534: How to Achieve Impossible Goals

[INTRODUCTION]

 

Hal Elrod: Hello, friends. Welcome to the Achieve Your Goals podcast. This is your host, Hal Elrod. And today we’re talking about how to achieve your impossible goals, those goals that are so big, so out there that you might not even be thinking about them. You might have given up on them. You might have stopped dreaming because you just don’t believe that they’re possible or at least not that they’re likely and you’re not sure you want to put the energy in. Maybe you’ve tried and you failed before. I was originally going to call today’s episode How to Build a Worldwide Movement because as you’ll see, that’s kind of the throughline today.

 

I’m sharing with you based on a question that came in from our community about how I built the Miracle Morning in this global movement with millions of people. How did I do that? Well, it was really this impossible, seemingly impossible goal that I set out to do. And I’m going to walk you through that journey, how it unfolded, and the lessons that I learned. So, whether or not you want to build a worldwide movement, today’s episode applies to you in that it will help you think bigger about what’s possible for you, and it will give you actionable lessons to go after your biggest goals and dreams.

 

Before we dive into today’s content, I want to take just a couple of minutes to invite you to check out our two sponsors for today’s podcast. The first is Organifi. Now, if you’re like me, you know the importance of eating healthy but you don’t always have the time or willpower to cook with all the colors of the rainbow. Organifi’s superfood blends make it easy and enjoyable to add more variety and nutrition to your day. Now, these are delicious organic powders that you can add to water, stir with a spoon, and enjoy any time for more energy, nutrition, hormone balance, and peace of mind. They are a great way to jumpstart your morning, energize your afternoon, or nourish your evening. Head over to Organifi.com/Hal. That is spelled O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I, Organifi with two Is. Organifi.com/Hal and check out their line of superfood blends.

 

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All right. Goal achievers, without further ado, let’s talk about how to achieve your impossible goals and also how to build a worldwide movement. Here we go.

 

[EPISODE]

 

Hal Elrod: So, I put up a post in the Miracle Morning Community Facebook group allowing members of our community to ask me anything. And one of the questions that came in was about the Miracle Morning movement. Actually, they said my practice is great. I’ve been doing it for a couple of years. It’s changed my life. They said, “I’m really curious about the movement and how you’ve built this worldwide movement.” And they were asking for a behind-the-scenes look at how the Miracle Morning went from being something I made up as my own morning ritual to transform my own life to becoming this global movement that’s now practiced by millions of people in over 100 countries.

 

And here’s actually the exact question that was asked. This person, I did not get permission to use their name, so I won’t do that. But they said, “Hal, you have been a real inspiration for me. You really created this morning ritual into a global movement. As a writer myself, who’s working on my first book, what was going on inside your mind at that time when you were writing the book? Did you ever have a thought that this could become something so great?” So, I loved that question, and I thought, I’m going to walk y’all through this as a kind of we’ll do a bit of a timeline, a little bit of a loose timeline here so you get an idea of how things unfolded chronologically. And I’m going to highlight the lessons that emerge so that you can apply them in your own life.

 

And again, whether or not you want to build a global movement or I just want to inspire you to think bigger about what’s possible for you to go after your goals, go after your dreams in the way that I went from being insecure and scared thinking that I, yeah, not knowing if I was going to be able to turn this Miracle Morning idea into anything, even a successful book, let alone a movement, and then how I went from there to the Miracle Morning making the impact that it has. So, now most of you, you probably know the story of the Miracle Morning like the origin story of how it came to be if you’ve read the book. So, I won’t spend a lot of time on that but just quick summary.

 

The short of it is that in 2008, at the height of the Great Recession, also known as the Global Financial crisis, I was broke, or worse, I was drowning in debt. My house was being foreclosed on, and I was deeply depressed because I felt incapable of turning my life around. Nothing that I was working or nothing that I was trying was working. And during that time, I heard a Jim Rohn quote, “Your level of success will seldom exceed your level of personal development because success is something you attract by the person you become.” And I had an epiphany that I’ve got to become the person that I need to be to create the success that I want in my life.

 

And I assembled six of the most timeless, proven personal development practices into a daily morning routine, and within two months, I was able to double my income, overcome my depression, and I started training for an ultramarathon, which was so far out of my comfort zone.

I wasn’t a runner, and my life turned around so dramatically that it felt like a miracle. And my wife dubbed it my Miracle Morning routine, and I immediately started sharing it with my coaching clients. Most initially resisted claiming they’re not morning people. I said, “No, neither was I,” and then 13 out of 14 of my coaching clients came to their next coaching call two weeks later and said, “Oh my gosh, this Miracle Morning thing works. I’m waking up early, I’m motivated, I’m meditating, I’m journaling, I’m doing affirmations, I’m reading, I’m exercising, I’m visualizing.”

 

And that was when I realized that week of those coaching calls, literally that week is when I realized that, “Wow. The Miracle Morning changed my life,” and I wasn’t a morning person. And it did the same thing for my clients’ lives and most of them weren’t morning people. This could change anybody’s life. This could change the world, so to speak. And so, I decided the best way to share it with as many people as possible was to write a book. So, that was 2008. And I’m a really slow writer. Writing is really challenging for me. My brain works well when I’m talking, but it feels very stunted when I’m trying to write. And they call that writer’s block. Like, I have perpetual writer’s block.

 

But so, 2008-2009, roughly, I started writing the book just a little bit each day. And to answer the question that came in about what was going on inside my mind at that time, it was really a mix of fear and possibility, like the fear of I’m writing so slow that this is going to take me, I’m never going to get this thing done. And as I’m writing, I also suffer brain damage. So, I have short-term memory. And this still is a struggle for me today as I’m writing my new book right now. Like, sometimes when I’m writing a paragraph, by the end of the paragraph, I can’t remember where I started, and I have to keep rereading things and rereading things. And then as I get go page after page, I’m like, “Wait, did I already talk about that?” And then I have to go back and comb through.

 

So, like, writing is a really painful process for me, right? So, anyway, but I’m like, you know what? I have a responsibility to share this with other people. Like, it changed my life. It changed my clients’ lives. And so, for you, I want you to consider what in your life has been transformative for you, and it might be something that you came up with on your own. It might be something that you learned from somebody else, right? It might have been from another person’s perspective or framework or book or whatever. But that you feel a sense of responsibility to share it with other people. And it doesn’t have to be your own. It can be other people’s work. I mean, there are people around the world that do Miracle Morning trainings and workshops, whether it’s within their company or whatever. And I probably should have a better handle on that like they should be certified. I realize that but we don’t have that in place yet.

 

One of my many, many things on what my mentor used to call the disgraced list. My former mentor, Anthony Bourke, used to say he had his long disgraced list, which was the list of things that he should do that he could do that would be beneficial for him and his business and his life but he just hasn’t got time. He just hadn’t gotten around to it. So, one of the things on my disgraced list is having a Miracle Morning certification, where people go through and are vetted before they’re out there running trainings and such. But it’s happening without me even knowing about it or monitoring it. I hear it through the grapevine or people email me and go, “Hey! But just so you know, I ran this training at my church last week on the Miracle Morning.” Like, okay, cool. So, again, whether what’s helped you in your life and been transformative that you can pay forward and help other people.

 

So, anyway, I started writing the book, 2009, and also in that time I heard a… Oh, let me actually close the loop on the mix of fear and possibility in my mind, right? So, what was going through my mind as I was writing the book? It was this, like I have a responsibility to share it with others, but like how am I going to convince people to wake up early when they might have a lifetime of an internal dialog and a rooted belief that says, “I’m not a morning person?” So, I had a lot of fear and insecurity that I wasn’t capable of doing what I wanted to do, which was to reach countless people, millions of people, whatever, change the world one morning at a time. Like, I didn’t know how I was going to do it. And so, I want you to be really cognizant of that.

 

Very few people that you see that are out there and making a huge impact or successful, very few of them knew without a shadow of a doubt that they were going to be able to do what they were wanting to do, that it was going to work, or that they were going to succeed. And so many people that are successful failed multiple times on their journey, which every time they failed, it’s like even more evidence that, man, maybe I’m not going to be able to do what it is that I’m trying to do. So, understand that fear of failure is completely normal. One of my favorite books is Failing Forward by John Maxwell, which talks about like every successful person fails, and if you let the failure stop you and you give up, then you’re done.

 

But if you fail forward, which means you fail, you learn from it, you make some adjustments and you try again, and then maybe you fail again, but you make some adjustments, you learn even more, and then you try again. And you keep failing forward. And that’s how you eventually get to a place of success is it might be your 13th attempt like, “Oh my gosh, it finally worked. I finally figured it out.” I mean, I had written a book six years before the Miracle Morning published, Taking Life Head On published and I thought that book I was out. I was actually more optimistic about that book because I’ve never written a book. I was like, “This book is going to change the world. I’m going to share my story, Taking Life Head On, my head-on collision.”

 

And then I’ll do a series, Taking College Head On, Taking Success Head on, Taking Marriage Head On. That was my initial idea. And that book did not do very well. My publisher was a small publisher. They actually stole all of my royalties and moved out of their home and office and fled and were on the run, and they stole my money, and I never heard from them again. And still to this day, I have no idea what happened to them. So, that was like my first experience into writing a book and publishing was, okay, I didn’t sell very many copies and all of my royalties were stolen by the publisher. So, that was my first experience.

 

So, fast forward. And in 2009, I’m writing the book. I’m every day battling my inner doubt, fear, and self-doubt. So, it’s totally normal that you might have that. And it’s part of building a global movement. It’s like you’ve got to overcome. You’ve got to fail forward and overcome your fears and self-doubt and insecurity. Now, in 2009, I also heard an audio training from Dan Kennedy. And if you don’t know Dan Kennedy, he’s a very famous marketer and has written a lot of books on marketing and done trainings and used to do events and so on and so forth. He’s a little bit older now, probably, I think in his 60s, maybe even 70s, I’m not sure.

 

But way back then, this was in 2009-ish, he said that your most valuable asset in today’s age, if you will, and again, this was 2009, 15 years ago, but I think it still holds true today. It’s still relevant today. He said, “Your most valuable asset is your email list.” He said, “If you build an email list,” and he would just use examples. Let’s say you have a thousand people on your email list. He said, “If you have a book come out or a product come out or a program, coaching program, event, whatever it is, something that you can sell to people that will add value to their life.” He said, “If you have 1,000 people on your email list and you email them the announcement for your new book or product or service,” he said, “you’re going to sell X amount to those thousand people.”

 

You know, maybe 50 people of them or 20 or 100 or whatever, whatever percentage will buy your new book or program or service, right? And he said, “However, if you have 10,000 people on your email list and you keep building it, then that same email that you send them announcing your book or product or service, you’re going to sell ten times as much and earn ten times as much because you’ve simply built up a larger email list over time.” And so, as I’m hearing this, like that alone it seems simple, but okay, a thousand people on my email list, I’m going to sell X amount. 10,000 people on my email list I’m going to sell ten times that amount by sending that same email. And like that was just this, “Wow. That’s profound. I guess it makes sense to start building an email list.”

 

And then he went on to say, “If you have 100,000 people on your list, then that same email, same amount of effort, you send that one email announcing your book or your program or your service, you’re going to sell a hundred times as much as you would have sold with that 1,000-person email list.” And let’s just say you have $100 product or you make $100 on your product and let’s say that 1,000-person email list has ten sales. So, that $100 product times ten, that’s $1,000 that you earn. Well, if you send that same email to 10,000 people, of course, you’re earning $10,000. And if you send it to 100,000 people, you’re earning $100,000 from that same email.

 

So, I put up an audio. When I heard that, I’m like, “Okay. How can I immediately implement this?” And there was someone that had asked me if they could interview me right around that time and I said, “Hey, will you record the interview, and can I have the audio to put it up on like a website,” which I didn’t have a website but I had to build one, like a little one-pager that said, “Hey, learn the Miracle Morning. Change your life one morning at a time.” Just put your name and email in. And so, that was how I started building an email list. And you can use a program now like Leadpages.com. I mean, I don’t even know how many programs there probably are now that if you google how to build a one-page website or what’s known as a landing page or an opt-in page. Those are different terminology for the same thing.

 

That can be monumental, right? Just that you put up something of value and it could be a, for me, I did a 60-minute interview with this gentleman and put that up. By the way, that got passed around via word of mouth. And I generated over 10,000 email opt-ins for people to download that audio while I was writing the book. So, think about this, right? Like, I hadn’t even written the book yet but I just did an audio and you could do a ten-minute YouTube video or a ten-minute audio or you could write a one-page PDF or a sneak peek of your book or product or service, whatever it is that you’re eventually going to be selling. And maybe you don’t have it ready yet.

 

Maybe you don’t have a product or a program or something that value yet but whatever you’re eventually going to sell, well, give them a taste of it that’s valuable, that adds value. And like in that 60-minute audio, I walked him through the Miracle Morning and the origin story and what it was and how to implement it and how to beat the snooze button. And so, over 10,000 people opted in and gave their email address to get that audio. So, the beauty of that is now, according to Dan Kennedy like how did my book come out, The Miracle Morning come out three years later, I now had 10,000 people that I could email to buy the book. And because of that, The Miracle Morning debuted its first week in 2012, I don’t remember exactly where it was, but it was a bestseller on Amazon, I think number one in its category.

 

I think it got to like, I don’t remember, maybe number 40 or I don’t even remember the number, but it became a bestseller. But that’s because of what Dan Kennedy said held true because I had invested three years or two or three years in building an email list. Now, I had again what he called your number one asset that you can promote whatever your product or service or free offering, whatever it is. It’s about that email list. So, if you don’t have any email list right now or friends and family, which is I had my cousins and my aunts and uncles, mom and dad, that was my email list when I started this. But the best time to start, of course, they say was a year ago or three years ago or whatever the next best time is today.

 

So, google how to create a one-page landing page or email opt-in page. And, in fact, let me google how to create a one-page email opt-in. There you go. So, there’s a bunch of options that come up for you. And some of them are email marketing programs, which, oh, by the way, you do need an email marketing program if people are going to opt in for your email. And so, I think most email marketing programs like MailChimp or ActiveCampaign or Constant Contact. Leadpages is one of the most popular so LeadPages.com and their tagline is, “Get online in 30 minutes.” So, literally, in 30 minutes, you can have and I think they’re like $20 a month. It’s really affordable. But then you start building your email list, you email value to them, etcetera, etcetera.

 

So, let’s fast forward. I’m not going to get into the weeds on a lot of these but I just want to get in the weeds when there’s a lesson and I thought that if you’re going to build a global movement, you have to have a way to, A, build your audience, which you can use social media but the problem is you don’t own that audience, essentially, whereas like when you put something on social media, on Facebook, for example, that we have 300,000 people in the Miracle Morning community. I used to put up a post and every single person got a notification and saw it. But now, because of Facebook’s algorithms, it’s a very limited number of people that see your stuff on social media. So, I would never rely just on social media.

 

In fact, I actually do a lot less on social media and I focus more on emails. And of course, now you can also do text message marketing and I don’t do a lot of that. I really should do more. We have a program that we use called I believe it’s Community.com. The program is called Community. So, it’s community text messaging. And you might be opted into that. I’m sorry. I apologize if you don’t get text from me very often. It’s like, again, that goes on my disgrace list. I should be texting value to my people on a regular basis, and I am working on that for the app, the Miracle Morning app. I’m about to record. Well, yeah, I should. I’m scared to announce it, right? Because in the past, I’ve struggled to follow through this.

 

But the plan is, I’m telling you the plan, the plan is I’m going to start recording daily videos like short 30-second inspirational videos that are going to go into the Miracle Morning app so that subscribers to the app can get a daily video for me that just shares one thing that I’m doing that’s working in my Miracle Morning or it helps encourage you or shape or improve your mindset or gives you a tip or a strategy or something actionable that you can do. Right? So, yeah, always trying to get better. But, in 2010, fast forward a year, I started recording video blogs on my phone. And the reason I’m sharing this is because they were, I don’t want to say terrible, but I mean, they’re like no production value.

 

Like, for those of you that are perfectionists and like have everything perfect, no, literally, I might have had a little tripod for my phone. I don’t even know if I had that. I think I set it on a book on my coffee table or I’d walk around with it. And I always did my podcast or my video blogs in the morning at like 5 or 6 a.m. and my hair was always a mess. Like, I always wanted to be just authentic and I was in my pajamas and I always started them out. Every video, I started by saying something like, “Welcome to the early morning unscripted hair is always a mess Miracle Morning video blogs,” and I had no idea what I was doing. They would be some were two minutes, some were six minutes, some were 12 minutes, whatever.

 

I remember when I had my first daughter, she starred in a couple of video blogs. So, I had to record the video blog in the morning, had committed to do it, but then she woke up early and I was taking care of her. So, she’s on my lap and I’m rocking my daughter, Sophia, while I’m recording a video blog. But the point is you just got to get started. You just got to give up being perfect for being authentic and you have to start somewhere. That is it. That’s one of the big themes of starting a global movement is starting. You’ve got to get started. And then 2011, you fast-forward a year so I’m still writing the book. Every year I’m getting closer. And I gave my first Miracle Morning keynote in Sacramento, California.

 

I got asked to speak at the Successful Thinkers event. I don’t know that those are going on anymore, but it was called the Successful Thinkers event. And Rudy Giuliani, the inspiration for the hit movie, Rudy, he was the headliner and I was his warm up act. And I was so green at that time. I was like I asked the event person that asked if I would speak, I said, “Hey, can I talk about this thing called the Miracle Morning?” Because I think they wanted me to share my car accident story. They had heard about that and they’re like, “Can you come share your story?” I said, “Yeah, but can I also share this thing called the Miracle Morning?” And that might still be on YouTube, by the way. I think it is.

 

If you go to YouTube and type in “Hal Elrod Successful Thinkers” or might be “Miracle Morning Successful Thinkers.” In fact, it’s funny, when I uploaded that YouTube, that was back when YouTube had a 10-minute maximum time limit on their video. So, I actually had to cut the video in half to the 17-minute speech. And I had to record up part one 10 minutes and part two 7 minutes but I think you can still watch that video on YouTube. I’m probably embarrassed if I were to watch it. So, I gave the speech. So, the point is, like, as I’m writing the book, I’m recording audios, I’m posting about it on YouTube. I mean, I’m on social media. I’m giving a speech about it at a conference. Like, this is all while I’m still writing the book.

 

And as I’m sharing it on social media and that audio, people are emailing me and they’re like, “Hey, I heard your audio. I’m doing the Miracle Morning. Thank you so much for changing my life.” And then I would interact a big, “Hey, what’s working for you? Do you have any challenges?” So, if you ever want to write a book, to me, write a book publicly meaning as like build your email list, talk about your content in your book on social media. If you have some people you can email, email them. Give a speech about it.” I joined Toastmasters. You don’t know what Toastmasters is. It’s basically they teach you public speaking and you’re in a group with a depending on the size of the group, there could be six other people or 12 or 20 or whatever.

 

I think there was like less than ten in my group and it was a small group, but you’re learning how to give different types of speeches. And so, when I was writing The Miracle Morning, I joined Toastmasters so I could be a better public speaker but also so I could test the Miracle Morning material on my fellow Toastmasters. And then that group is designed so they give you feedback, and I would get feedback, and then I would use that in the book. So, I would use the feedback from people that were emailing me and the questions I’d ask them, and they would answer in the book. And so, it’s constantly developing the content, getting feedback, learning from other people, so on and so forth. And also in the video blogs, I would get feedback from them and I would test stuff out, right?

 

So, it’s always like just learning as you go versus thinking I had it all figured out from day one and writing a book with like, “Hey, I know everything. Here it is.” It’s like, “No. I’m a work in progress. I’m learning, and I want to learn from other people what’s working and what’s not working and what questions they have with my content.” So, 2012 was the magical year, right? That was the year I launched The Miracle Morning. I finally self-published it. And there’s an important lesson I’m going to share here in a second. But I self-published it on 12-12-2012. So, that was the day I was like, wow, this is like a once-in-a-lifetime chance to publish it on December 12th, 2012. And so, that was the date that I picked.

 

But here’s the deal. I had already announced that date. I announced that date I don’t remember when but probably early 2012. I’m like, “Hey, everybody, this is the date. The Miracle Morning is finally coming out.” And I had been sharing, “Hey, I’m writing the book. Here’s the latest video blog.” So, people were kind of following along on this journey with me that I was writing The Miracle Morning, and they were already practicing it before the book even came out because I would post that audio on social and let them listen to that, and it taught them how to implement it. So, people are already doing the practice before the book came out. And here’s the important lesson I want to share. I had announced the deadline and I’ve done this a lot. I really am a big fan of announcing a public date or a date to the public when something is going to come out because it’s one of the greatest forms of accountability.

 

When I was training for that ultramarathon, right, I announced not, “Hey, I’m going to run an ultramarathon someday.” “Hey, I have signed up for the Atlantic City Marathon and I’m going to run it twice back-to-back in a row,” because it was only a marathon and I committed to run an ultramarathon because I had never run before. By the way, like this is an important, this is a side lesson, but like I wasn’t a runner and I had never run more than the high school mile that was required and I hated running. And that’s why I committed to do this thing that I thought was nearly impossible. And I only knew it was possible because two of my friends, Jon Berghoff and Jon Vroman, had both run 52-mile ultramarathons.

 

And so, I was like, “Well, if they could do it, I know it’s possible.” I’m terrified of running more than a mile but I’m just going to commit publicly. And I committed, “Hey, everyone, I’m giving you my word. I’m going to run this ultra marathon and I’m going to start my training, and I’m going to update you on a regular basis how I’m doing on my training.” So, it was accountability. And if it wasn’t for that accountability, both in the form of the deadline of that ultramarathon and then me publicly committing to it, I probably wouldn’t have woken up and trained more often than not, and I wouldn’t have followed through with that marathon. And the same thing goes with the Miracle Morning book. I announced that I was going to do it. However, here’s the deal I was not on pace. So, with six months to go until the deadline, I wasn’t even halfway through.

 

I think I was like a quarter of the way through the book where I needed to be. And I’m like, “There’s no way I’m going to get this done on time. But I had already committed publicly to do it.” And again, how can you apply this in your life? How can you commit publicly to goals? So, that’s the first lesson in this part of the story but the second lesson is I needed help. I needed ongoing support and accountability. So, I asked around if anybody knew any writing coaches and I got a recommendation to Joel and Sue Canfield. And I reached out. I really liked them, and I hired them. And so, we had I believe it was weekly calls to write the book. And every week they would hold me accountable to write. And every week, essentially, they would give me support and encouragement. They’d read what I wrote.

 

And so, it was like kind of a best of multiple worlds where not only did I get the accountability, but I also got like the suggestions and the idea because they were both writers. But if it wasn’t for hiring an accountability coach or writing coach in Joel and Sue Canfield, I would not have gotten the book done. They held me accountable. And in those last six months, I wrote more than in the previous two and a half years. I’m going to say that again. It was because I hired a coach to hold me accountable that I was more productive in six months than I was without a coach for two and a half years. Think about that. And I’m not a coach anymore. Like, I’m not selling coaching right now. I’m selling you on the idea of coaching because I think coaching has changed my life multiple times.

 

When I hired my first coach in 2004, that was the year I doubled my best year ever in sales and doubled my income that year. And so, that was hiring Jeff Sooey at the time, and he was my coach. And that year I wrote my first book. I doubled my income. I got in the best shape of my life. And it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t hired a coach. And then I became a coach, when did I become a coach, in 2005 and I was a coach until I got cancer in 2016, and then I stopped coaching. But I wanted to pay it forward. Kind of the Miracle Morning had changed my life and I wanted to pay it forward. Well, in terms of coaching, I was like coaching changed my life and I want to pay it forward. And so, I then became a coach, right?

 

And by the way, I don’t know if I already said this but I am going to end today by sharing with you, I’m going to consolidate all of the little lessons I’m weaving in and out here into step-by-steps how to build a worldwide movement. So, make sure you stay until the end. I just really want you to see how this unfolded as organically as possible. Now, so I’ve published the book. Something I also did that year when the Miracle Morning book came out is I started the Miracle Morning Community Facebook group, and that was a suggestion from my friend, Jon Vroman. He said, “Hal, do you have like any kind of online meeting place where readers can connect to support each other and share ideas and ask questions?” And I said, “No, I didn’t even think about that.”

 

And he said, “I think it’s important because the Miracle Morning people are doing early in the morning, while everybody else is sleeping. And it’s going to be real easy if they don’t have accountability to let themselves down and like not do it.” He said, “So, why don’t you start a Miracle Morning Facebook group?” “It’s a great idea.” So, I started with like me and him and a few friends and my mom and dad and my sister. It was probably like maybe less than a dozen people when it started. And then I put in the Miracle Morning book like, “Hey, join the Miracle Morning community on Facebook.” And now it’s roughly 350,000 members, I think, from 100 countries, I mean, all around the world in that group.

 

And so, that all started. Again, you got to start somewhere. Did I ever imagine in my wildest dreams that that group would grow from less than a dozen people to 350,000 people? And the answer is absolutely not. I never even thought that big. And that’s important because, again, like the question that came in and I get that asked that a lot like, “Did you know?” Because you do hear people, right? You see people sometimes that are really successful and they’re like, “I knew from a young age that I was going to be somebody, that I was going to be famous or I was going to change the world or I would like…” I didn’t. That wasn’t me. For me, it was like one step in front of the other just like, “What’s the next thing I could do? What’s the next thing I could do? Okay, what’s the goal in the next 12 months that I could work?”

But it was always, it’s kind of like when you drive in the middle of the night with your headlights on. That to me is a more accurate analogy as opposed to like having a vision that I knew what was going to happen. I didn’t know, I just drove my headlights on and I’m like, “Oh, I can see 200 feet in front of me,” which that could be equivalent of I could see 12 months in front of me or I could see the next step. And then it was just always like, “What’s next? What’s next? What’s next?”

 

And one of the things that’s going to become more clear as we get through this, this is probably an hour-long podcast, I’m assuming. And I figured, like, this is going to be a pretty in-depth podcast and a lot of stories woven in, a lot of lessons woven in. But one of the things that you find is that you can’t predict what’s going to happen. You can’t predict the people that are going to show up in your life when you commit to something. And I think that’s, for me, I committed to change 1 million lives one morning at a time. When the Miracle Morning book published, I committed to change 1 million lives one morning at a time, which was an inspiring way of me saying, I’m committed to getting the Miracle Morning book in the hands of over a million people, no matter how long it takes.

 

And what you find is when you commit to something, the how, H-O-W, reveals itself. I learned that when I was in Cutco from one of my mentors, Mark Lovas. I remember he was giving a speech at a conference. Actually, I remember that vividly because the air conditioning at the hotel broke. It was 104 degrees in Sacramento and we were in a three-day conference baking in this hotel room at a 104-degree weather with no air conditioning. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. But Mark Lovas taught us, when you commit to something, the how reveals itself. And he said most people are never willing to commit because they don’t know how. They can’t see clearly how they would make that happen.

 

For example, commit to be a millionaire. I don’t know how, though, so they won’t commit until they know how. He said, “But very rarely will you know how. You have to just commit to do whatever it takes for as long as it takes. And then the how will reveal itself.” And not all at once, it’s like one little how reveals itself, and then you take action on that how. And then that leads to, oh, another how. Never saw that coming. Let’s do that. And then you do that. And then that leads to you meeting somebody that shows you another how. That is how success unfolds. That’s how building a global movement, a worldwide movement or becoming successful or achieving your big goals, your big dreams, that is how it unfolds. It’s one little how at a time, but it’s the how is born from your commitment.

 

In fact, I could argue that that’s the most important lesson for any of us to learn or embody. It’s simply how committed are we, like to be committed that when you are fully committed to something, the how reveals itself, and it rarely reveals itself until you’re fully committed, and again, it doesn’t reveal itself all at once. It’s gradual. It’s a little bit at a time, a little bit at a time. Meeting the right person that you never could have predicted. That’s the crazy part. When I look back to this journey and we get to the end, you’ll see we’re about halfway through. I couldn’t have predicted the people and the opportunities and all the things that happened, and so, let’s get into that.

 

So, in 2013, my goal, sell 1 million copies of The Miracle Morning. And I decided to go for it that year. Like, why not, right? You have to set your goals for the year. Why not go big? And I didn’t know how it would happen. But I’m like, I’m committed to change 1 million lives one morning at a time. That means getting the Miracle Morning book that I self-published at the end of 2012 in the hands of a million people in 2013.

 

And so, once I set that goal, I committed to apply the Miracle Equation. And this is going to come up. We’re going to circle back to the Miracle Equation at the end. I don’t know if you’re familiar with this. If you haven’t read, that is a book that I wrote, but it was not a book initially. It was something I started applying in the year 2000. When I was 20 years old or 21 years old, I created this thing called the Miracle Equation to do things that had never been done in the history of my company that I work for at the time. I was trying to break all-time Cutco sales records, and so, the Miracle Equation is simply unwavering faith combined with extraordinary effort or unwavering faith plus extraordinary effort until. Meaning, you apply unwavering faith to achieve the goals that you have in your life, no matter what, even if you experienced failure and setback and you override your self-doubt with that unwavering faith and you apply extraordinary effort doing at least one thing every day, if not more, that moves in the direction of your goal and then the pivotal piece there, until you do it for as long as it takes.

 

And so, I applied. I committed to apply the Miracle Equation to that goal. So, I reached out to podcasters. I got on 152 podcasts and no one knew who I was. I was an unknown author. I just pounded the pavement, pounded the email pavement. Plus, I launched my own podcast to try to get the word out there and add value to my email list that I now had an email list, but I had to add value to them. So, I did a weekly podcast, like you’re listening to now. By the way, I mean, this is crazy. This is week, I think, 534. I’ve recorded a podcast episode every week for the last 534 weeks, and the only time I took a break is when I had cancer. During the eight months that I was getting 700 hours of chemotherapy, my good friend Jon Berghoff stepped in and he recorded the podcast for me. So, other than that, though, I’ve been doing them every week.

 

However, that year, my goal was sell a million books and I failed miserably. And it was 987,000 copies short of my goal. Think about that. My goal was a million books sold and I was 987,000 copies short of the goal. I sold 13,000 copies that year. That’d be like if your goal was to make $1 million and you made $13, right? Is that right? Or is it $130? Either way, I was 98.7% short of the goal. By the way, was I discouraged? Absolutely. Because I did the math and it was, I think, at 13,000 copies a year, I believe it takes like 76 or 77 years to sell a million copies. At that time, I would have been 110 years old, right? So, I was 33 years old, 77 years later, I’d be 110. I’m going, okay, man, this is an impossible goal.

 

However, I had already committed to applying the Miracle Equation and I had been applying the Miracle Equation at that point in my life for over a decade, and I applied it to all sorts of goals, including writing the Miracle Morning. When I felt like giving up, I’m like, nope, unwavering faith that I can write this book, and I’m putting forth extraordinary effort until the very last moment, until the end, for as long as it takes. And so, I had applied that. So, I already knew, okay, this sucks. I’m discouraged. I gave it everything I had, and I fell short by 98.7%. But I just got to keep going. I just got to keep going, no matter how long it takes to reach a million people.

 

Also worth noting that year, in July of 2013, I published the Miracle Morning Journal, which I had tried to publish when the book came out, but I just couldn’t get them both done. So, again, that was a goal I failed on. I tried to get it done. By the end of 2012, it wasn’t done. It took me another six months to publish the Miracle Morning Journal. You might not even know that exist, by the way. This gal just posted the other day that that has been a game changer for her.

 

So, the Miracle Morning Journal, it’s on Amazon. It’s a really cool daily journal for all 365 days a year. And it’s got SAVERS trackers and all sorts of fun stuff in it. But I published that because I had gotten, I knew what journal, like I had tried a lot of different journals and I wanted one that had the best features combined from every journal I had tried. And that became the Miracle Morning Journal.

 

2014, I’m still doing podcast. I’m still trying to sell a million copies of the book. And my friend Ryan Snow, who I knew from selling Cutco, reached out and he asked if I’d ever consider writing the Miracle Morning, a series, because he told me he had given the Miracle Morning to his entire sales team and every person on his sales team that had read the book, their sales had increased, and every person that didn’t read the book, their sales had not increased. And he said, obviously, it’s not a coincidence. It’s got to be, because they’re applying the Miracle Morning. And he said, “Let’s do a Miracle Morning for Salespeople.” Or he asked if I thought about and I said, “Hey, why don’t you and I do it?”

 

So, we started coauthoring the Miracle Morning for Salespeople. That was the first book in the series, and then I met Honoree Corder. Honoree Corder, for those of you that don’t know, she helped me to write the Miracle Morning book series and produced it, and she had written a book series called The Successful Single Mom book series, Successful Single Mom Gets Fit, Successful Single Mom Gets Rich, Successful Single Mom Learns to Cook, something like that. And I had met her online. She had written a review on Goodreads.

 

Again, I couldn’t have predicted that I would have met her, but we connected, and then I brought her on to help me write the Miracle Morning book series. And so, she started working with Ryan, and I was working with Ryan, and we’re all collaborating that year. And this was a big year, by the way, 2014 was a miracle year. So, Ryan Snow suggested the book series, which now, there’s over a dozen books in the Miracle Morning book series. I met Honoree Corder, which was monumental. She was monumental in helping me to develop the series.

 

I also went to an entrepreneur dinner. I got invited to it. Couldn’t have predicted this, but I met Mike Koenigs, and we started talking, and he found out that I had written The Miracle Morning. At that time, we had sold tens of thousands of copies. And he introduced me to his agent, Celeste Fine. And Celeste Fine, I’ll keep a long story short, but she ended up bringing the Miracle Morning. She represented me. We met with 13 New York publishers. We got 12 offers or nine offers. I turned all of them down. I wanted to keep the book self-published at that time.

 

But then her foreign rights department thought the book would do really well overseas. So, they started representing the Miracle Morning to other publishers in other countries. And I’ll circle back to that in a minute. But that year, the first book in the series actually published called The Miracle Morning for Real Estate Agents. Even though I started writing the book with Ryan on the salespeople book, it didn’t get finished first. So, The Miracle Morning for Real Estate Agents, and that was just amazing.

 

Someone named Mike Reese reached out to me, and he said, “The Miracle Morning changed my life. I would love to do an addition for real estate agents. Would you be open to that?” I’m like, “Great idea. I’m already doing one for salespeople.” And then his partner, Jay Kinder, another gentleman named Michael Maher, who I’m friends with, he wrote The Seven Levels of Communication, which is a real estate book, we all collaborated. And with Honoree’s support, and we published The Miracle Morning for Real Estate Agents in November of 2014.

 

And then in December of that year, I hosted my first ever live event called Best Year Ever Blueprint with my good friend Jon Berghoff. We had, I think, 300 people join us at a hotel in San Diego. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was making it up as I went along, and thankfully, I had Jon Berghoff’s help. He was much more experienced at running events than I was. And then we launched a mastermind that year.

 

So, I’m sharing that with you because I want you to realize, I had been building an email list. And by the way, not only had I been building, I’m going to circle back to this lesson and I’m going to add to it right now. Not only had I been building an email list from that initial 60-minute audio that I had released around 2009, but when the Miracle Morning book came out, I offered a bunch of bonuses in the book. I offered a smoothie recipe. You probably downloaded these various affirmations, bedtime affirmations, my own affirmations, self-confidence affirmations inspired by Think and Grow Rich. What else? Smoothie recipe, sample journal, there was all these bonuses that people could download and get the PDF and print them out by giving their email address. And so, that’s how I further started building the email list.

 

And it went from 10,000 people to 20,000, 30,000, 40,000, 50,000, and eventually over 100,000 people and eventually, over a million people subscribed through reading the Miracle Morning book. So, where was I going with that? There was a reason that I was sharing that. Oh, here’s the point. So, when I finally– I tried to get my first event launched in 2012, but again, with the book, I just couldn’t get everything done. So, I tried again in 2013, couldn’t get it all done. So, I believe it was finally in 2014. Might have been 2013, but don’t quote me. But when we launched the first event, here’s the point. Because I had followed Dan Kennedy’s advice and been building an email list for, at that point, what, four or five years, and at that time, I was probably at, I don’t know, 40,000 people on the email list. I don’t know exactly. But because of that, now, like Dan Kennedy said, you send out an email and now, you’re reaching instead of a thousand people or fourth out, you’re reaching 40,000 people or 60,000, whatever it was. And we sold out our first live event that the room only fit 300 and something people. And whatever it was, we sold out that amount. And then we realized, man, we should have got a bigger room. But at that point, it was already contracted. The rest of the hotel was sold out. So, we just stuck with what we had, and we sold out the event that year. And then because we had sold out the event, we launched a mastermind, the Quantum Leap Mastermind at the event.

 

So, from a business perspective, even though we didn’t make a lot of money on the event, we made a little bit of money. But on the mastermind, we were able to generate more revenue because it was a smaller group of people that were paying more income. So, our expenses were less on the mastermind because we now have to house 300 people. We only house 50 or whatever. We put on multiple events throughout the year. The mastermind members would fly out and it was awesome. But those were two, they were not only extra business opportunities, sources of revenue, but there’s nothing like getting together in person with your community, your readers, your followers, your fans, your customers, however you want to refer to, your community. But that was just an incredible energizing experience. But part of building the movement, and by the way, of course, the people that you meet with in person, that you spend time with, you have intimate relationships with your community members, your mastermind members, proximity is power. And those become your biggest evangelists that are out there sharing the Miracle Morning and sharing your message and whatever it is.

 

Fast forward, next year, 2015, Miracle Morning for Salespeople was published and Miracle Morning for Network Marketers. Salespeople was coauthored, of course, with Ryan Snow, my friend, that initially had the idea for the series. And then the Marketers book was coauthored with Pat Petrini, who was a good friend of mine from Cutco. And with Honoree’s help, we published both of those books in 2015. And that year, The Miracle Morning had been sold to foreign publishers, and it published in six other countries. It was translated and published in France, South Korea, Russia, the UK, and Brazil, I believe. I might be off on one of those.

 

And it ended up being one of the bestselling books in Korea and in Brazil, actually, number one in both those countries, top six bestseller in other countries. I couldn’t have predicted that I would go to that entrepreneur dinner and meet Mike Koenigs, and he’d introduce me to Celeste Fine. And then it wouldn’t work out to get the publishing opportunities in the US. We would turn those down, but then it would lead to the Miracle morning impacting now over a million people outside of the United States in languages that I don’t even speak, right?

 

And so, this goes back to how do you create a worldwide movement, one step at a time, one opportunity at a time. And the foundation of it is the Miracle Equation. You take your first step. You face your fear, you face your fear of failure. You fail forward, and you maintain unwavering faith that it’s possible. You don’t know it’s possible. You’re still scared, but you override the fear and the insecurity with that faith. And the way to do that is in writing.

 

In writing, you have to have your Miracle Equation affirmation. I am committed to, for me, changing 1 million lives one morning at a time, no matter how long it takes and no matter what, there is no other option. So, for you, it’s I am committed to blank. Whatever your goal, your dream is, when you commit, remember, the how reveals itself. Don’t be like most people, which is you don’t commit because you don’t know how you’re going to get there. You got to commit first. That’s the order it’s got to happen, and the commitment comes first. And the commitment includes doing whatever it takes, figuring it out for as long as it takes to get there. And when you finally get there, you look back and you realize, wow, the timing was perfect. I’m going to quickly go through the last few pieces of the puzzle here. I mean, there’s quite a bit more, but I want to really make sure we spend about at least 10 minutes, 5 or 10 minutes going really deep in the lessons here, really, really highlighting these for you so that you can write them down or implement them or whatever.

 

2016, I moved my family to Texas. The Miracle Morning for Writers, coauthored with Steve Scott, was published, and The Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs, coauthored with Cameron Herold, was published. And by the way, the reason we were able to publish multiple books in the same year was with Honoree, we had created this system, and the coauthors were doing most of the writing because I had created a template that they were able to utilize and then customize for each of their books, and then they wrote most of the content. So, the 30% to 50% of the content was template that was customized by them. And then they wrote the rest of 50% to 70% of the book, completely brand new, fresh content. And that’s how all the series books essentially were written.

 

And then, that year, I also was diagnosed with cancer, which obviously was really scary. And I spent most of the next year in the hospital. One thing I forgot to mention is a couple of years before, we started filming the Miracle Morning documentary. My friend Nick Conedera, who’s a filmmaker, he reached out and he proposed it, and I finally said yes. And we started that process, and he was the one that was doing most of the work in conjunction with our executive producer, Theresa Laurico, who I met at an event called Archangel Academy. And one thing led to another.

 

This is such an important piece, is the people. When you commit, the people that you need to make your dream a reality will come into your life in unexpected ways at the right time. That was my agent, Celeste Fine. That was Honoree Corder that helped me with the Miracle Morning book series and producing that and developing that. That was my coauthors that I would, one at a time, I didn’t seek out any of them. I’d meet Cameron Herold at an event. And he’s a very successful entrepreneur. And we start talking, and I’m like, “Wow. You’d be perfect to write the Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs.” And then he does, right? And that’s how it plays out, but you can’t predict it.

 

When you commit, the how reveals itself. And that also, I guess, you could say when you commit, the who’s reveal themselves. In fact, I would write that down. If you already wrote down, when you commit, the how reveals itself and the who’s reveal themselves. One of my favorite books is, Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy, which talks about, like, we’re always trying to figure out how to do something, but what we should be asking is who? Who’s the person that I could find that already knows how to do this, that I could partner with in some way that would help me do that, right?

 

Nick Conedera was a film director. I didn’t know how to make a movie, but he did. He was the who. He helped me make it. Honoree Corder, I had never developed the book series, but she had. So, she was the who that helped me do that, right? And each coauthor. So, so important that you also understand you don’t have to do this by yourself, but you do have to get started and put yourself out there to attract the right people.

 

So, you fast forward a few years, 2020, the Miracle Morning Movie comes out. In the few years before that, the Miracle Morning for Teachers came out, Miracle Morning Millionaires came out. Miracle Morning for Addiction and Recovery came out, all of these books in the series, Miracle Morning for College Students came out, which is kind of a cool story. It was a gal that I met when she was 16 years old that followed that I gave a speech at her high school, and then she followed my career when she was, I think, I don’t know, probably 20 or so. She approached not writing The Miracle Morning for College Students. And then in more recent years, the Miracle Morning routine app was launched. The Miracle Morning for Parents and Families, updated edition, launched, the Miracle Morning Schools program launched.

 

Now, the who’s for the app were Josh Seidenberg, the director of app development, Brianna Greenspan, the director of the school’s program. And then in 2023, of course, the Miracle Morning Updated and Expanded Edition launched. And then last but not least, before we get into consolidating these lessons into how to build a worldwide movement, this year, in 2024, I am just about finished writing, coauthoring The Miracle Morning for Seniors. This is a book that has been requested. A large segment of our audience is over age 50. And I know seniors, some say it’s over 50, over 55, over 65, but we’re writing this for anybody that’s over, really, 55 years old. I think it’s kind of the target market, target demographic.

 

We’re also expanding the Miracle Morning Schools program this year. We are now in hundreds of schools. Thousands of students and teachers are benefiting from the Miracle Morning in their schools. We’re expanding the Miracle Morning app and improving it. I am sharing the Miracle Morning Updated and Expanded edition with as many people as possible and furthering the movement in any and every way that I can, including the movie. We made the movie free. The movie initially– because it costs $400,000 to make the movie. The original budget was $100,000 and just kept costing more and more and more money. So, initially it was only for sale on Amazon Prime, or I think you could buy it on YouTube or rent it on YouTube, something like that. And then we finally decided, look, the purpose of this movie isn’t to make money. It is to reach as many people as possible. And obviously, if you have to rent it or pay for it, far less people are going to watch it.

 

So, now, the Miracle Morning is free. It’s free on YouTube. You can go to MiracleMorningMovie.com. And I encourage you, if you haven’t seen the Miracle Morning Movie, it’s a phenomenal documentary. It’s 90 minutes. I highly recommend watching it. Again, totally free. Again, it’s on YouTube. You do have to opt in or anything. You just watch it. And it’s a great way to share the Miracle Morning. If you have people in your life that you’re like, oh, man, I’ve tried to tell them to read the book, but they just won’t read the book, like the movie and the app are both free to download or free to watch. And that’s like an immediate introduction for the Miracle Morning that somebody doesn’t have to buy the book and read the book. Of course, I think that’s where we want, ultimately, hopefully, people will see the value in reading the book because that’s going to hold their hand for a few weeks and really get them to do the Miracle Morning. But the app and the book are really easy ways to share the Miracle Morning with other people.

 

And now, by the way, is one of the ways that you build a global movement is you create resources and assets that change people’s lives, and then they want to share with other people. That’s one of the things that when I’m asked for tips on how to write a book, like what people ask, authors will say, “How did you make the Miracle Morning such a word-of-mouth phenomenon?” And I say, “Most books only change people’s thinking, but if you want to make something a word-of-mouth phenomenon, it has to change their behavior in a meaningful way that adds value to their life long after they’ve read the book.” So, think about that. A lot of books you read, and you’re like, wow, this is like, I never thought of things this way. It’s really shifting my mindset. But then when you’re done reading the book, you might grab a nugget or two, but you usually forget 90% of what you read.

 

But if a book changes your behavior and now, you start doing something differently day after day after day that enhances your life or your finances or your relationships or your business or whatever, now, you’re going to keep talking about that book or that product or a program or service or whatever it is. And that, for me, was a big part of how the Miracle Morning became a worldwide movement, is it changed people’s daily behavior in a way that was so impactful and transformative and beneficial that they want to share it with other people.

 

All right, let’s now consolidate all of these lessons into just a few to simplify this, to build a worldwide movement. Or again, if you don’t want to build a worldwide movement, apply this to whatever goals you want to accomplish. I’m going to keep this super simple. Number one, define your ideal vision. Define your ideal vision. If you couldn’t fail, if you could wave a magic wand or rub a magic lamp and just make a wish, what would that look like for you? Just start there. Start without limits and then you can work your way back, but start without limits. And so, for me, my ideal vision was to change 1 million lives one morning at a time.

 

And what’s interesting is now the Miracle Morning has changed probably 3 million, 4 million lives in terms of how many books we’ve sold, but also, the movie and the app. And I mean, all of these, like, I can’t really put a number on how many people’s lives been transformed, but that’s part of what happens. You create your ideal vision, your ultimate vision. Now, you define it, write it out, have fun with it, dream. Let yourself dream, right? Don’t put limits on yourself now. Put that voice of insecurity, shut it up, quiet it, tell it, it can come back later, right? Close the door on it for now and just dream without any limits on yourself.

 

And what ends up happening is you actually, like, for me, the biggest I could think was a million people. And I didn’t even really believe that that would happen. And then, eventually, your vision expands, right? You commit, the how reveals itself, and the next how, then a bigger how. And it just keeps evolving. And then your vision evolves, your vision gets bigger, what’s possible. And that’s where my vision went from change 1 million lives one morning at a time to elevate the consciousness of humanity one morning at a time, so that there’s no number. In that way, the rest of my life as of now, and this could change, but right now, the rest of my life is dedicated to elevating the consciousness of humanity. And that’s 8 billion people and growing. I don’t think that I can ever reach everybody. Maybe I can, but if this open-ended, limitless vision that keeps me working every day and trying to reach more and more and more people.

 

And then I have goals along the way, like, we’ve got to a million now or 4 million now. It’s getting to 10 million. Then once I get there, it’ll be like, we’ll just keep– so I’ve got specific goals in the midst of the bigger vision, right? But I’ve got that ideal vision, which is where every human being on the planet starts their day with the Miracle Morning. It’s an unreasonable, unrealistic vision, but it’s one that I can at least get as close as I possibly can. So, how can you apply that to your ideal vision? Put it in writing. If I didn’t make that clear, when I say define your ideal vision, it’s got to be in writing. It can’t live in your head. It’s got to be in writing.

 

Number two, take your first step. Take your first step. And the best first step is to schedule recurring steps, meaning schedule time. That’s the best first step you can take is to schedule time, an hour a day, an hour a week, 30 minutes, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, an hour on Saturday, like, whatever. Pick your time frame. Start with something, but make it recurring where every single week at the same time, same day and/or days and same time or times, you’re making progress. You’re doing something.

 

And day one, it might be googling how to do the first thing because you don’t even know where to start. That’s fine. That’s great, right? That’s great. In fact, this is your first thing building a worldwide movement, achieving huge goals and dreams. Step one, listen to this podcast. You already get step one checked. Take your next step. Take your next step. And the best way is to schedule time.

 

And then the ultimate lesson to me, from every goal I’ve ever accomplished, every huge goal, things beyond that I never thought were possible, was applying the Miracle Equation. That’s it. The Miracle Equation, it’s unwavering faith because the only thing that stops us is we don’t have the faith or the belief that we can do something so we don’t try. Or if we do try, as soon as we run into obstacles or roadblocks or setbacks or we’re not on pace and it’s not looking like it’s going to happen, so we tried, but it’s not, looks like we’re not going to get there or not as fast as we want it or whatever. Then we throw in the towel. That’s why the faith must be unwavering. It must be like, no, I’m going to maintain unwavering faith. Meaning if I stumble, if I fall, if I fail, I’m just going to keep going. I’m going to keep moving forward. And that’s what leads to the second decision. Extraordinary effort.

 

The two decisions of the Miracle Equation, unwavering faith and extraordinary effort. Extraordinary effort doesn’t mean you are a workaholic or you’re working 60 hours a week or 80 hours a week or whatever. It just means that you’re constantly, I should say, consistently taking action to move toward that vision, that vision that you are maintaining unwavering faith in writing, by the way. I’m committed to blank for as long as it takes, no matter what, there’s no other option. And you’ve got to do this by the way. You can’t just listen to me talk about it and not put this in writing. If you don’t define your ideal vision in writing, if you don’t schedule time to work on it, and if you don’t apply the Miracle Equation where you write down, I am committed to blank, and by the way, that’s the first step of the Miracle Morning affirmation formula. I got that from the Miracle Equation. I am committed to blank for as long as it takes, no matter what, there is no other option.

 

And by the way, for as long as it takes is specific to the Miracle Equation. So, if you’re thinking, Hal, I don’t hear you say that normally. Normally, you just say I’m committed to blank no matter what, there’s no other option. Well, I’m adding in from the Miracle Equation this modification to the affirmation formula, which is I’m committed to blank, no matter how long it takes, no matter what, there is no other option, because rarely do we achieve our goals as fast as we thought.

 

Remember, my goal for year one was to sell a million copies of The Miracle Morning, and I only sold 13,000, 987,000 copies short, but I was committed for as long as it takes, no matter what, there’s no other option. In case you know that story ended, by the way, the goal to reach a million people, it took six years, and it took me meeting Mike Koenigs, which led to me being introduced to Celeste Fine, which led to the Miracle Morning getting published to other countries, right? All of that was part of it, all that unpredictable, those hows kept revealing themselves that I couldn’t have predicted or anticipated or counted on even. I mean, I can count on them with faith, but I couldn’t have predicted them.

 

And then six years after I set the goal to do it in one year, took me five years longer than I intended, than I planned on. But eventually, I reached that goal. And again, I think that it’s such an important mindset to realize that when you finally get to your goal or your dream, when you finally create the global movement, whatever it is for you, you almost never wish it would have happened any sooner. Instead, you look back with hindsight, you go, oh, man, it was supposed to take this long. It had to take this long. I had to meet person A in year one that led to person B in year two that led to that opportunity in year three, that led it– all of that didn’t happen perfectly. Or they’ll say it, I’ve heard it said in God’s perfect timing, right? We’re impatient because we’re operating on our time and our perception of what we think, how fast we think things should happen. But we don’t know. We really don’t know.

 

So, define your ideal vision in writing. Take your first step. And I encourage you to schedule taking the sequential steps, step after step, day after day, week after week. Put it in your schedule, recurring time or times. And then apply the Miracle Equation. Maintain unwavering faith by putting that statement in writing and rereading it every day during your Miracle Morning. I’m committed to blank, no matter how long it takes, no matter what, there is no other option. And then commit to putting forth extraordinary effort, which is really just following through with those steps that you’ve scheduled, that time that you scheduled week after week, consistency over an extended period of time. That is extraordinary effort. In fact, you’re going to write that down the way that I define extraordinary effort. It’s consistency, consistent effort over an extended period of time. That’s what makes it extraordinary.

 

All right, goal achievers and members of the Miracle Morning Community, I love you so much. I hope this was valuable for you. And let’s go out there and let’s change the world one person at a time. And today and every day, you are that one person. So, thank you for showing up. I’ll see you next week.

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