Tag: Hal Elrod

WWK Ep 008: He Was Dead for 6 Minutes. What Hal Elrod Did Next Changed Everything

Hal: [00:00:00] That night, my car was hit, hit on by a drunk driver at 70 miles per hour. I was found dead at the scene. [00:00:05] I broke 11 bones, uh, suffered permanent brain damage, which I still struggle [00:00:10] with today. Um, and, uh, was told I would never walk again and spent six days in a coma. [00:00:15] Uh, miraculously I maintained, unwavering.

Rory: You were actually, you were actually dead for six

Hal: minutes. My heart stopped for six [00:00:20] minutes on the side of the freeway when they, they, the car was keeping me alive, all the pressure from the car and when [00:00:25] they, they’d use the jaws of life, it took them an almost an hour to cut the car apart and pull me out.

And [00:00:30] when they did, I had been losing blood for an hour and just, you know, bled out essentially.[00:00:35] [00:00:40] [00:00:45]

Rory: Hey, I am so excited to [00:00:50] introduce you to one of the most inspiring people that I know personally. This [00:00:55] man has made a huge impact on my life. My mom is a huge fan. Um, [00:01:00] all my friends are huge fans, and he is someone who is not only a colleague, but someone [00:01:05] who is become a dear, trusted friend. We share the stage at events together.

We’re in [00:01:10] masterminds together. I respect him so much with the, the highest level of esteem. [00:01:15] Uh, this gentleman has sold four and a half million copies of his [00:01:20] book. His books have been translated into over 40 languages. He has over [00:01:25] 380,000 people in his Facebook group for his book. [00:01:30] Uh, has an app that has thousands and thousands of five star reviews.[00:01:35]

He has died, uh, died for real once and nearly died another time. We’re [00:01:40] gonna talk about that. This is no other than Mr. Hal Elrod, author of The [00:01:45] Miracle Morning, creator of the Miracle Morning Series. Uh, there’s a documentary on his life, a [00:01:50] movie that you can check out. And anyways, Hal, thanks for being here, buddy.

Hal: Rory. [00:01:55] You’re welcome. Thank you. And what an introduction. You should be a professional Hall of Fame speaker or something.

Rory: There [00:02:00] you go. That’s pretty good. Maybe there’s hope for me.

Hal: Yeah.

Rory: Um, so I want [00:02:05] to know, you’ve had, you’ve had a lot of, so that bio talks about, you’ve done a lot of [00:02:10] awesome things. You’ve, a lot of crap happen to you.

Hal: Yeah.

Rory: You’ve had a lot of [00:02:15] seriously hard stuff. What do you think are the [00:02:20] most, what do you think are the most difficult things you’ve gone through that have actually shaped like [00:02:25] who you are today? Like, uh, ’cause I know you’ve, you’ve, you’ve been through a lot of them. Yeah. [00:02:30]

Hal: Yeah. Um, I’ll tell them quickly ’cause I tend to go into a lot of detail in my stories and, [00:02:35] uh, just, just so we can go into anyone that you want.

But, um, the first one I, I didn’t talk about [00:02:40] until the last year. I didn’t really even realize this was a part of my life and, and who I am as [00:02:45] much as it is, which is the death of my sister. Um, when I was eight years old, my baby [00:02:50] sister, uh, I woke up on a Saturday morning and my mother was screaming across the hall, my baby, [00:02:55] my baby God, don’t take my baby.

At eight years old, I ran across the hall and my mom was [00:03:00] pushing on the chest and breathing into the mouth of my, my little 18 month old sister. [00:03:05] And, uh, Anne Marie was her name, and she passed away that morning. And at eight years old, you know, it’s [00:03:10] like I, I like, I don’t fully comprehend death, and this is very weird.

I don’t [00:03:15] understand the emotions that I’m feeling and the ones that my mom’s feeling. Within six months, my [00:03:20] mother led a support group. She started a support group for other parents who had lost children. And so I didn’t realize it until I was [00:03:25] going through therapy in like 2020, uh, dealing with some difficulties after chemo, some PTSD, [00:03:30] but as a therapist asking me about my childhood, I realized, oh, I think that’s weird.

The seed was planted that [00:03:35] like, when you go through adversity, you take your, your adversity, your pain, and you find [00:03:40] purpose in it. And when you do, it uplifts you, it uplifts others. It, it becomes actually a, [00:03:45] a, an asset of benefit to, to humanity. So that seed was planted there. And then fast forward 12 [00:03:50] years later, um, I was driving home after giving a speech at a Cutco conference.

Uh, I survived, or that night [00:03:55] my car was hit head on by a drunk driver. At 70 miles per hour, I was found dead at the scene. I broke [00:04:00] 11 bones, uh, suffered permanent brain damage, which I still struggle with [00:04:05] today. Um, and, uh, was sold. I would never walk again and spent six days in a coma. Uh, [00:04:10] miraculously I maintained, unwavering.

You were actually, you were actually dead for six minutes. My heart stopped for six minutes on the side [00:04:15] of the freeway when they, they, the car was keeping me alive, all the pressure from the car and when they, they’d use the [00:04:20] jaws of life it to come in almost an hour to cut the car apart and pull me out.

And when they did, I [00:04:25] had been losing blood for an hour and just, you know, bled out essentially, um, six days in [00:04:30] a coma, flatline twice more. And when I was, came outta the coma, I faced this unimaginable [00:04:35] reality that I broke all these bones. I’m never gonna walk again. And I just, I accepted the worst [00:04:40] case scenario.

If I never walk again, I’ll be at peace with it. But. I’m going to maintain unwavering [00:04:45] faith that I can walk again until proven otherwise, right? Like, and I thought, like, if you know, I’m gonna, I [00:04:50] prayed about it every day. I visualize walking. I like, I meditated on all of my [00:04:55] cells healing. Um, and three weeks after the crafts, the doctors came in with routine [00:05:00] x-rays and they said, we know how to explain this, but your body is healing and [00:05:05] we’re gonna let you take your first step in therapy today.

And even me as an optimist was thinking like a year of [00:05:10] healing. It was three weeks later that I took my first step and my dad has a picture of it, which is, I’m so glad he [00:05:15] captured, you know, that moment. Um, and then you fast forward nine years later, uh, very common [00:05:20] 2008 financial crash. I, my business failed.

And, uh, my house that I’d just bought and, [00:05:25] and landscaped and so much pride, a year and a half prior Inc. Took it away, couldn’t pay [00:05:30] the mortgage, and that’s when I created this thing called, became called the Miracle Morning. [00:05:35] And, uh, which turned my life around so profoundly that it felt like a miracle. And then last but not least, you [00:05:40] fast forward, uh, what, nine years after that, give or take.

Um, as a dad [00:05:45] with a 7-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old son, I was given a 30% chance of [00:05:50] surviving. I was di diagnosed with a very rare, aggressive form of leukemia. And at the time of [00:05:55] diagnosis, my heart was failing, my kidneys were failing, my lungs were failing. Uh, and the doctor said, [00:06:00] I have one to two weeks to live if I don’t start chemotherapy.

And I didn’t wanna do chemotherapy ’cause [00:06:05] most people die from the chemotherapy. So it’s kinda like you’re, you’re darned if you do, darned if you don’t. Right. It’s like you’re [00:06:10] dead in a week or two without chemo, but if you do chemo, it’s gonna wreck your body, wreak [00:06:15] havoc on, you do irreparable damage, but there’s a 30% chance you’ll live.

Mm-hmm. [00:06:20] You’re like. These are my, these are the two options that I have. And so [00:06:25] between faith and every natural holistic practice that I could possibly implement into my [00:06:30] life, um, I’m grateful to say that I, and the Miracle Morning was actually a big part of my cancer journey. [00:06:35] Like, utilizing that to manage my mindset and my mental and emotional wellbeing and, and even [00:06:40] physical self-healing, if you will.

Um, and, uh, I’m here to, to share it all today. [00:06:45]

Rory: mean,

Hal: dude, that’s

Rory: a very intense five minute. That’s like, that is [00:06:50] a lifetime. I mean, I, here’s what I think if the rest of your life is gonna be smooth sailing, ’cause you’ve, you’ve had many, many lifetimes. [00:06:55]

Hal: Knock on wood, man.

Rory: Let’s hope.

Hal: Well,

Rory: praise the Lord for [00:07:00] what has come out of that and what, how you’ve been shaped like and, and the [00:07:05] impact that you’ve now had on millions of people.

And I, I hope people, I, I, [00:07:10] you know, I obviously know all of that stuff as we’ve known you for a long time.

Hal: Yeah.

Rory: But I [00:07:15] think there’s a couple really key things about that, that people need to see. One is that like. [00:07:20] The pain that you’re going through is in [00:07:25] many cases, God’s way of shaping you and making you, and molding you into the [00:07:30] person that you one day are gonna be to help other people.

And you exhibit that and model [00:07:35] that as good as anybody I’ve ever met. And it’s, that part is beautiful. Um, you [00:07:40] know, I, I don’t, I don’t think God, like causes horrible things to happen, but like he can redeem [00:07:45] anything. Yeah. And that has certainly been your story. So The [00:07:50] Miracle Morning is where this all starts.

Yeah. You write a book, that book has sold like three and a half [00:07:55] million copies.

Hal: Yeah.
Rory: And then you’ve had all these other series, and I want to talk about some of the business side of that later. [00:08:00] Yeah. Because I, I’m super fascinated with how you’ve done the international stuff and like the co-authoring.

And [00:08:05] I think that will be interesting. The audience, you know, to me the, the core of the, the [00:08:10] story is the character that you’ve developed, that you’ve built to help you build a personal [00:08:15] brand. Talking into the Miracle Morning. [00:08:20] Is there a part of the Miracle Morning that you wish people understood better [00:08:25] or something that you, you think they don’t really get the full [00:08:30] gravitas of?

Like the, of like the whole, whole system?

Hal: Yeah.

Rory: Or just something that’s been like [00:08:35] extra powerful for you that, you know, maybe people don’t [00:08:40] realize it in, in terms of the whole sequence and step.

Hal: Yeah, I think that the premise of it is [00:08:45] what’s important to understand. ’cause you hear Miracle Morning and you think, oh, okay, so a you know, I need [00:08:50] to be a morning person.

Or this is about a morning routine, which it is, but it’s a means [00:08:55] to an end. And the end is becoming the person that you need to be to create everything [00:09:00] that you want for your life, right? It’s having a daily personal development practice each day to [00:09:05] start the day in a peak, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual state.

And develop your [00:09:10] mindset, the beliefs that you need, the habits, the skills, the knowledge, right, to become a [00:09:15] better version of yourself. And, and the premise of it started with a Jim Rohn quote, like that was the whole reason [00:09:20] this I created a morning routine was Jim Rohn said, your level of success, [00:09:25] and I actually like the word fulfillment better.

Um, but so let’s say your level of fulfillment in each area [00:09:30] of your life will rarely exceed your level of personal development. And in other [00:09:35] words, I quantify that. So on a scale of one to 10, everybody wants level 10 fulfillment. I wanna be as [00:09:40] happy and healthy and wealthy as I possibly can be. And I had to like look in the mirror when I heard that [00:09:45] quote.

This was 2008, economy’s crashing. I’m in debt. I’m, I’m in, you know, in a bad spot. And I [00:09:50] go, okay, I want level 10 fulfillment, but what’s my level of personal development? Because if [00:09:55] my personal development or my success won’t exceed it, I need to make sure that I’m [00:10:00] developing myself at the highest level each day.

And my answer was like, I think for. Most people would [00:10:05] be, like, I say two, like I’m, you know, I do a little bit of, I dabble in it here and there. I read books here [00:10:10] and there. Um, but I had nothing consistently. And so I just looked at what are the most, what are [00:10:15] the most timeless, proven personal development practices that the world’s most successful people have sworn [00:10:20] by for centuries.

I’m not looking for the new app or the new program, or the, I’m like, what, what the, [00:10:25] what works? And I was looking for one practice and I ended up with a list of six. [00:10:30] It was, and these are the SA now through, you know, iterating and brand building. It became an [00:10:35] acronym. Savers, S-A-V-E-R-S. Those are the six practices for [00:10:40] assesses for silence.

It’s your prayer, your meditation, starting your day in a calm, peaceful way. [00:10:45] The A is for affirmations, not the goofy kind that, you know, like, like I’m a money magnet, [00:10:50] but like affirmations that are rooted in truth that are reinforcing your commitment. Um, in [00:10:55] fact, one thing that I’ve, it’s only in the last year that I thought of this like came up for me, is what you affirm [00:11:00] repeatedly becomes your reality.

Right. So if you affirm I am blank, fill [00:11:05] in the blank, I am worthless. I’m amazing, I’m capable, I’m whatever. Right? Um, so for me, I’m affirming what I’m [00:11:10] committed to, why it’s a must for me, what actions I’m gonna take there. Like

Rory: Yeah. Like, I mean, neuroscience has proved that, [00:11:15] again, again, the brain does not delineate Yeah.

Between positive and negative. It just bleeds whatever you tell it most [00:11:20] often.

Hal: Yeah. Yeah.

Rory: And, uh, yeah, so that’s key. So the affirmations is critical. Part of the [00:11:25] morning routine.

Hal: It’s, to me, it’s the most important part of the mirror. The savers is the affirmations or the anchor. ’cause I’m [00:11:30] affirming what I’m committed to.

So it’s like, okay, what actually, why are you even doing this? What do you want, what are you committed to as a dad, as a [00:11:35] husband, as a CEO, as a right in your finances and your health and your fitness. Like, [00:11:40] that’s where I start by affirming all of that and then getting clear on. Affirming, why is it a must for you?

Which [00:11:45] actions are you gonna take to ensure that you are moving toward that outcome that you say you’re committed to? And if every day you’re affirming [00:11:50] that a, it’s top of mind, there is no, oh man, I forgot. I really wanted to do that. And then I got away from it and [00:11:55] got distracted. It’s like, no, it’s in writing.

And I read it every day and then, and, and it’s like, I wanna make a million [00:12:00] dollars. Yeah, that’d be fun. It’s like, no, no, no. Why? Oh yeah, I wanna put my, I wanna retire my dad, and I wanna put [00:12:05] my mom like, right. Like, you, you have the reasons. It’s just the, it’s simple components of like, [00:12:10] if you’re gonna achieve something, you gotta know what it is and be committed to that, why it’s important.

And then know what are [00:12:15] the actions you’re gonna take. And so for me, I have affirmations for each goal and each role [00:12:20] in my life. The V is for visualization. And I would just say like the world’s greatest athlete to visualize [00:12:25] the E is for exercise. You don’t have to go to the gym in the morning, but move your body for even a minute, right?

Get the blood flowing, [00:12:30] move your body. Exercise some jumping jacks. Stretching. I do a five minute workout every morning [00:12:35] where I do one minute of plank, one minute of back, bend. One minute of downward dog. [00:12:40] One minute of jumping jacks. I forgot the minute. But anyway, so, um, and then the R [00:12:45] is for reading and the S is for scribing, which is a fancy word for journaling, but the J would’ve made the [00:12:50] acronym Same.

Awkward. Yeah, same word J

Rory: This is better.

Hal: So we got, and that’s my wife’s idea by the way. She’s like, get up the [00:12:55] source. She’s my, she is my muse. I have realized, I’m sure AJ is your muse in many ways, right?

Rory: Yes. [00:13:00]

Hal: Um, so those are the practices and uh, and, and the point being you don’t [00:13:05] have to be a morning person, you just have to, uh, one of my co-authors said it.

Well, [00:13:10] he said it’s not about starting, it’s not about waking up early, it’s about waking up better.

Rory: Mm-hmm.

Hal: Right. Like you could do Miracle Morning at [00:13:15] noon.

Rory: Right. Well,

Hal: and I think it’s, you know, for our audience in particular,

Rory: there’s this, this [00:13:20] joke around the National Speakers Association that says most speakers have [00:13:25] written more books than they’ve read.

Hal: I love that.

Rory: And I think. You [00:13:30] know, agent and I were just talking about this recently that we’re like, golly, like [00:13:35] we are products of the personal development industry. Yeah. We are the biggest personal [00:13:40] development junkies There are. Yeah. Even now, uh, you know, Chris was actually talking to me about this the other [00:13:45] day.

He, he’s like, you would never watch a course. I’m like, I am watching a course, course every, [00:13:50] every moment of my life I’m in somebody’s course learning something. Learning something. Yeah. Doing, doing [00:13:55] something. And it’s just like, I think a lot of personal brands, it’s [00:14:00] easy to overlook, to be like, oh, I’m the one writing the book.

I’m the one speaking on the stages.

Hal: Yeah.

Rory: [00:14:05] I don’t need to be doing, but it’s like, and then you overlook like, am I doing the fundamentals? Totally. Am I, do [00:14:10] I, am I ha do I have a vision? Do I, I have affirmations. Am I conscious about like, [00:14:15] you know, what I’m reading and all, all that kind of stuff. ’cause clearly that’s been a big part of.

Your personal [00:14:20] brand journey also.

Hal: Yeah, and I’m, I mean, and I’m guilty of that in that I’ve done the Miracle Morning [00:14:25] probably 6.2 days a week for the last 17 years. I mean, I do it seven days a week unless [00:14:30] I’ve got like late night with my wife or concert or whatever. But otherwise, I’m, it’s almost every day.

[00:14:35] Um, and including when I’m traveling. But I also will realize sometimes I’m like, wait, I [00:14:40] actually haven’t visualized in like three months. Like, you know, so it’s like my brain says I’m doing [00:14:45] it every day, but I’m like, I’m actually get, we all do that. We get away from the basics, right? Like you said, do I have [00:14:50] a vision?

Do I, it’s like, well, I used to, but then I got where I wanted to go, and then I kind of let some of the, you know, [00:14:55] you kind of drop some of the plates that you’re spinning. Um, yeah. So I, I, I do my New York morning every day, but for sure [00:15:00] it’s not perfect.

Rory: Yeah. And I mean,

Hal: if you’re gonna become a better teacher to [00:15:05] other people, it’s like you have to

Rory: become a better person.

You have to be a bigger vessel.

Hal: Yeah.

Rory: You gotta increase. [00:15:10] Increase your, your capacity. Um, what are some of the. What are some [00:15:15] of the doubts you’ve had about yourself in building your own personal brand? Mm. And [00:15:20] being, you know, a speaker, coach, teacher, you, you know, podcaster, [00:15:25] all the things, the author. What are some of the like, limiting beliefs that you started [00:15:30] with, that you have had to coach yourself through to be able [00:15:35] to build the, you know, the empire that you guys have built?

Yeah, I

Hal: think that the [00:15:40] big picture answer to that, um, there’s lots of specifics, but the big picture was [00:15:45] if, and, and I’ll, I, I go through the phases of like, you know, the, the stair stepping of growth. [00:15:50] So when I was 19, um, up until that point, I had never [00:15:55] achieved anything remarkable. Meaning, like, I, I didn’t get good, I wasn’t an [00:16:00] achiever.

I didn’t get good grades. Mm. Um, I wasn’t an athlete. I never played organized [00:16:05] sports. Um, I, uh, I wasn’t popular. I got bold, right? Like, so I was, I had [00:16:10] nothing in my brain that was like, you know, like there’s the kids that we know growing up and you’re like, oh, they’re gonna [00:16:15] be super successful, right? Like, they get, they’re, they’re everything they do, they’re the best at, like, I wasn’t [00:16:20] that, and it was my second day of my Cutco training when my mentor Jesse said, [00:16:25] right, y’all, you’re about to enter into your fast start.

It’s the first 10 days and if you sell a thousand [00:16:30] dollars, you get a trimmer. And we’re like, dude, I want a trimmer. Let’s go.

Rory: What’s a trim?

Hal: It’s, it’s like the, it’s [00:16:35] like the most popular everyday, just a small little like tomato knife. Like that’s you use every day, right? Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. [00:16:40] Um, thank you for asking that.

Um, if you sell 2000, you get a spatula spreader, which is like a spatula with [00:16:45] a knife. You’re like, oh my God, I love this bread. Yeah, I mean, and it’s funny ’cause you’ve just been through two days of Cutco training. [00:16:50] You’re like, you love this stuff. And uh, and then he goes all the way to the top and he is like, now the [00:16:55] highest level is the record.

It’s the most anyone has ever sold in the last 50 years. In the [00:17:00] first 10 days. He goes, it happened to have been broken last week by a gal in Bakersfield, California, and I was [00:17:05] in Fresno. You’re, uh, uh, uh, um. An hour and a half south. [00:17:10] And, uh, he said, if you break that, you get everything on this board. Plus we’re gonna take you to dinner in a [00:17:15] limo, plus I’ll take you skydiving.

Like, and I’m like, this is it. And so for the first time in my life, [00:17:20] and if anyone’s listening right now, we all have this limiting belief of separation between [00:17:25] people that we view as superior to us in some way. Right?

Rory: Hmm.

Hal: So you’re looking on stage [00:17:30] and you’re like, oh man, they’re more, they’re better looking than me.

They’re older than me, they’re [00:17:35] wiser than me. They have more experience, they have more money, they have more talent. They’ve written 15 books, yada [00:17:40] yada. Rory’s got a company. We create separation between us. We, we, like, [00:17:45] literally as humans look for the reasons why we’re not as good as other people. [00:17:50] And in that, and I had done that my whole life, and in that moment I went, wait a minute.[00:17:55]

And I don’t know if I would’ve had, it’d been a girl that lived like in proximity to where I could visualize, wait, Bakersfield, that’s [00:18:00] like Fresno, that’s not like Beverly Hills. Like, that’s like a

Rory: Right,

Hal: right. They call, you know, no offense to Fresno, it was like the arm pit of [00:18:05] California and Bakersfield is like the other armpit, right?

So that’s not my words, but I actually love [00:18:10] living in Fresno. But anyway, so uh, I go, why not? Why not me? If that [00:18:15] girl in Bakersfield could sell $12,338 in 10 days, [00:18:20] why not me? And uh, and so that, that was the [00:18:25] first limiting belief that I overcame. And I think it’s one of the most important. And what it [00:18:30] is, is which

Rory: is that which is that someone else has something that you don’t have and [00:18:35] that’s why they’re more successful

Hal: than you are.

It’s, it’s trading separation for evidence, meaning [00:18:40] not, oh, their separation. ’cause they have more blank than me, more ability than I do [00:18:45] looking for commonality, looking for, oh, they did it. That’s evident [00:18:50] that I could do that in greater. I think Jesus said that, right? You do. You know, you shall do what [00:18:55] I did in greater.

Like that belief that other people is just showing you what’s [00:19:00] possible, not showing you that what you can’t do, ’cause they’re better than you. And I think that’s the most important fundamental [00:19:05] commonality. They’re a human being and I’m a human being. Everything else [00:19:10] is just details. Right? Everything else is possible beyond that.

Mm-hmm. [00:19:15] And then, so in that moment, I mean, how did you get past that? It was like a [00:19:20] spatula and then it just clicked. So, so, so then, so I went to Jesse after training and I said, uh, [00:19:25] I was like, I thought he was gonna be so excited and be like, wow, how you’re gonna do it? I said, Hey Jesse, [00:19:30] I’m excited to tell you something.

I said, I wanna break the record. I wanna, I wanna sell, I wanna beat that gal. [00:19:35] Christina’s 12,000 303 38 bucks. And I thought he’d be, I thought he was gonna jump up and down and, you [00:19:40] know, I like envisioned him spinning me around and, you know, and he goes, he just nodded his head, kind of [00:19:45] cocked his head and he goes, okay.

He goes, Al let me ask, I wanna ask you a question. [00:19:50] How often do you think I hear that in training? I run training every week. How often think I hear that somebody wants to break the fast [00:19:55] start record and I just like put on heels. I go, I don’t know. He said, every [00:20:00] week, guess how many people have done it since I’ve been a manager?

I said, I don’t know. He said, [00:20:05] none. He said it, it’s easy to get excited, but if you want to break the record, [00:20:10] I you can, I can help you, but you have to be committed at a level you’ve [00:20:15] never been committed to anything in your life. And again, he’s telling this to a, a c [00:20:20] student, not an athlete. Lazy, undisciplined.

And I, I’m like, [00:20:25] uh, and at that point I just, I, I admired this guy and so it’s interesting how [00:20:30] things work, but if like I was in isolation and no one knew, I’d be like, Nope, nevermind. I’m not, [00:20:35] I’m not ready for that. But because I didn’t wanna let him down, I go, I’ll do it. I’ll commit. I’ll [00:20:40] do whatever you tell me to do.

And thanks to his accountability, right, it reminds me of like, if. [00:20:45] Wanna build a brand, right? Get a coach, get Rory ba. You know what I mean? I mean, and I’m not, I’m not just saying that, but [00:20:50] seriously, if it wasn’t for him and his support and daily, I had to call him every morning [00:20:55] before I got on the phone and made my calls, I had to call him like after every single appointment.[00:21:00]

’cause he understood that my mind, that I would be dealing with rejection and [00:21:05] adversity and self-doubt. And he knew that I wasn’t equipped at that point, at [00:21:10] 19 years old, to, I didn’t have the tools, but he did. So I called him. I mean, I talked to him [00:21:15] 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 times a day. And he managed my mindset through the ups and the [00:21:20] downs and the no sales and the rejection.

And, you know, and on the, my last appointment on the 10th day, I broke, [00:21:25] you know, broke that record.

Rory: Yeah. See when you’re talking, for some reason, I’m being reminded of [00:21:30] one of my all time favorite quotes, and it’s from Mike Tyson. He says [00:21:35] everyone has a plan punch until, until they punch in, punched in the face, punch face.

Yeah. And [00:21:40] that is how building a personal brand is. Right. Like, there’s not a person that we meet that’s like, I wanna [00:21:45] be a bestselling author. I wanna, I wanna be, I wanna speak on the biggest stages. Yeah. I wanna have a huge [00:21:50] podcast, you know, and it’s not always I wanna make money or be famous, but it’s like, I wanna make an impact.

Yeah.

Rory: And [00:21:55] people, people somehow think that just because they wanna make an impact, it should be easy.

Hal: Yeah.

Rory: And it’s like, [00:22:00] no, it’s extreme work. Yeah. And commitment and dedication over an

Hal: [00:22:05] extended period of time,

Rory: over an extended period of time. Like you have to earn the right [00:22:10] Yeah. To impact other people.

Hal: Yeah.

Rory: And I don’t, and people, I, you know, I don’t, they don’t, [00:22:15] they don’t realize that, you know, recently I was talking, um, at one of our events and I said, you, [00:22:20] you have to decide that your calling matters more than your comfort. [00:22:25]

Hal: Mm-hmm.

Rory: Right? Like, to build your personal brand is, is to go like. I’m, [00:22:30] I’m willing to deal with the rejection.

I’m willing to deal with the uncomfortable, you know, learning new [00:22:35] things and figuring new stuff out. And it’s like, uh, Jasmine Starr was, uh, at an event we had recently speaking, [00:22:40] and I said, you know, how, how much do you enjoy social media? She’s like, I hate it. [00:22:45] I hate social media. Yeah. And I’m like, you’re the queen of social media.

She’s like, I hate every minute of it.

Hal: Wow.

Rory: She’s [00:22:50] like, but that’s not why I do it. I do it because it, it’ll grow my business. Mm. And it was such an epiphany, [00:22:55] like everyone in the room gasped, like, couldn’t believe it was like sacrilege that she would say [00:23:00] that.

Hal: Yeah.

Rory: Going. Oh, she doesn’t actually enjoy this.

She’s doing it [00:23:05] because she’s, and she’s like me. But it’s that separation. We all go, well, the reason she’s big on social media is ’cause she [00:23:10] loves it and she doesn’t have anything else to do with her time.

Hal: That’s why I think about everyone. I see it. ’cause I don’t like social media. I’m like everyone, I’m [00:23:15] like, oh, I wish I liked it like they did.

So, that’s such a great point,

Rory: Uhhuh. Um, that’s really powerful. So I [00:23:20] wanna ask you about, you, you, you, you mentioned, you’ve been talking about affirmations and you mentioned discipline. [00:23:25]

Hal: Hmm.

Rory: So, you know, we met around the days of my first book, take the Stairs, which was all about [00:23:30] self-discipline. And I wanted to talk to you about the difference between identity [00:23:35] and self-discipline.

Hal: Hmm.

Rory: And which one do you think matters more [00:23:40] or. Or do they work together? Or like, uh, what’s the, what is [00:23:45] your view on establishing someone’s identity versus like [00:23:50] creating discipline? ’cause ’cause affirmations to me is more like identity. It’s [00:23:55] more of like who I’m gonna be. But then the whole, you know, savior’s routine is like, that’s a discipline.

Yeah. [00:24:00] Like, you’re sitting down and doing those, the practices. So how do you reconcile those two concepts? Or what do you think [00:24:05] about in your own journey and with the, you know, the millions of people that have gone through Miracle Mourning?

Hal: Yeah. To [00:24:10] me it’s a yes. And, and they’re done simultaneously. Uh, and it brings [00:24:15] up, I was at a father son like adventure retreat the other day.

And, uh, yeah, it was cool. [00:24:20] And they talked about courage and we were talking about all these attributes of becoming a man, you know, a [00:24:25] young man and, uh, and courage. And they talked, they pointed out that courage is not the absence [00:24:30] of fear. Mm-hmm. It’s, it literally can’t exist without fear. ’cause it’s doing the thing you’re [00:24:35] afraid of doing.

Mm-hmm. And thus you are mustering up courage. And so what that makes me think about [00:24:40] is. Self-discipline, uh, self-discipline is doing the thing that you don’t feel [00:24:45] like doing otherwise. It doesn’t take discipline if you feel like doing it, it [00:24:50] requires zero self-discipline.

Rory: Mm-hmm.

Hal: And so I think that people, and then you bring in the identity piece, they’re like, [00:24:55] I’m just not self-disciplined.

It’s like no one is, you know? [00:25:00] And, and at least not to start. And I was just talking to our friends, Sean Johnson and Andrew East, and we were [00:25:05] talking about this, about how my identity deep seated in my subconscious from when [00:25:10] I was a kid is I view myself as lazy. I view myself as undisciplined. [00:25:15] And it’s like, but, but anyone from the outside goes, well, no, no, dude, you do all [00:25:20] the things.

But for me, it’s, I don’t feel like doing them. [00:25:25] And so that makes me think that I’m not disciplined ’cause I don’t feel like doing ’em. So I’m actually, [00:25:30] as I’m, we’re talking about this, I’m even kind of coaching myself like, well, no, [00:25:35] discipline isn’t feeling like doing them. It’s doing them even though you don’t feel like it.[00:25:40]

Rory: Yeah.

Hal: And you know, uh, John Maxwell, who I know, you’re, I think he has, doesn’t he have a book with you guys? Yeah. With mission driven [00:25:45] masters? Yeah. Uh, he, he didn’t publish a Mission Driven press, but he’s a client. Yeah. We a client. Yeah. Our

Rory: last launch.

Hal: So [00:25:50] John Maxwell, uh, one of the greatest lessons I learned from his book, failing Forward, is, [00:25:55] uh, to act your way into feeling.

Rory: Mm-hmm.

Hal: He said, nobody [00:26:00] feels like doing what they need to do, but the people that are disciplined go, [00:26:05] I don’t feel like it. And then they just get up and they walk through the door.

Rory: Yeah.

Hal: [00:26:10] And so, um, I, I really took that to like, to working out and I go, wow. The [00:26:15] secret to getting in the best shape of your life.

Don’t, don’t think about it as working out. ’cause that [00:26:20] that’s gonna make you not do it. Discipline. All you need to do is pack your gym bag the night [00:26:25] before. Have it sitting out, set an alarm that just says, get in the car with your gym bag.

Rory: [00:26:30] Mm-hmm.

Hal: And I go and, and like, ’cause that’s, that takes almost no discipline.[00:26:35]

But if you grab your gym bag. Easy. Just grab the gym bag off the coffee table. And then [00:26:40] you get in your car. Well, now there’s momentum. Where are you Probably gonna drive [00:26:45] to the gym. And then you’re gonna like, ah, then you’re gonna grab your gym bag off the couch and you’re still, [00:26:50] you’re still negative self-talk.

Like, I don’t feel like this, I don’t really wanna [00:26:55] work out. But you’re, you’re doing it, you’re, you’re maintaining this way. Then you get outta the car and you walk in the gym. Well dude, [00:27:00] now speakers are blaring. The energy is palpable. People are [00:27:05] running like, you know, you’re okay. Now your energy and motivation are going up.

And then you’re [00:27:10] like, I got a gym bag in my hand. I guess I’ll go get dressed. Then you go get dressed and you’re like, well, now I’m just, I [00:27:15] mean, I’m might as well walk over to the treadmill. I’m here. Then you go to the treadmill, then you’re like, ah, 10 minutes go right? [00:27:20] And then all of a sudden, and then now you actually feel more motivated.

You just get in the best shape of [00:27:25] your life. One picking up of the gym bag at a time. Not one workout at a time. Don’t, don’t think that [00:27:30] far ahead. That’s gonna discourage you from even packing the gym bag. So it’s like when you [00:27:35] think about, again, act your way into feeling. And so for me, my alarm clock for the Miracle Morning, [00:27:40] that’s how I got myself to become a morning person.

This is like a huge hack. And it’s what worked for my coaching clients at the time [00:27:45] that said, I’m not a mor. When I first created The Miracle Morning, it was just for [00:27:50] me. I didn’t know I’d ever teach it to ano a single person. It wasn’t a book idea. And then, I mean, it was like, [00:27:55] it was like God having one of my coaching clients, a, a a few, like a month or two after I [00:28:00] started doing My Miracle Morning.

Every day when my coaching clients goes, Hal, do you have a morning routine? I keep [00:28:05] hearing about, like, I read up morning routines. I go and I’m just beaming. I go, oh [00:28:10] my gosh. I like, I’m so excited to tell you about this. And I, and I tell her all about Miracle Morning. She’s like, [00:28:15] I’ll try it. I’ll try it for a week.

I said, I have to give you one tip because she’s like, I’m not a morning person. I said, the big, the the [00:28:20] game changer was I moved my alarm clock from my bed from my phone or my bedside table [00:28:25] to my bathroom sink. If you can, and this is for everybody listening, if you’re not a morning [00:28:30] person, this is a hack.

And if you alarm goes off and you can wake [00:28:35] up and reach over and turn it off while you’re still half asleep, good luck mustering up any [00:28:40] discipline to do what you need to do. But if you have to get out of bed, if you’re upright and now you’re [00:28:45] moving your body, you’re, you’re 10 x more awake than you were when you were [00:28:50] fumbling to the, the, the, the tableside.

So get outta bed. And then for me, it’s right next to the wa the bathroom [00:28:55] sink. And I have a clo cup of water there, which is like a, a reminder that I’m gonna hydrate and then my [00:29:00] toothbrush brush teeth, and every minute you’re awake, it’s that much easier to stay awake. Right. [00:29:05] So within a couple of minutes of washing my face, brushing my teeth, now I’m upright.

It’s like, oh, I can stay up for the [00:29:10] rest of the meal.

Rory: Yeah. The power momentum is so important. Yeah. One that there was, uh, you know, there was a time in my [00:29:15] life where I was about 40 pounds heavier than I am now. Wow. And, and one of the greatest hacks I [00:29:20] had, which helped me lose 45 pounds was I made a deal with myself, which [00:29:25] was.

I don’t have to work out, I just [00:29:30] have to go to the gym. Yes.

Hal: That’s

Rory: it. And if I, if I get to the gym

Hal: Yep.

Rory: And I’m there and I [00:29:35] don’t wanna work out, I’m allowed to turn around and drive home.

Hal: Dude, I loved

Rory: it. It was a total, [00:29:40] like, just deal. And then it’s like, and I think there was one time where I actually did turn around and I was like, I [00:29:45] was like, sick or something.

I’m like, I really just, but it was like every time, by the time you’re there,

Hal: [00:29:50] yeah.

Rory: The decision. Good. The decision you, the living epitome

Hal: of a theoretical lesson that I just taught. Yeah. [00:29:55] That’s so,

Rory: that’s so, that’s so good. Yeah. So, um, let’s talk [00:30:00] about Miracle Morning. And this is like, I mean, this thing’s become a movement.[00:30:05]

How have you done the business of this? Y you know, I’m, I, I, I [00:30:10] wanna, like you, you’ve, how many books are there in the series? How did you structure the [00:30:15] co-authoring? How have you done the international deals? Like Yeah. You’ve taken [00:30:20] a book, which by the way, if people don’t know this is worth saying, was self-published.[00:30:25]

That was a self-published book. So,

Hal: until two years ago.

Rory: Until two years ago,

Hal: yeah. The first 11 [00:30:30] years it was self-published.

Rory: Yeah. So like, you know, millions of copies. As a self-published [00:30:35] author, how did you start structuring deals and like co-authoring things and [00:30:40] like licensing this, I guess if this is the term, because it it made it a worldwide movement.

Hal: Yeah. So it [00:30:45] kind of start at the beginning in terms of the launch of the book. So I self-published the book, uh, it took me [00:30:50] three years to write. I’m not a fast writer. It took me three years. Um, and I had no publisher with a deadline. So [00:30:55] it was like, I was just writing, you know, each day. Like, and uh, when I was [00:31:00] coming out with the book, I had a, I had like advanced readers and I just, the feedback I was getting, [00:31:05] even through the three years that I wrote it, ’cause I was teaching it in interviews at speeches [00:31:10] to my clients.

So I had tons of feedback of this is changing my [00:31:15] life.

Rory: Hmm.

Hal: And so that fueled me of like, I, and this is important. I have a [00:31:20] responsibility to share this message. That, that’s literally why I did it. I [00:31:25] never, first of all, never in a million years did I imagine that it would sell a million [00:31:30] or 3 million co.

Never. I taught it to my coaching clients. I taught to the one, and [00:31:35] for her at work, she’s like, oh my gosh, I’m running, I’m, I remember Katie Haney is her name. She like, she was the first [00:31:40] person, like, I’m not a morning personnel, but I routines good, Katie. Yeah, she’s crushes. And so, um,

Rory: because if you had failed [00:31:45] Katie, this may have never happened.

Hal: Literally, I wouldn’t because, because she came back to her call and I was like, she’s like, oh my gosh, how [00:31:50] I did it? I moved the alarm clocks to the room. I’m up every day, I’m running. I’m like, I’m doing it. [00:31:55] And I go, oh, wait a minute. I got, I’m gonna teach this to my other 13 coaching clients. So I teach it to [00:32:00] all of them.

Most of them resist saying I’m not a morning person. And then, um, they, 13 outta [00:32:05] 14 came to the next call and they’re like, oh my gosh. Um, it’s, it’s working. It’s amazing. So then I go, okay, [00:32:10] if it worked for them, and it worked for me. And none of us were morning people. None of us identified as morning people.

[00:32:15] This could work for anyone. I have to write a book. Okay. So that, that’s, so, it’s like I have a responsibility to [00:32:20] share this with the world.

Rory: Mm.

Hal: Um, so that, that’s an

Rory: important

Hal: huge switch that has

Rory: to [00:32:25] flip for all of us. Mm-hmm. Like when you’re doing it for fame, you’re doing it for money, [00:32:30] you’re doing it ’cause you think you’re supposed to, like you’re doing it ’cause someone else told you, da dah, dah, dah, dah, [00:32:35] you’ll burn out.

Hal: Yep.

Rory: Like the only sustaining drive that it, [00:32:40] that it, to do what it takes to make it, I think in this business is, it’s like that switch has to flip [00:32:45] where you go, I feel obligated to share what I have with other [00:32:50] people. Yeah. And then

Hal: once that switch flips, it’s like, okay, now we’re talking. [00:32:55] Yeah. And it’s, I mean, and I’m living example of that in terms of Miracle Morning came [00:33:00] out on 12, 12 12, December 12th, 2012.

It’s 13 years later. [00:33:05] I still do interviews. It’s not self-published. I don’t make very much money on the book anymore. Right. Like, I make pennies on what I used to make, [00:33:10] but. You

Rory: sold it to a

Hal: experience. I sold it to a publisher, but it’s my mi it’s my life’s [00:33:15] work. I will, I don’t see me stopping for the rest of my life.

So anyway, back, [00:33:20] back up. Um, so book comes out and I’m setting my goals for the year and, ’cause it came out [00:33:25] December 12th, 2012. So I’m like, all right, set my 2013 goals. And I just, [00:33:30] I go, I’m gonna change 1 million lives one morning at a time. I’m gonna try to sell, reach a million [00:33:35] people with the Miracle Morning this year.

And it was very naive goal. It wasn’t based on any data. I had [00:33:40] no audience, I wasn’t well known. I had no podcast. I had I, no nothing. [00:33:45] And, uh, but I was like, it’s my responsibility. And I just believe in setting big. I have no [00:33:50] problem. I believe in the Jim, other than another Jim Rowan philosophy, which is the purpose of a goal is not to hit the goal [00:33:55] who it makes of you by giving it everything you have until the last possible moment and [00:34:00] beyond.

Mm-hmm. Right. So that’s, I’m like, I’m gonna give it everything. I have to sell a million copies. And I affirmed that every day. I am [00:34:05] committed to, to do everything in my power. To sell, to change 1 million lives [00:34:10] one morning at a time. That was my mission driven message that inspired me a lot more than sell a million [00:34:15] books.

’cause who, who cares about a mil? Right? Like that wouldn’t motivate me. So my mission was change [00:34:20] 1 million lives one morning at a time. And how close did you get in the first 12 months? This is my, I [00:34:25] love, it’s my favorite stories. So, um, I was 987,000 copies short of my goal. [00:34:30] So I failed by 98.7% [00:34:35] Uhhuh. But I want you to know, I did everything in my power dude.

I was on 152 podcasts and that was [00:34:40] before pod, like there were probably one 10,000 as many podcasts.

Rory: Yeah. That must have been [00:34:45] what That must have been how we very first met. ’cause I was just like, I had just been podcasting for a few years. That [00:34:50] must have been,

Hal: when did you start?

Rory: Well, it was our, at our former company, I had a [00:34:55] podcast that I think I started in like 2012.

Okay. Right. So right in that 20 13, 14, [00:35:00] 15, it was started to grow and I, I bet that’s right the way That’s right about when we met.

Hal: Yeah. And the way I got on [00:35:05] podcasts was my Cutco skills. The way Cutco sold is referrals. You do an appointment and then [00:35:10] at the end, whether you buy or not, I say, Hey, Rory, did you, how’d you like the presentation?

He goes, it’s great. You go, anybody you could refer me to that would [00:35:15] be nice enough to let me show this to them. And so every podcast I did at the end, I’d go, Hey, how was that? They, oh, it’s [00:35:20] amazing. This is gonna, you know, I said, um, I’m really trying to get on more shows and share the Miracle Morning. Who do you [00:35:25] know?

That would be nice enough, maybe a podcaster that would have me on their show, and then I would send them a template to, and like they would, you [00:35:30] know, and so that’s, I got 152 podcasts. I gave 36 speeches across the country for, [00:35:35] I was probably making a couple thousand dollars a speech back then. And I think it was mostly colleges [00:35:40] too.

I was just getting started. I did not have, I didn’t have much money at the time, and so [00:35:45] on a credit card, I paid this PR company to get me on 13 morning television talk [00:35:50] shows. Mm-hmm. Good morning, Sacramento. Good Day, Houston, right? Sure. You name it. Uh, [00:35:55] so I did everything like literally, and I didn’t have kids at the time.

I worked six, seven days a week, [00:36:00] two change a million lives, and I was 987,000 copies short. And here’s [00:36:05] the lesson in that. I mean, there’s a few lessons, but one is be to your point, you [00:36:10] have to be, you have to have a mission, a purpose. I remember setting the goals for [00:36:15] the next year and I go. This doesn’t change my goal, it’s just that my timeline was way [00:36:20] off and I got a calculator.

I divided 1 million times, 13,000 copies a year. Yeah. Is [00:36:25] 77 years, at which time I would’ve been 110 years old.

Rory: Yeah.

Hal: And so I basically, in that moment, [00:36:30] I was like, and I think I wrote my affirmations. I’m committed to change 1 million lives one morning at a [00:36:35] time no matter what. And no matter how long it takes,

Rory: and I have to live to be [00:36:40] 110

Hal: years.

Yeah. 110 years old. And so year two, I did everything again, everything in my power. I sold [00:36:45] 23,000 copies. So it’s like, it’s up a little, but it’s like, it’s still nowhere where I need to need to be. [00:36:50] But I go, this is my life’s work. You know? And, and then it ended up being six [00:36:55] years, uh, to get to a million copies.

And here’s, [00:37:00] here’s the path, and that’s what people need to understand because it’s far [00:37:05] more important, the commitment that you have to do whatever it takes [00:37:10] for as long as it takes. You genuinely believe that it is your [00:37:15] mission to deliver. Like the, I I don’t, I I didn’t come up with the miracle morning, like [00:37:20] God whispered it here and whispered it there and put this person in my life and this person in my life, right?

And, [00:37:25] and so I feel like this is my life’s work. This is my mission. Um, which also made it easier, by the way, [00:37:30] with everything that we’re gonna talk about with like the series and stuff is, you know, ’cause all these opportunities started coming outta the woodwork at [00:37:35] one point and you’re tempted to be like, oh yes, sure, yes, yes.

And at one point I go, I’m saying no to [00:37:40] everything. That doesn’t help get the Miracle Morning into people’s lives. And that’s why we made the Miracle Morning movie. [00:37:45] The Miracle Morning App, 15 books of the Miracle Morning series, right? ’cause like, oh, now I know what to say yes [00:37:50] to. It’s things that help support this mission.

Right? Um, [00:37:55] so lemme turn it back over to you. Remind me of the question or where you want me to go next.

Rory: [00:38:00] Well, I, I think so I was just asking you about how the licensing all happened and the co the co-authors and [00:38:05] how you started to structure like the business side of Yes. Of that. And when’s the right time to like [00:38:10] create a.

You know, a subsidiary title and like when’s the right time to do [00:38:15] international deals and that kind of thing.

Hal: Let’s talk. Yeah, we’ll talk series. So we’ll go, let’s go series, then we go [00:38:20] like international, then app. In that order, I’ll go chronologically. A buddy of mine, [00:38:25] uh, that I used to saw Cutco with Ryan Snow, who is now a top real estate.

He, he ran a real estate [00:38:30] office. He reached out to me and he said, Hey, I have given Miracle Morning [00:38:35] to everybody on my team, half of them. And he goes and I check in with them with accountability like we [00:38:40] used to do at Cutco. Half of them have read the book and are doing the Miracle Morning every day. Half of them are not give or [00:38:45] take, and he said the half that are doing it, every single one of [00:38:50] their sales are up the half that are not, their sales are not up.[00:38:55]

He said, that cannot be a coincidence. Have you thought about doing a [00:39:00] Miracle Morning like a series Miracle Morning for salespeople where you [00:39:05] customize the entire Miracle Morning practice? The affirmations, right? For. A [00:39:10] salesperson. I said, no, or I said, I thought of it, but I don’t know how to do it. I said, [00:39:15] do you want to, you want to co-author a book together?

He goes, sure. So it just super organic. Right. [00:39:20] Then I met Honoree quarter, I think you know honoree, don’t you?

Rory: I do,

Hal: yeah. And I met Honoree because she [00:39:25] wrote a Good Reads review for Miracle Morning, and I, and it just caught my attention. It was so heartfelt and so [00:39:30] sweet. And then I googled her and it turns out she’s the creator of the, the successful single mom book [00:39:35] series.

Now she’s written like 50 books, but back then she had the successful single mom book series. So [00:39:40] I’m, I messaged her. I’m like, Hey, thank you so much for this review. I really appreciate it. Then we end up getting on a call and I’m [00:39:45] like, Hey, how’d you do a book series? Would you mind sharing that with me?

And she tells me, and, and then I go, you wanna do a book [00:39:50] series with me? You wanna, you know, you wanna like help me with this? And so I end up hiring her to help [00:39:55] me. Produce the book series and right, and then, and then it just takes off and then it’s just organic. Where I’m [00:40:00] at Genius Network with Joe Polish, we become friends and he, he decides to Miracle Morning for addiction [00:40:05] recovery.

I have a real estate trainer, Michael Mayer, reach out, say, Hey, miracle Morning needs to be, let’s do real estate [00:40:10] agent one. And now there’s 15 books give or take in the series for college students, for parents and [00:40:15] families, so on and so forth. And here’s what I would say, I have people approach me a [00:40:20] lot, Hey, how do you do a book series?

I have, you know, my book’s out, [00:40:25] been out for six months, how do I do a book series? Uh, and I always ask them, how many copies has your [00:40:30] flagship book sold? You know, a thousand, 2000, 4,000, 5,000, or whatever. [00:40:35] I say, well, let me explain. Here’s my recommendation is that you put all of your [00:40:40] energy into selling a hundred thousand copies of that book.

And then once you do that, [00:40:45] then you. Consider Fran, you know, franchising and creating spinoffs because your [00:40:50] spinoffs will sell a fraction of what the original cells, yet they will require arguably as much effort [00:40:55] to write and create that book sometimes even more. ’cause now you’re managing co-authors and so [00:41:00] on and so forth.

Um, so that’s really what, you know. Do you partner with the [00:41:05] authors or do you just pay them a fee to do it? Or like, so the way that I did it, who write? Are they completely [00:41:10] different? Are all of them completely different? I created a template. Okay. So it’s the first four [00:41:15] chapters. Okay. Um, and with a bunch of fill in the blanks, like [00:41:20] affirmations are important for blank because of blank.

Right. So I have a [00:41:25] template that’s the first four chapters that sums up the entire original miracle Morning, less of my story, more of the [00:41:30] tactics, et cetera. Um, and then the co-author, and then we actually, I take that back. We had [00:41:35] seven chapters pre-written. Uh, the next three chapters are just generic [00:41:40] mi uh.

Personal development that applies to everyone. Like how do you optimize your energy and your [00:41:45] mindset, right? So I wanted to create as much as I could, but also fill in the blanks. [00:41:50] And then they would write, so they would fill in all the blanks to customize the entire book [00:41:55] for the niche. And then the last three chapters would be their original content.[00:42:00]

So that was, and the reason I did that is I wanted to leave as little room for error. [00:42:05] Uh, meaning like, you know, instead of having them write six chapters and being like, oh, this is [00:42:10] too much. It’s all over the place, whatever. Now I will say some of my co-authors were adamant that they wrote that they [00:42:15] only kept the four Miracle Morning chapters and they wrote six chapters.

Rory: Okay.

Hal: Um, and I, you know, I, which [00:42:20] was fine. Um, but my biggest fear when I wrote it, and I think it’s for any author, [00:42:25] right? It’s like, you know, you’re thinking, oh, what if people don’t like this? And what if the reviews start pouring in that this book’s [00:42:30] terrible and I’m an imposter imposter syndrome. That was my fear is like, how do I make this so [00:42:35] it’s not a rip off of the original, where if they’ve read the original, they’re like, oh, this is just like, you know, like the [00:42:40] same.

Uh, and I think we struck a perfect balance. In fact, the average [00:42:45] five star, or the average rating for the series books is, is 4.8 outta five [00:42:50] stars across all 15 books. The original Miracle Morning is 4.6 outta five stars. So people [00:42:55] actually rate the series books higher. Um, yeah. So that was kind of the, the [00:43:00] formula.

And then I would bring on a co-author. I would usually introduce him to Honoree ’cause she was [00:43:05] more helping produce the books on the backend.

Rory: Okay.

Hal: Um, and, uh, so I’d go to an event, I’d meet somebody [00:43:10] and, you know, and, Hey Cameron Harold I met. He is like, let’s do an entrepreneur one. I’m like, great idea.

Meet honoree. And then honoree would help [00:43:15] guide them through this process that we had designed. Um, and then, uh, yeah, [00:43:20] and then they would, you know, we’d promote a, to each of our lists and, and so on and so forth. Oh, and the way I structured the finances, this is important. [00:43:25] When I was creating the first series book, I watched an eeb, pagan interview with Tony [00:43:30] Robbins.

Rory: Okay. And

Hal: Eeb said one of his business philosophies is that, [00:43:35] is to learn to love to get the short end of the stick. He said everybody wants to, as [00:43:40] they want to capture as much as they can. And when I was creating the series, I reached out to two [00:43:45] Chicken Soup for the Soul co-authors and I said, Hey, what, what did you like?

I’m [00:43:50] creating a series. What did you like about it? What didn’t you like about it? What anything you wish were [00:43:55] different that I can take into this, this process? And what they said is, you know, um, [00:44:00] and I, this is not on the record in terms of like, this is my recollection, was that they [00:44:05] didn’t make a lot of money from the books because I think they were traditionally published and then they were getting a little piece of what Mark [00:44:10] and Victor were getting, right?

So I thought, I don’t ever want a co-op, I want this to be a huge financial win for [00:44:15] my co-authors. So I decided that it was going to be 50 50 where they [00:44:20] got 50% of the royalty. I got 50%, and then I split my [00:44:25] 50% with honoree who helped me produce the series so that everybody won.

Rory: Yeah, [00:44:30] I, I remember, you know, I didn’t grow up.

Around money. And one of the first [00:44:35] times that I met a very wealthy, like business person, I remember [00:44:40] he told me at a luncheon, he said, the key to this is to have [00:44:45] a small percentage of a really big pie.

Hal: There you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that’s like, that’s [00:44:50] what re always says is I’d rather have, yeah, a small broth, a little bit of a, a watermelon and then a [00:44:55] lot of a grape.

Rory: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, um, and then what about [00:45:00] international? So, so how do you do international deals and is it different for traditional publishing [00:45:05] versus self-publishing?

Hal: Yeah, like, so again, this is organic the way that it works for me. [00:45:10] So, um, or the way it worked for me, I was at a, an entrepreneurial dinner in San Diego.

Um, [00:45:15] Mike Kenigs was there, do you know Mike?

Rory: Mm-hmm.

Hal: Um, John Asraf was there, John Lee Dumas was [00:45:20] there. Um, I only knew, uh, I only knew a couple of people and, uh, I remember being there. My wife texted me, how’s it [00:45:25] going? And I’m like. Dude, that guy from The Secrets here, like, I’m like, these are, I’m like [00:45:30] this guy named Mike Kig.

I like went to his event last year. I’m like, I don’t know how I got invited to this dinner. I [00:45:35] remember that. And uh, and, and I get introduced to Mike from John Lee Dumas because I’ve been on John’s [00:45:40] podcast and we’re talking about Miracle Morning and Mike or John’s like, dude, household like a hundred thousand [00:45:45] copies of Miracle Morning.

And Mike’s like, what? And he goes, do you have an agent? And I go, no, I’m self-published. He goes, [00:45:50] what? He said, have you thought about leveraging that a hundred thousand into a book deal? I go, I’d [00:45:55] love to, but I don’t know. I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know where to start. He goes, well, you need an agent.

And I have the best agent. [00:46:00] So he introduces me to Celeste Fine. Who’s my agent to this day? Love her [00:46:05] to death. She’s the best. And

Rory: she’s an agent for a lot of our clients.

Hal: Oh really? Yeah. Yes. Mm-hmm. Love Celeste. Um, we set a [00:46:10] call, we talk, you know, often, but, uh, so he introduces us and I remember before the meeting, I was [00:46:15] so nervous, so nervous.

I’m like, she’s not gonna work with me. She represents all these big names. And um, and then [00:46:20] we get on the call and she is like selling me. I’m working with her. I’m like, oh, this is cool. [00:46:25] So I ended up signing with her and she pitches me to New York publishers, um, to [00:46:30] traditionally publish New York Morning, which in my mind was if I wanna reach, because I was at a hundred thousand copies, I’m like, if I wanna [00:46:35] reach a million people, this is the next step.

I’ve gotta be a serious, traditionally published author. Right, right. [00:46:40] And be in stores and all of that. And, and back then, that was actually a lot more true than it is now. This was [00:46:45] 2013, you know, 14. And so we meet with publishers, I [00:46:50] get 13 offers. Uh, the biggest one is for $250,000 advance. [00:46:55] So I to to do the math for folks.

I was selling [00:47:00] upwards of 10,000 copies a month at that point, at $7 a book [00:47:05] in royalties as a self-published author.

Rory: $70,000 a month.

Hal: Yeah. And, and actually I take it back, I [00:47:10] think at that point I was at like $35,000 a month, but significant. Right?

Rory: [00:47:15] Yeah.

Hal: So I go, wait a minute.

Rory: Who says you can’t make money from books, by the way?

Exactly. Right. 35 Gs a month. [00:47:20] Yeah. That’s like, that’s real dope.

Hal: And so I’m doing the math like. So that’s eight [00:47:25] months of what I’m making right now. And then I get paid eight to 12% [00:47:30] for the rest of my life. And I felt ter, I’m a people pleaser, um, by nature. [00:47:35] And so I’m like, oh, Celeste worked so hard to get me these meetings, and like, I feel really bad.

Ep 112: The Miracle Morning with Hal Elrod

RV: (00:06) Hey, brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview, we are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that, Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming from anything that we do with this is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit. Call brand builders, group.com/summit. Call. Hope to talk to you soon on with the show. RV: (01:04) My day is just better. When I look on my calendar and I see an appointment with Hal Elrod I have grown to love this man. Truly love him. And it’s like, John O’Leary, you heard me, I’ve interviewed John O’Leary before. These are two of like people that most inspire me in a profound way personally, in terms of what they’ve overcome in their life, the attitude of which they’ve overcome it. And what, how has been able to build in terms of a community is just inspiring. And it makes a difference in the world. Like he is someone who is a mission driven messenger. He’s a classic example of what we’re trying to help people become in his book. The miracle morning is what we actually uphold in our bestseller launch plan event, as sort of like the ultimate pinnacle of a, of a self published work. RV: (01:55) It has now sold over 2 million copies. There are multiple derivatives of the book for, you know, different groups. He released another book called the miracle equation, not too long ago and how, and I saw each other again, and we shared the stage at an event, one of the best speaking events in the world advisors Excel in early 2020, it was like one of the last human events in person events. And I got to see him speak which was such a treat. So anyways, how brother welcome to the show. Good to see you, Rory brother. It is, it is a pleasure man. And I’m I’m excited to to dive into that. So I want you to tell the story. We want to hear the story of the miracle morning community, which is amazing 270,000 people in this Facebook group. And I want to hear how you built a quarter million people in a Facebook group and sold 2 million copies of a self published book. But for people who don’t know you, can you just tell us like a little bit of your personal story of like, what happened and, and, you know, you survive this near death experience and then how that kind of led to you starting your, you know, as an, HE: (03:12) On a personal brand. Yeah. Yeah. I think we all have wake up calls at different times in our, in our lives. And they usually come from adversity, right? Some sort of adversity challenge tragedy. When I was 20 years old, I was driving home from a Cutco sales meeting. I sold Cutco cutlery and I gave a speech that night at this conference and driving home that night in a brand new Ford Mustang. My first new car, I was hit head on by a drunk driver at 70 miles an hour. And my car spun off the drunk driver. The car behind me hit me at 70 miles an hour in my door. And I broke 11 bones on the left side of my body from the side impact. And that night I bled to death. It took the paramedics and the fire department and our to use the jaws of life and cut me out of the car. HE: (03:55) And so I was just bleeding with 11 broken bones in the car. And that night I was I died on the helicopter. I was clinically dead for approximately six minutes while I was taken to the hospital. You know, heart stopped beating, wasn’t breathing for six minutes and then six days in a coma. And I flat lined twice more. He came out of the coma to be told I would never walk again and that I had permanent brain damage. And I always joke that my wife will about for the brain damage, but I did learn to walk again. And you know, and, and went on to, and not really did launch me into like, even in the hospital. I’m like, I felt this sense of purpose. Like I’m meant to overcome this in the most positive, proactive way. I can, as an example for other people. HE: (04:39) And I didn’t know who those other people were. I didn’t know if those were just going to be my future kids or my circle of influence or my family or the world, but I did always want to be a, a keynote speaker, motivational speaker. I called it back then. And I remember I told my dad, I said, dad, you know, he, he was the doctors were wondering why I was so positive. And I said, look, I’ve always wanted to be motivational speaker, but I had kind of a normal life. I never had anything good to talk about this. Maybe this is why this is happening. So I have a story of overcoming that I can share with others and, you know, turned into be exactly that. And and then in 2008, when the economy crashed, I crashed. RV: (05:18) So you actually, so you died clinically died three separate times and, and that, that’s how this all started. HE: (05:26) Yeah. That’s where, yeah, that, that, that was where that adversity, that wake up call of like, Hey you know, it really taught me what I think right now is so important year. What year was this? Two a night, December 3rd, 1999. Okay. And yeah, so 99, so 20 little over 20 years, right, right. Over 20 years ago. And and just taught me that our, our outer world what’s going on in the world, what’s going on with other people what’s going on in our government, what’s going on in our job. What’s going on in the economy is not determining the determining factor of our inner world. You know? And, and I really that’s what I learned is that the, the, the world can be falling down outside of me. And I will choose to be at peace, happy and grateful, no matter what’s going on around me. HE: (06:12) And that for me, I applied three years ago with diagnosis of cancer, a very rare, aggressive form of cancer. I was given a 20 to 30% chance of surviving. And, you know, as a doubt, I mean, you know, when you’re, when you’re sitting there looking at your 11 or your seven year old daughter in the face and your four year old son and the doctor just told you that day, that you’re most likely going to die. It’s a hardest, that’s the hardest thing, you know, to deal with. And and I have, I had the same, the same decision. The day I was diagnosed with cancer. And given those grim odds, I called my wife. She was out of town and I had to tell her, and she in buttoned tears. And I said, sweetie, I promise you one thing, I can’t promise that I’ll beat this, but I promise, I believe I will give it everything I have, but I said, I will promise you, I will be the happiest and the most grateful and the strongest I’ve ever been while we endure the most difficult time in our lives together. HE: (07:02) And it was by far the most difficult time, but but I was, you know, there’s video of me, you know, in pain and, and no hair and then chemo. And, but just genuinely, like, I’m not letting my circumstances dictate my emotional wellbeing. And I think for all of us, we, we, we’ve been conditioned to think they’re mutually exclusive like, Oh, bad things happening in the world. And in my life, I feel bad, good things happen. I feel good. But, you know, I think that the most important thing that we can adopt is it doesn’t matter. What’s going on outside of me. I am always in control of what’s going on inside of me. And from that place, we can find joy, happiness, motivation to create the circumstances that we want in our lives. RV: (07:42) Gosh, brother, that is just so powerful and meaningful and needed, I mean, in the world. So, so how does, did the community start first or did the book start and like, did you try to traditionally publish and or did you just kind of go like, cause basically, so miracle morning was the first book, miracle equations, the new book, but miracle morning is this story. And then it’s also a morning routine and set of set of practices that you follow and help people to live this. Did you so, so talk to me about the book. Like when does the book come on? How does that come about? HE: (08:22) So miracle morning, it was, it was never a book idea. It was in 2008, when the United States economy crashed, I kind of crashed with it. And after like a six month downward spiral of losing over half of my clients losing my, you know, having to foreclose on my house getting my body fat percentage tripled, like I, I was, I was, I was in debt. I was depressed. I was kind of a mess and a series of events and some advice from a good buddy of mine. John Burgoff do you know John Bergoff? I don’t know John Bergoff and that’s all right, I’ll introduce you at some time. But I said, John gave me advice. He said, how you should go for a run every morning and listen to self-help. He said, put yourself in a peak state, physically, mentally, and emotionally, and listen to something that will enhance your mental and emotional wellbeing. HE: (09:07) And I’m like, Oh, okay. You know, like I need to make money even. And I don’t, I don’t say that’s gonna make me money, but, but it basically led me to realize that how I start my day was the single most determining factor in the state that I begin the day in and thus carried out the day in and thus created my results. And so, in other words, how you start your day sets the tone, the context and the direction for the rest of your life. And so I started practicing this and it changed my life very quickly. I went and told my wife, after two months of doing this, I said, this morning routine feels like a miracle. You know, we’ve doubled our income. We have all these amazing results. And she goes, it’s like your miracle morning. And I go, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that. And then that’s when I started teaching it to people, my clients, and in speeches and RV: (09:53) Quickly that the most successful male authors in the world are simply plagiarizing from their wives. Yeah. Yes. HE: (10:00) Our wives or our muses. Yeah, no, she, she, she came up with the title and even though, again, it wasn’t a different book title, but so I finally was like, I have a responsibility because it changed my life and it was changing all of my clients’ lives. And I went, none of us were morning people. So the, this, if this could change our lives, this could change anybody’s life. And I felt a sense of responsibility to write a book about it. And it took me three years. And during that time to answer your question on the traditional versus self publishing, I thought, okay, I really want to change millions of lives with this book. So therefore I have to traditionally publish to be taken seriously and for it to get any distribution. And then as I kept writing the book and doing my research, I went, Oh, that’s not true. HE: (10:42) Like the publisher doesn’t do much to market your book unless you have a household name and they know that it’s going to give them, you know, give them a nice ROI. I realized that if you traditionally published, you’re lucky just to get a deal and then you still have to do all the marketing. So I thought, I believe in this concept, I’m going to self publish. I self published the book on 12, 12, 2012, so 12, 12, 12. And it didn’t have a huge, you know, I didn’t have a big, I wasn’t an influencer. I wasn’t like Tim Ferriss. I didn’t have a blog. I, you know, I wasn’t well known. And it’s about a year and a half of, of promotion. The first year I did 150 podcast interviews. I did 50 of my own podcasts. I get 36 speeches. HE: (11:24) I was on 12 TV shows. Like I did everything I could. And I sold like 13,000 copies. It wasn’t anything fancy, but I was committed for as long as it took to get the message out. And it took six years, six years to reach a million, a million copies sold. And in that time, the book was translated and traditionally published in 37 different languages. So once it got fractioned being self published an agent reached out, I got an intro to an agent and said, Hey, this, you know, this things like the trajectory of this book is, is, is going off, you know, was on fire. We think that traditional publishers would be interested and publishers. And so, yeah. So then, so it’s, it’s still sell published in the U S and it’s traditionally published in 37 other countries. So RV: (12:14) Do you have to traditionally publish a book to make money from writing a book? HE: (12:19) No. I would say 90. RV: (12:23) That was a short, complete answer there. HE: (12:26) No, no. Tell us about it. 95 to 99% of authors I would say would be better served self publishing. I have 13 books or so, and all of them, except one is traditionally published. And that was last year. And here’s what I learned. The only thing that a publisher cares about, I shouldn’t say the only thing, their highest priority is the size of your platform. That’s it? That’s what you get paid in, advance on. It’s not on how good your idea. Everybody thinks I have the best idea ever. They don’t care because the best idea, if you don’t have an audience that you can reach that, that book too. That’s why anybody that’s on the news or has a talk show, Anderson Cooper, whoever, right? Like Oprah, they get a multimillion dollar band because the publisher knows that it’s a guaranteed success, right? It’s a business. HE: (13:12) So if you have a large platform of, you know, let’s say a hundred thousand followers, then it’s worth shopping around to a traditional publisher and seeing what kind of advance you can get. But the big difference is you’re going to get, you know, let’s say on average, 10, 12% of the royalties are of the book, the profits from the book, if you traditionally publish, when you self publish, you get anywhere from 70 to 90% of the profits. And so in the long game, you’re, you know, you’re almost always better off to self publish. So, RV: (13:47) So I love that. So thank you. Thank you for that. It’s funny you use that 100,000 number. We use the same number. We say once you have a hundred thousand followers, that’s about the time to start, look at traditional publishing. And when you can move 10,000 units, when you feel like you can sell 10,000 units on opening week, that’s when it’s time to think about bestseller, you know, like bestseller, New York times wall street journal, kind of a thing, but the money here. So can you talk to us about how the money works? Like, we don’t need to know how much you make or anything, but like, I think a lot of people don’t realize that, like people say, you know, you don’t make money writing a book. It’s just a business, HE: (14:28) Which, yeah, RV: (14:29) It is a business card, but you actually can make a truckload of money from doing this, but can you walk us through, like, how does the money work? Like where does it actually, like if you, if I type a book, if I write out a book on my computer today, it took you three years and then I go print it and put it in Amazon, or I use create space, or then what happens? And where do you, where does, where do all the sales come? They come from Amazon. I’m assuming a lot of them happen in Amazon. HE: (14:59) Yeah. So all of, I mean, so all true. All self published books. So I self published through it was CreateSpace now it’s called it’s Kindle direct publishing, which they just took over create space. It’s all, they were all, it was an Amazon company. And and so that when you publish the book, you just check a box if you want it on Tindall right. So paperback, Kindle and then Amazon owns a company. I don’t know if it’s changed since I started doing this, but it was a C X, the letter, a letter C X acx.com. And that is what that is there. Audio book publishing arm. So audio book, self publishing. And so I, you earn on your traditional books. So my traditional, my paperback is or on my self published paperback it’s the retail price is 20 bucks is what I haven’t said at 1999. Amazon sells it for whatever they want, which usually ranges from 15 to 18. And I think I earn just under $9 per book compared to a dollar or two per book, if it was traditionally published. Right? So you sell you know, a thousand copies of the book, right times, you know, that’s, that’s what, $8,000 in income now on Kindle you price it at nine 99, you were in 70% yearning, $7 per book sold on Kindle. Okay. Sorry. Hold on. Sorry. Kindle. RV: (16:22) So, so like on paperback, you’re getting like 50% HE: (16:25) Ish. Yeah, yeah. 50% ish and 70% on, on Kendall. RV: (16:30) Got it. Okay. 50% paperback and then 70%. HE: (16:33) And it’s not an exact formula it’s based on the cost of printing based on how many pages you are. Right. So, so, but, but let’s say yeah, you know, 40, 50% and then on audible I got lucky when I signed on the audible, they used to have a sliding scale where the more books you sold, the higher your percentage jumped up and it stayed there forever. So we are now at 90% for audible. So we are nine on, but now that’s not the case anymore. They changed that model. It’s now a flat 40. So you had 40% of all your books sold an audible. When you go through the, the audible exchange, the ACX company, you can find a narrator, put up, put up, you know, a word, a PDF of your first chapter of your book. You can have people audition for it and then choose one and then either pay them a split or pay them upfront. RV: (17:21) Wow. I mean, that’s pretty simple. I mean, really like, that’s, it’s really pretty simple. And then you’re just basically like doing social media and emails and speaking, and webinars and like, whatever, like all the usual stuff, people go to Amazon or Kindle or audible, and then they buy books and, and then get, HE: (17:40) Yeah, you get a direct deposit in your bank account every month. That direct deposit every month. Yeah. Towards the end of the month. Okay. RV: (17:46) That’s so cool. I mean, and 2 million copies is, is all in for paperback, Kindle and audio. HE: (17:54) So 2 million copies, a half of that roughly is self published us and the other half are those other 37 foreign publishers. So the other half are across the other countries, which by the way, I think a million are in Brazil alone. That’s been the biggest, I think we’ve sold more books in Brazil than in the United States. It went crazy there. Wow. RV: (18:15) That’s so funny. I mean, it’s random how that stuff happens. And then, so talk to us about the, the community, the community. Yeah. Like w w w when did you start that? I mean, this is like, this is way before Facebook groups where like a strategy, you were just, I remember the first time we met, I can’t remember. Maybe it was probably John Ruhlin who interviewed, introduced us, or maybe, actually I think it was Peter Vogue actually, who introduced. And I think the first time you interviewed me, it was actually maybe in the community. I don’t even know if you had a podcast back then. I don’t know if that’s right, but, you know, anyways, tell us how did it start? HE: (18:54) W w where did this come from? So it was an 11th hour deal where I had sent the, my almost finished a manuscript for the miracle morning to a handful of my buddies. And I was like, Hey, will you guys read this and give you feedback? And Jon Vroman was like, Hey, have you thought about creating some sort of online group, any, and this was yeah, 2011, right. Or 12. He said, somewhere, he goes, it feels like this is going to be a lonely venture for a lot of people. Like, if they’re the only morning person, their family they’re by themselves. And there’s nobody to, to connect with and be held accountable to. And he goes, I could see them sliding backwards. I was like, Oh, that’s a great idea. You know, he goes, yeah. He goes, I go. And so I started looking like Kajabi. HE: (19:34) I’m like, maybe I’ll create like an online form. And he said, dude, if I were you, I would just do Facebook groups. He goes, don’t, don’t give people another place to log into because they don’t have that as a habit. You’re trying to get them to create a new habit. If they’re already on Facebook, they’ve got notifications built in the functionality of the group has already, he goes, I would remit the wheel, I’d go to Facebook. And I’m like, yeah. Great idea. So I started a Facebook group called the miracle morning community with me, my mom, dad, John Broman, my sister, right. Like, you know, a handful of us. And I put in the, in the book in the beginning, a special invitation join the miracle morning community to, you know, to, to get accountability and encouragement, swap smoothie, recipes, learn new meditation routines, like whatever. HE: (20:19) And I was the only one in there. I would just check in every day and put quotes and means and add value and right in there and this and that. And as the book sold, right. I mean, as the, you know, so in the beginning, the Facebook group mimicked the book sales because that’s where people found out about it. And and so it started out with, you know, grew to a few hundred people and then eventually crossed a thousand and that particular year, you know, and and then and then it just, it just kind of scaled up. And, and now there’s 270 some thousand members from over a hundred countries. And and they support each other. Like, I don’t, it doesn’t run on me. It’s, it’s them logging in every day. And it’s, we’ve really created this culture of people who are waking up every day and dedicating time to fulfilling their potential with their miracle morning. HE: (21:05) And then they’re, they’re lifting each other up, they’re supporting each other and you get in there, people that, you know, that will celebrate, you know, Hey, today’s day 100 of the miracle morning, and then you’ll get somebody that’s like, Hey, I’m brand new. My friend told me about this group in this book, but I’m not a morning person. Should I do it? And don’t get 150 people for an hour. And they’re like, dude, I was the same, I wasn’t a morning person. Like it works, you know? And, and then they’ll give it a try. So yeah, it’s become really, really, really, really a special, special place, RV: (21:35) Man. That, that is so awesome. And so just a technical question here, you know, like normally when you post on Facebook, a very small fraction of the people, see it when you posted in the Facebook group, like at that scale 270,000, is that similar that only a fraction of those people are seeing it? Or is it, is it, is it because it’s a group it’s a little, it’s a little different HE: (22:01) No, it’s still true. And it’s really, really frustrating. Right. I mean, it is what it is, but and we’re, and we have explored, you know, going with a different platform, like mighty networks and yeah, but it’s just, it’s this, it goes back to John Bowman’s original advice, which is like, you know, are they people really going to log into a different thing? And so we’re, that’s still ideal. We want to take the control of that, but to give you an idea yesterday, one of our admin Stephanie Blackbird, she runs the group in terms of the admin for it. And cause we get, you know, hundreds of new requests every day, somebody’s got to, you know, vet those. And she, but she posted, where are you from? And in less than 24 hours, we had over a thousand comments. You know what I’m saying? I’m from, I’m from Belgium, I’m from France, I’m from America, I’m from Russia and from you just all over the place. So I would imagine out of the 270,000 people, maybe 2000 saw it, you know what I mean? Like, so it’s, it’s definitely tough. RV: (22:59) Yeah. Well, I mean, whether you’re sending emails or you’re doing social media or, I mean, you’re always, you’re always dealing with that, but how cool that this community has taken a life of its own and and then it’s like, it just, it’s just growing, like it’s just this asset that just keeps making a bigger and bigger impact in the world. HE: (23:20) So like what else RV: (23:22) Do you do other than the book? I mean, the cool thing is if you have one great book, self published book like this, like you could actually make a pretty fine living just off of the book and then, and then you speak and any other parts of the business model that you’re working on or have been doing that you’re super excited about. I mean, obviously I know you’ve you were dealing with cancer here for a while, so that’s been, you know, that’s got to have been. HE: (23:46) Yeah, well, yeah. I’ll tell, I’ll tell you the Mo the miracle morning movie is coming out on 12, 12 to 2020, and there’s nothing I’m more excited about than that, but I will share what I turned before. I I’ll, I’ll get to that in a second. It was that when the book came out I, you know, I, then I started, I was a college speaker and I always wanted to be a keynote corporate speaker and be able to raise my fees and Reno reach more people. And so I used the book to plant the seed in there that, you know, when I was speaking at this event, when I was speaking at this event, you know, I can, you know, I’ll bring the miracle morning to you guys. Right. And and so almost every speech I’ve given in the last, you know, whatever eight years is some leader that read the book and wanted me to bring it to their people. HE: (24:30) Right. So it did, it might, my speaking career launched off of that. The so that was a speaking career. And then we started doing live events every year, and then God, last year, because I was having trouble with the chemo and depression and anxiety, I decided to take a year off of the event, which is this, it would have been this December and who knows what headache. It would have been trying to deal with the hotel and re refunding 500 tickets transitioning to LA, you know, online, who knows. So, so we did have live events. We did have a mastermind right now it’s it’s, I just do virtual keynotes, which are not the same as you know, I’m sure. And so, so, but books and virtual keynotes, and then, yeah, we were making a documentary called the miracle morning movie about five or six years ago, we started making this and I started going around and interviewing, you know, world-class influential people, Muhammad Ali, 18, or Mohammed Ali’s daughter, sorry, not Muhammad Ali mom and all these daughter, Laila Ali she’s in it, her morning routine, you know, Brendon Burchard, his morning routine Lewis, Howes, Robert Kiyosaki, Robin Sharma. HE: (25:40) We started interviewing all these world-class individuals, their morning routine. And that was the movie we were making. And and then I was diagnosed with cancer and I called our director and I said, Hey we gotta put the movie on hold, man. I’m, I’m fighting for my life. It’s not looking, it’s not, it doesn’t look good. And he said, you know, being a filmmaker, he said, actually, if you’re okay with it, I’d like to film this journey and, and, you know, come to the hospital and film you going through this. And Holy moly kind of caught me off guard. And thank God we pushed for it because the, the, the first hour of the movie is what we intended it to be. And the last 30 minutes is the most unexpected inspiring, you know, me fighting for my life, with my family, by my side, a wall, I’m still traveling the world trying to spread this mission. And yeah. And so that, that, that’s what I, my main focus right now is just launching this movie to the world on in December. And and then, and then I’ll take a breath and see what’s next from there. So did you so the, the, RV: (26:44) So the movie is that like, self-published too, like, did you pay for it? Did you get a film? You just got your own film crew and a director and said, Hey, I have a vision for a movie. I’m going to make my own fricking movie. HE: (26:56) Yes, yes, my buddy. So my buddy, Nick Conedera is a director. And a few years, like six years ago, he was at my house for dinner. He said, dude, we should make a movie about the miracle morning. Cause he’s in the miracle morning community. And he does it himself. And he would see these people, you know, this guy, Mike Keaton posted how he lost it. And he lost 90 pounds, six months after he started the miracle morning. And he had been obese his whole life. And he attributed to my miracle morning. And so Nick is goes, dude, we got a feature, all these stories of people overcoming depression and starting businesses and all the sudden you’re good morning. I was like, that’s a great idea. I said, but I don’t even know what that looks like, dude, like, right. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. HE: (27:34) Yeah. Yeah. Like, like I don’t even like talk to me later and he kept bugging me about it. And like a few months later, he, he, he found the angle and he called me and he said, how, what’s your mission in life? And I said to elevate, or actually back then it was to change millions of lives one morning at a time. And I said, why? He said, what percentage of our society, you’re trying to change the world. What percentage of our society read self help books? And right away, I kind of got where he was going. And I went, I like 1%, maybe he said, what percentage watch movies? And I went, you’re right. If we’re going to reach, if we’re going to reach the masses, it has to be in another format. And so that’s when we started making the movie and yeah, I funded it. We had a few producers, but I, for the most part, I funded 98% of it. And he, and then I started just meeting people that became part of the team that just kind of God put them in my life. And it was like, perfect. You know, RV: (28:31) That is amazing. How buddy, you are, you like, you are amazing and your, your life is been used for so much. Good. And then continues to be used for so much. Good. And I just buddy, I’m so grateful for you. Where do you, where should people go if they want to connect to you? Obviously you’ve got the Facebook group. Where else would you direct people to? HE: (28:54) Yeah. Miracle morning.com is the best hub. You can find all the books from there. You can join the community from there. You know, you can join the join, the email list. We don’t the movie isn’t for sale yet. We’re working on getting the site up and stuff. People can buy tickets for the world, premier, which is gonna be really cool on 12, 12, 20, 20, we’re doing the miracle morning movie experience, the world premiere. It’s going to be the worldview of the film followed by an immediate, like, how do you implement this? So like, okay, you just watched a movie, you were all excited, you know, about the miracle morning, how do you start it tomorrow morning? And I’m going to teach how to do that. And there’ll be like a live Q and a with me and the director and the team. And then there’ll be a 30 day challenge that people will be able to join, you know, for free. And so yeah, so go to miracle morning.com. And if you join the email list, you’ll get my weekly podcast. You’ll get that way. We don’t RV: (29:42) Sell anything really to you. It’s just, we just try to add value. And until the movie comes out, I love it. Well, we’ll put miracle morning.com in the show notes, rather, thank you for what you do and for your story and your faith. And just for keeping the fight for yourself and your family. And obviously for the message, we, we appreciate you and we pray for you and we wish you the best. Thanks brother. Appreciate you, man. Keep doing what you’re doing.