353: The ONE Question to Optimize Every Single Day

[EPISODE]

Hal Elrod: Hey, goal achievers and members of the Miracle Morning community. Let's make today a short episode. Are you down for that? Actually, in about 45 minutes I am recording the commentary for the Miracle Morning Movie DVD. I've never done this before where actually I want to watch the movie with Nick Conedera, our director, Theresa Laurico, our producer, and we'll be doing like a voiceover where you probably have seen that before on the DVD special features where we're going to talk about, just talk over the movie and like, “Oh, this scene? Oh, yeah. Here's what happened here.” I don't know. We'll figure this out, I guess, as it goes. But, yeah, so I'm doing that in 45 minutes. So, we've got a little time constraint but I have something today to talk to you about. It's actually based on Thanksgiving.  We just celebrated Thanksgiving here in the US and I clarify here in the US because we've got a large amount of our audience, tens of thousands of listeners at least are from around the world. And so, here in the US, we celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday last week, and it's one of my favorite holidays in the spirit of just thanks. That, for me, is important to live a life of gratitude and I really believe that the quality of our life in a lot of ways, if not just all-encompassing, the quality of our life is in direct proportion to the degree of gratitude that we're present to. 

So, that's my philosophy or belief is that when we're focused, we're present on all that we have to be grateful for, our life tends to feel like it's really in harmony and at the same time, we can focus on the things that we're not grateful for, the things that we're upset about or bother us or whatever that might be and, of course, then we're in disharmony. So, gratitude and thanks are so important. Of course, you could give a distinction between the two where gratitude is kind of the internal feeling and thanks is the action where you're expressing things, whether it's to another person, to God, to thin air, just sometimes I'll just say thank you for this moment. Thank you for this life. I'm not talking directly to anyone necessarily. I'm just expressing thanks and then I get to experience that expression of thanks. So, I woke up Thanksgiving morning and I was journaling, I was meditating, I was doing my Miracle Morning, of course, and had a few thoughts that I thought I would share some personal kind of thoughts that came up for me on how I was going to approach Thanksgiving with my family, to get the most out of it, and to make it special for all of us. Then I wanted to pay it forward kind of with you and with our community and share it online. 

So, I sent out an email, sent some social media, and I'm going to read what I wrote. I'm going to read the post that I wrote. I think it's also what I sent out in the email and then I want to talk about it. I want to talk about how to apply it to everyday life because that's kind of what I realized as I was writing this is, wow, this isn't just something for today, the annual Thanksgiving holiday. This approach that I'm going to talk about is how we can approach every day to really get the most out of life and give the most in our lives. So, here we go without further delay. So, this is the one question the way that I framed this when I posted on Thanksgiving, The One Question That Can Help You Create The Most Meaningful Thanksgiving Ever. And the reason I'm sharing this now, even though Thanksgiving is over, is because I think this is the one question that can help you create the most meaningful life ever, the most meaningful day-after-day-after-day every single day, ever. So, here we go. 

“Friends, while we are celebrating Thanksgiving here in the United States, the conditions for many of us may be challenging this year, government-imposed restrictions, some family members absent from our celebrations, financial hardship, etcetera. But as always, today will be what we make of it. So, today, I'm asking myself one question that I'd invite you to consider. How can I show up today for myself and for my family in a way that all of us might experience the most meaningful Thanksgiving we've ever had?” I'll read that question again. “How can I show up today for myself and for my family in a way that all of us might experience the most meaningful Thanksgiving we've ever had? In other words, rather than focusing our energy on what we wish were different and complaining about it either silently or out loud, rather than just being a day where we eat too much and strategize our Black Friday sales plan of attack, how can we go back to our historical and spiritual roots as we consciously experience heartfelt gratitude and actively express heartfelt thanks for all that we have and all that we are. Some of the answers that have come up for me to this question: be at peace with all things that are out of my control; start my day by meditating for 20 minutes in a state of gratitude; journal what I'm thankful for and why and then ponder and feel gratitude for each person and each item on my list; focus my energy throughout the day on selflessly serving my family, being helpful, being playful, being loving, etcetera; invite my friends, family, and community to ask themselves this same question. 

Before Thanksgiving dinner, I will address each person at our table, look them in the eye, and tell them what about them I appreciate and I'm thankful for. And last but not least, as I drift off to sleep tonight, I will remain in a state of gratitude for my life. These are just a few ideas that came to me this morning, many during my meditation that I will be conscious of and implementing throughout the day. Now, I pose the question for you. How can you show up today for yourself and for your family in a way that all of you might experience the most meaningful Thanksgiving you've ever had? May your answers to this question and the gratitude you feel, and the things you express today remind you that how you decide to show up today not be reserved for the annual Thanksgiving holiday but that we can all choose to show up in an optimal way, every single day. I am deeply grateful for you. Thank you for allowing me to be a small part of your life and for being a bigger part of my life than you could ever imagine. With love and gratitude, Hal.” 

So, that was my post. I could leave it at that because I think that I tried to address everything that I'm trying to address again today. I just want to expand on it. So, some of those answers that came up to that question, for me, were being at peace with all things that are out of my control. Well, that's something that's universal, not just Thanksgiving, but for all of us right now more than ever, but every day, to be at peace with all the things that you can't change. You might go, “But, Hal, I'm frustrated with the things I can't change.” Okay. I get it. You're frustrated. You have every right to be frustrated and you have every choice, you have the choice to remain frustrated or the choice to ask yourself, "Does being frustrated about the things I can't change serve me? Does being frustrated about the things I can't change add value to my life? Is it valuable for me to remain in this state?” And the frustration, by the way, might not be the state. It might be angry or scared and you got to ask yourself, does that state serve you? And if not, then the only logical choice that we have as human beings, if we find ourselves resisting our reality and wishing that we could change things that are out of our control, that we have no immediate direct power to change, at least not in this moment. 

This moment things are as they are and we can either accept that and give ourselves the gift of inner peace or we can resist that and be frustrated and be angry and just experience a lot of inner emotional turmoil. Again, the choice is yours. The choice is always yours. And so, which will you choose? So, another answer to the question, how can I show up today for myself and for my family in a way that all of us might experience the most meaningful Thanksgiving we've ever had? Again, this point forward, I'm going to replace the word of Thanksgiving with life or day, just something much more universal. We're going to move past the Thanksgiving holiday now. It's behind us. Let's live in this moment. So, that question, how can I show up today for myself and for my family? And I'm going to repeat the question lots so I wanted it ingrained. If you haven't written it down yet, write it down. I want this ingrained for you because this to me is arguably the most important question or at least some version of this question. You can, of course, edit it so it feels in your words, but this is arguably the most important question that you can ask each and every day. How can I show up today for myself and for my family? 

By the way, you can edit this. It might not be for your family. It might be for myself. It might be for myself and my loved ones or for myself and my friends or for myself and my team. How can I show up today for myself and others in a way that all of us might experience the most meaningful life we've ever had or the most meaningful life we can imagine or the best day ever, right? If every day, that's your intention, how do I show up today so that I and every person in my world can live the best day of our lives? Because if you have that intention and that commitment, and every day, you literally strive, this isn't hyperbole, you literally strive to make today the best day of your life because last time I checked, there's no good reason not to. There's no good reason not to. Even if we're in the midst of pain or adversity like when I had cancer and I was going through that painful journey, I still woke up everyday and I go, “I'm going to make today the best day of my life.” It's not based on my circumstances. It's based on my mindset. It's based on my intention. It's based on how I'm committed to showing up. 

So, consider that. Even in the midst of the most challenging, painful, difficult circumstances in your life, you can still wake up every single day or in any given moment where you find yourself mentally or emotionally or logistically challenged and you can ask, “How can I show up now today, in this moment, for myself and others in a way that all of us might experience the best day, the most meaningful day,” you can apply it to a meeting, “the best meeting of our lives? How can I show up in that way?” So, again, the first answer was be at peace with all things that are out of my control. I invite you, when you find yourself not in peace, when you find yourself experiencing emotional turmoil, put your hand on your chest, take a deep breath, and say those three words I've taught for so long, "Can't change it. I can't change this thing that I'm resisting in this moment. I might be able to change it in the next moment. I might be able to do something. I might be able to take an action now that will change this in the future but I'm going to be at peace in this moment while I take that action and move forward.” So, that was the first answer that came up for me. Be at peace with all things that are out of my control. Number two, start my day by meditating for 20 minutes in a state of gratitude. 

Again, not reserved for the Thanksgiving holiday. I would say that's going to serve you and me every day of our lives. And something I've talked a lot about lately is what I would call emotional optimization meditation and this morning, it was funny during my meditation, I actually had a distinction and I thought, "You know what, I think there's a better name for that.” I think there's a better name than emotional optimization meditation because there's more parts of your mindset than just your emotion, right? There's your emotions, there's your thoughts, your emotions, your feelings, all these aspects. So, I think that a better name for this meditation is really state optimization meditation. State meaning your mental and your emotional state, and your physical state. You could even expand that. So, I like state optimization meditation. This is new for me so I'm going to think through it all. I'm sure I'll do an episode in the future where we'll really dive deeper into that. But again, starting your day with 20 minutes or 10 minutes or five minutes, whatever or an hour of state optimization meditation where you meditate, feeling the state that you want to feel, whether that's gratitude or peace or love or joy or happiness or confidence or clarity, choose the state. 

Like clarity is more of a mental state than an emotional state, you could say, which is why I like this whole shift from emotional optimization meditation to state optimization meditation, but what state do you want to experience more of, more often, more consistent? What state do you want to be your default state of being? Well, meditating on that state in the morning is one of the most effective ways I've found to make that state, whatever the state you want to live in or states, there's more than one, but whatever you want to consistently think and feel. Well, set your timer in the morning, get into that state, and stay there. Sit there. Marinate, if you will, in that state so it becomes more and more and more a part of you, more your norm. You become acclimated to it. It becomes who you are, not just something that you do. So, that was number two, start my day by meditating for 20 minutes in a state of gratitude. Number three, the third answer that came up for me when I asked the question, how might I show up today for myself and others in a way that all of us might experience the most meaningful day of our lives? Number three was journal what I'm thankful for and why and then ponder and feel deep gratitude for each person and each item on my list. 

Journaling, of course, is part of the scribing of the SAVERS. The final S in SAVERS is for scribing. That's your journaling practice. And so, that's something that, again, not reserved for a holiday but every day, all of us. That's something I do part of my Miracle Morning every day and many of you probably do, too. So, that was the third answer, to journal what I'm thankful for and why. The why is important, by the way. The why is important. You don't always have to journal the why but that's the feel part. So, let me explain. I think I covered this in the Miracle Morning book but the purpose of, or not the purpose, but in terms of gratitude, the quality of the gratitude is important and there's a difference between what I would call intellectual gratitude and heartfelt, soulful, earth-shattering gratitude. What I mean by that is intellectual gratitude is like checking the boxes, right? It's making the list. If I said, “What are you grateful for?” You’d go, “Um,” you’d search your brain. You’d go, “Uh, my family, uh, that I have a roof over my head, uh, that I have food to eat,” but it wouldn't seep into your soul. It wouldn’t necessarily seep into your body, your being, your emotions. It would just be up in your head. You'd be checking the boxes, going through the list in your head. 

I've been guilty of that in the past and I had that awareness. I don't know. I probably read it somewhere or learned it from somebody else. I don't remember. It was 12 years ago but I went from, oh, wait a minute. They’re just thinking for a moment and writing down what I'm grateful for and then there's writing it down and then pondering it and asking myself, "What about this makes me grateful? Why am I grateful for my wife, Ursula? What about her do I feel deep gratitude for?” And you can start her smile like when she looks at me and I feel her love and then you just go deep into that feeling of gratitude. That's where you impact the impact of gratitude, moving it from intellectual to soulful, heartfelt, earth-shattering gratitude. That's where it has an impact on your nervous system. That's where you rewire your brain to make gratitude more of your default state. It's not by just momentarily thinking it. It's by deeply feeling it and prolonging that feeling whether it's for 30 seconds or for a few minutes. But each item on my gratitude list when I write it in the morning, which I do almost every morning, more often than not, it's the writing of it is just that that's the first piece so that I think it's there. It's in writing. Now, I'm not going to forget it, right? And then I look at it and then I ponder it and then I feel it and then I'll ask myself, "What about this am I grateful for?” When might I have felt that gratitude at a deep, heartfelt, soulful level? Then I go there and I stay there. So, I encourage you to do the same. 

All right. Number four, the fourth answer I came up with, focus my energy throughout the day on selflessly serving my family, being helpful, being playful, being loving, etcetera. All right. I'm excited to dive into this one because I really believe similar to the quality of your life in any given moment in terms of your inner world, your state, can be correlated to the amount of gratitude, the degree of gratitude that you're present to, and that's not the only thing. I mean, obviously, you could be doing something fun and that's going to enhance your internal state and your quality of life, of course. But what I've found and I think that this is true for all of us, I think we can all look at times in our life and it's probably, hopefully, you don't have to look too far for a time in your life. Hopefully, this is like a daily thing or at least like a weekly thing where you're dedicating yourself to adding value for other people, to selflessly serving other people. Because what I found is that is the key to fulfillment. One of my mentors, Mark Lovas, when I used to sell Cutco back in 2003, 2004, 2005, gosh, it's been a long time, 15 years. But Mark at a conference I can remember I think we're in Sacramento, California and we were at a conference in the audience, I'm learning and taking notes and Mark gives us this lesson. 

He says, "In life, focus more on getting off self and on purpose.” Getting off self and on purpose. And he said, "Purpose is always about how can you impact the greater good and not just yourself,” and he said, “That's where fulfillment comes from when we help another person, when we serve another person.” And that could be as simple as the person at the grocery store, calling them by their name on their name tag or at the restaurant on their name tag, which my kids always give me like, “Dad, why do you always talk to them like you know them?” I'm like, “Well, my mom taught me that every person is my friend that they don't know it yet.” My mom always says that. They're my friend. They just don't know it yet. So, I've always taken that lesson from my mom. Anyway, the point is you can add value by simply complimenting someone or not saying a word but looking someone in the eye and listening when they really need to be heard. You can add value you can selflessly serve by listening, by being there for somebody or by giving advice or by buying flowers. There's infinite ways to serve other people. 

I find that not only in the micro meaning in the moment, daily, when you serve others, when you selflessly add value for other people. Not only does that enrich your life, your mental and emotional well-being but on the macro, the more you focus on serving others or one way to put it is the more you focus on adding value for other people, the more valuable you become to those people. Think about that. Think about the friend that always makes you feel good because they listen and they compliment you sincerely and they build you up and they believe in you and they breathe that belief into you and they speak that belief into you, and you just feel great to be around them because they see the best in you, they bring out the best in you. What a beautiful way that we can all add value for every person in our life? But those people that do that, they're the most valuable to us because they add value. The more value you add for others, the more valuable you become to others. Again, I just want to pause right there but that if you don't have that written down, if that's not in your affirmations to focus your energy every day on seeing the best in every person you see, every person that you see whether you see them online, or you see them across the room or you talk to them on the phone and you see them through your spirit, every person that you see if you focus on seeing the best in them. 

Because guess what, just like in life, you may have heard me share the two pages lesson. In life, we all have two pages to focus on, one page that lists all the positive, everything we have to feel good about and excited about and grateful for. That's the positive page. Then the other page is the painful page. It lists everything that we feel bad about, that we feel depressed about, or scared about, or angry, or all of our faults and our fears and our shortcomings and our failures. Both in life, every single one of us has both pages to focus on and anyone that complains about their life, they're just verbalizing the painful page. It doesn't make it any more real than the positive page but which one you focus on quite literally determines the quality of your life. When you focus on everything you have to feel bad about, you feel bad. If you focus on everything that you have to feel good about, you feel good and it's not about choosing one or the other but it is about choosing how much time you spend on either page, and when you're spending that time how you're approaching it meaning if you look at the painful page, and you go, “Oh, yeah. Life is hard. There are so many things.” I'm sorry. I'm not trying to if that came across as like joking or whatever. I'm sorry. I'm being serious, though. 

If you're focusing on the painful things, life is painful and if you're doing it in a way where you're doing it feeling sorry for yourself and feeling hopeless, that's not constructive. But if you're focusing on, "Okay. Here's the things in my life that are not ideal, here's the things in the world that I can't control. I'm going to accept that I can't change. I'm going to focus on taking active steps on what I can change, moving my life forward.” So, you can focus on a painful page in a way that is destructive or that is constructive, that is reactive or that is proactive. So, again, it's not just focusing on one page or the other. You want to focus on both. You want to focus on the painful aspects of your life, the challenges, the adversity. You want to learn. You want to grow from them. You want to ask yourself what can you do to transcend, to overcome those challenges in your life? Absolutely. Don't ignore it. Don't be Mr. or Mrs. Delusionally Positive all the time. No. You want to acknowledge and you want to extract value from the painful page, the challenges in your life, but then you want to spend for me the old 80/20 rule. 

For me, it's really like 90/10 or 95/5 where I'm going to spend 90% of my time focusing on the things in my life that I appreciate so that they appreciate that I love that I feel and experience the life that I want to experience. I don't know about you but I don't enjoy suffering. I'm at peace with suffering. I can go through it and view it in a way where I'm going to learn and I'm going to grow from it but we all can do that, but I don't want to live there. I don't want to live in the space of focusing on everything that's wrong with the world, everything that's wrong with me, everything that's wrong with my life. I don't want to live. That's a depressing reality. I'm going to acknowledge those things. I'm going to be realistic about those things. I’m going to be at peace with those things but I'm going to focus my energy on the things that bring me joy, the things that make me feel good, the things that make me feel excited, and grateful and hopeful and loving, and all of it. I share that with you because I want to circle back to what led me into bringing up this lesson of the two pages that we have in life. Every person in our lives also has two pages.

Because this is going back to that lesson of seeing the best in other people, this is one of the best ways I believe that we can selflessly serve and add value for other people. It's not going to the soup kitchen. I mean, that's great. Yes. My wife. Not my wife. My mom. Freudian slip. My mom donates blood I think every single week. I don't know. It's often as she is allowed to. She donates blood and she has for, I don't even know, decades. My sister Amery died when I was nine years old. I am now 41. I believe my mom has donated blood every week or two or however often she's allowed to for the last 22 years, give or take. And so anyway, so that's a way to selflessly serve. You know what, I need my mom on the podcast. My mom is incredible. She lives her life so in alignment with her values. It's amazing. So, that's another story. The point is seeing the best in other people is one of the best ways we can add value for the people and we can selflessly serve, see the best in others, and don't just see it, but speak it so that they feel it, believe in them. Because sometimes, one of the greatest lessons I learned when I was younger is that we have to believe in the belief that others have in us until our belief catches up. Think about that. 

Sometimes you have to believe in the belief someone else has in you until your belief catches up. When I was 19 and I gave up my job as a radio DJ, which was like my dream job to take this chance on a position selling kitchen cutlery because my friend talked me into it and I love the product and I was like, “I'm going to give this a try.” It was a real challenge for me. Well, my mentor, Jesse, I didn't have any self-belief, like I had very little self-belief. At 19, I had been not a very successful student. I had never achieved anything in sports. I never achieved really much of anything except the DJ job was kind of cool but I didn't have a lot of self-belief. I didn't believe I could accomplish anything I put my mind to like none of that. I had never read a self-help book, none of that. But my mentor, Jesse Levine, who I caught up with the other day, Jesse, he believed in me and he spoke that belief into me. He saw the best in me. He saw me at my full potential and he saw everyone that way. That's the thing. It wasn't me that was special if you will. It was Jessie that was special. What I mean by that is he was special in that he had decided that he would see the best in every person in his life and he would speak that belief into those people, and he would tell them constantly what they were capable of and why and how he saw that to be true until their belief caught up. 

I'll never forget Jesse. I mean, of course, I'll never forget him. He's one of my best friends but he's one of the most influential people in my life for that reason. He believed in me when I didn't believe in myself and it took a long time. In fact, I'd say I'm still catching up. My belief is still catching up in myself. I have lots of days where I doubt myself but Jesse, I don't know that there aren't too many people in my life that have added more value in the way that he added value was by seeing the best in me and then speaking that into me, breathing that belief that I could do anything into me. Then I started to actually live into Jesse's belief. And so, we can do that for the people in our life. We can do it for our spouses and for our kids, and for our friends. Well, you can do it on social media by posting if you follow me on social media on Twitter or Facebook, or Instagram, not every day but I tried to every day go through streaks where like I go on vacation. I don't do it for a few days, and then there's a holiday and I fall off and I get back on but as often as I can, I post things every day to try to breathe belief into all of us, into you, and into all of us. And so, you can do it that way. 

You can on social media say, “Hey, friends, remember, you are capable of more than you've ever imagined for yourself. Anything that you want to overcome, that you need to overcome or want to accomplish, you can absolutely do. Take your first step today.” I'm just riffing here but that's breathing belief in other people. And guess what? The influencers online who speak that way in their writing, in their text, they have a lot of followers. Why? Because they're adding value to people, for people. They're adding value for people in a way that they become valuable, and then they get followers. And then people turn to them for that encouragement and that inspiration and that belief. So, again, the answer to the question, “How can I show up today for myself and for others in a way that all of us might experience the most meaningful day of our lives?” And remember, you can edit that question to fit your own language but the answer to that was focus my energy throughout the day on selflessly serving my family, being helpful, being playful, being loving, etcetera. And I'm sharing with you that one of the most simple, effective ways that you can selflessly serve the people in your life, your friends, your family, your children, your employees, your clients, you name it, is to see the best in them. 

Focus on the positive page. By the way, let me circle back to that point. We all have a page of all the negative and we all have a page of all the positive and you can either focus on the negative in another person and say, “Well, yeah, but they're this and they're that, and I don't like them because they're always late and they gossip and they're blah, blah, blah, blah. That list of faults in a person, it's infinite. You can go forever. They have a big nose, right? You can just go forever with the faults and the criticism and the condemning. You could go forever. You could also go forever with the positive. You can see, "You know what, that person has struggled in their life and they really are strong.” Yeah. You know what, they complain but they don't realize it. I think that that's an unconscious incompetence of theirs. I'm not going to judge them for it. I'm not going to condemn them. They literally aren't even aware that they're doing it. It's just how they talk. I bet it's because their parents complained or other people in their life complained. It's simply rubbed off on them. You see what I'm saying? You can even look at faults and see them through a lens of empathy and compassion and love and support, and even someone's faults, you can see in a positive way. 

So, I think one of the most effective ways that we can add value for other people is to see the best in them and then speak that into them. Let your belief in those you love and those you lead inspire them to instill that belief in themselves. The fifth answer to that question was invite my friends, family, and community to ask themselves this question. So, I'm doing that right now. But again, that goes back to the how can you add value for other people? It's interesting, right? It's no coincidence that for me when I wrote down, "Focus my energy throughout the day on selflessly serving my family,” that the next answer that came for me was invite my friends, family, and community to ask themselves this question because that was like the most obvious way to serve other people. The next answer was before Thanksgiving dinner, I will address each person at our table, look them in the eye, and tell them what about them I appreciate and I’m thankful for. Again, don't reserve that for Thanksgiving, and my family will tell you that I tell them every day how amazing they are, and how much I love them, and just how grateful I am. I thank them for all the things they do to the point where my kids will roll their eyes like my wife would be like, "Okay. You're talking too much.” I do it to a fault. So, I don't know that I'm the perfect example to model. 

But the point is that acknowledge the people in your life. That's also a way to add value is just to really recognize and thank them. Catch your spouse. If you're married, catch your spouse doing things right. Thank them and do it in fun ways, grabbing a sign. Getting back to this, I was doing it for a while and I fell off but I was writing post-it notes and I would stick a post-it note in the morning on my wife's bathroom mirror so when she went to brush her teeth, it would say, "You know, hey, I love you. Thank you for being a wonderful wife and you make my life…” it was whatever was on my heart that morning and then I put a post-it on the fridge and go, “Hey, thank you for making our family nutritious homemade meals just about every single day. I see how hard you work and I so appreciate it.” And that post-it note actually stayed up for like six months until it finally fell off. But again, acknowledge the people in your life or tell them what you appreciate about them. Let them know every day. Don't take what they do for granted. Acknowledge. Again, focus on the positive page and call it out for them. Then last but not least, the last answer I had, which is a good close to kind of these thoughts. 

“As I drift off to sleep tonight, I will remain in a state of gratitude for my life. When COVID-19 hit and a lot of feelings of out-of-control-ness, a lot of, “Wow, I can't control this virus. I don't know how bad it is. Wow. Businesses are shutting down. Wait, we’re quarantined in our house,” I think it created really a collective stress across the globe that is still being felt by many if not most people. I still feel it for sure and I had trouble sleeping. It added to my challenge in sleeping. Then I just realized it was just a really profound yet very simple epiphany that when I'm going to bed, my only objective is getting a good night's sleep. That's it. It's not solving all the problems in the world. It's not even solving all the problems or any of the problems in my life. That's not the purpose. The more I focus on that is I fall asleep. If I allow my mind to wander or go down the various rabbit holes, try to think about all my stresses and my challenges and my problems, that doesn't lend itself to the only objective that we have at bedtime, which is to get a good night's sleep so that we can wake up rested and refreshed and ready to take on the day, ready to ask ourselves the question, "How can I show up today for myself and for my family in a way that all of us might experience the best day of our lives?” 

That night time just before bed, a very simple epiphany was a game-changer because ever since then, now when I go to bed, the only thoughts I'm allowed to think are those that are conducive to me falling asleep such as, “I’m so rested. I'm so tired. I feel myself falling asleep.” So, sometimes I'll think those thoughts. Sometimes I'll think thoughts of gratitude. I'll just run through my head of all the things that I'm grateful for and it helps, by the way, every morning to do that in your journal to make a list of those things because in doing so they become top of mind and now you can reference that list as you're falling asleep that night and you kind of sandwich your day with feelings of gratitude with the state of being grateful, and that is a beautiful state to fall asleep too. So, again, the answer to that question for me was as I drift to sleep tonight, I will remain in a state of gratitude for my life. I'm inviting you and encouraging you that at bedtime do whatever you need to do. If it's as simple as just taking a breath and thinking through the things you're grateful for and then reminding yourself how well you're going to sleep which is really a form of affirmation, that's great. 

Now, if getting there is a little challenging and you have habitually been thinking stressful thoughts at bedtime, you might need to do a little mini Miracle Morning before you go to bed. I know a lot of members of the Miracle Morning community do a mini Miracle Morning before bed. And a mini Miracle Morning could either be the six-minute Miracle Morning or you do one minute of silence or meditation or prayer. Silence being meditation and/or prayer, right? One minute of affirmations and you can read the bedtime affirmations. If you don't have those, by the way, I highly recommend downloading the bedtime affirmations. You can go to TMMBook.com and download the bedtime affirmations and those help you to affirm that you're going to get a peaceful night of rest, you're going to wake up recharged and rejuvenated, and I've heard from thousands of people, no, I don't hear from thousands. I know thousands of people have used the affirmations. I don't know how many have told me but many have told me that those were a game-changer. I remember one of my coaching clients said he used those for like six months and the first night that he didn't use those, he woke up groggy. You know, those are designed to program your subconscious mind to wake up feeling energized after a good night's sleep. So, actually, after any night's sleep, they're designed to help you wake up energized. So, you can go get those affirmations. 

Then you can go through your visualization and your exercise, maybe some yoga or some stretching, reading. You could read. I always usually read a few pages before bed. I'm reading a book right now called The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible by Charles Eisenstein. Wonderful book. So, I read a few pages of that before I go to bed. Then scribing, if you want to journal a few things. So, that's one example of a shortened abbreviated Miracle Morning. But another one is you can just pick one or two or three of the SAVERS and do those before bed. So, you might just do a short meditation followed by reading your bedtime affirmations. Maybe that's it, right? Or maybe you read a few pages. It doesn't have to be a full-blown Miracle Morning. But if you do have trouble if you are so used to feeling stressed before you go to bed and not sleeping, then I would encourage you probably most important is to start with affirmations. Have affirmations that remind you the purpose of my only objective right now is to fall asleep and so I will only think thoughts and experience feelings that are in alignment with that purpose of getting a good night's sleep. 

So, there you go. That's it. Again, the question that I'd encourage you to ask yourself, not only on holidays, not only on Thanksgiving, but every single day of your life, I would write this down, I would begin the day, How can I show… and again, sorry, any version of this, you can edit this according like I said that a few times but here's the question, “How can I show up today for myself and for others in a way that all of us might experience the most meaningful day we've ever had or experience the best day of our lives, or experience the most productive? How might I show up today to be the most productive I've ever been today?” The quality of the questions that we ask determines the quality of the answers that we're given and then the quality of the actions that we are poised to take. 

[CLOSING]

Hal Elrod: So, that is it for today. I'm going to go record the commentary for the Miracle Morning movie DVD, which will hopefully be on Amazon at some point soon. I don't know how long it's going to take to get it up there but hopefully soon. Yeah. Of course, last but not least, please head over to if you don't have your ticket to the Miracle Morning movie, that is going down the live movie experience on 12-12-2020, just a week and a half from today. I can't believe it's almost here. Six years in the making, this movie it really is incredible. I think it's going to open a lot of people's hearts and minds to what's possible for each of us when we take ownership and control of our lives. So, head over to MiracleMorningMovie.com. You can watch the new extended trailer. I just uploaded it this morning. And so, the trailer on there is the new extended trailer so you can watch that at MiracleMorningMovie.com and then if you haven't yet reserved your seat to the premiere. I know thousands of you, I think we're close to like 5,000 Miracle Morning practitioners and, of course, some newbies that just their friends have told about the movie have already registered for the premiere. 

I think there's a chance that we might be over 10,000 people watching it and excited about that. Very excited. So, goal achievers and members of the Miracle Morning Community, my friends, I love you. I appreciate you, and may you wake up every day to your full potential and ask yourself how can you make today the best day of your life because there is no good reason not to and go out there and take that version of you, the best version of you and serve, selflessly add value to those you love and those you lead. And I will talk to you all next week. Take care, everybody.

[END]