashtags, right?

Yeah. And Instagram.

Instagram.

Instagram. I didn't even know you could hashtag that. Right.

Send a message to Mike Michalowicz and, you know, call them a funny name or something.

Yeah. So here's something. Okay, here's something we are doing is we get a lot of questions about profit first. We are now inviting people in to come into our studio. Not physically here, but call into the studio if you want. Come in physically, why not? And start asking their questions on air. A, gives your business a little bit of exposure. But B, we can answer your specific question. So we now have a few people that have reached out that we've decided, let's do this. So if you're listening to this episode right now, I'm getting a little emotional. I get a little choked up. If you're listening to this episode right now and you have a question about how to implement profit first in your business, we will answer it on this podcast. Just send an email to me, mikemikalowitz.com or Christina. Christinakemicalitz.com Christina with a K. Yep. Not with a R, because that'd be wristy.

Now, ending In A.

Also no ends in X. It's silent.

Oh, boy.

Yeah, it's. It's R, R I, S T I, N A X P. Yeah.

Silent P. Yeah.

Well, no, it's Christina. Christina. Yeah. Email Christina with a K or me and ask your question, and we'll get you on air in the studio.

Yeah.

Find all that on the show notes as well.

Yeah.

The links in the email do.

Where can people find out more about you, bro?

Dude. Fractal recording dot com. If you're a business author and you're ready to interview, influence the entire globe.

Is that how you do that sound effect? You have to cup your hand around the microphone? Yeah.

If you. If you want to make it sound like you're real close or something.

I'm not your father.

Wait a minute. Hold on. What's your.

Oh, yeah. The app of the week.

No, not even that. What's the third question in our questions dictate what we see. Come on, dude.

God. That's why you run the office. All right, we're back. All right, here's the third question. First question. Three weeks ago, we said this was, what am I doing right? You ask your customers, and they tell you not what you're doing right, but what they're observing. Second question, what am I doing wrong? Don't ask them what you're doing wrong personally, but what's wrong with your industry? And they'll tell you what you need to improve. Third question is, what other vendors do you work with? This is what I call the vendor. Well, and actually, Chris, I know you've done it in your business. You come to authors. You came to me even, and you said, hey, Mike, tell me about your vendor network. And I tell you about my bookmasters, who I use for my publishing house, and these different vendors. Well, once you find out who the other vendors are for your best clients, that is the gateway to other clients like them. So ask your best clients what vendors they work with, and when you build relationships with those vendors, they will give you access to clones of your best customers. Bam.

Tremendous.

Bam. Heads exploding.

Right. And then the last two episodes, you went over the first two questions in more detail. So if you haven't heard those yet, you know.

Yeah, rewind, please. Do stop being a D bag. Go back and listen to our stuff.

Hashtag God. So Profit First Professionals as well. Tell us about that as we vamp.

That's a tongue twister right there.

Thank you, Barry. Yeah. So Profit First Professionals is an association, an organization of accountants, bookkeepers, and business experts who are driving Profitability in businesses. So if you own a business and you want to hear that gobbles coming and you want to be more profitable, go there. Click on the find button. We'll hook you up with someone. And if you're an accountant, if you're a bookkeeper, or if you're a business coach, for God's sake, why aren't you with us? We need good people that get up at 3:30 in the morning.

Call Ron.

Call Ron. Where is Ron?

Jeez.

He's at the office. We're here doing this nonsense.

He's on the phone. Does he ever take his headset off, by the way?

No.

Right.

Oh, actually, he actually doesn't use a headset. That's another story for another week. And what, what? How can people find out more about you? Yeah.

Fractalrecording.com and by the way, our website is profitfirstpodcast.com. check out all our previous episodes.

Profit first podcast.

Yep. There you go.

That was an alien.

There you go.

And here you go, bruh.

Oh, nailed it.

Nailed it.

Thanks, everybody.

Bye, guys.

Later.

See y' all.

And you know, dude, don't forget, next week, literally, my wife is coming in studio for us to talk about what it's like to be married to an entrepreneur. We call it Married to Mayhem. It's gonna be crazy. Be here next week. Heads are gonna roll. Probably. I'll probably be gutted, but it'll be interesting.

You like that? It's my new thing. I fade out the music. But we're still recording.

Yeah, No, I love it. I love it. Did you play like two episodes ago? Did you play the John Wood alien? Good.

Yeah.

Okay. That was awesome. Okay, that's it.

Are we done?

Okay.

We'Ll play the silent game with Christina. We'll just let it roll. Nothing.

All right, this is ridiculous. Now. Now it's ridiculous, Br.