194: Hal Elrod and the Miracle Equation!

Buck: Welcome back to the show everyone. After surviving multiple near-death experiences and impacting millions of lives through his books, Hal Elrod is now on a mission to elevate the consciousness of humanity one person at a time. As the best-selling author of one of the highest-rated books in the world, The Miracle Morning he’s doing just that. The Miracle Morning has been translated into 34 languages, sold over 1 million copies and is practiced daily by over 500,000 people around the world. His latest book is The Miracle Equation: the two decisions that move your biggest goals from possible to probable to inevitable easier. To talk about that and more, Hal, welcome to Wealth Formula Podcast.

Hal: Buck, it’s an honor man. Thanks for having me. It’s great to connect.

Buck: Hal, listen, you are the author of a very well-known book called The Miracle Morning which I read a few years ago and I have to say that I’m amazed at really how many people were impacted by the book. I mean it’s a great book but you know usually you don’t see this many prominent people kind of like I’m following The Miracle Morning and I say that because I remember even a couple years ago talking to Robert Kiyosaki which I don’t know if you know Robert or not but he was telling me how he follows your miracle morning and he’s sort of an icon in our community right. So you’ve impacted a lot of lives and congratulations on that. Tell me I mean is that what you expected when you wrote this thing?

Hal: Not at all. So The Miracle Morning was a morning ritual that I created in 2008 when the economy crashed and I was kind of at rock bottom and I needed to change my life and I just kind of studied what do the world’s most successful people do oh they wake up early and they do some positive things and yeah good mindset. So I thought I’m in such a low point in my life at that you know at that time I thought I need to create like the ultimate morning ritual. And so I combined the best practices of all of them and combined into one and after two months of doing this morning ritual didn’t have a name it wasn’t a you know book idea at all on I more than doubled my income, I went from being in the worst shape of my life physically because I’ve been depressed for six months just, I was losing my house, I hadn’t exercised, I committed to run a 52 mile ultra marathon within these two months and started training for it I wasn’t a runner, never run before that and my depression went away within a matter of you know days if not a week or so of doing this practice and I went to my wife, was actually when my I had gotten more clients or income had more than doubled in those two months and I went to her, sweetie this morning ritual is changing every it’s like a freaking miracle. And she goes it’s your miracle morning. Yeah I love it, miracle morning. So I started writing my scheduled miracle morning everyday miracle morning right. And then I taught it to my I was coaching salespeople at the time and I taught my coaching clients you know ever almost everyone was like I’m not a morning person. No, no, no neither was I neither was I just do this and this and this like watch what happens. And every single one except for one there was one that was stubborn every client came back to our next call was like oh my gosh it worked. I’m waking up early, I feel motivated I’m productive, I mean my sales are improving on and on and on. And that’s when the light bulb went off and wait a minute if this worked for me a miracle warning worked for me and I’m not a morning I wasn’t a morning person and it’s working for all of my clients who were adamant that it wouldn’t work because they weren’t worrying people the light bulb was like well this could do work for anybody. You know but when I wrote the book it was like I have to write this and and and for anyone that might read it, I never imagined it would reach millions of people that was it’s been every day I kind of been blown away by it.

Buck: That’s great great. So the new book it’s called The Miracle Equation and you know I like equations, I’m a you know math science guy as a number of our listeners and you know even with the name of my podcast Wealth Formula we have an equation for that, but obviously you know you have to define what you’re trying to achieve right. And so in this case you know that equation ultimately is what gets you to this thing called a miracle. That leads us to the question I guess you know what exactly is a miracle?

Hal: It’s important question because it’s there’s a loaded word, right a miracle has a lot of different connotations and most of them are very untrustworthy you might say right in terms of like miracles or random or they happened you know thousands of years ago but not anymore or or I have no control over a miracle you know I can i can pray or hope or whatever. Probably like you, right I’m a practical results oriented person and so my definition for miracle is a relatively practical results oriented definition. So the way I define a miracle is a miracle is any meaningful outcome that is beyond the realm of what you currently believe is probable for you so I’ll say that again, it’s a meaningful outcome that is beyond what you believe is probable for you and therefore we you achieve a set outcome right you can you could call that a goal or a dream or whatever, but it feels like a miracle because it’s so far beyond what you’ve ever done before. And if you look at the world’s most successful people in all walks of life, that’s what they do right, they’re breaking barriers there whether it’s in you know athletics professional sports the Olympics whether it’s you know an Elon Musk or Richard Branson there or or about you know Steve Jobs it’s breaking new ground, it’s doing things that are never done before. And thus you know these are meaningful outcomes that are beyond the realm of what these people have ever accomplished before and if you think about it everybody in our life we want that I don’t know anyone that doesn’t want to be able to define hey here’s what I would love to do and then just do it and few people do that and for me it’s coming through this lifetime of experience where when I was 20 years old I was hit head-on by a drunk driver died for six minutes told I would never walk again and I used The Miracle Equation to take my first step in three weeks. Then after that I went back into a sales career I tried to break this all-time record that no one in 50 years had ever done and I was able to do it in ten days. Then three years ago I was diagnosed with a really rare aggressive form of cancer I was given a ten to thirty percent chance of surviving and I turned that into a hundred percent and you know and I beat the odds and and defied the logic of doctors. And in the midst of that I had set this goal to sell a million copies of The Miracle Morning something anyone had no, and that was a miracle like I had no idea how to do that, and I ended up more than doubling it now we’re over two million copies sold. And so I don’t say any of those two you know yeah it’s like the so for me it’s I I then looked at okay what is this formula that I call The Miracle Equation I will break it down I’m sure you know it but then I started looking outside of myself and I’ve been look I mean I’ve been really I’ve been doing this for twenty years so I’ve had 20 years of not only my own experience but looking at the world’s most successful people in all walks of life and realizing that this equation which is made up of two really simple decisions relatively simple decisions but it’s every successful person on the planet virtually these are the decisions that they live by and you’re be hard-pressed to find someone that doesn’t.

Buck: So there’s an equation and so what are the variables? What equals you know what equals the miracle coming true I guess what makes the unlikely you know possible and ultimately probable?

Hal: So I always want to start with a simple short disclaimer which is that the two decisions are deceptively simple in their explanation right but they’re very rare in their execution and it’s true for most things in life you know most things in life the key to success you know if you want to be the best basketball player right you just shoot a thousand free-throws a day but most people they don’t do it they don’t just don’t do the things that are necessary. So these are deceptively simple or an explanation to where you might go okay that’s it it’s got to be it’s gotta more complicated than that but if you actually as we start to peel this back and you realize what wait a minute do I actually make those two decisions right, like I understand them they’re really relatively simple but do I make them and do I maintain them and the answer for you know I’d say 98% of us is no I don’t you know. So the first decision is unwavering faith. It’s and I don’t mean faith in a higher power not to discount that, but I’m talking about an unshakable belief in yourself and your ability and willingness to commit to do whatever it takes to achieve whatever it is that you are committed to achieving right it’s that faith in yourself and the word unwavering is really important. So let’s look at the opposite of this. If you look at think about the reason that people don’t go after big goals and dreams is they’re not able or willing to establish the faith that they can do this thing that they’ve never done before. But the world’s most successful people that they have by default they establish faith they go out on faith to do something that they’ve never done before and in the case of like an Elon Musk you know there were no electric cars right really on the road it was something that not only had he never done before it never been right but that’s that’s what innovation is right it’s stepping out on faith and doing something that’s never been done before so the first piece of it is you’ve got to establish the faith that you can do something you’ve never done and that’s the easy part right. If you’ve ever been you know you a Tony Robbins seminar or you know this is a self-help tape and you you have that what they call blind optimism right which is I can do anything so establishing the faith while it’s not a given it’s the easier part of the equation it’s the making the faith unwavering because it’s for most of us as soon as we encounter an obstacle a roadblock a setback things aren’t going as quickly as planned it’s not looking good it you know maybe we hit a wall the faith in ourselves and our ability to achieve that thing the faith goes out the window. And so that first part of the equation is establishing and maintaining unwavering faith that you can accomplish your miracle right your meaningful outcome that is beyond the realm of what you currently believe is probable for you and I’ll pause and you can if you have any thoughts or questions on that and then we can talk about the second decision.

Buck: So I think the the unwavering faith it reminds me a lot of you know sort of what you hear about what you hear about people who have done extraordinary things I mean you hear about Steve Jobs had this idea you know that he could create his reality right and he would block out the reality that was and push people into his reality and to me that that resonates of this idea of unwavering faith is that is that accurate?

Hal: Yeah well in its it absolutely is accurate and and again it seems so it seems kind of esoteric it seems kind of intangible right it’s like well yeah but how do you maintain unwavering faith so let me go really quick make it really tangible. Again this is not rocket science. When I first developed The Miracle Equation it was actually when I was 20 years old it was a year and half after my car accident and I was in a sales competition and I had looked back at my car accident and realized that these two decisions is how I was able to defy the logic of doctors and take my first step three weeks after the crash after I was found dead and after the doctor says I would never walk again. And then I decided to apply it to the sales competition and I was trying to break a record that no one had ever done before in the company’s history and once I did it it happened in kind of miraculous fashion and I started studying the world’s most successful people and going oh this is how they did it too. So the way that I did it is the way I maintained unwavering faith is I simply made a statement in writing, you could call it a mantra or an affirmation in fact in the book I you know I teach you how to how to script your miracle mantra right, but it simply said I am committed to blank write blank was the goal I was working toward so for you you fill in that blank for whatever yours is, I am committed to blank no matter what there is no other option right very simple. But what derails us is fear the fear of failure, the fear of being embarrassed, the fear of not achieving this thing, the fear of wasting our time. There’s a lot of different fears that derail us from everything that we really really want for our lives. Tnd so the secret as simple as it is right the key is you’ve got to simply have a mechanism for me it’s that written statement that I used to carry around in my pocket to override fear with faith. So whenever I would go out and I would I would be working towards this goal and I would have you know I would have a no sale or I would have a cancelled order I would have you know a day of you know where all my appointments would fall out or fall through or whatever and I would have that voice of fear which is like ah there’s no way I’m gonna reach the goal I’m not on track this is impossible there’s no point, I would pull this out of my pocket and I would simply say I am committed to achieve this goal no matter what there is no other option and I would literally say it with conviction over and over and over and over and over and over again until I picked up my phone and I called the next prospect and I did the only thing that I could do that would move me in the direction of my goal. And so that first decision unwavering faith is that’s the mindset piece and and if you looked at like the you know world champion athletes like I don’t about you but like growing up for me it was Michael Jordan right that was the world champion. I believe that at some point, I haven’t had a conversation with Michael Jordan but if you look at a Michael Jordan or LeBron James or Kobe Bryant or you know I’m picking basketball pick any that work I believe that they have an unwavering faith in the way they approach the game so most players right just like most people and in life but most players on the court even the NBA even the best players in the world, when the game is on the line, if most don’t want the ball right there there’s too much pressure they that fear of failure dominates their consciousness, or if they miss a few shots in a row the fear grows and they go oh man I missed the last two I don’t you know the ball comes and they just throw it back because they’re too afraid and I believe that the best in the world I call these miracle mavens people that that live by this equation, the best in the world with Michael Jordan misses three shots in a row while everybody else is going I missed three I’m not going to take another one, Jordan goes give me the ball I’ll make the fourth and if he shoots the fourth and he misses the fourth his faith doesn’t waver he says give me the ball and I’ve seen the Kobe’s and the Jordans and LeBrons where they have the first three quarters of the game and they suck it up and they miss every shot and they’re having the worst game ever and 99% of human beings on the planet would let fear dominate their consciousness and they would go I’m not shooting anymore and then you see these players come on in the fourth because their faith doesn’t waver and they take over the game and they win. And it’s that mindset that allows them to win in life and it’s that mindset that will allow you and I to win our lives.

Buck: And that drives the second ultimately that mindset is required to drive the second variable.

Hal: Yeah the second decision is extraordinary effort. Extraordinary effort and the term is almost a little bit deceiving because I think that it’s overwhelming somebody goes oh extraordinary effort so I got to work hard you know either either you either dismiss it cuz you go yeah of course after work hard or you dismiss it as you go I don’t really want to work hard. And it’s not about working hard to me extraordinary effort if I had to define it in in you know in a sentence, it’s consistent effort over an extended period of time right. That’s what makes it extraordinary. Most of us when that infatuation you know we make a decision a commitment to put forth the effort I’m gonna get in shape this year I’m gonna change my diet I’m gonna work hard I’m gonna write my book I’m gonna do whatever, but as soon as what I call that infatuation period wears off right then our drive for the effort is gone it’s like yeah I don’t like it.

Buck: Sort of microcosm there would be like right around now you know people have these New Year’s resolutions and they go up to a real heavy start right and then before you know it the desire is just not there anymore and it’s over.

Hal: Yeah and what happens is here’s the beauty of that you know you kind of said it a minute ago which is that first decision unwavering faith it fuels the second decision of extraordinary effort. Because when you repeat the miracle mantra as I will end by the way it’s it’s so funny the timing my daughter is a little behind in school right now and so I made a mirror I go sweetheart it hit me yesterday I was waking up in the morning and I go wait a minute why have I not taught you The Miracle Equation she’s like what mean your new book yes and I said look you’re gonna apply this to your schooling and watch what happens and she’s like okay. So I wrote out her miracle mantra I am committed to earning they’re called eagle bucks, she’s in a private school, unique thing but to be on track for where she needs to go I’m gonna earn two eagle bucks a day to achieve my goal no matter what there’s no other option and I wrote it out I had her take it to school and yesterday was the first day and I don’t know how long that and it was at the last minute but she before as soon as she finished she she got to her two Eagle bucks for the day. But so I digress a little bit it was a proud moment for dad though. But so yeah so there’s the I call this the faith effort feedback loop which is when you establish unwavering faith that you can achieve a goal and then you reinforce that faith over and over and over and over every day, you all of a sudden feel a drive to actually live in alignment with the statement that you’re making right I’m committed to achieve this goal I’m committed to follow through with this no matter what there’s no other option. And then that fuels your effort. And then once you start putting forth the effort and it’s not about working 80 hours a week it’s about doing one thing every day that moves you in the direction of your most meaningful goals dreams desires your measurable miracles if you will do one thing every day that moves you in the direction of those. And when you do that you start to feel entitled, it’s what I call in the book enlightened entitlement right. It’s not entitled that it’s just gonna fall in your lap it’s hey I’m making consistent effort every day I feel really good about that, I feel entitled to the outcome that I’m working towards because I’m doing the things that are required and then that fuels your faith because you go now you know the faith is really you go I believe it I see it I feel it I’m doing it and that fuels the effort. And so it’s this beautiful feedback loop where the faith fuels the effort and the effort fuels the faith and round around you go until you wake up one day and you go I’m on my way and then you wake up another day to go I did it, I finally did it.

Buck: So let’s talk a little bit about the establishment of the the goal or you know the miracle itself so to speak and you know you hear people talk about goals and they should be attainable you know that kind of thing and in some respects what you’re saying is you know it shouldn’t be that you’re something that necessarily that right now you think is probable or attainable. should they be attainable or should they not? What is the ultimate goal of the miracle the goal itself or is it the transformation that takes place in you as an individual when you strive for that miracle to happen?

Hal: It’s a great question and it for me I draw on wisdom that I learned from one of my mentors Jim Rohn right many years ago and to paraphrase what Jim Rohn said the purpose of a goal is not to hit the goal the purpose of a goal is what it makes of you in your pursuit of the goal right. So in other words if you set a goal a massive goal and you work towards it and you know let’s say it’s a 12-month goal in fact let me tell you a real-life story here on because I think this exemplifies and all of us answer your question but it exemplifies one of the components of The Miracle Equation which is once you once you make these two decisions and they’re not one-time decisions right these are it’s a way of life it’s it’s I’m going to every goal I set I’m going to establish faith that I can achieve it I’m gonna reinforce that faith through daily affirmations so that the faith becomes unwavering it literally becomes my consciousness it’s just how I think about everything I’m working towards through a lens of unwavering faith in my ability my commitment my resolve and then I will put forth extraordinary effort which you know in the book I break down how do you define your process and actually make it really tangible and all of that once you live this way with unwavering faith and extraordinary effort the only variable is timing meaning very often it takes longer than you think and here’s the story that exemplifies and kind of ties all this together. When I wrote my my first major book The Miracle Morning, I didn’t have a big ambition you know as I mentioned it was just really I want to change you know I feel like I have a responsibility to share this message with the world and if a few people read it or a few hundred people read it or whatever great that’s kind of what I expected. But I started getting emails from people early on saying this radically changed my life that saved my marriage got me off my depression medication and I mean really really profound results and then my responsibility grew and I went I got to think bigger like and I set a goal change 1 million lives one morning at a time and I just picked the most arbitrary time frame which is 12 months right like all this I’m gonna go I’m gonna try to sell a million copies the first year I had no idea I would do it I just decided to apply The Miracle Equation right unwavering faith extraordinary effort. And let me explain what the extraordinary effort was like. I had never done interviews on people’s podcasts at that point that first year when the book came out I did a hundred and fifty two interviews on other people’s podcasts. I didn’t have my own podcast but I launched one when the book came out I did 52 of my own podcast interviews. I traveled the country and I gave 36 speeches at companies around the country to share The Miracle Morning message. I was on 13 television talk shows including national talk show through NBC, local morning shows do you name it. I truly put forth extraordinary in everything I could I was on social media every day I mean everything I could possibly do to sell a million copies of the book which I had no idea how to do. And that year I sold it was 17,000 copies. Now if you do the math I think that’s 98.3% or some right like I mean I wasn’t even close the market on but here’s the deal. I have enough been doing The Miracle Equation I’m done afore you know at that point twelve years and I understand that the only variable is timing meaning just because didn’t happen at year one all that means is I have to keep applying The Miracle Equation it’s a way of life I have to maintain unwavering faith that I can reach a million people with The Miracle Morning book and I’ve to keep putting forth extraordinary effort and doing consistently each and every day something, I wasn’t working ten hours a day I was just doing an interviewer to it I was doing something every day to move in that direction and year two I think I sold like twenty or thirty thousand copies here too so I was still I mean I was you know I was on the like 150 year plan to reach my goal right but I stuck with the equation cuz I knew the only variable was timing. Was I discouraged? Yeah also discouraged right minutes you know it’s not fun to be so far off on your goal and not really know that’s why it’s called faith right it’s not called I know for sure if I do this I mean the goal, I don’t know I don’t know how long it’s going to take. Year three I did not hit it. Year four I did not hit it. Year six we surpassed a million copies sold of The Miracle Morning and now year seven or eight we were at two million. So it’s taken off right. Here’s the point this is maybe the greatest lesson that I’ve learned you know and I would say patience is an oversimplification of the lesson but here’s a lesson if you’re listening to this if you get nothing else get this, when you finally get to the point in your life or your business whatever you’re working towards when you find a point in your life that you’ve been working for so hard and for so long you almost never wish would have happened any sooner. Instead you look back, call it hindsight and you see that the timing and the journey including the obstacles and the setbacks and the defeats, it was all perfect. You had to go through what you went through and experience what you experienced in order to learn what you needed to learn to become the person that you needed to be to create whatever that tangible measurable miracle was and you don’t go it’s like I got to a million copies I’m like dang it why did it take me so long I’m so upset ya know I celebrated I kissed my wife I’m like in fact the fact that it took so long made it that much more meaningful, you know and so that goes back to the real purpose of a goal is eventually it’s the goal but but more than that it’s who are you becoming every day by enjoying the process by staying committed by developing the qualities and the characteristics of someone who can overcome and/or accomplish anything and everything that you commit to because you live by these two decisions.

Buck: So I’m glad you gave some example of The Miracle Morning is how you applied it you’ve applied it in you alluded to earlier a little bit about some of the health scares you’ve had in your life. How did the equation help you through that I mean I guess sort of at a more granular level?

Hal: So when I was diagnosed with cancer, well I’ll back up. So when I had the car accident I was 20 years old I was hit head-on by drunk, I broke 11 bones, I had permanent brain damage, I still obviously it’s permanent so I’m current reigning damaged my wife will vouch for that by the way but I was all don’t never walked again and I decided that I’m going to walk again but actually I let me kind of take that back, I decided there were two possibilities number one I may never walk again the doctors might be right I really don’t know right I have neither I don’t know I can’t I can’t guarantee it I have no idea right I don’t know broken my bones or I don’t know how this is gonna play out. So possibility number one is I may never walk again and I decided that if that was the case you know we’ll call that the worst-case scenario right I thought I’m not gonna let that define my emotional well-being and my quality of life so I decided and I actually told my dad I said dad if I never walked again I promise you I’ll be the happiest person that you’ve ever seen in a wheelchair because I mean if I’m in a wheelchair either way why can’t why would I let that be my excuse for a miserable existence. So if I’m in a wheelchair the rest of my life I’ll be the happiest most grateful person that I could be in a wheelchair. And I said but that’s only one possibility in my mind, I said possibility number two is I will walk again and I don’t even know if it’s possible right the doctors say it’s definitely not probable right and remember the definition of a miracle is a meaningful outcome beyond the realm of what you currently believe is probable for you right. So that was not a very probable outcome was that I was going to walk again. And I said but Dad here’s the deal I’ve accepted the worst-case scenario and I’m maintaining unwavering faith in the best-case scenario. I am praying that I’m gonna walk again everyday I’m meditating about it I’m visualizing it I’m you know all my energy my life force is going into the outcome that I really want until I’m proven otherwise right I will maintain unwavering faith for as long as I can and I’ll put for the extraordinary effort right now we get wheeled into therapy and they would do this therapy they’d move my legs and I would ask to stay longer. I would just do anything and everything I could in terms of my effort and mate and I would actively establish and reinforce that faith every day and and I you know I don’t have I mean this is anecdotal I don’t have a graph to show you how my body was healing because of my faith right and myself and my ability to heal but here’s what I have I just have what happened which is three weeks after I was found dead at the scene and I broke my pelvis in three places my femur broke in half and my thighs I broke you know all the bones my arm my eye socket was broken my ear was severed on and on. The doctors and it was a week after they had told my parents that I was in denial because I kept talking about that I was gonna walk again, the doctor said you’ve got it your son is in denial he’s gonna be in for a rude awakening when he never walks again. And a week after that conversation three weeks after the crash the doctors came in with routine x-rays and they were dumbfounded and they said we don’t know how to explain this but Hal, your body has healed to the point where we’re going to let you take your first step today in therapy. So it went from never walking again to three weeks after I was found dead and broke all my bones I took my first step and the doctors couldn’t explain it. And then so if you then fast forward so that was the first test of The Miracle Equation and that was really without me I didn’t call it that right yeah then have unknown break oh you’re enough later I wanted to break this company record and I went wait what if I established those two decisions again unwavering faith that I can do that break this record and do something that’s ever been done before and I put in the extraordinary effort regardless of my results and along the way during that that when I was trying to break the record it was the worst results I’d ever had I had no sale and a cancel it was terrible but I kept reinforcing the faith that I was committed to reach this goal no matter what and on the very last day on the very last appointment I had the largest order I had ever had in the history of my career and I broke the all-time record with literally I mean it was the last minute it was the eleventh hour. And then three years ago when I was diagnosed with this aggressive rare form of cancer you know I was 37 years old miracle equation was developing I was 25, 17 years of living this so it’s like you know if you’re hearing right now I’m sure you’re skeptical I’m sure you’re like it sounds a little woowoo I’m not really sure right. I was diagnosed with this rare and aggressive form of cancer right and this is the most this is actually why I finally wrote I wanted to write The Miracle Equation for years and when I was when I was diagnosed or when I overcame the cancer and my publisher reached out and they’re like hey do you have a book in you, I said I’ve got this book on my heart called The Miracle Equation I’ve wanted to write it for a long time it’s how I just beat this cancer I feel like now is it you know and you know and it all worked out but when I was diagnosed with cancer the cancer that I had it’s called acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the survival rate is 10 to 30 percent right. So if you’re a glass-is-half-empty person right that is I was given a 70 to 90 percent chance I was going to die and it’s a very fast-acting cancer when I went into the hospital before we even knew it was cancer my lung was collapsed my kidneys were failing and my heart was failing right, they had to go into emergency procedures for all of it and and I was days away from dying as the doctor told me on the day. That I was diagnosed I told my wife I said looked and she of course my wife was terrified yeah I was I was a little scared but I knew this miracle equation like I had lived it and I said sweetheart remember The Miracle Equation and she’s distraught in my god I don’t want to hear about your motivational bullshit like you know I said no I said this is how I’ve beat the odds over and over and over and over again and I believe I have I have unwavering faith in the equation itself right, and I said I promise you there is a in my mind there is a I know it’s a ten to thirty percent survival rate which that’s all she was fixated on of course right you know we had that time we had a seven-year-old daughter then and a four-year-old son I mean it’s the scariest thing for anybody especially you know parent with young kids. I said sweetheart forget the 10 to 30 percent I said I promise you as much as I can, I said there is a want in my mind there is a 100 percent chance that I will be in the 10 to 30 percent of people that survive this and I established my miracle mantra which you know in writing that’s how that’s how you you know when when fear creeps in you have you know written on your phone or piece of paper or whatever this mantra that reminds you and mine said I am committed to beating cancer and living to be 100 plus years old alongside my wife and kids no matter what there is no other option. And I read that I mean probably over a thousand times if not more during my cancer journey. And that allowed me to override my fear with faith and then I put forth extraordinary effort. Now my extraordinary effort was combining the best of Western medicine so I did the most intensive chemotherapy regimen in existence it was a hundred hours of chemotherapy consecutively non-stop hooked up to an IV getting four to five chemo drugs round-the-clock for four to five days. I lost 25% of my body weight every hair on my body. I was sick, I was infected, I was in the ER, I almost died multiple times. But I combined the best of Eastern medicine which most people that get cancer they just go and do their doctor says right I combined the best of Eastern medicine so the best holistic practices so I did coffee enemas I juiced every day I ate raw organic food I took 70 supplements a day I did acupuncture I did ozone sauna I did lymphatic massage I did affirmation I did a miracle morning every day right yeah I put forth extraordinary effort. And although it was the most difficult time in my life, the doctors kind of like the car accident they were blown away by how fast my body began healing, in fact I was in remission within my first month of combining the best of these practices and of course the doctors they keep you on the chemo and you go through eight months of it and it’s you know it’s it’s it’s horrific and it’s not even the cancer that’s destroying you it’s the chemo that’s destroying you right I mean that’s what’s killing you. One of my nurses very honestly said she goes you know the goal is that we kill the cancer before we kill you.

Buck: I’m curious you know before we wrap it up, I’m curious we’re now where you’re at now if you’re willing to kind of share with us how are you, what’s your current miracle? I mean you’ve accomplished a lot right now and do you have something you could share with us that you’re gonna do that you’re working on?

Hal: Yeah so the I’ve got a professional miracle which all I guess I can share that in a second but um but for me that’s on that second that’s secondary. My miracle is living in alignment with my values and and and I I got a wake-up call with cancer and then I fell backwards, meaning my wake-up call cancer is that I was a workaholic and I was sacrificing my health for productivity and achievement and impacting people in the world and I was sacrificing time of my family. In my mind I think for most entrepreneurs this is true if I say what’s the most important thing in the world if you have a family most of them go my family right whenever I give a speech I always ask the question I go if I were to look at your schedule would that be obvious and nobody’s hand goes back up right it’s like no yeah what it shows is that that’s not really what I value and I learned the hard way that that was true for me I was valuing productivity above family and health and so cancer was waiting call to that and then I got this book deal for The Miracle Equation and I was on the hook for this deadline I had to get it done and I fell back into my old workaholic you know. And about five months ago um I had what you might call a nervous breakdown I had two books in the works, I have The Miracle Morning movie as a documentary that we’re producing coming out this year, I had started building a team to change the world, I had I just I got in way over my head and then the effects of the chemotherapy accumulate on my brain and my cognitive abilities I started having anxiety and anyways I won’t go too deep but I basically I lost it and that was you know that was thankfully a reminder and a really reinforcement of the wake-up call without getting cancer again going hey buddy did you know it was a smack across, you didn’t learn your lesson and and so I decided that and I’ll leave everybody with with this um I believe that one of the most important things that we can do and this is my miracle right now it’s living in alignment with my values. I believe this is the key and I’m still understanding this and living it but I’m really I’ve really come I’m I couldn’t say I’m there. But it’s the idea that most of us don’t live in alignment with our values our highest values we tend to sacrifice health, family, freedom, happiness, joy for money, for productivity, for achievement. You know and I’ve been as guilty of that as anybody and for me I got really clear what are my highest values health family and freedom freedom to live a life that I want to live that I love to live, not on other people’s agendas but on my own. And so here’s here’s kind of a three-part framework I learned this from my coach Jeffrey Williams as we’ve been working through this value alignment, is number one know yourself. Get really clear on what your highest values are and yours might be the same health family freedom they might rent I make him change over time. Number two is love yourself. Once you know yourself and you’re clear your highest values, love yourself and that means love yourself enough to shut down everything that is conflicting with your highest values that’s not in the line with those values. So for me I let my team go because I can’t manage a group of people right now it just causes too much stres. I cancelled my live event next year, would have been our seventh year in a row. I canceled my seventh year doing my mastermind. I put my book series on hold I cancelled my largest highest paid speaking engagement ever because it was in Moscow, it would have taken me away from my family for two weeks. Radical changes like and by the way if you’re like what this might look like for somebody if you’re listening you might go well I have a job that I hate but I need to make money. So I’m sacrificing my happiness maybe my health right and maybe my family because I need to make money right. So it doesn’t mean that you rip the band-aid that you flip the switch that you go okay I’m quitting my job today but it does mean this it means that you’ve got to love yourself enough to plan your exit strategy. If you need to make money great there’s infinite ways to make money your life is too short to spend your time doing something that you hate doing that causes you stress that causes you to resent the life that you wake up and live every day. So step two is love yourself enough to shut it down. Step three is be yourself which means create a lifestyle and a schedule that is in alignment with your values so that you wake up every day and you can’t wait to live the life that you’ve designed and that might take you a year that that’s not it like I said this isn’t an overnight process, but know yourself, get alignment with your values, love yourself, shut down everything that’s not in alignment and be yourself. Create a schedule, a lifestyle that you love to live. And I honestly can’t think of any three things more important to do for us to truly live the miracle that is this life.

Buck: That is just terrific advice. The book again is called The Miracle Equation: the two decisions that move your biggest goals from possible to probable to inevitable. Obviously we can find it I’m assuming everywhere everywhere books are sold. Hal, thanks again for being on Wealth Formula Podcast.

Hal: Thanks Buck. It’s appreciated man, thank you so much.

Buck: We’ll be right back.