Interviewer: Boom, shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here with an audio master class with a dear friend of mine, Hal Elrod of The Miracle Morning, and today’s audio master class is going to be The Miracle Equation: The Two Decisions that Move your Biggest Goals from Possible to Probable to Inevitable, and we're going to be dropping value bombs all episode long, Fire Nation. So who's Hal? Well, he's impacted millions of lives through his books, and he is on a mission to elevate the consciousness of humanity. He's here today to talk about his new book, The Miracle Equation, and, of course, drop value bombs on moving your biggest goals from possible to probable to inevitable.

You're not going to want to miss this, Fire Nation. So we will kick right in when we get back from thanking our sponsor. Hal, say ‘What's up?’ to Fire Nation and share something interesting about yourself that most people don't know.

Hal: Fire Nation, what's going on? It’s good to be back. I'm a huge fan and friend of JLD, and therefore, Fire Nation, and something that a lot of people don't know about me is that growing up, I was – bullied is part of it, but I never quite felt like one of the cool kids, and what I've realized in the last few months – so this is actually – not only do most people not know this about me, JLD, but I didn't know this about myself for the first 39 years of my life until a few months ago.

And I basically realized that, and I think for a lot of us this is true, but in my brain, my subconscious, I'm still living from this place of being this kid, this high school student trying to fit in, wanting to be liked by other people, and what it carries is all sorts of fears and insecurities around engaging with people that I'm trying to connect with. And I’ll share a lesson out of this, but part of the journey for all of us is that who we have been our entire lives doesn't have to confine us nor define us, and we can choose to become anyone, anything, right? Any beliefs that we want to embody we can take on, and for me, I do that through daily affirmation.

So I have a whole process where, every night, I do my miracle evening, and I reflect and I write down breakthroughs, like what are some of the limiting beliefs that I'm still carrying with me? And I do this around money, and my marriage, and my kids, and my fitness, every area of my life. Every night, I'm asking what are the limitations I'm still sticking to, and then I journal that, and then in the morning, I reread them, revisit them, and then form it into an affirmation so I can read it over and over and recondition my mind.

So yes, a lot of people probably don’t realize that I have all these fears and insecurities, and I think that many of us, myself included, the world's most successful people, they appear on their podcast or on television, like, they appear like they they're so confident, they're so poised, they're so well-spoken, they've got it all figured out, and I think it's valuable for us to realize that a.) As human beings we all – before a celebrity goes on The Today Show, they're still probably nervous, right? What if they mess up? What if they don't get the message across? What if they don’t promote their new movie the right way?

And to realize that our fears and our insecurities we share as human beings, but we do not and should not allow our fears and insecurities to determine what we do or don't do. So it goes back to the old adage, ‘Feel the fear and do it anyway.’ So there's a long answer to your question.

Interviewer: Well, Fire Nation, you can tell this episode is going to be straight fire. I mean, Hal Elrod can't not help just delivering incredible value with basically every other word that comes out of his mouth, and sometimes every single word. And if you’re recognizing his voice, that doesn't really shock me, because he's everywhere. He's runs conferences, he has The Miracle Morning, and a ton of other books and things that he’s doing right now.

And of course, we talked about The Miracle Equation in the introduction, which we’ll be diving more into, but he was also on Episode 589 and Episode 1,176, and now, Hal, we are well past episode 2,100 on our Entrepreneurs on Fire, so it's been over 1,000 episodes, so it’s about time we got you back on, my man. I'm glad to have you back. It's great to hear your voice, to have conversations with you, because we’re gonna be talking about The Miracle Equation, the two decisions that move your biggest goals from possible, Fire Nation, to probable, to inevitable.

So I'm excited for this conversation all the way through. But Hal, let’s start at the core. You learned an incredibly valuable lesson from not just one, but two near-death experiences, so break those down for Fire Nation.

Hal: Yeah, a big lesson, and obviously, we’re going to dive into the more tangible, practical, applicable lessons, but I think that it starts from the 30,000-foot view. And the lesson I learned is that every single one of us has the ability to create tangible, measurable miracles in our lives, and going back to my first near-death experience, I was 20 years old. I was driving home in from giving a speech at a conference, and I was hit head-on by a drunk driver at 70 miles an hour. I, being my Ford Mustang, was hit head-on by a full-size Chevy truck going 70 to 80 miles an hour on the freeway.

I bounced off the drunk driver, and another car crashed into my driver’s side door at 70 miles an hour and smashed my car into my body and broke 11 bones. I died for six minutes, in a coma for six days, and when I came out of the coma, I was faced with the most unimaginable reality. If you're listening, right, you can imagine like you wake up and you’re like, why am I in this hospital? What happened? Why am I in pain? They were like, ‘You have 11 broken bones, you have permanent brain damage, you're probably never going to walk again, you’ll be in a wheelchair for the rest of your life.’ And at any age, that's not easy to hear; at age 20 I'm thinking I’ve got a lot of goals that involve walking again.

Any time in life we're faced with, whether it's a challenge or an opportunity, those are the defining moments, the moments of decision. How will I respond to this challenge? Am I going to overcome it? Is it going to beat me? Am I gonna let it discourage me? Is it going to make me stronger? So you can kind of separate in life there’s challenges and there's opportunities, and when we're faced with an opportunity, which, the beauty of it is, every day we wake up, and this is where this episode will end up is, when you wake up, that's life's greatest gift.

It's an opportunity for you to have, to be, to create anything that you want for your life, and yet most of us wake up, and every day, life stays pretty much the same, right, JLD? We go through the motions and we go to work and we go home and we watch the same Netflix shows, right? Life stays the same. And I really want to challenge you, by the end of the episode today, my challenge, my opportunity I'm going challenge you with is getting really clear on what does the most extraordinary life you can imagine look like? What do you really want for your life?

And through the course of our master class today, we're going to figure out what's holding you back from that and what are the decisions that you need to make by the end of today, right, 30 minutes from now, that will radically transform how you show up, and how you approach, and what you accomplish in your life.

So the biggest lesson is that we all have the ability to create tangible, measurable miracles in our lives, and when I took my first step three weeks later, applying the two decisions that we’re going to talk about today that make up The Miracle Equation, but I took my first step three weeks later, I went on to run an ultra marathon, even though they said I’d never walk again, all of these things. And then two years ago, I was diagnosed with a really rare and aggressive form of leukemia. I was given a 30 percent chance of surviving, which I say now as kind of a joke, but seriously, if you’re a pessimist, that’s a 70 percent chance you’re going to die.

And I have a wife, I have two small kids, not that that makes dying any worse for me than somebody else, but for me personally, leaving my wife and kids behind was the most terrifying thing in my life. I actually could die and be at peace and be okay with it, but the impact that would have on my family was and is, that’s kind of my worst nightmare, if you will. And when I was given a 30 percent chance of living, I had to go back into my toolkit. And you can imagine, if you’re diagnosed with cancer and you’re given a 30 percent chance to live, you go back and your brain starts scanning, like, what do I do? What do I do? Right? How am I going to beat this?

And this thing called The Miracle Equation that I created when I was 20 years old to break a sales record, we’ll go more into the details, but that was how I defied the odds. It was something that I had talked to other people, and it worked for every single one of them. I had studied the world's most successful people in all walks of life, and found these two decisions were common for all of them. And almost immediately, it was the day that I was diagnosed with cancer, I went, the way that I'm going to turn this 30 percent chance of surviving into a 100 percent chance of surviving is through this Miracle Equation.

And it's the same thing that allowed me to walk again, and it's the same thing that allowed me to sell a million Miracle Morning copies. Anything that people have done that's really extraordinary, you find that there's these common themes, these common decisions that they make, and I'm grateful to say I am now cancer-free, and it just has shown that no matter what you're going through in your life, no matter where you are, if you're succeeding beyond your wildest dreams, or if you're not, if you're if you're struggling right now to find your way, we all have the ability to create these tangible, measurable miracles.

And I’ll define what a miracle here is in in a few minutes, we’ll get into that, but it starts with you realizing, deciding, being empowered, right? That you are in control of your life and your destiny, and drawing your line in the sand and saying, all right, this is what I want, and I'm going to figure out how to get there.

Interviewer: So, Fire Nation, as Hal mentioned, we are going to redefine that word, ‘miracle’, but it's just important for you to first and foremost realize you can create tangible, measurable miracles in your life. Now, before we do dive into that, listen; conferences are great. I go to conferences every single year. I love speaking at conferences. I just got back from one in Orlando, and I've been to your conference, Hal, best year ever, in San Diego. Conferences are fun. Personal development is fun; it's awesome.

But at the same time, I know you and I want to drop some truth bombs on Fire Nation that personal development can actually dilute us into thinking we're making progress, and there's people that go to the same conferences, or listen to the same exact personal development shows, or whatever that might be, and they kind of check the block, like, ‘Okay I'm moving forward; I’m making progress.’ But sometimes that's just not reality. Break this down for us.

Hal: Personal development, I will say before I tear it up here, is a foundational part of my life. It's arguably, it's one of, if not the most important components of my life. So I want to start by saying that. Here's the problem. In fact, let me say this, The Miracle Morning, right, that's the book I’m best known for, that is a daily personal development practice, right? That's what it is. And it's changed millions of lives around the world, and the crux of that, the philosophy is the idea that who you're becoming is far more important than what you're doing, right?

So if you just keep doing the same – for example, if you're in sales, and you're just making calls every day, but you're not developing yourself, well, then, you're not going to get any better, and your results aren't going to improve. But if you're learning, and you’re growing, and you’re evolving in any area of your life, your finances, any area, as you become more, you achieve more, and you do it easier, and easier, and easier, and easier, and easier.

So the idea is personal development is the foundation for you to dedicate time each and every day to become the person that you need to be with the knowledge, the qualities, the skills, the mindset, the characteristics, the habits, you name it, that will enable you to achieve everything you want for your life. So that's the good part of personal development. The problem is, we can become what I call ‘personal development junkies’, which is where you get into the personal development world, maybe read your first personal development book, and you're like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is amazing! Why didn't anyone tell me all this before? No one told me all this!’

And what happens is, the problem is we end up mistakenly thinking that personal development in and of itself is enough, is making progress, and it's not. Here’s some real kind of common sense examples, right? Reading a book on getting healthy does not make you healthy, right? Reading a book on getting wealthy does not make you wealthy. But, and I've fallen prey to this by the way; please know that I'm not pointing a finger; if I’m pointing a finger anywhere, it’s back at me. In the past, I was very guilty of this where you feel like every new morsel of wisdom tucked safely inside your brain is somehow improving things for you.

And while yes, internally you can be happier and more emotionally intelligent and all of these things that you can get from learning and growing, however, you can be the most personally developed person on the planet and then do nothing, right? Meaning that you still shy away from your biggest goals and dreams because you still allow your fear, or your self-doubt, or your lack of clarity, or whatever it is to prevent you from moving forward. So you can be the most knowledgeable person on health, but you're not going to the gym, you haven’t’ improved your diet, and therefore, you're not going to live any longer just because you read all those books.

Same thing with money, right, or any area of life. So we have to be really careful that we don't fall prey to being a personal development junkie, and we actually have to have – here's a way to look at it: you’ve got to have a practice for personal development, right? That's what The Miracle Morning was, but then you have to have a process for goal achievement, so you’ve got to follow up that process or that practice for personal development with a process for goal achievement. That's how you take all that personal development that you've been doing in the morning, or late at night, or whatever, and then, as my old coach used to say, this is where the rubber meets the road, right?

This were actually you turn it into tangible, measurable results so that your life actually improves, not just your brain or the internal component improving.

Interviewer: Fire Nation, it's so key that you are really heeding these words. You must have a practice for personal development. Hal is not bashing it in general; I’m not bashing it in general. What we're saying is you can't stop there. You can't just read a book about going to the gym, or read a book about getting more wealthy, or read a book about X, or Y, or Z. You have to have a process in place to accomplish real, tangible, and measurable results. If you have those two steps, then you win.

If you stop at Step 1, which is going to a conference and getting really motivated, then coming home and nothing changes, or sitting down and reading a book and loving all the content within it, but then, hey, you read Profit First, by Mike Michalowicz, oh, I get it; I need to profit first. But then you don't do any of the things in the book, you're not actually going to profit first. You’re not going to improve your financial situation. So that is the key point here; you need to have Step 2, that process to accomplish real, tangible, measurable results. Period. End of story. So Hal, I love how you clarified that; I can't agree more. Redefining the word ‘miracle’.

We talked about it a couple of minutes ago; let's talk about how you’ve redefined that word in a way that gives us, Fire Nation, the ability to make miracles, which a lot of people are like, miracles don't happen to anybody, or definitely not to me, but let’s make them tangible and measurable.

Hal: You teed it up really well right there, which is, miracles don't happen to me, right? Miracles, first of all, it’s a loaded word; it’s a very loaded word, right? If you ask people to define it, you’d probably get a lot of different definitions. Some would be very religious-based, like parting of the Red Sea, and turning water into wine. That’s not the type of miracle that I’m talking about. The other reason that I think miracles have a bad rap is because they're thought of as random, as you kind of alluded to, right? They’re these random, passive acts or results, and you pray for them, or you wait for them, or you hope for them, or they're like winning the lottery, and the odds of it happening to you aren't very good.

So because of that, they're not very reliable, right? They're not trustworthy. I'm not going to bet on the word ‘miracle’, right, if it's something I've got to passively hope with my fingers crossed that it's going to happen. So for me, and it's a word, so the language that we use is really important, and the context around that language is really important, and so the way that I define the word ‘miracle’, and if you want to write this down, here you go, any outcome that is beyond the realm of what you believe is probable for you. I'll say that again. A miracle is any outcome that is beyond the realm of what you believe is probable for you.

Now, notice I said probable, not possible, and the reason is if you are into personal development, or if you're an optimist, you believe in the optimist credo that anything is possible, yet possible is rarely enough to get us out of bed in the morning with the drive, and the motivation, and the clarity that we need to tackle our biggest goals and dreams. And, JLD, think about it, right? A kind of rhetorical question, but you can really give a little answer here, which is how often do people actually pursue that which they don't believe is likely to happen?

Interviewer: It just doesn't happen. They don't even start.

Hal: They don’t even start. We want some sort of guarantee, and if you actually stop, this is a really profound realization, I think, for most of us, most of us, the reason we just keep doing the same things over and over and over again is because there's a guarantee, and we have this need for certainty, where we go, well, there’s a guarantee. I know that if I wake up today at this time, and I show up to work at this time, and I work until this time, and then I go home, I know that a paycheck will show up for this amount in two weeks, and that gives me a sense of security, right?

However, I would say for most of us, deep down, there is an innate drive and desire that we all share to actualize our potential, to create a life, an extraordinary life of freedom, and when we live within this small context of just keeping things as they are because it feels safe, we keep ourselves away from miracles. And so a miracle, being that it's any outcome that's beyond the realm of what you believe is probable for you, you have to realize that – and that's why it feels like a miracle, by the way, when you achieve it, right, because that's why you call it a miracle, because you're like, ‘Oh my God! I didn't think that was likely to happen. But I worked hard and gave it everything I had, and it actually came to pass!

I can't believe it!’ And that's the experience that I want for you, Fire Nation, is to start getting clear on what are your biggest goals and dreams, and your tangible, measurable miracles, that when you accomplish them, you will literally stand at the foot of your bed open up your arms to the side, right, wide, and then fall back like you're falling on a cloud, right? Enter classical spiritual music, where you’re in disbelief that you even accomplished it. And that is something that, if you think about it, the world's most successful people in all walks of life, the most prolific creators, and achievers, and innovators, that's how they live.

I'm sure when Elon Musk’s first Tesla rolled off the line he was like, ‘Oh my gosh! I had a vision, a dream; it was beyond the realm of not only what I had ever done before, but beyond the realm of what any human had ever done before!’ No one had ever done it, right? And this is true for anyone, again in any walk of life, and I want it to be true for you. So that's how I want to redefine a miracle, is so that this is something that is tangible, measurable, and actionable for you, not some random, passive act that you hope happens, but something that you can put down in writing, you can clarify, and then you can figure out your plan, your strategy.

And I think we'll probably go into that next, here, on what is The Miracle Equation. Okay, I'll stop teasing us, how do you apply this – what is it, how you apply it, and we can go into that.

Interviewer: Let’s define the word ‘miracle’ the right way, Fire Nation: any outcome that is beyond the realm of what you believe is probable for you. Think about those words. Just re-say those words to yourself over and over again, because that's going to redefine how miracles are looked at through your eyes. And let's be honest; as humans, we have this need, this desire, this want for certainty. Fire Nation, all the magic happens outside of certainty, outside of your comfort zone. You need to get there, Entrepreneurs on Fire, way outside of certainty, way outside of my comfort zone. Miracle Morning, same thing for Hal, but guess what?

We went outside of certainty and we got uncomfortable, and that's where the magic happens. And like Hal was teasing, The Miracle Equation, we’re going to be breaking this down for you as soon as we get back from thanking our sponsor. Hal, we're back. No more teasing, brother. The Miracle Equation. These are the two decisions that move your biggest goals not just from possible to probable, but to inevitable. Break it down for us.

Hal: I’m gonna do a really short tease here, just because I need to set the context. So this began very organically, and it's interesting, The Miracle Equation is kind of the follow-up to Miracle Morning, because like we talked about earlier, you've got your process for personal development? Great. I'm learning and growing and becoming better, but okay, well, how do I take all this personal development and transform it into some real, tangible, measurable results? So even though it follows it, The Miracle Equation really follows Miracle Morning and complements it in terms of chronology of when I came up with this, it was preceded about six years before Miracle Morning.

So I was in sales, and I was trying to break a company record, and put that in context, I was trying to sell more in a 10-day period than anyone in the 50-year history of the company I worked for had ever sold before. So not only did I look in my rearview mirror and check my – I had no evidence that I could do it, there was no evidence that it could be done. It’s like the four-minute mile kind of thing. And I asked myself, I thought this would feel like a miracle if I were to pull this off, man. This would be something. I don't even know if I can do this. I was terrified. It was beyond anything I had ever done before.

And I asked myself, how would, I kind of reverse-engineered it as they call that, and I said, if, let’s fast forward 10 days from now, if I were to have everything went, I somehow pulled this off, what would have had to have happened right now, before I even started, it was like a few days before, I said what would I have to do right now, think, do, say, what would I have to do, and then what would I have to do throughout the 10 days to make that miracle happen.

And I broke it down to two decisions, and these two decisions, if you think about the personal development world or self-help world, either one you can call it, there are hundreds of reasons that we're told that we are not where we want to be, like hundreds of things, areas that we need to improve, right? Meaning oh, its productivity; if you master productivity, then you'll get more done and you can achieve everything you want for your life. You’re like, all right, I’ve got to read a book on productivity, right?

And they’re like, no, we’ve done the research, and it's your emotional intelligence; it’s more important than your IQ, and here’s why, and here’s how this applies to every relationship you have in your life, and it’s important. We're told its productivity, beliefs, we need affirmation, it’s morning routine. There's so many it's overwhelming. There's so many things that we need to somehow figure out or learn or master to improve our lives, and I realized that we can break it down to these two, these two decisions.

And I’m about to say what they are, but these decisions are deceptively simple in their explanation, and extremely rare in their execution, and what you’ll find, and once I started studying the world's most successful individuals, I realized, oh, yes, they're all still trying to improve their emotional intelligence, and they're trying to improve their productivity, and they're instilling the beliefs they need, and they're working on their habits, and their leadership ability, all of these things. Yeah, they’re working on all that stuff, but these are the two fundamental decisions that, without these two decisions, nothing else matters, and none of the success they've accomplished would be possible.

With these two decisions, everything else is just icing on the cake. The first decision: unwavering faith. The second decision: extraordinary effort. Like I said, at first glance, at first mention, these are like, okay, so I have faith that I can do it and then I put forth the effort. Got it. Check. There’s not a lot of depth there. How do I apply that? So think about this: anyone who has ever accomplished something great in any area of life, it began by them establishing the faith that they could do something beyond what they'd ever done before. And in some cases, like Elon Musk with his Tesla, it was beyond what, no one ever done it before. No one made an electric car before, right?

So sometimes it's something they had never done before, but maybe there's evidence from others that they can point to or learn from, but often it's never been done in the history of the world, which is how innovation happens. So in order to achieve something great in your life, a miracle, it begins by establishing the faith that you can do something you've never done before. And here's a problem: that is counter to our human nature, because human nature is to check the rearview mirror, and look at our past, and go, well, where do I see evidence of what's possible for me? And you go, okay, well, I guess I can do that, I can do that, I can do that, that's about all I can do. Great. I'll keep doing that.

Maybe I’ll increase it a little bit, like 10 percent more. But rarely do we look at what is ultimately possible for us. And so the first decision of establishing unwavering faith, that's where it begins, but it really gets a little more challenging, and where it really matters is maintaining that faith until. And that word ‘until’, circle it, underline it three times, because most of us, like if you’re part of that optimist club, you can establish faith, because it's called uninformed optimism, which is like oh, I listen to Tony Robbins, so I know I can do anything. But then you start out on that path to do whatever that anything is, and then it doesn't go the way you planned which very rarely does it ever go the way you planned.

It takes longer than you thought, you hit a roadblock, you hit a brick wall, right? And the faith that you launched out with, it starts to waver, and once the faith waivers, once you stop believing something is possible for you, that tends to be where you just stop. And a lot of us are great starters, but we're not great finishers. And I love that quote, ‘It takes 10 years to be an overnight success.’ And the question becomes, what are you willing to maintain unwavering faith that you can accomplish for 10 years, or as long as it takes?

And maybe you’ll get it done in one, or two, or three, or four, whatever, the timeline is arbitrary, but the decision that you will establish in writing unwavering faith that you can do something that is deeply meaningful to you in your life, it could be financial freedom, it could be being a great father, a great husband, or whatever it is for you, establishing the faith that you can do it, and then making a decision that you will maintain that faith until that outcome is real and it is tangible in your world. So the first decision is unwavering faith, and we can unpack that as much as you want. And then the second decision being extraordinary effort. I'll just say this about extraordinary effort.

For most of us, myself included, I’ve been lazy my whole life; in fact, my identity is still that of pretty much a lazy person, because I don't feel like doing a lot of stuff. I feel like just taking it easy and watching Netflix. So how is it that I’m able to accomplish a lot? And it’s that I make extraordinary effort as ordinary as possible, and what makes effort extraordinary isn't about grinding and hustling and working 80 hours a week. It's not about sacrificing your health and your relationships so you can achieve your business goals and dreams. That's not what makes effort extraordinary. That's actually just not ideal effort; it’s not effective effort. Extraordinary effort is really about consistency.

So for me, it's okay, every result we want to accomplish in our lives is preceded by a process, and that process is what produces the result. Everybody wants the result; very few people are ready to commit to that process, or even know what it is. They don’t even take the time to define it. So, for example, if you want to build muscle, that would probably require a process of resistance training combined with increasing your caloric intake so that you could add muscle onto your frame, onto your body. Simple. So every result is preceded by a process. For me, extraordinary effort, to make it ordinary, it's just defining what is my process?

What is the recurring process that I can do daily or weekly that will virtually guarantee that I eventually, inevitably achieve that result? It might not happen – I don't know how long it'll take me – it’ll take longer than I think, and one quick example, John, is that for me, when I was in sales, I had my best sales year ever one year, and it was a total pain. It took a lot of work, dedication, commitment, and then the next year, I thought, man, what do I want to do this year? And I just had this long story I won’t go into, but I just had a moment of inspiration due to some things that happened in my world, and I went, what if I double? What would it take to double?

I just had one of the best years in the history of our company. What would it look like to not just increase that by 10 percent, or 20 percent, or even 50 percent? What would it take to increase it by 100 percent? That meant doubling my income from one year to the next. That was a terrifying goal, and I simply broke it down to my process. I went, okay, in order for me to have my best year ever it took me x amount of phone calls to prospects each day, five days a week. All I have to do is double that process, and it would double the result.

And that was a really low stress way, because doubling the result scared me, but going from making 20 phone calls a day, which took me about an hour, to 40 phone calls a day, which would take me two hours, that's an extra hour of work to double my income. So in the book, in The Miracle Equation book, we give all these examples and frameworks. How do you break that down? How do you make your extraordinary effort feel ordinary?

How do you define a recurring process that, if you commit to it every day, and it might only take you 30 minutes or 60 minutes, but it will move your biggest goals and dreams from possible, which is next to useless, to probable, which, now we're getting somewhere, to inevitable, which is where you'll find your miracles.

Interviewer: I love this quote, Fire Nation: ‘To double the outcome, you double the process.’ And doubling the process is so much more mentally manageable for so many people. Just double that process. Go from 20 calls to 40 calls, or fill in the blank for what you do every single day. But again, what’s Step 1? Having unwavering faith. Step 2? Put in extraordinary effort. And, Fire Nation, stop checking your life's rearview mirror; it's not doing you any good. Period. End of story. Hal, I love that you shared that you’re kind of lazy, because, true story, I'm kind of lazy, too. I just spent an amazing day; this was two days ago, just on my hammock reading the book, Alaska, by James Michener.

It's an amazing book, and I was just in the hammock all day. I kept being like, okay, 10 more pages and I’m gonna get up and do some work. Nope. All day just laze around, and I loved it. And Fire Nation, I know how to sit down and work hard, but I also know how to be lazy really hard as well. So that's key to know. We don’t all need to be Gary Vaynerchuk. we don’t all need to be going from morning until midnight every single day, and guess what? Good for Gary, because he's doing what he wants and loves and is great at doing, and I love that he's living that truth. Hal is living his truth, I'm living my truth, and that's what you need to figure out, Fire Nation, what’s your true truth?

Now one thing that kind of surprised me when we were talking about what we should chat about today was the fact that you mentioned, ‘Hey, John, sometimes people just need to be more entitled.’ And I was like, hmmm, you’re gonna have to expound upon that, but don’t do it now. Let’s wait for the interview. So here we are, Hal. Let’s kind of wrap up this whole conversation today about why we need to be more entitled as human beings.

Hal: So ‘entitlement’ is another loaded word, and it’s usually kind of an icky word for people. We view it as someone who believes they deserve something that they’ve done nothing to earn, some sort of special privilege or resource. And a sense of entitlement is often linked to narcissism or arrogance, but here's the thing: So I call this ‘enlightened entitlement’, and there's a big difference between entitlement as most people think of it and enlightened entitlement. And actually, one way I frame it is, there’s misdirected entitlement, and then enlightened entitlement, and here’s what I mean. So we all want to be more successful in our lives, but my question is, what level of success do you believe that you deserve?

And I don't mean in your head, because there's our head answer, which is, yeah, I believe I deserve whatever I want. But no, in your core, in your being, what do you really believe you deserve? Because we pursue that which we believe we deserve. We produce that which we believe we deserve, deeply deserve. And for most of us, we don't believe we deserve much more than we have, or much more than those around us have. We tend to look at our lives – it's that rearview mirror syndrome – you check the rearview mirror, and you’re like, well, what's my life look like, based on the past? Well, that's what it looks like, so I guess that's what I deserve.

Or you look around and see the people that you associate yourself with. That's why the Jim Rohn quote, the philosophy of, you are the five people you spend most time with, is so crucial, because it's probably the most underutilized quote, in terms of actually acting on it. We hear that, and we’re like, yeah, that's important. I should be surrounded by great people. But then we don't do anything to change who we’re surrounded by. So anyway, this idea of misdirected entitlement is really laziness masquerading as a sense of deservingness. We tell ourselves, oh, I deserve to eat this cookie, because I've been pretty good about my eating.

Or I deserve to buy this thing I don't really need; I've been pretty good about my spending lately. Or I deserve to miss the gym; I’ve been pretty good about working out. We often do that, and it’s harmful to us, because this kind of behavior reinforces mediocrity. We treat ourselves for being pretty good, but pretty good isn’t great, definitely doesn't get us closer to miraculous results, but we're just as worthy, deserving, and capable as any other person on earth. And nearly every great accomplishment began with an individual believing that he or she is deserving, worthy, and capable of putting forth the effort to accomplish it, and that they deserve the success that's going to come.

And that kind of entitlement is a healthy prerequisite, so for me, it's an affirmation, and I encourage you to take this and make it your own affirmation, but it's just something along the lines of, mine says, I am just as worthy, deserving, and capable of achieving everything I want in my life as any other person on earth. And I will take that affirmation and I'll modify it for specific results. Like right now, I have a new book coming out, obviously, The Miracle Equation comes out today, and I’ve got an affirmation that says I am just as worthy, deserving, and capable of reaching millions of people with The Miracle Equation as any other author on earth.

And that belief, that feeling of enlightened entitlement, is what will give me the drive to – okay, I'm going to get up today and do the things, put forth the extraordinary effort to achieve this, because I truly believe that I am worthy, and that I deserve it, and that I am capable. Meaning, if I continue to maintain unwavering faith and put forth extraordinary effort toward this outcome, this miracle, it is inevitable that I will eventually reach the people. My experience with The Miracle Morning was that. My mission was to change one million lives one morning at a time, and it took me six years of nonstop promotion to reach over a million people with that book, and now, the mission is bigger.

It's like, all right, well, I’ve reached a million people; now what do I do? Now it’s to elevate the consciousness of humanity, which will feed into your extraordinary effort, and it becomes a feedback loop, because the more effort you put forth, the more you feel you deserve it, which fuels your faith, and then that feeds your effort, and round and round you go, and The Miracle Equation becomes not just a one-time decision that you make, but a fundamental way of living, a lens through which you view every aspect of your life, and it enables you to become what I call in the book a ‘miracle maven’, which is someone who consistently creates tangible, measurable miracles in any or every area of your life.

Interviewer: Fire Nation, there's so much of this that I'm in love with, but the one thing I want to pull out where Hal and I are just on the exact same level, is that Jim Rohn quote: ‘You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with.’ Fire Nation, you know if you listen to this podcast, I end every single episode with that quote to inspire action by you to actually make that change, because, like Hal said, it is so true. You hear it, you know it, you nod your head, but then you just keep hanging out with the same people, and you never look to upgrade the quality of the people you’re spending your time with.

You have to do that, Fire Nation; it’s so key, and of course, all those other value bombs that Hal just dropped, I want you to make sure you're absorbing every single one. And of course, the best way to do just that would be to actually pick up his book and read it and make sure you're consuming all these great things he has in that book for you, The Miracle Equation. So Hal, bring it home for us, brother. Give us the one key takeaway you want to make sure our listeners get from our entire conversation today, where and how we can pick up your book, The Miracle Equation, and then we’ll say goodbye.

Hal: Absolutely, brother. Here’s what I would like you to do. You've got to put this in writing. The takeaway is put this in writing, and it is go write down your, what I call your miracle mantra. This is how you establish and maintain unwavering faith and it's very simple. It is, I am committed to give it everything I have to (blank), right, and (blanking) is whatever your goal is, whatever your miracle is that you've defined. I am committed to giving it everything I have, no matter what. There is no other option. And what we focus on expands, and our self-doubt tends to become something that we focus on, and then it expands.

Every time you feel fear or self-doubt, you replace it with your mantra: I am committed to giving it everything I have to achieve (blank result), no matter what. There is no other option. And literally when I had cancer, I said that thousands of times. I read it every single day. It was my mantra over and over and over and over and over, and when I had the fear of dying and leaving my children without a father and my wife without a husband, that mantra is what kept me moving forward and continued to fuel the faith that I was going to live long beyond what the doctors were telling me that I was going to live. And then the second part: extraordinary effort.

Get really clear what is the recurring process for you that will move your biggest goals from possible to probable to inevitable. And if you don't know that yet, if you’re like, well, it's a new goal. I want to write a book, or I want to run a marathon. I’ve never done it before, so I don't know the process yet. Your process begins by scheduling time to figure out your process. So schedule an hour a day, or 30 minutes a day, or an hour a week, whatever it is, until you figure out that process. But put it in your schedule now, time to read that mantra, and time to put forth that extraordinary effort through the form of the recurring process, and I'm excited to see the miracles that you create.

And where to get the book, here's a cool thing. No. 1 is you can buy it everywhere. This is my first actually traditionally published book. All the other 12 books I’ve written are self-published. This one you can get anywhere books are sold, but here's the cool part, John. I don’t even know if I told you this, but I'm doing a huge launch bonus. I'd love for you to get the book today, and if you do you'll get over $1,200.00 in brand new relevant bonuses. In fact, they're so new I haven't created all of them yet. I’m working on many of them. But that includes a live six-week course on how to create tangible, measurable miracles that starts in about a week.

So all you do is you get the book anywhere books are sold, forward your receipt to miracleequation@gmail.com. Forward your receipt, and you'll get signed up for the six-week live course with me, you'll get a Miracle Equation guided meditation, and you'll also get a Miracle Equation one-page printable implementation guide that sums up the entire book on one front and back sheet that you can review every day to keep it top of mind.

Interviewer: Fire Nation, there you have it. And Hal, I just want to say thank you for being here today, because, like I said, Fire Nation, you're the average of those five people you spend the most time with. And who have you been hanging out with today? Hal Elrod and JLD, so keep up the heat, just go find three more cool people, and your average is pretty cool today. So, as always, head over to EOfire.com. If you type ‘Hal’ in the search bar, you can see the show notes for this, and we’ll have links to everything, the email to send the receipt to, and all the other jazz, all the links that you need from this episode.

And of course, you can check out his last two episodes, 589 and 1186, which were years and years ago, so a lot has changed since then, so those are very relevant and awesome episodes for what was going on in Hal’s life back then, so it would be really cool to listen to. And Hal, again I want to say thank you for sharing your truth, your value bombs, with Fire Nation today for that we salute you, and we will catch you on the flip side.