Episode 282: Why Human Nature is the #1 Obstacle Holding You Back (and How to Overcome It)

Hal: Goal achievers, this is Hal Elrod and I am so excited for today even though I know where this is going, but I don’t know exactly how we’re going to get there. What I mean is I got some really important powerful life-changing information to share with you today and I’ve been taking notes and journaling this morning and actually writing what will eventually become part of the Miracle Life Book that I’m working on and my brain sometimes have so much information coming through them like, “I don’t know how to organize all of this.” That’s what editors are for. But I don’t have an editor this morning. It’s just me. So, you guys are going to get the raw unfiltered thoughts and streams of consciousness that have been coming through all morning while I’ve been journaling and meditating this morning. But let’s start here. 

 

[EPISODE]

 

Hal: What is the topic of today’s podcast? Well, this is about helping you to experience and create maybe not in that order, first create then experience everything that you want for your life and we’re going to talk today about what is stopping you, what is standing in the way of you creating and experiencing everything that you want for your life. In fact, those are actually good. Those are two great words to frame this, creating what you want for your life and experiencing what you want for your life, because those are two different things. What I mean by them being two different things is let’s say you created everything you want your life, but you’re not happy, well, then you’re not actually experiencing what you want for your life, which is the happiness that you thought that the creation would bring you. And you’ve heard me say this before that we see that with so many celebrities that they create what they wanted for their life, what they’ve always wanted, what they’ve dreamt of, right? 

 

They’ve got the fame, they’ve got the fortune, they’ve got everything they wanted and so many of those celebrities, not just celebrities, but successful people in general, athletes or millionaires or billionaires or whatever, however you want to measure success. People create what they think that they want, but because they don’t understand how to experience what it is they want to experience which is the joy that comes from their creation, the peace of mind of just being in this world and just being alive, the happiness that they thought that they were going to get to experience when they created what they thought that they want. So, there are two issues there. It’s what’s preventing you from creating the life that you want and then what’s preventing you from experiencing what you want from the life that you’ve created? And it is kind of a chicken before the egg thing, meaning that, well, you could say, well, first you create the life you want and then you have to know how to experience the joy and happiness that comes from the life you’ve created. You could say it goes that way but here’s the reality. 

 

Really, you’ve got to learn or you have the opportunity to learn to experience the joy of the life you’re living right now before you create the better life that you want. You follow that, right? So, you actually right now have the opportunity to experience your current life as it is with all your problems and your faults and your debt and your fears and your conflicts and your relationships, and all the things that are unwanted, undesirable, not perfect in your life, what you would define is not perfect. You have to realize that you have the opportunity and I believe the responsibility to fully experience your life in its perfection as it is right now. When you walk into my house, there is a picture on the wall that says, “Enjoy every moment.” Whoa, my microphone’s gotten weird. I hope it’s not getting weird on your end. But it says, “Enjoy every moment,” and it’s a picture of a beautiful dock and looking over some water and the sun is setting. That’s a reminder to me to experience life right now. 

 

You know, Jason Mraz has a great quote. He said, “Life is for living.” It was in one of his songs, I forgot which song, but life is for living. That’s another one of my reminders, my mantra, is that life is for living. It’s not for achieving or it’s not doing. Life is for living. It’s about just living your life to the fullest and you may have heard me say this before, but we already have everything that we need to be the happiest that we could ever be right now. It’s simply up to us to be present to that reality to the truth of that statement that we already have. If you’re alive, that’s all you need to be the happiest person you could ever be. In fact, Viktor Frankl in his book, Man’s Search For Meaning, Viktor Frankl if you’re not familiar with that, I’ve quoted him before, but he was a Nazi concentration camp survivor and while he was in the concentration camp and correct me if I’m wrong but I believe he was 31 years old. He had a wife back at home and I think a relatively young either newborn or a very young child within the first few years of his child’s life back at home and he was pretty convinced based on his reality and his concentration camp, watching his friends be beaten and tortured and murdered every day. 

 

It’s starting to get dark in here guys but he was realizing that he was probably going to die and he decided that he was going to be the happiest and I’m paraphrasing here, but the happiest that he had ever been while he finished out his final days on the planet. He didn’t know how long. He figured he probably was in any day was going to be taken to the oven and that was it and he made the decision that, in fact, the quote from the book and I’m going to I think this is pretty close to exact, Viktor Frankl his famous quote that sums up the lesson that he learned, it’s a lesson for all of us is, “The last of man’s freedom is to choose one’s own attitude in any given set of circumstances.” I’ll say that again. “The last of men’s or women’s freedom is to choose one’s own attitude in any given set of circumstances.” 

 

And from my own experience, I’m sorry to make it about me for a second, but the more I can relate to this I think it’s helpful for all of us, but when I had my car accident and I was told I would never walk again I decided and I didn’t use his wording. I hadn’t read his book back then, but I did tell my dad, “Dad, I will be the happiest and the most grateful person that you’ve ever seen in a wheelchair if I’m spending the rest of my life in a wheelchair because I won’t let the wheelchair define me. I won’t let the wheelchair determine my quality of life internally. It will not determine my emotional well-being.” And then when I was diagnosed with cancer two years ago, two or three years ago I guess, I’ve made that same decision that I will be the happiest and most grateful I’ve ever been while I endure the most difficult time in my life and it was the most difficult time in my life and I was the happiest and most grateful I’ve ever been. It was the most painful time in my life physically, mentally, emotionally, and I was the happiest and most grateful I’ve ever been. So, to Viktor Frankl’s point, the last of man’s freedom or women’s freedom is to choose one’s own attitude in any given set of circumstances. Even if you’re being told you’re never going to walk again, you’re being told you’re probably going to die or you’re Viktor Frankl and you’re watching your friends die every day and thinking you’re never going to see your family again, if I and if he could be and so many others could be happy, so that’s the experiencing life part. 

 

So, let’s talk about what gets in the way of this? What prevents us from creating what we want and experiencing what we want? So, success in every area of your life and when I say success, success is a loaded word. There’s a negative connotation that, oh, success, money, power, blah, blah, blah. No. Success is to me it’s freedom. You could really say success in any of your life or really freedom in any area of your life is not a result of what you know. It is a result of what you do. I’ll say that again. It’s not rocket science but success in any area of your life, freedom in any area of your life is not a result of what you know. It’s a result of what you do. In other words, it’s not what you learn but what you live that changes your life. 

 

So, the question is how do you get yourself to do what you know you need to do? How do we get ourselves to live what we’ve learned? Lately, I’ve been asking people, what is your biggest challenge? I don’t want to say lately. It’s the last 20 years since I’ve been doing coaching and just the work that I do. What’s your biggest challenge? What is holding you back? And the number one thing that has come in for the last 20 years from surveys I put out, from talking to coaching clients and attendees of my event and members of the mastermind and everybody and my family, observing my children. You name it. Friends, human beings, it doesn’t matter. Human beings in any context is this. It’s how do I get myself to do what I know I need to do? So, again, if success or freedom in every area of your life is the result of it’s not what you know, it’s what you do and the challenge for people is, “I know what I need to do. I know I need to eat healthier. I know I need to work harder or I need to work smarter. I know I should probably get out of my comfort zone and start a business on the side. I know that I should spend more time with my kids. I know I should do all these things, but I don’t know or I can’t figure out or I haven’t figured out how do I get myself to do the things that I know I need to do to create the life that I want to create.” 

 

So, number one, the answer to that is you have to understand why you don’t do the things that you know you need to do and here’s the deal. Here’s the answer. It’s simple. It is because you are a human being and unfortunately or fortunately, whatever, but unfortunately, human beings abide by what you’ve referred to as human nature, our inborn human nature and human nature prevents us from creating what it is that we want to create for our lives. What do I mean by that? Well, think about this, our ancestors, okay, when we were cavemen or cavewomen, we were not climbing the corporate ladder. We weren’t trying to earn money, I picture cavemen and cavewomen sitting around with their rugged spears and things that they carved out of stone and rock but when we were sitting around a campfire, in a cave, or in a hut during that time, we were just trying to survive and rest. That was really it. That’s what life literally was. It was survival and it was rest. Those were the two components of life. 

 

And the only time you usually worked hard was when you needed food and then you got your butt up and you work your butt off to hunt down a buffalo but guess what, when you caught the buffalo, you didn’t go after another buffalo so you could have more buffaloes than the guy next to you because there was a ranking on the board of who killed the most buffaloes. No. You sat on your butt and you ate that buffalo with your family. You enjoyed life. Life is for living and you lived life and you would do that for, I don’t know, six months or until the buffalo was gone and then you’re like, “Oh crap, I have to get off my lazy butt again and I got to go hunt another buffalo,” not because you are an achiever, not because you were trying to keep up with the Joneses and keep up with society. You have to understand. Human nature because of our ancestry, because of our inborn human nature before we were all indoctrinated with what I call societal conditioning which we’ll talk more about that in a few minutes. Societal conditioning is what has shaped us. That’s why we don’t have everything that we want. That’s why, well, anyway, we’ll get there in a second. I’m getting ahead of myself. 

 

But here’s the reality. What is preventing you from creating everything you want for your life? It’s human nature. Why? Because human nature is always to take the path of least resistance. It is always to do what is easy, as opposed to what is right. And now, I won’t judge you or anyone if you want to live the hunt and rest lifestyle. In fact, I think that’s a beautiful thing. In fact, I think we should all move more toward that to just live and enjoy our family and our lives and ourselves but for everybody here on this podcast, you’re listening to the Achieve Your Goals Podcast because I’m imagining you’re an achiever. You want to achieve your goals or you’re an aspiring achiever. And so, here’s what you have to realize. “Oh, what stops me from doing the things I need to do to be successful is not because I’m lazy.” It’s not because you’re lazy. It’s because you’re a human being and you’re giving in to your human nature, and here’s what that looks like. So, I’ll give you an example from my background, again, really most with what I’ve experienced in my own life. 

 

So, I was successful in sales. If you listen to the podcast, that was where I started. When I was 19 years old I started selling Cutco Cutlery and I broke a lot of company records and I know we have a lot of entrepreneurs and people that listen to the podcast but to be successful in sales so think about this and this lesson that I’m about to share, this example applies to everything so please draw the lesson and don’t get caught up in the details of the story, but to be successful in sales to literally be the number one salesperson in your entire organization or the entire world or for me, it was in the Cutco Company, to literally be the best, all you have to do is pick up the phone. Think about that. My job as a salesperson is I picked up the phone. That’s it. Now, in another sales organization or industry, they might prospect differently. They might not pick up the phone. They might knock on doors or they might market over the Internet or whatever. it doesn’t matter but for me, the way that worked is I did presentations. I then would ask at the end, “Hey, do you know anybody that might be nice enough that this might apply to that might like to cook, that might want to see this and be open to it and be cool?” 

 

And then I would give out referrals. I usually get about 10 to 15 referrals on every appointment that I did so everyone I saw would give me 10 or 15 names and phone numbers of people that they knew, liked, and trusted that they liked me enough to trust me to actually call those people and sometimes they call in advance or text them and let them know but often I would call out of the blue but I would call and I would schedule appointment. So, I said, “Hey, your friend, Mary, thought you might be interested in looking at this product, these kitchen knives. You do not have to buy anything like this is not a high-pressure sales thing. I’ll just show you the product and we’ll cut some stuff and it only takes about an hour of your day, and if it’s a good fit for you, awesome. If not, no worries like zero pressure,” and that’s really how I approached it. But here’s the point. I don’t want to get too far into those weeds. I would then do, I would repeat that process and I would show them Cutco. They would either buy or they didn’t, and then I would get referrals from them if they liked me and they knew people that would like the product and I would call those people and rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. 

 

Okay. But here’s the deal, to be the most successful person on the planet or in the company I should say with Cutco, all you had to do was pick up the phone and call those referrals and let me ask you this. Is it difficult to pick up the phone? No, not at all. I mean, like physically, you literally pick up your cell phone. Is that difficult? No. And then let me take the next step in the process. So, just we’re going here. I’m telling you I’m literally breaking down what it took to be one of the most successful salespeople in the 50-year history of this company and I’m only using me as an example. You can take any successful person in any industry, in any walk of life. So, all I had to do was pick up the phone. I then look at my referral notebook and I had to dial a phone number. Have we done anything hard yet? No. I picked up the phone and I dialed, I called one of the note numbers in my referral notebook. Then I had to read a script that was written for me by someone else that was tested and proven to schedule appointments with people. Is it hard to read a script? No. 

 

So, right now I’ve still done nothing difficult. I picked up a phone. I’ve dialed seven numbers or ten numbers or whatever on the page and I am now reading a script over the phone to a nice person on the other end of the line. Then if they said yes, come on over tomorrow. It’d be great. Then I had to get in my car and I had to drive to an appointment. It’s not a hard drive, right? No.  We do it every day. We drive. It’s not hard. And then I would basically recite a memorized presentation and I would just ask questions and find out what my customer and how much they cooked and what they like to cook and then I would show them products and let them cut things with the knives. Now, have we done anything difficult yet? No. We picked up the phone, we dialed some numbers on it. We read an approach. I drove to someone’s house. I recited a memorized presentation and then I asked if they wanted to purchase anything and if they said yes or they said no, either way if they said yes, I write up an order. If they said no, I said thank you so much. Do you know anyone that might be nice enough to take a look at this that it would be a good fit for them, so it’d be a win-win? And they would say sure and they’d give me five, ten, fifteen names of phone numbers of their friends and then I would repeat that process. 

 

So, here’s the point. If I did that simple process over and over and over again, which is not hard nor difficult to do, I could earn hundreds of thousands of dollars in a year and I can provide for myself and I can provide for my family, but let me tell you what’s easier than everything I had described. As easy as it is to pick up the phone, as easy as it is to pick up the phone and dial some numbers, read an approach, drive to someone’s house, as easy as all of that is, let me tell you what’s easier, not picking up that phone, and that is literally what separates the world’s most successful people from everyone who looks on in awe wondering how they do it, wishing they could be like the world’s most successful people or in my case, the company’s more successful people. That’s it. That is what separates. Human nature is always to do what’s easier than what is right. 

 

If you want to get in the best shape of your life, you may have heard me use this analogy before. All you have to do is set the alarm on your phone and have a gym bag that’s packed in the car every day and the alarm just says, “Get in the car and drive to the gym.” That’s it. Don’t think about the workout. Don’t think about how many pounds you have to lose. Don’t overwhelm yourself with all that crap. No. Just get in the car with the gym bag. Drive to the gym. When you get there, you’re there. You’re going to get out and grab a gym bag and walk in. Even if you don’t feel like it, even if you’re not motivated, and then you’re going to go in and you’re going to go, “Oh wow. Music’s pumping, people are running on the treadmill. All right. I’m going to put my gym clothes on and I’m going to work out.” That’s what separates someone that loses 100. My friend, Mikey, he lost 90 pounds. That’s what separates somebody that wants to lose weight and someone that doesn’t lose weight because the person that does lose weight just like that salesperson, all you have to do is just pick up the phone. It’s easy. All they do is get in the car with a gym bag. It’s easy. But you know what’s easier? Not to get in the car with the gym bag, not to pick up the phone. That’s what’s easier and that is what separates the world’s most successful people from everyone else. 

 

And so, I’m going to give you right now, let’s talk about the solutions. Okay. How do you fix this? You understand, “Okay. Wow. So, it’s not that you’re lazy. It’s that your human being and your ancestors where you came from, the cavemen and cavewomen. Remember? What was their mission? It wasn’t to achieve. It wasn’t to impress other people. It wasn’t to buy stuff. It was to survive and to rest and the closer we can get back to that, right, the better. But here’s how you get yourself – now in today’s world, you’ve got to provide for your family. I mean, there are realities based on societal conditioning, which by the way I just realized that today I don’t have enough time to go into that so we’re going to make that into a two-part podcast. The next podcast, the next episode will be all about societal conditioning. Let me explain what that is so I give you a little preview and then we’ll finish up the human nature component and how you overwrite it today. Societal conditioning is the sociological process of training individuals in a society to respond in a manner generally approved by the society in general and peer groups within society so that’s the definition that I’m reading that I did not invent. 

 

I’ll say it again. Social conditioning or social conditioning or societal conditioning is a sociological process of training individuals in a society to respond in a way, in a manner generally approved by the society in general and peer groups within society. It’s kind of long. I need to shorten that sentence. It’s kind of long. But societal conditioning is what prevents us from loving ourselves and enjoying the life that we have been blessed with. For example, if we love ourselves fully, we would only put good healthy foods into our body that served our body’s highest aspirations, which are health and longevity. However, because of societal conditioning perpetuated through media like television, we are fed advertisement that prompt us to eat unhealthy food. The stimuli which is like a commercial, the commercial being the stimuli then uses our human nature which is to seek pleasure and convenience what is easy over what is right that this societal conditioning a.k.a. the stimuli delivered via a commercial uses our human nature which is to seek pleasure and convenience that then drives our unhealthy behavior, literally drives us to the drive-through. Our human nature is, “Hm, I want what tastes good and I want what’s fast and easy,” so we eat food that is fast and easy and taste it. 

 

Think about it. If you are thinking consciously, you would never eat like and I won’t say never. I like pizza as much as the next person. We eat everything in moderation, but you wouldn’t regularly eat fast food, right? Like you would never put that in your body every day. If you are consciously choosing the food that served your body’s highest aspiration which is health and longevity. So, here’s another kind of obscure example that goes along with this. Society told us that we’re supposed to have eggs and bacon for breakfast and pancakes for breakfast or even worse, some form of, well, I guess pancakes is right along with the lines of this but some form of empty lifeless carbohydrates such as toast or doughnuts or scone, none of which do much to serve your body in a way that provides that health and longevity. Who decided that for us? Who decided that we should have toast and bagels and donuts in the morning that provide almost no nutrition for our body? Why wouldn’t we have salad in the morning or at least a smoothie and throw some spinach in it? 

 

So, anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself but that is going to be the next episode is really diving into the topic of societal conditioning and how that limits us from truly loving our lives, loving ourselves, experiencing the richness that life has to offer. But first back to today’s topic which is human nature and how that is holding you back and we’re getting into the solutions now to overcome it. So, first, you understand that that’s what’s holding you back it’s our inborn human nature. It’s the fact that we weren’t programmed to succeed in today’s society. We were programmed to hunt and rest, survive and rest, so you go, “Okay. Hal, I get that but how do I get myself to actually pick up that phone? How do I get myself to go to the gym? How do I get myself, you know, like it sounds easy, but why is it so hard?” And here’s why. So, human nature is always to do what’s easy versus what’s right. It’s following that path of least resistance, so the question, of course, is how do you get yourself to do what’s right even when you’re so tempted and programmed and conditioned to do what’s easy? 

 

And the answer is very simple. It’s very effective and it has two components. Two components. One component is a philosophy and the second is a strategy and I’m going to share these with you in the way that I have used and applied these in my own life. There are countless ways we could explain these. I’m going to make them as simple as possible. I’m not going to try to talk over your head and make it really complicated and complex and profound. Let’s make it super, super simple. So, remember, the answer or the solution for you right now is there’s two components. There’s a philosophy and a strategy. The philosophy, do what’s right, not what’s easy. Do what’s right, not what’s easy. Human nature is to do what is easy. We do the minimal amount necessary to survive, to not die. That is what we are programmed at our ancestral levels to do, do what is right, not what is, I’m sorry, we’re programmed to do what is easy, not what is right, and we only do what’s right when we are in survival mode.

 

“Oh, we’re out of buffalo meat sweetheart. You better get off your fat lazy butt and go kill a new buffalo. Go get another buffalo,” or for all you vegetarians, go hunt, get off your butt and go hunt some more. Go get some more berries and some vegetables and whatever. And for those of you in full transparency, I eat a primarily plant-based diet, and I eat healthy as healthy as I can organic grass-fed cage-free, free-range meats a few nights a week. Just so you know, I want to be just so you know where I’m coming from and my journey, I was totally vegan for a while and then I’ve gone all over the place. Growing up, by the way, I lived on Taco Bell. I don’t know how my body, my human body sustained high school like I literally live off of pizza and Taco Bell every single day in high school. I don’t know how. I’m like how did I – I had no nutrition like I had no nutrition. I guess, my mom actually she made me veggies at homes so that’s how I kind of got my nutrition. All right. Here we go. Let’s dive into the solutions here. 

 

So, first, the philosophy, do what’s right, not what is easy. Okay. Doing what’s right and you may have heard this. I learned this from Brad. Both of these, by the way, I did not come up with. I learned both of these from mentors on my journey over the last 20 years. The philosophy, “Do what’s right, not what’s easy,” I learned from my mentor at Cutco, one of the top division managers in our company who is a very good friend of mine, to this day. His name is Brad Britton and Brad was always very wise, very conscious and Brad taught us that, “Hey, the secret,” I mean, he understood this at a fundamental level. “The secret to success,” he said, “is to condition yourself to do what’s right, not what’s easy,” or he would sometimes say, “When you’re faced with the choice you go, what should I do? Do the right thing. Not the easy thing.” So, whatever resonates with you. Do what’s right, not what’s easier. Do the right thing, not the easy thing. When the alarm goes off in the morning, by the way, how do you know what those are? The right thing is anything that moves you closer to you living the life you want, being the best version of yourself, your predetermined goals and dreams. The right thing is what moves you further along in your evolution to being the best version of yourself. That’s the right thing. 

 

The easy thing is usually whatever is easy. It’s giving into temptation. It’s giving into cravings. It’s giving into vices and, again, this isn’t 100% thing where you have to do the right thing every single time, impeccably. No. And I do kind of like the Bill Phillips’ Body For Life method if that was the top diet or not diet, but well I guess diet health book for like back in 2000 he came out but he basically said six days a week eat healthy and then have a cheat day. One day a week eat whatever you want. And kind of even like the Bible, the biblical like six days of work and then God rested on the seventh day. And even for human beings like six days and then we rest on the seventh day. So, I kind of like that model. If you eat healthy six days a week, the seventh day, just to go crazy. Who cares, right? It’s fine because your body is in nutrition. You’re providing it most of the time will sustain you. So, that’s a little thought there is that when I say do what’s right, not what’s easy, it doesn’t mean you do what’s right 100% of the time, but you should do what’s right at least 80% of the time, that 80/20 rule. 

 

That’s great kind of metric to measure yourself against. So, do what’s right, not what’s easy. That’s the philosophy and I’ll tell you, when the alarm goes off in the morning that is what gets me out of bed nine out of ten times because nine out of ten times I don’t want to get out of bed. Nine out of ten times, I’m like, “Ah, I just want to keep sleeping. I just want to keep sleeping.” Yes, me the Miracle Morning guy, just want to keep sleeping like I’m a human being. My human nature is to always do what’s easy and to do what’s right, it takes discipline. Well, I want you to get on the strategy here. That’s what it takes, so let’s transition right now. So, do what’s right, not what’s easy. That’s the philosophy and that’s the voice in my head when the alarm goes off and I go, “I don’t want to get out of bed,” then I go, “Hal, do what’s right, not what’s easy.” It’s a decision that I made. It’s a standard that I committed to 20 years ago and I’ve been through trial and error working on getting better and better and better and better and better and more disciplined and more consistent with upholding that standard in my life. 

 

Now, here’s the strategy that’s allowed me to do that and I learned the strategy when I was in my early 20s when I was selling Cutco, and this made all the difference in the world. John Maxwell taught this in his book, Failing Forward. He said, “The strategy is to act your way into feeling.” What does that mean? Well, human nature is to passively wait to feel your way into action. In other words, people go, “I wish I felt more motivated. If only I had more energy then I could do the things I need to do to create the life, the results, the outcome of the goals that I want. If only, if only, if only I felt like it.” But guess what, when you’re sitting on your lazy butt on the couch, you don’t feel like being un-lazy, right? There are laws of the universe and laws of biology where an object in rest stays in rest and an object in motion stays in motion. When you are sitting on the couch or you were sitting anywhere or you are in your life even not even sitting physically but you’re just stuck in your life doing the same things every day, going to the same job every day, every day just rinse and repeat the same day, the same life over and over and over and over and over and over and over again then metaphorically speaking in your life you are at rest. You are not moving. You are in survival mode. You’re moving but you’re just moving through the motions. You’re doing the same thing over and over again. You’re not moving forward in your life. 

 

And so, how do you get yourself to move forward? I’ve already touched on this earlier with the example of packing a gym bag and getting into the gym, of picking up the phone and dialing the first number. That’s what John Maxwell to the secret that he revealed to all of us is we must act our way into feeling. It means that I didn’t feel like picking up the phone, but I just overrode the feeling with that little bit of will that I needed, the little bit of discipline to walk over and pick up the phone. And I use hacks. See, I’m all about making my life really easy. So, I always use phone alarms. That’s like my little hack. I have a phone alarm that goes off. It says and it literally used to tell me. It would say, “Pick up the phone and dial the first number and don’t think about it.” I hope you get that. That is so profound and I’m sorry. I’m not trying to say that I’m profound, but had an alarm went off and it would go off every morning every day twice a day at the times that I had predetermined that I needed to make phone calls. It would go off and it would say, “Pick up the phone and dial the first number and don’t think about it.” You can model that strategy in every single area of your life. 

 

I had an alarm clock that went off when I was training for my ultramarathon. I hated running. I still hate running. I don’t use the word hate very often and I hate running. I don’t enjoy running. Now, there are certain parts of it. Yeah. I kind of learned to like it a little bit but like I leaned toward this. I don’t like running. I just hate running. So, I didn’t like running, but I had committed to run a 52-mile ultramarathon and I had never run more than a mile and I hadn’t run a mile in like, gosh, 10 years at that point when I decided to run the ultramarathon. I mean, I was like 27, 28 and I had not run literally since high school. So, it had been like almost 10 years since I had run more than running to catch a bus or something. So, the idea, the inertia to get out and run, I didn’t want to run. I hated running but I had an alarm that went off every day that said, “Put on your running clothes and walk out the front door and don’t think about it.” That’s how I acted my way into feeling. I didn’t think. See, we think ourselves out of action. “Oh, I really should go to the gym.” “I don’t want to work. I have so much weight to lose. I got other stuff to do.” Think about that. That’s what you do all the time. I do it all the time. We all do it all the time. 

 

We think ourselves. It’s human nature. It takes hold of our brain and it’s like, yeah, just do the easy thing and, by the way, the easy thing often just shows up as what’s called procrastination. I’ll just, “Nah, I don’t have to go to the gym right now. I can go tomorrow. I can do it tomorrow. I can start my book tomorrow. I can work on it tomorrow. I can be a better dad tomorrow. I can be a better mom tomorrow. There’s always next week. There’s always next month. There’s always next year. I can keep living the life that I’ve been living, the survival life in survival mode for a little bit longer.” You can. But if you really want to transform your life, I tell you, I’d encourage you to consider that there is no better time than right now and you can wait until tomorrow, but even tomorrow is just going to be a new right now. It’s going to be a new right now and there’s no better time than right now. 

 

So, let’s wrap this up. How are you going to apply all this in your life? Well, let’s summarize what we talked about today. Number one, what prevents you from achieving, creating everything you want for your life? The most fundamental answer to that is it is your inborn human nature. And how do you define that? Human nature is to do the easy thing instead of the right thing. Based on our caveman and cavewomen ancestors who were programmed, who were born to survive and rest, and the only time they did what was right was when they had to survive, such as finding food, and the rest of the time they rested. They rested with their family. They rested eating. They rested around the campfire in the cave and I think that we want to get back to that a little bit as much as we can while we operate within the constructs of the society that we are now a part of and that society has set us up to help with bills to pay and we don’t hunt food anymore. We go to the grocery store and buy food so you and I need to do the things that will produce the results that will allow us to survive. And again, it’s not with the spear anymore. It’s with our vocation, our occupation, whatever it is that earns us a paycheck so we can go to the store and hunt and gather at the store and bring the food home to our family. 

 

And so, for you to be able to do the things that you need to do to create what you want in every area of your life, it requires overwriting your inborn human nature. So, it is the philosophy to do what is right, not what is easy. How do you do that? Well, obviously be clear on what you want in your life, health-wise, moneywise, everything else wise. Be clear on all of that and then to get yourself to take the actions because, remember, your life doesn’t change by what you know. It’s what you do. It’s not what you learned. It’s what you live. If you listen to this podcast and turn it off and go back to the way you’ve always been, nothing’s going to change for you. But if you instead apply what I’ve shared today and here is the bow that we’re going to wrap on this for you to put in action. It’s act your way into feeling and try this in one area of your life. Don’t try to change every area of your life. Pick one area right now. What’s one thing that you’ve been putting off that you know you need to do? 

 

Maybe it’s around your family like scheduling a date night with your spouse or scheduling a date night with your kids. Maybe it’s around your health that you know you need to stop smoking or you need to stop drinking soda or you need to start eating more fruits and vegetables, or you need to stop eating late at night, or you need to start exercising or going to the gym. Maybe it’s around your business. Maybe you want to start a business or just schedule time. Use my hat, put it in your phone a little reminder that says, “Do blank right now and don’t think about it. Do blank. Pick up the phone. Call the first number and don’t think about it. Get in the car with your gym bag and don’t think about it. Put on your running clothes and step out the front door and don’t think about it.” Use John Maxwell’s strategy. Act your way into feeling. And I’m telling you, goal achievers, if you can start understanding and embodying and living those two, that philosophy of doing what’s right not what’s easy, and using the strategy to act your way into feeling, there is nothing you cannot have, be, and do in your life. 

 

[CLOSING]

 

Hal: I hope this has been valuable for you and on the next episode, we will dive into societal conditioning and how that may be causing you some pain in your life and how you can overcome it as fast as humanly possible. So, hope you enjoyed today’s episode. I love you more than you know. I appreciate you. Together, we are truly elevating the consciousness of humanity one person at a time. You are that person today and by you living what you’re learning not just from me but in the books you’re reading and in your prayers and all of the awareness that’s coming into your life, the signs, the people, the places, the resources, all of it, by you implementing it and living it and changing your behavior in a way that improves your life and elevate your consciousness as a member of humanity, you cannot help but to change the world and elevate the consciousness of humanity. I love you. I appreciate you. Here’s to the miracle of life that you are already living. I hope you love it. I hope you love every moment, and I hope it gets better and better and better and continues to get better for you because you deserve nothing less. I’ll talk to you soon.