Alex Ferrari 0:00
Weren't you declared dead for a few minutes as well.

Hal Elrod 0:03
I actually the worst, you know, air bags exploded. The worst was actually, I spun off the drunk driver and the car behind me broadsided me, T boned me at 70 miles an hour in my door. It crushed the left side of my body, and I broke 11 bones. I've decided I'll be the happiest, most grateful person that you've ever seen in a wheelchair, because that becomes my reality, and I will not let my unchangeable reality determine my mental and emotional well being like if I can't change it, I'm going to be at peace with it. I'm going to find the gratitude and the love and the joy and the experience. And I said it feels like a miracle. It's all because that morning routine, she goes, it's your miracle morning.

Alex Ferrari 0:39
What advice do you have about breaking through those obstacles, because those obstacles really do affect your life?

Hal Elrod 0:46
The three steps.

Alex Ferrari 0:47
Now, before we get started, I want to thank you so much for clicking on this video and getting ready to watch this amazing conversation we're about to have. But one thing I've noticed is that about 40% of you who are watching are not subscribed. It is the easiest way to continue to support the work we're doing at Next Level Soul, and it has been the joy of my life to have these amazing conversations with some of the most remarkable and profound souls on the planet. So from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you so much for giving me the ability and the privilege of doing this work for you. So please just hit the subscribe button, hit the like button, and it really, really helps us out a lot. Thank you so much, and let's dive in.

Alex Ferrari 1:45
I like to welcome to the show Hal Elrod, how you doing Hal?

Hal Elrod 1:48
Long overdue.

Alex Ferrari 1:49
Yes, my friend, I am, first of all, brother I am. I'm thankful to you for your work in the world. The Miracle Morning. Here's the the is this? The the is this the this updated? Yeah, the updated, expanded version of miracle. Morning. This book really did a lot for me when I needed it the most. I read this book year over a decade ago. How long has it been around?

Hal Elrod 2:13
14, 13, years.

Alex Ferrari 2:14
So about three years in, I read this, yeah, at the time I was I was doing a lot of research on how to open up an online business and start my first podcast and all that stuff. And I was listening to Pat Flynn. I'm a huge fan of Pat's, yeah, and and what he does, and you were on his show, and that when I read, when I saw you on the show, I got to read this book, and I read the book, and it's just like, started doing the Miracle Morning, and it really helped out a lot. And I still do a version of the Miracle Morning, but my own version over, over the years, Miracle Morning, yeah, it's

Hal Elrod 2:46
Make it your own. What I say in the book too, it's like, it's, you know, the here's, here's the framework, and you customize it to fit your your lifestyle, your goals, etc.

Alex Ferrari 2:54
Yeah. But you've changed the lives of millions and millions of people with this brother, and it was so funny how you had gotten to that chair today, because our our friend Kyle Cease, Kyle reaches out to me because, hey, man, do you do you know who Hal is? I'm like, Yeah, I know who Al is. Do you want him on your show? I'm like, Yeah, I love the fire. Where is he? He's like, Oh, he lives here in Austin. I'm like, shut up. I'm like, this is going to be amazing. So we connected right away. And we're like, let's do this. Let's get in here. So, um, I'm excited to talk to you not only about the work that you're doing, but man, your journey is pretty remarkable dude. You know, you've almost died twice in your life. Tell me a little bit about when you so you were, you were younger, when you were younger, like, what your 20s, right?

Hal Elrod 3:45
20 years old, when I had the car accident, yeah,

Alex Ferrari 3:47
When you had a car so you had a kind of near death experience at that point. What was it like when you were Weren't you declared dead for a few minutes as well?

Hal Elrod 3:55
Yeah. So I had given a speech that night at a Cutco sales conference. That was my career. I was in Cutco, and

Alex Ferrari 4:02
What is, what is that

Hal Elrod 4:03
Cutco makes high quality kitchen knives. Oh, that's right. Oh yeah, they've been around for 50-60, years now probably, I think it was the 50th anniversary. Was the year that I started, and so I gave a speech at the conference, and then I was driving home, and my car was hit, had on by a drunk driver at 70 miles an hour. And then I actually, the worst, you know, airbags exploded. The worst was actually, I spun off the drunk driver, and the car behind me broadsided me, T boned me at 70 miles an hour in my door and the entire door on my door, and so it crushed the left side of my body, and I broke 11 bones, my leg, my femur, the biggest bone in human body, broke in half. My pelvis broke in three places. It was crossed between the center console. My arm broke in half. This one, my humerus bone broke in two pieces, shattered my elbow, severed. My radial nerve, shattered the three bones in my eye socket. My ear was almost completely severed, and the top of the ceiling buckled, and the metal came through the roof and it sliced a big like a V in the top of my head.

Alex Ferrari 4:57
I mean, if you're gonna do it, do it right, yeah.

Hal Elrod 4:57
Yeah. I mean, it's like, no, it's like, yeah, and so, and I was immediately, I mean, I would imagine I was in a coma. So when they found me, I was in a coma, I'd imagine it's like, exactly, I've done a little bit of research, like, the body will shut itself down and put you in a coma if you can't withstand the amount of pain you know that you're experiencing. Yeah, thank God, thank God, I wasn't awake. I can't even imagine you, so you didn't feel anything. I don't remember. So there's two weeks of my life that I don't remember. I don't remember. Like my last memory is getting on the freeway that night and the accident.

Alex Ferrari 5:20
You don't remember the accident.

Hal Elrod 5:25
Don't remember the accident. Don't remember the headlights coming at me, none of that. And then my first memory, I was in a coma for so i My heart stopped for six minutes. I was clinically dead for six minutes, and I didn't die until they pulled me out of the car, like the car was keeping me alive all the pressure, but I was losing blood, though, you know, through all these, I mean, just holes in my leg, my arm and and when I when they pulled me out, it took them an hour to cut the roof off the car and pull the door back to get me out the jaws of life. They had to use, and when they finally did, I bled to death and my heart was they said about six minutes that I didn't have a heartbeat, and they immediately were pumping blood. I was put on a helicopter, and they are using defibrillators and all the things to get me back to life. And thank God they didn't give up after five minutes, because six minutes later, I they got my heart beating again, and I spent six days in a coma. I flatlined twice more. So I was, I was, you know, nearly died multiple times. And when I came out of the coma, I faced this unimaginable reality like, you know, Wait, where am I? What's going on? And they're like, how you broke 11 bones. You're probably never going to walk again. You have permanent brain damage. And this was this unimaginable reality that nobody thinks you know they're ever gonna have to face.

Alex Ferrari 6:44
Wow. Now, when you were when you went into this coma and died essentially multiple times, it sounds like you flatlined a couple times as well. Was there anything that happened to you? Did you sense anything? Did you see, or is it just black?

Hal Elrod 6:59
It's black. Yeah. And, you know, and I always, when I get asked that question, it's like, you know, the near death experience that I could tell you, where I saw the light and stuff would be more interesting, probably. But for me, I try to make it applicable for all of us. That's just how I I think at that time, I started thinking, how does this experience, how is this going to serve me, and how is it going to serve other people? That was the question in my mind, and I told my dad. I said, Dad, because he actually the doctors thought I was in denial, because I was so happy and positive, like I'm in the hospital being told, never gonna walk again. Yeah, and I'm totally happy, totally positive, genuinely and like, and I'm making jokes and making the doctors laugh. And they called my parents in one day, and they said, we're concerned with your son. We believe hell is not facing reality, and he's just delusional and in denial, and we need you to talk to him. And so this is one week after the crash that this conversation, my dad comes in. He goes, Hey, I just met with the doctors. They're a little bit concerned with how you're responding to the accident. And you know, they said you should be sad, scared, angry and depressed, but you're not showing any of that, and they think you're in denial. That's a problem. Yeah. And how are you really feeling? How when the lights go out at night, when there's no friends visiting, and you guys are joking and laughing? And he said, Are you sad, scared, angry or depressed? And I really, you know, I'm looking at my dad, by the way, and he's like, you know, eyes are red. He's holding he was probably just crying, or he's trying not to cry. He's seeing you, yeah, oh, he sent me. He's seeing his son. You're like, completely on tubes and yeah, oh yeah, and wires everywhere. And my problems like this, my legs in a sling, you know, your head shaved, and it had been a week of just right of him, of them by my bedside, not knowing if I was gonna live or die. Where? Oh, he flat he's flat lining again. Doctors come in, come in, he's flatlining again, right? So, yeah, my poor parents went through some hell. Oh, my God, and I was the second child that they would have lost. My sister died when my mom was when I was eight years old, my 18 month old baby sister. On a Saturday morning, I woke up to my mother screaming, my baby, my baby. God, don't take my baby. And it was just me, my mom and my baby sister at home. My other sister was gone. My dad was at work, and I ran across the hall, and my mom was my little 18 month old baby sister. My mom was pushing on her chest and breathing into her mouth and performing mouth to mouth, performing CPR on her and she died that morning. And within six months, my mother was leading a support group for other parents who had lost children. So like at eight years old, that seed was planted that oh, you take your adversity and you use it to help other people. You take your pain and you find purpose. So when I came out of the coma, that was like immediately implanted in me, and when my dad came in that day and he said, the doctors are concerned. Hal, I said, Dad, I'm not depressed, I'm not sad. I'm a little, I mean, a little scared of that. I don't walk again, but I've already decided, Dad, I've already literally imagined if I never walk again, I've decided I'll be the happiest, most grateful person that you've ever seen in a wheelchair, because that becomes my reality, and I will not let my unchangeable reality determine my mental and emotional well. Being like if I can't change it, I'm going to be at peace with. I'm going to find the gratitude and the love and the joy and the experience and my dad. And the last thing I said, my dad was, I said, Dad, I've, ever since I started selling Cutco, I've been speaking at all of these Cutco events. I've had this dream of, you know, being like a motivational speaker, like a Tony Robbins, or something, I said, but I've had a relatively easy life, like a normal life, yeah, I was bullied and you know, but I've never had anything like remarkable happen that I had overcome. I'm actually taking that as that's why I'm going through this. I'm supposed to get through this accident in the most positive, proactive way. I'm supposed to learn and grow from it so I can go share it with other people and teach other people. And he went back to the doctors, and I think they thought I was even more delusional when he reported back, like, oh, man, your son's really out there. Like, this is, you know,

Alex Ferrari 10:43
What I find fascinating is that programming that your mom gave you, and it's so true, they say those first seven years. Bruce Lipton talks about it, those first seven years is where you're being programmed completely, not only by your what your parents are literally teaching you, but just by watching and hearing and seeing the world around you, community, country, friends, family, rich, poor. That's why that that concept of like, you know, how many rich people do you know? Who are? It's but yet, saying it with love. Yeah, who, but yet are very successful financially because they were born into that world, yeah, where? And then you see people who are beautiful, wonderful, loving, people who can't get ahead financially because they were brought up with a poor people mentality, yeah, or limitations, and in what the world is hard money is hard to get and all this kind of stuff. This is a perfect example. Your mother wasn't teaching a lesson. No, she didn't sit down and go, How if something really bad happens to you one day, you make sure you look at it positively. Yeah, yeah. And I don't even think that would have worked.

Hal Elrod 11:55
What's crazy is I didn't even recognize what I just told you about me learning that from my mom until five years ago in therapy? Yeah, I was talking in therapy, yeah. I was going through a really difficult time after this cancer journey, which we'll probably talk about, but I was going through a really difficult time like, yeah, we, you know, through them asking me questions. And I went back to that. I was like, oh. And then it hit. I was like, Oh. That was embedded in me at a young age, subconsciously in my soul, where I wasn't even consciously aware. I didn't go, Hey, Mom and Dad, remember how you took Anne Marie's death and you turned it into helping others like I did not even cross my mind. I did not make that connection until years after it happened.

Alex Ferrari 12:35
You know what's funny, and this is a now we're going to go into the deep end of the pool a little bit on the spiritual. On the spiritual side, and it's a difficult time, but I think, I think it's important for people to understand, if you believe in reincarnation, you believe that we come back again and again and again, and that we have a soul group. Let's say these are souls that decide to incarnate together. So they're usually family, dear friends, and then sometimes the roles get changed. Yeah. And on the other side, if you believe in the soul blueprint that you plan your life, you're like, Okay, Hal, you're going in this time. You're gonna be called HAL. This is gonna be your parents. You've worked with them a lot of times. There's gonna, they're there ahead of you. They're gonna, they're gonna walk you through this life. It's gonna be great. Yeah. And then your sister, on the other side is going, Hey, I want to go in this time too. I'm going to go in a little late this time. I'm let you go in first. And you were like, Man, I really need to learn this lesson, or I really this thing. And she's like, I'll do that for you. Wow, I love that. I'll do that for you. Yeah, I'll go in and I'll sacrifice myself for you to learn that lesson, and God and all the other lessons. And because of my sacrifice, and I'm so and if I'm pleased, I'm doing this with nothing, but seriously, if I if I come down there, not only do what I'm going to do, but it's going to not only change your life, but it's going to change my parents life, and they're going to change other people's lives who are struggling with this. I want to help. That's what I want to learn. And I was like, and I've seen that so many times in my own life, yeah, things have happened, losses and things like that. Like, if this wouldn't have happened, yeah, I would have never gone down this road, totally.

Hal Elrod 14:13
You know, for me, I doing a psilocybin journey, like five years ago,

Alex Ferrari 14:18
Oh, that must have been fun.

Hal Elrod 14:20
And it was, it was a, it was a, it was a, what do they call that a heroic dose, or whatever, you know, Oh, really. Oh, nice, yeah. And, and I got the message from God, and I was just, like, it was just coming through in a way, you know, I mean, I'm jealous of the channelers that are doing it, like, I can do it at a little this is like, like, where I'm speaking it out loud into a voice recorder, going, I don't even know what I'm saying or where this is coming from, right? Yeah, you you got a direct connection. Oh, yeah. And then I got, but what I was told is how everything you like, your journey was pre planned, so to speak, right? And it was that you, you were the car accident. You went through that because you had to become the person and learn the lessons that you could then share with and gain the credibility to share with me. Millions of people, and then you went through the financial ruin in 2008 to create the Miracle Morning, like it all had to happen this way, and then the cancer journey and it and what I got is I was, I was reminded he said you were, I pushed you to the edge as far as you possibly could, but I always had the right people in your life, the other souls in your life, your mom and dad were the soul, right? Like your why everyone, all of those souls were in your life, so that you could go just to the edge, but you had everyone and everything that you needed in terms of the knowledge, the resources, everything, to turn those into, you know, powerful perspectives and practices to to serve humanity, if you will.

Alex Ferrari 15:39
So yeah, and that, I'm so glad you said that. Because, you know, a lot of times people have a problem with like, How can you say that negative thing in my life, in this or that you've gone through so much negative that you've kind of seen the positive in all of it. Because without those things, you wouldn't be who you are totally, you know, and I've gone through a lot of that stuff. Most people go no one gets out of life, first of all, and secondly, not one of us gets not one soul. I don't believe. I mean, unless you're Jesus or a master that's walking the earth, there might be a few, yeah, but generally, the majority of us don't get out of life without some sort of trauma, adversity, pain, suffering. That is part of this deal.

Hal Elrod 16:20
Yeah, it is part of it well, and it's like the car accident. You know, I was able to say, I don't remember what point, but I said, this is the best thing that ever happened to me, because it enabled me. It's the worst thing that ever happened to me, and that's why it's the best thing that ever happened to me, because it's enabling me to learn, grow, evolve and become a better version of who I was before the adversity I encountered. And I think it's so important for anyone listening right now or watching that's like that. If you're going through a difficult time right now, yep. And I think most of us are in some like most of us are somewhat relationally, physically, mentally, financially. I'm going through,

Alex Ferrari 16:43
After a certain age, physically starts coming up on that list, sir. I'm just, I'm just throwing that out there, sir, yeah.

Hal Elrod 16:58
It's just this sudden decline, if you will, in some ways, but no, but um, it's, you know, they say Hindsight is 2020, sure. And for me, I was blessed with the like during the car accident at 20, I was seeing the benefits of the adversity in them, during the adversity, and I was expressing gratitude. And it's like, don't wait for hindsight. Don't, don't, extend your suffering, right, for an extended period of time, and then one day, look back, go, oh, I can see how that was actually beneficial for me. You know, I learned a lot, and I learned who I was, and I right, like, No, do it and do it while it's happening. And there's a scene in you mentioned you watch the Miracle Morning movie, the documentary. There's a scene in the documentary where they a nurse accidentally injected chemotherapy into my nerve. She was supposed to inject it into the bone of my spine, and she accidentally injected into my nerve, and it created the most horrific migraines I've ever had for it was like 11 consecutive days round the clock. They tried morphine. Didn't work. They tried oxycodone. Nothing worked, except for cannabis, which, that's another story that finally, my friend was like, try cannabis, and it worked. And I got mad at the medical community, because I'm like, you just pumped my body full of all these toxic chemicals, and I was one plant away. Anyway, that's a side story. Don't get me started. Yeah, but, but what ended up happening is, like, I gave my dad I had been recording blogs during my cancer journey. You know, videos for my Miracle Morning community. And go, hey guys, I want you to know like, I'm okay. Here's what's going on, here's what I'm learning. Right? They were all positive, and I'm in so much pain, I give my dad my iPhone, and my dad was my caretaker in the hospital. I said, Dad, I want you to just hit record. I don't know what I'm gonna say, but hit record. And he goes, hell, you're, you're, like, you're, you're a mess right now. And I go, I know I've been recording all these videos that are positive. I want to, I don't know how I'm going to use this, but I want to capture this is the, maybe the most painful moment of my entire life. I want to capture it. And so he just hit record, and I'm just bawling my eyes out, and I said, this doesn't I've never been in so much pain, and I know in my soul, this doesn't change the fact that I'm grateful for this. I'm grateful for this pain, as horrific as it is, because it is helping me become the person that I am destined to become. And it's just that that's the lesson. It's like, can you find gratitude for the pain and the adversity and the struggle that you're experiencing? And if you can, all of a sudden you find purpose in the pain, and it takes on a whole new meaning. And now it's like, oh, you now get to elevate your consciousness, like, Oh, I'm observing the pain. And yes, this is hard, but this is part of my journey, and this is going to enable me to help others to overcome future pain, to become a better version of myself, right? There's so much and not waiting till later to look back, but experiencing all of it simultaneously.

Alex Ferrari 19:44
That's so important, because so many people don't understand. They just I think we're in a culture right now. I think humanity, not just the US or the West, sure, but I think humanity in general, wants to be in the most comfort, comfortable situation. Way situation they can. They want to bubble wrap the world, yeah, they want to make sure there's no adversity to know that. I think there's a generation of children coming up like that. We weren't raised, oh, yeah, by any stretch, you know, I think you and I have a similar vintage, 46 Yeah? Some definitely. 51 similar vintage. So we were raised in the stranger Stranger Things, Stranger Things Days, 80s and 90s. 80s and 90s, right? Where we were raised by baby boomers, which didn't play, but there's a generation of children being raised now, where everything is sanitized, everything is perfect, everything is this. Everyone gets a participation trophy and like, that's not life. Yeah, you're setting your your kids up for a disaster where, you know, our generation really don't sweat the small stuff, because I always love, I always love telling my kids this, I go, you know how bad it was when we were growing up? Yeah, there was this roller and I go, and I go, Look, and I'm not saying was that I love my childhood. I love it, you know, you know, you know, with that, with the the occasional spankings and all that stuff.

Hal Elrod 21:02
Yeah! My belts hangers and hands.

Alex Ferrari 21:04
I've never got the hanger.

Hal Elrod 21:06
No, oh yeah. My mom wanted the hanger. Doubted the belt.

Alex Ferrari 21:08
I got belt hands and flip flops. Okay, flip flops.

Hal Elrod 21:12
Now, I did get serving or spoon like,

Alex Ferrari 21:14
No, that. You see that Latinos don't do that. We're straight up belt, but the occasional buckle will come into play. Oh yeah, I've had the occasional buckle would happen, and then my mom's watching this. She's like,

Hal Elrod 21:27
I know my parents do. My parents are amazing.

Alex Ferrari 21:29
Like, I don't know what you're smoking, but you spank me, yeah, and it's okay. I still I'm good. I know me too. As just like you said, I don't appreciate the abuse, yeah, but I'm kind of grateful for the way I was raised,

Hal Elrod 21:46
Me too. I actually, I do think that it was better, you know, in some ways, before the iphone.

Alex Ferrari 21:50
And I was crazy and I was crazy, yeah? So I understand why, as a parent now I'm like, they actually take it easy on me, yeah? Like, and then, and then you hear the stories of what their parents our grandparents did, oh my gosh, my grand that's medieval stuff that was going on back in the day.

Hal Elrod 22:09
And who's to say what's right or wrong? Right? Who's to say what was better or worse, you know, like, right? Exactly. Sometimes I think my parents get or my kids could have used a few more space, exactly. I don't think they got any, maybe one or two in their whole life.

Alex Ferrari 22:20
But, but as we but as we were growing up, there was a moment, and I think you remember this, that every night at 10 o'clock, the newscaster would say, Hey, it's 10 o'clock. Do you know where your parents are? No, I don't there was a PSA Alpha. You could look it up on YouTube, it just says 10 o'clock, AMPA 80s. And you would see celebrities lined up, like all the celebrities of the day, like it's 10 o'clock. Do you know where your children are? It's 10 o'clock? Do you know where your children because we were kind of latchkey, yeah, get out, get out of the house today and be back for dinner. Yeah? And what? No mention of how you're gonna eat lunch. You'll find it somewhere somebody will feed you, yeah? Or you just don't eat and you drink water from the hose, and that's the end. We were fine. And we were fine. It wasn't filtered, yeah, but we were fine

Hal Elrod 23:05
In fact, we're more resilient because of it.

Alex Ferrari 23:09
I think that's one of the reasons we were more resilient, but, but that that's the world is so trying to make everything so comfortable, and the exchange for that, and you kind of touched upon it with the food, we change convenience and comfort for health and quality of life and all these other things that we don't really realize we're exchanging for that comfort. So a fast meal, fast food is quick, so it's convenient, but really not going to do a whole hell of a lot for your body. No, lot of damage. A lot of damage, actually, exactly. And same thing goes with all the comforts in our life. We don't want adversity. Yeah, we don't want challenges. We don't want to go through what you did. Yours an extreme version, obviously, sure, but there's things that we try to mitigate all of that, where you really got to kind of step into it, and when it does happen, and it will, yeah, you, I love your attitude about it, like this is why? Why not think about it now that this is the best thing that could be happening to me right now, because there's a reason for this happening to me right now, because I need to go through this, trust me, it's not easy. You know it as well as I do, sure, and when you're in the middle of the crapstorm, it's real tough to be like, This is great. Yeah, you know. Can you give any advice on someone who is going through this crapstorm right now?

Hal Elrod 24:37
A year and a half before my car accident, I was 19, and I started selling Cutco, as I mentioned. And on my second day of training, I learned something that, to this day, is the most, one of the most effective, simplest and effective strategies to move through adversity, and it's called The Five Minute Rule. So this was what 9019 99 that I learned this so 26 years ago. So and the five minute rule, I learned it on my second day of my cut go sales training. And he basically said, Hey guys, I'm on the level with you. He being Jesse, my mentor, who's a good friend of mine to this day, and there were 20 some of us in the training class, big, big training class. And he said, sales is not easy. You're going to face things that most people don't face on a daily basis. He said the average person occasionally faces rejection. You're gonna face it multiple times a day on the phone. You're gonna call to schedule appointments, make 20 calls, six people are gonna say, Don't ever call here again. I don't want to buy your knives. Click right? And it's because it's emotionally it's hard to deal with the rejection. You're gonna deal with failure where you're gonna set a goal for the week and you're not gonna hit it, or you're gonna hit it and someone's gonna cancel an order, he goes. So you need a strategy, a tool to be able to quickly move through adversity. It's why most people said can't, don't stick with sales, because they just cannot handle the emotional swings of up and down and up and down. And it's called The Five Minute Rule. And he said, when something happens that does not go according to plan, call it something bad, right? Relative word, but it's bad. It's like, oh, I didn't, I didn't want that to happen. He said, you set your timer for five minutes on your phone, and you literally give yourself five minutes. Five minutes to feel your emotions fully experience and express this sucks. I did not want this moan, complain, cry, vent, punch a wall, like he said, fully feel it. Don't suppress it. Don't go okay, I just got to keep working and just stuff it down. No, feel it fully. In fact, even amplify it. When the timer goes off after five minutes, it's a reminder that you can't change what happened five minutes ago. So now you have a choice. You can continue to be upset about it and resist reality and wish it didn't happen and get frustrated and angry, or you can accept it fully. And it doesn't mean you're happy about it, but it's far more powerful than that. You are can choose to be at peace with it. I can't change what happened five minutes ago. Five minutes ago. So there's no value in wishing it didn't happen, or wishing it were different, or resisting reality. And he said, The only choice is you really accept it, move on. So he said, When the timer goes off, say, can't change it. And so I was like, Dude, I'm gonna be upset for more than five minutes. This isn't I don't this is gonna work. And I set the timer for five. Remember the first I went to this lady's house, she didn't show up, and I said the time for five minutes. I'm like, I can't I drove really far. I was like, how rude. I can't believe she didn't show up. And there was, like, this old post it note on the door, don't call me again. We don't want your knives and and so I get in the car to the time for five minutes. I'm like, what? And I'm just, I'm just, you know, saying all this stuff around. I can't believe she did that. How rude. And, you know, I think I said some real, you know, what, a b word, or whatever, and whatever, I'm, you know, 19, and the timer goes off after five minutes, and immediate. I'm like, I'm still mad that doesn't change it. And I snoozed the timer. I did it a few more times, and eventually, after about 15 minutes, I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna try. I can't change it. And I was like, he's right. I can't change it. What's the point? And continue. So I just I like, I let it go, and I moved on after I did this every day, multiple times a day, no sales, no sales shows, no canceled orders, traffic. I'd be in traffic go, oh, wait, I can't change it. Timer. This sucks. I hate this traffic, right? And it would go off, and I'd be like, can't change it, huh? Weird. I'm going to enjoy every moment of the rest of the time in this traffic. And it was most liberating perspective. And I remember, after about a week or two, this lady canceled the biggest order I had ever had. It was the order that was the last night of the week. It made me hit my goal. I called the manager to celebrate he goes, you're number one in the office. Hal, we're gonna celebrate you this Wednesday. You're gonna be recognized. And then she called, like, a half an hour later and canceled. And I'm like, no, no, no. And I set the timer for five minutes. I'm like, I can't believe she canceled. Her husband had come home. He was mad. Like she they would have loved the knives, ah, and but here's the thing, I go very quickly, because I'd done this for a week or two. I'd practice getting it, it. Can't change it. And I go, I can't change it. Like, what's the point in being upset? And I look at my phone, and there's four minutes and 32 seconds left on the five minute timer, and you were done. And I was like, oh, oh, I can literally free myself from all emotional pain the moment I say those three words. Can't change it. I can take five minutes. Or in that moment, I go, I'm gonna do it in five seconds. And so I just go, I'm done. I'm at peace in 28 seconds, and now I'm just gonna enjoy the rest of my night. So when I had my car accident a year and a half later, that was already it was embedded in me to accept my reality exactly as it is and be at peace with the things I can't change. And so I literally when my dad came in and that doctor saying, I go, dad, remember, I live by the five minute rule that I'm not in denial. I just can't change that I was in a car accident. I can't change that I'm you know, if the doctors are right and I never walk again, I'm going to be at peace with my reality, whatever it is, I said, But dad, and that's where the my book, The Miracle equation, was written from, is I go. I have unwavering faith that I might be able to walk again. And so instead of be just choosing that, the only option is the doctors are right. I go. They don't know. They don't know what the human body is capable of. No one does, I said. So all of my energy is going into the possibility that I want, while I accept the one that I don't want, I'm at peace with what I don't want. So it has no power over me. There's. Pro fear. I'm now maintaining unwavering faith. I'm praying that I'll walk again one day. I'm meditating on that idea on my body healing. I'm visualizing myself taking my first step and at peace with whatever happens. So it's this beautiful dichotomy of expecting the best and accepting whatever it is. So I'm at peace, I'm grateful, I'm joyful. And it really is this, you know, this like nothing when you live with that, that idea and the five minute rule was the bridge that got me to that place of unconditional acceptance no matter what happens. Give myself those five minutes every time something goes wrong, until eventually you don't even need the five minute.

Alex Ferrari 30:38
It's the ego that wants to wallow, yeah, in the in the pain, yeah, because that gives it importance totally, and that's what it wants. And I've been there. You've been there. You got broken up with a girl, or something happened, or sale, didn't go through a job, didn't go through and you just want to wallow, yeah, in this. And then sometimes you'll even go harder, and you're like, I want to watch a sad movie, yeah? And I'll listen to some sad, oh, I used to, anytime I used anytime I had a heartbreak, I would just listen to the sad music. I would amplify. I look back and go, What? What was that? It was the ego, yeah, wanting to just bathe and and just marinate in, in that moment where this breaks that cycle very, quickly, yeah? And you're able to also release energy, yeah, oh yeah, that energy, what you're saying that five minute yelling and screaming and punching, yes, you're releasing that energy that you have in you, and if you don't, then it has to go somewhere. You literally on

Hal Elrod 31:34
What's that? E-motion, energy in motion, right? And that's things. Emotions are literal energy in the body, which is why time does heal all, because eventually they dissipate. And then sometimes we think back to the thing, and then we just, we reintroduce the negative resistance of the reality that now the emotions new again, right? And, yeah, no, you're absolutely right.

Alex Ferrari 31:52
So you were, you were raised Catholic, like I was, yeah. So spirituality was in you. Were you heavily religious or spiritual, or is it just kind of like something in the background, like the background, like the occasional Easter, Easter, Christmas Catholic or

Hal Elrod 32:05
No, I was pretty I, you know, I was convinced that Catholicism was the one true religion, obviously, what I was, you know, obviously, and but, but what it gave to me is a relationship with God. I actually had a really strong relationship with God, where I prayed every day, and it was almost like this ongoing dialog and conversation. And conversation. And so that's what, that's what it was for me. And then in my early 20s, I don't remember the first book I read. It might have been the power of now, but I started reading Eckhart Tolle, and then I got into Andrew, like, some deep, you know, the hardcore spirit, like Andrew, Cohen, Ken Wilber stuff where I can only understand, you know, three out of every five words, you know. And I'm like, Ken wilberman, Jesus, oh my gosh, but it's, but it's still it's sinking in. David Hawkins, I think it's David Hawkins till much later. Yeah, Alan, of course, but yeah, but Alan Watts, yeah. And what that did is it gave me, I was like, Well, what's interesting is, like, the five minute rule is actually one of the most profound, simple like strategies to access some of the most deep, profound spiritual teachings that people teach. So like, it wasn't until I read Eckhart Tolle that I'm like, oh, that's why I was happy in the hospital, because I stopped resisting reality, and resistance is the source of all emotional pain. To the right, like I didn't. I was like, oh, that's what I was doing, not being aware, and that's where it felt like a real God thing, like God was utilizing my mentor, Jesse, to teach me this five minute rule. Had I not learned the five minute rule and was ultimately understanding that resisting reality is the source of emotional pain. I wasn't taught it that way. But had I not learned and practiced that for a year and a half, I don't know that I would have been able to alchemize the experience of the accident in a way that benefited me and other people like I might have been, and your mom and your mom and your mom's and my mom's right, like, all of it right. Like, and it goes back to that God, you know, that, that plant medicine journey, where God's like, yeah, I put all the right people in your life to teach you the right lessons and and support you in the ways that you need it. And, yeah,

Alex Ferrari 34:02
And it kind of, and it just kind of worked out, yeah, so, so, so, spirituality seems to be something very important to you. You have, and I agree with you. I'm very grateful for my being introduced to Catholicism. Yeah, I like, I poke fun at it a lot, and there's a lot of stuff about it, that it's like a lot of the dogma, dogma, fear and all that stuff that I'm not I'm not a fan of, yeah, but that connection with with God, Christ consciousness, those those those core teachings, really connected to me. And I always it was a way to introduce me to there's something bigger than myself, sure, at an early age, very so I'm very, very grateful for that, not the other stuff, but that stuff. But I didn't really, I don't know about you, did you kind of buy into a lot of the dogma? I mean, early on, of course, we all did, but as you got older, just like that doesn't make a lot of sense to me, or this doesn't work. Work with me, or what do you think?

Hal Elrod 35:01
Yeah, I'm trying to remember. I don't remember. I do have brain damage to that is a real thing from the car accident, the cancer. So, like, pinpoint, you're doing great, sir. Every interview is channeling because I don't like beforehand. I'm like, I don't, I can't remember anyway. But no, the point being the I don't remember the exact pinpoint that the time that this shift happened, but I just, I can remember some of the early things where I learned that there were 3000 religions, yeah. And I'm like, oh, so there are 3000 religions, and most, if not all of them, claim that they're the right one, right? I'm like, that there's like, logically, I can't wrap my head around that. And then I'm like, and wait a minute, if you weren't born in a culture that introduced that religion family, you're going to hell. Oh, you know what it was? It was Conversations with God. Yeah, that was the, that was the that was the, what do they call it, the red cell, or whatever? That was the eye opener where I'm like, Oh, he's asking questions that I would all like, you know, I would ask, Wait, so you're a loving God that in you, but you, if I break a rule and don't go to confession, then I am. I live in a fiery hell for eternity of suffering. That makes zero sense to me. Yeah? And so that was, yeah. So conversation with God was the first book I read that opened Neil shifted my paradigm. Yeah, yeah. Lovely, yeah. Neil is, it was, I've watched him on your on Next Level Soul TV. Man, yeah, man.

Alex Ferrari 36:21
Neil is, is awesome. I absolutely love Neil. And that book was one of those books that just that series. Yeah, that book one, two or three, they just, it blew my mind when I read it as well. But that's, that's, I'm so glad that that was a book that did it for you, because it was a way to introduce God without all the baggage, totally, you know. So you've had a you've had a deep connection with God this entire time when you were in the hospital at 20 year, 20. Man, yeah, I was a knucklehead at 20. You were like, at 19, I was like, 19. I was clueless. I was work. I think I was still working at a video store. I just graduated high school a little bit ago. I'm like, What am I doing with my life, kind of thing? So you are already ahead of the game, sir. But did you have to believe at a certain did you get angry that this happened to me? Not once?

Hal Elrod 37:15
No, no, not even a little bit. In fact, in the hospital. They, you know, they I was in the hospital for they said I'd be there for a year and I'd never walk again. Of course, I took my first dip three weeks after the crash, so one week after, the doctors told my called my parents in and said, Hey, we think Cal's delusional. He's all happy and positive, and he needs to face reality. You know, he's probably gonna be in a wheelchair the rest of his life. And I told my dad, you know, if that's the case, I'm at peace. But that's not where my energy is going. My energy is going into walking again with unwavering faith. A week later, the doctors come in with a clipboard and they've got, they go, we're looking at these routine X rays that we took this morning. Hal, you're ready to take your first step. And even for me, I was thinking that was a year off. Even my optimism and my unwavering faith was like, the body can heal, but, you know, so fast, yeah, Wolverine, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm like, and they say I'm in the hospital for a year, right? With some by the end of that year, I'm going to be walking again. And three weeks after I was found dead at the scene, broke 11 bones. That's crazy, two weeks after I came out of the coma, yeah? And I've got, you know, metal rod in my arm, screws in my elbow, plates in my eye, or rod in my leg. I mean, this crazy, how fast it happened. And they come in and they get in a wheelchair, and my therapist Bob, my physical therapist, we walk into the the, you know, the therapy room, and there's these parallel bars. Now I couldn't even use my left hand because I had broken my left hand. I had severed the nerve. So this was the amount of motion I had for six months that they never knew if it would come back. So that's also the thing I'm thinking about, that I'm dealing with is like, I don't even have a left hand to use, plus I might never walk. And that five minute rule was, like, that powerful be like, well, if this is how my hand is the rest of my life, this is how my hand is, and, but, but, Thank God my dad took a picture, because we have a picture. I show it when I give speeches, you know, in my keynote, it's like, there's the he has a picture of the car, looks like half of a car because that side impact. And then there's a picture of me with tubes coming out of everywhere and oxygen, and my arm, you know, with rods, and it all that. Then he has a picture of me taking that first step, you know, and I he Bob, rolled me up in the wheelchair, and I took my first step and, and that was the first step where I was like, Okay, if I can do this, I can do anything. And then it just, it, just, I was out of the hospital four weeks later. Yeah, that's, that's crazy. I've got your question. I don't know if I have an answer. If you ever got angry. Oh yeah, no, I did it. And that's, that's what I was gonna tell you. Is very soon after I got out of the hospital, I went to court to they had the hearing for the drunk driver that hit me head on, and I was asked in the hospital like, Oh, you must want to kill that guy. I said, No. And you know, I don't this. It's got to be a God thing. I don't know. At 20, where this perspective came from? Yeah, I was gonna say, but, but I said. I said, No. I said, he's a 30. One year old guy that drank a few beers at a bar and then got in a car to go home. Why would I be angry at him for any of those things? Raise your hand if you've never drank alcohol and got in the car to drive I had, you know, in my in high school, I'd go to parties, have some beers, think out, find it, you know, make bad decisions. But it's like, yeah, I wasn't an evil person because I did that. I just was an immature it's a bad decision. This guy was 31 years old, married. He had a young like a three year old kid, and so I had zero anger. And he was fine. He was fine. I had zero anger toward him. And when I went to the trial, what before the trial my parents, because I had my brain damage, I was slurring my speech. It was hard for me to even talk, you know, and formulate. And formulate thoughts. My memory was bad, and so my parents said, hey, we'll speak for you. You know, do you want to speak? I said, No, I don't. I'm not ready to get up in front of a bunch of people and talk right now. And they said, We'll speak for you. What? What do you want? And I guess the attorney had sat down with them and say, Hey, like,

Alex Ferrari 40:59
And who's suing? Who, at this point is, it's like, the state, yeah, this is the state, yeah.

Hal Elrod 41:04
And so, um, and there was, like, a civil and, you know, and so, but so my parents poke. They said, we've talked to hell, and he is asking that, the that because they wanted him to spend three years in prison. And my thought is he's gonna be the like his kids without a dad for three years. That sucks, you know? And again, he just made a mistake. He didn't try to hurt me. So my request, I talked to, and I'm parents kind of helped, like, what do you think Hal and, you know, here's some ideas. And what we requested is that he gets six months in prison, because I thought he definitely should have that time to ponder, think, reflect, right? But not three years. Like six months is plenty of time. And then I asked that the rest of the sentence that they the court was proposing three years that he had to spend two and a half years speaking at schools, sharing what happened to him, to try to actually make a positive impact, because he's not making a positive impact sitting in court in prison. So that's what my parents requested on my behalf. And the judge just was, I don't know, lazy. He's like, I'm not gonna do this creative sentence. We don't like, three year. And he just gave him the full sentence. But that was my request, was that, you know, and I never followed it like I had again, no ill will. And I never followed up to, I don't know if he served three years. I don't know if he served the I don't know the things to deal with. Yeah, exactly. I was like, at that point, I write, you know, it's like, Hey, I you know, I'm at peace. I forgive. There's no hard feelings. And, yeah,

Alex Ferrari 41:04
Wow, that's crazy.

Hal Elrod 41:50
Before you ask the next question, let me just, I want to put that back on anybody listening. I very rarely have any anger or ill will toward anyone for anything. Now, no one's hurt my children. I can't put my like, you know, right? If my, if I'm my parents, I may have had some ill will, and I think my parents did have ill will to you, like you almost killed my son. I mean, as a parent, yeah, right? Like, there's nothing, but the way that I look for anybody, anyone that's ever done anything wrong to you, if you're listening or watching this right to me, forgiveness is the immediate option. It's not the I need time option. Maybe, you know, you're like, Okay, I need days or weeks or hours to reflect. But this is my this is something that, for me, was something that came out of the accident. Is if I had been another person, and this could be someone that cuts you off in traffic, this could be someone that says something mean to you. This could be your spouse. In fact, apply this to the people closest to you. If I had been that, if I was that human being, and I had lived their life, been born with their brain, raised by their parents, endured the adversity they right, I'd probably be that person. I'd make the same you would be. You would make the same decisions. And we tend to judge and condemn other people based on our lived experience, I would never do that very and we they're a horrible person because they did that. It's like, if you had been them, you would have done it too. Hurt people. Hurt people. Yeah, hurt people. So, yeah, you didn't because you had a different life. And then people go, Well, no, but I've also gone through difficult things, and I Okay, but you don't have their brain. You don't have like, they're literally doing what they think is the right thing to do in the moment, even if they know it's the wrong thing to do, they think it's right enough to do it right. And so from that place that, to me, is radical empathy, if you will, right? It's like, I forgive and love all people because they're just doing the best they can with who they are. And sometimes, yeah, they're doing something that they know they shouldn't do, but something inside them is compelling them to do it. And if you were them, you would do it too. So we can all love and forgive people from this place of, you know, radical acceptance, radical forgiveness, radical empathy.

Alex Ferrari 44:29
I can't agree with you more, man, I always say that too. I'm like, you know, I look at them. I'm like, you know, that's their life experience. And you know, if you're, you're raised around people who are thieves all day, every day. Oh, yeah, being a thief is just part of the world. Totally you wouldn't know anything different. You take a baby and put them in a in a commune that's all thieves.

Hal Elrod 44:52
Or 0in a violent world, we're probably going to be violent adults.

Alex Ferrari 44:57
Yeah, exactly. And on the other side, you put them in a pot. Positive environment. You put it on that same love a human, same exact same human. Because I always tell people, like, look, we come in, we come in pretty blank slate, but we are, there is some programming at the factory, yeah, yeah. We do come in with traits, yeah. We do come in with things we lean towards. Like, you know, Mozart was going to play, yeah, he was gonna make music like, there's nothing you could have put him anywhere that that that soul would have been like you would have been working in an Amazon warehouse. Yeah, you know, he would be finding a way to make music in one way, shape or form. So we do come with that. But the environment that we're brought in, the parents that were brought in the country, were brought in the community, the religion, all that stuff influences us 100% so and that perfect poor people mentality versus rich people mentality. You're born into a billionaire family. They don't have to say a word to you, yeah, you just you just know, because you've just been seeing it all your life. What it takes, what it doesn't take, how you treat money, what you do with money, as opposed to money is hard to get, and money doesn't grow on trees, and you've got to work hard, and you have to get a good job and all this stuff. And then I'm like, hey, I want to be a filmmaker. And my dad asked, I still never forgot. He says, What do you get? How much does that pay? I go, Well, if I'm a PA, I can make, like, $100 a day. I still remember saying that. He's like, 100 what? And I'm like, This is the 90s, and $100 was good money back, yeah. And he's like, really 100? I'm like, Yeah. And what do you do? I'm like, I just run around the set, get coffee and stuff. He's like, all right. And he still doesn't get what I now, he definitely doesn't like, he's like, Is Alex in a cult? That's my mom. He's like, he's in a cult. Like, No, he just talks about spiritual

Hal Elrod 46:47
Yeah, he's talking to people that are channeling the other side.

Alex Ferrari 46:50
I haven't even gone down that road. I can't even imagine if I try to explain what channeling is to my father, he'd be like, when I asked you want to go back really quick before we go forward to the rest of your amazing journey, and I think this is important to kind of spotlight a little bit, because so much so many of us have gone through a death in the family, but you did it really young. How old were you? Eight? Eight man, that's so I can't even imagine. How did that affect you? How did you deal moving with it? Because when you're eight and you have that close of a death, it's not grandma or grandpa who died. That's kind of kind of expected, even though, at eight, you still don't sure really grasp it, but you're like they were older, they lived their life. They died natural, whatever.

Hal Elrod 47:40
Yeah, they probably didn't live with you. Live with you, so you were used to seeing them every day,

Alex Ferrari 47:44
Correct! But when you lose a sibling like that at such a young age, that has to have a massive effect on you. Can you talk a little bit about what effect that had on you, emotionally, obviously, your pain and all that stuff, you didn't have the five minute rule. Not that I don't even know how the five minute rule would apply there, but I'm assuming, I'm assuming it would help.

Hal Elrod 48:04
Yeah, it's accepting. Yeah, you can't change exactly,

Alex Ferrari 48:06
But spiritually, how did that affect you? You at that point were a Catholic and talking to God. Did you get angry at God because He took your little sis? Because at that point you really don't have the toolset yet to really process this. How did that do? How did that affect you, and how did it really change the course, if it did, of the your life and how you look at life. Because so many of us, so many people watching, are dealing with that a sibling, a spouse and an animal that they've loved. You know, because our, you know, our pet animals are that close to us that sometimes it hurts worse than losing them, because it's pure love.

Hal Elrod 48:47
Sure,

Alex Ferrari 48:47
It's pure love. There's, yeah, they're like, rover owes me money. Like, no, like, there's no, like, he told me that one thing that one day that really hurt my feelings. No, no, I'm glad he's gone, kind of thing. So can you, can you? Do you mind diving?

Hal Elrod 49:01
Oh, yeah, sure. Um, so the the morning that she died, so I wake up, I run across the hall, my mom's doing mouth to mouth, and I'm like, Mom, what's, you know,

Alex Ferrari 49:10
You have that image too, that you see, you remember that? Yeah, yeah.

Hal Elrod 49:13
And she says, Call 911, you know, you get the phone. Call 911 so I call nine one, and she's between breasts, like, telling me what to say. And, you know? And, and then I hang up, and she goes, go next door to the neighbor, go to Grant's house. We had an 80 some year old neighbor Grant, who had, he was on oxygen all the time, so my mom's brain said, have grant bring over his oxygen tank. Now, I lived in the mountains. We did not, it wasn't to get to Grant's house. So we're on a one acre lot. You're, you're going through pine cones and pine trees, right? And then, you know? And so he, he's trying to come over and bring his auction taken, I think it was one of the big one, you know. So he's, it's the, he's mosey 90s, yeah? And he's like, yeah, he's bringing, and we're having to go down hills and stare, you know. And I'm helping him from falling. Yeah, and Jesus, dude, I mean, yeah, it's so crazy. And we get him and the oxygen, it's and so anti climatic and like, sad is the we put it on, and it's too big for the oxygen mask is too big for her face, so it's just blowing right past her, and we can't even squeeze it in, just blowing right past her cheeks. My dad's on his way home from work. I had called my dad right after 911 and my and the ambulance is on the way, and the ambulance comes. They pick up Anne Marie, they pick up my mom and dad. And my dad had called a family friend for me to go. He just thought, Hal, does it need to go to the hospital? So I went to my friend Ben's house, and his mom, Janine, and I'm thinking that, Oh, everything's okay. The ambulance, that's what they do. They save people. They're going to save Amory. Everything is going to be fine. That's what I'm thinking and about, I don't know, an hour or so later, I get caught. I'm playing with, you know, Ben and I are just playing, and his younger brother Andy, and I get Janine comes out of the back, and she goes the office where their phone is, and she said, Hal, your dad wants it. Your dad's on the phone. And she sounded kind of sad and somber. And I went, and I go talk to my dad. Oh, hey, dad, how's Amory expecting that she's fine. And first time I heard my dad cry, and, oh, man, dude, he told me she's in heaven. And at that time, you know, and again, and I, honestly, I don't remember Alex exactly what I was thinking. I know what happened next, so I know what I said. So I leave. You know, my dad says we're gonna come pick you up, you know, just keep playing, and we'll be there in a few hours. And, and I don't think my little eight year old brain probably fully comprehend, like, like, I don't get death, I don't understand, I don't I don't get that right. Like, I'm not thinking, oh, so I won't see her again, you know, it's, it's, but she's in heaven. And so here's what happened. And again, I didn't, I never recalled this until therapy five years ago, that same therapist that I, you know, went into the my sister's death. I go out in the living room and I can picture I said, Hey guys, you know, Ben and his brother look up at me, and Janine is looking at me, and she's looking kind of sad. I remember her face. I remember her furrowing her brow when I said this. I go, guess where Amory is, and in a really positive, upbeat tone, and Ben goes, where at the hospital or something? And I go, No, she's in heaven. Isn't that great? Heaven is supposed to be like the best place you can go. That's where she is. So I think my psychoanalysis of the eight year old me that I do not remember what I was thinking or feel. I literally don't remember it. I just remember the scene. I remember it happened. My psychoanalysis is all these big emotions are coming up that this eight year old me does not know what to you know, I don't know how to feel, think, I don't know. And somehow I went, Oh, if I focus on the positive, it feels better. I feel better. I have a sense of certainty. And so in hindsight now I think, oh, that's where a superpower developed, right? That also had the shadow side of not understanding how to feel pain. I think that I was like, I don't like the way this feels. I'm just going to focus on the positive. So that was a superpower that got me through so much of my life, finding the positive. Then when I learned the five minute rule, it's probably easier for me to apply it than the a person who's mostly negative because I'm like, I'm mostly positive, I'm mostly upbeat anyway, like, Oh, this is actually, you know, this is actually helps me even further, you know, develop that superpower and enhances it. And it wasn't until I went through cancer and faced losing my kid, or, you know, losing my life and not being around for my kids, and then through chemo and, you know, just sleepless nights and being close to death again and being awake for all of it. And you know, that wasn't until I really went through the dark night of the soul that was in 2020 for me, started at the end of 2019 beginning of 2020. Was a six month period of depression and wanting to die and not sleeping for more than two to four hours a night, every single night. And this is, this is after miracle morning. This is after miracle morning. So I don't mean to get ahead of myself, but yeah, but it's after miracle.

Alex Ferrari 54:00
So after miracle more. So I want to dive into the cancer stuff in a minute. Yeah. So it's pretty amazing that there is some wiring in you, some programming in you from the factory. Yeah, there has to be, yeah, yeah, because at eight the no one taught you this, no, you just automatically went to, like, I don't like this negative feeling. Yeah, I'm gonna focus on the positive. I'm not negating the negative. I'm just deciding to focus on the positive aspects of this.

Hal Elrod 54:30
Yeah, I can't change that. Amorous gone, right? But I can choose to frame it in a way where it, you know, it it's, I'm at peace with it,

Alex Ferrari 54:30
Because it is what it is, it is what it is, and it's not going to change no matter how I act, yeah, so might as well act in a positive way. Yeah, that's a pretty profound and, you know, evolved position to take for an eight year old.

Hal Elrod 54:52
Yeah! And again, I don't, I can't take credit for it, because I don't even remember how I got to that conclusion. I just know that.

Alex Ferrari 54:53
But there was something in you, something in me, if there was something in you that did. That. So that's such a powerful lesson,

Hal Elrod 55:01
Yeah, and it really makes me think of karma and past lives, right? I mean, because you go, okay,

Alex Ferrari 55:06
Oh, I don't believe that this is your first go around trying to help people, sir, I you don't. You don't make an impact like this without have done it at one point or another in another life, if, if you go down the road of reincarnation and other lives and and I definitely want to get into your psilocybin conversation as well, because I conversation as well, because that probably opened up a lot of tours as well. But yeah, you came this life, you have a mission, and you're obviously living out that mission, and you had to go through a lot of obstacles to get to that, to this place where you're going. All right, so when you were, you were you write the Miracle Morning. Explain the Miracle Morning. Yeah, let's So explain the Miracle Morning.

Hal Elrod 55:46
So this happened. So it was not a book idea, right? This wasn't like, what's good in the market right? Now, I want to write a book that makes money and sells, oh, morning routines. There's really a space. No, it was 2000 niche. Yeah, it was none of that.

Alex Ferrari 56:00
So it's the morning niche I'm gonna get in there.

Hal Elrod 56:02
So the journey was, I had hit Hall of Fame with Cutco in 2004 I gave it one more year in 2005 because I felt like I had left my potential on the table. I was 26 you were killing 2526 Yeah, you're doing great. I was with Cutco for six years and so and I was, I hit Hall of Fame, and I was like, I'm like, I'm done. And then I realized I was about to leave, and I go, Oh, I actually didn't give it everything I had. I have to do one more year at Cutco, and I got to go for my best year ever. And it was a whole thing. So I do that. Then I was like, Okay, I want to be an entrepreneur. I want to start, I feel compelled to start something. What am I qualified to do? And I had been writing a book for six years, kind of called Taking life head on. I reckon people don't buy it. It's, it's, I think it's poorly written, but, and it's just, it is my story. But, anyway, so I've been writing a book. I'm like, Okay, I want to launch the book for sure. I know I want to do that. And I want to be a speaker. I know I want to do that. However, from what I've researched, though, neither of those are going to make money right off the bat, like, it's going to take a while to make build up. Yeah. So I was like, What am I qualified to do. And I went, Well, I've succeeded very, at a very high level in sales. I could become a coach and coach other sales people. So that's what I transitioned into, a coaching career. I launched a coaching career, coaching business. A year into that, I was doing well, and then the economy starts to crash, right? We were getting, oh, 8008. Yeah, and, and I'm the this is a part of being such an optimist. I think there's a fine line between delusion and optimism, and I cross the line often. I think most optimists do. So people are like, Oh my gosh, how are you watching the news the economy? I'm like, I create my own economy. I'm not worried. Well, apparently the economy has real impact on people that I'm coaching and their businesses, and I lose over half of my clients in a six month period, and so therefore, and I can't get new client. I'm like, No, I can't. I just nobody's nobody's No one's buying what you're selling. I literally my income is cut in half, and I cannot pay the bills. I start living on credit cards. I had just bought my first house a year and a half prior. I'm now I can't pay for it, so I ended up literally stopping the mortgage payments. I just can't I'm like, okay, food or mortgage. I foreclose on my house. I'm drowning in debt. I'm a mess, and you're a life coach. That's something I often say, like it was an identity crisis. Because I'm like, I literally felt like a fraud to get more clients. Because I'm like, Hey, you want to be successful. I'm failing miserably. I know what it's like to be like. I it was, it was, I was a mess, and it was the first time in my life I had never, literally never been depressed before that had not been depressed during the car accident, you know, I had down like anybody, but I had never gone into a feeling of hopelessness and despair and depression, and that's what I was in and my fiance at the time, Ursula, who I'm now married to, with two beautiful children. So she stuck it through some tough times. She is an angel. She is my muse. She's Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And one day she sees me on the couch just depressed, and she goes, Why don't how? She's like, I hate seeing like this sweetheart. Why don't you call your friend John Berghoff. You say he's the smartest business person. You know, he was a guy that came into Cutco and broke every record I had ever set. He was like, he was, he was and we became good friends. He said, Why don't you call John and ask for advice? You know, you're like, because I was just trying to go at it alone. And he said, um, I was suffering in silence. And I called John, and, long story short, after I tell him everything, he goes, Hal I want you to listen to this Jim Rohn, audio, this changed my life when I was younger, and I if you listen to this and apply it, it will change your life. And I'm like, Dude, I called you for money advice, giving me a you're telling me to go listen to a personal self help. Audio, he's like, trust me. I'm like, fine, so I go for a walk. I listen to this audio on my iPod, and one quote, The a single quote changed my entire life once I applied it, and it became the catalyst for the Miracle Morning.

Alex Ferrari 59:46
And if you want that quote, just go to www. I'm joking. miraclemorning.com.

Hal Elrod 59:50
No. Jim Rohn saidyour level of success, and I actually like the word fulfillment better, right? So either one your level of fulfillment. Success in any area of life will rarely exceed your level of personal development. And when I heard that,

Alex Ferrari 1:00:06
I want to dig into that.

Hal Elrod 1:00:07
Oh, yeah. Oh, it's, it's, there's so much. Now I've been living it for, you know, decade and a half to 12 or 12, almost 20 years. So your level of success or fulfillment will rarely exceed your level of personal development. Now my brain, I may I'm in sales. So I quantify things. I go, Okay, on a scale of one to 10, if my level of success will not exceed my level of personal development, what level of success do I want? That's the first question I need to answer. And what's my level of personal development right now? And how do I get it to level 10 so I can create the level of success that I want? Because I think we all want to be as happy and healthy and fulfilled as we possibly can be. It's human nature, the pursuit of happiness. Yeah, right. Well, I want to self actualize. I've never met anyone that's like, I don't want to be too happy. I'm good with, like, a six or I don't want to be too, you know, financially secure. I'm okay with, no, it's like, I want to be at a level 10 in every area that I can be. So that quantification helped me. I go, Okay, what's my level of personal development? And if anybody's watching or listening, let me, let me unpack that. That just that phrase, person, how do you measure your level of personal development? For me, I because I had to google it. I'm like, what's personal development Exactly? And for me, it's what are your daily habits, rituals and routines, that are developing you, your mindset, your spirituality, your confidence, your habits to become the person that you need to be, to evolve or tap into the person that you are, to become that level 10 version of yourself that is as confident and clear and motivated and disciplined and you know in touch with right their highest self, to create and sustain the level 10 fulfillment that you want in your life and in my honest answer to The question for me, what's my level of personal development? It was like a two or three, like I am, here's my level of personal development, here's the level of success and fulfillment I want. And I believe this is the disconnect for most of our society, because no one learns. They don't teach this in school. They don't say, Hey, you got to dedicate time each day to develop yourself, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, to become the best version of yourself that you were born to become your God, given limitless potential. So the Epiphany, I've got it. I've got to go study what are the world's most successful people do and most fulfilled people do for personal development. And I've got to start. I've got to create a ritual each day to start doing those things, to become the person I need to be, to turn first my financial situation around and then evolve into everything that I want to become. And I had six practices from that search, silence. These are the Savers acronym in the Miracle Morning book, silence, Affirmations, Visualization, exercise, reading and scribing, which was originally journaling, but the j would have made the acronym awkward, so the Savers acronym journaling became scribing. I woke up the next morning a little bit earlier than normal. I did all six and my very first miracle morning, I went and it wasn't called that, by the way, didn't have a name. It was just my personal development in the morning, and I stumbled. I had never meditated, so I fumbled my way through. I'm like, Wait, so I'm supposed to clear my mind. I'm like, I'm doing this wrong every person. But I had, the night before, I had opened up six tabs on the on the browser, how do I meditate? How do I visualize? How do I do affirmations? And I had spent a little bit of time, kind of studying and finding a good article that I could the next morning, implement, and that very first miracle morning I went, if I start every day like this, even though I sucked at these things, like I was fumbled my way through changes, everything. This is this changes I would if I start everybody with this much clarity and motivation and energy and like and here's, I'll put a bow on the story, which is I was thinking again, kind of like the car accident, walking again. Give me a year, one year, I can turn my financial situation around, turn my whole life around. In two months, I more than doubled my income. I went from being in the worst shape of my life physically, where I canceled the gym membership, wasn't exercising at all, depressed, I committed to run a 52 mile ultra marathon, and I started training for it, which I wasn't a runner. And my depression didn't take two months to go away. It went it started fading on started fading on day one, and every day, every miracle morning, I became less depressed, more in alignment with my highest self. And I remember the moment I signed on my second coaching client of the day and I did the math. I'm like, we've doubled our income in the last two months since I started the morning routine. I go find my wife. She's coming out of the bedroom. I can picture the moment she's literally carrying laundry. And I go, sweetheart, I just signed on two more coaching clients. And she goes, that's great. I know we need money. I go, No, no. That second coaching client put us more income than where we were at our highest point two months or six months, eight months ago, you know? And I said, it feels like a miracle. It's all because that morning routine. She goes, it's your miracle morning. And the rest is history.

Alex Ferrari 1:04:41
Isn't it amazing how the wives get

Hal Elrod 1:04:43
She's my muse man,

Alex Ferrari 1:04:44
Yeah, they do. They I always say, Man, having a good, a good partner in life is, you know, because a good partner or a bad partner can really,

Hal Elrod 1:04:54
Yeah, move you one way or the other. Yeah,

Alex Ferrari 1:04:56
Yeah, it's, it's pretty remarkable. And then you. Release it, and it starts going a little nutty, and starts going well, and just it took it took off. You sold over 2 million,

Hal Elrod 1:05:07
Yeah, and it was, it's Pat Flynn was instrumental in that, by the way, I so I self published the book because I have, I had no audience. I had no right, but I and I was doing it, by the way, this is an important piece for anyone watching or listening. Is I did not, I didn't even write the book because I wanted to write a book. To write a book. I felt like God was this was my mission, that God gave me this practice. It changed my life. I started teaching to my coaching clients, most of them resisted. I'm not a morning person. How I go, Neither was I. Here's how you like I'm going to teach you how to beat the snooze button. And then most of the clients came back. Oh my god, I'm doing that miracle morning, and it's working. And that's when the light bulb went off and I went if it worked for me and them, I have a responsibility to share this with the world. And took three years to write the book. I self publish it, and again, I have no audience. I'm not I'm not proven, you know, yeah, you don't, you don't have a YouTube channel. I just committed. I'm going as long as it takes. And so to sell a million copies, that was my goal. Changed 1 million lives one morning at a time, and it took me six years and Pat Flynn, when I got on his podcast a year and a half into it, that was like the hockey stick started to go up because he promoted like he went from being Halal not a morning person, by the end of the interview, he goes, I'm gonna try this. I'm gonna commit right now publicly to all my listeners. I'm gonna do the Miracle Morning for 30 days. I'm gonna do these savers that you taught me, and I'm gonna see what happens. And now he's in the movies. I mean, he's a lifelong Miracle Morning practitioner.

Alex Ferrari 1:06:23
Yeah, what I find fascinating about doing these kind of changes. I've done these kind of changes in my life before, obviously, I did the miracle morning when it first came out, and I've been doing a version of it ever since. There is this resistance, oh, yeah, that the ego, and it's the ego that puts out when you're trying to do something like this. I think it does come out. I mean, I think in a if you're trying to do something to better your physical life, even if you're trying to better your spiritual life, or any other aspect of your life, the ego kind of steps in, because it's like, well, this is making me less important. I don't like this, yeah. And they'll start throwing out ideas like, now you really don't need to, don't, aren't you tired? Yeah, you don't need to wake up that early.

Hal Elrod 1:07:08
Wait, also, you can't do this. You fail at every new habit that you try to. That's the big one, yeah,

Alex Ferrari 1:07:14
All of these kind of resistance points. What is it in your from your experience that can that that people are constantly over have to overcome to get to this point? Because, I mean, I became a morning person. I was, oh yeah, me too. I was two o'clock in the morning guy, yeah, when I first met my wife, my friends would call me at two. Yeah, hey, dude. So yeah, I just watched this movie and a and they know they're gonna get you. And when she moved in, she's like, No more. This was when phones were phones like they were on the cord, connected to the wall, and you're like, Yeah, I got work in the morning. Okay? So tell your friends. You know, after 10, after 10, there's no more of that. Got stuff. And then I slowly became, now I'm an absolute morning person. I wake up early. I'm always working. I'm always going to the gym early in the morning. I meditate early morning, ask as well, and do all the all the things. There's a few things I tried. I just, I can't, I can't journal like it's not something. It doesn't I've tried. I've bought journals, I've sat down. I'm writing. I've done it for long periods of time. And is that something that something that calls to me,

Hal Elrod 1:08:23
Yeah! Visualization doesn't call to me. Of all the Savers, the one that I just

Alex Ferrari 1:08:27
Visualization, no problem. I could visualize all day, dude, are you kidding? Like, are you kidding? I had to, you know, I had to visualize this, yeah, to bring this. This is insane. Oh yeah, it's a podcast. You know, when I jumped into podcasting, I was jumping in, what, probably three or four years before pat or after Pat started, yeah, after Pat started, and I'm like, Ah, well, you're late for you. I'm late, yeah, well, I'll do it anyway, you know? And the same thing was when I jumped in spirituality, well, there's 1000 of them out there. I'll just jump in. What the hell it's fascinating, but there's these things that are constantly stopping us from moving, and the ego, I think, is the biggest culprit. What are the things? What advice do you have about breaking through those obstacles? Because those obstacles really do affect your life, if you don't take care of your health, if you don't eat right, if you don't exercise, if you don't meditate, I'm not saying meditation is for Absolutely. I do believe it's for everybody. Yeah, me too. I do believe it's for everybody. But even, okay, let's use meditation for a second. You said meditation like, this is ridiculous. I'm the I'm doing this wrong. It's not working because so many other things I could be doing right? There's so many like, and you sit there for the first, like 30 seconds. You're like, this is ridiculous, yeah, I'm just sitting here with my eyes closed. Is ridiculous. You know, I think, and I think right now, my record and meditation, I think I got close to four hours. Oh, wow. Long time ago, the recently, the biggest one was like, two hours and change, yeah, but I average, I average an hour every day. Oh, wow. I. Hour and a half every day, but that I try meditating for a decade. I kept going and at that thing, I could just never get past that obstacle, until finally I sat down and decided I'm just gonna just sit here with myself. Yeah, so force yourself to do it. So the same way that you launched Miracle Morning, I launched the show when I decided to go all in, in January of 22 I actually said I'm gonna do three, three episodes of time. But then I was, I won't do four episodes a week. Yeah, no attachment to outcome. I'm just gonna go. And I know it's gonna take, could be, take two years, take three years. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna wavering faith and extraordinary. And I just, I'm just gonna go, I'm just gonna go. And that was the key. Because if I would have been like, after first week, I'm like, no one watch. No one watch is like, oh, that's didn't get the numbers. I wanted all that stuff you would have. I'm sure they said,

Hal Elrod 1:10:54
Yeah, the book sales were just not just trudging all Yeah, and if you watch, there's this Hawk, it's like, it's 18 months of this and then that, and I kept promoting, I was promoting the same all, doing as many shows as I could. So yeah, yeah.

Alex Ferrari 1:11:06
And we, and we, we do that with with guests too. Sometimes they'll, they have that little thing, and they come on and they and they expose to their people, yeah, their audience, and they're just like, what just happened? Kind of thing as well. So it's, it's, it's always a joy to hear that, yeah, so what advice do you have to break through these kind of obstacles that the brain puts in front of you?

Hal Elrod 1:11:27
So in the Miracle Morning book, I call it rear view mirror syndrome, right? Which is where, most of us, we have this rear view mirror, if you will, where, whenever we're presented with a challenge or an opportunity, we check the rear view and that's our ego, which is, Have I done this before? Oh no, I've never done it before. That means I can't do it. That's what we tend to think, that the past equals the future. And so that's where visualization, where you're and I actually affirmations are the one that for me, I teach in the book in a very practical way. It's not these goofy like I and no offense to anyone that does these affirmations, but

Alex Ferrari 1:11:57
I'm good enough. I'm happy enough. And, gosh, dark people like me, like

Hal Elrod 1:12:01
Stuart Smalley, that's why affirmations, I think, are the most effective form of personal development and the most misunderstood. They have a bad rap. Because either a the Stuart Smalley, you know, if you grew up in the 80s and 90s, you know, it's like they're goofy, yeah, or we're taught these we're taught to affirm something that's not true. So we're taught to lie to ourselves, like, if you want to be wealthy, just say I am and then whatever word you follow it with is who you be. I am wealthy. Here's the problem. If you're like, checking the bank account balance and you're like, Oh man, I'm overdrawn. I do my affirmations, I am wealthy. Your your subconscious, no, you're not. You literally just saw you're overdrawn. So our affirmations have to be rooted in truth. The second problem with the affirmation formula that we're often taught is these well meaning self help gurus. And again, no offense if this is your affirmation, but I am a money magnet. Money flows to me effortlessly and in abundance. In abundance. Maybe I don't believe for most of us, most people that built a fortune, they actually put forth effort. You had to, you record this podcast every week. You have four years. You didn't sit on you didn't, you didn't create wealth, Alex, by sitting on your couch and being like, I'm a magnet and I'm already wealthy, and things flow to me. So the way teach affirmations, and this is, this is the tactical answer to your question, right? Which is like, how do you overcome the limiting beliefs that you have, the resistance that you have, the three steps. And this is the formula that I teach in the book for creating affirmation. Step one, affirm what you are committed to in life. We do not get what we want just because we want it. I want to be happy, healthy, free. Okay, great. What are you committed to doing? Right? And that's actually, that's my next book that I'm writing in the mirror. The working title is the miracle within, I'm not exactly sure, but it's a blend of spirituality and like, practicality and goal achievement, because I think the spiritual community focuses too heavily on being, just be now that's foundational. But we also live in a society where we got to do right, like, let's say, for example, we use just the example of, let's say you want to improve your physical health, you got to work out. You got to work out and eat. Well, yeah, you can't just sit on the couch and meditate on it. You can't just be I am fit. I am strong. You actually. And there's maybe some gurus that are some of the folks on the shelf maybe could pull that off.

Alex Ferrari 1:14:22
Absolutely, some of them could, Vishnu, probably could.

Hal Elrod 1:14:25
Yeah. So it's this, it's this blend of be the person that you need to be and do be willing to do the things that you need to do. And when it comes to the Miracle Morning, specifically, as an example, when I was writing the book, my biggest insecurity, if you will, as the as this, as this would be author, is, how am I going to convince people that have a deep, rooted belief that says I am not a morning person? I promise you been there. Tried. It didn't work. Never been one, right? Like so for me, I'm. Going, I would almost stop writing and go, I would just be like, you know, I'm gonna throw like, what? I'm wasting my time. I'm writing a book that people will go, Yeah, this, this is great if you're a morning person. So I think that's what made the Miracle Morning so resonate with people, is I was so nervous about that that the whole book more than telling you what to do, it holds your hand, mentally and emotionally through this journey of not a morning person, okay, you know, I guess it makes sense, but it's really holding their hand. And so, like what I would encourage anybody listening. And so the affirmations formula you could apply to, you know, your miracle morning, or to your commitment and your work. I didn't finish the formula. Step two, why is it a must for you? So step one is, affirm what you're committed to. Step two, why is it a must for you? And step three, affirm which actions you'll take and win. And I'll use the example of when I had cancer, I was I couldn't not be scared that I might die and leave my kids without a dad. It was a the cancer I got has a 20 to 30% survival rate. So I was 37 years old. My daughter was seven. My son was four. And doctors are saying, best case scenario, you have a if you do what we tell you, you have a 20 to 30% survival rate. And I reached out to some of the best holistic oncologists in the country, and they said, There's nothing you can do naturally or holistically. You actually have to do chemo because I didn't want to do chemo. And it was 700 hours of chemo, 100 hours over five days. Yeah, a lot of will go for an hour infusion once a week. I did 100 hours every three weeks, and the chemo is why the survival rate is so it's either one, either my organs are going to shut down, which they already were. My heart was failing, kidneys and lungs were failing, and then you failing, and then you pump yourself through poison. Yeah, with poison. So I decided, if I if the best holistic oncologists feel like they can't help me, I'm not going to go rogue and be like I can do it then. So I decided, okay, I guess they're telling me I have to do chemo. I'm also going to relentlessly research every holistic practice known to man, and do all of it simultaneously and actually make that the my healing journey and the chemo is just one tool in the toolkit. So I did three coffee enemas a week. I did ozone sauna, I did red light therapy. I took 70 supplements a day. I juiced organic vegetables, I and the biggest thing was my miracle morning was the core of all of it. I woke up every day. I meditated in a state of complete healing. I then had affirmations that said, step one, what are you committed to? I am committed to beating cancer and living to be 100 plus years old alongside Ursula and the kids. No matter what, there is no other option. And I read that with such conviction over and over and over, I mean, 1000s of times, that the fear ended up being replaced by this unwavering faith and this commitment. No, I'm not afraid because I'm committed. I'd be afraid if I wasn't committed. And so that's the power of how do you overcome the internal resistance, the identity, the self, the self limiting rear view mirror that says I'm not enough. I can't do it. What if? What if? What if? What if? It's that you choose the language in writing. That's why I think affirmations are the most powerful form of personal growth, because unlike a book that you're reading that is someone else's journey and their advice, which is valuable, it's the R and savers. I was reading all sorts of books on healing cancer naturally, but the affirmations were my design blueprint of what I was committed to, why it was a must. For me, I had five reasons. I'm committed to being cancer for my mom and dad, because they already lost a child, and I will not let them lose another one. I will not let them lose another one. Number two, for my wife, because I promised her forever and a day, and I intended to keep that promise. I'm committed in cancer for my son and daughter, my and I had all the way down the line, and then what am I going to do? And I do? And I had all the actions. So every morning, when I woke up, did my Miracle Morning that those affirmations were the anchor, they were the the central point, and the other savers really just supported those affirmations. The books I read were in alignment, the visualization that I did, the meditation, right? All of it was in alignment with what I had designed as my, my affirmations to beat cancer.

Alex Ferrari 1:19:06
So you weren't watching sad movies. Yeah, I didn't take your strategy. You didn't take that. You didn't go sad movies. You're and I'm assuming the content that you weren't in putting yourself movies, shows, those things, all positive stuff, right? Trying to get stuff that would you're not watching. What's that movie fault in the stars? Yeah, yeah. It's about someone dying for cancer.

Hal Elrod 1:19:28
But I was, actually, I was watching Chris beat cancer. It's one of my favorite, in fact, for anyone who has cancer right now or knows someone, it's chrisbeatcancer.com, C, H, R, I S, chrisbeatcancer.com, Christopher work, he went against the doctor's orders, and he went 100% holistic. And then now his whole life's work is horses. And, you know, yeah, so I would, that's what I was watching. Was his video series on interviewing all these people and how they beat cancer naturally. And right? Giving me, hey, if they can do it, yeah?

Alex Ferrari 1:19:57
Crazy, sexy, cancer is another

Hal Elrod 1:19:59
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so, and I was reading the book radical remission and the anti cancer lifestyle and all these.

Alex Ferrari 1:20:04
So you're reading all those books, but you decided to go down the non holistic way. But had the holistic aspect

Hal Elrod 1:20:10
And that, to me, is important for someone, because most people, if they were, if their doctors telling them, Hey, you do chemo or you're going to die, right? Because I, actually, part of me is I wanted to do just natural, so I could share that with other people and be like, Hey, you can do natural. And so it was so like, there was actually a lot of like, No, I don't want to do chemo. God, why are we doing chemo? I don't get it. And later, I looked back and I realized, Oh, if I were to have gone totally natural, I could actually impact less people. Because if somebody is sitting across from their spouse and the doctor saying you're gonna die if you don't do chemo, and she's like, No, No, sweetie. I listened to this guy, Hal elrod's podcast, and he said, I can do it natural, like, screw that. But if I say, Hey, if you feel called to do the chemo, just make sure that you don't leave it up to the doctors, and that you take 100% responsibility for your healing, and you do every natural, holistic practice, you better detox the kidneys and the liver that the chemo is poisoning. The doctor will, they'll give you a pharmaceutical to do that, but you go take milk thistle and do coffee enemas and all of these things. So yeah, to me, it's yes, and it's do the best of both.

Alex Ferrari 1:21:10
So your your life is going along nicely. You're a very obviously upbeat, positive guy. Miracle Morning is taken off. And then, you know, you're speaking, you have this whole life, and then you get hit with this sledgehammer of a cancer diagnosis. What was the first feeling when you got that, that hit, dude? Yeah? Like, you know you're, you're, hello rod, you know, I'm happy, I'm happy. But when that hit you, I there has to be a second going, son of

Hal Elrod 1:21:40
Yeah, so, so it's, I love that you asked. I don't know why. I haven't told this in so long, but so my one night, I woke up struggling to breathe, and I went to the ER, and they drained almost two liters of fluid from my lung. That's not good, no. I mean, it was, it was wild. They stuck a needle in the back of my through my spine, and drunk and, um, and then I go home and they said, Hey, we think you have pneumonia or what I forgot. What they said there was, they said, if it doesn't get better, you know, come back, they give me antibiotics, and then, like, a day and a half, two days later, I can't breathe again. Go in. This went on for, like, I think it was 11 days, and they couldn't figure out what was wrong. And they're sending me to different hospitals and this and that. And finally, they diagnosed me with this rare, aggressive form of cancer, and my wife was terrified and distraught. I remember, though, when I got diagnosed, the doctor was, he was he goes, Hal, I want you to come in and get the results. And he goes, Well, there's definitely something here. We're seeing some that. And he's like beating around the bush, like he can't get himself to tell me. And I lean over, I'm not kidding, Alex. I lean over, I put my hand. He was a new doctor. I just moved to moved to Texas, like, two months before. I have my hand on his arm. I go, Hey, Doc. I get I go, like, I can tell you're wrestling with whatever you're gonna tell me. I don't know what it is I said, But I live by this thing called I'm not kidding, the five minute rule. I accept life before it even happens. Whatever you're gonna tell me, I'm already at peace with it. He goes, and he kind of breathed this. He goes, okay. He goes, how it looks like you have cancer. And, yeah, I go, Oh, I didn't expect, you know, like, I like, I'm like, What? No, because I thought I was healthy, and, you know, and so I'm like, what? And so

Alex Ferrari 1:23:13
I love that. You're like, Hey, man, I can handle anything. So funny, you have cancer, yeah. And so human way,

Hal Elrod 1:23:21
But at the same time, no, I literally have lived this five minute rule. Can't change a philosophy that I was at peace. I'm like, okay, dog, what are we gonna do? I'm at like, I am at peace with it. So it was instantaneous peace. And there were definitely moments in prayer, like, God, what am I supposed to learn from this? I thought I've learned all the lessons from the car accident. What else can I learn through some stuff? Yeah, and it was like a lot. I just kept getting a lot. There's a lot, like, a lot to learn. And the biggest thing lesson I learned is that I thought I valued family first. Because if you would have said what's most important in your life, I would have said, my wife and kids. No questions asked. If you would have said, Hal, can I see your schedule? I just want to make sure that you're living in alignment with what you say is most important to you. And I find this is true for most people, especially people, especially entrepreneurs. I'd have been like, I'd have been, oh, no, you don't understand. I got a book launch coming up, so I'm actually working a little more than usual, and I'm not taking them to school anymore, and I'm working on Saturday, right? Like that was my truth. And so the cancer woke me up to oh, I have to make changes to my daily behavior that are in alignment with what I think is true, or I believe is true, or I feel is true in my heart and soul, which is families number one, that for me, was the biggest shift, and it went from changing millions of people, which is where my focus and energy was, is I'm living my mission. I realized I had traded in quality of impact on the three people that I lived with for quantity of impact, and that was the she myth is no these three humans, these three souls that I'm incarnating with, like that's my number one priority, and in my spare time, I'll go change the world, so to speak. And so that's the shift, and now it's waking my kids up in the morning with a puppet show I did that for so. Many years until they start, Dad, we're done with the puppet show, putting them to bed, reading stories, like when I went through my cancer journey, I immediately shifted my behavior, taking them to school, picking them up from school, like to spend time with my family.

Alex Ferrari 1:25:13
Isn't that amazing when something like that happens all of a sudden, priorities shift totally and isn't it amazing that we all get caught up so much in our day to day living, that we forget that we are here for a very short amount of time.

Hal Elrod 1:25:26
Oh yeah, and our kids are with us for a very short right, like, even shorter than we're here

Alex Ferrari 1:25:29
As a parent. You like my wife and I look back at at just a few years ago, and when they were 456, the best year. We're like, trying to make me cry, like, where are the grandkids? I'm like, I'm not out of high school yet.

Hal Elrod 1:25:46
We need some humans from

Alex Ferrari 1:25:48
That we could just hold, play with and then leave. Then you can deal

Hal Elrod 1:25:53
And think we're the bee's knees That don't roll their eyes at everything that we say.

Alex Ferrari 1:25:59
Don't get me started dude, teenagers.

Hal Elrod 1:26:02
My daughter is 16. My son's 13, so I'm in it.

Alex Ferrari 1:26:03
Oh, so you're right. Oh, yeah, we're both in the same teenage aren't they? Lovely. So, but it's, it's amazing. Alan Watts said this quote, and it's so profound. He goes, in 100 years, there'll be strangers in your house. In 100 years, there'll be strangers. In 100 years, if anyone remembers who you are, yeah, that is a miracle. So why live your life worried about what other people think of you? Yeah, or worried or doing things because of fear, like I have to do this job to make a good living, to do this kind of lifestyle, do this as opposed to following your bliss, like Joseph Campbell said, Yeah, follow your your your love, your passion, what you really want to do. And I'm sure people listen, well, we all got to pay bills. I'm like, I went to become a filmmaker. Yeah, that's

Hal Elrod 1:26:57
I self published a book. That's one of the most unprofitable things

Alex Ferrari 1:27:01
Yeah, I'm gonna do a self published book. Oh, yeah, that's gonna be great. Yeah, I'm gonna start, you know, I'm gonna be a filmmaker, you know, in the 90s, yeah, you know, so like, good luck trying to make a living. And for whatever reason, I made a living doing that. But it's that, that thing, unwavering faith, extraordinary effort, that took such a beautiful equation, yeah, because that's what it takes. Is you have to have faith in what you're doing, yeah, and extraordinary effort, and kind of like a marathon runner, you just kind of have to leg it out, yeah, because it might take a long time, yeah, but if you're not attached to the outcome, you'll be happy along the journey. Yeah. Does that make sense?

Hal Elrod 1:27:40
No, totally. I Yeah, you're referencing my the follow up book I wrote to the Miracle Morning was the miracle equation. And interestingly enough, the miracle equation is something that I It's a phrase I coined in my own life, in when I was 21 I think, wow. So it was after the car accident. And the miracle equation, I actually was. I came up with it when I was trying to break a Cutco sales record. I was trying to something no one had ever done, but one had ever done before, and I was scared. And so if you're listening right now and you have a big goal or dream that you're not doing because you're scared, here you go. This is the miracle equation in action. And I went, I remembered it was another Jim Rohn quote, ironically. So this predates Miracle Morning, like the book came out after miracle morning, but the concept predates it. And Jim Rohn, another quote of his is the purpose of a goal is not to hit the goal. That's not why you said it. You set it for the direction it gives you, and then who you become by committing to give it everything you have to reach the goal, whether or not you reach it, is actually less important than the personal development, the growth you develop among the way so powerful. So it was a mentor of mine, Dan cassette at the time that had taught me that Jim Rohn quote. And I'm thinking about this goal, and I'm scared. I'm like, God, no one's ever done this before. What if, you know, I don't know if I'm what if I fail? And then I go, Oh, wait a minute, I'm gonna apply that Jim Rohn quote where, what if my real goal is the growth? And I try, I give it everything I have until the last moment, and then I reverse engineered, you know, the whole I went, Okay, okay. So I fast forwarded to the end of the goal period that I had. It was, it was actually, it was actually a 10 day period that I was trying to break the record. And I went, Okay, if I were to make and I literally was like, it'd be a miracle if I it's called the Miracle equation, if it'd be a miracle if I reached it, if I were to make that miracle happen, what would I have to decide today to get there? To get there? You reverse engineered it? Yeah. And two things came up. Number one, I have to maintain unwavering faith that I'm going to do it along the way when I don't have when the faith wavers, when I'm doubting myself and I'm not on track, and customers aren't buying, and I'm having bad days, and right? So I've got to maintain unwavering faith until the last possible moment. That's the first and I wrote that down decision number one, unwavering faith. And I go what else I have to put forth extraordinary effort. And that means that I have to do what's necessary, when it's necessary, whether I feel like it or not, until the last possible moment. Decision number two, extraordinary effort. So I go through and I'm not. I'm having a terrible like, I'm not on track at all. Day one, day two, I'm like, way behind. In fact, in seven days, I was trying to sell $20,000 in 10 days. In seven days, I sold $7,000 anyway. So I was $13,000 away in the last three days. And if I hadn't have made those two decisions, put them in writing and carried them with me, I would have given up. But I went every moment. I'm like, I'm not on track. It's not looking and I'm like, does it matter? Unwavering faith I can and will, give it everything I have until the last possible moment to reach this goal. And I did. And it was the last appointment, the last hour that something never that should have happened this miraculous way, this lady that was on vacation, she wasn't even the lady I was supposed to see, the wrong lady showed up. In fact, Kyle cease and I were talking about, he goes. Did you ever think that if the right lady showed up, she wouldn't have done, bought what that lady bought? I was like, You're right. That's a great point. Like so, right? So to me, when you maintain unwavering faith and put forth extraordinary effort, that is how you create tangible, measurable miracles in your life. It's not giving up, giving it everything you have until the last possible moment.

Alex Ferrari 1:31:03
That's That's a beauty, that's beautiful. And I think you touched on something that's so important for people to understand, the journey. Most of us focus on the goal, yeah, but we never focus on the journey, and we're spending most of the time on the journey. The goal is quick. Yeah? That's why I've spoken to Oscar winners who they're like, I didn't know what to do after I won an Oscar, because that was the that was the goal. Yeah, and I'm like, Who am I now? Yeah, I don't have, I can't get. What? Another Oscar?

Hal Elrod 1:31:31
Well, that's why I love Kyle, our friend, Kyle Cease, who, right? Who really connected us is that his goal is to merge with his soul. That's his goal. Merge with my soul, and it's everything is this helped me merge with my soul, becoming closer to God, closer to who I truly am, spiritually underneath this ego and this identity, right? And so I love this, yeah, it's more of living with the intention. One of my favorites is become the best version of yourself. That's from Matthew Kelly in a book I read, rhythm of life, his goal is to become the best version myself. To me, it's very similar to Kyle's right? It's like, this is the inner intention that Kyle talks about in his book, that it's it's unwavering, it's like everything that we do, whether Okay, hit the goal, doesn't matter what's the next thing to do, or to be, or to become, to become the best version of myself, to merge with my soul.

Alex Ferrari 1:32:15
So All right, so I want to, I want to go into your dark night of the soul. I like having these kind of conversations, because when people see someone who's, you know, the picture of of positivity, and you Miracle Morning, and you've got millions of people following you, and all of this kind of stuff, and then, you know, life hits you with the sledgehammer. Yeah, for a second time, most people, if most people, hopefully don't have to go through it, yeah. But if you have one of those, the chances of you having another massive one, because that car accident was will cripple, literally cripple anybody in their life, yeah? And they can go down a dark path. You, You dug yourself out of that and was able to get out pretty quickly with a lot of effort. But then you get diagnosed with cancer and the financial crisis was another one. Yeah, that brought you down, and you were kind of in a dark space there as well.

Hal Elrod 1:33:12
That was for sure, yeah.

Alex Ferrari 1:33:13
Was that the darkest?

Hal Elrod 1:33:15
No, no, no, no, no. It was. It was, but it was a dark

Alex Ferrari 1:33:18
It was funny because

Hal Elrod 1:33:19
It was fear hopelessness that led into depression. I was like, I don't know what to do, you know? So that was the darkest time in my life up until that point,

Alex Ferrari 1:33:25
Yeah, because you don't know, like, when you're in that hole, I've been there, yeah, you're just like, nothing's working for me. Yeah, nothing's working. Why God? Why you have a connection with God? Totally God. Why hell are you doing this to me? Yeah, why have you forsaken me? Yeah? Like, what? Whatever. What's going on, what is the purpose? And now, as we've gotten a little bit more evolved in our thinking, as a little bit older souls on this planet, now you're like, why is not only why is this happening? What's the purpose? Yeah, that before it was why? Now it's like, What is this supposed to mean? What am I supposed to learn? Totally, why is this happening? Now, like, what is that? Those are the kind of questions we have now, when these things happen to us? So you had to know eight with the financial issue, and then you get hit with this cancer diagnosis, and this is where you start going. You know, the how that is in front of us starts to waver. Yeah, a bit. Can you talk a little bit about that? It was a and it wasn't a short period of time?

Hal Elrod 1:34:18
No, it was, it was three years on chemo,

Alex Ferrari 1:34:21
I know. But when, out of those three years, how many of that how much of that time was in this dark night, or was it the entire

Hal Elrod 1:34:28
No no. So the dark night of the soul didn't start till toward the end of chemo. So I so I did 700 hours of chemo in seven months, and I was supposed to do one more month and another 100 hours, but my body was so close to death, like my body was so broken down that they're like, we're gonna cancel your last chemo. So that's how much the chemo. I mean, you destroyed, 700 hours, yeah. And so, you know, they call it chemo brain, and again, you get that from doing an hour a week. So my brain was

Alex Ferrari 1:34:55
100 hours. How many? How many hours a week did you do?

Hal Elrod 1:34:59
It was a. 100 hours every three weeks or every month. Again, they had to space it out based on, oh, your blood counts are down, so we're gonna put it off another week. So it probably would average, basically 100 hours a month for seven months. And it was supposed to be an eighth month. They canceled it, and then it was a maintenance phase. And it's interesting about the medical community, and this just shows it's like the boiling frog, where in the beginning I'm like, Hey, Doc, I don't want to do any chemo. And then I reach out to these holistic oncologist they're like, you actually have to do chemo health or you're going to die. They gave me one week to live. By the way, when I sat down with the doctor, and my wife was terrified, and I actually told her, I said, Sweetheart, I know you're scared, but I live by this thing called the Miracle equation.

Alex Ferrari 1:35:37
And she's like, shut your hell up with your miracle craft?

Hal Elrod 1:35:41
No, I said, Sweetheart, it's always worked. This the miracle equation to me, and I believe it's a spiritual strategy for success. That's what the miracle equation is. And so I told her, I said, I'm going to apply the miracle equation. It's worked for everything I've ever done before, accomplishing goals, walking again after doctor. Think about it. When I was told to never walk again, I maintained unwavering faith, and I put forth extraordinary effort, which was really just visualizing, praying, imagine, right? Like, and going to physical therapy. It was the miracle equation. So I'm like, it's worked every time I believe it'll work for this too. So I'm gonna apply this miracle equation to my cancer journey, right? Remind me your question again. Yeah, so, so how long? How long in that three years? So during the three years, I was fine, I was positive, I was optimistic. Now, that scene in the movie where you see me bawling my eyes out, that was just because I was in the most physical pain I'd ever been in, but I was still, even then, only focused on the positive. In December, 1 of 2019 I'm about to host a live event for 500 people. We did this live event that happened the last year we ever did it, after six years, and the night before, I'm doing my prep and I'm ready, I'm not like this is getting on stages. I'm a public speaker. It's my speaking is my easy day work, right? So I'm not nervous at all that night, I fall asleep at like 9pm like I normally do at 11pm I wake up with my body flooded with, I don't know if it was cortisol or adrenaline, but I feel wired and stressed to the max, and I went to bed peaceful, and I did not sleep a wink the rest of the night. And I'm like, Oh my God, this I got to run an event for six days, and you're telling me I'm going to be on two hours of sleep. That was the first two hour sleep night. That was almost every night for the next six months. It was two to four two to four hours a night for six months without anyone crazy that will, yes, you, I mean, if you have one night like that, you're a mess. The next

Alex Ferrari 1:37:29
That's called having an infant. Yeah, that's basically having an infant, yeah, with no help

Hal Elrod 1:37:34
And no naps and no Yeah, nothing. So, so this got so I'm on chemo. I'm on pharmaceuticals. I'm sleeping two to four hours a night. Now, at this point, I'm only doing one hour of chemo a month. I'm doing like, one infusion, but I'm taking daily chemo pills. I'm taking prednisone, which is a horrific steroid that has so many bad side effects. That was the slow I talked about, like, all of a sudden, I'm, I'm a product of the, you know, of the pharmaceutical company. And it's like, I didn't even it, just, it just totally slipped in, like, you got to take like, You got to take this. Gotta take this, gotta take this. So I'm sleeping two, four hours a night, and I'm losing my effing mind. I am depressed. I have mornings I've never had anxiety where, like I'm just shaking all the time. If somebody call a friend calls me, and I'm like, Oh God, I can't talk to John, my best friend, like I am a mess. And it got to the point where my I started, I decided to sleep in our guest room, because my wife would come to bed, right? And she'd wake me up, and I'd be wired all night. And every night it was this wired, and I would start shaking before bed because I'd go, Oh God, it's gonna happen again. Was it the medica medications? I think it was the medication. I don't No, I said,

Alex Ferrari 1:38:39
It's just it was just something that was did not go well with your

Hal Elrod 1:38:40
It's just something it was the and so finally I I kept asking my doctor, when can I get off the chemo? When can I get off all the meds? And he's like, You need to stay on it as long as you can tolerate it. And so I kept going, okay, okay, okay. I email my doctor. I'm like, Doc, I'm gonna ask you again, I need to get off this chemo. Man, I'm a mess. When can I get off all these meds? And he goes, I want you on it as long as you on it as long as you can tolerate it. I said, I'm done. And so I quit cold turkey, May of 2020 I took I stopped everything.

Alex Ferrari 1:39:10
I stopped may 2020 so it's right around the

Hal Elrod 1:39:13
Pandemic, yeah, so I mean, and by the way, and I was doing mushrooms, that's when I started doing psilocybin. I read something. I don't know if I read something or a friend recommended, but I was the chemo was kicking my butt once a month, and I would do the chemo, and then basically I'd spend three days in bed, and usually my wife would just keep the kids away from me because I was a mess, and someone or I read somewhere. I don't know, I can't remember where I got this from, but they're like, Hey, do psilocybin to offset the effects of chemo. And I'm like, interesting, and I had done mushrooms like 10 years prior, you know, for fun with my buddies or something. But I'm like, so I reached out to friends, I got some psilocybin, and I think I did like, half a gram or something, and you're micro dosing, or no, it was a, it was a, it was a full dose, and it was, it was like, a, maybe even a gram, okay. And my friend got me this organic chocolate that, you know, and I do it, and, you know, I'm laying in bed and I'm like, I'm miserable from chemo, and all sudden, I'm like, Oh, I feel really good. I feel amazing. And I feel all these insights coming in. So I start, like, journaling, and I'm like, and I spend the backyard in nature, and I have the best day ever, on a day where I would normally be hating life, in bed, sick, and I feel amazing, physically, emotionally, spiritually. I just feel connected in nature and God. And so I went, Whoa, this is amazing. I'm actually looking forward to chemo next month, and I'm going to do this again, and I start doing and I start upping the dose, because I learn about, like, heroic doses, and you can really go even further. And I also wonder, in full transparency, because I started probably in January of that year, doing the chemo, but the sleeplessness had already started. So anyway, it's just, I don't know if it is it the mushrooms, because it opens pathways to the brain, then the poison of the chemo was going into those brain like, I don't know what caused it, but I stopped doing chemo. I stopped all my pharmaceuticals cold turkey in May. And that's when to me, my healing journey really began

Alex Ferrari 1:41:12
After that, after that, after that. So you got into a pretty dark place, dark, I mean, as dark as you get, yeah, as dark as you get. And then the psilocybin is what kind of brought you back out. And it was because it brought I get, from my understanding, psilocybin just breaks open the the doorway. It drops the, I don't know what it's called, but it drops the the mask, if you will, the character that we are, and it just connects us direct. It's a direct connection, yeah, to source,

Hal Elrod 1:41:44
Similar to Ayahuasca. And that's, I haven't done Ayahuasca before, but without the throne, yeah, yeah, exactly, which is nice, but I've been told I've, when I've the high doses of mushrooms, of psilocybin, essentially Mimic, say, an Ayahuasca experience is what I've what I've read, right? And those that have done both,

Alex Ferrari 1:42:05
And it does, but yeah, Ayahuasca is a little bit more violent, yeah, from what I understand as well. But it seems like it opened you up. What spiritual insights did start flying in, dude? And how did that? How did you? How did you deal with the Catholic boy in you with with that was already, that's already at that point. At that point, you already let that go.

Hal Elrod 1:42:25
The way that I look at Catholicism is look like the other 3000 religions. I give religion reverence. I write I most respect, sure, and I just think that it's 3000 different ways of trying to understand and make sense of God, whatever God is right? And I've gone down deep, you know, I remember I was doing a psilocybin journey with a friend of mine, and he had this profound perspective on God, and it resonated so deeply. And he said, Hal, what if God is our experience? And I just go, and again, I was on psilocybin when he said this, but it just made so much sense. And I'm like, yeah, what if God is, is our experience. And it kind of makes sense, right? Like, this is, like, we try to make God as this thing, this being right? Like the old man was passing judgment and sending people to hell, in heaven, and right? Like, what if God is actually just, it's the you know? And so for me, God, to me, is a mystery, in fact, so liberating, because everyone tries to figure out what God is, so they can tell you what God is and and know and like, we need that certainty. I was on a walk the other day, or this few months, like, six months ago, I was walking in, and we were on 32 acres, so I get to go walk on our property, and that's my just, like, and I pray. I just talk to God while I'm walking, and I'm like, God, I have a confession. I don't know what you are. I don't know right? I said, I don't know who you are, and I don't even know what you are. I just know that you are. You've always been a part of my experience of life and right? And I've prayed you, and I've actually had miracles happen that are pretty, like, specific, and I prayed for it, and it happened the way I'm, like, unbelievable. And so that was liberating, though, to be like, I don't know who you are, I don't know what you are. And so that, to me, is like, God is this? It's like, it's almost like it's this journey that I'm on to experience God, to know God, to understand God, to understand, my favorite quote from the Bible is the kingdom of God is within you, right? Which is so different than my, you know, I actually still take my kids to church. We go to church just that again, giving them that same gift that I had of hearing it week after week and, you know, not, you know, and having that those morals and that connection to something bigger. And my daughter, now at 16, is having, finally, we're having the conversation like this doesn't make sense to me, Dad, this doesn't make sense. And I'm like, let's talk about that, you know. But we were church, and you know that, and the pastor says, God is God is separate from us God, you know? And I'm like, I wanted to raise my hand in church and be like, what about that part where the Jesus said the kingdom of God? Jesus. Was Jesus, Jesus guy, but you're telling us he's so separate, and he's, I'm like, I'm confused. Or are you accurate and telling the truth? Or what you know? So, yeah,

Alex Ferrari 1:45:09
It's, it's, it's interesting about that is, like, I always look at the the kingdom of heaven is within you. Everything I can do you can do, and more. Yes, you know, just love each other. Yeah, you know, all these, these really core ideas of what Jesus taught that do not go with the fear and the love. I mean, the concept of hell, I find so ridiculous. Yeah, as a parent, you know, you can't look at your a child really. I mean, you, you've seen serial killers, on, on, on the stand, yeah. And you see the mother in the mother and the father in the in the in the gallery, going, he was a good boy. He was like, I'm sure, yeah, he ate some people, but maybe he was hungry. I don't know, like these kind of things, but as a parent, you can't even conceive Yeah, of doing that to a child, yeah, no matter what they do. That was the

Hal Elrod 1:46:04
Neil Donald Walsh part that got. I'm like, thank you. Finally, someone, he's like, God, how come you put people that you know? He's like, I don't do I don't do that. You guys do that? Yeah? You do that? Yeah, hell is it's a state. Yeah, it's you put yourself in hell.

Alex Ferrari 1:46:14
Yeah! That's not That's exactly you put yourself in your own hell. Yeah. I think many of us put ourselves in our own hell. I think our egos put ourselves in our own hell you went through.

Hal Elrod 1:46:24
Yeah, and bad decisions can put you in your own health, so to speak, right?

Alex Ferrari 1:46:27
Oh yeah. And then you start beating yourself up. Oh yeah. We've all made a couple of miscues, yeah. And we and, and we beat ourselves up about it. And and then that's one of the things I love doing on the show, is I go deep into these ideas of, like, what is hell? Where did hell come from? And then you start going into the historical records, and like, Well, Jesus said something, but they've misconduct about this lake of fire around the corner where they it was the dump, and that's where, hey, you guys don't get your act right, you're gonna end up there. And then they took and then Dante showed up, and then the rest is history, as they say. But it's like, wow. And like, even you start studying other religions, like, you know, Judaism, no hell, none. They just say, Yeah, you're gone. That's it. There's no hell. Obviously the Hindus all these in Buddhism, there's no concepts of that in other religions. The thing that always got me with, with, and now get off the whole religion thing. But I just, it just fascinates me. I was like, because you said that you were taught that this is the only true religion, right? As a Jewish family would say, they're literally called the chosen people, yeah. I mean, they went to another level. Like, too bad you were Catholic. Good luck. But I was like, Well, wait a minute. So you mean to tell me that the African tribesman who's never heard of Christ, that's it is, and doesn't have the opportunity to meet somebody or learn about it, lives an entirely good life, live doing good things, helping his tribe, you know, and helping his people. And because he didn't happen to come across Christ's teachings, or specifically the Bible, or whatever the Vatican says he's going to this place called Hell, yeah, that made no logical sense. No, it doesn't. And how about the billion billion Hindus? How about the billion and billion Buddhists? Yeah? Like all these Muslims and like, You mean to tell me all those sorry, yeah, yeah.

Hal Elrod 1:48:25
That's why I like our friend Aaron Abke, because, right, yeah, he's raised by a pastor and went to school to be be a pastor, and he like, and he right, speaks on spirituality and religion in a very practical, sensical way.

Alex Ferrari 1:48:38
Yeah, absolutely. It's just like, I just don't get it. So, with everything that's going on, how in the world today, so many of us, I mean, so many people, are scared, yeah, about, you know, we are in a interesting decade. Yeah, we started off hot in 2020, oh yeah, oh yeah. It's, I honestly think it's been going on. I think the 2000s I think from oh one for us here in the West, it's just been a pretty crazy time, yeah, but it seems to have been, oh yeah, escalating, escalating, escalating. From, like, you know, 2012 the world's gonna come to an end because of the Mayan calendar. Yeah. Then 2020, that happened. Oh, wait before that, with the financial crisis that took years for people to come out of yeah, all the Y, 2k, so it but it seems like from 2020, on every year has been it's a multiplying effect, like it's getting crazier, oh yeah, and more insane and more insane and more insane. And then this happened, and that happened, and it can, but things seem to be crumbling around us the old way. Yeah, the old systems are coming like, when you know

Hal Elrod 1:49:52
We're all aware of them. We used to think, oh, the government's like, a good parent that takes care of you. And right, well, I think your best interest.

Alex Ferrari 1:49:57
I think Nixon cracked that. That egg a little bit before, but then we the 80s were like, oh, it's all good. Again, making money, but, but yeah, the government. I mean, when you and I were being raised growing up, the Vatican could do no wrong. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Oh the Catholic Church was, yeah, infallible, sure. Well, we've heard we won't go into details, yes, yes, but they've had a rough go of it. Yes, over the last 30 years, 20 years or so, and those established systems are starting to crack down. So Hollywood is falling apart.

Hal Elrod 1:50:32
Yeah, it's wild. It's that used to be, who we listened to for our what do we you know, we held such reverence

Alex Ferrari 1:50:38
The Golden Globes were, I think, yesterday, or the day before yesterday, or the week this last weekend, I didn't see it, yeah, nor do I give a crap, yeah, yeah. I really it doesn't, you know, I don't, I don't care.

Hal Elrod 1:50:50
I only watch it for Ricky Gervais monolog. If he is, he's the one speaking truth up there, man.

Alex Ferrari 1:50:55
And you know what? You could watch it on YouTube. Yeah, that's all I do. That's exactly all you could do. It's all you need, yeah, but, you know,

Hal Elrod 1:51:01
Maybe those monologs belong on Next Level Soul.

Alex Ferrari 1:51:03
I don't know if Ricky would come on the show, and that would be because he's an atheist, so I'm really that'd be amazing. That would be an amazing conversation. But, you know, there used to be Oscar parties, yeah, you remember back in the day? So Hollywood's falling apart. Religion, religious establishments are following. But the government obviously is having some issues as well, the medical community, the health industry, mainstream media. Mainstream media is going the food industry is having people are like, Wait a minute. Why is what's in our Why is Nutella in Europe different than Nutella here? Why are French fries in Paris for McDonald's different than McDonald fries here? Like, why are you poisoning us?

Hal Elrod 1:51:42
We just flip the food pyramid. You see that?

Alex Ferrari 1:51:45
I saw it. Yeah, you know, it's great. Finally, finally someone saying, hey, look, guys, this is some BS. I mean, you and I were raised with the food pyramid. Oh yeah, you have to eat a lot of bread, a lot of bread and cereal bread and cereal bread, and then carbo load, and then you, and then you and then you look, yeah, you need 400 grams of carbs every day. And then you look at the bottom, like, provided by the cheese and the dairy farms and the the, you know, craft and like, all these, these things you like, also all of these illusions are starting to crack. All these false scenarios, we're starting to see the truth. Yeah, my favorite movie is the matrix. Oh, yeah. So we're starting to see the code, and the powers that be don't want to let go of power, so they're trying to grab on harder and harder, and things are war, and then they're encroaching on this and encroaching on that and this or that. But at the end of the day, it's us. Yeah, we decide not them. We decide what we want and what we want to do. But with all of these things coming down around us, it seems like the world is coming to an end, also because we're the most connected that we've ever been, sure, but also the most disconnected we've ever been.

Hal Elrod 1:52:56
You're seeing things that you right. You used to not see that. Oh my god, this is going on this country, in this country, in this country, in this country,

Alex Ferrari 1:53:01
In this in the olden days, dude, if you and I lived in the tribe, we wouldn't know there was a war two miles away. Yeah, that's it. We just wouldn't know. Totally we wouldn't know. Now we know things are happening everywhere in the world instantaneously. So back it was a Kyle, I think was, I think it was Kyle that said this to me, that he's like, it's amazing that you watch the news, or you watch your doom scrolling, and you start getting anxious. You start getting worried, and oh, my god, the world's gonna come to an end. And, yeah, this country is invading that country and the economy and all this stuff, but you're in a very quiet room, yeah, very safe room, yeah, this is not happening to you. Now, if you're in a war zone, that's a different conversation, sure, but for most of us, we're mostly all not in war zone, yeah. So we're positioning these things very differently, and we're stressed and angry all the time, and all this stuff because of all this stuff going on. So it seems like the world's coming to an end, but I always like to remind people it's been worse. Oh, yeah, talk to the people in the Civil War days, yeah. Talk to people in the Roman days. Talk to people in these old, I mean, during the Dark Ages, yeah. Tell me when the plague was running around London. Yeah. Tell me, you know, oh, my social media, no. So it's always been worse, but now it seems so much more. What advice do you have for people who are dealing with this kind of fear of everything, not just fear of this or that. You know, I was just, I was just talking to I've become the police of the food in the in the house. I've been that for a long time, but I always, yeah, like, Nick, can't eat that. I can't have that. Nope, can't eat that. That's Nope, don't that's poison. Don't eat that. Yeah, and now I've gotten it's heightened up because now I've got an app. It's dangerous I scanned. It's an app that I scan. Yeah, that's it. I scan it, and it's like, has this preserved in it? These chemicals in it? I'm like, nope, nope, nope. I went to, I went to HEB yesterday. Okay? Could not find one tortilla that was healthy, not well, one, not one, not even close.

Hal Elrod 1:55:07
Even the organic one were the

Alex Ferrari 1:55:08
Organic too, because they had the preservatives in it that they allow to go in, oh yeah, until the government changes it. So I become that for people. So I'm like, now my website, I'm afraid to eat anything, even if it says organic, because it doesn't automatically mean clean anymore. It's just mind blowing. So what advice do you have for people who are afraid of every of everything, from food to money to media to everything?

Hal Elrod 1:55:35
So the only thing we have control over is ourself. And actually, it was, it was in 2020, when the pandemic started being rolled out, and people were not allowed to leave their houses as a, you know, as a thought leader, as someone like, have a podcast, and I, you know, have a community online. And I'm like, Okay, I kept, you know, I was like, What am I supposed to do right now for me and my family, and how can I lead by example for others, like what matters and what was beautiful about it was the Miracle Morning. I just reminded my audience, my community, I'm like, Guys, double down on your miracle morning. The Miracle Morning is designed for you to start every day by reminding you of your highest truths, what you're committed to, why you're committed to those things like and for you to become the best version of yourself, so you can show up today for the people that you love, the people that you lead. Right? Like all, we can't control what the government's doing and what other people are doing and what the economy is doing. So to me, my Miracle Morning It's not about being a morning person. It's about starting every day by focusing on optimizing your mental, emotional and spiritual and physical well being. And in doing so, you become more resourceful. You become, you know, you have more clarity, more confidence, more calm. And then you can go take on the crazy world that we live in. And then you get the reset button the next day, when you get to do your miracle morning again, get to, you know, maybe yesterday was some crazy it's a difficult, stressful day, but you don't have to take that stress into the next day. Your miracle morning is like, I get morning is like I get to alchemize yesterday. I get to journal about what happened, let it go, accept it, be at peace with it, and focus on me, who I am, who I'm becoming, and how I'm going to show up today at my best. And that's all I can do.

Alex Ferrari 1:57:16
Hal I could talk to you for forever, man, where can people find out more about the Miracle Morning, the miracle equation, the miracle everything, because you have miracles. Miracle mornings for every a bunch of different categories as well. Miracle Morning for salespeople, Miracle Morning for kids and families

Hal Elrod 1:57:37
And families. Yeah. Miracle Morning After 50 just came out last month, the latest book in the series, um, but yeah. Miracle morning.com is the hub for everything, and not just the books, the Miracle Morning app, Miracle Morning movie, you know, I know you watch the documentary and that features people will probably know, like Mel Robbins and Robin Sharma and Brendan Burchard and, you know, some really amazing Pat Flynn, our friend, I have to do, I always, it's funny. I have so many new friends, like you and Kyle. I'm like, I really wanna do, like, a miracle morning part two, or some sort of document. We should talk about documentary, just because we'll have a conversation. I want to get all the, all these spiritual, you know, teachers in but, um, but, yeah, Miracle morning.com is the hub. And of course, you can go straight to Amazon, buy the book, go to the App Store or Google Play, download the app, go to YouTube, the movies, free. You can, you know, miraclemorning.com you can find everything

Alex Ferrari 1:58:17
If there was, if there's someone right now feeling lost or disconnected or hopeless about what's there? What truth would you most want them to hear?

Hal Elrod 1:58:28
A few things, few ways I would frame this a i love you like truly. I love you. I believe we are all family. We're all members of the human family. I don't believe there are such a thing as strangers. They're just family members that you don't know or haven't met yet, so I love you as number one. Number two is this is temporary. Whatever it is, it is always temporary, and it doesn't feel like that when you're going through it. This is temporary, like you're on a cleanse. Your body is detoxing, you're having some reaction.

Alex Ferrari 1:58:57
What kind of cleanse are you doing? Fast?

Hal Elrod 1:58:59
It's called the Hawaii cleanse. It's actually one of the best cleanses, if you're having, like, as opposed to a water fast, which is the hardest, in my opinion, I've done those for the Hawaii cleanse. It's a, it's a mixture with, like, psyllium husk, and it's designed to clean out your colons and clean out all the toxins, but you at least get to have something with some flavor. So yeah, so it's, but it's, realize it's temporary, right? This too shall pass. And I believe that we all have within us everything that we need to be at peace. And it's we talked about earlier, you have to accept reality exactly as it is, not for the purpose of being happy and excited and joyous. Yes, that's the end goal, I think. But it starts with just, I can't change it. Maybe you set your timer for five minutes and fully feel, express your emotions. And even in writing journal, I am so mad. I'm so angry, I'm so scared, like get it out and doing it. And writing is such a powerful and talk about in the scribing practice of the Miracle Morning savers. Scribing is the last s when you put pen to paper, you do get it out of your mind. And you create a separation where you're like, Okay, I can see all of that. I can see all the things that I've been thinking and feeling and harboring and maybe even identifying with. They're on paper now. I now don't have to think about them. I can give myself permission to close the book if you want to think about them tomorrow, open it again and reread them. But like they're not you let them go, give yourself permission to take a break from all of the painful, detrimental, difficult emotions that maybe you're experiencing that aren't serving you. Put them in a book, put them in writing, close the book, and let those emotions lie there and just be free. You are free. That's last thing I would say, is to realize you're free. You're free to think, feel and experience whatever you choose to experience. So accept what you can't change. Be at peace with reality. Journal the things that you are feeling, let them go, put them in writing, and then choose freedom. Choose to be free to experience love, joy, peace, gratitude, forgiveness, whatever you need to to heal in this moment, and you'll eventually keep doing that every day, and life will be different in the future than it is now, in a good way.

Alex Ferrari 2:01:09
And before we leave, you're working on a new book. You mentioned the miracle within. That's the working title. So it's kind of like you now you're leaning, or you're being called to kind of go more towards the spiritual side of things. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Hal Elrod 2:01:22
Yeah, it's what's interesting. So my book the mirror, I mean, the word miracle. It's funny. One of my mentors, or one of my friends, he was about, he goes, don't call it Miracle Morning. It's too spiritual. Yeah. He goes, because it's a really practical book on, like, starting your day in the most effective way. I'm like, Dude, that's I'm calling it that because that's what my wife told me it was. And as a good husband, we do what we're told exactly. I'm like, it is my Miracle Morning, like, I couldn't get I'm like, that's what it is. And you think about it, meditation is a spiritual practice, but like in the book, that's one of the things, I think, why it resonated as well as I'm a very practical person, right? I am the opposite of Woo, like, or I should say I'm the opposite, but I lean into Woo, woo, but it's all it's always like, what's the most practical application of this thing that you could think of it as woo, woo. But hey, like in the book I go, there are 1400 scientific studies that prove the benefits of meditation to your physiological like, you know. So there's that, then the miracle equation is even more spiritual, right? I mean, in the title unwavering faith and extraordinary effort. It's even more spiritual. But in 2000 maybe 2019, 20, I think it was when I was going through the difficult, dark night of the soul, I got this message that how your next book is a deeply spiritual book. It's like you've been leaning further and further into it, but it's still going to be kind of disguised as a self help book, so that people that wouldn't read a spiritual book. We'll read this. And so the miracle within is the is the working title. The Miracle life is what I was thinking. So I'm still not sure on the title, but here's the way that I would frame it. The Miracle Morning is a daily practice for personal development. The Miracle equation, the follow book is a daily process for goal, achievement, the miracle within would be a daily paradigm for total fulfillment, spiritual fulfillment. That's how I would look at it. And the other frame that I came up with, or it's not my frame, it's a Stephen Covey frame he talks about, be do have the Miracle Morning helps you. It's the B. This is how you this is the practice you do every day that helps you be at your best every single day. The Miracle equation is the do. This is how you do the things that will enable you to achieve your goals, change your life, achieve results. The Miracle within is the have. This is how you realize you already have everything within you to be the happiest you could ever be. It's called life, right? And so that, to me, is how I see, kind of the trilogy, if you will,

Alex Ferrari 2:03:40
That's, that's beautiful, man. Well, I'm, I'm glad that you're doing that. We try to, we try to do the same, something similar, where we, yeah, we go off in the Woo, but we always ground in, you know, like, you know, if you're, you're so you're a medium, great. So when you saw your first ghost, did you think you're going crazy? Like, did you when you heard your voices in your voices in your head, did you think you were going nuts? Like, you know when they start channeling through you, like, just, like, this is weird, yeah, kind of thing. So we try to ground it. So I'm glad that you I think that's where we're going. I think there has to be a balance between the practicality and the full will, yeah, and there is a balance between the two, because if you go one way or the other, you you won't get the benefits totally itself. Hal, it has been such an honor and such a pleasure talking to you, brother. Thank you so much for not only being on the show, but for everything you're doing to help awaken and better this planet, my friend. So I appreciate it.

Hal Elrod 2:04:37
Man from one to another. Appreciate you, too.