393: How to Experience Both Types of Freedom

Hal Elrod: Hello and welcome to the Achieve Your Goals podcast. This is your host, Hal Elrod. And thank you so much for being here today. Thanks for tuning in and listening. I really, really appreciate it and I think you'll be glad that you did. I know I've said that in the past because I always, of course, try to give you my best but today's episode I think is really going to be valuable for you because we're going to talk about how do you get yourself to do what you need to do even when you don't feel like it. I call that outer freedom, the ability to do the things that will produce the results that you want in your life even if you don't feel like doing them and you're not motivated. How do you get yourself to do the things? Because if you do the things that will produce the results in your life, then you have outer freedom. You can create the circumstances that you want in your life. We're also going to talk about how do you create inner freedom. Now, inner freedom is something I've talked about for like a year-and-a-half but I keep getting, "Hal, I get what it is. Like, I really want to be able to choose how I experience every moment of my life but I need more practical steps.” And so, today I'm going to walk you through seven questions. They’re really steps in the form of questions that will make it so that you can quickly, if not immediately, access the inner freedom that we were born with. So, really, really good episode today that I think you're going to get a lot out of.

Before we jump into that, of course, I have two sponsors that I want to tell you about and I want to thank because they make this show possible and they are two companies that are owned and operated by two of my good friends. Number one is Organifi. And if you want to optimize your health, if you want to have more energy, more mental clarity, just be healthier in general, get sick less, strengthen your immune system to fight off viruses and other pathogens, highly recommend checking out Organifi. They make the highest quality nutritional products which are made from whole food ingredients, not synthetic vitamins, which are what most of I'm talking like 99%, I mean, most vitamins that you order on Amazon or buy in the store are made from synthetic vitamins and preservatives and chemicals and fillers and Organifi is none of that. They come in really convenient powders, whether it's the protein powder or the green juice, or the red juice, and you can pour them into your smoothie or just a glass of water or anything in between, your favorite cocktail. I don't know if that would lend itself to your health but anyway, and you'll get a boost of health. Go to Organifi.com/Hal and then use the code “Hal” at checkout to get 15% off your entire order. I hope you find something there that you love.

And then last but not least, my good friend, Chandler Bolt, who I've known for many, many years, he's the founder of Self-Publishing School. And Self-Publishing School has enabled hundreds of members of the Miracle Morning Community and thousands of just people in general to write and publish their first book, even if they didn't know what they were going to write about. Like Chandler teaches you how to go from blank page to published author in as little as 90 days. In fact, we have a webinar on that today. But anyway, the point is if you want to write a book, again, even if you're afraid and you're nervous and you're not sure what to write about, don't worry about any of that. Just take the first step. Dip your toe in the water. And if you want to write a book whether it's to grow your business or leave a legacy for your family, your children, to create a passive stream of income, there are so many benefits to writing a book, to change people's lives with your knowledge, your story, head over to Self-PublishingSchool.com/Hal and Chandler will help you turn your dream of writing a book into a reality.

Without further ado, let's talk about how you can achieve both outer and inner freedom to truly live and love the life that you have.

[EPISODE]

Hal Elrod: Hello, my family, my friends. What's going on? It's Hal Elrod. And today is going to be just a friendly conversation, albeit one-sided since I can't hear you talking back to me but, yeah, just kind of casual. Actually, I had a podcast planned for today that I've been working on for the last week called Who Can You Trust? And it was about mainstream media and the government and the different sources that we are getting our information from and assessing how trustworthy those sources might be. You know, the pharmaceutical industry, for example, that's telling us this drug or that drug is safe when they have a history of paying out billions of dollars for deceit, lying, etcetera. So, I had this podcast planned. I was really kind of anxious to record it, anxious in a nervous kind of way because it's kind of a controversial topic. And as I got closer to today, I started to record it and I just stopped and went, “You know what, it doesn't feel right. I don't feel ready to go down that path.” So, then I just kind of took a breath and I reset and I thought, "What do I get asked the most? What do people ask me the most?” And it's been the same thing. Well, the general question has been the same for years. When I ask people what they're struggling with or what I get asked help with this, “Hal, I know what to do but I don't know how to get myself to do it. Whether it's the Miracle Morning, I know I should do the Miracle Morning but I don't get myself to wake up in the morning or I know I should go to the gym. I know I should exercise but I just can't bring myself to do it. I know I should stop drinking soda but, gosh, I love soda. I know I should do this or I know I shouldn't do that but I don't know how to get myself to do it.”

So, that's the general theme of one of the biggest struggles that I think people have. And I've taken it for granted for whatever reason, for most of my life, at least since I was probably about 19, I've been able to get myself to do what I need to do even when I don't feel like it. And that's for sure not 100% of the time. There are absolutely certain activities and times and things that I procrastinate on and that I consistently don't do. But for the most part, that's been an area of my life, the discipline to follow through that's actually been stronger than I've even realized at times. In the moment, I would think I was lazy but then I look back and I go, "Wow. I actually got myself to take a lot of action. So, that's the general question or challenge that a lot of us face. Specifically, what I've been asked about recently is the topic that I've been discussing for the last year, year-and-a-half, which is inner freedom, the ability to choose how you experience any given moment, the ability to just choose how you want to feel. So, the point is, people have asked me, "Hal, I get the concept and, gosh, there may be nothing more that I want than to have that ability but I don't know how to do it. You talk about it. You share it. I understand what it is. You’ve given some tips and I've kind of tried and then failed but I can't figure how to get myself to do what I want to do, to feel how I want to feel.”

And so, I want to speak to that. I want to speak to both of those. How do you get yourself to do what you need to do even when you don't feel like it? And how do you get yourself to feel how you want to feel even when it might be coming naturally to you? All right. So, how do you get yourself to do what you need to do and feel what you need to feel? And really, those are different ways like that's really a way of assessing what I would call outer freedom and inner freedom. Outer freedom is essentially the ability to get yourself to do what you need to do when you need to do it in order to create the results, the outcomes, the circumstances that you want in every aspect of your life, your health, your finances, your relationships, your emotional well-being, your spirituality, contribution, etcetera. So, outer freedom is the ability to actually move your body, do the things that will produce the results that you want. And then that inner freedom is the ability to get yourself to feel what you want to feel in any given moment, to choose how you experience each moment of your life, which largely determines whether you're happy or not, how you feel about your life at any given moment. So, how do we do this? How do we take control of our actions and what we do or don't do so they're in alignment with our highest aspirations so we can experience outer freedom? And how do we feel the way that we want to feel so that we can experience inner freedom? So, let's talk about those things today.

So, we'll start with outer freedom. Outer freedom, that was more, as I mentioned earlier, getting myself to do what I needed to do when I needed to do it even if I don’t feel like it. I've been able to do it for a while so I think outer freedom I figured out first and a part of that was from my mentor when I was 19 and I started in sales with Cutco. My mentor, Jesse, gave me a lot of little hats and tricks and kind of taught me how to figure out getting myself to do the things that I didn't feel like doing. And so, for example, back then if you're in sales the way at least the industry that I was in, it was making cold calls to people, actually warm calls, I guess. They were referral calls. So, it's calling people that I was referred by somebody else. And here's the deal. Calling people that you don't know, facing the prospect of rejection, there's a fear to that, right? It’s a discomfort. It's a fear. And typically, whenever we're faced with doing something that is either uncomfortable or we have fear around it, that is what causes procrastination. It's simply a matter of is it uncomfortable in some way to do this thing I need to do? Yes, it is. So, I'd rather not do it. So, therefore, I will put it off until another time. In fact, today's podcast is exactly that.

I mentioned to you that originally the intention was this kind of a controversial podcast in some ways. And I will probably record that podcast at a future date. I just don't feel like I've got my thoughts and my research and my data and everything in order to which is what I discovered as I started recording and I'm like saying things that are like kind of, “Aah, this is sort of what I've found out through my research,” and it's like, man, I need to give some more hard data if I'm going to make these points. So, anyway, the point is because I didn't feel prepared and it was uncomfortable to record that podcast, today's Friday, I tried to record that podcast on Wednesday, I had time scheduled, I started recording it, and I was like, "No, no, no, I'll wait until tomorrow.” Then Thursday came, put it off, put it off, put it off, and waited until today. And then today actually started this morning, recorded a little bit, didn't feel good about it, stopped, went out, worked in my yard, got a break, came back, tried again, and then now we're here. So, if there's something in your life that is uncomfortable, then typically that is the cause of procrastination. And if it's something that you fear, fear is a form of discomfort. It's not comfortable to do the thing that you're afraid of.

So, what I've found is to get yourself to do the things that you don't feel like doing. There are a few steps if you will. I don't know that these are necessarily even in order. They're more just kind of tips or tricks or hacks or strategies or techniques to get yourself to take action. And so, this is what has really worked for me in the past. The first thing is to have total clarity. And if any of this sounds like, “Yeah, I've heard that before,” no, no, no. This is crucial. You need to have clarity on what you are going to do, how you are going to do it, and when you are going to do it. The more clarity you have over the action that you need to take even if it's uncomfortable or there's fear involved, there's more fear when you're not exactly sure how you're going to do it. Lack of clarity produces fear because if you're not clear on what you need to do, then you're going to feel uncomfortable trying to even get started when you don't even know what you're going to do. Now, to be clear or to be fair in the big picture, there's a lot of things that you have to start without fully knowing how the journey is going to play out. Whenever you're starting something new, sometimes you got to just start and figure it out along the way, build your wings on the way down. So, yes, there is that. But for example, I'll just go back to when I was in sales, I got really clear that I was going to make 20 phone calls a day, five days a week, no matter what.

And the first secret of success, I believe, in getting yourself to do what you need to do is to be committed to the action or committed to the process without being emotionally attached to your results. I wrote about this in the Miracle Equation and I used to teach this in speeches and it would revolutionize my colleagues' approach to how they did things, which is to define the process. For me, it was 20 phone calls a day. For you, it might be eating a salad every day or not drinking soda or going to the gym or exercising or spending time with your kids or whatever it is. Think about the things that you know you need to do but you're just not doing them. So, once you have clarity on what that is, that action is, or a process, and let me explain the difference real quick. So, an individual action is exactly what it is. It's doing something in isolation, taking an action. A process is a series of actions and sometimes it can be the same action over and over and over and over and over again. Like when I was in sales and making phone calls, I was making 20 calls a day. The process was to make 20 calls a day, five days a week. It wasn't like step one of the process is make a phone call. Step two is organize my referrals to call and then step three is go to the bathroom, and step four is eat a sandwich. It wasn't different steps to do the thing. It was pick up the phone, dial seven numbers, and then read my script, my word-for-word approach that was given to me and I'd tweaked to try to schedule an appointment with somebody.

That was my process. It was very simple. It was very direct. It was very precise. It was the same thing over and over and over and over again. Now, a process could be more complex in terms of if you're going to the gym, for example, and you're doing chest and arms on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and you're doing back and legs on Tuesday, Thursday, or whatever. So, there's a little bit of varying in your process. So, the point being, though, the difference between an action and a process, is a process is just a repetitive set of actions. And so, when I was writing a book, my process involved opening up my computer and writing for 60 minutes a day and I had a couple of strategies to that as I wasn't allowed to look at the screen. Whenever you find yourself if you're guilty of editing, here's a little bonus tip for you, writers, if you find yourself guilty of editing while you write and it takes you forever to get through any writing like you can work on a paragraph for an hour because you keep going, "No, no, that's not right,” you're tweaking it, a fellow writer gave me this great idea where he said, "Turn the screen. Turn the brightness off on your screen so you can't see the words and then set your timer for 20 minutes or 30 minutes or 60 minutes or whatever.” And he said, "You just have to keep writing and you're not allowed to go back and fix it or correct it. That's how you write for volume,” and then you go back and you edit.

And that's how writing should be done, right? It's a brain dump even if you mess up along the way. It's getting as much out of your head, out of your heart, onto paper, onto the screen as you can, and then go back and edit. So, anyway, a little bonus tip. So, I had this process of writing every day. So, here's the point, though. To me, this is like one of the ultimate secrets to success is you commit to the process without being emotionally attached to your results and see what causes procrastination very often is that emotional attachment to our results. Because there now lies attachment. Now, there is a fear of failure or a fear of rejection or a fear of messing it up in some way, taking imperfect action. There's a fear of that whereas the reality is imperfect action is the only thing that gets you results because very rarely is our action perfect. It's almost always imperfect. You're playing a sport, right? You're not going to make every shot that you take and in life, that's a metaphor for all of life. You're not going to make every shot. You got to take imperfect action. You just got to do the thing and be unattached to the result. And so, for me, back when I was in sales, it was, “I'm going to make 20 calls a day and I'm not attached to how many people answer their phone.” In the past, I was attached. I would be discouraged if nobody answered the phone, right, naturally. I said, “I'm not attached to how people treat me on the phone,” because sometimes people were rude and they're like, "Don't ever call here again,” and they hung up and like leave this in the pit of your stomach. You're like, "Why would they talk to me? I'm a good person.”

And so, a fear of rejection, fear of all of those things can cause us to delay doing the thing that we need to do. So, when you commit to the process and you just make a conscious decision to not be emotionally attached to your results, the process leads to the results. Like, think about that. Every result in your life, every outcome in your life that you want is preceded by either an action or more often than not, a process because usually, you have to do something consistently over an extended period of time to produce meaningful results. You don't exercise once. It's not a single action. You don't lift a weight and go, "Look at my arm now. It's huge.” You don't take your wife on one date or your husband on one date and then, "Hey, our marriage is transformed. I took her on a date.” Again, so it's usually not an isolated action. It's a process, although a process, of course, is made up of many isolated actions done repeatedly that produced the result. But think about that. Every result that you want to produce in your life is preceded by a process. So, if you think about it, the process is what produces the results, regardless of how your results go on any given day or session or week. Over an extended period of time, if you commit to the process without being emotionally attached to your results, you eventually get where you're trying to go.

If you commit to writing 100 words a day, regardless of whether or not they're great or not, you just keep doing that, eventually, you're going to have 1,000 words and then 10,000 words and then a 50,000-word book. And then you can go edit it and take your crappy book that you wrote. I used to give advice to authors that your goal for your first draft is you just make it crappy. That way there's no pressure to make it good because if you try to make it good, you're probably never going to finish the book because it's never going to feel as good as you want it to be while you're editing, while you're writing it. So, anyway, not to keep giving these examples on writing books but the point is be emotionally or committed to your process, be committed to your process without being emotionally attached to results. And so, I applied that back then and I would make 20 calls. And when somebody hung up on me and they were like, "Don't ever call here again,” that used to really affect me emotionally. Now I'm like, "Sweet. That's the fastest call I can make. Onto the next call, onto the next call, onto the next call.” And when I finished my 20 calls, no matter how they went, if I scheduled five appointments or I scheduled zero appointments, if everybody answered or nobody answered, if people were whatever, it didn't matter. I created new rules for the productivity game that I was playing. I need to be productive, I need to make calls, and I was on it. I committed to be unattached to the results.

And so, after 20 calls, I patted myself on the back. I’m like, “Good job. I did it. I made my 20 calls.” And then I went and I did whatever was next. I went to an appointment. Actually, it was like my daily routine was I laid by the pool every day. I made my calls in the morning and then I laid by the pool for like an hour and relaxed. And so, that was my reward. I wasn't allowed to lay by the pool until I made my 20 phone calls for the day. So, again, you can apply that to any action or any process that you have in your life. You're dating. You want to meet people of the opposite sex and you want to ask them on dates, right? Well, think about it. If you're afraid of rejection, and think about what that means, by the way. A fear of rejection is simply a form of attachment to a result. I'm going to say that again. Fear of rejection is just a specific form of an emotional attachment to a result. So, if you decide, “I'm not attached to the results,” and now let's say you're dating. You go, “It’s a numbers game. It's always a numbers game. I'm going to go ask out X amount of people of the opposite sex or get to know them or whatever. And if they say, ‘No. Buzz off. Don't ever talk to me again,’ that's okay. That's another person I talk to and I'm not emotionally attached to my results.” So, there is no fear of rejection. So, now I'm not procrastinating because I've made a shift.

It's flipping a switch in your brain, in your emotional consciousness to go, “Yeah, I'm not. If she says yes, great. If she says no, great.” I'm not emotionally attached to results because I know that if I commit to the process of asking out people of the opposite sex or making phone calls or going to the gym or eating healthier, whatever it is, if I commit to the actions, the process without being emotionally attached to my results, I'm eventually going to get there. Eventually, somebody is going to say yes. Eventually, I'm going to lose a few pounds if you stay committed to the process. But if you flip it around and you go, "Well, I'm so attached to my results. I so want this so bad. It has to work out. If it doesn't work out, I’d be devastated,” you're probably never going to take action. And part of being emotionally unattached or detached from your results is just accepting all things you can't change. And if you've been a long listener to the podcast or you've read my books, that's one of the key lessons I talk about, that every detrimental emotion that we ever experience in life is self-created by our resistance to our reality. And the opposite of resistance is acceptance. So, when you just accept life exactly as it is and accept it in advance, meaning, "Hey, things are going to come my way that aren't ideal, that aren't what I wanted but I'm not going to allow something that's out of my control,” which once something happens, it's out of your control, right? The done can't be undone.

I heard that today in an interview, the done can't be undone. UFC fighter’s mom told him that it was a lesson she taught. That was clever. The done can't be undone so why are you worrying about it? You can't change it. The unchangeable can't be changed. You can't go back in time. So, accept life exactly as it is and that's part of being committed to the process without being emotionally attached to the result. So, I'm going to invite you to, first of all, write that down. You're not going to remember it. You might if your memory is really good. But if it's like mine, you're not going to remember that. So, be committed to the process without being emotionally attached to the results. Write that down and you can write that down, I mean, I believe that is one of the secrets to success. It's been one of those effective techniques. For me, when I applied that, and you may have heard me share this story before but I'll share it briefly, again, that lesson came to me when I was making phone calls and it was after a day where I made 20 calls. I had a terrible result. Nobody scheduled with me. Like, two people hung up on me and bitched me out and it was just really depressing. And I got off the phone going like, “I hate the way I feel. I don't want to do this anymore. Like, I'm going to go get a regular job where I can just clock in and clock out and collect a paycheck. And I don't have to deal with this emotional rollercoaster that I'm always on.”

And that's why most people will tell you sales is like one of the hardest professions because it's such a roller coaster of great day, bad day, terrible day, okay, just it's all over the place. And so, I was like wanting to quit and change careers. And then as I was falling asleep that night, which it's funny, how long I just realized that as I'm falling asleep at night, I always have and maybe that you're that way too but I get these messages like from I don't even know where they come from, from the ethos, like I get these profound messages. That's what leads to my books and everything. But anyway, I had this realization. I went, wait a minute, I'm emotionally attached to my results and therefore I am not in control of how I feel. So, by the way, we're talking about outer freedom here but maybe you caught there that definitely spills over into inner freedom. I'm attached to my results so therefore, I'm not in control of my emotional state because I'm emotionally attached to results. And if the results don't go the way I want then I'm not happy and I'm upset and I'm stressed and I'm depressed and I'm whatever. So, I went, "Hmm, I need to change the way I'm approaching my career, my sales career.” I thought, "What if I wasn't attached to the results? What if I didn't care, worry about it?” Because I know that over the long run, the results always work out. It's called in, well, it's not just sales and sports, whatever. It's the law of averages, right?

It's you go up to bat X amount of times, if you bat 100 times on average, a player's going to hit 50% or whatever they're batting. And that's why it's a batting average because of the law of averages. It’s, hey, this person's been playing baseball for five years and their batting average has been within a few points for that entire time. You can practice, get a little bit better but your averages always work out over time within a very small margin. And so, I went, "Well, if I just focus on the process and I just make my calls every day at the end of the year, as long as I made my 20 calls a day, five days a week, I'm going to sell what I'm going to sell and I can do it stress-free.” That's the beauty of the secret to success as I'm deeming it is that not only does it get you to do the thing that you're procrastinating on because of the emotional attachment you have to the outcome that may not go your way. Fear of rejection is an emotional attachment to an outcome. Fear of failure is an emotional attachment to an outcome. Fear of looking stupid, right? Fear of embarrassment is an emotional attachment to an outcome. And it is our emotional attachment to our outcomes and our results that prevents us from taking action.

So, again, remember, outer freedom is the ability to get yourself to do what you need to do when you need to do it, whether you feel like it or not, in order to create the results, the outcomes, the circumstances that you want in any or every aspect of your life. And this has been one of the most effective ways to do that, the conscious decision that I'm not attached to the results but I am committed to the process no matter what. And if you need to use the three-word mantra that I taught for, oh my gosh, two decades now, "Can't change it.” When something happens and you find yourself feeling stressed over an outcome that wasn't what you were hoping for, you say, "Can't change it.” Take a deep breath. Can't change it. Acknowledge, “I can't change what just happened so there's no value in wishing I could and there's no value in feeling sorry for myself. There's no value in any sort of self-inflicted emotional turmoil. I'm just going to accept life exactly as it is. I'm going to be at peace with what happened and I'm going to move on. I'm going to make the next phone call. I'm going to go talk to the next girl or the next guy. I'm going to go back to the gym, even though I didn't lose the weight I want to this week. That was the result. I was hoping to lose 4 pounds this week. I only lost 1. But I know if I keep working out over an extended period of time for weeks, months, years, and the rest of my life, the averages will always work out.”

So, that is my number one strategy for you on how to get yourself to do what you need to do even when you don't feel like it. I'm going to give you one bonus strategy that has been in my toolkit since I read the book, Failing Forward by John Maxwell. And John Maxwell teaches the strategy to act your way into feeling. And again, you may have heard me share this one in the past. Never hurts to hear crucial life lessons multiple times unless you're a master. And if you're a master, let me know if I taught it right. So, the idea is that most people, John Maxwell says, and I'm of course paraphrasing but he says most people, they wait to feel their way into action. “I don't feel like it. I just don't feel like it. I wish I was motivated.” You hear that from people like, “I wish I was motivated.” Well, here's the deal. Sitting on your butt wishing you were motivated will not motivate you. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but motivation doesn't come out of nowhere. You have to generate it. In fact, one of my mentors, Brendon Burchard, I heard him say at an event, a high-performance academy event probably seven years ago, five years ago, he talked about motivation and he said and again, I'm paraphrasing, of course, that goes without saying I guess but motivation, he was talking about energy and I always think energy and motivation I would say they go hand-in-hand. If you have a lot of energy, you feel motivated. And if you lack energy, good luck mustering up any motivation.

But he talked about that whether it's motivation or energy, that our body is like a power plant and a power plant doesn't have energy. It doesn't just have energy. It produces energy through movement. So, in the same way, if you want to be motivated, you have to do something. You've got to move your body. You've got to read. You have to do something to generate motivation, to generate energy. And so, John Maxwell talks about people are sitting on their butt waiting, wishing, wanting that they felt motivated to do the thing they need to do. And he said, "Motivation doesn't work that way. You can't wait to feel your way into action. It's the opposite. You have to act your way into feeling.” And so, he explained if you're sitting on the couch saying, "Oh, man, I really should go to the gym. I wish I had the energy and motivation to go to the gym.” And then you're thinking about the gym and, “Ugh, I don't have the energy to lift those weights. I can barely lift myself off the couch right now.” However, acting your way into feeling looks something like this, "All right. You know what, I'm exhausted and I don't have the energy to work out but I know I should. So, I'm just going to grab my car keys and I'm going to grab my gym bag with my gym clothes and I'm going to tiredly lazily get into my car and I'm going to drive to the gym.”

So, get in your car. You already have more energy once you got off the couch, grab your gym bag, and then got into your car. You have more energy and motivation than you did when you were sitting on the couch. You started acting your way into feeling. And then once you get in the car and get on the highway, maybe roll down the windows or blast the AC, turn up the radio, listen to some fired-up music that gets your energy going and your motivation as you continue to act your way into feeling, you start to feel more and more motivated. And then from there, you get into the gym and you grab your gym bag, you go, "Yeah, I'm here. I guess I'll go inside.” You walk inside, you're up, you're breathing, you're moving then you open the doors and the music's blasting the energy from all the people working out on the treadmills. It's palpable and you're like, "All right. Let's do this.” And now you're motivated. Now, you go put your gym clothes on, and once you start moving on the treadmill, your oxygen intake increases, and your energy and your motivation increase as well. So, think about it. And then you get a great workout in and then how do you feel about yourself? Probably feel good. “I did it. I did it. I got myself to the gym. I worked out. I'm awesome, right? I did it.”

And all of that, now, I want you to think about the journey that we just took, sitting on the couch, slumped over, feeling tired with no motivation and no energy but an hour later, you just finished a killer workout. How did we get from point A to point B? How do we get from not having the feeling you needed to getting the result that you wanted? And it was a simple baby step of grabbing your gym bag and your car keys even though you were tired and slumping your way into the car. That's it. That baby step, that first action, that was easy. You don't need motivation. It takes almost no motivation to grab your gym bag, grab your car keys, and get in the car. That takes almost no energy or motivation. Very little. But that led, that was the action, that was acting your way into feeling and by simply grabbing your gym bag and your car keys and getting in the car with the intention of going to the gym led to you getting a great workout. And I've always said that getting in the best shape of your life is as simple as grabbing your car keys in your gym bag four or five days a week and heading to the gym even if you don't feel like it. Everything else will work itself out from there. And going back to my example, when I was in sales, when I didn't feel I learned that lesson, I read Failing Forward when I was probably early-mid-20s. Again, that's a great book by John Maxwell if you want to read it but I read that. Where was I going with that?

And so, what I would do when I didn't feel like making my calls, which was like all the time, I had an alarm set on my phone and it said, "Pick up the phone and make one call,” and that's what it would say. A reminder would go off at my scheduled call time, "Pick up the phone. Make a call.” And the thought of making 20 calls or when I was in a sales contest would be like 40 calls in a sitting, which is it's like a lot or feels like a lot, I would just walk over with no energy, no motivation, no confidence. In fact, one of the keys is I wouldn't let myself talk myself out of it. That's what we do, right? We're like, “I should go to the gym. Eh, I went last. I’ll just wait until tomorrow.” Like, the voice of mediocrity gets louder and louder and louder. “You know, I should make phone calls. Eh, I'll just make 40 tomorrow and make up for my 20 missed today.” But what I would do when the alarm went off, I kind of had decided I'm not allowed to put a lot of thought. There's really no thought allowed between the alarm going off and me picking up the phone and dialing the first number because I know that I'm guilty of my thoughts talking me out of doing the thing that I need to do. And so, acting my way into feeling was walking over, picking up the phone, dialing the first number, and putting the phone to my ear and then whatever happened, happened.

And what usually happened is somebody answered, right, "Hey, hello?” And I'm like, "Oh, yeah,” and I do my approach. And all of a sudden now I'm energized. I'm motivated. I just talked to somebody. I scheduled an appointment, getting that ball rolling. So, that's been such an important strategy between the main strategy I taught you today, which is to make a conscious decision to be committed to your process without being emotionally attached to your results. That's been the key strategy for me to get myself to do what I needed to do even when I didn't feel like it. And then the other strategy, which really works well together with the first, is to act your way into feeling, to just ask yourself, "What's the first baby step? What's the easiest thing I could do knowing that doing that thing allows me to generate the next level of energy and the next little motivation to take step number two and step number three?” Step one leads to two, leads to three and so on, and so forth. So, that's my strategy or strategies on outer freedom, the ability to get yourself to do what you need to do when you need to do it even if you don't feel like it in order to create the result, outcomes, and circumstances that you want in any or every aspect of your life.

Now, let's talk about inner freedom. And this is the question I've been getting a lot, which is how do you get yourself to feel like, Hal, I want to choose my experience? And let me say this again in case you're new to this podcast or new to the concept, inner freedom is the ability to get yourself to feel what you want to feel in each moment. In other words, and actually, I often define it as it's the ability to choose how you experience each moment of your life. So, even if like there's chaos in your life, even if you lost your job and your spouse left you and, basically, if there are things in your life that you cannot control, which there always are, or if you're just thinking about the state of the world right now like, "Oh, my gosh, it's so stressful, all the things going on in the world. How is this going to affect my future? I don't know. And the future is unknown.” Whatever it is, it's focusing on things that are out of your control that cause you to feel out of control. And so, inner freedom is the ability to choose how you experience life.

So, if I asked you right now, how do you want to feel? Imagine this. Let's play a game for a second. Imagine I was a genie. Okay. Imagine I appeared in front of you as a genie and I said, "Hey, I can grant you three wishes.” And you're excited, “Oh, my gosh,” and you start thinking of what you're going to wish for, and then I go, "Whoa. But, but, but, my power is it's limited. I can only grant you wishes that are related to your mental and emotional well-being. So, I can only grant wishes on like whether you're happy or confident, how you feel. Like, I don't have the ability to grant you wishes like I can't make anything in your outer world change. I can't give you a car or a million dollars or the man or woman of your dreams make them appear like I don't have that power. The only thing I can do is you can wish for any aspect of your mental or emotional well-being, your psyche. Anything related to that, you name it. Sky's the limit. I can do it.” So, if I were to do that, you go, “Okay.” First, you'd be disappointed like, "Oh, that sucks. I really kind of wanted a house and a Ferrari. Dang it. This is not like the genie I was hoping for but whatever. It's better than nothing.” So, I ask you, what do you wish for? And what would you wish for? Think about it for a second. I try to be happy like if I could feel happy all the time, no matter what was going on around me, I think that'd be pretty cool. That's kind of like life would be good, right? No matter what was going on around me, if I was happy no matter what, then life would be good. I would win.

In fact, Michael Singer in the book, The Untethered Soul, he has a chapter which I've actually read on this podcast. So, if you go to the podcast, HalElrod.com/Podcast and just type in, I don't even know what the podcast was called. Anyway, I've talked about this. The Untethered Soul. No, no. It's called The Vow of Unconditional Happiness. So, go to the podcast page HalElrod.com/Podcast and just search Vow of Happiness and you should find it. There's a search box there. Anyway, that's what Michael Singer talks about. He goes, "Do you want to be happy?” Everybody says, “Yeah. As long as blankety-blank-blank. Like, as long as all of these circumstances and conditions and people all meet my expectations, then I will be happy.” And Michael Singer essentially said, "Oh, no, no, no. I didn't ask, do you want to be happy if everything that's outside of you goes according to plan? I asked, do you want to be happy? It's a simple yes or no question.” And basically, his take on it is it's a vow of unconditional happiness. It's like I want to be happy no matter what and so, therefore, I will not allow anyone or anything to affect my happiness, to deter my happiness. I'm in charge of it. I want to be happy no matter what. That's what I'm talking about. That's what inner freedom is, your ability to choose your experience.

So, again, let's go back to the genie. Remember, I'm a genie in front of you. I got like the little I don't know what they wear on their head. Is it a turban? I’m a genie in puffy pants and I ask you, “Okay. What do you want? What's your wish?” “You know, I want to be happy. I want to be happy all the time. Okay. So, now I can't wish for anything outside of me. Okay. So, I want to be happy. Yeah. I want confidence. I want to feel confident whenever I interact with other people where I'm like really just confident and I'm not nervous or insecure or whatever. And what else? What else? What else? I want to think clear. I want clarity.” I'm just spitballing here. These are your wishes. I don't mean to project my wishes on you but this is what I'm talking about. That is inner freedom. You have the ability to choose how you want to feel. So, again, let's just play with happy for a second. Imagine if you could be happy all the time, no matter what. And then I have a newsflash for you, you can. You can. Now, as a disclaimer, I don't want to speak to if somebody has chemical imbalances and I also know it's hard. I know that certain people are wired at different happiness baselines. So, please, I don't want to be insensitive to any of that. But I will say this, even if your happiness baseline is lower than mine or someone else's, you can be happy for you, right? I mean, like some people that are happier are like, "Oh, my gosh, I'm so happy all the time.” And then some people are like, "Yeah. I'm pretty happy. Like, life's going pretty good.” It's like different levels of different baselines.

But the point is you do have the ability to choose how you experience life, and I'm not saying it's as easy as snapping your fingers and going, "Yeah. I want to be happy.” You have to recondition it. That's kind of what the Miracle Morning, that's what it is. The Miracle Morning is a daily practice for you to condition the mindset and the habits. Mindset, inner world, habits, outer world. So, the Miracle Morning is your daily practice to condition the mindset and the habits that you aspire to. And you may remember, if you read the Miracle Morning I talked in there about when I first learned about affirmations, I was skeptical and then I thought, “Okay. I'm going to try this.” I thought, "What's my biggest limiting belief?” And my biggest limiting belief at the time I identified as a bad memory because I had brain damage from my car accident and I literally had physical damage that caused my frontal lobe not to operate at full capacity and I had a terrible memory or that's what I told myself and I had all the evidence to back it up. And so, I started an affirmation that said, “I am committed,” and I'm also paraphrasing because it's been a long time but it was something like, “I'm committed to improving my memory.” Actually, I think it started out with the brain, “The human brain is a miraculous, limitless organism, and I am committed to improving my memory every day and getting better and better and better until I have the best memory I've ever had before.” It was something like that.

And by the way, a little bonus lesson. I never word affirmations and say “I am” or “I have” if it's something I don't resonate with as true. Meaning, the old-school affirmations would be like, "Just tell yourself, ‘I have a great memory. I have a great memory. I have a great memory.’” That might work but for me, if I go, “I have a great memory,” and then I'm like, "But everything inside me says, ‘No, I don't. That would be a lie. I don't have a good memory. I was in a car accident. I have brain damage. I've got this whole story about why my memory's not good.’” So, for me, it's always worded with, “I am committed to having a great memory.” So, I'm committed to having a great memory, very different than I have one if I feel like I don't. It’s like saying, “I have a huge muscular. I have six-pack abs.” If you don't, it’s like, "Well, no, you don't. Why don't you just affirm that you're committed to developing six-pack abs through hard work and exercise?” It's like, "Oh yeah. That might be more effective and more believable.” So, it was about a month, maybe 20 something days into me reading that affirmation every day, and I read it with energy and enthusiasm and belief and faith. And I remember my buddy, Jeremy Katen, one of my best friends. He called me. He’s like, "Hal, will you remember to call me tomorrow morning about something?” And I said, “Yeah, no problem.” And I hung up the phone with him and I went, "Whoa.”

Now to you, that story doesn't sound amazing but at that point, it was like six, seven years after my car accident. For those six or seven years, if you said, "Hey, will you remember to do anything?” If I was ever asked to rely on my memory, the answer was always the same, “No, dude. Sorry. I have brain damage,” or, “You know I have brain damage. You can't count on my memory. I have the worst memory.” That was my belief. That was my reality. That was my response. I have a terrible memory. So, when he asked me to remember something and because I’ve been affirming it for the 20 or 30 days, unconsciously, I had shifted my unconscious belief from my memory and I went, "Sure. No problem.” That was radical for me at the time. It was significant and I went, “Whoa. These affirmations are actually working.” And then in the morning, I called him and whatever but that was like the beginning of getting my memory back. And then, of course, I got cancer and I went through chemotherapy and it damaged my brain in my mind more than the car accident and now I'm struggling with my memory again, which as I'm saying that out loud, I had the same thought that you probably did. It's like, "Hal, sounds like you need to recreate some affirmations around your memory getting better from chemo.” It's like, "All right. Okay. I will. Leave me alone.” Yeah, but I do.

But the point is I'm telling you I believe that you have the ability to choose how you experience your life in any given moment. And to do that, you've got to, number one, decide how you want to feel. I shared this two or three weeks ago on the podcast. I think it was on the Live In The Present Moment one but decide how you want to feel. You have to decide. Again, I'm the genie. What's your wish? You wish to feel what? To believe what? To think what? Do you want to feel happy? Have more confidence? You better get clarity. You have to decide consciously how you want to feel. And then you have to align your thoughts, words, and actions with feeling that way. I'm telling you, that's it, and I'm going to give you a tip. At night, this is the simplest miracle evening you'll ever have. Like, I get asked that a lot and I did a podcast a long time ago on a miracle evening. It was different than what I'm going to share now. It’s a little more complex in terms of like a multistep, write in your journal, do these things. But here's the simplest miracle evening and this is actually normally what I do. All I do is as I'm falling asleep at night, I just think or often I’ll talk to God so it's either I just think these thoughts or I actually direct them toward a higher power but I just think about all the things that I'm grateful for. And I actually find that when I bring God into the mix and I actually not just thinking of the things I'm grateful for but thanking God for the things, that gives it more juice for me. I'm not sure that it impacts me. It makes a greater impact on me. Not exactly sure why but it does.

So, “God, thank you for Ursula,” and I'll just sit there for a minute and I'll just picture my wife and I'll just smile and I'll just feel deeply grateful for her. And then I'll say thank you for Sophie and I’ll usually try to be specific so like, for example, the other day my daughter and I had the best time ever playing with her dolls. It's something I have maybe never done and I was oblivious to how important that was to her and I was feeling disconnected to her. And I was like, "I need to figure out what to do.” And my wife was like, “Hal, stop inviting her to do stuff that she doesn't want to do.” I was always trying to create like, "Hey, let's go ziplining,” and she's like, “I don't want to.” And I was like, "What about this?” and she’s like, "No thanks. Not interested.” And I felt like I can't get through. I feel powerless. And my wife was reminding me, this is an important lesson for all of us, “Look, go figure out what she's up to and then go do that with her. Stop trying to invite her to do stuff you want to do or you think she might want to do. Just go figure out what she's doing.” And so, I went in her room. I was like, “What are you doing?” and she’s like, “Playing with my dolls.” And then I sat on the floor with her and I'm like, "Tell me about them.” And I cannot tell you what a breakthrough this was in our relationship, and for me, I felt afterwards, I mean, I mostly felt so happy, so grateful, just so, so happy to feel so connected to my daughter after I had felt disconnected for a while. I felt I couldn't get on the same page.

And then that night as I was falling asleep, I just thought about that. I said, “God, thank you so much for the realization I had and the breakthrough and playing with Sophie and our connection.” Actually, that night, by the way, she invited me to sleep in her bed. She’s like, "Hey, you want a sleepover? Want to sleep in my bed?” which is just a huge sign of how connected she felt which was just amazing. So, best night ever. But anyway, back to the miracle evening. I just go through and I think of things I'm grateful for and I thank God for those things until I fall asleep. I just keep thinking and thanking. There's a memory or a little mnemonic device, thinking and thanking. Before bed just think or thank God for what you are grateful for. And often, at least for me and I'd imagine for you, most of us, many of us, our mind races at night, especially if you have things in your life that are stressful, that you're allowing to cause you stress or that are causing you stress. We tend to think of those at night and we can't sleep. We can't turn our brain off and we're thinking what we got to do the next day. We're thinking what went wrong that day. Like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm giving you permission that when you lay down, put your head on the pillow, flip the switch and go, "Yeah. I got a lot of sh*t I could worry about. I get a lot of stuff I get stressed about but I'll do that tomorrow.”

I got all day tomorrow. Right now, my job is to go to sleep and I might as well feel good while I'm doing it, which will, by the way, I don't have any studies on this but I would be willing to bet that this will improve your quality of sleep. I've been sleeping great lately, actually, and last year in the middle of 2020 when I was experiencing anxiety and stress, I slept terribly. I was sleeping for two to four hours a night and, of course, I went to bed feeling stressed and anxious and all the things. And now I've been sleeping seven hours a night, eight hours a night every night, and it feels great. And I think this is a big part of it. So, I just wanted to throw that out there that I think a big part of an aspect of inner freedom, of choosing how you experience any moment of your life, well, at night while you're going to sleep is a crucial part of choosing your experiences, to choose a crucial time in the day, to choose how you're going to experience those moments before you fall asleep. You're either going to go to sleep with spiked cortisol levels, which explains why I wasn't sleeping last year because I would spike the cortisol all day and keep it going at night when my head hit the pillow and I wouldn't sleep versus releasing the feel-good chemicals like serotonin and dopamine by focusing on what you have to be grateful for and really feeling it and naming it and thinking, expressing gratitude for those things.

All right. I want to do one little exercise with you, and I wrote this rough draft of this for the new book that I'm working on. So, it's very unpolished but I'm just going to read this to you. All right.

Now, you understand what true freedom is but you might be thinking that it sounds easier said than done. Now, that’s true. Since we've experienced life lived through the lens of fear for much, if not most of our lives, it can be difficult to imagine life feeling any other way. But we have had glimpses of what it feels like when we've experienced carefree timelessness and felt truly happy and free from fear. In order to help you access that place of true freedom, I'm going to ask you some questions. Any time you want to access true freedom and I recommend doing this for your true freedom meditation. You can simply ask yourself these four questions.

I think there are seven of them here. Again, this is a rough draft.

Ask yourself these questions and you instantly can be transported to a state of…

This is funny. I must have recorded this as a voice text because it says, "You can be transported to a state that Kenmore easily access true freedom.” I think you meant to say can more. Anyway.

First, I'm going to ask you the questions and invite you to take a few minutes to consider your answers to each of them one-by-one. Then I'm going to give you the questions a second time only worded in the first person so that you can use them on a daily basis yourself. What are your answers to the following questions? Number one, are there aspects of your life and the world that you can't change?

Now, while this is a rhetorical question, I guess in some ways or it is, think of those things in your life that you can't change but that caused you stress. So, are there aspects of your life in the world that you can't change? The answer, of course, is yes but for you, personally, as you're listening right now, what are some of those? What are some of the things that you find yourself thinking about that rob you of your inner freedom? Think about that, by the way. When you think of things that caused you stress that are out of your control, you are handing over your inner freedom. Those thoughts about things you can't change are robbing you of that inner freedom, robbing you of your joy. So, first, think of some of those things right now in your life and in the world that you can't change that cause you stress. Don't dwell on them. Just identify just one or two or three right now.

Second question, will there always be aspects of your life and the world that you can't change?

And yes, it's rhetorical but it's important that you acknowledge that. Yeah, there will always be aspects of our life and the world that we can't change, that are out of our control. In fact, you could argue there's way more in life that's out of our control. The only thing we really have control over is ourselves. We don't have control over the 7 billion people on the planet. We don't have control over the weather. We don't have control over the past. We don't have control over current. I mean, there are so many things. There are so many things we don't have control over. And when you focus on that, which is out of your control, you feel, that's right, out of control.

Question number three, do you want to live your life constantly experiencing destructive emotions such as stress, worry, fear, etcetera, or do you want to feel happy and enjoy this one life you've been given? Again, do you want to live your life constantly experiencing destructive emotions such as stress, fear, worry, anger, etcetera, or do you want to feel happy and enjoy this one life you've been given?

I'm guessing I know your answer but I want you to sit with that for a second. Do you want to live your life experiencing those destructive emotions or you want to feel happy and enjoy this one life you've been given?

Question number four, does it serve you to live in a perpetual state of wishing things were different that can't be different at least not at the moment you're resisting them?

Let me ask you that again, does it serve you to live in a perpetual state of wishing things were different, things that are out of your control that can't be different at least not in the moment you're resisting them, right, meaning maybe you go, "Well, but no, no, they can be different. I can change. I can change.” Okay. Yeah. You can change anything but this moment, life is as it is. This moment, your weight is what it is. You can either accept that and be at peace with it and be motivated to change it or you can be angry and stressed out and frustrated and shameful and depressed and embarrassed. Either way, your weight is what it is. You get to choose how you experience your weight. That doesn't mean that you go, "Yeah, I don't,” and I'm using weight as a random example but it doesn't mean that you go, "Yeah. I'm really overweight and unhealthy and I'm going to accept it and it's just fine as it is.” No. You go, “I'm at peace with my weight as it is but I also am not okay with it so, therefore I'm going to proactively take action. I'm going to apply the outer freedom strategies. I'm going to commit to the process of exercising without being emotionally attached to our results. I'm going to act my way into feeling to get into the gym and I'm going to lose this weight but I'm going to enjoy every moment.” You see the difference?

I'm going to enjoy my life, the one life I've been given while I change the things that I'm not so pleased with. Let me ask that question one more time. Does it serve you to live in a perpetual state of wishing things were different that can't be different, at least not at the moment you're resisting them? So, your bank account balance, it is what it is. You might not be satisfied with your bank account balance but you can either change it feeling inner turmoil or you can be happy, grateful, at peace, motivated, excited. That's inner freedom. You choose how you experience every moment of your life as if the genie were saying you can feel any way you want. You want to be happy? Great. Happy all the time? Great. Does that mean you're not going to change things? No. Of course, you're going to change things but be happy while you change those things. Don't change them out of fear and depression and anxiety. Change them out of aspiration and excitement and motivation and clarity and love and drive.

Question five, how do you want to feel?

And actually, I asked you this question earlier, so we'll just be re-asking it. How do you want to feel if you could choose any emotion or set of emotions, peaceful, happy, grateful, etcetera, motivated, how do you want to feel? So, we already asked that earlier, so I'm going to keep going.

Number six, are you committed to taking responsibility for your inner state and how you feel and being proactive to create your inner and outer freedom each day? Let me ask that again, are you committed to taking responsibility for your entire state?

Now, what does that mean? That means not blaming. “Well, of course, I'm upset. Look at my life. Of course, I'm angry. Look at what is being done to me or to people I love. Of course, I'm scared. Look at what's happening in the world.” That's blaming outside forces for how you're feeling. And I always say the simplest way to break through that is to go two different people could be experiencing the exact same trauma. One person lets it defeat them mentally and emotionally, and the other person rises up and is inspired and motivated to learn and grow and overcome and become a better version of who they are. Same trauma, same tragedy, same challenge but each of the two people get to choose their internal experience of life.

And last but not least, this is a bonus question...

By the way, actually, before I move on, I got to ask that last one again. Are you committed to stop blaming anything outside of yourself for how you feel? It's not their fault how you feel. They might be doing something but you get to decide how you feel. You might not like what they're doing. You might even hate what they're doing but that doesn't mean that you need to experience hate inside of you. So, are you committed to taking responsibility for your inner state and how you feel and then being proactive to create your inner and outer freedom each day? Those questions if you want to rewind and write them down, of course, you can. Hopefully, my producer will put them in the show notes. I don't do the show notes. So, I'm asking whoever is editing this podcast, team, please put these questions in the show notes. I would really appreciate that. And this will be at HalElrod.com/393 if you want to go check out the show notes.

And the bonus question is one that my former coach used to tell me. She goes, "What would be here now if there wasn't a problem to solve?”

Because my brain was always trying to solve problems either in my own life or in the world, and when I had anxiety, I hired her and she goes, "Hal, what would be here if there wasn't a problem to solve?” And the answers that came up for me, I went, “Perfection, love, harmony, bliss,” and she said, “Then that's what's here. And whatever you're experiencing you're creating it. You're distracting yourself from those things you just said are actually here because you're trying to solve problems all the time and you're living in a state of problem-solving all the time.” She said, “But that's not your natural state. Your natural state, you just told me what it was. What would be here now if there wasn't a problem to solve? You just said there'd be peace, there'd be love, there'd be joy, there'd be perfection, there'd be harmony.” She said, "Why don't you live there?” And that was a breakthrough and that that was really what - I think that may have been what led me down the journey of inner freedom. Yeah. Wait a minute. I can choose what state I live in, mentally and emotionally, and spiritually, I can choose how I experience life, and so can you.

So, again, outer freedom is your innate ability. It's already within you to do what you need to do when you need to do it, whether you feel like it or not in order to create the results, outcomes, and circumstances that you want for your life. And inner freedom equally as important is the ability to get yourself to feel what you want to feel in each moment, to choose how you experience each moment of your life regardless of what's going on outside of you in your life.

[CLOSING]

Hal Elrod: And I truly believe that we all deserve freedom. Right now, our freedom is being tested by the outer world. And so, now is the time to double down on doing the things in your life that will produce as much freedom as you can possibly have in terms of your circumstances, creating the results and outcomes that you want for you and for the people that you love. And while you're exercising your right to outer freedom, please exercise your right to that inner freedom because you deserve to feel the way that you want to feel, maybe not the way you've been feeling but the way you intentionally choose to feel. Because today, remember, I'm your genie. You get three wishes but it's all around how do you experience every moment of your life. We have one life to live. I hope you're enjoying yours. My heart goes out to you for all of your struggles that you may be facing seriously truly. And unfortunately, I can't reach out and do anything to change the circumstances in your life right now other than share what I’ve shared today. Hopefully, that gets you into action to improve your life in any way you want to improve it but the one thing you can take action on almost immediately is you can decide how you want to feel. You can put that in writing. You can create an affirmation to align your thoughts, words, and actions with the experience of life that you want to have because that's your right and that's your freedom.

Friends, family, goal achievers, members of the Miracle Morning Community, I love you. I appreciate you so much. And thanks for spending time with me today and I will talk to you all next week. Take care.