489: An Invitation to Reconsider Your Priorities: How to Live in Alignment with What Matters Most

Hal Elrod: Hello and welcome to the Achieve Your Goals Podcast. This is your host, I’m stretching. Okay. All right. Hey, it’s Hal Elrod. Today, we’re going to talk about how to live in alignment with what matters most to you. And this is a topic that we have touched on in the past. But like any important topic, you should touch on it regularly. And it’s probably been, I don’t know, six months or a year since we talked about this or at least directly talked about it. Now, you’re going to hear when I start the episode today, I know I’m starting it but I recorded this intro after I recorded the episode, so when you hear the episode, you’re going to hear me talk about how I did not exactly know where I was going to go today when I started. But this is where we ended up is how do you identify, get really clear on what matters most to you? Is it your health? Is it your family? Is it your finances? Is it other relationships in your life? Is it the impact you’re making in the world? Whatever it is for you, how do you get clear on what matters most to you? And then how do you align your thoughts, your education, your behaviors, so that you’re living in alignment with what matters most?

 

Because here’s the thing. At the end of our lives, what’s going to matter more than whether or not we lived in alignment with what mattered most to us? And I think that’s literally the opposite of regret. What is regret? Regret is looking back and going, “Oh, I didn’t live in alignment with what really mattered to me. I didn’t make the decisions that were in alignment with what mattered most. I didn’t maintain the habits that weren’t aligned with what mattered most. And now I’m looking back at my life with regret.” And so, today we’re going to prevent that from happening. We’re going to prevent that regret from happening, not to mention the pain along the journey. It’s not just like you go through life. If you’re going through life, living out of alignment with what matters most to you, it’s not like the pain only comes at the end when you look back in regret. It comes throughout your entire life.

 

And this is the third episode in what I’m calling Back to the Basics series that we’re doing, right? The first one was on a different approach to positive thinking. The second episode last week, Episode 488, was on… Oh, I’m drawing a blank. I know what it was on. Oh, on a simple approach to self-discipline, right? Because being able to get yourself to do what you need to do when you need to do it and that really leads into today’s episode because in order to live in alignment with what matters most to you, it requires self-discipline. You have to be able to be self-disciplined to get yourself to do what you need to do that’s in alignment with what matters most when you need to do it, whether you feel like it or not. So, make sure if you didn’t listen to last week’s episode and really the last two weeks, I think they all really flow together really nicely. So, Episode 487 was a different approach to positive thinking and then last episode, 488, a simple approach to self-discipline. Listen to those and they really lead into today’s episode as well. And of course, all of those are available at MiracleMorning.com/Podcast.

 

All right. Before we dive into the episode, I want to take just a minute to thank our sponsor for today’s episode, our long-time sponsor. You know him, you love him, Organifi. Organifi makes some of the highest quality organic whole food supplements in powder form. And here’s how I want to touch on it today. There are six different goals that Organifi supports in terms of your wellness. Number one is weight management and metabolism. So, natural support for detoxing, hormonal balance, craving control. So, if weight management and metabolism is important to you, head over to Organifi.com/Hal. Another one is sleep and recovery. So, Organifi makes adaptogenic superfoods that work through the night to rest and repair. A third goal that you might have is mood and stress. So, they have supplements for calming and soothing their herbs and adaptogens for feel-good equilibrium. The fourth area or goal that you might have is brain health and clarity. So, they have supplements to feed your mind with the power of nature’s most potent strengthening compounds.

 

The fifth goal you might have that Organifi can help with is energy and performance. So, if you want to reinvigorate your daily routine and perfect your performance, your focus, your drive Organifi can help. And last but not least is women’s wellness. I feel a little slighted. Why isn’t there a men’s wellness in their categories? I’m not sure but they have specific superfoods for cycle support, hormonal balance, and ageless beauty. So, if any of those are within your health goals, head over to Organifi.com/Hal that is spelled O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I, and then use the discount code “HAL,” my name, H-A-L for 20% off your entire order. And then last but not least, I just wanted to mention the Miracle Morning Podcast or, sorry, not podcast. App. This is something that we have been working so hard on. And Josh Eidenberg, who is our Head of App Development, a member of the Miracle Morning team, he talked about this the other day. He text me. He texted me like the longest text message the other day. I was like, “Josh, I can’t read all this,” but I finally read it all and he just said, “I don’t think people understand how much we care and how much goes in behind the scenes to make this app the best it can possibly be.”

 

And I don’t have reviews in front of me right now but I’ve read them to you over the last few episodes. Go check out, go to the App Store, read the reviews, and you’ll see. I mean, there are so many people that say that the app was the thing that got them to do the Miracle Morning. Like, they’ll say things like, “I read the Miracle Morning book and I did it for a while and it was changing my life but then I fell off the wagon. This app and the accountability and the support and the guided tracks that I can play help me complete my Miracle Morning in less time and make it easier.” There are so many benefits. And the Miracle Morning app is totally free and then there is a pro version where you can upgrade to get access to over 100, probably now we’re close to 200 guided SAVERS tracks. So, head over to MiracleMorningApp.com to check out the app and download it on your phone for iPhone or Android, either one.

 

All right. Without further ado, let’s dive in to how you can live in alignment with what matters most to you. Because, again, remember, it may be the single most important decision that you make to end your life and look back with a smile and go, “Wow, I did it. I lived a really great life. I didn’t sacrifice what mattered most to me for what mattered most in the moment. I actually was clear on my values, on my priorities, and I lived in alignment with the life that I wanted to live.” All right, Enjoy.

 

[EPISODE]

 

Hal Elrod: Goal achievers and members of the Miracle Morning community, I have been sitting here for 38 minutes trying to think of what I want to share with you or really from the perspective of what do you need. What do you need? How can I serve right now? And I’m drawing a little bit of a blank. So, what I’m going to do, as I’ve done in the past, is just hit record and see where it takes us. And it usually ends up taking us to a place better than my little pea brain could have thought of when I was forcing it. And do you find that with creativity, when you force it, you often draw a blank? You usually get your best work it’s when you just relax and allow wisdom to emerge from within. So, that’s what we’re going to do today.

 

There are some things I’m already clear that I want to talk about. First and foremost is family. I just got back from a trip to Colorado to see my grandma for her 90th birthday. She had her 90th birthday party and my mom and dad and sister and my sister’s two daughters, my nieces, we all got an Airbnb with my wife and my two children as well. And it was just a beautiful few days together. And I just want to share this. It’s the perspective around what matters most in our lives related to my, I’m going to project, that I think it’s family and family is a loaded word because your family may not be your blood relatives, right? Maybe you’re estranged from your parents or your siblings. I don’t know. But your family, I would say, is the people that love you and the people that you love and the people that you can count on and who can count on you and that you’re doing life with. That, to me, is family. And sometimes for me, it’s the people that my wife that I married, of course, and our two children and my mom and dad and my sister. It’s my blood family. But again, for you, it might not be. Maybe your family passed away. I don’t know. Or maybe, again, you’re just not in communication with them.

 

But at the end of our lives, I would imagine that when I think about the end of my life, I think about looking back and it’s going to be the people that I shared my life with and the impact that I made for them and the ways that I served them that I think are going to mean the most to me. And it took me a long time to figure this out. Growing up, well, not even growing up but like in my twenties chasing success and thirties, and then once the Miracle Morning published, it was really about impacting as many people as I possibly could. And what I found, and maybe you can relate to this in your own life, depends on your work and kind of your mission and so on and so forth. But for me, it was like I had traded the significance of quantity for quality. What do I mean by that? I mean the impact that I make in somebody’s life that reads a book I wrote or hears a speech or reads a social media post or watches a YouTube video or listens to a podcast, although it can be significant, it’s never going to come close to the impact that I make on the people that I share my life with and/or that I can make on the people that I share my life with.

 

And so, it took me a while. My grandma, I just gave a little speech at her 90th birthday and my grandma always says she’s a familyaholic. She identifies as a familyaholic and has said since I was little, that family is the most important thing. It’s the most important thing. And while I probably would have said that for, in fact, I’ve said this in the Miracle Morning movie at the end of the movie, right, is that if anybody asked me what’s the most important, I would have always said family and I would have actually believed it. But my behaviors didn’t reflect that. The way I spent my time didn’t reflect that family was actually most important because whatever is most important in your life is really easy to tell. It’s what you spend your time on or with. You look at your schedule. That will tell you what’s actually most important to you. You might have an idea of what was important in your heart. You know, it’s my family. It’s my this, it’s my dad, it’s my kids, it’s my health. But the way you spend your time, your behaviors, the schedule that you keep, that actually reflects your priorities. You say health is a priority but if you don’t actually eat healthy and exercise and keep toxins out of your body as much as possible, none of us are perfect.

 

I mean, I like a good Margarita with my wife now and then, and now and then is probably at least once a week. But here nor there. Point being, what matters most to you is what you spend your time on. And I would encourage you to think about your family right now. Here’s the perspective I’ll offer. And I know we have people listening of all different ages, right? Some of you, again, your parents may be deceased, and others you might be parents with small children or grown children or no children. So, there’s a whole gamut, of course, of people listening. But the people that you love and that love you or call them your family and it could be your spouse. That might be the number one closest family member that you have. You live with that person. You share your life with that person. How much are you investing in those relationships? How much emphasis do you put? And I’ll give you an example of this. So, I’m a dad and my kids are… My daughter is 13. My daughter Sophia is 13. My son Halston is 10. And I live with dad guilt all the time. I always feel like I’m not doing enough, never doing enough to be the dad that I could be.

 

You know, I talked about this in the Miracle Morning book, Gap Focus, that we tend to focus on the gap between where we are and where we think we could be or should be or where someone else’s. And even though I wrote about that, I’m still guilty of it because I think it’s kind of human nature or it’s at least societal nature. Meaning as a member of our society, it is very normal to compare. Although that’s not just our society. I mean, if you go back, I would imagine hundreds of years, and people and villages and tribes were still competing with each other and comparing how they looked to how somebody else looked. I mean, it’s normal for kids. You compare how tall are you compared to that other kid in your class. And so, comparison is very normal. But for me, comparing on that gap between, man, I have this vision of the perfect dad, right? And the perfect dad spends all of his time with his kids and that’s not necessarily realistic for a few reasons. One, I’m reading a book right now called Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 30-day Challenge.

 

So, years ago, I read the book Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters and this is the companion book to that. And I actually started it a long time ago and I for whatever reason, I did this a lot so many books on my shelf that I started reading it and then got distracted and put it away and got buried in the other books and then I didn’t read them. So, I started reading it again the other day. And I have a speech coming up in New York this Friday, and this was like, so the speech is Friday. I’m going to New York on Thursday and this is I think yesterday morning, Tuesday morning, maybe Monday morning. But anyway, bottom line, it’s like three days before I’m leaving for New York and I’m reading the book and it just got me thinking. There was actually a chapter about like Take Your Daughter to Work Day, right? And I thought, wait, I’m going to New York this Friday. My daughter’s always wanted to go. We’ve been to New York, I think, once but when she was a lot younger. She’s talked in the last year or so, “I really want to go back to New York.” And she’s big into theater so she’s like, “I’d love to go see a Broadway show.” And it just hit me on Monday, like, why am I not taking my daughter with me on this trip?

 

So, I called Delta, was able to get her a flight sitting next to me. It all worked out. And then she woke up and I’m like, “Hey, you want to go in New York?” And so, we’re heading to New York this week. But really excited about that. Here’s the point, had I not invested the time to read the book, Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters, I would not have gotten the inspiration to take my daughter on that trip. Also, inspiration recently that came from a book that I am reading on parenting, I realized that, well, I just decided I want to spend some time with my dad. And so, I’m booking a week with my dad here in the next few weeks. So, the point being, realizing that what matters most to you and I’ve done podcast episodes titled What Matters Most and maybe that’s what this will be titled. I don’t know. I don’t have that figured out yet. But I’m inviting you to consider what matters most to you. And I am projecting for you to consider that what role does family play in what matters most to you?

 

And I’m inviting you to further consider that if family matters to you, if your parents matter to you, for example, and I’ll talk about that specifically because that’s the one thing that is really become present to me over the last, I mean, it’s been just a growing truth in my consciousness, which is that, look, my mom and dad only have so many years left and we all have so many years left but obviously my mom and dad are significantly older than I am and they’re mom and dad. And so, spending time with them, I feel like it’s one of the most important things that I can do. And let me express to you how this showed up for me recently. I recently wanted to join a mastermind. It’s actually my friend, Aubrey Marcus. It’s called Fit for Service. And Fit for Service is Aubrey’s I guess you’d call it a mastermind. I don’t know if he’d label it a mastermind but get together for live events a few times a year, and I encourage you to check it out. In fact, I love Aubrey, his work. I think he’s taking such a courageous stand right now for humanity. I encourage you to listen to his podcast. I encourage you to watch all of his video podcast episodes on YouTube. His name is spelled A-U-B-R-E-Y M-A-R-C-U-S. Aubrey Marcus. Anyway, this little plug for Aubrey.

 

I highly recommend Aubrey. I know him personally. He’s a great human being. That, again, is courageously taking a stand for humanity. So, check out his stuff. But he has a program called Fit for Service, and I was called to join this program. And so, I applied for it a few weeks ago. And then as I was thinking about family recently, I was sick for a few days. I think I mentioned that in last week’s podcast but when I was sick, I was in bed and I was just pondering and thinking and reflecting what really matters. And when you’re sick, sometimes you get a little over dramatic about like, “Oh, my parents are only going to be here for so long.” As someone who’s personally gone through cancer, whenever I get sick, it’s like kind of an anchor for being in bed, unable to spend time with my family because I’m sick. So, every time I get sick, it actually for me, it feels amplified like it’s, “Oh my God, how much longer do I have?” I don’t know. And then sometimes in full transparency, like the darkest thoughts of like, “Oh my God, what if my cancer is coming back?” Those crossed my mind.

 

But I realized, wait a minute, if I join Aubrey’s program, I’m not going to be… I have such a busy schedule this year with speaking and just events and Miracle Morning company retreats, it’s such a busy schedule that I have very few open spaces. And so, I realized that if I join this program, I’m going to be… That’s a week or there are two events coming up this year and I go, “Those are two four-day stretches that I could be with my mom on one of them and I could be with my dad on the other or with my sister.” And that’s when I reached out to my dad and we ended up finding the one week that the event was scheduled, it would work for him for he and I to go to Optimum Health Institute in San Diego, which is like a week-long, full health immersion and detox program. I have friends that have done it. I’ve wanted to do it for years and I really want to help my dad with his health. And so, I thought, what better way to, A, help him with his health, B, help me with my health, and, C, spend quality time with my dad in a beautiful environment and a beautiful natural resort where we’re juicing every day and just really optimizing our mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health. And again, that’s the Optimal Health Institute and there’s one in San Diego, and there is one just outside of Austin, Texas. And I have not been there yet but I will be going with my dad here in the next couple of months and I’m really excited about that.

 

So, let me wrap all of this up here. What’s the point? The point is that what you spend your time on is what actually matters most to you. And I’m simply inviting you to reflect on your relationships with the people that you love, your family, your spouse, your children, your parents and how are you pouring into those relationships. And it doesn’t always start with spending time or doing things with or for those people. Again, that interaction or not an interaction but the trip I’m going on with my daughter this week, that started because I poured time into reading about being a better dad. You know, I’m a member of Front Row Dads, which is my favorite mastermind that I’ve ever been a part of. I’ve interviewed Jon Vroman on the podcast before. He’s the founder of Front Row Dads. And if you are a dad, I encourage you to go to FrontRowDads.com, sign up for whatever free stuff they have, and if you can join in the program, awesome. But that’s been a game changer for me because, again, even when I go to Front Row Dad retreats, it’s a little counter-intuitive. You’re like you’re leaving your family to learn how to be a better dad.

 

But it’s like anything, you got to sharpen the saw, you got to pour into yourself, and you’ve got to learn how to be better at anything that you want to do. You want to better your finances? It doesn’t happen by accident. You learn from others, whether through books or mentors or videos or whatever but you learn how to be better at those things. And so, being a better spouse, I have a rule. I’ve shared this before. You maybe heard me say this but maybe you haven’t, and maybe you need the reminder. I’m drawn to business books. I’m drawn to books on growing the Miracle Morning Movement. This morning I was reading Chandler Bolt’s book, Published, which I love that book. I’m rereading it. I’m rereading the marketing part because The Miracle Morning Updated and Expanded Edition is coming out in December of this year. I think it’ll be available for preorder in September so I’m right now I’ve turned in the manuscript. It’s done officially, which is I’m excited. I rewrote every page of the book. I added 25,000 words to that book, which to give you context, it’s a 50,000-word book as it is now. So, now it’s going to be roughly a 70 to 75,000-word book. So, I added a ton of content and so now I’m shifting gears to learn how to, okay, how do I start marketing that book so that it reaches as many people as possible?

 

Anyway, the point of that is I’m drawn to read books that help me further my mission and my movement and make a bigger impact for people and grow the Miracle Morning brand and the business and the reach and all of these things. So, knowing that about myself, I have a rule that because family is my highest priority, I can’t just say it. I have to live it. I have to invest time in it. What that means or what that looks like for me is I’m not allowed to read a business book until I’ve read a parenting or marriage book. So, something for you to consider. It’s a really low-hanging fruit, easy strategy that you can implement where every day you’re not allowed to read like if family is really your highest priority, and by the way, I know I’m projecting family but maybe it’s health right now for you. If your health is not good, nothing else matters because you can’t be alive for your family or you can’t be there for your family if you’re not healthy. Right? Maybe finances are your highest priority right now. If you’re struggling financially and it’s causing, I mean, the number one cause of divorce I’ve heard, I don’t know, is financial problems. It causes stress and conflict and leads couples to break up over the financial challenges that they face. So, that might be your highest priority.

 

But here’s my point, whatever your highest priority is right now in your life, whatever matters most to you, make sure that you read a book on that first thing every morning. And even if you have more than one priority, which I don’t know anyone that doesn’t have more than one priority but even you have more than one priority, then earn the right to visit your second priority by focusing on your first one first meaning like the example I gave you. I have to read a parenting book. It’s a self-imposed rule. I have to read a parenting book or a book on marriage before I read a book on business, a book on finances, even a book on spirituality, which are typically my evening reads. I always read books on mindfulness or spirituality before I go to bed. But first thing in the morning, it starts with the parenting book. And then once I’ve read at least five pages, for me, it’s quality, not quantity. I used to be like the badge of honor guy or how many pages can I read? How many books can I read? In fact, I did a challenge once for 30 days where I read 100 pages a day for 30 days, and the first book I read was on speed reading so that I could learn to read faster. And then every other book, right? I was reading faster.

 

But here’s the deal. I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything I read from those books. I’m sure there is a, you know, I know there are methods for speed reading that help with retention but for me, I just was trying to get through them and now it’s like quality over quantity. I’d rather read one page, get one really profound idea, and then go really deep into that idea. Just meditate on that idea. Ruminate on that idea, ponder on that idea, scribe about that idea, right, that one idea. And so, in the morning, I might read one, two, three, four, five, sometimes ten pages depending out of a parenting or a marriage book. And then I will pull out my affirmations. I will usually integrate whatever I just read into my affirmations so that I remember it or whatever the key takeaway was from that morning, or I’ll integrate it into my schedule. So, I actually execute it. Great example is I’m reading the one I just gave earlier that I’m reading Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 30-Day Challenge, and I read a little chapter on Take Your Child to Work Day, right? Take Your Kid to Work Day. And then immediately, I didn’t write in my affirmations. I just opened up the Delta app and I saw if there was a seat available for my daughter. There was. So, I booked it. And then I extended our hotel a day and all these things.

 

But the point being, quality over quantity. So, I’m going to wrap up here. I didn’t want today to be a long episode. I really wanted this to be just an invitation for you to really be present to what matters most to you in your life. What’s your highest priority right now? Is it family? Is it health? Is it finances? Is it your business? There could be other areas of your life that really matter to you. But I do want you to consider, I want you to consider my projecting that family is most important and that really translates to relationships, the relationships in your life with the people that you love, the people that you lead, the people who support you, the people that you support, or if you’re not supporting those people, and they’re not supporting you, maybe it’s the people that you should support or that you should be pouring into. And remember, it starts with spending time thinking about those people, learning strategies, ideas, other people’s perspective on how you can be better at relationships.

 

And today’s podcast was just that, it was my perspective sharing real-life examples of breakthroughs I’ve had around family being the most important thing in my life, strategies that I’ve implemented around making family the most important thing in my life, the books I’ve read, the strategies that I used to implement, making sure that my first priority in the morning is reading a book about parenting or marriage, right? So, these are all things that you can integrate into your life or just thought joggers for you to think of, “Oh, that actually makes me think I should do this and spend time with my family or with my mom or my dad or my spouse or I should pour into my marriage or I should be a better parent. I should join Front Row Dads. I should join Fit for Service.” I mentioned Aubrey Marcus’s group. I love that Fit for Service is basically that like the world needs all of us to be of service right now. And in order to be of service, you have to be fit for service, meaning you have to be physically fit, mentally fit, emotionally fit, and spiritually fit to be at your best to serve other people.

 

And you’ve heard me say that that’s what the Miracle Morning is. It’s a daily practice for you to optimize yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually so that you can be at your best for those you love and those you lead. That’s what the Miracle Morning is all about. And that’s why this mission, the Miracle Morning mission, elevating human consciousness one morning at a time, right? That is what we are all doing if you are indeed a Miracle Morning practitioner and if you’re not, check it out. MiracleMorning.com. Get the free movie, the free app, the book, all the things, all the resources.

 

[CLOSING]

 

Hal Elrod: All right. Goal achievers and members of the Miracle Morning community, I love you and let’s live our lives in alignment with what matters most to us so that at the end we don’t look back and regret that we didn’t do that. I’m going to say that again. Let’s live our lives in alignment with what matters most to us so that at the end, we don’t look back with regret wishing that we had done that. Do it every day. Clarify what matters most to you. Spend time learning, investing in yourself, reading books in that area, growing, evolving in that area, and show up at your best for those you love and those you lead because they deserve nothing less. And neither do you. I love you so much. I will talk to you next week.