HAL ELROD: Daily Essentials for Aging Well

Some of the world's healthiest, happiest, most successful, and fulfilled people have sworn by meditation, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing or journaling. And that none of them cost anything, right? They're all free. 嗨,我是Michael,嗨 And I'm Megan Hyatt Miller. Well Well, today we have a fantastic conversation with our friend Hal Elrod of the Miracle Morning, but with a special twist.

He's the best-selling author of The Miracle Morning, which has inspired a global movement, over two million copies sold. a Facebook community with about 360,000 people, a movie, a um app, just all kinds of things, and a bunch of different books that were sort of a offshoot of the original, but are for specific types of people. Right, special applications.

Special applications. And so he's got a new one of those that we're particularly interested in, or I am, and it's called the Miracle Morning After. So it adapts these practices from the Miracle Morning and puts them into the context of midlife and beyond. But he's uh co-authored that with the Yeah. An author by the name of Duane. Duane is in that demographic and adds about eighty five percent of the content. And he's an expert on aging. He is the founder of a big network.

Yes, and is really studied And how to age well. And so whether you are already over 50 or you're hoping to be someday. This episode is for you. I'm hoping to live over fifty and I'm living the dream. I'm here. Work it out. Enough of that. Let's get straight to our interview with Hal.

Hey how welcome back! Welcome. Thank you so much for having me. This is a right, second time on the podcast, double win. I mean, there's so many we've already used that term earlier. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Like just a double win. I love it. We may be talking about doubles, but the first time you were on the show was a total home run. And so for those of you that haven't heard it, you've got to go back and listen.

Yeah, it it's excellent. We are big fans of the miracle morning around here at Full Focus. And I feel like your people are our people and our people are your people. Just a lot of crossover. So this is really fun to get to talk again about kind of a new application, which is people over 50. And even if you're not over 50, there's lots of application in this conversation for you because someday you will be 50, Lord willing. I'm not yet 50, I'm 45. Seventy. I won't be fifty again.

You will probably not unless we actually figure out aging backwards. You will probably go upwards. People's been there, done that. Yeah, he's got the t-shirt. But this concept of the miracle morning, the original book. It's way more than a book. It's been a global phenomenon. A lot of people are having a miracle morning, but probably some of our listeners don't know what that is. So can you just talk about what is the miracle? For anybody who doesn't know.

Thank you for that. The miracle morning, I mean, the the short of it is it is a it's a morning routine, and the premise is to set yourself up to win the day. So it's uh essentially starting your day with six of the most timeless.

proven personal development practices. And you don't have to do all six. You can completely customize it. You could do one a day. You could do, you know, three one day, three the next day. You can do them in any order. Those six practices are Memorable as the acronym SAVERS S A V E R S. The first S is for silent. So it's starting your day with prayer, with meditation, getting really centered and lowering your cortisol and gaining clarity to really win the day.

The A is for affirmations and not the goofy kind where you say like I'm a money magnet and money is flowing to me effortlessly. The way I teach affirmations in in the new book and the original book, it's very practical, it's actionable, it's results oriented. It's affirm what you're committed to, affirm why it's a must for you, affirm which actions you're going to take and when.

to ensure that you progress toward what it is that you're committed to. The thing to remember is what we affirm repeatedly. becomes our reality. Right. And so it's affirming what you're committed to, why it's important, and what you're gonna do to get there. The V is for visualization. And the same way the world's greatest athletes mentally rehearse themselves, performing at their best before they step onto the court.

We can do that before we step into the kitchen, step into the office, right? Just really set ourselves up for the day. And then the E is for exercise. You never go to the gym in the morning, but move your body. I do a five-minute workout every morning. A plank? It's downward dog, it's toe touches, it's back bends, and it's jumping squats. Like it's a five-minute full-body workout. I'm awake, I'm alive. The R and Savers is for reading, and the SN Savers is for

Describing, which is a fancy word for journaling, but the J would have made the acronym awkward. And so um you can do that in as little as six minutes. There's a six minute miracle morning, or you could do it in 30 or 60 or Whatever fits your schedule, it's again very, very customizable. And the last thing I'll say is. This is not about waking up early. It's most people that do the miracle morning, they weren't mourning people when they picked up the book.

In fact, 72% were not morning people. It's about starting your day in a peak physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual state. Even if you only wake up five or ten minutes before you have to get out of bed, it's that sacred time in the morning to set yourself up to win the rest of the day.

Okay, this may be a dumb question, but I do get this when I teach on morning rituals, and that is what if you're in shift work? Great question. In fact, uh and another way to frame that an even a more of a a broader way to ask the question is people will often say, Do I have to do the savers in the morning or could I do the savers any time of day and benefit?

When I first got asked that, I really gave it a lot of thought. I'm like, hmm, that's a good point. You know, like, why not do the miracle afternoon or the miracle evening right before bed? And here's the reason. So the answer is yes, you can do the sabers any time of day, uh, and they will benefit you, right? You're gonna benefit from all those practices, what whatever time of day. But here's the rub: is that the benefits of all six of the sabers are both immediate.

And long-lasting. And so you miss out on the benefits. For example, there are over 1,400 scientific studies about the benefits of meditation. And not just like religious or spiritual benefits, but it lowers your cortisol levels, right? It actually clears your mind. You think clearer, you feel better, you have more focus and concentration power.

You don't want to wait on those benefits until you're going to bed. You want those to start the day. Same thing with exercise. In the Miracle Morning documentary that y'all mentioned, Robin Sharma. He mentioned that the benefits of exercise have been scientifically proven to kick in immediately. And last as long as 13 hours after the initial exercise. Wow. So it increases blood flow to your brain, right? It wakes up your nervous system. It releases any tension or energy.

So it's like again, you don't want to wait on the benefits till the end of the day. So that really is the answer is that yeah, you can wait. You do better off to do it at night than not at all. But doing it first thing in the morning sets you up in a peak state. to go crush your goals and all the other things you're working on in your life.

Fantastic. You know, one of the things that I love about the miracle morning is we talk about in the full focus planner having a morning ritual and that being one of kind of the keystone rituals. I mean probably is if you only pick one, you know, that is the most important ritual. For your day.

But people can get overwhelmed with that. It's like, I don't know what to put in it. Some people really overcomplicate it and it's like three hours long, and then like they have a new baby, or you know, they have a loved one that they're caring for who's sick or they change their jobs and it's like totally unrealistic and they they you know can't keep up with it. Or people in our world are pursuing goals this time of year and they're like, how do I not lose focus on those goals?

I think if you want like the tried and true, this will work for you kind of hack, the miracle morning is such a great tool, especially in the first part of the year, if you don't have this ritual or routine already in place. We are big believers in somebody somewhere's already figured this out. Just go do what they're doing. Like you have figured it out. Like plug and play. Great. Like you got that done in your life. And anyway, I'm a huge house figured it out.

I have another question apropos to the new book. And that is you've written several miracle morning books. Salespeople, entrepreneurs, couples, parents, college students. So the question is why do you feel that people over 50 Need their own addition, nor Yeah, so it's interesting. The last Miracle Morning series book before this one was six years ago. And I did not intend on writing another one.

I was always open to it, but it was like we were cranking out two or three books a year. We being Honore Corter and I, who was who I used to work with on all of the books. And her and I we had a we had a whole system of I would meet a co-author, I would bring him in, we had a template. I mean, it was a real big part of the business. And I went through cancer from 2017, 2018, 2019. I did over 700 hours of chemotherapy.

And it wrecked my brain and it created anxiety and depression and things that I had never dealt with in my life at that level. And so in 2019, we came out with the Miracle Morning for Teachers. And I said, I just need a break. So I I wasn't sure I would write another one and then Dwayne Clark.

who is my co-author for the new book, The Miracle Morning After 50. A friend introduced us. He said, Hey, I want I want you to meet this guy, Dwayne. He is the founder of Aegis Living. It's one of the largest, most respected

senior living facilities in America. I've heard of it. And he read Miracle Morning. It changed his life. And he wants to talk about doing a book. And I said, sure. So we got on the phone and Dwayne just said, I discovered the Miracle Morning in my 60s. He was like 63 at the time, I think, something like that. And he said it totally changed my life. And he said, I care for people in their sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, beyond.

And he said, you know, they start to lack purpose. They're not exercising. They're, you know, they don't have clarity on they don't have goals. They don't have a reason to wake up in the morning. And he said, I really feel like the miracle morning is crucial and I would love to do the mirac and it was originally the miracle morning for seniors. That was actually the original

book that we were starting on. And when we started serving the Miracle Morning community, you mentioned 300,000 people in the Facebook group of really active, engaged community. And they do their miracle morning every day. So I always ask them for feedback. And uh it's so funny when I surveyed them about the new book, they go, I'm not a senior, I'm only seventy five years old. I'm you know, I go, Well, shoot, if you're not a senior, what what you know?

And and if you Google it, seniors like anybody over fifty-five or something like that. Oh my god. But so we we changed the title of the book to the miracle morning after fifty. And I'm so glad we did because as we were writing it and Dwayne and I were talking. He brought so much wisdom. This book is 85% new content, completely different from the original Miracle Morning.

And Dwayne is a very science-based technical, which I'm not. I'm more story and, you know, anecdotes and hey, I tried this thing and it worked. And these people, you know, whereas Dwayne's like, I want the research and so on and so forth.

But what he said is he goes, Hal, this could honestly be the miracle morning after 30. He said, because if you start doing the things that you learn in this book, the younger you are when you start doing them, not just the miracle morning, but the stuff that we teach on cellular health. on optimizing your brain function, on longevity, on purpose, all these things. He said, if you started at 30, then when you turn 50, you're not having to undo all the trauma and and undo the limiting belief.

You'll hit fifty with it hit the ground running. Yeah. So it that's why the new book came out. It's like Dwayne had such a passion for sharing the miracle morning with people in the second half of their life. You know, I I couldn't say no. This and just to affirm you, I don't consider myself a senior. I'm 70, I consider myself approaching middle-aged. I think I laughed a little more than I meant to right there. Come on, that's your father. Yeah, I know, I know.

Well, actually, you know what is funny, we were talking about um before we started recording, just how like when my grandparents, not your parents, but mom's parents, when they were retiring.

You know, it was like, okay, now we will commence with doing old people things. You know, it's it was just like a very different time. Like there was this very clear line of demarcation between your working years and your expectations for those and your non-working years. And I think So much has changed in terms of science and obviously affluence, especially, you know, to

the majority of our listeners where there are things that are accessible in terms of lifespan, health span, longevity. They're just weren't things people were thinking about. Like my grandparents were not thinking about that. It was just not part of kind of the cultural conversation. So I do think

Good job on not naming it, you know, for seniors, but for people over 50. That makes a lot of sense. As someone who has read and practiced the miracle morning, like the original, what is different about the miracle morning for people over 50? compared with with the OG. Because you're gonna need this real soon. Like listen, my husband turned 50 just like a week ago. I've got five years to count down. Yeah, but you can I'm telling you you start reading it now and you'll be Let's go.

Okay, these are the things to start thinking about and implementing as I go into my 50s. I'm gonna answer this question in a broader sense and then I'll zoom in, which is when the miracle morning, the idea to create a series out of the miracle morning, and it's a friend of mine who was

a sales manager, he said, Hal, every person on my sales team that has read the book, their sales have increased. It can't be a coincidence. They're doing their miracle morning and their mindsets improved, their habits have improved, their discipline, and so on and so forth.

Have you thought about writing a series? And so that that was 2013, I think, or 2014. That's how it started. And so As you can imagine, Michael, if you're creating a series, I was so hyper focused, like how do I make this good so it doesn't feel like a rip-off of the original where they're like, wow, they just changed the name, you know, to real estate agents and it's the same book.

So from the very beginning, the first three chapters of all of the series books summed up the entire original Miracle Morning book in just the first three chapters. And then the next seven chapters were totally original content, completely different from the original book, leveraged based on my co-author's expertise. Right. So that's the same premise as this one, although I mentioned to you instead of seventy thirty, it's more eighty five fifteen. Dwayne Rose.

Really broad. He's written like three or four other books. I mean, he's brilliant, and he's an expert in this space. of lifespan, health span, longevity. So Dwayne, this is mostly a Dwayne book, which would make sense. I mentioned to you guys my mom texted me this morning. In fact, I'm gonna read this to everybody.

My mom and her boyfriend Les, she says, Keat now now let me set the stage. My mom's known about the miracle morning since it published in 2012, if not before that, right? So mom's known about it. I've preached it to her. She's never done it. She says, No, I'm just it just isn't for me, Hal.

This morning, and I gave her a copy of course of the Miracle Morning After 50. She said, Les and I are following Dwayne's morning routine, which is really funny that she thinks it's my co-author Dwayne's morning routine. Okay, okay, mom, whatever it takes. Les and I are following Dwayne's morning routine for older folks. I am reading the book. It is really good. So Amazing.

The isn't that funny? I've so funny. And I sent that to Dwayne. I go, Dwayne, apparently your morning routine is what it took to convince my mom to do it. Incredible. But anyway, um, even the original content, meaning the savers, of course, is you know, the premise of the miracle morning after fifty. It still is the morning routine.

But even that, I said, Dwayne, I want you to customize every aspect of the miracle morning practice, of the savors, everything. I'll give you an example. In the original book. I'm a hard charging entrepreneur and I was big on one of the strategies I taught that I've heard was really a game changer is keep the alarm clock as far across the room as possible. It's something I've always done and I've always taught.

Because if when the alarm goes off, if it's by your bedside table and you can turn it off. You're still half asleep and you don't even you know, we've all been there where you don't even remember that it went off and you snoozed like three or four times. But if it's across the room or it's in like for me, it's in my bathroom. Well, now I have to get out of bed, I have to walk, now I'm fully awake.

So that strategy is a game changer. I have stood by it and I've had CEOs tell me that that was the thing that changed everything for them. Dwayne said, How? I am 60, you know, five years old. I don't set an alarm. And I'm big on not setting alarm and waking up naturally. So that was a point of contention. I'm like, no, this is, you know, I have so much evidence. This is so important.

So in the book, you almost the whole thing is like you get my perspective and then Dwayne's perspective. In fact, throughout the entire book, there are sections where we teach something and then it's a Hal says section, followed by a Dwayne says section. And we're almost always contradicting and or complimenting each other. Um, but anyway, no, it's just like some general ideas, but it it is just there's so much science against cellular health.

Optimizing your brain function, finding purpose, you know, as you get older, getting ready for retirement, like all of these things, of course, were not even mentioned in the original book, and they're a primary focus for.

Okay, one of the concepts you talk about in the book is the difference between lifespan and health span. And I first encountered that concept, I think, in a Mark Hyman book. Peter Atio talks about it also, but I'm really into the cellular health and all that stuff. So how do how do you bake that into the miracle morning?

Yeah, so the idea lifespan, for those that aren't aware, and I wasn't aware, this was these were terms that you know that Dwayne introduced to me as we were writing, but lifespan is how long you live. uh right and you want to increase your lifespan you want to live as long as you possibly can health span is the quality of your life as you're extending your lifespan

If you're eighty but you can barely move your body and your physical health is declining and your mental health is declining, well, your lifespan might be decent above average, but your health span is is is really an arguable matters most. In fact for me I don't know that I want a lifespan that extends beyond my health span, right? Agree. Yeah, I if my quality of life is gone.

I'm at peace with death and I'm ready to, you know, I'm ready to to go to the other side whenever that comes. And so this book really is more about your health span. It's a little bit about both, but it really is like, how do you set yourself up?

to really optimize your health span so that you live well, not just live a long time. And Dwayne gives a lot of again the science that he shares. And I for me it's honestly it's like this is hard for me to even repeat it word for word, but it's he talks about detoxing your cells. He talks a lot about what are called zombie cells and how they accumulate in our body and they lead to disease and how there are things you can do to flush them out. And a lot of them are simple, right? It's drinking

Clean water with lemon juice and sea salt every single morning. It alkalizes your blood, it detoxifies your body, it removes those zombie cells. It's such a simple thing you can do. And for me, I had done it, I think, in the past, but it wasn't until I'm reading Dwayne's content. I'm like, I gotta get back to doing that. And I don't love lemon water. But now that I do it every day, now I do. Now it's part of my daily routine. And I think that's a big thing for the Miracle Morning concept is.

Virtually, I told you 72% of those that read the miracle morning identify this is based on countless surveys we've done over the last 15 years. They say I was not a morning person, nor did I believe I could become one before I read the Miracle Morning book. And then the book really holds someone's hand. It doesn't just say, here's a morning routine, do it. It holds someone's hand through the the emotional, mental blocks, limiting beliefs to really

get to the point of going, well, maybe I don't know if I can do it, to really acclimating to the idea and then not jumping in with both feet, but just taking baby steps. In fact, last thing I'll say.

On this is I'm a keynote speaker. That's my day job, right? I speak at events all the time. And when I am giving a speech at the end of my Miracle Morning keynote, I issue a Miracle Morning 30-day challenge. I invite everyone to do this. And it's very simple. It's not wake up tomorrow 60 minutes earlier and do all six of the savors practices. It's wake up 10 minutes earlier and do one of the savers.

And if, you know, in the audience, I'll say, how many of you have not read The Miracle Morning? And usually about 60 or 70% of the hands go up in most audiences. I say, okay, so here's what I'm encouraging you to do. Your first miracle morning is you wake up 10 minutes earlier. Anybody can do that, right? It's not a not a heavy lift.

And all you do is the R in Savors, which is reading. You just read the Miracle Morning book. And every day you just wake up 10 minutes earlier, easy. You read the book. And when you do the chapter on silence. You integrate one to five minutes of silence into your next miracle morning.

Then you get to the chapter on affirmations and you add that into your next miracle morning. So the idea is it it's it's just baby stepping your way into it. And all of a sudden a few weeks go by and you're like, whoa. I'm waking up, you know, maybe 30 minutes earlier and I'm doing all six of the savers and it's easy. I've literally become a morning person and it kind of snuck up on me without even realizing.

What I love about this concept is I think as we get older the needs of our bodies, our minds, our hearts, et cetera, those things shift. And If we're trying to just sort of do the same old thing that we've done that maybe worked for us twenty years ago or even 10 years ago, it doesn't always produce the same result.

And one of the things that I found in my own life is that there are certain practices that I'm doing on a regular basis now that I didn't used to do that are super helpful. One of which is that Most days, uh, weather permitting, and I try to make myself do it even when it's cold outside, I go outside in the morning and get that early morning sunlight into my eyes. I've done a lot of research on circadian biology.

And really believe that, you know, one of the most important things I can do for my health and my cells as I'm aging. is to help calibrate their little mitochondria in there, their little battery packs, you know, with the light, the energy that they need to function well. And so I know that that's good for my health, but I also just love

You know, I like little Adirondack chairs and it kind of they face east. It's it's really nice. But that's one of the things that you talk about in the book is morning light and earthing. Can you talk a little bit about what that is? Because that kind of sounds like for people who may be unfamiliar with that, like. What kind of black magic is this that you speak of, Megan, you know?

Yeah, you know, I was asked yesterday in an interview. He's had me on his podcast before as well, Michael Blank. He said, Hal, Miracle Morning's been out for, you know, the book's been out for thirteen years. Is it still relevant?

You know, right? Is it relevant today? He said, with AI, it seems like nothing's relevant anymore. And I thought that that's I love the I love the frame of that question. And I personally, when I went through cancer, I examined what are all of the artificial things that I put into my body. Alcohol being a poison. I took Adderall when I was in my twenties for focus, right? It's like, what are the things I'm doing that are unnatural? And if you think about

We are an extension of Earth. Human beings have been on planet Earth before there were structures and concrete underneath our feet and rubber underneath the sh the soles of our shoes, right? And so for me, I try to live my life as closely in alignment with nature.

as I possibly can. Yeah. And so that is, you mentioned one of the things, there's a chapter in the book on first light, which is getting sunlight in the morning. You mentioned that it sets your circadian rhythms. It also improves your vitamin D levels. Human beings used to wake with the sun and go to bed right when it got dark with the natural rhythms of nature.

Uh without the alarm clock. And by the way, Dwayne did sell me on not I don't use an alarm clock anymore. I wake up naturally, which actually I'm like, oh yeah, it's so unnatural that I use an alarm clock.

Right. It's like sometimes, you know, we're consciously incompetent. I'm like, it's I'm telling you the nature stuff, which I've thought about for a long time, but I go, Oh, I'm still in this old pattern of waking myself up out of a deep REM sleep. So I have not used an alarm clock in about a year.

But earthing as well. We are electrical beings. In fact, I got my son, my son is 13. And for Christmas, I was actually at an event a few months ago and they were doing this exercise. I don't know if you've seen this. But it's this cylinder and it has metal tips on each side. Have you seen that? Right. It's got a light in the middle. And you touch each side of it. And it shows the electrical current of you as a human being is enough to power this light and it turns on.

Or if you hold one side and then you let someone else hold the other side and then you hold that person's hand. It turns the light on again. It shows that human beings, we literally, we're we're made of energy. We're batteries. We can conduct electricity or batteries, right? And so the earth, it's the Tesla charger, right? It's the it's the source.

of energy and most of us are not putting our bare feet on the ground at all. And so in the book again, Dwayne goes deep into the non-woo-woo science of you know how this works and the studies that have been done with both. gaining light in the morning as well as earthing. And by the way, these are two practices when I had cancer.

That's actually when I started sun gazing. I started getting first light in the morning. I started standing on the earth to try to align my biology with the rhythms of planet Earth that again, we've been a part of, you know, humans have for Millennia, I don't know how many, how long, but yeah, so that's an example of the things in the book. We talk about red light therapy, we talk about you know PEMF machine, like those are mentioned.

But Dwayne is very wealthy. That's worth mentioning. I was very clear, hey Dwayne, not everybody's got enough money to go buy a thousand dollar red light therapy machine and a you know and a PMF machine. I said, so yes, let's mention those. But let's really focus on the practices that cost nothing. That's the beauty of the Miracle Morning is all six of the Miracle Morning practices have been around for thousands and thousands and thousands of years.

Some of the world's healthiest, happiest, most successful and fulfilled people have sworn by meditation, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing or journaling. And that none of them cost anything, right? They're all free. I love it. And so I wanted to carry that theme into the new book, which is like, let's give people the science and the research of the practices that they can connect to by

Walking outside in the morning without their shoes on, letting the sunlight see their face. And again, it doesn't cost a nickel. I love this because I think if you read books on longevity or health span, all of that, you quickly realize that if I'm gonna optimize my health, it's gonna be very expensive. And I think the Megan and I both come to the conclusion in probably last six months that that's really doesn't have to be the case.

You know, until we're availing of ours ourselves of these God given natural things like earthing or getting that first light, we don't really have to supplement until we get that stuff nailed. Yeah. It's amazing how much I don't know, maybe this is just the two of us. I have a feeling it's also a lot of our listeners.

The propensity to overcomplicate things and do more than is necessary. It's like we think we need to add all this complicated stuff to our life. It's complicated, it's expensive, it stresses us out because now we're trying to manage, you know, we're taking 40 supplements and peptides and this and that and whatever else. And in reality, it's like I have come to the the conclusion the most important thing I can do for my health is get outside in the morning.

If I do nothing else, even more than exercise, like that is so critically important. I do exercise, you know, that stuff. But it's like the thing that is absolutely free and deceptively simple is critically important. And I would say furthermore. The older I get, the more I feel like nature. I need to get out of built environments and artificial light and be with human beings in nature. That is like Everything.

Yeah. Okay, I have a question for you. I'm gonna just like how you and I will now pretend to be in the seats and we'll ask my dad a question together. Michael. Interviewing you. Prepare your heart. It's gonna be great. Oh man. Okay, I want to know as our resident senior as our resident over fifty because Hal and I are not over fifty yet. Yeah, you made that abundantly clear. Um what what have you noticed?

Has changed about you since you've as someone who's aging. And what practices do you feel like you've adjusted in your life? to sort of meet this season well. Well, I think and I was gonna ask you about this, Helen, you can comment on this in a minute, but since I'm in the hot seat, I think my sense of purpose.

has dramatically changed in the last 10 years. I used to think it was about, you know, building a big, successful company and obviously having an impact on other people's lives. That was, you know, the whole reason behind that. But now I'm I'm more and more seeing that I'm measuring my success.

Ian Cron has said this to me one time, is that my job is to grow fruit on other people's trees. So that's how I'm measuring my success. Am I growing fruit on other people's trees? So it's much more other focused than self-focused. I think that's one thing. Like not ego driven. Not ego driven. And one one of the I'm sure there's some ego in it, but but even if my exercise Back when I was much younger.

I thought it was all about strength training because I wanted my body to look stronger. Or maybe have more endurance. So I did a lot of aerobic stuff, ran a lot of half marathons and so forth. Now I'm working on things like probably twenty-five percent of my workout time with my trainer. is things like balance. And like stretching and stuff that I thought used to think was a waste of time. And now I feel like it's essential to my survival.

Michael, I love that you said that because that is one of like similarly, right? You know, strength training and all of that. And then as we're getting older, Dwayne in the book, he talks about the importance of balance and flexibility as you age more. than anything. Now he does say strength training is important, right? And there is a lot of science behind that. But

Like one of the things that he teaches is he does ankle rolls and wrist rolls in bed every morning when he wakes up. So he wakes up naturally and the first thing he does is he warms up his body under the covers. uh before he even gets out of bed. Then he stands on one leg while he brushes his teeth. Huh. And then he switches halfway through brushing his teeth and stands on the other leg. And he talks about how that improves your balance.

By the way, he does a competition. Dwayne used to be like a power, I mean, big time into weightlifting. He just texted me the other day, and he was with all of his grandkids. And every year at Christmas, they do a fitness competition. And I think he's got like, don't quote me, but he's got seven or nine grandkids and he came in third. Wow. And uh and one of the things he did was he did a plank.

for two minutes and fifty he's 67 years old. He did a plank for two minutes and 53 seconds. Dang. I do a plank every day, 90 seconds. I'm barely making it. So this guy is 67 years old. He can go twice as long as I do. You mentioned also that there's all this expensive stuff, right? You got to spend all the money. That's one thing we really talk about in the book. I go, I go, here's the red light therapy, here's the PMF machine, here's these things.

Don't even think about getting those until you're doing all the free stuff. Right. Earn the right. If you you know if you're maximizing all the free stuff, but I think we have this part of our culture is is like, Hey, if I spin the money, if I hit buy now.

I give myself a dopamine rush that's related to thinking I'm doing something for my health. Look at me go. I'm doing something for my health. When in reality you'd be better off to walk outside and stand in the sun and put your bare feet on the ground and then then feel that sense of accomplishment, not because you clicked buy now on the workout machine that's gonna become a clothing rack, right? Yeah.

Well, true confession here, I bought a very expensive red light system and I've had it now for six months. And I'm embarrassed to admit this. I've used it used it three times. Can I tell you that I also bought a very expensive red light system? And I had it all of last year. And last year I used it twice.

This year, I've already used it three times and we're only six days into the year. I finally, this year going into the new year, after reading one of my favorite books, Your Best Year Ever, by Michael High. I mean, I'm not joking. I'm uh this is what I told you, this is one of my favorite books. Thank you. I implementing this. So you need to go back and read this book. There is this guy that wrote a book. You know, I have a red light system also and I actually use it almost every day.

And I love it. There's always an overachiever in the crowd. No, I don't actually feel like it's overachieving at all. I it feels like something I want to do because I really enjoy it. I have a heater on my massage table. Uhhuh. Like a little heating pad thing. And so it's all cozy, you know, in there. And I love that. I love Asana. But still in my mind, I'm always like, if I'm doing this and I haven't been outside yet this morning, this is secondary. This is like Best thing.

Yeah, this is like eating McDonald's every day and thinking you can take fish oil pills and compensate for the whole thing, you know.

This is good. I do have a question about per How do you think for the average person, purpose changes after fifty? What's the role of purpose in longevity, health span? All that. Dwayne, we did a live event when the the Miracle Morning After Fifty book came out. It was a bonus for anyone that pre-ordered the book. And Dwayne really addressed this. So I want to kind of address it from his perspective and then I'll I'll bring in my own.

But he gave statistics on the amount of people that retire and then how quickly they die after they retire. Yes. Right. They they their work was their purpose. And then if they don't actually consciously, proactively decide on a new purpose in their life, right? They just they fade away. There's they're not living for anything. So that was that was kind of eye opening to look at that statistic that he shared. And my belief on purpose is that it's something that we get to make up as we go along.

We can have more than one purpose because I think people put a lot of pressure on purpose, like, I don't know what's my purpose in this life. And and they're waiting for someone else to tell them. what their purpose is, right? And I can tell you my own journey. When I was uh it was 2004, I read the book Love is the Killer App by Tim Sanders. Love that book. And he talked about

the the kind of the secret of success is adding value for other people. The more value that you add, the more valuable you become. And I was like early, mid twenties and I go, oh. I love that. I really resonate with that. And it goes back to the Zig Ziggler quote: you can have everything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want. And so my first ever purpose of my life that I put in writing is my purpose.

is to selflessly add value to the lives of as many people as I possibly can for the rest of my life. And every day it was like, oh, I don't want to talk to that person. Then I went, wait a minute. That's not my purpose. It's not about what I want. Can I add value to their life? Oh yes, I can. So I started just doing, I got out of my own way and I did things, whether I felt like it or not, if it served other people. Now that led to

My mission in life became to change one million lives one morning at a time when I wrote the Miracle Morning. Because again, I wanted to selflessly add value to as many lives as I could by sharing this morning practice that had changed my life, and I was going to share it with the world. After I got cancer and I nearly died, I was very close to death. I had a wife, of course, still do. My son was four years old, and my daughter was seven years old when I got cancer.

And Michael and Megan, if you would have asked me what's the most important thing in your life, I would have said, my family without hesitation. They're most important no matter what. If you would have said, let me see your schedule, I want to make sure that your schedule reflects that. And if anybody's listening or watching this,

I want you to think about that. If somebody took a peek at your schedule, does it really reflect what you say is most important in your life, whether that's health or family or happiness or whatever it is?

And for me, I would have been going, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, don't look at my schedule. It it tells a different story because I've got a new book coming out and and I'm trying to launch my speaking career and blah blah blah blah. I'm trying to change millions of lives. And the breakthrough that I had. Was, oh, I've been living a lie. I say that family's number one, and I even tell myself I believe it.

But I'm not actually living in alignment with what really matters to me. And so Coming off of cancer, it was the the switch from realizing that I was valuing the quantity of my purpose and the impact I could make over the quality of the three people that meant more to me than anything in the world. And so in my affirmations, in writing, I got really clear that my mission is no longer to impact millions of lives.

My mission is to make the most profound, deep, sustainable, loving, nurturing impact. for my wife and our two kids and then in my spare time I will strive to impact you know millions or whatever other lives out there and so I think that's the lesson is that purpose you get to make it up. One of my favorite purposes is just to become the best version of myself and help others do the same. That's one of my simplest favorite foundational purposes.

But yeah, it's not about a grandiose purpose. Your purpose can be just wake up every day and be the best version of myself and give that to every person that I meet. So you get to make it up. That's the best part about purpose. And you can try it on for a week and you're like, you know what?

I wanna try a different purpose, or I wanna have two or three. It's fluid, it's fun, it's joyful. That's how purpose should feel. And in this book, we do go very, very deep in how to identify uh your I think the thing I'm taking away from that is number one, your purpose can change over time.

Number two, you've gotta have a purpose as you get older, especially if you end up retiring, because contribution and meaning matter no matter what age you are, what stage you're in, like that's mission critical for human flourishing, for thriving. And you know, one of the things that is cool about getting older is that I think you care less what other

You know yourself better and you care less what other people think. And that's a real gift because there may be things that like you were saying, you know, earlier in your life. you were more driven by ego or you cared more what people think or whatever. But the older you get, you're like, eh, I mean, I just kinda see the futility of that. It doesn't really do it for me anymore. You know, I really want to maybe do this thing over here, which maybe doesn't come along with

status or public recognition or whatever, but man, it will just light you up. And so you're gonna do it. And I think so, in other words, I think there's a real freedom of purpose as you get older. that is sort of like the reward of, you know, making it through all those decades.

You know, one of the things w we have a coaching programme Hal called double wind coach. We obviously help leaders try to get the double win, which is when it works and succeed at life. But one of the things that we started doing, and I just taught this lesson yesterday as we're recording this, is on making these quarterly commitments or goals. And I said, one of the things that's important is to frame this as contribution.

Because I think that a lot of times we think only if we have a job are we making a contribution. A job is one way to make a contribution, but it's not the only way. Yeah. That mom that's, you know, tending to kids full-time, and that's for now, she's in a season where that's her full-time focus, that's a massive contribution. She's living with purpose. A person that's retired, that's volunteering somewhere, that's a massive contribution. When I hear retirement, I think about,

people not having any purpose. And I know I've I've done the research myself. You live on average about five years after you retire from purpose. But if you can keep the purpose going, it doesn't matter if you're retired or not retired or working for a nonprofit or working for a for profit. It doesn't matter as long as you're Make it a lot of things. It's like my neighbor who you know, Rod, is probably in his mid to late eighties. And every day he goes on a walk and passes my house.

Every day, like it doesn't matter what the weather is. He does this walk. He always talks on the phone to his brother or his adult children. And he is an avid art collector. He collects rare art that's been exhibited in the National Gallery. He's an author of a couple of books.

He serves on several boards. I mean, like he's just blowing and going. Like he's doing all kinds, he's probably I think he would say he's doing the most important work of his life in a very late season of his life, which is really cool to me. It's very inspiring. Nobody has a miracle morning. I bet he does. I want to find out now. Hal. I need to go ask him.

We should get him a copy of the book for sure. You guys, real quick, I want to share, you inspired me to think about my mom. You know, I don't know how she defines her purpose, but I can just tell you what I observe, how she lives her life. Um, so A, she's been volunteering and donating blood and being part of different service organizations for her entire, you know, since she was in high school, right? She's donated more blood than I don't even know.

all the things. She sits with hospice patients, people that are dying. So she does all of that charity work. But if I actually look at her primary purpose is to bring joy to the lives of other people. She's 67 years old. She does karaoke minimum one day a week, usually two or three nights a week. She goes out for karaoke, but she brings people. So most of her friends are older. They're in their 70s and 80s.

She's bringing them to do karaoke. She's hosting game nights and parties at her house and inviting everybody over. She is the life of the party and what she's doing, she is pure joy people that would probably otherwise sit at home. And whether feel sorry for themselves or watch television or whatever, like she gets them out of their shell, she gets them on the dance floor, she gets them singing, she gets them playing games. So I just realized that that

You know, I don't know if she would think of herself as that her purpose, but like that is what she does. And I can't think of much more of a joyous, joyful, beautiful purpose, then just be a source of joy and it bring all these other people into it so that they get to experience a part of themselves that may be lying dormant in their older age.

Man, beautiful. I I like your challenge. So issue that again. What's the what's the challenge for people that have never done it that you give at the end of your keynote speech? Yep. If you've never done the miracle morning, wake up ten minutes earlier. And you can do fifteen, twenty, thirty. I mean, you know, these are the numbers are not exact, but I say whatever is easy for you. If you're thinking, oh, ten is a stretch, all right, go for ten.

Brush your teeth and go read the Miracle Morning book for five minutes. The audio book, you can do the audio book, of course. And again, the Miracle Morning after fifty is the new book. You know, there's the original, of course, but The miracle morning after fifty is the one we've been talking about. Um it's on audiobook, it's on Kindle, and it's you know paperback, but just Wake up and Start reading for those five minutes and let the book do all the work. Like that's your only job is.

All right, I'm gonna set my alarm if you have an alarm, or I'm gonna get up 10 minutes earlier. Or let's say you don't set an alarm. Let's say you're retired and you're you're in your 70s, 80s, whatever. When you wake up, just grab the book off your shelf and Mm. Spend the first five or ten minutes reading it and let the book do the work. It will guide your mindset. It will get you excited and motivated. And then when you get to the chapter on silence.

add, you know, one, two, three, four, five minutes of silence into your next day because the book will guide you through that and then affirmations and so on and so forth. And so if all you do is wake up a little bit earlier and read the miracle warning after 50, the book will take care of the rest.

Okay. Like you've seen thousands and thousands of people Start a miracle morning. What are the mistakes they can make that might derail them that you could speak to now so they don't? Yeah, I mean the first mistake is the limiting belief that we adhere to that says, uh uh this might work for some people, but I'm not a morning person. Right. Okay. And that's why we serve every time we survey the Miracle Morning global audience, that's almost always a question.

Before miracle morning, right? And it's like they get to choose: I was a morning person, I was not a morning person, I was not a morning person, and I never thought I could become one. 72 say either they were not a morning person or they were not a morning person and never thought they could become one. So that's the first thing is like you gotta let that limiting belief go, right? You gotta go, hey, if this worked for millions and millions of people.

That we're mourning people, it can work for you too. So I think that's the biggest hang-up. It's someone thinking, I've had people tell me, they go, man, I I I knew about your book. People recommended your book, but I just thought it's not going to work for me. And it, you know, took me three years. Then I finally read it. And I go, man, I wish I would have got it three years ago because I do the miracle morning every day now. So that's the biggest hurdle.

What else, like what happens if I miss a morning? And maybe I think like, oh man, you know, I want to give up. And you can apply this to missing anything in your life. Like we are so hard on ourselves and momentum works both ways, right? If you if you do something good and you feel good, you have momentum is moving forward.

But if you fall short and then you have this negative self-talk and you beat yourself up, with the Miracle Morning specifically, I have a mantra and it's never let one missed day turn into two. So if you miss a day, you don't go, Oh man, I slacked off. I knew I couldn't stick with it. You go, Hey, I missed a day, but I'm not gonna miss two, right? I'm gonna use the miss as fuel.

make the next day count. And again, you could apply that to missing a workout or eating something that you, you know, fallen off your diet or whatever. And if you miss, you know, let's say you go, well, okay, but I I I went on vacation for four days.

By the way, miracle mornings on vacation are my favorite. I do them a little later. They're a little more laxed, but it's like I don't have the pressures that I have at home with, okay, I got my kids are waking up, work starting, da-da-da-da-da. It's like, it's like a vacation miracle morning, right? But let's say you go on vacation, you go, man, I went on vacation for four days and I didn't do the miracle morning. And now I'm struggling to get back into it. I always tell folks in that case.

Make a commitment to do another 30 day challenge and make it public. Respondability is crucial. And so the Miracle Morning community is that Facebook group that Megan you mentioned, 360,000 people. Go in there and say, hey, y'all, I fell off my miracle morning, but I'm making a commitment. I'm leveraging my integrity here and now. Um, and you can even ask for an accountability partner. People always pair up in the group and become accountability partners.

But either way, you just say, hey, I'm committing for today. I'll check in every day and let that group serve as your accountability and your support. And it's there's some of the most positive people on the planet are in that miracle warning community Facebook group. Okay, I'm I'm thinking of one other Possible mistake, and you tell me if this is true or not, and that's over-engineering the miracle mourner mourning, so that it's definitely something you can do when you're super motivated.

But you're gonna fail if you try to maintain that over a long period of time. Yeah, I think that's a big thing is is being really flexible in your miracle morning where I mean I don't do all six savers every day. In fact, in full transparency, visualization is something I only do as needed. I do most of the other savers or maybe even all of them.

most days, visualization is just one that I just don't use it every day. I use it when I feel like I need it. And when I need it, I mean I'll give you some examples. Let's say if you ever have an argument with your spouse the night before.

Right. And let's say you don't make up before bed. You're supposed to make up before bed, but we don't always do that. Right. And let's say you both go to bed and you're frustrated with each other and I use my miracle morning to I use my affirmations, which are written statements reminding me what I'm committed to as a husband, why it's a must for me, and which specific actions I'm going to take.

To be that husband for my wife. I'm reminded of that. And I go, Oh yeah, that's right. It doesn't matter that we had a little conflict last night. I'm committed to this. I'm in it for the long run. I love her. Awesome. Then I will use visualization. to mentally rehearse. I will literally sit there, I'll often meditate and I'll pray, God, fill my heart with love for Ursula. Fill my heart with joy and gratitude and you know forgiveness if that's needed.

And then I'll get into visualization where I'll literally visualize her walking out of the bedroom. And sometimes I'll visualize her with a scowl on her face like you were a jerk last night, right? And and I'll just get into a state of empathy and love and and how I'm going to receive her.

And again, it's called visualization, but I actually like the words mental rehearsal to really explain what visualization is. You're mentally rehearsing yourself showing up in the way you need to in the moment that you need. So now when my wife comes out of the bedroom, I've already meditated, recited affirmations, and I visualize being the loving, caring, forgiving, nurturing, apologetic, whatever.

husband to greet her the way that I need to. The other side of that coin is sometimes if she does, you know, if she's not quick to match my energy. I'm like, I wish you would do the frickin' miracle morning so that we could both be in this positive state when we saw each other instead of you being grumpy. So don't tell her I said that. I'm guessing that might not make it better if you say that. I just think that I Okay, go, go, go. That's awesome.

Well hell, this this has been awesome. And guys, the book is the Miracle Morning After Fifty. So if you've read The Miracle Morning, you've got to read the Miracle Morning after 50. If you've not read The Miracle Morning and you're approaching 50 or older than 50, just start there. Yeah. Great. Right. Well, thank you for really showing us practical things we can do and giving us kind of a plug and play method.

to start our days off in a way that's gonna set us up for success. I think that's so critical, especially as people who care about meaning and purpose and contribution. Um this has to be part of the mix. So thanks for making it easy. My pleasure. Thank you, Megan. Thank you, Michael. I appreciate you y'all so much. You bet. And if people want to find you or follow your work outside of your books, where should they go?

Hallrod.com is really my site for keynote speaking, but I always tell people go to miraclemorning.com. That is the hub for a You can find the movie there. You can find the Miracle Morning app there, which is you know 4.9 out of five stars. That's a really easy tool where you can kind of click play and it guides you through the Miracle Morning. And then all of the books are available there as well. So miraclemorning.com is really the the hub.

Fantastic. Thanks, buddy. Yeah. Yes. I feel like if I had exposure to him every day, I would be twice as energetic. No, he has a lot of energy. He has a lot of energy. But it's not that kind of annoying a lot of energy. Yeah. It's just that he's genuinely joyful and enthusiastic, and it's contagious. And really passionate. I love that. First of all, I thought this take on the miracle.

was so helpful. You know, the just the idea that there are different things that we need to be focused on or like a a slightly shifted take on a practice that I think most of us have in our lives or know that we need to have in our lives, but that it does need to shift as we get older and the season of life changes and probably changes again. And that really resonates.

It did me too. And I've been committed to a morning ritual, which I teach in free to focus. We talk a lot about at full focus. But I am really inspired to completely re-engineer. Like I'm gonna read this book and I'm gonna do exactly what he said. And that is I'm gonna read for five minutes or ten minutes. The book. And then I'm going to add those practices to it.

I love that. I you know, one of the things that I appreciate about you is that you never rest on your laurels. You're never like, I got this figured out. I'm never gonna think about it again. You're always willing to reinvent yourself. And I think this is is great. And I appreciated

kind of what you shared about how some of your practices that you include currently in your morning ritual have shifted. Even things like, you know, the category of exercise, for example, is still a part of your morning ritual, but it looks different than it did twenty Or you know, whatever. And I think that's a good reminder to us because I I've been asked so many times.

By people who are young parents, or they've just had a move, or they've had some major life transition. You know, it's like, I'm just not being consistent. with my morning ritual or I'm just having a really hard time getting up or something like that. And oftentimes we think the problem is our own discipline. And sometimes it's that the things that we're doing or the way that we're doing them just don't fit our season of life anymore.

Well, I kind of I kind of mentioned this toward the end of our conversation with Hal, but I think it's easy to over-engineer it. Yeah. And I think I've been guilty of that. I'm kind of tend to be a maximalist. No secret to you. But like, you know, I think, well, okay, like I've read through the Bible for years. every year using the one year bible. And I decided a couple years ago that that was just too aggressive.

You know, that I wasn't enjoying it. I felt like I was kind of on a death march every day, had to read it. See if it misses the point a little bit. Yeah, like you said, you don't care what people think anymore, I don't care what people think. So I decided and I I created a two year bible reading plan. And I think I'm about to take it down another notch to where if I can just read a chapter or a passage and like even praying. Like my thing for years was like 25 minute plan.

That's too much time. I just literally want to have something that I can do when life is hectic. Yeah. And I'm super busy, yeah, and I'm on the road, and so I never miss, as opposed to something that all the stars have to align, yeah, and everything has to be perfect. I think increasingly the older I don't really care about cooking something up that sounds great or that, you know, just kind of gives me the dopamine hit having made it.

I can imagine what my life would be like if, you know, I could just do this all the time because I I've lived long enough now to know it's probably not gonna happen. Things are not gonna go according to plan. So then what? Like what what practices do you want in your life allowing for? And the stars are not gonna align a lot of the time. Cause I think that's really when we can make Totally. You know, and I I like

I also like the approach of slow. And I think you just brought that up with your Bible reading. I've done that with walking. I used to walk fast. Like, I just love to walk slow. I love to because for me, it's like I love to just take in nature, I love to connect with my. And I'm just I feel like I'm discovering the joy of going slow. Yeah, the important thing is movement. Yeah. Right. Now, you know, cardiovascular, that's a that's a different thing, but that's not really why I'm walking.

To quote um Jonah, I think he said a version of this. That's a young people's game. Yeah. Jonah is my now fifteen year old son who is famously funny and always has been since he was a little a little guy. But yeah, I just I love this that, you know, we know a lot of folks in our audience are either

at that, you know, midlife mark or they're within 10 years of it, um, or perhaps well beyond it. And so I think this is a relevant topic to just say we need to have enough flexibility in how we think about doing our life that we're not just trying to do this thing that we used to do in the same old way, like we're willing to adjust because then it can continue to be relevant. The thing about that savors acronym, it's like an accordion.

So you can expand it or compress it. The important thing is that you do it or some version of it. Yes. So that you don't just go into the day without intentionality. But that you you really set yourself up for success. And that often doesn't take a lot of work, but it takes some work, and you've got to account for that, and hence the miracle morning. So I feel like I'm even more committed. I'm going to do the 30-day challenge, but I'm going to get back to the basics and just start with reading.

That's great. Well, hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Hope that you're inspired to implement a morning ritual, um, perhaps using the miracle morning. methodology if that makes it easier for you. It's a great way to jumpstart your year and the things that matter most to you. If you would, we would love for you to leave us a Five star review and a rating on the podcast because that makes us more visible to others who are interested in winning at work and succeeding at life.

Um, which is a big part of our mission here at Full Focus. So thanks for being with us and we'll see you again soon.