The Double Win Podcast

19. HAL ELROD: The Miracle of Resilience

Audio

Overview

In this episode of The Double Win Show, Michael Hyatt and Megan Hyatt Miller welcome Hal Elrod, author of the bestselling book The Miracle Morning. Hal shares his remarkable journey of overcoming a near-fatal car accident, a battle with cancer, and multiple life setbacks—all while maintaining unwavering faith and resilience. He details how these hardships shaped his path and inspired his global movement to help millions create life-changing morning routines. Hal also introduces his powerful “5-Minute Rule” for moving through adversity and offers practical insights for building habits that will transform your life.

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/lkVhExNOXY8

Memorable Quotes

    1. “I can’t change what happened, but I can choose to be at peace with what I can’t change, grateful for what I have, and focus on the things that are in my control.”
    2. “The more you resist reality and wish it were different, the more pain we create for ourselves. Freedom is in acceptance. Freedom is in being at peace with what you can’t change.”
    3. “Most people who experience failure probably didn’t stay with it for long enough. They didn’t have the frustration tolerance. So they just gave up and said, ‘This isn’t working.’ And it takes a while to break through.”
    4. “I love that you’re starting your day with silence—peaceful, purposeful silence to get centered, to gain clarity, to calm your nervous system.”
    5. “I was prioritizing the impact I could make in the world over the impact I could make in my family. It was quantity over quality. When I had cancer, it was the epiphany that the impact I could make on their three lives far superseded the impact I could make on the world.”
    6. “The Miracle Morning allows me to focus on the two things I can control: Who I become every day and how I show up. It is ensuring I am fully aware of what’s going on inside me and thoughtful and intentional about showing up as my best for those I love and lead.

Key Takeaways

    1. The 5-Minute Rule: Allow yourself five minutes to process difficult emotions, then let go by saying, “I can’t change it,” and move forward.
    2. The Power of Ritual: Implementing the Miracle Morning routine (silence, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, and journaling) can shift your mindset and set you up for success, no matter how busy or unpredictable life gets.
    3. Writing Affirmations that Work: Passive affirmations take you nowhere, but written commitments that connect the future you want to the actions you’ll take drive transformation.
    4. What Matters Most: It took a cancer scare for Hal to realize that changing the lives of his family “far superseded” changing the world.
    5. Resilience Through Faith: Hal’s unshakeable belief in himself and his faith helped him defy the odds and recover from life-threatening challenges.

Resources

The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod

Hal Elrod’s Website: miraclemorning.com

The Miracle Morning App

Episode Transcript

Note: Transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors. Please refer to the episode audio or video for exact quotes.

Hal: [00:00:00] If you know that, Hey, this book or this product. Or this program, it is significantly impacting people’s lives in a meaningful way. Now it’s my responsibility to get that message and get that product service or book out to the masses for as long as it takes. And so it’s my life’s work.

Michael: Hi, I’m Michael Hyatt

Megan: and I’m Megan Hyatt Miller,

Michael: and you’re listening to the Double Wind Show.

Megan: And we are so excited to share our recent conversation with you with Hal Elrod. It was awesome.

Michael: Yeah, it was really fun because Hal’s been a friend for a while. We were in a marriage couples group together and I don’t know, we met a couple of years ago, but I knew he had an amazing story. But he survived a near fatal car accident at age 20.

Later overcame a rare aggressive form of cancer. In fact, he talks about it in the interview. You guys are going to be stunned, but he’s the author of a book called The Miracle Morning, which has sold over 3 million copies globally and is a bestseller in multiple countries. [00:01:00] He’s a keynote speaker who’s delivered presentations to audiences in over 30 countries.

Overall amazing person and I think you guys are going to really enjoy this interview. So without further ado, here’s how

how welcome to the show

Hal: Michael and megan as I said, uh before we started recording i’m witnessing my dream right now father and daughter working together Like I I uh, I hope that one day my my daughter sofia and I are working together like y’all do

Michael: Well, I hope you can do it because it’s pretty awesome.

Megan: It’s pretty awesome. We were trading stories about the first business memory I have with you when I was seven and you were saying your daughter introduced you on stage starting at seven years old, which I would have been terrified to do, but that’s so cool.

Michael: That’s such good training. Yeah. Well, hey, tell us just a little bit about your journey, kind of how you got from where you were to where you are today.

Where you are now?

Hal: For me, I, I, I like to start When I was eight years old, my baby sister Anne Marie, actually died in front of me. Ooh. That’s a memory that I, I, I, it was always there, but I never really understood the significance of that event in my life. And it was a [00:02:00] Saturday morning. She was born with a very rare heart condition, so she was, lived her life in and outta the hospital, her short 18 months.

And one morning she, she had passed away and what really was significant is that within six months after my mother was devastated, my father was devastated, they began leading a support group for other parents who had lost Children

and

Hal: that planted the seed for me that, hey, when you go through something difficult in your life, you find a way to help other people with it and therefore find purpose in it.

And you fast forward 12 years after my sister passed away, I was driving home from a Cutco conference that I’d given a speech at, and my car was hit head on by a drunk driver at 70 miles per hour. And a second vehicle crashed into my driver’s side door at 70 miles per hour. And I was found dead at the scene.

My heart stopped for six minutes. I broke 11 bones. I was in a coma for six days. And when I came out of the coma, uh, the doctor said I would never walk again. And then I had permanent brain damage. Within a matter of days, I was like, okay, number one, I’m going to walk again. I’m going to pray about it. I’m going to visualize it.

I’m [00:03:00] going to affirm. I’m going to maintain unwavering faith that I can walk again. And if I don’t walk again, I’ll be the happiest person you’ve ever seen in a wheelchair. Because you know, if that’s my life, that’s my life. But I kept asking, how can I use this experience to help other people? And I’d always want to be a professional speaker at that point.

And, uh, I go, maybe that’s why I went through this. I was all excited. And the doctors thought I was delusional because I was so excited. I go, no, I think this happened for a reason. I think I’m supposed to learn and grow and become a better version of myself. And then I’m going to help other people. And I’m going to start speaking about this.

And you know, that ended up being exactly what happened. I took my first step three weeks later. And then fast forward another, uh, what? Seven years after that. And I went through a really difficult financial, Crash in 2008 when the economy crashed, I lost my home. I moved back in with my dad. I was 30, you know, it owned a home and then lost it.

And this series of really traumatic events led me to create this morning ritual that changed my life so fast. I started calling it my miracle morning. Just my own little morning routine. I was never planned on writing a book about [00:04:00] it. And when I taught it to my coaching clients, most of them went from, I’m not a morning person, how, you know, but I’ll give it a try to, oh my gosh, how it works.

I’m doing this miracle morning every day. I’m having the best week in my career. I’m I’m reading, I’m meditating, I’m exercising, I’m journaling. And the light bulb went off and I went, wait a minute, if this miracle morning thing changed my life. And I wasn’t a morning person and you know, like 80 percent of my clients were not morning people.

This could work for anybody. And that’s when I had this sense of responsibility that stems back to my mom and dad, right? Like I have a responsibility to share this with as many people as I can. How am I going to do that? Well, I could give speeches on it, but that’s really limited. You know, a hundred people here, 500 people there.

I think I need to write a book. And so three years later, the miracle morning was self published and you know, you fast forward 12 years after that it’s three and a half million copies sold and it’s translated in 42 languages and never in a million years would I have dreamt that that was going to be the reality.

I

Michael: mean, that’s unbelievable for a self published book, for any book. You know, to sell that many copies. [00:05:00] I just want to ask one question though. Didn’t you also have a battle with cancer?

Hal: I did. Uh, that came five years after the miracle morning published. I was diagnosed with a very rare and aggressive form of cancer.

And it was kind of like I was on top of the world. The book had just, it was number one in Brazil and number one in Korea. Like life was amazing. I was a workaholic though. I didn’t realize that my family who I would have told you was number one priority in my life. If you would have then said, well, can I see your schedule just to verify that they’re your number one priority?

You would have gone, Oh, wait, you’re working a lot of weekends and you’re showing up late to dinner. And so that was a big wake up call with the cancer. But when I was diagnosed, I was given a 20 percent chance of surviving. It was not a normal, slow growing tumor. My heart was failing. My kidneys were failing and my lungs were failing.

lymphoblastic leukemia. It is a blood cancer that attacks your organs and shuts them down. And when I was finally diagnosed after being in and out of the hospital, not knowing what was wrong, I was given one to three weeks to live. They said, you have one to three weeks to live. [00:06:00] If you don’t start chemotherapy immediately.

And I don’t fully trust a hundred percent chemotherapy or the Western medical system and full disclosure. I’ve, you know, I think there’s a lot of profit margins and things involved. And so I want, let me do my own research and I’ll come back to you. And I called some of the best holistic oncologists in the country and they both verified.

They said, how your organs are shutting down. You literally have one to three weeks to live. There’s nothing we can do naturally or holistically. There’s no time for that. Chemo is the only solution for you right now. And then. Let’s look at holistic to build your body back and detoxify from the chemo and so on and so forth.

But yeah, so that was the scariest thing in my life was being a dad of a seven year old daughter at the time

Megan: And a

Hal: four year old son and being told that there was an 80 percent chance. I was gonna die

Megan: I’m literally sitting here with my mouth open. I’m like, where’s the candid camera that like this cannot be real I mean my gosh, you’ve been through a lot like wow.

Wow. Wow

Michael: how was your attitude during [00:07:00] the cancer because When I was hearing you talk about the car crash and your attitude there, I’m thinking to myself, first of all, that’s remarkable. But what about when the cancer happened? Were you that resilient emotionally or did that take more of a toll?

Hal: In some ways it was easier because I had the car accident as a reference point.

I was like, Oh, the odds of me walking again were slim to none. And I had such an unwavering faith in God and in myself and my ability. I defied the logic of doctors. And I took my first step. My wife was, you know, crying and so distraught and scared that she was gonna lose her husband and I was telling, I said, sweetie I’m not going to die.

You know, I know they say there’s only a 20 percent chance that people that survive this cancer, it’s 20 percent odds. I said, there’s a 100 percent chance that I’ll be in that 20%. Cause I’m going to do everything they did and more to be a survivor of this. I defied the odds before I believe in the mind body connection.

I believe in the power of prayer and all of that. And I said, I’m going to do it again. So I really had unwavering faith that I would do it, [00:08:00] but I want to give a quick specific strategy that I learned a year and a half before my car accident. That enabled me to have that mindset. I had started selling Cutco cutlery a year and a half earlier.

In my Cutco training, I learned something called the five minute rule. And the five minute rule simply states that, Hey, when things go wrong in life, and this was in the context of like, you know, people are going to not buy from you. They’re going to reject you. They’re going to cancel their appointment.

They’re going to buy from you and then cancel the order. And you’re going to miss your goal. They basically said that in sales, you’re going to experience more adversity than a normal person does. Tons of rejection and failure. They said you need a strategy to quickly move through that adversity. And so my mentor at the time, my manager at Cutco, Jesse said, when something goes wrong and you find yourself feeling upset, scared, angry, whatever this painful, destructive emotion is, he said, you set your timer for five minutes and give yourself five minutes to fully feel.

And express the emotions that you’re feeling, right? Don’t suppress him. Don’t say, no, I don’t have [00:09:00] time for this. I got to go to work. You say, this is sucks. This is the worst thing. Why? You know, he said, allow yourself to just fully feel it for five minutes. And then the timer goes off. And he said, you say three very powerful words.

Take a deep breath and you say, can’t change it. And he taught us a simple acknowledgement that you cannot change what happened five minutes ago. So there’s no value in wishing that you could, there’s no value in wishing reality, which is this five minutes ago, whatever happened, happened, that’s reality.

And he said, the cause of emotional pain is resisting reality, wishing it were different, but you can’t change five minutes or five months or five decades ago. When I learned this, I thought what many listeners or viewers of this might be thinking, which is like five minutes is not enough time to get over something, you know, like, can I get five days?

Right. And that’s what I thought. And then the first time I set my timer for five minutes, I remember it vividly. It was a woman who didn’t buy from me. And I was, I felt [00:10:00] so discouraged. I thought for sure she was a great prospect and I got in the car and I was like, I can’t believe this. And I set my timer for five minutes and the timer went off five minutes later.

And I go, oh, my God. I’m still upset. Like the timer doesn’t change that. But here’s what had happened. I was now elevating my consciousness, meaning I was becoming aware of, okay, I’m feeling these emotions. The timer goes off. I’m still feeling the emotions, which means I’m still resisting reality, wishing it were different.

And after a few snoozes, I eventually got to the place where I went, okay, I can’t change it. I guess I might as well be at peace with it. And within a week of doing that day after day after day, multiple times a day, I set the timer for five minutes. 30 seconds went by and I was so upset over this woman that canceled this huge order and it made me, I missed my goal for the week.

30 seconds goes by and I go, wait a minute, what’s the point in being upset for another four and a half minutes? I can’t change what happened, but I can choose to be at peace with what I can’t change, grateful for what I have and [00:11:00] focus on the things that are in my control. And so you fast forward a year and a half later and I come out of the coma and I am within the day.

You know, I mean, it was a lot to process within a few days. I go, okay, I was in a car accident. This is my reality. I broke 11 bones. If I’m in a wheelchair, the rest of my life, I’m in a wheelchair. The rest of my life. How can I be the happiest, most grateful person that anyone’s ever met going through what I’m going through right now?

And then you fast forward 17 years later and I’m, Oh, I have cancer. I have 20 percent chance of surviving. This is scary, but how can I be the happiest, most grateful, most at peace, most productive human being in these circumstances? That’s possible. And so that was the mindset that I took. And it started in Cutco sales training.

It was tested in the car accident, and then it was taken to another level, uh, during the, uh, journey.

Megan: It’s so interesting. I was at my parents lake house this weekend with a few of my sisters and we were sitting in the lake on these things called whale tails. Have you ever seen a whale [00:12:00] tail? It’s kind of like a boogie board.

That’s flexible. That has like a, a curvature in it. So you can sit in it like a sailboat. So, um, we’re going to talk a little bit about resilience and how you can get out of a wheelchair and get out of a saddle and you can just like sit there and float. It’s the most fun thing. If you ever go to the lake, you need to get a whale tail.

Okay, that’s not the point of the story. The point of the story is we were talking about resilience and we were talking about I’ve had some hard things happen in the last year health wise, um, our house. Anyway, it’s a whole long story, but they were like, how do you not get stuck in it. That story of just everything’s so hard.

I can’t move on, you know, we just loop back and back And I said, you know, I think so much of suffering in our lives is when we fight what’s happened You know if we just expect that life is going to be at least 50 Difficult. And that like, that’s just kind of like being a human, it really takes the pressure off.

It’s very counterintuitive. You think you would feel depressed about that, but you actually don’t. It’s like, oh, I’m not constantly experiencing this gap between this idealized version of life in which if only I [00:13:00] could crack the code, everything would be perfect and I would never have any problems and I could engineer all the amount of my life.

if you’re able to just accept your problems are always going to be there. Yeah. And I don’t have control necessarily over the problems. I have control over how I show up in the context of the problems. And that actually is very freeing in my experience. So I certainly haven’t been through the level of things that you’ve been through, but I think the principle is the same.

And I think this is a helpful idea of what if you just didn’t resist it, you know, maybe. You have marriage problems. Maybe you’re dealing with financial stuff. Maybe you’ve got hard kids. What if you weren’t trying to resist it and you just sort of were able to integrate it into your reality?

Hal: That’s so well said.

And, and like you use the words, the cause of pain is fighting life, right? I call it resisting reality. These are all just some man. It’s the idea that reality is what it is. And either you’re going to wish it were different, which is futile and causes you emotional pain and makes your [00:14:00] life miserable. The more you resist reality and wish it were different.

The more pain we create for ourselves

Megan: and

Hal: freedom is in acceptance. Freedom is in being at peace with what you can’t change. And even further, one of my favorite books, you know, loving what is by Byron Katie is she would say, don’t just accept it, love it, love the challenges. And I think for all of us, The bigger the challenge, the bigger the opportunity to learn, grow, and become a better version of who you are when you first encounter that challenge.

There’s a better version of us on the other side. And if you go, Oh, Oh, this is difficult, but I’m going to be better because of this. I’ll be a better parent. I’ll be a better human. I’ll be a better contributor to society. Bring it on. Like, let’s go. And to your point, 50 50 is a great frame of mind. Like, Oh, this is the half that sucks.

Okay. How can I make the best of the sucky part? And, uh, and then the other side of it.

Michael: What I love about this, Hal, is that you had a strategy because I think that most people who find themselves in adversity just kind of show up with however they show up and [00:15:00] sometimes they’re more resilient, sometimes they’re less resilient, but a strategy that simple five minute strategy, and this is really timely for me because it’s something I went through yesterday.

It wasn’t a big deal, but I’ve been kind of ruminating on it for 24 hours. And I don’t like. A negative or an adverse situation that’s occupying so much of my space. And I like that you can feel it. Cause I, I don’t want to suppress my feelings, but I want to feel it and be done with it and move on.

Hal: I love it.

You set your five minute timer at some point today, Michael. And, uh, you know, and yeah, and kick and

Megan: scream for a minute.

Michael: Well, let’s get to the book because this has been Nothing less than a global phenomenon. You gave us a little bit of this story, but I want to just, because I come from the publishing world, that’s my entire background.

How did you decide to self publish it? And what was that experience like in getting this book out into the world? Because my experience with most self published [00:16:00] authors is they go through very hard work. They put the book out there. It sells a few hundred copies. And then they’re done. And that was not your experience.

So I want to hear about how it worked for you.

Hal: So while I was writing the book, I was sharing the miracle morning with, again, my coaching clients were the first example I go, Oh wow, this worked for them. It’s changing their lives. There weren’t even podcasts really back then. It was like 2008, 2009, you know, I would, but there were, there were like free conference call.

com. I think it’d come out. So people would do like, you know, video or audio was audio. I was doing audio interviews. That’s right. And so those were going out and then somebody said, Hey, you need to create a. Email capture page. I was like, okay, what do you mean? They go, well, do you have any kind of anything you could put up for a value?

I go, yeah, I did this one hour audio interview on free conference call. com with this guy. I could probably get the audio. I put up a miracle morning. com and then I put up this audio and people could put their name and email in and I bought a pro, you know, I was learning all of this on the fly and I think I was 26 ish around this time.

What ended up happening was people started [00:17:00] opting in and sharing that audio. It started going viral, this audio. And then I’m getting emails saying, Hey, The miracle morning, it’s profound things. Like I went to a conference. I remember it vividly. I’m after I give a speech at a Cutco conference and this 19 year old young man meets me in the, in the hall.

And he says, how I’ve been on depression medication for something like six years. He said, I started doing your miracle morning a few months ago and I’m off my medication. And I obviously can’t advocate that, you know, that like that’s a recommendation. And he started crying.

Hmm.

Hal: This has totally changed my life.

So the reason I share that part of the story, and there were so many little stories like that of this woman emailed me and said, Hey, this saved my marriage. I did the miracle morning and I stopped blaming my husband. I started taking ownership for how I was showing up to our marriage. Thank you for the miracle morning.

And again, this is when it was an audio, right? You know, an interview and, uh, but people were doing it. And so that for me, the seed was planted early on from my coaching I [00:18:00] have a responsibility to share this. Then it kept getting watered with this 19 year old story and then this married woman story, right?

And I go, okay, I know the Miracle Morning works. I have a responsibility to share it with the world. And I set a goal when I wrote the book. I said, my mission is to change 1 million lives one morning at a time. And that was basically creating a metric. One million that was bigger than as big as I could imagine.

And I thought maybe it’ll take the rest of my life to teach the miracle warning to a million people, sell a million copies of my book. And then I started to get excited. I forgot what book I read, but it was some book about, I think it was the magic of thinking big. And I went, you know what, I’m going to go forward in one year.

Why not? I’m going to try to sell a million copies in year one that the book comes out. So self publish it. And at that time, podcasts were taking off in 2012 and I used my Cutco skills. I just started, it’s a numbers game. I’m going to reach out to, you know, 20 podcasts a week and try to get on as many shows as I can.

And that year I ended up doing [00:19:00] 152 podcasts. I gave 36 speeches across the country, mostly at colleges. So I’m sharing the miracle morning. Everywhere I can. I’m on social media every day. I literally put forth extraordinary effort to sell a million copies. And at the end of the year, I was 987, 000 copies short of my goal.

So I sold, I sold 13, 000 copies and I couldn’t have worked harder. I could not have done more. And so I did, I called out my calculator. I go, okay, it’s going to take me 76 years at this rate to sell a million copies. Um, at which time I’ll be 110 years old. And I was a little discouraged by that, but I just kind of brushed myself off and I go, I have a responsibility to just keep going, you know, and maybe it’s going to take me 30 years or whatever to do it.

And year two, I did everything in my power to sell a million copies. Again, I sold 23, 000 copies. So it started picking up a little steam. Now we’re averaging 2000 copies a month in sales. And I just kept going. And then I had a few breaks along the way. I [00:20:00] met Mike Koenigs who introduced me to his book agent who got us a foreign book deal with, and that’s how it went viral and all these, you know, in over 70 countries and 42 languages.

Um, and so here’s the lesson in this most authors and Michael, you kind of said this. I’ve, I’ve given a keynote speech called beyond the bestseller. How to write a book that creates a movement, earns you a fortune and changes the world. And I’ve given that speech at like Genius Network and different events and it’s really reverse engineering.

Why is the Miracle Morning such a word of mouth phenomenon? What specifically can you model that has made it so successful? And I show this graph of my sales. During my launch, I sold 700 copies, you know, I think the first month, and then it goes down to 300, you know, and I’m working hard and I’m not making any money and I’m, I’m, I’m gonna take a full time job.

And it took a year and a half until the tipping point, it finally started to go up and I show that graph and I’ve had so many authors that have written multiple books, go how [00:21:00] graph that you just showed me that slide was the most. Life changing slide I’ve ever seen. He said, cause I promoted my book for one month or three months.

And then I shifted gears to the next book or the next project. He said, I can’t even imagine where my book would be in the impact it would be making if I had been promoting it for, and not just a year and a half. What is it? It’s been 12 years since the miracle morning came out. I still do probably at least five interviews a week talking about the miracle morning.

And then in December, this is the new updated and expanded edition that came out. I rewrote the entire book, added 70 pages of new content. My world revolves around getting the miracle morning. It’s gotten out to 3 million, you know, 3 million copies sold. The other 8 billion people that have not yet heard about it.

That’s my mission in life. And so the answer, Michael, is to continue promote if it works right now, if your book’s not well done and people are not really giving you feedback that it’s helping them, you might want to shift gears or make some adjustments. But if you know that, Hey, this book or [00:22:00] this product or this program, it is significantly impacting people’s lives in a meaningful way.

Now it’s my responsibility to get that message and get that product, service, or book out to the masses for as long as it takes. And so it’s my life’s work.

Megan: I feel like I want to just like get my pom poms and cheer right now. Like I’m like team miracle morning. Let’s do it. Oh, wait, this isn’t my business.

When

I’m listening to you talk, just a couple of thoughts pop into my head. One, I feel like the reason that slide is so encouraging, It’s because, you know, when you hear bestselling authors talk on social media, or all the places where people like us are, we don’t usually tell that part of the story. You know, usually it’s just like, and I sold a million copies, you know, and we tell the end of the story as though it’s the whole story.

And I think just to say, you know what, don’t despise the days of small [00:23:00] beginnings. I also took away from your story that when you’re passionate about your mission in life, it gives you a kind of frustration tolerance to tolerate 700 books for your lunch instead of 700, 000 or whatever was in your mind as day one.

It’s like, you know what? It doesn’t really matter because I am in it for the long game and I’m just going to keep at it because it’s not just about the short term gain of hitting a list or make it a certain amount of money. This is really about why I’m on this planet to begin with. And that’s the whole point of being here.

So I’m just going to keep at it.

Michael: I think this is so extraordinary because I’ve certainly been guilty of writing the book and then promoting it for, you know, maybe 30 to 60 days and I’m on to the next thing and I love creating new things, but promotion such hard work, man, I really admire you. And I think that the lesson for those of you listening is don’t give up,

Megan: you

Michael: know, stay with it.

[00:24:00] Because I think that most people who experience failure. Probably just didn’t stay with it long enough. They didn’t have the frustration tolerance. Right. And so they just gave up and said, this isn’t working. And it takes a while to break through for sure.

Hal: I love one of my favorite cliche quotes is it takes 10 years to become an overnight success.

You know, for me, it took six years to sell a million copies, right? So six years, it finally sold a million copies and I could not have predicted the way that would happen because over half of those were sold in other countries to people that I don’t speak their language. When I wrote the miracle morning, never in a million years that I think, Oh, this will be translated in other languages.

Right. And it was one dinner that led to this meeting of this agent that led to, you know, on and on and on. So you can’t predict it. And my followup book is the miracle equation. Is unwavering faith plus extraordinary effort until you achieve the result that you’re committed to. Like that’s the secret to creating tangible, measurable miracles in your life.

So that was, I applied that to this miracle morning, which is like, I’m going to put forth extraordinary effort and maintain unwavering faith [00:25:00] to get me through the challenges. Cause I know what’s possible. I know this is helping people. Uh, and I’m just going to do it for as long, you know, as it possibly takes,

Michael: let’s unpack the savers.

Framework because this is the essence of the book,

Megan: right? Because people are like, okay, I’m one of the 8 billion people that hasn’t read the book yet. What is the Miracle Morning? Tell me.

Hal: So the Miracle Morning in short, it is six of the most timeless proven personal development practices done in the morning.

And it can be done in as little as six minutes. And that’s not hyperbole like six minute abs. It’s literally, uh, there’s an entire chapter in the new edition,

Megan: right?

Hal: The six minute miracle morning, which is where you do one focused minute for each of these six practices. And you can’t obviously go nearly as deep as if you’re doing 30 minutes or 60 minutes.

Right. But the average person, roughly 72 percent of miracle morning practitioners that we survey around the world do a one hour miracle morning, 20 percent do a 30 minute miracle morning. And then the other, what is that 10, you know, [00:26:00] roughly eight, 10%, uh, do, uh, somewhere either shorter or longer. The miracle morning, these six practices, thanks to my beautiful wife, Ursula, AKA my muse.

One day I was writing the book and I walked out of my office and I’m in the hallway. I see my wife and she goes, you look frustrated. What’s wrong? I said, I’ve got these six practices. None of them are new. I didn’t invent any of these. They’re thousands of years old. Uh, so they’re not original. I said, and all these other authors have some sort of way that they Connect or structure or frame Robert Kiyosaki’s got the cashflow quadrant.

Stephen Covey’s got the seven habits of highly effective people. I don’t know what to do with this to make it memorable and easy to implement. She goes, why don’t you get a thesaurus and see if you can swap some of the words of the practices and then a symbol, an acronym that people could remember.

Light bulb kissed her and thank you, baby. That, that might be it. And so meditation became silence. That’s the [00:27:00] first S in savers. And I love that because prayer, breath work, meditation, right? Like I love you’re starting your day with silence, peaceful, purposeful silence to get centered, to gain clarity, to calm your nervous system.

So meditation became silence. And then the final S in savers is scribing, which was originally journaling. So journaling became scribing, which is a fancy word for writing. And then A, V, R, those stayed the same. The A is for affirmations. The V is for visualization, the E is for exercise, and the final R is for reading.

And the way this all came to be is in 2008, I had lost, again, over half of my clients, half of my income, house being foreclosed on, canceled the gym membership, I’m just, I was literally at the lowest point in my life. I would say I was more depressed during that time than like car accident, cancer, because during those times I had so much love and support being poured into me.

Well, in 2008, everybody was drowning. [00:28:00] Right. So I’m just one of many, and I’m like, I feel like I’m on my own. And it was an epiphany, a Jim Rohn quote, Jim Rohn said, your level of success in every area of your life will seldom exceed your level of personal development. And I might’ve heard that quote before, but I played it again and I went.

Okay. On a scale of one to 10. And if you’re listening right now, by the way, ask yourself the same question that I asked myself. Okay. If our level of success is rarely going to exceed our level of personal development, there’s two questions that need to follow that statement. Number one, what level of success on a scale of one to 10, 10 being the most happy, healthy, successful in love, right?

Peaceful. You could be financially secure on a scale of one to 10, what level do we all want? And the answer I believe is 10. I’ve never met anyone. It’s like, why don’t want to be too happy or too financially secure? You know, no human nature is we have this drive and desire to self actualize and live life at a level 10.

But if our level of success won’t exceed the level of [00:29:00] personal development. My next question for myself was, okay, I want level 10 success. What’s my level of personal development. And let me define that for everybody. Cause it’s kind of a vague topic to me. It’s the habits that you have in place every day, the rituals, routines, or habits that enable you to develop yourself at a higher level.

You gain more knowledge, you gain more self belief, right? You’re developing your mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual capacities and abilities to a higher level day by day by day. And as we get better, our ability to make our life better increases. And so my answer to the question, what’s my level of personal development?

It was like a two, maybe a three or a four on a good day, but I was in scarcity mode. I was in fear mode. I was just trying to figure out how to make money and everything else had gone out the window. Cause I needed to pay the bills. So I went home with this epiphany and I go, I was on a run when I heard the quote from Roan, Jim Roan.

I went home and I went, what do the world’s most successful people [00:30:00] do for personal development? And I came across meditation, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, journaling, and I’m writing them all down on my, on this piece of paper. And I get overwhelmed. Paralysis by analysis. I’m going, well, I don’t know which one I should do.

And then the light bulb moment, the voice of God, whatever you want to call it. It was, what if I did all six? What if I woke up tomorrow, 30 minutes earlier, and I did five minutes of meditation or now silence, right? Five minutes of affirmations, five minutes of visualization, like the world’s greatest athletes do every day to perform at their best.

Why wouldn’t I five minutes of exercise, just get the blood flow and get the heart rate up, get the oxygen to the brain, five minutes of reading, five minutes of journaling, what I’m grateful for. I had been depressed for six months. In this downward spiral, I woke up the next morning like a kid on Christmas and I went in the living room and the night before I had, I had opened six tabs, how to meditate, how to do affirmations, how to visualize.

So I took a minute to read. Okay. Okay. [00:31:00] That’s how I do meditation. Okay. Close my eyes. I suck at this. I can’t quiet my mind. Right. But, but 30 minutes later. I felt incredible. People share this a lot. It’s their very first miracle morning. Everything opens up for them and they realize if I start every day like this, it’s only a matter of time before I develop myself into the person that I need to be to save my marriage, to be happy, to save the business, generate more income.

It’s universal. Whatever you point your miracle morning to, those are the results that you get. Wow.

Megan: Wow. That’s so exciting. I’m thinking about my kids who are athletes and I’m thinking specifically of my older son. Is there a miracle mornings for teens?

Hal: There is not yet. That is, okay, this

Megan: is your next book.

How

Hal: I think that’s the most important book that I will ever write. And it’s why I have, I’ve been reading, I should probably be more proactive about it, but, uh, the miracle morning for seniors is the next book coming out. So It’s called the Miracle Morning After 50. We realized through surveying that nobody, very few people actually identify as seniors.[00:32:00]

I know. That’s so true.

Megan: I’m like, I’m getting close to 50. I don’t feel like I’m a senior. Yeah. And I will say

Hal: this. We have a Miracle Morning Schools program. The Miracle Morning is rolled out in hundreds of schools, mostly in New York City, because that’s where we started it a couple years ago, to prove the model.

And it is, it’s transforming the lives of hundreds of people Top down principals are using it, they’re teaching it to their teachers and staff, and they’re using it. Then they’re rolling it out in their classrooms. And it’s from elementary through high school, everything in between. So it is utilized with teenagers, but that book’s just not written yet.

Michael: I want to talk about affirmations. Like I really believe in it, but I think that a lot of affirmations That I’ve heard people give are kind of woo woo and not believable. And so I’ve got my own set of affirmations and I use an app called think up, but you record the affirmations in your own voice and then it plays it back to you over a bed of music that you choose.

It’s really powerful, but I’d love to get your take on [00:33:00] affirmations.

Hal: I believe they’re the most misunderstood form of personal development and they are the most effective. If I had to pick one of the savers. It would be affirmations. And the reason I believe they’re misunderstood is the way that we’ve been taught affirmations for, I don’t know, decades, one of two faulty ways.

Number one, affirm something that you aspire to be true. That is not yet true as if it were true. Right? So. If you’re struggling financially, just affirm. I am wealthy. I right. But the problem is if that isn’t true for you, you are now creating an unnecessary internal conflict as if we don’t have enough of those.

Right. And you’re, you’re subconscious going, no, you’re not, you’re broke. Look at your bank balance. Right. And you’re going, you’re fighting yourself. The other problem with affirmations is we’re taught to use this flowery passive language that promises a magical result independent of any effort. And I’ll use an example that we can all relate to.[00:34:00]

I am a money magnet. Money flows to me. Effortlessly and in a right. And the reason I think that affirmation has stood the test of time, and it’s also counter productive, but it’s, it has a time because it’s like taking an antidepressant or a shot of whiskey or some sort of quick Band Aid where you look at your bank balance on your phone and you go, Oh my gosh, I’m overdrawn.

I got to do my affirmations. You go, I’m a money magnet. And you go, okay, that feels better. Right. The delusionally imagining you’re this money magnet and then money flows to my life effortlessly. Oh, thank God. Cause I don’t have any motivation right now. And it’s, so you do the affirmations and it makes you feel better for a little bit while you do them.

It actually takes you away from realizing, no, no, no, you got to do things to actually increase income. So the way that I teach affirmations in the miracle morning, and I’ll just, I’ll give this away now in the book, I’m going to walk you through how to do this in your, you know, for each area of your life, but here’s the formula.

The Murek Warning Affirmations Formula, there’s [00:35:00] three steps. Step one, affirm what you’re committed to. Don’t say I’m wealthy. If you’re not say I’m committed to becoming wealthy, or I’m committed to increasing my income by 30%, or I’m committed to starting a side hustle, whatever you’re committed to, that’s what you’re going to move toward in your life.

Step two, affirm why it is a must for you. This is where you fuel that commitment. It’s like, You’re committed to what? Okay, but why? Who are you doing it for? Is it just for you? Is it for your, your spouse, your children, humanity? Why is this a must for you? What’s the outcome you’re working towards or the benefits of that outcome?

Step three, which actions will you take? And when will you take them? So that formula is totally rooted in reality. It’s affirming the most important thing, which is what you’re committed to, why it’s a must for you and which actions you’re going to take and win. And when I had cancer, that affirmation saved my life.

When I was afraid that I was going to die, when I was on chemo and I was sick, I would affirm I’m committed to beating cancer and living to be 100 plus years old [00:36:00] alongside Ursula and the kids, no matter what, there’s no other option. And then I had five bullet points as to why I’m committed. I’m committed for Ursula because I promised her forever and a day.

I’m committed for my mom and dad because they do not deserve to lose another child. I’m committed for Sophia and Halston because they need their daddy’s love, guidance, and leadership and on down the line. And then I have specific actions, what I was going to do each week in terms of my miracle morning, focusing it on beating cancer, reading books on beating cancer, taking 70 supplements a day, doing ozone sauna, doing coffee enemas, on and on and on, lymphatic massage.

This affirmation, it’s a blueprint for exactly what you need to think, focus on, believe and do you. In order to achieve anything, everything that you want in your life,

Michael: dude, I’d like to hug you right now because this is like the most sane explanation of affirmations I’ve ever heard because there’s been something about it that I recoiled against.

And I kind of did the commitment thing to the affirmations I do. I said, [00:37:00] what can I affirm that’s true? Like for example, in the financial stuff, I’d say, you know, I’m not wealthy, but I’m learning, you know, the tools of wealth, you know, something like that. This is fantastic.

Megan: Mm hmm. I love it so much. I feel like we could camp at any one of these spots for the entire conversation that we’re having, but selfishly, I’m really curious about something that you talk about this idea of miracle evenings as being the setup for miracle morning.

So I’ve personally. Believe this is totally true. It’s, it’s like, if you don’t go to bed on time, for example, it’s going to be super hard to get up on time, which is going to be super hard then to have your, your morning ritual, but talk about what you mean by that. What is a miracle evening and how do we get one?

Hal: Yeah. So I was late to the party on an evening ritual period, you know, for the last 10 or 12 years, I’ve been asked how, what’s your evening ritual? And I was always kind of embarrassed to go, I don’t really have one. I just go to bed, you know, right. Um, and then, and then I started looking into it, studying, reading, and I realized that, Oh, how you end your day [00:38:00] is almost important.

I think, I think honestly, the morning is the key because how you start the day sets the tone for the rest of the day, but it’s right behind it in terms of importance and how you end your day does set up the morning, right? Uh, if you end your day feeling stressed out, tossing and turning, going to bed, thinking about things that are out of your control, worrying, you know, and not getting sleep.

Don’t not sleeping. Well, you’re probably not gonna have a great start to the day It’s gonna be real difficult to have that miracle morning. And so the miracle morning similar to the savers I you know, I decided to stick with the theme of acronyms and I created a an acronym slumbers S. L. U. M. B. E. R. S. In 2020, I went through a really dark time in my life.

Now, I know, I know we’ve talked about enough of them, so I won’t go, I won’t, I won’t go too deep into this. But after three years of chemotherapy, the toll it took on my brain, they call it, you know, it’s like brain gets poisoned from the chemo. Uh, I did over 800 hours of chemo and my brain Was damaged to the point of, I started sleeping two to four hours a night [00:39:00] and developed extreme anxiety.

I became suicidal. If you ever slept for two to four hours in one night, you’re a wreck. The next day, this went on for six months. So I became delusional and it just, it was terrible. And then I realized I was crying all the time. I had never really cried my whole life. I kind of would use my five minute rule and all that, but I was just out of control, emotionally, mentally, physically, I was exhausted.

And it helped me develop a level of empathy that I had never had before that. And that was the gift. That was the gift in that experience. And I needed six months of begging God to make it stop because if it hadn’t been long enough and painful enough, I wouldn’t have got the lesson. Right. And so the point is, that’s why I created this miracle evening ritual to help people fall asleep, feeling peaceful and grateful, even in the midst of the most difficult times, In their lives, and that’s the miracle evening is, you know, I’ll go through some of the, a few of them quickly slumbers.

The first S is stop eating three to four [00:40:00] hours before bed. I believe that depending on how heavy the meal is, right? If you eat a big, heavy meal right before bed, then you’re going to feel like you were hit by a truck in the morning, because a lot of times we wake up wondering why we’re tired. It’s because.

You ate late at night. Now your body’s digesting food all night long. The L is let go of stressful thoughts and feelings. Now, easier said than done. So in the book, I walk you through how, you know, even if you had the most stressful day and you’re struggling financially and your spouse, you just yelled at each other right before you went in the bedroom and you need a strategy, Michael, like you said, how do you let go of stressful thoughts?

And feelings, right? The U is you sleep supplements is needed. So going through all of those, it allowed me to solve a horrific challenge with sleep. And I feel like if it worked for me, then anybody that’s got anything from sleeping two to four hours a night, being depressed, anxious and suicidal. Or just wanting an evening ritual to, to wind down feeling grateful and happy anywhere in between, uh, the miracle evening is really a solution for that.

Michael: You know, what’s cool about this [00:41:00] is you’ve done what I think so many people in personal development do, and that is we’re able to take some misery and turn it into a mission. So like nothing is wasted and you’ve had to live this. And that’s why it’s so powerful. I mean, this is resonating so deeply with me because it’s not just theoretical.

It’s not something you compiled a lot of academic journals and came up with the best research and now you’re offering that as advice, but this is lived experience and that’s the most powerful kind of teaching I think that there is.

Megan: A lot of people in our audience, when we’ve spoken together and answered questions, they have asked me in particular, because I’ve got a bunch of kids and running a business and all the things.

How did you do this when you had a new baby, for example? Or how did you do it when you were really struggling with your, your children when you first brought them home? We have our two middle children are adopted from Uganda. Our three younger ones are all together. But anyway, if you’re not in a season where you have the luxury of like some [00:42:00] Amazing morning ritual.

You know, I think it’s easy to think, well, that’s for a different season of life. Like I, I just, I can’t even think about that right now. I got a new baby or my business is struggling or I’m taking care of my parents who were elderly or. You know, health challenger, whatever. Is this for everybody? And what does it look like?

I mean, I feel like you, you are the uh, the expert on life not going according to plan. What does it look like to do this in the midst of a less than ideal circumstance? When you don’t have an hour, maybe you’ve got five minutes or 10 minutes or 15 minutes.

Hal: The easiest answer to that. And I could not always give you this answer.

My answer was a little more challenging before, but we created an app for that. And it’s been the number one requested resource for 12 years. People would say we, I use six apps for a miracle morning. I have a meditation app. I’ve got a affirmations app, a visualization app, a exercise app, or reading, you know, I’m use iBooks or, or Kindle and then, and then a journaling app.

And they said, I got to switch between [00:43:00] apps. And so it was always a heavy lift for us to, I go, I don’t know how we’re going to create the ultimate, how are we going to create an app? That’s as good as all of those in six different categories. Right? So it’s taken years of development, but we have that. And here’s the short solution.

You literally click play. So. Lucy Osborne, the voice of the miracle morning app. And we have a lot of voices, but she’s the primary voice and her voice is, I’ve heard it described as it feels like she’s hugging me through the app. When she talks to me, that’s great. You click play and she guides you through an entire miracle morning in as little as six minutes.

Wow. You know, the app is free to download. There’s a built in journal and a tracker and this and that. But in the free version of the app, you hit play and it’s, I think it’s an 11 minute, it’s either 11 or 13 minute savers, but she guides you through it. So it’s like you hit play and she guides you through it.

You can be literally holding the baby, rocking the baby. Right. And then without the app, the answer I’ve always given is, and this comes from, not from me. I have never been a new mom. Right. I’ve had a new baby, but I’ve never been a new mom in the miracle morning community. That’s a Facebook group with. [00:44:00] Uh, 350, 000 people in it.

This is a question that gets asked amongst many questions, but very often, Hey, I’m a new mom. How do you do this? Uh, and the answer that comes from other moms that have done it and figured out on their own is they go, I just do my savers whenever I can. You know, when the baby’s down for nap, I’ll just start at S get through S get through a, get through V out, baby’s awake.

Right. Okay. And the baby goes back down. All right. Now I throw out E and then, Oh, baby’s awake. So they said it might take me, you know, spread out over the entire morning, you know, or even into the afternoon, but so there’s a couple of ways, right? The apps, the easiest kind of done for you way to do it. And then, or you just do your savers as you can starting.

When you wake up and then until you’re done.

Megan: I love that. And

Michael: so that’s available on the app store for iOS and the Google store. Yeah,

Megan: that’s so great. You know, I think that so much of this stuff, we’re talking about personal development, we’re talking about rituals, we’re talking about routines. It can feel very unattainable for all kinds of reasons for people, you know, that they just think this is for somebody else in a different season of [00:45:00] life, no matter what season you’re in.

And I think the thing that I found to be effective is you got to keep adjusting and holding it with an open hand. You know, when, when we adopted our youngest daughter, she had special medical needs. It was a whole thing, you know, and I went from being able to have an hour long morning ritual to, I had like max of 15 minutes, but that’s okay because you know what, you can do a great morning ritual in 15 minutes.

And that’s what, when you look at your whole life, If you’re willing to make those adjustments and not have an idealized version, then you can consistently have this kind of a practice in your life rather than it only works if the stars align and you know, I’m in, in that one moment where I think I’m in the perfect season of life.

You know, I’m still waiting for that one, but yeah, it’s so great.

Michael: One of the things that we do at the end of the show is we’ve got three questions we want to ask you related to the double win, which is this [00:46:00] idea that, you know, really, and this is part of the mission of our, our company. It is the mission of our company is that we believe that everybody deserves to win at work and succeed at life.

You know, it’s not an either or proposition. It’s both. And, and so we try to make it nearly impossible for people not to get. The devil wins. So we’ve got a couple questions related to that.

Megan: When you think about this idea of winning at work and succeeding in the whole rest of your life, what’s the hardest part of that for you these days?

Hal: This was my second year attempting to take a sabbatical and just completely take the summer off to be with the family. And I get second to work, you know, one is for example, the miracle morning for seniors. I didn’t know that the editor was going to have it ready for me to look at and give all my feedback on and, you know, and finish right when sabbatical started.

I’m like, wait, this is totally come out of left field. So I think that’s the hardest part. But one of the big epiphanies I had when I had cancer was. When I realized I was a workaholic, right? That was part of the epiphany, but a big part of that was what I prioritized, and I was prioritizing the [00:47:00] impact I was making in the world over the impact that I could make for my family.

It was

Hal: quantity over quality. I felt very justified in, well, hey, I’m changing millions of lives, right? I, I’ve got to, I’ve got to do this extra thing. And I got to miss this thing with my kids because I’m changing millions of lives. And when I had cancer, I just had the epiphany of who is to say changing millions of lives, you know, and, and arguably superficially relative to the impact I can make with my family.

It was the decision that those three people who I live with, the impact I can make in their life supersedes by far, far more important than the impact I can make with the world. And so I think that was a big part of it was realizing that and also realizing that. When my kids are grown, they’re not, and when I’m on my deathbed, they’re not going to remember how many books I sold or how many lives I changed.

They’re going to remember, how did I show up for them? You know? And so it was really a shift in realizing that that’s, what’s most important. And so [00:48:00] now, you know, I take my kids to school a few days a week. I pick my daughter up every day. Like I try to book in my days with family time to make sure that at the very least, even if I’m at work during the day, I’m getting quality time, you know, to start and end the day.

Megan: That’s great. Okay.

Hal: Second

Michael: question.

Megan: Okay. So how do you know if you’ve gotten the double win? You know, what’s that thing inside of you that says, Oh, I’m winning at work and succeeding at life right now.

Hal: For me, I go to bed at night, easily feeling grateful and at peace. Like I use my miracle evening, you know, like strategy if I’m like stressed and I need to do it, but I prefer to just walk into my bedroom and go, Oh, what an awesome day.

And it’s how connected I feel with my wife and kids. You know, if I had a really nice interaction with all three of them, that to me is the most important thing in my life. It’s how I measure success, but we can’t control other people’s reactions all the time. So I think it’s very important that that can’t be the primary measure.

We cannot, or the only measure we can’t just go, [00:49:00] well, if they’re in a good mood and they’re, you know, well, then, then I win. Well, what if you did everything in your power, everything right. And they’re still having a tough day themselves. And it’s not about you, the miracle morning to me. enables me to focus on the two things that I can control who I become every day, right?

Through my personal development, what I learn, how I grow, how I regulate my nervous system through meditation and the other savers. So who I become each day. And then that leads to the second thing I can control, which is how I show up, how I show up for my family, how I show up at work, how I show up for my wife and my kids.

And so the miracle morning to me is like, okay, this is ensuring that I’m fully aware of what’s going on inside of me. And thoughtful and intentional about showing up my best for those I love and those I lead. And so now it’s not just dependent on how they treated me or how they responded. It’s, can I go to bed?

And did I go, did I give my best today? Did I really show up at my best for my wife and for my kids? If the [00:50:00] answer is yes, that’s an easy way to go to bed, feeling grateful and at peace and knowing that. Oh, the stress that they might be feeling or the thing that my teenage daughter said to me that kind of cut deep.

That’s actually not personal. That that’s something she’s going on with her. I’m doing the best that I can and I can be at peace with that.

Megan: I love that answer. That’s great. Okay. The last question. Which is going to sound funny to you, given our conversation. What’s one ritual or routine that helps you do what you do?

So I would just say, uh, see this whole conversation. Is there anything that you do that we, that’s not the miracle morning or the miracle evening that maybe you don’t talk much about, but is a ritual that helps you do what you do?

Hal: It’s exercise, which yes, that’s part of the miracle morning, but my miracle morning exercise, you know, it’s like, I’ll do five or 10 minutes of stretching yoga.

Like it’s just a quick thing. It’s not working out. And then here where I’m at in my office, right behind me, I’ve got, you know, weight room. And so I come in and I do PEMF. right? I have a PEMF mat. It’s the Hugo intense that Tony Robbins uses. I figured if it’s good enough for [00:51:00] Tony, okay. Um, and then I’ve got red light therapy and then I work out, I lift weights.

Oh, actually. Okay. Above all of that, this is still related, but it’s my morning bike ride. So there is my morning bike ride and I don’t do it every day. I do it. I alternate lifting and biking, lifting and biking and on, but the morning bike ride, I pray the entire time. It’s like a conversation with God out loud.

Here’s a really unique thing. I used to, as soon as I left my driveway, I pedaled as hard as I could. And then going downhill, I pedal as hard as like the entire ride was as hard as I could. And then one day I had this. I don’t know what it was. This epiphany. I go, wait a minute. Why don’t I let God carry me on the downhills?

Right? It was just this, it was this metaphor. And so now I just go, God, I go, thank you for carrying me. And then, and then as I’m biking uphill, I go, thank you for the strength in my legs. So the entire bike ride is just, I’m thankful for every moment. Thank you for the trees. Thank you. I just say, thank you.

And it’s about a 10 minute bike ride. So it, 10 minutes of biking [00:52:00] and saying thank you and breathing fresh air. It’s probably one of my favorite parts of my day. That is great.

Michael: Well, Hal, thank you so much for joining us today. I mean, this has exceeded my expectations. Me too. So thank you again.

Hal: You’re so welcome.

Thanks for having me, Megan and Michael. I appreciate both of you.

Megan: Thank you.

Michael: I had a bunch of takeaways from that show.

Megan: Yeah, I had a bunch of head explosions in that show. I mean. Got a

Michael: little messy.

Megan: First of all, wow, what a story. I mean, I was just telling Sarah, our producer, I was just saying, you know, like some people in this space of personal development and. Achievement, productivity, whatever.

It’s kind of like, yeah, you know, like my life has been amazing and I’ll descend from the clouds to tell you how you can do it too. He’s like, my life has not been amazing in a lot of ways. I mean, he wouldn’t say it like that, but he’s overcome so many things that what he’s talking about in the [00:53:00] miracle morning is hard one.

And that for me anyway, it makes me just have so much confidence and trust in what he’s talking about.

Michael: Yeah. You know, it’s hard to respect somebody giving you advice that hasn’t suffered.

Megan: Right. Well, at least the older you get. Yeah, at least the older

Michael: you get. And so, the fact that he has suffered in so many areas, and yet is so positive,

Megan: and has

Michael: such wisdom to share, is very inspiring.

I mean, it made me think of the things that I go through, and I go, just sort of a further resolve to press through them.

Megan: Yeah. And I think it also is very hopeful. You know, I think at a certain point in life, most of us have been through a lot of difficult things. You know, nobody gets out of life without suffering.

And sometimes it can feel like those things are going to have the last word, that those are going to be the truest things about our stories, or that they’re really in the way of us living out our lives. our purpose, our calling and flourishing. And I think he’s such a great example of they are [00:54:00] difficult.

They are painful, but they can be the very thing that is the key that unlocks your purpose and your calling. And I just love that because it feels on the one hand profoundly in reality, as he said, but also profoundly hopeful.

Michael: I agree. takeaways was his five minute rule.

Megan: Yeah.

Michael: And I’ve kind of swung from one extreme to the other.

You know, my earlier days when I would have a setback, I would just suppress it. Because I felt like, you know, it was hindering my productivity and I didn’t have time to deal with it emotionally, so I would just stuff it. Well, unfortunately, that’s not a very healthy way to deal with adversity or with setbacks because they end up bubbling up in unhealthy ways.

And then I think, you know, there’s been times when I’ve overindulged myself and stayed too long in that space. But I think the five minute rule, I don’t know if it’s five minutes Right, it’s not so much

Megan: about the precise amount of time.

Michael: But it’s like, take the time to process it emotionally. But that profound realization, and it’s so obvious, but the [00:55:00] realization that I can’t change it.

Yeah. So why am I spending all this time ruminating over it? You know, I just need to accept the fact that that happened. That’s my reality. And now I need to move forward.

Megan: You know, it reminds me of recovery. I’m not in recovery, but I know and love people who are. And I think that’s such a big. Part of the recovery journey from addiction is acceptance.

It’s like the idea of my life has become unmanageable, you know, for example, and the serenity prayer, it’s like just such a big part of that journey is accepting where you are and not pretending. Or even wishing necessarily that it were different. And I think that is such a powerful takeaway. And paradoxically, that kind of acceptance is the thing that makes us free to go on and achieve in spite of, or even because of the adversity we face.

It’s like, if we just, if we keep waiting and kind of trying to will our way into no suffering and no problems and [00:56:00] all that. We’re never going to get anywhere because that’s just not, no, no one’s cracked that code yet. You know?

Michael: No, that’s right. Well, I think we had him on thinking we’re going to talk about the whole time about the Miracle Morning and certainly that was an important part of the interview, but that whole adversity part of it was an added bonus and maybe the jewel in the whole thing.

But let’s talk about the Miracle Morning because we have written and taught on rituals for a long time.

Megan: Yeah.

Michael: You know, we have. Basically a whole book on it, the book on habits. But what did you get out of that, that you didn’t have before?

Megan: The thing I have felt myself with my own morning ritual at various times.

And the thing more importantly, that I hear from people in our community. is that it feels unattainable. Not our version of it particularly, but just any version of it. You know, that it just feels like, yeah, but just about the time you figure it out, you know, you enter a new season of life, or something goes wrong, or whatever.

And I think the idea of resilience, and the fact that His model, [00:57:00] the savers model that he has created one, it makes it easy because it’s kind of like you have this framework that you can just work through and you don’t have to sort of be creative about what you want to put in it. He’s done that work for you, but also it’s so highly adaptable that whether it’s five minutes or an hour and a half, you can scale it to wherever you are in life.

And one of the things that I’ve really learned in my own life with a lot of adversity is that you’ve got to be able to lower the bar. So that you can get over it. If you’re never able to chin the bar, because the bar is always so much higher than what you could reasonably chin, it’s just an invitation to quit.

Michael: You don’t want to have your morning ritual be dependent upon your day when you’re the most highly motivated.

Megan: Right. That’s going to happen once a month. If you’re lucky, you know, most days there’s going to be something that is difficult, whether it’s how you feel when you get up, or maybe you’ve got a sick kid, like I’ve had recently, or, you know, You know, you got something to finish with work that you wish you didn’t have to work on, you know, whatever it is, or, you know, there’s a car accident [00:58:00] on the road on the way to, to your office, like, whatever it is, there’s going to be something.

And the question is, are our rituals and routines pliable enough that they can work in a variety of settings? And I really felt that his could,

Michael: it’s almost like his framework is almost like an accordion.

Megan: Yeah. So it can be

Michael: compressed or expanded dependent upon the season of life. Or what just happens to be happening in a particular day.

Yeah. And I’ve kind of got my own version of that. I loved his explanation of affirmation. I

Megan: know, that was big.

Michael: I almost recoil against the whole idea. And even though I teach it, but I’ve heard so many wonky explanations of it that I don’t want to be associated with it.

Megan: Yeah.

Michael: But that totally made sense.

Megan: Right. It didn’t feel like magical.

Michael: Yeah.

Megan: You know, there was no magic in that in the sense that it’s like you’re trying to cast a spell on yourself or something. You know, it was, it’s really just orienting your mind to the truth. And I love that.

Michael: I do too. Yeah. It was excellent. Well, there’s so much takeaway.

And I just want to encourage you guys. Buy the [00:59:00] book. Yes. The Miracle Morning. And I’m going to buy the book, The Miracle Evening, because I’ve not read that.

Yeah.

Michael: And I’m very intrigued by his slumbers acronym.

Megan: Mm hmm. And I want

Michael: to delve into that. And the app. And the

Megan: app.

Michael: Yeah, and the app. Totally.

Megan: I think that is so cool and such a great way to do this kind of accordion thing that you’re talking about.

Again, it’s like anywhere in your life that you can automate the thinking about something. Like if you could just have somebody prompt you through your morning ritual, amazing. Less friction.

Michael: Absolutely. Well guys, thanks for joining us for this episode. Do us a favor. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, go to wherever you listen to podcasts, rate it, and give us a review.

That would be so helpful and we would be so grateful because that Feeds the algorithm that pushes the podcast higher in the rankings and gets more people exposed. to this idea of the double win, which is something that’s near and dear to our hearts. So if it’s important to you, help us out. We’ll see you next [01:00:00] week.