Episode 262: The Origin of The Miracle Equation – You’re Only 2 Decisions Away…

Hal: Goal achievers and members of the Miracle Morning Community, welcome to the new episode of the Achieve Your Goals Podcast. This is your host, Hal Elrod, and today is going to be the first in a series of podcast episodes. I believe there will be about six or seven of these that are leading up to the launch of my brand-new book and you may have seen I mentioned that I have a new book coming out. It’s called The Miracle Equation: The Two Decisions That Move Your Biggest Goals from Possible, to Probable, to Inevitable, and this is my first traditionally published book. I’ve published roughly 12 or 13 books. I’ve lost count but they’ve all been self-published and there’s a lot of reasons I’ve chosen self-publishing and finally, just felt that this book and the timing and everything that it was right to go with the big traditional publisher. And so, this book is being published by Harmony which is an imprint of Penguin Random House, and I decided I’m going to do a series for you leading up to the launch of the book and the launch of the book is April 16.

 

If you want to mark your calendar, that’s the official date that the book comes out. It is available right now for preorder on Amazon, and wherever books are sold, BarnesandNoble.com Target.com, Walmart.com so on and so forth and also, I’ll just mention we have a lot of exciting bonuses that are coming but they’re not quite ready so I don’t want to go into too much detail until I have that detail for you so I’ll be announcing those in the coming weeks. When I say bonuses, I mean that for anyone that buys the book within the launch window which is basically between now you can preorder now and then April. Now, in April 16 or 17 when the book comes out, anyone that gets the book and forwards their receipt which I’ll have a special email address set up for you to do that but you’re going to get bonuses that are legitimately worth well over $1,000 from a live online interactive course that I’m going to put on after the book comes out. It’s going to be the first ever Miracle Equation live course with me. It’s actually the first ever live course with me, period so that’s going to be cool.

 

We’re going to have a Miracle Equation guided meditation and some other bonuses. So, I’ll let you know as those are ready but just kind of giving you a heads up that those are on the way. And so, starting today, this is a series that is going to lead up to the book where each week for the next six or seven weeks, I’ll be revealing or not revealing but just sharing content from the book and pulling content that I feel like is really valuable from the book in the hopes to add a significant value for you along the way before the book even comes out and then, of course, to be completely transparent, I’m hoping that you realize, wow, this book is going to be really a game changer and hopefully, you’ll get a copy. Again, if you want to preorder now, you can. If you want to get a free chapter, you can do that too. If you go to TheMiracleEquation.com, you can get a free chapter, sneak peek preview, whatever you want to call it, of the book.

 

And after 19 years of living and teaching this formula, you know that’s what’s interesting is the Miracle Equation was long before the Miracle Morning. Roughly six years before the Miracle Morning, I created this thing I called the Miracle Equation and it is the formula that I have been using for almost half of my, literally, the second half of my life and from beating cancer to achieving goals, I never imagined that I could, this is the exact formula that I’ve always used and when I started studying the world’s most successful individuals from prolific achievers, creators, innovators, you name it, I realize that this is the exact formula that every successful person has used to defy the odds and consistently create extraordinary meaningful results or also known as what I call tangible, measurable miracles, but the formula has gone kind of largely unknown, or not unknown. It’s just I don’t think anybody really broke it down and really the simple terms you’re going to find out it’s really two decisions.

 

It’s two relatively straightforward, simple decisions that the world’s most successful prolific achievers, creators, innovators, philanthropists, you name it, people that have overcome extraordinary adversity across the board, these are the two decisions that they live by. And by the way, I noticed my voice, I’ve been recording the audiobook for The Miracle Equation, another first for me. I’ve never recorded the audiobook. I have this narrator. You may know the voice of The Miracle Morning series, Rob Actis who has done all of my books and he’s been phenomenal, but I finally decided I want to do my own book. I want to do my own audiobook but my voice is suffering from that. But I’m really excited and optimistic about how this particular book can help you to overcome any self-limiting mindsets and behaviors that are holding you back from what you really want in life.

 

Hal: And so, yeah, so today we’re going to start with the origin story. I thought, “All right. If I’m going to do a series on The Miracle Equation, the concepts that I teach in the book, where should I start?” And I’ll tell you, I have been going back and forth like which should I teach first? And it just hit me, I was like, it makes sense. Start with the origin like where did this come from? How did this whole formula come to be? Kind of like The Miracle Morning, it’s very organic. It was never a book idea. I never imagined I would share it with other people. It was a very personal thing and so here’s the story. I was 20 years old and, by the way, let me pause for a second. After I implemented The Miracle Equation in my own life and that’s the story I’m going to share with you right now, I started teaching it to my colleagues and one after another after another after another, almost every single person that I taught it to implemented it and they saw extraordinary results.

 

And again, this was in the context of sales and that’s part of what held me back from writing it as a book for so long is I thought is this just limited to people in sales and then I started teaching it to other people in all walks of life. I started studying successful people as I mentioned earlier and I realized that this is universally applicable. If you want to create miracles in your life, when I say miracles, that’s a very loaded word, right, like parting the Red Sea is a miracle. I think that’s one of the – we’re going to cover probably next week taking the mystery out of miracles is the first chapter in the book and because mysteries or miracles are mysterious and there’s a lot of questions. Yeah, there’s a lot of skepticism too, and some people think the questions you might think are miracles only created by God, Parting the Red Sea and turning water into wine and these types of miracles. Those aren’t the types of miracles that I’m talking about or a miracle like you find somebody, you know, there’s stories in the book of a gentleman who fell to his parachute never opened when he was skydiving. He fell 14,000 feet, and he lived. That’s like a miracle but I don’t know that those miracles, I think those give miracles a bad rap. Those don’t serve us because we’re like, “Well, those are random. Those are coincidental like I want to know how to create miracles in my life.”

 

And so, this book is really a practical book about how to create these tangible, measurable miracles that you have control over that extraordinary results. You can call them whatever you want but for me, so the point is that when I taught this to other, to my colleagues and they saw similar results or they surpassed anything they’ve ever done before in their career, I want you to know that all I taught, all I did, all I taught them was I told them the exact story that I’m about to tell you. So, there were no fancy tricks. There were no sales techniques. I literally told them the story that I’m about to tell you, and then those individuals, they were all my clients, my coaching clients at the time or my colleagues, those individuals took this story, took the lessons that were embedded in the story, implemented it in their own lives, the two decisions essentially what you’re about to learn and that’s all they had. So, I want you to realize that like after today, this isn’t just you’re going to hear a story and be like, “Okay. That was a cool story, Hal, but I can’t wait for the next episode to actually learn how to do this.”

 

No, this is the foundation of you learning how to implement The Miracle Equation in your own life. It’s practicing The Miracle Equation for almost 20 years now. The depth of my understanding of how to implement it in the various applications that’s what required a book. That’s where there was enough content for a book, but the story I’m about to share with you, this is the basis of it. This is the foundation. This is what you need to get started with this practice in your own life. So, I just wanted to mention that so you know going into this to really pay attention to okay, how did Hal apply? How did I apply these two decisions? What are these two decisions? And then immediately looking at how you can apply these in your life, in your business to elevate any area that you want to apply these two? And there’s so much I can talk about but I’m going to try to limit it to the stories so I can save some for the next six weeks. And so, this episode is not three hours long, but here we go.

 

So, 19 years old was when I had my car accident. A year and a half later I was back to work or I’m sorry, not a year-and-a-half later, six weeks later but it was roughly a year later that I was back to work in sales and I wanted to try to break this company record and the record was I wanted to be the first sales rep in the history of our company, Cutco, around for 51 years at that time, I think, and I wanted to be the first sales rep to have a – there’s something called a push period. It’s a two-week sales contest and early on in my career, I broke the company record. I sold $18,000 for a push period. That was the company record. Jon Berghoff came along who you know Jon Berghoff, he’s hosted this podcast before. He’s my business partner. Jon came along and broke that record. He sold $26,000 for push, broke the record. So, about a year later as I moved in with Jon, we actually were roommates and we were – it’s funny. We were like best buddies and we were head-to-head competition.

 

We were the number one and then number two sales rep in the company and we were living together in, literally, if you’ve been to our live event, we always open up telling the funny story of how we shared a bed. Like, I moved in with him not knowing that the logistics of his living situation. He just invited me to move out and live with him and we were young. We were 20. We were like that, “Yeah. Whatever. Sure,” and when I get to his place, he lived in his parents’ pool house, their cabana, and it only had one queen bed. And I get there and I go, “Where am I sleeping?” He’s like, “Well, you know, you’re welcome to put up a sleeping bag on the floor or whatever.” but I’m moving in with him to live with him for like at least four months while I find a place and he says, “But, man, I’m comfortable with my sexuality. If you are too, we can share a bed.” And I’m like, “Dude, I’m totally comfortable. That’s fine. It doesn’t bother me at all. Let’s do it.”

 

So, we shared a bed and I mean you think about how weird that is. And by the way, I only knew him. We only met like three times. It’s such a weird story but we met, we had a great time in Vegas at this conference and I’m like, “My lease is up. I’m looking for a place to live.” He’s like, “Dude, you should come live with me. It would be great. We’ll sell together. We’ll raise the bar for each other. We’ll push each other to do more. We’ll both succeed. We’ll have a lot of fun. We’ll go to school together.” We both took college classes together. So, that was the story. So, me and Jon are living together in the Bay Area and we go and we were competing and so I believe we both had two $20,000 push periods back-to-back and only a handful of sales reps have ever sold more than $20,000 in a push period. And Jon and I did two of them back-to-back and we were we were competing against each other and I think he won one in and I won one.

 

And then I moved out after four months and I was living in Pleasanton, California working out of the Fremont office and I wanted to be the first. No one had ever had three push periods back-to-back over $20,000 and I wanted to be the first sales rep to do it. And I’ll tell you, just because you’ve done it a couple of times doesn’t mean that, you know, you’re not confident that you can just do it at a whim, at least I wasn’t. It was like I felt every time I did that, man, if that order wouldn’t have come through and that one customer wouldn’t have been there and called a friend, it’s like everything lined up right for those massive push periods, those $20,000 push periods to happen. So, the idea of doing it a third time was really equally scary as the idea of doing it the first time and in some ways more scary because you’re going, man, you know, I’ve tested my luck twice now. What are the odds that I’m going to be able to have everything lined up to do it again a third time?

 

So, a push period is a 14-day sales contest and so I’m thinking, okay, I’ve got 14 days. I’ve got to sell $20,000 and I spent the few weeks leading up to the push period trying to get myself to believe that I could do it, reinforcing my commitment, trying to map out how I was going to make it happen, and it was really an internal struggle of self-doubt, overcoming self-doubt and in fear of failure. And so, again, keep in mind it’s a 14-day time period to sell $20,000 of kitchen knives, right, one appointment at a time in-home presentations and I go to my team meeting which is the meeting at the office with all of my colleagues in the office and my sales manager, Frank, who is a great guy and he actually was one of the top managers in the company and he says, “Hey, everybody, just letting you guys know, push period starts on Monday. Everybody, I know you got your goals set.” He was kind of getting us pumped up and help remind us of why we’re doing this and how this is about not about selling, you know, just selling or making money. It’s about testing ourselves and becoming a better version of ourselves by overcoming our fear and overcoming our self-doubt. And I’m in there, I’m fidgeting and I’m going, “Oh, I’m going to do it, 14 days, $20,000.”

 

And then Frick drops a bomb that just crushes me. He says, “Now, remember, everybody, this is not – you don’t have the full 14 days. Remember, because our conference, the date is moved up four days earlier. This is only a 10-day push period. You only have 10 days to achieve this goal. So, remember, you might want to adjust your goal accordingly.” And my heart sank. I’m going, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you’re kidding me.” I’m thinking this is a cruel joke. I’ve been trying to wrap my head around selling $20,000 in 14 days. To do that in 10 days, roughly a third less time, that’s like that’s impossible. There’s no way. And so, I waited until after the team meeting and I went up to Frank and I said, “Hey, Frank, I think I told you this, but I was going to try to break the company record and sell $20,000 for a third time. You know, no one’s done that before,” and he said, “Yeah. I know.” I said, “But I can’t do that in 10 days,” and he said, “Okay. I get it, man. Maybe you go for 15 or for 20.” I’m like, “Yeah. So, will this not count for the record? Like, do I get a pass on this push period because it’s an abbreviated time, I don’t get the full 14 days?” He said, “Hal, man. I’m sorry but this counts. If you don’t do it for this push period and you do it next push period, you’ll be starting over. That won’t count for a third consecutive time.”

 

I’m like, “Man.” He goes, “Well, go home and think about it, sleep on it, and maybe you lower your goal to 15 or 10 or whatever,” and he said, “It’s up to you.” So, I went home that night and I’m thinking, man, maybe I give up. Maybe I don’t try to do it. It is what it is. Maybe next time I start over and I try to do three in a row. I don’t know. And as I’m falling asleep that night, you know when you’re falling asleep, there are moments of clarity. Your mind’s racing and I had a moment of like divine inspiration or I remembered something that one of my mentors, Dan Casetta, who many of you may know, if you’re the Best Year Ever Blueprint live event last year, we had Dan speak at the event. He might had on the year before but he’s been really influential in my life, and Jon Berghoff’s life and he taught us a lesson that I believe he learned from one of his mentors, Jim Rohn, and this is an extremely valuable lesson.

 

I talk about this in the book and Dan said, to paraphrase how Dan put it, he was probably paraphrasing or quoting Jim Rohn but essentially, what I what I’ve taken from this lesson is, “The purpose of a goal is not to hit the goal,” and most of us think it is. The purpose of the goal isn’t to hit the goal or at least the highest purpose, the highest value, the highest benefit of any goal you set is not to actually reach or achieve that goal. The highest benefit, the highest value, the real purpose is to become the type of person who can achieve goals now and in the future. Whether or not you reach any individual goal is not nearly as important as the qualities and the characteristics that you develop on the way to working toward a goal essentially, by giving it everything you have until the last possible moment regardless of your results along the way. Because most of us if our results along the way aren’t good, we throw in the towel. We give up. We’re like, “Yeah. It’s not looking like I’m going to reach this goal. Who was I? I was kidding myself. I’m just going to give up.”

 

And so, the lesson from Dan handed down by Jim Rohn is that no, no, no, it’s not about reaching the goal. It’s about who you become by giving it your all. And so, I remembered that as I was falling asleep and I went, “Wait a minute.” I sat up in bed. I put out my journal of my nightstand and I wrote down some notes and I journaled that I thought, “Well, what if I just commit to $20,000 and go for it in 10 days, knowing that it’s not likely? But what if I give it everything I have, no matter what until the last possible moment, the last minute of that 10th day? And even if I don’t hit my goal, I’d imagine that I’ll become a better, more capable version of myself.” And that by the way is the first lesson for you take away from this podcast episode, unless I’ve shared some, maybe I’ve shared some others that I don’t even remember but that’s a really important one to take away and that to me removes your fear of failure. Because you realize that you really can’t fail. If you give it everything you have until the last moment, you still develop yourself into a better version of who you were when you set out on the journey to achieve the goal.

 

Even if you don’t reach the goal, you achieve your ultimate purpose of becoming more than you were when you began when you ventured out to take on this scary challenge that you might not believe you can really achieve. So, that philosophy is what got me to go, “You know what, I’m going to commit. I’m going to go for it.” Even though I might fail, even though the odds are stacked against me are not very good, I’m going to give everything I have until the last possible moment. I apply this to cancer. I apply this to everything. The Miracle Morning, that book selling over a million copies. I didn’t have anything in my life. I didn’t have any resources that said that was possible. I didn’t have any evidence. In fact, my first book Taking Life Head On! I had evidence that I didn’t know how to sell books because that book didn’t sell very many copies. It had been out when The Miracle Morning came out. All right. I’m getting excited. When The Miracle Morning published, Taking Life Head On! Had been out for six years, SIX YEARS, and it had sold I think it was like 6,000 copies in six years. So, how was I going to reach millions of people with The Miracle Morning?

 

I didn’t know how but I committed to give it everything I had until and that word until, you got to underline that, right, the word until. You give everything you have until and sometimes it takes you a lot longer. In fact, it usually does longer than you imagine and goals are different. Some goals like this goal I had a time frame, 10 days. Some goals are until. It’s like, “Well, I’m on a mission in my life to achieve this goal to change the world or become a millionaire or eradicate some disease,” or whatever and I don’t how long it’s going to take. You commit until. So, anyway, so back to that night, I’m journaling and I asked myself and you guys, I’m going to reveal the two decisions right now that make up The Miracle Equation. Let me say this, these two decisions are deceptively simple in their explanation. Like, when I first tell you is you’re like, “Okay. I don’t understand how that’s going to change my life. They’re deceptively simple in their explanation, but they’re equally or even more rare in their execution meaning it’s kind like in life. It’s like most of us we know what we need to do, but it’s how you get yourself to do what you know you need to do.”

 

It’s kind of like if you want to be in great physical shape and healthy, oh yeah, you know, you need to eat healthy foods and you need to exercise but getting yourself to eat the right foods and not eat the wrong foods and get yourself to the gym, it’s easier said than done. And so, The Miracle Equation, these two decisions are simple, but they’re very rare. Very few people, I’d venture to say and there’s no way really measure this but I’d venture to say that this is kind of a top 1% meaning like this is the top 1% of society that lives by these two decisions and that’s why or even top 5%. I don’t know exactly but it’s a small percentage of people that live by these two decisions and when you live by these two decisions, though, it changes, it transforms your life. It changes your life in radical ways and so I want to just mention that.

 

So, I reverse engineered the push period. I went, “Okay. If I’m going to achieve what feels like a miracle and that’s where the miracle, the equation, I don’t think I named it that until the push period was over but I thought if I’m going to reach this goal that seems pretty much impossible, what would have to happen between now and 10 days from now? That’s the question I started with. They call that reverse engineering a process or a journey. And I thought, “Well, the first thing that would set me off track is I already have so much self-doubt around this goal because it’s such a short amount of time. It’s such a big goal. So, I’m going to have to override that self-doubt and that fear and how am I going to do that? I’ve got to override it with belief or with faith and so that was the first element is I’ve got to tell myself and believe over and over and over again from now until the last moment that I’m committed to giving it everything I have to reach this goal.

 

So, in other words, I have to manage my mindset because what happens when we’re, you know, for most of us establishing the faith that we can do something we’ve never done before is counter to our human nature. It’s not normal. And that’s why the first decision of The Miracle Equation is unwavering faith and there’s two parts to that. You have to establish the faith which is establishing faith that you can do something you’ve never done before. I had never sold $20,000 in 10 days. I had never done that before and I definitely never sold $20,000 three consecutive push periods in a row, let alone in a push period that was only 10 days. And so, the first part of unwavering faith is you’ve got to establish it, but if you look at anyone in the world that’s ever overcome something challenging or they’ve achieved something extraordinary, the first step is they had to establish the faith that they could do something they had never done before.

 

In other words, you know, looking in their past they’re in their subconscious review mirror. There was no evidence that they could do it, but they established the faith that they could and maybe they borrowed that faith evidence of from other people like, “Wow. Other people have done things like this or maybe they borrowed it from simply the optimist’s mindset of anything is possible. So, I’m going to go for this. So, that was the first step is I had established unwavering faith that I could do something I never have done before, and in the second part of unwavering faith is you have to maintain it and that’s what makes it unwavering. And the world’s most prolific achievers, that’s what they do is that they establish the faith they could do something and then it almost never goes as planned. When you set out to achieve a big scary audacious goal or dream, you almost always encounter obstacles and roadblocks and so on and so forth and those things usually set us off track and our faith waivers. We go, “Oh man, I was kidding myself.”

 

And as soon as the faith goes out the window then your effort, your drive to achieve that goal, that result, that dream, it goes right out the window as well because you think, “What’s the point? What’s the point of trying? I’m giving my all when it doesn’t look like there’s any chance I’m going to achieve this.” But so many achievers, goal achievers, it didn’t look very good. It didn’t look very probable they were going to achieve their goal but they kept pursuing it. They kept the faith and they kept moving toward it and they might’ve surprised themselves and everybody else, but they finally eventually achieved it. They move their success from possible to where everybody starts, but possible is rarely enough to get you to bed in the morning. If we achieve what was possible, we achieve everything. So, you got to get probable where you go, “Okay. There’s a likeliness that I’m going to achieve this,” and then ultimately you want to move your goals and your success to inevitable and that’s this commitment to maintain unwavering faith no matter how long it takes.

 

And the second decision that I came up with is, I’ve got to give everything I have until the last possible moment no matter what my results are, meaning if I’m on Day 10 and I’m not even halfway to my goal and it’s been nine days and I got one day left, I’ve still got to maintain the faith that it’s possible and give everything I have until the last moment. So, those were the two decisions that I made and I didn’t have the names, unwavering faith and extraordinary effort for them until the push period was over. So, the way that I looked at them in very simplistic terms was I’m committed to telling myself like reinforcing the mindset that I’m going to give everything I have no matter what. When I have a bad day, I’m not going to let self-doubt win. I’m going to tell myself consciously even out loud, which I did, “I’m committed to giving it everything I have until the last possible moment, no matter what, regardless of my results. I’m committed to giving it everything I have until the last possible moment no matter what, regardless of my results. I’m committed.”

 

I just said that over and over and over and over and that simply, that simple mantra, I call it my miracle mantra, that kept me committed. Whenever I felt doubtful or fearful, I just overrode the fear and the doubt with faith, overriding fear with faith through affirming it out loud and in my mind that I’m committed to giving everything you have until the last moment, no matter what. There’s no other option. And then the second decision was, and I will follow through with that mantra meaning I will give it everything I have, no matter what until the last possible moment. There’s no other option. And that became an extraordinary effort. And so, to keep a long story short, I’ll tell you how this played out. I went out there and I gave everything I had and my first day I think I sold a few hundred bucks. Now, keep in mind the math was simple. I had 10 days to sell $20,000. That broke down to $2,000 per day. And, by the way, had I sold $2,000 in a day before? Sure, but had I ever done it consistently? No, absolutely not.

 

Like, a $2,000 day in the Cutco world that’s a big day like you celebrate. You kind of feel like, “Man, I got lucky.” So, to try to string together 10 of those in a row, that’s where the fear was sitting in. It’s the odds that happening aren’t very good. The first day I sold a few hundred bucks and so I started right out the gate way behind where I needed to be. Now, after the first week so the first seven of 10 days, I was just over, I was like $7,019 in sales I believe. And so, do the math. In seven days, I had sold $7,000 and now I had three days to sell the remaining $13,000. Where would your belief – put yourself in those shoes. Where would your faith be at that point? Like, I didn’t really believe it was possible and let me pause for a second. That’s a really important caveat with The Miracle Equation and with unwavering faith, unwavering faith is a conscious strategy that directs your focus on staying committed to moving forward in the direction toward your goals and dreams. It doesn’t mean that you really believe that deep down. It’s an interesting caveat. It’s an interesting distinction but think about that. You don’t actually have to believe it for this to work. I know that sounds weird but I didn’t believe that I was going to sell $13,000 in three days.

 

However, I was committed to doing it. I was committed to doing everything in my power to doing that and making that a reality. You see the distinction there? Like, I didn’t really believe it, but I was committed to it. Even if it wasn’t going to happen, I knew the possibility of failure exists because, guess what, it always exists. And we’ll talk more about this in the coming episodes in the next few weeks, but if you look at like the world’s greatest athletes like I look at Michael Jordan, one of my favorites. Growing up, he was the best basketball player in the world and is still widely considered. I know there’s the debate between Lebron and Michael but still widely considered as the greatest basketball player of all time, or one of them for sure. And if you take Michael Jordan or Lebron or any of these great athletes, when the game is on the line, they always want the ball because they maintain unwavering faith that they can make every shot that they take and win every game that they play in.

 

Even though they know they can’t and no one ever has, I don’t know there’s any basketball player in the history of the world or any athlete for that matter that’s ever made every shot that they took or won every game they played in or hit every time that they went to bat. It doesn’t happen. But that doesn’t change their mindset and that’s what unwavering faith is the fundamental mindset of becoming or of the world’s most successful top performers. It’s, “I’m going to make every shot I take to make. I’m going to make every sale I attempt. I’m going to win everything that I do.” Even though I know that I’m actually not going to, my mindset is I believe I’m going to and by maintaining that mindset, you put yourself in a position to win more often than you don’t and that’s these world’s top athletes. They don’t make every shot they take. They don’t win every game they play in but they sure as heck make more shots than most and they win more games than most. And that’s what this is about is putting yourself in a position with the miracle equation, this way of living, this fundamental way of this mindset of unwavering faith in everything that you approach, everything that you attempt, everything that you do and this extraordinary effort to support the faith.

 

And we’re going to talk in the next episodes about the unwavering faith and extraordinary effort feedback loop, how do those support each other because they feed into each other and this process gets easier and easier and easier and easier as you implement it day-by-day. I mean, literally, within a matter of days it will get easier. In a matter of weeks, it gets easier. Anyway, I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself and off track. So, I went out for the first seven days and I sold $7,000 and I had three days left to sell $13,000. I went in my office, in fact, and turned in my orders and I told Frank, I saw my manager. He goes, “Hey, Hal, did you on track? I know you got to be, what, $14,000 by now to be on track for your $20,000 goal?” I said, “Frank, I’m not on track, man. I’m halfway there. I’m at 7,000, not 14,000. I got a long way to go.” He said, “Aw, that’s okay, man.” He goes, “Why don’t you lower your goal? You don’t need to go – you gave it a good shot,” and I said, “Frank, I don’t think you understand how committed I am to this. I will not lower my goal.”

 

Do I really believe I’m going to sell 13,000 in the next three days? Not really. Am I committed to giving it everything I have until the last possible moment? Absolutely. You guys see the distinction there? I didn’t believe I could do it but I was committed to giving it everything I had until the last possible moment because that’s how you become what I call a miracle maven, someone who understands how to achieve extraordinary results, tangible, measurable miracles over and over and over again. That’s what this is about, becoming that type of person, developing and instilling that mindset and that discipline, those effort, that effort within you. So, I went out. My next three days I had three awesome days. I sold like $3,000 per day. Wait. No, no. Oh yeah, I did. Well, so I sold $10,000 in the next three days. I was at $17,000 for push period. And this is where the story gets really interesting. This is where you see how the miracle equation plays out in a really miraculous, unpredictable fashion.

 

So, I was at $17,000 and the push period was essentially over. I was scheduled to meet with my sales team the next morning at 7 AM and drive to the conference together. We were all carpooling together. However, I realize that, man, if I could get out of that carpool, I could fit two appointments in the morning and then drive myself to the conference and still be on time. So, I was a leader in my office. I knew it was important for me to always set a good example. But, man, it was still possible. I called Frank and I said, “Frank, hey,” and I told him the situation. I said, “Look, I’m so close man and I know it’s important for me to be there and be a leader for the team but I’m begging you for a favor. Is there any way that I could skip the carpool tomorrow and meet you guys at the conference because I could fit in two more appointments?” and he said, “Hal, man, yeah. I see how committed you are and I want to support you in this absolutely. We’ll see you at the conference in San Francisco.” I said, “Oh, thank you so much.” I got on the phone. I scheduled two appointments for the morning. I had a chance.

 

Now, again, things had to go perfectly for me to sell $3,000 on those two appointments. I mean, that’s the average customer of Cutco buys $150 per appointment. I think my average was a little higher. It may be $350 or something, but still not $1,500 and the next morning I go to my first appointment and they no-showed. They weren’t there, and, again, my heart sank into my stomach. I’m going, “This can’t be happening. No, no, no, no, no. I’m so close. Come on.” So, they weren’t there. I waited around for like an hour. They never showed up. Drove to my next appointment. I get there, wait down the street until it’s time for the appointment to start. It’s my last chance and, of course, I’m doing the miracle mantra. You can imagine, I’m filled with fear. I’ve got to sell $3,000 on my last appointment and I was the type of salesperson that I was always looking out for my customer’s best interest so it’s like it had to align with what they needed. I couldn’t just push $3,000 on them. So, I mean, there was a lot of factors here like I wasn’t just going to sell them that to sell them that. It had to really fit what their needs were. I mean, there’s a lot of internal conflict, a lot of fear, a lot of self-doubt, but I overrode all of that with the miracle mantra.

 

“All right. I’m committed to giving everything I have until the last possible moment. This is it. Anything’s possible. I’m going to make a miracle happen. I don’t know how but let’s do this,” and I’m filled with fear, I’m filled with doubt, but I’m overriding with the mantra. I go to the house. I knock on the door and I repeat it in my head one last time that mantra. I said, that miracle mantra, “I am committed to giving it everything I have to reach my goal until the last possible moment no matter what. There is no other option.” A woman answers the door. She had a European accent which is there was no accent of the woman. It’s an American accent of the woman I set the appointment with and I said, “Hi, is Carol here?” She said, “Oh,” and I’m terrible at accents but she said, “Oh no, she left for the day. She’s gone.” I said, “Oh, no, no, no. Are you sure? We have an appointment scheduled. Maybe can you call her?” and she said, “Oh no, I’m so sorry. She had something come up she had to leave town. She’s three hours away and she’s gone for the day.”

 

And again, my heart, it wasn’t really hadn’t left my stomach from the missed appointment in the morning so it just sunk further and I go, “Gah.” I’m just crushed and she says, “Is there anything I can help you with?” and I’m thinking, and she had told me, by the way, that she was in town visiting for her brother’s 50th birthday party from Europe and I’m thinking this woman on vacation for her brother’s 50th birthday party isn’t going to buy knives. It’s a waste of her time. It’s a waste of my time and so I said, “You know, thank you for the offer to but I don’t think so. Thank you so much,” and as I was about to leave – there’s a part of the story I forget to tell you. There was a friend with me that was field training. He came to watch my appointment. His name is Adam Even if you don’t reach the goal, you achieve your ultimate purpose of becoming more than you were when you began when you ventured out to take on this scary challenge that you might not believe you can really achieve and I said, “No thank you but thank you anyway,” and Adam leans over and he goes, “Hal, hey, I really wanted to watch your appointment. I drove all the way out here to be with you. This nice lady is willing to help. Is there any way you can do the appointment?”  

 

And I had like chills and I went, “Wait a minute, Adam is part of my miracle,” like I committed to give everything I had into the last possible moment but the last possible moment hasn’t arrived and this woman is offering to help me and here I am and I’m saying no and Adam’s reminding me to give it everything I have until the last possible moment. That moment hasn’t arrived. And so, I said, “Oh, ma’am, actually…” like realize, well, Adam is here maybe for a reason. I said, “Actually, ma’am, you know what, on second thought, if you’d be willing to help me, it would really mean a lot to me,” and so I went in and in my head, I’m going, “Okay. I’m going to do the best Cutco presentation I can possibly do. I’m going to really try to…” and for me, that was finding out who this person is sitting across me. What does she need? What does she cook? On and on. And my presentation is about 90 minutes, 60 to 90 minutes, and over the course, the next hour or so, this woman, this sister-in-law on vacation from Europe tells me two things that blow my mind like, you know, you could call this coincidence. They really felt like they were part of a miracle and I don’t know why this is, by the way, but that the universe when you commit to something at this level, something that scares you, it tests your confidence and your belief and all of these things, it feels impossible, it feels like a miracle. I don’t know why this is but you may have experienced this in your life. The universe seems to test you. It’s like, “Are you really? How committed are you? Are you going to give everything you have until the last moment?”

 

That’s why you see a lot of championships are won at the buzzer like that player that isn’t giving up even though it looks like they’re not going to win. They give everything they have at the last moment at the buzzer, they win the game. It seems to be the case more often than not. And everyone I’ve taught it to, it’s very universal that it’s the last possible moment. So, here’s what happened. She tells me two things. Number one, she said, “The timing that you’re here, Hal, is so interesting because my husband and I when we were in Europe before we came to America last week, we were actually in a cutlery store looking at high-quality cutlery because we’re in the market for it, but we had this intuitive feeling that we should wait until after our trip to America and come back to the store when we got back. So, your timing is very interesting that you’re showing us high-quality cutlery. It almost feels meant to be.” And I’m going, what are the odds that this woman was just looking at high-end cutlery and decided like they were 50-50 and they go, “Nah, let’s wait. Let’s wait.” Something inside them told them they should wait.

 

And then the second thing she tells me is, “You know, my brother’s 50th birthday party is coming up here next week,” and she said, “Our family’s been looking for the perfect gift for him and we just want this to be perfect. We haven’t been able to decide on anything.” Then she told me what his passion was. What do you guys think his passion was? His hobby like his favorite thing? Cooking. It was cooking. And so, the biggest set that we had at the time is called the Ultimate Set and the Cutco Ultimate Set back then was $1,500 and this woman, the most unlikely person to purchase a single knife from me, let alone the purchase that she made, she buys two Ultimate Sets, 1,500 each. Remember, I was at $17,000 in change for the push. I was $3,000 away from my goal. This was my last chance, my last appointment. It wasn’t even the woman that was supposed to be there and this woman on vacation from Europe, bought two Ultimate Sets totaling just over $3,000 in sales, one for her and her husband to take back to Europe and one for her brother’s 50th birthday party.

 

And I drove to the conference and the miracle happened and I broke the all-time record of three push periods in a row over $20,000. That is the origin of The Miracle Equation and then here’s what happened right after that. I wanted to teach it to people to see if it was just me and you’re going to hear these stories in the books. I won’t go into all the detail but what essentially what happened is I taught it to sales rep after sales rep and all of my colleagues and every single one of them was scared and intimidated. Most of them had never done even $15,000 let along $20,000 in a push period and every single one, I mean, Evelyn Colmar, Jerry Asinger, Taylor Wadehoffer, Fabian Valencia like I can name all these people, every single one of them had hit their goal of push period after push period after push period and they were astounded. And almost every time it happened on the last day, the last day, the last appointment, the last hour for many of them it was in miraculous fashion for those that committed to establishing and maintaining unwavering faith and putting forth extraordinary effort every day until the last possible moment regardless of their results along the way. No matter what. There was no other option and this is the equation that can radically transform your life as well.

Hal: So, that’s your introduction to The Miracle Equation. That’s the origin story of how it came to be. If you want to go a little deeper, you can go right now, go get a free sneak preview of the book. The first introduction of the first chapter, go to TheMiracleEquation.com and if you want to preorder the book, just preorder the book, hang on to your receipt and I’m going to have all these bonuses worth like I said well over $1,000. You can preorder the book right now where books are sold, wherever your favorite place to buy books are, go there and hang on to the receipt and in the next week or so, I will give you the email address that you can forward that to and you’ll get all of these awesome bonuses that we’re working on behind the scenes right now. But at the very least, go to TheMiracleEquation.com, download the sneak peek and I’m excited to see you apply The Miracle Equation to your life. Goal achievers, Miracle Morning practitioners, and now Miracle Equation I don’t have a name yet for that but we’ll figure it out but I love you. I appreciate you. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your life and I look forward to talking to you next week. Take care.