551: The Inner Work to Thrive with Jon Berghoff & Adair Cates

[INTRODUCTION]

Hal Elrod: Hello, friends, welcome to the Achieve Your Goals podcast. Today, we are talking about the inner work that we need to do to thrive. All of us. Meaning, if you want to make lasting changes in your life, it’s not about surface-level learning, right? You can’t just read a book and go, “Oh, now I know it. So, that’s enough.” It’s no, I have to figure out how to identify what are the patterns that are holding me back in my subconscious mind, in my nervous system. What’s causing me to be reactive and triggered during stressful moments in my life where I keep repeating the same behaviors, the same negative or disempowering or unproductive behaviors? How do I identify those, so that I can make lasting changes in my life? That’s what we’re talking about today.

And I’m joined on the podcast by two people whom I deeply love and admire and consistently learn from, my friend of 25 years, Jon Berghoff, the founder and CEO of xchange, and his, I would argue, better half, Adair Cates, who happens to be the head of Conscious Leadership and senior trainer at xchange. So, in addition to working together at xchange, they also do life together as mom and dad of a blended family made up of five kids.

Well, in a week, we are doing something we’ve never done before, about a week and a half, I guess, from today, hosting a free three-day event, September 24 through 26, titled The Miracle Morning Conscious Elevation Experience. And the subtitle of that event, the tagline is The Inner Work Guaranteed to Transform Your Entire Life. Now, whether or not you can make that event, today’s episode introduces you to some of the inner work practices that’s going to be valuable. Whether or not you can attend the live event or if you’re listening to this podcast, well, after that event took place, this is going to help you to self-regulate, to achieve self-mastery, if you will, so that you can be more effective in making the changes that you want to make and showing up at your best every day.

Now, if you want to join us for the live event, this first ever, literally, it’s the first time we’ve ever done a three-day, totally free, conscious elevation experience to go deeper into the topics that we’re going to discuss today, and actually, you’ll be led through experiencing these concepts and these practices for three consecutive days so that you don’t just learn them, but you hardwire them in your nervous system. If you want to join us for this free Miracle Morning event, register at MiracleMorningExperience.com. That is MiracleMorningExperience.com. Be sure to save your spot because there are limited spots available due to the interactive nature of this live three-day experience.

Before we dive into the episode today, I want to take just a couple of minutes to ask you two questions. Number one, do you struggle? I guess this will be two questions in one. Do you ever struggle to focus in the morning or fall asleep at night? And the reason I ask you that is because our sponsor, CURED Nutrition, is what I bookend my days with. I take their Rise nootropic supplement first thing in the morning to– in fact, I’m on it right now. It helps me to focus and concentrate in the morning. And then before bed, I take their Night Caps, which are capsules containing CBD and CBN oil that help me fall asleep and stay asleep. I bookend my days with CURED Nutrition so that I can start effectively and fall asleep and stay asleep effectively. And if you want to improve your focus in the morning or throughout the day and your sleep at night, head over to CuredNutrition.com/Hal, that is CuredNutrition.com/Hal, and use the discount code H-A-L for 20% off your entire order as a listener of the Achieve Your Goals podcast.

And then last but not least, my go-to, all-around, fastest way to improve your nutrition, Organifi. I take Organifi’s Red Juice before I work out. I take their protein powder after I work out. I take their turmeric supplement to lower my inflammation. I munch on their Happy Drops and give them to my kids, which are a mood-boosting gummy that I take throughout the day that contains saffron and other ingredients. The point is, Organifi is my go-to shop for the highest quality, organic whole food supplements to, whether you want to lose weight, improve your focus, improve your sleep, improve your health, check out the wide variety of healthy, organic whole food products at Organifi.com/Hal, that is spelled O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I, two I’s, Organifi.com/Hal, and use that same discount code, my name, Hal, for 20% off your order as a listener of this podcast. Between CURED Nutrition and Organifi, I get virtually every supplement that I need to optimize my health.

All right, goal achievers, without further ado, let’s talk about the inner work that we all need to do to thrive and to make lasting changes in our lives.

[INTERVIEW]

Hal Elrod: Jon and Adair, one of my favorite couples, it’s good to see you.

Adair Cates: Hello.

Jon Berghoff: Good to see you, buddy.

Hal Elrod: Actually, and I was like, it’s so funny, this morning, what came to me is a sarcastic remark to open with, but we were all texting each other, and Jon, you and I were being sarcastic. And Adair made some sort of mention of what did you say there? Remember what you said?

Adair Cates: I said the number one rule of conscious leadership and conscious relationships is to not be sarcastic.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. So, I’m going to hold back on the sarcastic comment that I was going to say to open the episode. It was something around Adair being your better half, Jon, and I’m glad that she’s finally here with us to balance us out. Let’s dive right into this. So, the reason what prompted us to do this is there is an event coming up, The Miracle Morning Conscious Elevation Experience. It’s the first time we’ve ever done anything like this, three days, totally free, for our entire community. What’s the upcoming event and today’s conversation about? And then I’d love for you to include, how did you guys get into this work?

Jon Berghoff: You want to go first or you want me to go first?

Adair Cates: You go ahead.

Jon Berghoff: All right, cool. So, coming up in September, it’s funny, we’re here to record this conversation. I don’t have the dates.

Hal Elrod: 24, 26, I wrote it down.

Jon Berghoff: 24 through the 26, it’s several hours a day. It’s going to be amazing. It’s an event that’s all about the inner work that takes personal development work and practices like the Miracle Morning to a whole other level. It’s all about a deeper exploration of how to kind of rewire ourselves to achieve your goals. At least, that’s how I think of it. Adair, what about you, when you think about the purpose of this event coming up?

Adair Cates: Yeah. So, it’s really an opportunity for us to dive a little bit deeper into our inner work and really expand on what the Miracle Morning SAVERS starts every single morning and bring it into our lives throughout our day.

Hal Elrod: And I think that’s a good way to put it. I always like to think of the simplest way is taking the Miracle Morning and extending the benefits throughout the entire day. That to me, that’s the simplest, high-level way to explain it. And that’s what we’re going to do today. I want, people, to be clear. Like, this is not a promotion for the event. We’re letting you know about that because it is coming up.

But this is kind of a preview, a glimpse, like teaching you, okay, what are these tools that we’re going to be spending hours a day going deeper in today, so that if you cannot make it to the live event, or if you’re listening to this after the fact, after it already happened, you’re going to get a lot of value today in terms of learning? What is this inner work that you can implement right away?

Before we dive in, I want to touch on, I think, so your story, the two of you, it’s fascinating. Like, you don’t just work together. You do life together, you live together. You have a blended family with five children. Jon, your ex-wife, who is a good friend of mine, Mara, she’s your neighbor, which is really rare. And you guys all get along. In fact, I saw you all together recently at our friend’s celebration of life. So, tell me a little bit, like, give us just a glimpse. What is y’all’s home life look like? And how does that integrate with work? Because working with your significant other can be challenging in and of itself, but you guys seem to really, really be doing life well with the kids and the spouse, the ex-spouse, and all that. So, what’s that look like?

Jon Berghoff: Well, I’ll start with this. We’re going to run this event with you in several weeks and we may appear to have all of our stuff together, but every day, when we get home and have one of many interactions with our kids, we’re reminded quickly and simply that there’s still more work to do. You’re the greatest teacher, that’s for sure.

Hal Elrod: I’d imagine that these tools that we’re talking about today are– it’s probably the best opportunity to use them with five kids.

Adair Cates: Yeah. To put them into practice at home is our greatest opportunity. And the cool thing is many of the things that we talk about, we talk about how does this help us show up better in our work, how does it help us show up better to create results for ourselves, but at the end of the day, many, many, many of our students say the place that helps them the most is at home, in their family relationships because a lot of times, our families don’t get the best of us. They get the rest of us at the end of the day. And so, even I was thinking about it last night, we were sitting, Jon and I were sitting by the fire preparing for this conversation today and even starting to touch on what we would be talking about in the event.

And our kids interrupted us like four times. And we’re deep in conversation. And so, us just having these tools, we’re going to talk about some today and more in-depth at the event has really been an incredible foundation for our relationship that I feel like we have the gift of in our relationship that I didn’t have the gift of previously in a partnership. And having that opportunity with five kids, with the ex-wife down the road, with working together and doing life together, and our kids, their schedules are a little insane, it’s almost like it’s the ultimate practice for what we talk about. And that’s what we want to do. We want to condition ourselves to be able to handle the stressors of life. That’s what this work is all about.

Hal Elrod: Yeah, yeah, I think that’s a really effective way to put it, that handling the stressors of life, being able to self-regulate, self-manage, and so we can show up at our best and respond at our best, because as you’re using the examples of kids, that can be the most triggering and easiest for us to lose our stuff, where we held it together at work because we didn’t want to have a consequence of affecting a coworker or a client, but then when we get home, man, it’s easy, like you said, not the best of us, but the rest of us. You both mentioned the inner work a couple of times. What do you mean by inner work? And what are the ways that this impacts our ability to achieve our goals?

Jon Berghoff: So, for me, Hal, you and I, we’ve been friends since 1999. And that was when my journey of personal development began. You and I were together in that back then, studying and learning from some of these kind of classical teachers. I went to my first Tony Robbins conference in 1999. I think you did as well.

Hal Elrod: Yeah, yeah, ‘99 or 2000. No, ’99. Yeah.

Jon Berghoff: And what’s interesting is, I’ve been doing my best to try and work on myself for however long that’s been. And it’s only in the last three, four, or five years, there’s this quote that a mutual friend of ours shared with me not long ago, that all progress starts by telling the truth. And I realized that, not with negative intentions, I wasn’t aware, I wasn’t even honest with myself about where I still had opportunity to grow. And I’ll use a metaphor as an example, Hal. So, when you ask, what do we mean by inner work? So, I used to think, if you imagine a symphony and a conductor, like an orchestra and a conductor, I used to always think that my mind was like the conductor, that I could read about building a business, and then the orchestra would be able to do the things it would build the business. Orchestra being my thoughts, decisions, behaviors, actions, all the things I do to achieve my goals. And I think I thought this forever.

And then it was only in the last few years, Hal, that I realized that my mind, the way I thought of it, it’s not really the conductor, it’s not actually in charge. My mind is actually just– it’s another member of the orchestra playing an instrument. And so, then the real question is, well, who’s in charge or what’s in charge? And there’s different names we might use for this, but you’ve heard Adair and I allude to this, when we talk about the inner work, we’re talking about the bridge between our conscious and unconscious mind, which is our nervous system. It’s our biology. It’s our wiring between our heads and our bodies, or Hal, you even said it, it’s the ability to self-regulate. And when we talk about inner work, that’s what we’re talking about.

We’re talking about how we’re actually wired in a way that bridges the things that are unconscious to us and how we show up consciously. So, this is a deeper exploration of the very tools that you teach in the SAVERS. Not only how they work and why they work, but how to even take them to another level. So, that’s my best attempt to explain what I mean by the inner work. Adair, anything you’d want to add to that?

Adair Cates: Yeah. So, in addition to that, I think really what we’re talking about here is, how do we become conscious of the unconscious programs that are running in the background? And that is not cognitive. So, we can know all kinds of stuff. We can read. I’ve got tons of books behind me on a shelf. I can read all those books. And if there’s some belief system or structure or paradigm inside of me that doesn’t match that or doesn’t see that, I don’t have an ability to change. So, we’re actually going into the wiring of our systems and looking to reveal, awaken, become more aware of like, oh, what’s actually happening?

And a lot of times, those are revealed in stressful moments. So, in moments of stress, in moments of challenge, in moments of pain, our unconscious programs might make us yell at our child when we don’t want to do that, or an unconscious program might make us make a poor decision in our work that doesn’t actually facilitate what we’re looking to facilitate in our work or our life. And so, this is an opportunity to really expand our view of who we are from beyond, just like Jon said, the cognitive, the mind. I spent years teaching people new concepts and new theories and ways of being and how things work and realizing, after many years in leadership development space, that very few people actually made the changes required.

And that’s because they were missing the true inner work that lies inside of our nervous system and inside of our biology, as Jon said. And until we can start to elevate consciousness, which is, those are fancy terms for just becoming more aware of what is running the programs in the background. And when we become aware of that, we regain an ability or a power to then truly become who we want to become, not through knowing more, but in our whole body, in our whole system.

Hal Elrod: That makes me think about phobias or addictions or trauma, right? These are things that you can’t read a book on how to overcome phobias, addictions, trauma, these deep-seated, deep-rooted, subconscious programs that were instilled at some point for some reason. But I know I have somebody close to me that used to have a fear of flying and she tried to overcome it with all the things, reading, learning, etc., googling, and it took her going and doing this deep inner work with a therapist that did the somatic learning and all of these things where she actually rewired a nervous system and now, she’s not scared to fly anymore. And I think about that as kind of for people to get a bit of context or comparison of like, oh, okay, that’s what we’re talking about here, these deep-seated things that are in our psyche that we don’t see, we’re not even aware of them, and how do you elevate your consciousness to become aware of those. Jon and/or Adair, what can you teach us about what we’re talking about in terms of how to become more skilled at self-regulation or nervous system regulation, as you referred to? How can we become more skilled with that right now?

Jon Berghoff: Do you want to go first? I’m happy to.

Adair Cates: Yeah, go ahead.

Jon Berghoff: All right, cool. So, I’ll pick up with something Adair shared, which is, any of us, I mean, the three of us, and anybody listening. If we were to think about the last five years of our lives just to pick an arbitrary time frame, if I were to ask how many of us can relate to facing challenges or adversities that we’ve never faced before, personally or professionally, there’s a good chance that many of us can think of things we’ve dealt with. We don’t have any answer to it. We don’t have a playbook, too.

And there’s one way of understanding these difficulties in these difficult moments. And it’s using a certain vocabulary, Hal, and it’s understanding that in certain situations, the demands of the situation, the demand of the moment, the demand of the challenge, the demand of the puzzle of trying to grow my business, the demand of this, some issue I have in my relationship, and I can’t figure out how to overcome the way I show up or whatever’s between us, these demands that are very common in our lives, whenever these demands exceed the feeling that we have the resources to deal with these demands, this is what we call stress. And this is also what leads to all sorts of thought patterns, behavior patterns that are, you could call them unconscious or you heard a word we used a moment ago, it’s moments of what we might call reactivity.

And to be really clear, not all reactivity is bad. Some reactivity can save our life. But the real question here, and this is where this becomes some of the hardest work to do, this becomes the most confronting, but I would argue it’s the most meaningful, it’s when we can look in a mirror and really see through the cloud to what’s really going on, and here’s an interesting question. Not all reactivity is bad, but when is our reaction, whether it’s in our thinking patterns or behavioral patterns, the way we show up at home, at work, when is our reaction doing more harm than good?

And I can think of so many times because I’ve spent so much time asking that question now where I wasn’t even aware that my way of showing up, see, I actually thought I was a resource to somebody else, but I was unconscious to what kind of wiring was going on inside of me. So, I was actually more of a demand than a resource. So, Hal, your question was like, how can we be more skilled at self-regulation, nervous system regulation? Well, the first part is having just a basic awareness that every minute of every day is an opportunity for learning in this area. Because even if I’m not around other people and I’m just thinking about some challenge at work, if I’m not aware and I’m not well resourced, instead of tapping into my creativity, I’ll be reactively running an internal conversation of self-doubt. I’m not going to get through. Who am I to figure this out? How bad is this? How bad is this going to get? And these thought patterns, behavior patterns, every minute of every day is an opportunity to ask, is my being, is this really helping me? Am I elevating my consciousness? Or have I not even been aware, but I’m rerunning the tape inside of me? That is not really helpful.

And the more honest we’re able to be, the more we can see how many opportunities we all have to keep learning. And really, this brings us to, okay, so how do we rewire? How do we rewire? And Adair, I’ll let you pick it up from here because, Hal, the Miracle Morning is actually a great example of how to rewire. And Adair, you can pick it up from here if you want.

Adair Cates: Yeah. Well, the first thing is we have to, one, recognize that our reactivity is causing more harm than we would like to cause, either to ourselves or to other people. And that actually happens when we are able to pause, when we’re able to put just a moment of space between how we would have responded or reacted in that moment and then get ourselves on line, maybe just by taking a breath in that pause to then be able to have more clarity around like, oh, how do I want to show up right now?

So, let’s say, for example, we’re sitting by the fire like we were last night, and we’re in this deep conversation and we’re loving, getting to connect with each other because we’ve just had all this time with our kids all weekend. It was just a time for us. And one of our kids walks up and we, instead of being open and pausing and just allowing that to happen, we just respond like, this is a no-kid zone or we don’t want kids right now or whatever. We throw that out there, then we’re not actually like in that moment, being conscious of what is happening. We’re just reacting. Yes, there’s a way we want things to go. It’s not going that way right now because we’re getting interrupted.

But instead, in that moment, we can pause and we have that agreement between us. And I think it through our family as well of like, if someone’s coming in, let’s open up and let’s see what is happening here. And that’s one of many examples where instead of just reacting in the way that we might want to react in that moment or the way that we may have reacted yesterday, we choose instead to pause. And maybe in the pause, we choose to take a breath. And oftentimes, when we choose that moment of pause, we automatically realize, oh, the best way for me to show up right now is open, kind, and curious, or whatever it might be. So, that’s really the first step.

Jon Berghoff: I was only going to build one step to what Adair just shared, and that is both the event that we’re leading in several weeks, and we’ll talk about a few of them right now, I’m certain of it, is all about learning how to strengthen. Think about going to the gym for a moment. And this is why, whether or not, Hal, your audience has ever thought of it this way, the Miracle Morning is the gym, right?

If we were to talk endlessly together, have a great conversation about yoga, for example, well, we could talk for three hours about stretching and then actually get up from our chairs and be a little bit less flexible than when we began the conversation. We can talk about eating well while sitting here eating a brownie, which sounds nice. We could actually go backwards, literally, while intellectually think we’re making progress. The Miracle Morning is, in our opinion, a set of practices.

In our work, Hal, we teach practices. Practices are ways to lift the weight to strengthen our nervous system, right? So, whether it’s mindfulness meditation, physical exercise, breathwork, other somatic practices, journaling, reflective, these are all practices. And we got to remember the word practice means we never arrive. We’ve got to keep doing it. And we got to do it all the time. And it’s not 10 apples on the 10th day keeps the doctor away. It’s an apple a day, right? So, the practices, which is really the center of the practical things that we teach, and we can get into a few of those now, that’s how we strengthen that ability to pause when it matters most.

Hal Elrod: Yeah, that reminds me something. I think it was the new edition of The Miracle Morning. I talked about that many of us have become personal development junkies where we think by reading the book, we are accomplishing the thing. And then when we finish the book, we’re like, oh, I now know a bunch more about being healthier, wealthier, better in my relationships. So, what I’m going to do with all that information is I’m going to set it on the shelf and I’m going to start reading another book on another topic so I can have this feeling of, I’m smarter than I was before, but we’re not necessarily better than we were before, right? Wiser and better can often not coexist.

Before we go in, I do want to hear some of the practices. I want to– Jon, I’ll ask you this because you and I were talking recently with Adair, but we were talking over the title of the event, and I wanted to call it the Consciousness Elevation Experience because the mission of the Miracle Morning is to elevate the consciousness of humanity one morning at a time. And you were advocating for calling it the Conscious Elevation Experience. And that’s where we landed because I go, “Well, explain the difference to me. Is this just semantics?” And you had a thoughtful explanation. And so, I would love to hear that and even for me to be reminded of it.

Jon Berghoff: Sure, happy to. Well, in some ways, it is semantics or it’s less important than what we’re actually going to do together. However, I respect the question. And the simple way of thinking about it is this. So, these are big words. These are loaded words, consciousness conscious that can send us so many different directions. But for us, the word conscious is synonymous with to be more aware. And the reason we wanted to use that word is because really, what we’re going to do during this training, and really what this conversation is all about is it’s really about rededicating ourselves. It’s about looking in the mirror and asking, how committed are we to an unending journey of becoming more aware of how we’re behaving, how we’re showing up, the impact that we are actually having?

And eventually, this gets to like, who are we? And how do we become this way? And really, it’s just about awareness. And I think anybody, no matter where they are in their path of inner work and inner development and growth, personally, professionally can understand the power of more awareness and all the opportunities that bring. So, that’s one way of thinking about that word, to be more conscious, to be more aware.

Hal Elrod: Yeah, and to your point, there’s a lot of overlap in terms of, right, that there is some semantics there. I want to add one word to awareness, and that to me is intentionality. So, that’s how, when I’ve been asked to define, what does it mean to elevate the consciousness of humanity? And I think when I first came up with that, I never actually defined it. I just thought, oh yeah, our consciousness is at a lower level than it used to be based on what I read by David Hawkins. And so, now, we need to elevate it.

It’s like, well, what does that actually mean? And upon reflection on that concept, it was to elevate our awareness and our intention, right? Meaning becoming more aware of why we are the way we are, as you’ve been talking about, how we’re showing up. And then from that awareness, becoming more intentional about, oh, now that I’m aware of how I’m overreactive in certain situations, I get triggered in these situations. I’m repeating past programming. Now, how can I be more intentional so that I can show up? And I know that, for what we’re talking about today and the upcoming event, it is a big part of it. Are there anything to add to what Jon says? Otherwise, I would love to get a few examples of practices that we could implement, everybody listening, including myself, during their Miracle Morning and then just throughout the day to start rewiring ourselves right now.

Adair Cates: Yeah. So, just to piggyback off of what you just said, I love the word intentional. We often use the word in our conscious leadership work, influential, our influence, being aware of our influence. How are we influencing other people? Because we are always influencing other people, whether or not we’re conscious of it or thinking about it or being thoughtful and doing it the way that we would like to. And oftentimes, if we really look into our lives, we can see I’m having an influence on others that I would rather not have, right? I’m bringing an energy that maybe isn’t the best energy for this situation or for this relationship or for this person. So, I’ll just add that in there.

And then about the practices, I really want to distinguish this because I love the Miracle Morning. I’ve been a Miracle Morning practitioner since before I even knew that it was a thing. And then I found you, and I was like, oh, I’ve kind of been doing this, but there were more steps and more pieces of the SAVERS. I was like, oh, that’s cool. I’m going to bring that in. But mine started with just a simple gratitude practice and writing gratitude every single day. And I’ve been doing that, I’ve been doing my own morning practice, and it’s just gotten longer and deeper over the years.

And what I want to say about that is, there’s what I call a proactive practice, like a Miracle Morning, like sitting down with my journal, even if it’s just for two minutes because that’s all the time that I have for that day, or whether it’s two hours because I’m going to do a deeper meditation and maybe I’m going to add in a cold plunge or whatever it might be. So, the proactive practice is really meant to build us and build our energy to be ready for the day and to be able to face the challenges and the stressors and to be our very best selves. And it’s important if we don’t do the proactive practice, oftentimes we’re not intentional, as you said, or we’re bringing an influence that is unconscious that isn’t what we would want it to be. So, the proactive practice is how we build our muscles, right? Like Jon mentioned, the gym, it’s lifting our weights so that we can then be strong when we need to lift our child off the ground or when we need to use those muscles in that moment.

Then there’s the reactive practice, which is right now, in this moment, you know what is hitting the fan. My kid is triggering me, this work conversation. I entered a room where the air was so thick I could cut it with a knife, and I’m triggered and I’m noticing reactivity. So, that’s where the pause comes in. And then the practices that we advocate for are practices that you can use proactively, like Miracle Morning, which many of your audience already does that. And then what can you do in the heat of the moment? And as I said before, the first thing is you can pause. That’s the first thing.

But then we have many other practices that we advocate for. Most of them, when we talk about, if we were to categorize them, fall in the category of how can we use our body in that moment? And the breath is a wonderful place to start when we are under stress because our breath is the regulating part of our nervous system, of our wiring that we can control. We can change how our breath moves with intention in the moment. And so, we can use the slowing down of our breath. For example, if we’re amped up and we feel like we’re going to just lose it in that moment, pausing and then just take– that’s why people say, take a deep breath, take a deep breath. How many times do you say that?

Hal Elrod: Hey, calm down. Take a deep breath.

Adair Cates: Exactly. So, that would be the basic reactive, in-the-moment practice.

Hal Elrod: Share the SOS practice because that was really valuable for me. I went through your conscious leadership training, which is, this is a Miracle Morning specified, focused, updated version of that that we’re giving to our community. But the SOS practice was impactful for me. Can you share what that is?

Adair Cates: Yeah. I don’t, maybe there was a specific one you’re thinking about, but there’s many different things you can do, like in the moment, especially if you feel like maybe your breath isn’t working for you. Cold therapy. So, literally, just putting your hands on ice or putting ice on your wrists or other pressure points is a really good one. Any kind of movement is helpful. Oftentimes, when we just move, just think about it, we’re moving our blood and we’re getting our breath kind of going and our blood going in, so our brain is oxygenated in that moment so that then we are able to bring ourselves back.

And some people like things like prayer, just taking a moment and pausing and connecting to something bigger than yourself in that moment. And you can do a lot of these, a lot of the practice, as we advocate for around the breath, for example. You can do without anybody even knowing that you’re doing it. And it can also be really powerful in the moment, if you can do this, to pause. And even if you’re with another person, let them know, I need a minute or I need to regroup, or can we pause and come back in five minutes or whatever it might be just– I think that can also be a helpful tool is to start to condition ourselves and the people around us, like our families and our work colleagues to help them understand, like, okay, I’ve just been triggered. Let’s both be aware of that and then let’s regroup and maybe come back together. So, a little bit of a longer pause in that moment.

Jon Berghoff: I can add to this that, Adair, what you’re sharing right now in response to, Hal, your question of the difference between proactive, the Miracle Morning at the beginning of the day, and what, Adair, you call SOS practice is, is anything in the moment, so breathing, an incredible starting point. We all have access to it. Like you said, we can do it. People don’t even know. In fact, I’m curious how many listeners the first time you mentioned breath did what I did, which is I realized, oh, I’m going to deepen my breathing. And you know what’s interesting is that’s what I did. I’m certain 30% to 50% of the listeners did. Now, they didn’t deepen their breathing because they went off and took a six-week course on how to breathe. The moment you said that, they deepen their breathing because every one of us intuitively knows we’re better off if we just slow down and deepen our breathing.

Hal, I’ll give you another practice, which is, so the breath practices are what we call neck down, or some would call it somatic. There’s also what you could call neck-up practices. And you can combine the two. That’s ideal. For example, one of the most powerful tools we have is what happens within us when we change the questions that we are asking ourselves, or to use your language, Hal, we’re more intentional about our internal dialog because we’re actually conscious of the questions that we’re asking.

For example, I’m under stress, I’m in an argument. If I’m unconscious in that moment, I might not realize it. But the question I might be asking and answering my head is, how much do I hate this person? Or man, how badly does this suck? Or whose fault is this? Or how am I going to get myself out of this? And this might be unconscious, but if we can pause, breathe, and we have some tools available, and we’ll teach, I don’t know how many of these practices, 12 to 15 during the three-day event, including different types of questions, but we can pull on different questions. For example, let’s go right into the deep end. I’m in a really difficult situation and I notice my internal dialog, my heart rate, everything, I’m totally under pressure, under stress. I feel like everything’s collapsing around me. If I can pause, if I can slow down, maybe I can change the question from unconsciously, how bad is this, or gosh, why is this happening to me, to what can be a transformational question if we give ourselves the space, how is this actually happening for me, right?

And while that can sound simple, the implications can be significant because now I can realize, well, and if I have spiritual beliefs that maybe, I believe this is actually a part of my evolutionary purpose. Hal, as I’ve heard you teach for decades, like maybe wherever we are and whatever we’re navigating is actually divinely perfectly timed and guided, but we forget that when we’re under pressure, right? So, just a different question, what’s the gift in this? How might this be happening for me? What can I do? What can I take responsibility for? Or here’s one more, especially if I’m in an interaction with somebody else where I’m about to be, many of us, right before we get into a critical interaction, we’re already going into a ritual of being triggered, and we’re not aware of it. We’ve done it for years.

But in that moment, if I can pause, who do I want to be in this conversation? How do I want to show up, right? Maybe who I really want to be is not critical, but compassionate. Maybe who I really want to be is not trying to convince, but maybe curious about where they’re coming from. And just that invitation of who do I choose to be? What essence do I want to bring? And can I breathe, connect my voice when I speak, tethered to my heart? Because when we do that, we actually bring online all of our intelligence. We become better people in an instant. And again, it’s way easier to say this, and it always is to do. I’m sure I’ll lose my staff on someone on my team in 20 minutes. But we do this work together, so we’re also able to be compassionate with each other and create healing and resolution really quickly, which is nice.

Hal Elrod: What you’re talking about, what it reminded me of, again, because I went through this, your three-day version of this event, before we modified it for the Miracle Morning Community, and it’s what we talked about, we’re learning something is not usually the key to living something, right? You’ve got to learn it and then practice it and then practice it some more. And that’s what I love. It’s like, yeah, when you say yes, the first thing is your breath. It’s like everyone’s, like, probably, I already know that. Yeah, okay, so I need to lower my breath. Got it. But then they move on and they never, ever, ever utilize what you just said.

And what I love about the three days is that we’re actually doing the things for three days. We are pausing for three days. We are leveraging the power of breath for three days. We are shifting the questions that we ask and then meeting with other members of the Miracle Morning Community in breakout rooms to discuss and integrate and implement what we just learned, and then go back and share and then come back and do it again, and then go back and share.

So, I really want to present people to that where this isn’t like a 60-minute webinar where it’s like you learn, oh, here’s all the amazing things that you should do to change your life. It’s like, no, we’re going to do them real time over and over and over again for not just an hour, not even just a day, but three consecutive days. And by the end, I feel like it is a shift in like, oh, now, I’ve rewired my nervous system after three days of not just learning, but actually doing.

And so, anybody wants to join this event, it is free. There’s no strings attached. Totally free. Go to MiracleMorningExperience.com, MiracleMorningExperience.com, and register because I know it is limited on how many people can attend because of the interactive nature. This isn’t just a broadcast, where Jon and Adair and I are talking at you for three days. It is interactive, and Zoom only allows X amount of people in each breakout room. And so, we have to limit the number of seats. So, go to MiracleMorningExperience.com. And it’s going to be fun y’all. It is going to change people’s lives. It is going to be fun. And Jon and Adair, before we sign off, any last closing comments?

Adair Cates: I’m just looking forward to seeing everybody there. And just to reinforce what you said, this event is a resourcing event. When you come to this, you are going to experience, or our highest intention is for you to experience a rewiring and a resourcing so that by the end of our time together, you have elevated your consciousness and you’re able to look at your life and your work and your impact through a new lens, so that you can invite a behavior change based on an elevation in who you are versus in what you know.

Jon Berghoff: I’ll just add, I know what Hal and Adair both just offered. These are big promises that we’re making. These are bold claims, right? A little bit audacious, even. And where it comes from is we have led thousands of participants through these experiences. And this will be meaningful. This will be, for many, transformational. And by the end of these three days, you’re not only going to have multiple tools, but you’ll have had a chance to work with these tools.

And Hal, you said something that’s so important. This is live and experiential and interactive. And so, if you register, you’re going to see, we send you multiple kind of a heads-up like, hey, if you’re going to attend this, we really don’t want you to attend partially present, not because we don’t want to meet you and we don’t want to help you, but because we really want to serve those who are able to really maximize the opportunity. And my promise that I’ll add to it, Hal and Adair said is, not only can this completely change how you’re wired by the end of the third day, but every goal that you want to achieve professionally, every relationship you want to improve personally, you will see firsthand before we’re done how this work is going to give you a set of tools that you can bring with you everywhere you go, every minute of your day, in every part of your life. And I know that’s a big claim, but we’re proud to stand behind it because we’ve had a chance to do this meaningful work. And yes, Hal, we will have a lot of fun as we do it.

Hal Elrod: Love it. Well, Adair Jon, I love the two of you. And thanks for today. I love our time together whenever we get it.

Adair Cates: Absolutely.

Jon Berghoff: Thanks, buddy. It means a lot.

[CLOSING]

Hal Elrod: All right, goal achievers, thank you for tuning in. Many of you, we will see live September 24 through 26. Head over to MiracleMorningExperience.com and grab your spot. And I love you so much. And I will talk to you all next week.

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