Episode 152: Turning the Tables On Hal: The 1st Ever AYG Interview with Hal Elrod

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:09] Jon Berghoff: Welcome to the Achieve your Goals Podcast. I’m Hal’s co-creator and your co-host Jon Berghoff. This is a special episode that I’m really honored to be a part of because today a few things are going to happen for the first time that have never happened in the Achieve your Goals Podcast.

First of all, me being the host, but really what makes this special is about your creator of this podcast Hal Elrod, the fact that for the first time I’m actually going to be interviewing Hal. As many of you know, and some of you may not, Hal in the last couple of months… and I’m going to invite him just to some moment to share first hand directly with you what he has been battling, has been fighting a really life threatening health condition. So in today’s episode for the first time since his diagnosis, Hal is going to share directly with you what’s been going on. He and I are going to have a conversation about it and I’m certain before we’re all done as is always the case with Hal you’ll probably get a few life changing lessons from the conversation. With nothing further, Hal are you here buddy?

[INTERVIEW]

[00:01:40] Hal Elrod: I am here Jon. And this is very much a pleasure to be on the other side of this interview process.

[00:01:48] Jon Berghoff: Yeah, you’ll have to keep them coaching as we go.

[00:01:51] Hal Elrod: Yeah, in our debrief I’m sure I’ll have a bunch of pointers for you.

[00:01:55] Jon Berghoff: Yeah, feel free to give those as we go.

[00:01:56] Hal Elrod: Yeah, there you go. As we go. It’s not true, you actually arguably I’d say you’re one of the best interviewers that I know so that’s why you’re interviewing me right now and nobody else.

[00:02:04] Jon Berghoff: This is going to be cool buddy. On the behalf of all of your listeners and your fans around the world, I’m so grateful that we’re talking here, I’m so grateful that they get to hear from you. I don’t  know if they realize it, your last however many shows were essentially prerecorded which in on itself is such a valuable example and lesson that your audience could learn in doing things right. You haven’t actually been able to be here since you’ve started a whole new chapter of your life.

Thanks for being here buddy. I’ve had the privilege of talking to you every day but your fans and listeners I know they’ve gotten a few video journal updates but for the most part, this is the first time they’ve all gotten to hear from you. I don’t know how else to ask this other than tell us about your journey. What’s been going on for the last couple of months? I know it’s been crazy.

[00:02:53] Hal Elrod: Yeah. The last couple of months have been surreal. I’ve been spending a lot of time in and out of hospitals. I’ve been living away from my family in Houston Texas which is about three hours away which that’s super hard, Face Time does a decent job. It’s a huge job being able to see the kids everyday but not being with them and not be able to parent them as much as I’d like to. It’s really, really tough and being away from my wife. I’m living with my Dad who is the most amazing freaking dad on the planet. As soon as this happened he flew out and just basically didn’t want leave my side and reminded me, “You’re still my baby.

You’re still my boy, nothing changes that. You’re my son and I’m going to be with you until this gets better.” He’s not retired yet. He’s like figuring this out but though that’s actually a side benefit which is I’m getting to spend all this quality time with my Dad. Living with him is like two bachelors if you will, so that’s been really cool. As far as the diagnosis goes. I was diagnosed with this really rare form of cancer and it’s been just this roller coaster of ups and downs where it started out… In fact John you were one of the first people that I called. Actually you’re literally the second I called. I called my wife and then I think I called you next and hopefully my Mom and Dad aren’t listening to this and are like “What? You called Jon before you called your parents?” But if you remember I was like… It was before the diagnosis. I had fluid in my lung, fluid in my heart, there was all this…

[00:04:23] Jon Berghoff: Yeah, you couldn’t breathe.

[00:04:23] Hal Elrod: I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t sleep. I went into urgent care, they misdiagnosed with pneumonia but the guy behind the counter was an urgent care. He had no certainty in his voice for the diagnosis but he was very certain that, “Hey, if in a certain days you don’t get better, got to a real doctor. Get this really checked out.” I was like, “Shit, you sound more confident in ‘go have someone that actually knows what they’re doing.’ Couple of days later I wasn’t any better and I went in and the doctor came back with some CAT scan or whatever and he he said, “Look worst case scenario you got some sort of infection or virus that we’ve got to figure out,” sorry, that’s best case scenario. He said, “Worst case scenario you might have cancer.” I was like, “Okay, all right.”

Then doctor said I live my life by the five minute rule, I accept what I can’t change. I said, “Doc I’m not going to freak out over this, I’m going to deal with it, I’m going to assess it, you tell me what my options are.  I’m going to figure those out” and I said, “I just want you to know like I will think of this very intellectually how to approach this, what’s best for me and my family et cetera.” He said, “I want you for an MRI, a CAT scan.” First person I called was Ursula and Jon you know me I’m a pretty, like I just said, I’m intellectual about stuff so I don’t get really overly emotional in a way where I can’t control it or I’m devastated with anything because I can’t change it. I accept it and move on. But man, I just broke down like a baby… which might happen on this episode.

But I remember just talking to my wife and just telling her what’s going on and then I hold it together and she was crying and then I got back to my normal state. I called you, I just said, “Hey buddy worst case scenario I have cancer,” and I said, “Lot’s of people beat cancer” and I will view it as an opportunity for me to… Everything in my life I think that… And this is important for you listening. If you’re listening, what I’m about to say maybe one of the most important things I can share even though it’s not in my notes of what I was going to share. But when I had my car accident at the age of 20 I had this epiphany and it was like a higher power epiphany, spiritual kind of thing which I felt the sense of responsibility to overcome my adversity because in the most positive proactive way because only then would I have the capability to help others to do the same and do the same in my own life in the future.

[00:06:32] Hal Elrod: I thought “how will I respond to my adversity?” So this is true. How you respond to your adversity determines who you become in the context of being able to manage and overcome future adversities, right? That’s it. It’s interesting. It goes back to this rule I taught in the Miracle Morning book on isolating incidents which is the idea that every incident, everything that happens in our lives it’s not just about. It’s not just that day, that thing, that moment, that diversity because it’s determining who we become and so I realized that it’s who I become as a future parent. I was only 20 at the time but I thought one day I’m going to be a husband and a father and I’m going to have kids and I want to be able to lead by example of how to respond in the most proactive positive way to adversity to teach my kids.

So that was when that was born, that thinking or that philosophy and because of that I realized it’s not just about me, it’s about the people that I love, that I lead, that I care about, that people I haven’t even met yet that one day will look to me and go, “I’m dealing with this major challenge like I don’t know how to handle it, what do you do?” Then I would have that experience to share. Anyway Jon it’s essentially now that epiphany that I had when I was 20 carried forward, I said okay, I’m going through this adversity and how can I respond in the most proactive, positive way.

That’s what I shared with you on day one and there was not a lot of emotion involved. It was just this is the best thing for me to do. I would just share with you Jonny and my listeners and you Jon because you’ve heard me cry on the phone to you or get choked up or whatever more times in the last two months than in my entire life but it’s been something that has been transformative and it’s been transformative in all these ways that I didn’t expect, didn’t plan for and I think that we’ll get into more as we go into the podcast.

[00:08:17] Jon Berghoff: Cool, I just want to first of all to acknowledge you buddy for your willingness to share openly not only what happened but in real time with your community, you’re choosing to allow what you’re battling to become a gift for others through how you share and I think that’s just so honorable. I also want to just point to the lesson that you just shared which I think when it comes to anyone who’s listening because you’re here because you want to better yourself to be able to achieve your goals, to be able to lead or serve others in doing the same it could be as you said, one of the most and I love how you said it Hal. And I just want everyone to recapture this idea before we continue that our adversities are one of our greatest opportunities to really make a proactive decision as to who we want to be as people.

In other word that Hal you and I have some shared mentors who I have hear teach it that our adversities are our greatest opportunity to express and to act in alignment with our values. Which some people would argue is the highest form of success. We often define success as  some external measurable visible tangible thing but there is a whole other philosophy that says, “Deciding who we want to be and you teach this, Hal and what we want to value and figuring out how to act more and more in alignment with those values, that’s the highest form of success. If that is true, then our adversities are the greatest opportunity we will ever have to align our values with our actions.

I love that you share that. I guess Hal I just want to go right back to you and ask, because you and I have had a lot of conversations, you’ve shared a couple of thoughts in a couple of different video diaries that you’ve shared with your community, I know you’ve a couple of video diaries that were never meant for your community that I know I’ve seen, that have been very personal. But when you think about what you’re dealing with right now, where are any other lessons that have shown up for you?

[00:10:22] Jon Berghoff: Maybe new ways of seeing things that you just never saw before all of this happened. I’d love to know anything that come to mind.

[00:10:31] Hal Elrod: Yeah, part of it is a level of humility. Like spending a lot of time in hospital waiting room as I mentioned and some of those times in hospital waiting rooms I’m throwing up in front of dozens of other people and so I’ve said that any vanity that I had prior to the cancer… I’ve had infections in places that I won’t even mention where I’ve got like teams of doctors looking at different parts of my… It’s just crazy. That leads into the first lesson which is… I’ll share two lessons today that I’ve got from the cancer journey and number one is prioritize what matters. Prioritize what matters and so often we worry about stuff that doesn’t matter.

When I say prioritize what matters I think that’s one of the biggest unseen lessons that I’ve gotten which is when I say what matters well, health for example. Now the cancer that I have, the doctors will tell you no one knows how it forms and it’s not one of the cancers created by diet because that was the biggest, like my mind blown and for you, you even said some of our quantum lead mastermind members were like, “Dude, if Hal’s got cancer I’m screwed. Hal is one of the healthiest people I know because Hal always prioritized that.” But where I wasn’t prioritizing health… so yes I eat a really clean diet and I take super foods and that sort of thing. That’s an important part of health. I exercise pretty regularly.

My exercise is 7 out of ten. It could definitely better but it’s okay. I stay in pretty good shape. The biggest area where I was not prioritizing was rest and I don’t just mean sleep, although sleep is… I was sleeping five to six hours a night for the last seven years. There’s a bunch of Miracle Morning readers that are like, “I took Hal’s advice. Is that why he got cancer? I got to change my whole sleeper routine.” Jon and I were just talking before we started the podcast. He was eating a Bulletproof bar and he goes, “Hey buddy. Look I’m eating a bullet proof bar that you’ve always recommended.” I go, “Buddy, I eat a lot of bullet proof bars.” I don’t’ think that’s the cause but it makes you examine everything. You’re like, “wait I eat this really healthy diet. Is that why I have cancer. I did this, I did that… I ate bullet proof bar, I ate this, I took this supplement, which supplement was the problem?!”

[00:12:32] Hal Elrod: I even said, “My hair gel, right?” Like when I used to have hair which I don’t have any more but, “Was that the cause?” Anyway, the point is I realized I wasn’t resting and rejuvenating and here’s the lesson and if you are a listener of the Achieve your Goals Podcast I would imagine you’re an achiever. You’re goal achiever. That’s my nickname for you. The goal achievers. If you’re an Achiever your Goals Podcast listener, then you probably are ambitious and you’re dedicated to your success but what I found is that my ambition took precedent over my health. My addiction to achieving progress towards my goals it took priority over my health. What does that mean and what does that look like in terms of an improvement? Well, there’s actually this Eckhart Tolle passage that a friend sent me that made me realize this.

He talks about the body will manifest disease, illness whether it be the flu or cancer or just a minor cold but when it is forcing you to rest and rejuvenate. I’m not going to say that that caused my cancer directly because we have no way of knowing that. What I can do is look at it was a wakeup call in terms of how I improve my life and my physical, mental and emotional wellbeing moving forward which is I bumped my sleep up from six hours to seven hours. So that’s one step but more importantly is when I’m tired I just take a break and I take a nap, I take power nap, I just go sit back on the couch, I sometimes just go for a walk or 30 jumping jacks will sometimes energize me.

The point is I don’t push my body on a daily basis to do things to achieve goals when my ultimate goal of being around from my family in the world and myself, the community, the world, being around and being alive, right, like what’s more important than being alive? That’s the wakeup call. But being alive for many, many years. Right now I’m realizing like if I hadn’t treated this cancer and going to hospital I would literally be dead. I was like days away from my heart failing, my kidneys failing and my lungs failing.

[00:14:39] Hal Elrod: I was days away from that and I’m 37 years old. It’s relatively young but that was the biggest lesson is to prioritize what matters and for all of us that might be different. You might be like, “Hal I rest enough.” But maybe you’re not exercising, maybe your diet needs to be in check and if you go to halelrod.com and you can search health, you can search rest sleep or whatever, exercise, you can search those topics and we’ve done podcasts on those and of course there’s infinite resources if you just go to Google. But yeah Jon, that was the biggest lesson. Prioritize what matters and for me there’s three things there. It’s health, it’s relationships, which I’m working less and spending more time with my family and taking the kids to school and doing those things.

Jon you’re one of the best at that, at being engaged with your children at a level that not too many Dads are. I’ve really learned a lot from you on that. So, health relationships and then rest and whether that means sleeping enough but also and maybe just as important resting when your body tells you to rest instead of taking a five hour energy or instead of just getting a cup of caffeine to push through it. Even if that means you rest for thirty minutes and then you make a cup of caffeine but it’s just giving your body time to rest and rejuvenate has been important for me. Prioritize what matters, health relationships, and rest and I’ve got a business lesson that has been invaluable.

[00:15:58] Jon Berghoff: Share it.

[00:15:58] Hal Elrod: Okay. The business lesson and we’ve talked about this before. We’ve actually done an episode so I encourage you… In fact I know for sure this one was episode 30. So if you go halelrod.com/30 that will take you right there. But the biggest business lesson that I’ve learned is to create multiple streams of income and have a team to manage them. Now obviously those are not overnight things that you could have done next week, most likely but creating multiple streams of income is something that I’ve talked about in that podcast episode at halelrod.com/30, that’s that the whole thing is about so I won’t go in depth on the what but I’ll just share the why. In 2008 when the US economy crashed and I lost over half my income it’s because I had one source of income.

I was a coach so I did sales coaching… Actually that’s not true. I had a few sources of income but the one that was significant was coaching. It was like 90% of my income and then I had also written a book but it was making me 50 bucks a month or something. That was taking life head on. That was my first book back in the day and then I launched a speaking career, very recently but that year I think I had two gigs and it was like a $500 gig and $1,000 gig. So it’s not like I was paying the bills. The point is, yes, I was on that journey to multiple streams of income and it’s an important lesson because it will take time. Like that’s the thing. It will take time. For me I launched multiple streams of income and I still went into financial ruin that year.

The year I launched them I went into financial ruin because I hadn’t built them but that was the year that you gotta start some place. I basically was reliant on one stream of income and so that’s the idea. In today’s economy I believe that all of us owe it to ourselves and also to people that we love to create multiple streams of income and it’s one at a time. Like don’t try to create seven right now. Whatever your current stream of income, we’ll talk about that in the episode so I encourage you, schedule in the next week to go listen to the episode that is at halelrod.com/30 or the 30th episode multiple streams of income.

[00:17:58] Hal Elrod: Here’s what happened is as I’m in the hospital if I would have gotten this a year ago or a couple of years ago before I established these streams of income I would have been real stressed up because my source of income were one on one over the phone and I don’t know how I’m going to feel on any given day. There are some days when I feel great, today I feel great, there are many days where I feel horrible and I’m bed ridden. So I’m not dependable right now. The other was speaking. Well, I’ve had to cancel all my speeches up until this point because of my treatment and not knowing how I’m going to feel but also needing to be in town for treatment. If I was reliant just on a job I’d be in a lot of trouble and I’d be very stressed out.

Or even as an entrepreneur, not having a job but having just where my income is limited to one source. If it relies on you to be there, which is why I’m having… By the way, that’s why I’m having Jon take over the Achieve your Goals Podcast which I’ll wrap it up that. Like you’re in store for like an upgrade in my opinion what Jon and I have been talking about this for some months now and like each conversation helping us get more clarity on how can we not just have Jon take over as the host of the Achieve your Goals Podcast while I’m healing but how can we make it better than it’s ever been like how can we make it the Achieve your Goals podcast, how can we take it up a notch? How can we upgrade it? That’s what’s going to happen. Jon being able to take over the podcast is an example the importance of having some sort of a team to manage.

Now, the podcast isn’t a stream of income essentially but it is one of my things I need to get done. But if it was a few years ago where I was responsible, I can’t show up in this regard, so having multiple streams of income is important and I talk about another episode you’re going to hear when you go back and listen to episode 30, even if you heard it before, listen to it again but that the income streams, that there’s different types. There’s an active income stream which requires you to be there and do it like coaching, speaking, going to a job. Then there’s a passive income stream which doesn’t require you to be there. Writing a book for example is a passive income stream. Launching an online course is a passive income stream. There’s lots of different passive income streams.

[00:19:58] Hal Elrod: Buying real estate property and that cash flow is a passive income stream. Creating multiple streams of income that are either passive or that you have a team to manage them. Again, that might take you a few years but let me just say this and I’ve said this before. Creating multiple streams of income is I believe arguably one of the most important goals you can set and if they are passive you may not need much of a team to manage them. Your team might be your executive assistant like for me it’s Tiffany. She oversees all of my communications and inbox. So don’t get overwhelmed. When I say a team, it could be a team of one. In fact it should start as a team of one.

Those are the two biggest lessons that I’ve got personally, prioritize what matters; your health relationships and rest and in terms of business make one of your top goals, if not your top goal, to begin creating multiple streams of income and then beyond that, while you’re thinking of it having a team of people to manage and team begins with one person. If something happens to you even if you have flu or whatever for a week and you’re down for a week or two somebody can manage that. Jon, I’d love to hear you. Add to that or share your thoughts.

[00:21:11] Jon Berghoff: Well, I want to point attention to two things. First of all, and you said really well about rejuvenating and I have one teacher that I’ve always admired who I had the privilege of being mentored by him personally. A guy by the name of Dr. Richard Boyatzis, who today is one of the leading teachers in the topic of emotional intelligence. I met him through a business school that I have a connection with. One of the things that he taught us is that when you look at any entrepreneur or any achiever, if we’re going to put it that way, we all have a natural progression that we go through in life where as we take on more, as we set bigger goals, as we aspire to achieve more, we very naturally are going to have more responsibility and the grand irony is that while we set out to achieve these goals maybe so that we could have more choice and freedom in our lives, often times the opposite happens.

One of the things that Dr. Boyatzis taught me is that we have to learn how to build into our lives what he calls renewal cycles. Renewal cycles sometimes we might think, ‘Well I got a vacation I’m going to take in six months. That will help me,” but what his point is no we literally need to learn how to learn how to renew ourselves almost in real time. Just like how you pointed out Hal. You can’t’ rely on something that’s so distant in the future that for the next two weeks or two months I’m just going to keep pushing and he actually shared some research that they did out of case Western Reserve University where they tried to figure out what are the things that lead to renewal faster than anything else. I’ll share with everyone real quick check list.

One of the things they suggest is that it’s not, like you said Hal, it’s not one formula for everybody but we’ve got to find what it is for each of us. I’ll share with everybody the things that they found through a huge research study that generate renewal for people who are achievers, who develop this natural state of stress. Some of these are interesting. It’s not what you think. Some of them are what you think.

[00:23:10] Jon Berghoff: One is meditation. There’s an abundance of emerging evidence, empirical data that shows that any kind of contemplative practice can really help to renew the mind and the body. The second is any form of exercise which by the way depending on how you approach exercise that in on itself can become a form of meditation. Here’s a few that might be surprising. There’s actually a lot of research that shows different emotions or states that are not what you’d always think that are also very renewing. One of them is play. Playfulness. The idea of actually intentionally bringing play into your life. There’s actually a lot of evidence it’s not showing that can create a serious state of renewal. I shouldn’t say a serious state of renewal. A real state of renewal. The next one is compassion. Compassion.

When we feel an authentic experience of compassion for others, that actually has an internal regenerative renewing effect and the last one is time and nature. There’s more and more evidence pointing to being in and around natural settings, has this resetting effect of the body. I just thought I’d share that Hal because I’m a big believer in that. And like you said there’s no formula. There’s a lot of research that probably goes beyond the list I just gave.

I also do want to point out that you have embodied and lived by an example, the point that you made about either building a team or a partnering with others. We’re actually going to do a whole episode on this in the near future about how is it that I as a solo entrepreneur can be thinking about partnerships as a way of expanding my ability to make an impact. Just to give you just as an example, you and I have partnered on a handful of different projects. One of those happens to be your live events. I think it’s worth noting that for a lot of us as entrepreneurs we often get tunnel vision around what are we good at and what can I accomplish.

[00:25:12] Jon Berghoff: What you did a long time ago when you came to me is you said, “Okay, I’m really clear on what I’m good at and if I could configure it like a puzzle piece with JB what you are good at, we might actually be able to create something that’s greater than the some of its parts.” The fascinating outcome is that this last year you weren’t even in attendance because of what you’re facing right now at your best you’ve ever been and yet you literally get to achieve all of the economic benefit which I’m delighted by because that’s great, right? Of being there without being there because you’re an owner through that partnership. So just a simple lesson for all of you. If you ever wondering about what are the factors that make a successful partnership I’ll give you a couple of them right now but then we’re going to do dives into how do you do this in a really strategic way on a future episode coming up.

One of them is, to partner with anybody, you have to have alignment in your personal values. You have to have alignment. I’ll say one thing about that. You don’t have to have perfect alignment. If Hal values A, B and C I don’t have to value A, B and C. Maybe I value B, C and D. Whatever those values are and value number A for Hal doesn’t have line up with value D for me but the key is B and C have to be strong and we can’t have any values that are in dramatic conflict, if that makes sense.

Step one is if you thinking with partnering with others the first thing is you’ve got to have enough harmony between your personal values. You don’t have to value all of the same things. In fact Hal and I have the same things where our values are very different but it’s never around something that’s a deal breaker. Then the second thing that you need aside from value alignment or value harmony is just a different plan, the same word, the ability to create value together. It’s one thing if Hal and I value the same thing but if when we put all of our talents together, if we can’t create anything new with that, a partnership might not be a smart idea.

[00:27:14] Jon Berghoff: You got to have value alignment and the ability to create value. Then, when we coach people Hal they often ask me, “How do I structure a partnership? Who gets how much of what?” I always tell people that we coach our quantum lead mastermind members and Best Year Ever attendees, I say, ”Look, that’s the third thing you’ve got to have figured out and frankly, if you have the first two figured out, that’s an easy conversation.” If you try and start with who gets how much of the pie before you figure out if you’ve got value alignment and value creation, that’s the wrong order. You end up struggling dividing the pie instead of figuring out can we actually with harmony create a bigger pie and then the whole how do we structure becomes a lot easier. I don’t want to get far too down that rabbit trail because we’re going to talk a lot about more how you do that on a future episode. You have embodied those Hal which is cool. If there’s any final lessons you want to share or thoughts on what’s going to happen moving forward.

[00:28:03] Hal Elrod: Jon, I love what you shared and when I space something like Jon is always able to add to it and what I spaced was the idea of when it comes to the idea of building a team, what Jon’s talking about like creating strategic partnerships is different than that. There can be overlap, you might create a strategic partnership with someone becomes a part of your team. In fact I’d say that every strategic partner is a part of your team but in a different way than you might have thought of hiring somebody and what that looks like is to Jon’s point of your values must be aligned as your ability to create value for others should be aligned and expanded when you partner. So for me, I have Honeree Corder  is my business partner with the Miracle Morning book series. So there are two Morning Miracle books right now.

The Miracle Morning for transforming your relationships which is kind of like miracle morning for couples books but it’s really unique take, you don’t need a couple even if you’re a partner is in alignment with your journey and they don’t want read a miracle morning book it’s how do you transform your relationship as an individual in the relationship. Anyway, long story short and then there’s The Miracle Morning for College Students that comes out in May. One, Miracle morning for transform your relationships out on Valentine’s Day. The one that comes out in May for college students, Honeree is my business partner so I partnered with someone who has written 19 books, actually 23 now and she brought a ton of value to the table.

Then like Jon said, when it came to my live event I knew how to put one on and I knew how to fill up the room but I’d never actually run a live event and Jon had run 40 Live Events around the world and from all the report I had heard, he is one of the best if not the best in the world at it. So I reached out. I was like, “Hey Jon would you be up for doing this with me?” And it’s turned out to be a great strategic partnership. Everybody wins. I win, Jon wins and then of course our attendees at Best Year Ever Blueprint, everybody wins as well. So John, thank you for adding that.

I appreciate that and as far as transitioning or kind of closing out the podcast, let’s do this Jon. I want to share just a few quick lessons but some of those are valuable lessons that I’ve learned about achieving your goals. Obviously the couple of lessons I shared what matters and creating multiple streams of income, those are lessons, those are related to the cancer but these are like the three most fundamental that have gotten me long before I had cancer.

[00:30:05] Hal Elrod: These were the three that allowed me to achieve goals that were beyond what I ever thought possible and for anybody listening hopefully these will help you achieve goals beyond what you ever thought possible. So three quick lessons. Then I do want to wrap it up Jon by talking about what our listeners can expect over the next few months or so while I’m recovering and you’re taking over for me. Lesson number one, do what’s right not what’s easy. Do what’s right, not what’s easy. I think probably I’ve shared it before on the podcast, probably the first episode I ever recorded that I shared because I learned that from one of my mentors when I was 19 years old, also John one of your mentors.

Brad Britton, you’ve learned a lot from Brad I’m sure. And what’s funny is Brad was like the core mentor of your manager/mentor Dan Casetta and my manager/mentor Jessie Lavine. So Brad influenced us because he had gotten promoted he was running the division so now that I think about it, it is interesting that like our greatest mentors, their greatest mentor was this guy Brad. Like we’re little mini versions of Brad. But Brad taught me do what’s right and not what’s easy. Other way of saying that, he would say if you’re faced with two choices like which of these two should I do? He says, “Choose to do the right thing not the easy thing.” What does that mean? Well, the right thing is anything that moves you closer to your goals.

Now, going back to my other tip on prioritize what matters; health, relationships and rest, keep in mind that there’s goals you have maybe to make X amount of dollars or you might have professional goals but your personal goals on making sure you’re the best person that you can be to show up for everything else that you do. When it comes to doing what’s right not what’s easy, what’s right it’s whatever moves you to closer to your goals. So when the alarm clock goes off every morning, that snooze button, talked about in this Miracle book. The right thing is for me to get up and do what I needed to do. Now, granted, that is considering that I got enough sleep and all of that. Yes, you’re like, “Wow, what do I do? Is the right thing to get up if you only slept four hours?” No, make sure you’re sleeping enough and you’re resting and all of that.

[00:32:05] Hal Elrod: But more often than not, when the alarm clock goes off in the morning as we know we usually feel like continuing to sleep because your body is… Depending on what state of sleep you’re in. It’s rare that you wake up in the perfect state. We’re not going to go into that on the sleeping thing but do what’s right, not what’s easy every day, every moment when you’re faced with a choice, do the right thing not the easy thing and here’s the deal. That is the mantra. Like that for me to this day, 18 years after I learned it when I’m faced with a choice, as we know life is about choices, life is about the choices that we make. If I’m faced with the choice it’s always what’s the right thing here and what’s the easy thing. Do the right thing not the easy thing.

Second lesson is seek to add more value for others than you receive. Seek to add more value than you receive. I learned this when I read the book by Tim Sanders, ‘Love is the Killer App’. Just a quick story I read the book and then I created my purpose in life which was to add more value to others than I receive. I started implementing it immediately in everything that I do was my affirmation every day so I read it, I implemented it and of course it’s like anything. It’s not like you see immediate results necessarily but I just tell you, a year later my first book came out. This was 2004 when I started doing this. A year later my first book came out and I was calling in every favor that I had and it was amazing how many favors I now had to call in because I spent the last year and noticeably so focusing on actively adding value to other people.

I remember specifically I called the manager of Cutco, like the national manager of Cutco and I was like, “Hey. My book is coming out, I don’t know if you’d be up for maybe getting some copies for like the top sales reps?” And he said, “Hal are you kidding me? We will buy a copy for every single person at our conference next year. It’s the least we can do with how much value you’ve added over the last year.” He literally said, “You’ve arguably had more value than any other rep in the company,” and I was adding value but leading teams and helping others and it was never asking for anything in return.

[00:34:05] Hal Elrod: The next big part is you’re not doing with the intention of like, “Ha ha if I focus on adding more value then I’ll really make out at the end.” Yeah, you can have that at the back of your mind, it’s okay to know that you can be selfish like you can say, “Okay, I want people to value me, so I’m going to add all the value.” That’s fine. So seek to add more value to others than you receive and then last but not least, start your day with the Miracle Morning. That goes without saying, I don’t’ need to say much about it but I really do believe that arguably the single most important thing that I do to this day and this has been the key factor in my success up to this point is that morning ritual.

That was like the next level for me and that didn’t start until 2007. I got myself to where I got do what’s right not what’s easy and the seeking down more value for others. Those were like the two fundamental and then now it’s starting my day with a miracle morning, it’s helped me to amplify and go beyond. Jon, any last thoughts or comments or questions on that? Then I’d love to just transition before you close it out to what our listeners can expect here as I step away for a while.

[00:35:05] Jon Berghoff: I love what you shared buddy. I was reminded of Adam Grant’s book, ‘Give and Take’, which is a really interesting study into what really happens in the real world with givers and takers. I’ll let your listeners go on their own learn what does he mean by givers and takers but one of the big observations from that book is that it’s not just about giving for the sake of giving thoughtlessly that will cause givers to end up on top. One of the big kind of take always he asks you as a reader to guess who do you think comes out ahead in like the givers and the takers? One of the things he points out is he says the givers actually finish last. He says they also finish first and the takers finish in the middle if you want to segment people in those three segments.

He points out that the difference between givers that finish ahead and the ones that finish last is that they realize that they do have a limited capacity to give and so there’s nothing wrong with giving thoughtfully. Realizing that you know what by choosing to give where and when I can, knowing that I have a limited capacity, it might come back to me, there’s nothing wrong with that. And you’ve embodied that in an awesome way. Buddy, you’ve always done that in a huge way. You’ve been generous with me going back 17 years when we lived together. We have all sorts of crazy fun stories which I’ll wait till you’re not here…

[00:36:30] Hal Elrod: When I’m not here you’ll have lots of the ammunition. I like it.

[00:36:32] Jon Berghoff: Some of these upcoming episodes while you’re recovering, battling, healing, I’ll share some of our fun stories.

[00:36:39] Hal Elrod: You’ll have to text me and go, “Hey Hal listen to this episode. Wait till you hear the story I told.”

[00:36:44] Jon Berghoff: I like it.

[00:36:44] Hal Elrod: Here’s what I want to do everybody listening and Jonny, I want to take a second to explain so this transition. Jon is one of my closest friends which is just in addition one of those brilliant people that I know. I always, Jon you might be blushing here. I’m going talk you up a little bit.

[00:37:01] Jon Berghoff: Do it. Go big.

[00:37:01] Hal Elrod: I literally told my dad the other today, I go, “Dad, I don’t know if you realized this but like everyone that I know, everyone that I’ve had in my life growing up, colleagues et cetera that knows Jon Berghoff, that has worked with him like they would give anything to be partners with him. I’m like, “I just realized that they’d also give anything to be friends with him.” I just pointed out that it’s like anything in life. It’s important that we’re aware of all that we have to be grateful for and that we’re fortunate to have and just our resources that we can leverage and all of that but yeah, Jonny, you’ve been reaching out to me going, “How can I help, how can I help, how can I help?” When I said, Dude I don’t know if I can make it to the Best Year Ever Blueprint event and you were like, “I got it, whatever you need. I’ll run it, I will take it on, whatever you need.” I’m going to cry again.

For those of you listening, I said Jon I’m really worried about the podcast because I don’t know if I schedule an interview or even just a time to record it, I don’t if I’m going to be up for it. I don’t know how I’m going to feel. It sucks. He no questions asked offered to take it over and as I mentioned we’ve spent the last couple of months discussing what’s the best way to do this for our listeners? How can we add more value? How can we make this not just like oh it’s a downgrade like Hal is not going to be here. How can me make this actually a huge win, win, win for everybody. Number one, first and foremost for you the listeners and so Jon is A.)  kind of like I did earlier on. I don’t do this as much anymore. There are a lot of interviews but he’s going to do some solo episodes.

I’ve asked him. I’ve said, “John, you’re like one of the most brilliant people at achieving goals,” and if you don’t know by the way, here’s a quick list of goals so John runs 100 mile marathons like they are just for fun. He’s on multiple 100 mile marathons. He did one 330 mile marathon where just he ran from one city to another from Cleveland to Ohio. 300+ miles in ten days. He was the fastest rep ever in Cutco hall of fame and he did that when he was 17 years old. That year he made, I always say I think it’s crazy. He made six figures while he was a senior in high school. He went to high school full time from eight to three and then he made six figures in the afternoon selling Cutco.

[00:39:04] Hal Elrod: Just crazy. Then I mentioned earlier, when it comes to being a Dad and a family man that is where Jon, you can’t believe it, he coaches his kids every team that is all of us have. He coaches his all of their teams. He coaches his kids hockey team. He’s got three kids, Ace, Sierra and Kaizen. I always confuse your kids names and Vroman’s kids names. I was about to say Ocean, which is kind of funny. So A.) you’re going to hear from Jon directly but also John and I are aligning interviews with people. At first I was just going to go let’s just interview our best interviewees, like do our top ten or our top twenty, which that would have been cool but I thought as I was making my list of people that I know, I’m like dude, I’ve got dozens of really influential successful goal achievers that would be happy to be on the show that we haven’t interviewed yet. So we’re going to keep it fresh, we’re going to keep it new. You’re going to need interviews from some of the best people.

In fact Jon I’m going to be blatant here. We were talking earlier and I said, I’m going to use the cancer card for this one. I’m going to reach out to people that if I had emailed them a year ago or a few months ago they may have said yes, they have said no, they are busy, busy people they kind of know who I am but now I’m just like dude, I’m going to ask for a huge favor, how are they going to say no. So everybody wins because we’re going to leverage this and get you guys the best possible interviews over the next few months and it’s probably three to six months. I’m not sure how long but I’ll be back ASAP and you’re in my opinion the best possible hands and if you’ve listened to my episode where I’ve interviewed Jon a couple of times, if you’ve been at the Best Year Ever Blueprint, like you know that. You’re probably excited, you’re like, “Cool Hal, you’re good. Take a break dude.” I’m curious as to what Berghoff’s going to bring to the table. I’m excited for that.

[00:40:44] Jon Berghoff: Thanks buddy.

[00:40:44] Hal Elrod: Jon, did I miss anything and I’ll let you close it out.

[00:40:47] Jon Berghoff: Well, I’m supposed to practice doing an outro, right? Like there’s an intro and an outro. We should just close it out.

[00:40:54] Hal Elrod: Yeah, think about the enthusiasm that I bring and I’ll invite you to embody that Hal Elrod enthusiasm on your outro. In fact that’s a fun challenge and I just made it in front of everybody. Now I’m actually really interested.

[00:41:06] Jon Berghoff: All right. Are you ready? Feel free to interrupt me or make me do a second take. Ready, here we go.  Ready? All right. Three, two… Thanks for listening to learn more about the Achieve your Goals Podcast and to get access to the show notes, transcript and exclusive content from Hal Elrod visit halelrod.com/podcast. Thanks again for joining us, be sure to tune in next week for another episode of the Achieve your Goals Podcast. How was that?

[00:41:32] Hal Elrod: Not bad and I’m sure you’ll get better every week buddy. It’s got room to improve. A little room to improve. Awesome, I love it. All right, well, I’m not supposed to be talking anymore. You know me, I will talk whenever I’m given the opportunity or not given the opportunity. Achieve your Goals listeners, we’ll talk to you next week. Take care everybody.

[00:41:49] Jon Berghoff: Bye bye.

[END]