The Miracle Morning: Attract Success and Become the Entrepreneur You're Meant to Be with Hal Elrod

Episode 40 Hal Elrod
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Hal: [00:00:00] Part of the beauty of the miracle morning is that when you start your day with the discipline, To get out of bed and focus on your personal development, becoming a better version of who you were when you went to bed the night before.

That is starting your day with a rock solid identity. You're telling yourself, I'm disciplined, I'm committed, I'm capable. And through your savers, the miracle morning, you're putting yourself in a peak physical. Mental, emotional, and spiritual state to start your day. So you're literally showing up at your best to everything that you do.

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Allan: Welcome to the Lean Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Allan Dib and today I have a very special guest. We love to have authors on the podcast.

And today we've got a huge name. We've got Hal [00:01:00] Elrod, author of the smash hit, The Miracle Morning. Hal, welcome.

Hal: Man, I don't know about huge name, but I'll take it, Allan. Thank you.

Allan: Well, you really are as I was talking to you earlier you know, I started 2025 and during my morning routine, I thought, what would be a good book to listen to while I start my morning? And I thought I read your book many years ago, The Miracle Morning, loved it, and of course I'm loving it even more.

And you've got now the expanded edition. I think it's almost even doubled in size. There's a lot more content. There's also some narration going on. How's the new expanded and revised edition been going?

Hal: Yeah. It's been good, man. It's, you know, it's the original book came out, what are we 12 plus years ago. And uh, you know, anytime you look back at your own work, you're like, oh man it could have been better. It should have been better. Why? Like why? You know, like you're right. You cringe when you hear your voice on an old recording.

And so for me, I've always wanted to rewrite the book and update it. And then, yeah, I added two big [00:02:00] chapters, The Miracle Evening. And The Miracle Life. So it was genuinely updated. Every page was updated and then I expanded it by about 70 pages.

Allan: I love it. I love it. And so did you launch it as a new book or did

Hal: new U. S., new ISBN number. Yeah new edition. New book.

Allan: Oh, wow. So you basically had to redo it from scratch. Wow.

Hal: Yeah, absolutely.

Allan: So the thing that really fascinates me about the Miracle Morning is it's such a simple idea, you know, so it's not like, you've created some new revolutionary thing, although you put it into a simple framework that anyone can understand.

And, you know, I was thinking to myself, if someone had told me, Hey, I'm just going to write a book on creating a morning routine, I would say. Okay. And what else? Right.

Hal: Yeah,

Allan: Because it feels like, you know, well, what is there to write a book on morning routine? But you had I think what creates some of the best books out there is you had a problem yourself.

[00:03:00] And, I think our mutual friend Rory Vaden says, We're most powerfully positioned to serve the person we once were. Right. And I think that's, exactly what you've done with this book. You had been in a terrible car accident, you were debilitated. You had all sorts of issues in your life and creating a structured morning routine really turned things around for you and created the life that you wanted.

I'd love to hear a little bit about that story and maybe some of the behind the scenes that maybe we hadn't heard about in the book.

Hal: Yeah. So, I mean, the, you mentioned the car accident and that's definitely worth not glossing over. When I was 20 years old I was a sales rep for Cutco cutlery. I was one of their top sales reps and I was giving a speech at a Cutco conference and then driving home that night. My car was hit head on by a drunk driver at 112 kilometers per hour.

And I was found dead at the scene. My heart stopped. For six minutes, I spent six days in a coma. I broke 11 bones. I suffered permanent brain damage. And when I came out of the coma, the doctor said I would never [00:04:00] walk again. So it was a very traumatic experience, but I immediately, something I had learned in my sales training a year and a half prior was called the five minute rule.

And it was simply that when something goes wrong in your life, whether it's small, like having a customer cancel their subscription or their order, or, you know, a little thing, or it's a big, you're being told you're never going to walk again. I was taught to set my timer for five minutes and give myself five minutes to fully feel my emotions.

But when the timer goes off and starts beeping. I say three really liberating words, which are can't change it. I can't change what happened five minutes ago. So there's no point in wishing that I could in wishing that it didn't happen. But most of us are suffering comes from the past. Most of us are suffering over things or even in the present that we can't change in this moment.

And I learned, okay, I can't change that. I was in a car accident, but I can choose to be the happiest, most grateful I've ever been. [00:05:00] While I endure the most difficult time in my life, and I encourage anybody listening to consider that, that you can choose to be at peace with what you can't change, genuinely grateful for what you have and happy for the sake of being happy, even in the midst of the most difficult time in your life.

And I don't think it's a coincidence that the doctor came in with an x ray a week later and said, Hal, we don't know how to explain this, but your body is healing at such a rate that we're going to let you take your first step today in therapy. I know we said you'd never walk again, but three weeks after you were found dead at the scene of the car accident, we're actually going to let you take your first step in therapy and the rest.

What's kind of history as they say, and that was foundational for the miracle morning that's not what got me to create the miracle morning, but that's what got me to decide that I was going to dedicate my life to helping other people that I told my dad, I always want to be like a professional speaker ever since I started speaking at these company events for my company, me.

But I never had much to talk about. Like it was just, I've had a [00:06:00] normal life. Maybe that's why I went through this car accident so that I can overcome it and help other people overcome their challenges. And so that led to my first book led to a speaking career. It led to coaching. It led to. How can I help other people using my life experience?

And then it was, you know, almost a decade later that the miracle morning was born. And I'm happy to unpack that as well.

Allan: You know, There's essentially two groups of people people who where something terrible happens, not of their own making, you know, exactly like your situation with a drunk driver or maybe a health issue or whatever else. And that becomes a label for them.

For other people, it becomes their launch pad. It's like, you know, I'm going to use this to do whatever, to bring awareness, to change, to. Yeah. Be better than where I was before. I mean, you've seen a lot of people probably in both camps, you know, you, you've got millions of readers all over the world. what's been the thing [00:07:00] that kind of divides those two groups of people?

Hal: it's modeling, right? Meaning if the people in your life, when you were growing up, if your parents. If anybody that was close to you had a victim mindset, woe is me, why do bad things happen to me? Then that's really a learned mindset. And I was really blessed that when I was eight years old, my baby sister died in front of me.

She was 18 months, a year and a half old. And she died one morning when it was me, her, and my mom at home, she had heart failure. And within, Less than a year my mother who of course her whole world was torn apart I mean she was devastated, but in less than a year She was leading a support group for other parents who had lost children And my dad was leading a fundraiser for the hospital that cared for my sister when she was alive And so I learned from them that instead of asking, you know, why did this happen to me from a victim mindset?

It's like You might ask the same question, [00:08:00] but in a different frame, which is, why did this happen to me? What can I learn from this? How can I help others with what I've faced? How can I overcome this in a way that I can then help other people overcome their challenges? And so I was very blessed that I had learned that mindset from my parents at a young age.

And when I was in the hospital, I did ask, why did this happen to me, but not from that victim mindset. It's like, what can I do with this? How can I use this experience to grow and evolve myself and then help other people? And so I think that's it. And it's anyone, by the way, it doesn't matter what your background was when you become aware that you get to choose not what happened to you, but how you respond to it, right?

That makes a difference. And that was it. I went, okay, well, what am I going to learn from this? How am I going to grow? And how am I going to help other people?

Allan: One of my highlights from your book is you say, always remember that. Where you are is the result of who you were, but where you go depends entirely on who you choose to be from [00:09:00] this moment on. I love that. So you get to choose where you go. Maybe you can't change your past, but you get to choose where you go from here.

Hal: That's it. Yeah. And so you fast forward nine years later, 2008, it was the U. S. economic crash. The economy crashed and I crashed with it, if you will. And that's what led to the Miracle Morning. It was a six month period in my life where it was a downward spiral. I lost over half of my coaching clients because they couldn't afford to pay for the coaching because the economy had affected their Businesses and I lost my home. I went deep into debt and I really felt out of control. I thought I have lost control over my life. I can't figure out how to make money and support myself. And a good buddy of mine, John Berghoff, I called him for advice. I said, Hey man, I have not told anybody this.

I've been keeping this a secret. I mean, Ursula, my fiance at the time, I said, Ursula knows other than that, nobody knows this. I'm failing man. I don't know what to do. I'm living on credit cards. can't figure out how to turn [00:10:00] my financial situation around. And he said, I'm going to send you a Jim Rohn audio.

I want you to listen to it. This will shift your mindset and how you approach everything. I go, okay, but is it going to teach me how to make more money? He said, no, and he gave me the analogy of, you know, if you give a man to fish, he eats for a day. if you teach him how to fish, he eats for a lifetime, he goes, it's going to teach you how to fish.

It's going to teach you how to optimize your mindset every day to show up at your best so that yes, you can make more money or improve whatever area of your life you want to. I said. Fine. You know, I'm looking for the shortcut to make more money, but I'll go your route. And so I listened to this Jim Rohn audio and Jim Rohn said, there's a quote and he's very famous for this quote.

I, in fact, I had probably heard this before, but I never applied it. I never really understood it. And Jim Rohn said, and if you're listening to this right now, Allan, for all your listeners, all your viewers, like really think of how this applies to your life in the way that I did. And here's the quote. Your level of success, [00:11:00] and by the way, this is true in every area of your life, your success with your finances, your relationships, your health, your happiness, you name it.

So Jim Rohn said, your level of success will seldom exceed your level of personal development. In other words, for me, I quantified that. I went, okay, wait a minute. My level of success that I want in every area of my life is on a scale of one to 10. It's a 10. I want to be as happy and healthy and financially secure as I possibly can be.

But then I went, okay, well, if my level of personal development is at like a two or a three, which at that time, that's what I assessed it to be. This is the disconnect I believe for the majority of society is we all want level 10 results, level 10 success, level 10 fulfillment. But if we're not dedicating time each day to our personal development at a level 10 to become the person that we need to be.

That's capable of creating and sustaining the success we [00:12:00] want in every area of our life. That's the problem with most people. And for me at that time I went, I've got to figure out what the world's most successful people do for personal development. And I'm going to create the ultimate personal development daily ritual.

So that I can accelerate. How quickly I become the level 10 version of myself, if you will, so that I can create the success I want in my life. And so I Googled Allan. This wasn't fancy research. I Googled what do the world's most successful people do for personal development, and I was looking for one practice, like, give me the number one.

What's the number one thing that I could do? I couldn't get one. I had a list of six practices. It came down to meditation. Affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, and journaling, depending on whether it was a world champion athlete, or it was a millionaire, or a billionaire, or it was, you know, an author, like someone who had achieved [00:13:00] extraordinary success in their life, they attribute it to one of those six practices.

So I went, well, I don't know which one's the best, and thank God I had the epiphany, and I really do believe it was God, by the way. It was how, what if instead of picking one of these practices, what if you did all six of them? What if you woke up tomorrow a little bit earlier and you stacked the six most timeless proven personal development practices that the world's most successful people have sworn by for centuries.

Like you said, Allan, nothing was new. None of these were new practices, but according to my friend, Robert Kiyosaki, who became my friend after he read the Miracle Morning book a few times and he wrote the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, as many people know. But he said, Hal, I've been studying personal development for 29 years.

he goes, every successful person does at least one of these practices. I've never met anyone that does all six of them. And he said, and you [00:14:00] named the book correctly, the miracle morning. He said, because when I, ever since I've been doing these, and I think at that time he was doing them for like three months.

He said, I'm experiencing miracles in my health, my finances and my marriage, and I can directly correlate the transformations I've experienced in these areas to the miracle morning practices. And by the way, these are known as the savers. That's an acronym, silence, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading and scribing.

And so within two months of doing these. Six practices every day. My miracle morning, Allan, I doubled my income at the height of the great recession. So the economy continued to get worse, but because I got better, my results got better. And I went to my wife, the last part of the story, at least this version, I say, sweetheart, I just signed on two more coaching clients today.

And she didn't understand what that meant in the context of our income. She goes, great, sweetie. Congratulations. I said no. You don't [00:15:00] understand. This is the tipping point. we've now more than doubled where our income was two months ago. When I started this morning routine, it feels like a miracle. And at this time it wasn't a book idea. There was no, it didn't wasn't called the miracle morning. And she goes, So without hesitation, she, without skipping a beat, she looks at me and goes, it's your miracle morning. I go, yeah, I like that. Miracle morning. That's catchy. That's fun. So I put it in my schedule as a miracle morning every day.

And then I taught it to my coaching clients. And almost every single one of them, 13 out of 14 came to the next call after they resisted. I'm not a morning person, Hal. I'm not like, I don't know. I go, I know you're not. Neither was I. And that's a big part of why the miracle morning. Has been so impactful is it's not just the, here's what you do in the morning.

A big part of that book is holding the reader's hand to, Hey, in case you're part of the camp of, I've never been a morning person. I don't like waking up in the morning. I hit the snooze button three times. I don't know if this would work for me. It's I held [00:16:00] people's hand through the psychology and the strategy of how do you become a morning person when you've never been one.

And so anyway that's when I taught it to my coaching clients. And then I went, if it worked for them and they weren't morning people at work for me, I wasn't a morning person. There's something here. And that's why I decided to, you know, to write the miracle morning book. And it took three years.

I'm a very slow writer, but the rest is history, as they say.

Allan: That's amazing. And, you know, I have to say Jim Rohn was an an incredible influence on me. I'm very sad. I never got to meet him in

Hal: Me too.

Allan: you know, he just I must've worn out the old Jim Rohn CDs and audio books and things you know, 10 times over. So I really want to highlight that quote that you said, which is your level of success will rarely.

Exceed your level of personal development. And that is such a foundational quote. And so Jim Rohn, because one area of discipline translates to other areas of discipline. You know, when I talk to people who are hugely successful, who's kind of success I want to [00:17:00] emulate. I often ask them what their routine is, not just morning, but even daily routine.

What are they doing? What are they focusing on? And then it becomes clear. I'm like, Oh, of course, no wonder your body's in such good shape. Of course. No wonder you're so wealthy. Of course. it becomes obvious, you know, everyone wants what you have, but not many people want to do what you did to get it.

Right. So. I think that's such an important foundational thing in personal development. Now, the second half of that Jim Rohn quote is success is something you attract by becoming that person. The person you become, sorry. And you know, there's so much nonsense in laws of attraction and all of this sort of stuff.

And there, there's a quote in your book you kind of talk about that. You say, look the quote is, Ever since the best selling book and documentary, The Secret, made its way into pop culture in 2006, a method of visualization has been popularized that is both ineffective and counterproductive.

This method involves visualizing what you want for your life without visualizing yourself [00:18:00] engaged in the necessary activities to get you there. I love that. So you talk about visualization a lot, but it's not kind of the wishful, you know, I'm going to do nothing and visualize and hope that something comes into life.

It's actually visualizing. Doing the things that will help you actually attract the outcome that you want. So it's visualizing not that I'm going to sit on the couch and eat junk food and get ripped. It's visualizing, okay, I'm going to do the work that needs to be done to get that outcome, whether it's wealth, whether it's health, whether it's fitness, whether it's whatever else.

And I love that. So it's kind of not the delusional type of. Law of attraction or visualization, but it's the visualization that's actually going to help you. It's what athletes do ahead of a game where visualizing themselves winning, but doing the work that will actually help them win.

Hal: Yeah. it. Everybody watched the secret and it was like wait, so I just put pictures. I make a vision board. I just put pictures on the wall and then everything on that board magically comes [00:19:00] true. Sign me up. That's awesome. Right? Like, but there got a lot of criticism after a while.

Cause we were like, wait a minute, this didn't work. It doesn't just stuff doesn't magically come into your life. Cause you visualize it. Now I will say this there's. Two parts to making visualization effective and the first part is in alignment with Visualizing the ideal outcome right so when you see yourself We'll use the athletic example you gave right if you visualize yourself achieving the outcome such as winning the Championship or living in your dream home or meeting your partner for me the first time I use visualization effectively It was to train for a 52 mile ultra marathon.

I had never run before in my life, and I had all sorts of limiting beliefs and just almost hate for running. I didn't like running, but I wanted to do this to support my friend's charity. And so, I would visualize crossing the finish line of the marathon, and I actually googled Atlantic City [00:20:00] Marathon, the actual marathon I'm running.

I Googled Atlantic city marathon finish line. So I actually had a picture of the finish line where I'd be crossing it. So it was very real and I would look at it and I would close my eyes and I would imagine crossing that finish line. And then the most important part of visualization is generating the emotions that are so compelling that you fuel your desire to do whatever it takes to make that vision a reality.

So this is the first part of visualization, but to me, it's the less important part, but yes, spend, and that's like 60 seconds. We're not taking time. I mean, we're talking a minute. Okay. Visualize yourself achieving the goal. What will that feel like? Smile, embody those emotions. Okay, great. Now you're motivated by that vision.

However, the second part of visualization, and I call this is miracle morning visualization is what I call mental rehearsal and I didn't, I didn't of course invent those two words, [00:21:00] but and I spend a good three, four minutes on this part of the visualization. So maybe one minute on the outcome. But then it's mentally rehearsing myself doing the things that I need to do today that will move me in the direction of that outcome.

So when I was training for that ultra marathon, I'd spend a minute visualizing the finish line. Great. Now I'm motivated. I'm excited. I want to make it a reality. But then I would literally, I'd keep my eyes closed and I would visualize the timer on my cell phone going off at 7 a. m. on my coffee table in front of me where it was literally sitting while I was visualizing at 7 a.

m. I had a timer set to go for the run to go train and I'd visualize the timer going off. Then I'd visualize. Reaching down with my hand, picking up the phone, walking into my bedroom, getting dressed in my running clothes. So again, I'm vividly, I'm not skipping it. I'm visualizing like, like somebody were following me with a video camera or looking through [00:22:00] my eyes.

And seeing this whole pattern, then I would go out my front door, open the front door, see the sidewalk one more time, I would recite the affirmations that I had just read, right? The A in Savers is affirmations. The V is visualization. So I had just affirmed, I am committed to running 52 miles on October 29th, 2009.

No matter what, there is no other option. This is a must for me because I want to develop the ability to follow through with anything so that I can achieve every goal I set for the rest of my life. That was my why. And to follow through with this commitment, I will read the book, the non runners marathon trainer.

And by the way, reading is the RN saver. So that's the book I was reading during this time and I will follow the training plan to a T every day, whether I feel like it or not. [00:23:00] Okay. So I had just recited those affirmations. I had read them off a piece of paper five minutes ago. Now I'm visualizing. That outcome that I had just affirmed now.

I'm mentally rehearsing doing the thing that's required today That will generate the outcome a few months from now You and if you're actually paying attention, you're seeing how the savers all work together to amplify your ability to achieve whatever outcomes you're focusing the savers on My first outcome was doubling my income.

I did it in two months. My second outcome was training for an ultra marathon when I had never run before. And because of this visualization, I would then, when the timer went off on my phone at 7am, instead of procrastinating and going, Yeah, I'll just run tomorrow. I don't feel like it. Which is human nature and we all do that.

But that, Allan, is not what I mentally rehearsed that morning. It's not what I visualized. So when the alarm [00:24:00] went off my phone at 7 a. m., it's like I was a robot. I would pick it up, turn it off, get up, go into my bedroom, get dressed, go out the front door, open the door, see the sidewalk. Those affirmations would come back into my consciousness.

I would say them one more time in real life. I'd get myself fired up and I'd go for that run. And six months of that process. And I completed 52 miles on that day. and I'm going in detail right now. Cause I don't want to just tell someone like here, you should visualize, like I'm literally, I'm coaching, I'm walking you through.

This is exactly how you do your affirmations. This is exactly how you visualize so that you can apply it to your life after the uh, you know, the podcast.

Allan: yeah, if you had have asked me five years ago. Are you a morning person? I would have sworn black and blue No, I'm not a morning person. I love staying up late all of this sort of stuff and truthfully I still actually do love staying up late, but I hate how it feels in the morning It feels like a hangover.

[00:25:00] It feels like I've wasted half my day. and so Just leaning into hey if I stay up long past, you know, 10 p. m. or so, that's going to ruin the next day. And that is just not a price I'm willing to pay. And I think the two things that have really helped me push through.

Some of the, my biggest roadblocks were in achieving my goals is number one, identity. So, you know, identifying as, Hey, I am a morning person or identifying, Hey, I am an athlete or identifying as, Hey, I'm a writer. And so what does an athlete do every day? They train. What does a writer do every day? Uh, uh, Writer rights, you know, so, really the power of leaning into identity.

And the second part was, and I think I heard this from Mel Robbins, and she said, never let how you feel dictate what you do. And you know, there are some days where I'm like. Training is the last thing I want to do today. I'm just, I'm either tired or didn't sleep well or whatever and, I always think of that, [00:26:00] never let how you feel dictate what you do because your emotions are kind of like you know, just a little child, like a little child will have ice cream for breakfast if you allow them, right.

So, and they'll, they won't do sensible stuff. So in a similar way, you've kind of got to discipline that in a little child that's you know, directing you to do just whatever feels good in the moment, but doesn't feel good in the longer term, whether that's. Sleeping in late, whether that's, you know, eating poorly, whether that's not moving your body in the right way.

So those two things have been so helpful to me to really turn around some of my mindset around, you know, who I see myself as, but also not letting how I feel dictate what I do.

Hal: Yeah, I love both of those. And there's two affirmations. One affirmation for me that I think is the most fundamental affirmation and around you talking about identity. And the affirmation is I am just as worthy, deserving, and capable of achieving everything I want in my life [00:27:00] as any other person on earth.

And I will prove it today with my actions, which is, I added that last part after I wrote the original affirmation. To really gut check it. Like, but the point is we all deal with this insecurities and fears and imposter syndrome and also I call it in the book, rear view mirror syndrome. Which is the idea that we check the rear view mirror whenever we're presented with a new opportunity or a new challenge.

So a new opportunity, you go, an opportunity could be an idea, right? If you have an idea of, Ooh, I have an idea of what I want to do with my life. Well, that's an opportunity. And then you check the rear view and you go, Ah, I've never done anything like this. Who am I to think that I could even accomplish something like that, or write this book, or do this thing, or be successful?

And, so for me, the most fundamental affirmation is to remind you that, hey ho! there is not a human being on the planet that is more worthy, deserving, We're capable than you are. And so again, affirming every day, I am just as worthy, [00:28:00] deserving, and capable of achieving everything I want in my life as any other person on earth.

And I will prove it today with my actions, and by the way, intellectualize this. Inherently, we were all born with no skills and no connections and no knowledge and no experience. So we were born inherently as worthy as any other person on the planet. And the other part of that affirmation is a belief to me that Anything another human being has done is evidence of what we're capable of, what's possible for us.

And humans, we often don't look at it that way. We create a separation like, Oh, they're different than me. They're better than me. They have more skills, resources, experience, connections, yada, yada, yada. We find reasons to put people on a pedestal and lower ourselves when the reality is you go, Oh, they're a human being that was born in diapers and did not even walk.

And they figured out how to get to that [00:29:00] level. Oh, that means I can too. I can too. It's possible for me. So that's that first piece to handle the identity piece to identify that you are extraordinary. maybe you haven't lived it yet. But you are just as worthy, deserving and capable of as any other person on the planet of everything you want in life.

And the second piece you really spoke well to

so I have a quote in the miracle morning that says those who only do what they feel like don't do much, right? And here's why, though, if you understand human nature. is to take the path of least resistance. We will always do what's easier. And I think about like our society today, every, it's like, you got to be disciplined.

You got to work hard. You got to hustle. You got to be the best. Think about our ancestors. If you go back, You know, and I'm not an expert in anthropology or anything, but if you go back into like caveman times, we'll say hunter gatherer times. Let's just say [00:30:00] hunter gatherer times like you think about it.

There were no leader boards, right? The hunters hunted when they had to, and then they whatever meat they killed. Then they sat back and they were lazy. They just relaxed and did the minimum they had to do while they enjoyed the fruits of their labor. Right? And then, when they ran out of meat, maybe that was a month later, I don't know.

Then they're like, oh man, we gotta get up and we gotta do it. So think about that. We are programmed at a sub prime, as a primal level, to do the minimum that we need to do to survive. So if you understand that and you go, okay, I don't want to only survive though. I actually want to thrive. Then it is a matter of listening to Mel's advice and never letting how you feel determine what you do.

And for me, that's part of the reason for the miracle morning is that when people wake up in the morning, they very often feel like continuing to stay in bed, [00:31:00] right? An object at rest stays at rest. And it's like, Oh no, it's time to get up. I just want to hit the snooze button. I want to lay here.

Think about what you're doing. You're literally telling the universe and your subconscious and your body. I know. I say, I want an extraordinary life. I know. I say, I want to be successful. and right now I'm faced with this opportunity. I could wake up, I could learn, grow, improve, take on my goals. But I'd rather just lay here unconscious for nine more minutes, you know, snooze, right?

Think about that. And so you're literally reinforcing an identity that says, I don't even have the discipline to get out of bed in the morning and take on my dreams, let alone do all the other things. So you're starting your day in a deficit. Part of the beauty of the miracle morning is that when you start your day with the discipline, To get out of bed and focus [00:32:00] on your personal development, becoming a better version of who you were when you went to bed the night before.

That is starting your day with a rock solid identity. You're telling yourself, I'm disciplined, I'm committed, I'm capable. And through your savers, the miracle morning, you're putting yourself in a peak physical. Mental, emotional, and spiritual state to start your day. So you're literally showing up at your best to everything that you do.

And for me, the miracle morning helps me be the dad that my kids deserve. The husband that my wife deserves. The entrepreneur that I'm committed to being to make the impact and generate the income that I want, right? Like everything that I do in my life. It's better when I do my miracle morning.

Allan: I couldn't agree more. I mean, my morning routine, my miracle morning has been absolutely foundational to, to my success. And, [00:33:00] you know, the moment I started waking up early, having a. A structured routine that was focused on personal development that was focused on really getting, framing my day. I mean, it changes everything else in your day.

You know, if you, like you say, if you start your day with a snooze button, you started late, everything's now an emergency, you know, you've got. Beeps and things coming on your phone or whatever else. And now you're reactive. Whereas you started early, you focused on yourself. You focused on some personal development, whether it's reading, exercise, whatever else.

Now that's framed your day in a completely different way. So I couldn't agree more. I'd like to switch gears for a moment. You've built this incredible ecosystem around. So you've got an app, you've got a movie, right? Let's say, I mean, it's the first time I've heard of an author, a nonfiction author, have a movie based on their book.

And so I would love to hear a lot more about that because there are a lot of people listening who are entrepreneurs who maybe [00:34:00] have written a book or want to write a book as well. And. Just understanding the whole ecosystem around the Miracle Morning. I would love to, to hear a little bit more about that, Hal.

Hal: Yeah, so when I self published the miracle morning in 2012, because I was an unknown author. I didn't have a big email list. Nobody knew who I was. So I was like, all right, I guess I'm going to self publish this thing. Cause I don't really have any leverage to get a good publishing deal. So I self published it with the commitment that I have it.

I'm committed to share this book until I've sold a million copies. And I tried to do that year one. And I was 987, 000 copies short. So let that be encouragement to anybody listening. That's like, man, things aren't happening as fast as I want them to in my business. Join the club. Right? So, I was definitely discouraged, but I was like, all right, I guess one year was an unrealistic goal.

I only sold 13, 000 of those million, but I'm going to do it. If it takes me the rest of my life, I'm committed. Cause I, and that's part of, I think what's important is. I was like, I believe in this miracle morning practice so much because I've seen how it transformed my life and the [00:35:00] lives of virtually every person I've taught it to.

So that's an important piece. It's like I wasn't doing it to make money. I was doing it because I felt a sense of responsibility to share the practice that had transformed my life. With other people, so, the book comes out and then I wanted, I was a speaker for like high schools and colleges, but I use the book.

I wrote stories in the book for the very few companies I had spoken for and, you know, kind of focused on those stories to make it sound like I spoke to lots of companies. I wasn't dishonest, but I just was like, yeah, when I was speaking to, you know, this company and then that company and then this other company, and that was the only companies I ever spoke for, but it sounded like I spoke a lot.

So that launched my keynote speaking career. So I started getting booked to speak. Then I was scared to quote, I was like 5, 000. And then once I got 5, 000, the next one was I quoted 7, 500 and then I quoted 10, 000 and eventually it got up to, you know, 30 and then 40, 000 per speak over a 10 year period.

I kept quoting, you [00:36:00] know, raising the fee. So that became a big, that's my favorite thing that I do of everything in my business. All my businesses, it's getting on stages and sharing the miracle morning with passion and excitement, all of that. so I've got the miracle morning book. Then I launched keynote speaking after that.

Then I launched a podcast right around the same time. I have a podcast called the achieve your goals podcast. And it's a weekly podcast and that's done. You know, it's done. We have 13 million downloads. It's done well. But that was my way of adding value to my email list that was building from the book because I didn't have any, I didn't want to blog every week.

That was so much writing. So I launched a podcast just to serve my audience. So that's been going on for, you know, 10 plus 12 years. So there's that. And then if you look behind me for watching the video I've written over a dozen books in the miracle morning series. And to understand this is important.

I met a fellow author. Her name is Honoré Corder. She wrote a book called Vision to Reality amongst probably a dozen or more books that she's written. I think she's [00:37:00] written 20 books. and her and I partnered on the Miracle Morning book series where she would help me. I would meet people that could co author a book like Cameron Herold co authored the Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs.

Who else has written books in the series? I met a top network marketer, Pat Petrini, who coauthored the miracle morning for network marketers, top real estate trainer that coauthored the miracle morning for real estate agents. So we've got a dozen books in the series and I'd meet the author.

Then I created a template and then I would connect him with honorary and she would manage the project until the book was written. So over a dozen books were written, but I just created the template. I didn't have to write those books. The coauthors used my template and added their own. content so that we published a dozen bestselling books in that way.

Then we launched a live event every year called the best year ever blueprint. We read that for six years until COVID hit, and then we never brought it back after COVID, but I'm, I'll probably at some point in the near future, maybe in 2026, [00:38:00] start doing live events again, we launched a mastermind off the back of that live event that we sold at the live events and an annual mastermind.

Same thing. We haven't done that since. So that was the ecosystem up until 2020 hit

Allan: So I noticed that you had a lot of these niche versions of the book, you know, for real estate agents, for network marketers, and all of those things, the surprising thing that I saw is how highly rated they were because I've seen other authors do the same thing where they've done whatever their bestselling book, and then they've done the niche additions and the niche additions are usually terribly rated.

They're usually written by somebody else. Or maybe I think the author has some sort of input or whatever, but usually they're terribly rated on Amazon and yours are all fantastically rated. So, I'd love to know a little bit more about how you achieved that, where you got the niche editions of your book and they're still really good.

Hal: Yeah. They're rated high. They all average 4. 9 out of five stars and the miracle morning is [00:39:00] like 4. 6. So they're actually rated better than the original book, which is interesting. But Yeah, I'm glad you asked me that. I've never been asked that before, but because it was such a, I was so scared of that because to your point, I looked at like Michael Gerber and chickens like that all the other book and I'm like, okay, I'm like, oh man, all their book a.

They don't sell very many copies. I'm looking at their ranking on Amazon. Like, oh, they're not selling a lot of copies and they're not ranked very well. And I'm like, I was so, you know, I'm always just so obsessive about like, I want to deliver a great product for somebody. Right. So

how do I put enough of the miracle morning in these books so that someone who's never read the original and this is their first introduction, they actually will learn and implement the miracle morning, right? Cause it's one thing if they just read about it and like, you know, how are they going to actually stick with it?

And how am I going to put enough new content so that they don't feel like this, each book, just a rip off. Like, Oh, they just changed the name person to the name real estate [00:40:00] agent. And then they changed it to, you know, so here's where we landed. I created a template, which is for the first four chapters.

Sum up the entire original miracle morning book. I asked myself, what is the pillar content that leads someone from? I'm not a morning person. I don't know if this would work for me. I'm committed to a miracle morning 30 day challenge. What's the pillar content that they need? And then I created lots of blanks in there, which are like miracle morning affirmations are transformative for blank.

Real estate agents because blank. And it was up to my coauthor to read the original miracle morning book implemented in their life. So they had an understanding as a real estate trainer. Okay. Why are affirmations important? So the entire four chapters were very tailored. To the niche and then the next six chapters were [00:41:00] completely fresh content based on the expertise of that niche from that author.

So that was the formula and you know, when I made it, I was like, Oh gosh, I hope this works. and yeah, I was very, I've been very happy that that people really get a lot out of the series books.

Allan: And so you had a professional writer kind of do help them put all that together. So it

Hal: No, they did it. so I wrote the template myself. And then I sent them the template and then they wrote the rest of the book. And if they, you know, if they wanted to hire a ghostwriter, which a couple of them, I think, use a ghostwriter, right? That was up to them, but most of them wrote the book themselves.

And then they sent it to me and I would give feedback and so would Honoré. We would kind of collaborate and you know, that kind of thing.

Allan: Well, you've certainly done very well. I mean, you've cracked a big problem in that space. And you know, I've had many people approach me say, Hey, I want to do a version of the one page marketing plan for real estate, for medical, for whatever. And, you know, a lot of these other books having done that and just rated [00:42:00] so poorly, I thought it just wasn't worth the risk.

But you've cracked that problem very well. So well done to you.

Hal: Yeah. Thank you. I, like I said, I, you know, I it's I don't know how to take credit for it. It's my honoree that helped me and, you know, coauthors like. But yeah I'm very pleased cause I was so, I, you know, you're always afraid, you know, you're an author when you put a book out, you're like, oh my gosh, now I'm out of, I have no control.

What if people hate it? Right? Like, so I was really concerned and I'm very pleased. It turned out good.

Allan: that's great. That's great. And then the rest of the ecosystem. So you've got the movie, you've got the app. How did that come about?

Hal: so my good friend, Nick Conadera is a filmmaker and he called me in 2015, I think. And he said, hey man I'm looking at the miracle morning Facebook group, which back then was probably a few tens of thousands of people.

Now it's hundreds of thousands, but he said, the stories in here are unbelievable. Like, are you prompting people to give like these testimonial stories? I go, dude, no, those are totally organic. People are basically [00:43:00] sharing how I started the miracle morning 30 days ago. And my life has transformed in this remarkable way.

And it was like day after day. And he goes, we should make a documentary about how you're on this mission to change millions of lives and your travel. I was about to go to Paris, which he came with me to share the miracle morning with my French audience. The book is in 42 languages.

So there were all these, you know, different audiences around the world. And I said, Nick, I love the idea, but man, I'm so busy. I can't even think about making a movie. And so he finally, after pestering me for months, he convinced me to start making the movie. And then we ended up featuring not just me and people that were reading the book and transforming their lives.

But we wanted to interview well known thought leaders and athletes and people that were sharing how their morning routine had transformed their life. So Mel Robbins is in the miracle morning movie, Robert Kiyosaki, Lewis Howes world champion boxer, Layla Ali, Muhammad Ali's daughter, and about [00:44:00] 15 more.

And so the, and then the crazy part is without going into too much detail. Halfway through filming, I was diagnosed with a very rare and aggressive form of cancer. And I was given a 30 percent chance of surviving. And I called Nick and said, Hey man, the movie's on hold. I have to fight for my life right now for my family.

And we had a long conversation and it ended with him saying, Hal, this is the movie now. I would love to film you beating cancer. And it will inspire millions of people to overcome their, you know, challenges. And I said, let me talk to my wife. We weren't planning on having a film crew here while I go through the most difficult, scary time in my life.

But thank God he did. Cause when you watch the miracle morning movie and you get a miracle morning. com, you can watch it for free. But when you watch the miracle morning movie halfway through, you're watching this amazing documentary with all these famous people and my story and all these people with their lives transformed.

And then you see me doing a selfie video in a hospital gown and they can't tell what's wrong with me. And the [00:45:00] last part of the movie, the last 30 minutes, is me fighting for my life, using the miracle morning to doing my affirmations and reading books on how to beat cancer and like, So it was a very real, you know, traumatic experience captured on film.

And then the last thing is the app, which that came out a few years ago. And that's the number one thing, even it's not ahead of the books, but it has a 4. 9 out of five star rating in the app store, Allan. And did about a million dollars in revenue this past year.

It's third year and it's just on this trajectory that's to the moon. The way our head of app development, Josh explains it. He goes, how the miracle morning teaches you how to do the miracle morning. And most people, you know, like they can do it on their own or some people. He said, but the app, literally you hit play and it guides you through a miracle morning in as little as six minutes.

And there's hundreds of versions in the app. So, you know, there's the movie, the app, the books, the whole ecosystem, the podcast, [00:46:00] you know, all of that.

Allan: Amazing. one of the things I wanted to understand was, so you said in the first year it sold maybe 13, 000 copies or so, which, you know, I mean, it's, that's not a smash hit, but that's pretty good. I mean, most books never sell more than a few thousand copies, but it's nowhere near the smash hit it was.

When, like, did you have like a very sharp increase at one stage, or was it just a trickle of success? How did it go from kind of being okay, doing okay to the phenomenon it is today?

Hal: Yeah. so I wrote a follow up book to the miracle morning called the miracle equation. And the irony is the book came after, but the strategy came before. and so the miracle equation is if you study the world's most successful people, there are two decisions that they make over and over again, that the average person does not make.

And Allan, without even asking you, I can tell you, you've made these decisions over and over again. The first decision is unwavering [00:47:00] faith in order to achieve something you've never achieved before, which for all of us is everything we've ever achieved. We have to do it. We have to step out on faith that we can do the thing we've never done.

And most people, if you go to a, you know, a motivational seminar, you read a book, you're like, okay, I can do it. I have faith as soon as you hit a roadblock or an obstacle or you fail, then. The faith goes out the window and you're like nevermind. I tried. Nevermind. And you go back to playing small.

The second decision is extraordinary effort. And that doesn't mean that you're working 60, 80 hours a week. It means that you're doing one thing every day that moves you one step closer to your goals, to your vision, right? So those two decisions, unwavering faith and extraordinary effort. Or how I took on the Miracle Morning and the way that looked year one, I did everything in my power to sell a million copies.

I was on 152 I gave dozens of speeches, 36 speeches [00:48:00] across the country, all of them sharing the Miracle Morning. I paid money. I didn't even have on a credit card to get on 13 morning TV shows. I did everything I could to sell a million copies. And I, I failed miserably, right? So year two, unwavering faith, no matter how long it took, an extraordinary effort.

I was on another hundred and, you know, something podcast, right? On and on. And so, I have a graph that shows this flatline, right? It's this gradual upgrade. And after a year and a half of doing podcasts, I finally got on a big enough show to move the needle. I got invited on to Pat Flynn's Smart Passive Income podcast.

And Pat said, Hal, I'm not a morning person, I'm a night owl. So tell me why I should even consider doing a miracle morning. And I'm like, crap, how am I going to convince this super successful guy that he should flip around from night time productivity to morning? And by the end he goes, Hal, you've [00:49:00] convinced me to give it a try for 30 days.

I'm going to commit right now in front to my listeners and I will, I'll track it on social media. He said, I'm going to commit to do the miracle morning for 30 days and I'll let you know what happens. he and I became friends after that because the miracle morning changed his life. He's in the miracle morning movie.

But here's the point in terms of results, when that podcast episode came out, we had been averaging 2000 book sales a month, which by the way, went from the first month. It was 300. So, you know, it was this gradual climb a year and a half to 2000 a month. Pat Flynn's podcast episode took us from 2, 000 a month to 5, 000 a month instantly.

And it, it never dropped below that in 15 years. No, that's not true. Eventually I think we hit some down spots, but it ended up going up to 10, 000 copies in a month, 18, 000 copies in a month. And along that journey I met. Mike Koenigs, who introduced me to his agent, who got the Miracle Morning published in 42 other countries, and it [00:50:00] became the number one bestselling book in Brazil, out of every single book in the country.

Number one in Korea, out of every single book in the country. Number six in France. Number six in the UK, right? So here's my point in sharing that, Allan, if I had done what 90 percent of authors do or 90 percent of humans, which is like, man, I tried, I gave it my best effort for a year, but I failed miserably.

Now I'm going to go figure out something else to do. No, I committed to keep sharing the miracle morning 1 million copies. Even if it took the rest of my life. So that begs the question, what do you believe in enough? What do you want to share with people, your product, your service?

What do you believe in enough that you're willing to commit the rest of your life? To reach 1 million or 10, whatever it is for you, because that's the secret. If I hadn't have kept [00:51:00] going, I wouldn't have gotten on Pat Flynn's podcast. And if I hadn't have kept going, I wouldn't have met the guy at the entrepreneurial dinner that led to the introduction that led to 42 different languages around the world.

So that's why I mentioned the miracle equation, because it was the maintaining of unwavering faith. That I could reach that seemingly impossible goal. And it was the commitment to extraordinary effort, consistent daily effort, no matter what my results were, that led to every opportunity over the course of the last 15 years.

Allan: that's so cool, man you have got me fired up. I'm going to have to end this podcast because I am just fired up. I'm in Australia, so it's morning I've done my morning routine and I'm fired up to get cracking for the day. How, thank you so much.

You've been so generous with your time. Thank you for the mission that you've created and everything that you do. What's the best way for someone to get in contact with you? Where do you want us to direct people? And we'll link to

Hal: MiracleMorning. com is the [00:52:00] hub. I mean, you can go to the app store and download the Miracle Morning app or the Google play store. You can go straight to Amazon. You know, you can buy the book. Of course you can go to YouTube and watch the movie, but if you go to MiracleMorning. com, that's the hub for everything Miracle Morning related.

Allan: Amazing. Thank you so much, Hal.

Hal: Thanks Allan. Appreciate you brother.