
"Anyone who's gone through trauma in their life can turn that into something meaningful."
Ray Higdon
A lot of us want more time, more money, and more freedom, but we don’t know how to make it happen. We don’t know what steps to take, what we need to do, or how to get started.
This is why Ray Higdon’s message spoke to me, and I’m pleased to say that today’s podcast exceeded my expectations. Ray is the author of the new book, Time, Money, Freedom: 10 Simple Rules to Redefine What’s Possible and Radically Reshape Your Life. In it, he and his wife Jessica share how they achieved personal and financial independence – and give their readers a step-by-step process to build confidence and take control of their lives.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Ray’s childhood story of overcoming an abusive relationship with his stepmother.
- Why Ray decided to write the book, Time, Money, Freedom.
- Why anyone can create a great life despite a bad past.
- How your hardships can inspire others and positively impact the world.
- The concept of “plucking your weeds” – identifying and changing areas of your life that are incongruent with your values.
- Why more money = more good!
- The power of vulnerability – and why sharing your story is the inspiration others need!
- Why success shouldn’t be associated with monetary gains or status – and a much better way to measure it.
- Having a WHY that makes you cry and the secret to making real progress towards it.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION
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COMMENT QUESTION: What is your big takeaway? Write it in the comments below.
Hal Elrod: Welcome to the Achieve Your Goals podcast. I am Hal Elrod, your host, your friend. On today's journey, this conversation with Ray Higdon exceeded my expectations. Ray and I have only known each other in kind of in passing. And he wrote the foreword for The Miracle Morning for Network Marketers. And so, we connected on that, but we never really got any time together until today, it was our first real in-depth conversation. And it exceeded my expectations in terms of who he is.
And I think you're going to get that in the first few minutes when he kind of shares his story and his childhood and kind of how he came to become who he is today. And then, when you hear throughout the message today, not only what he teaches, but the spirit in which it comes from, the spirit of service of wanting to help others. So, anyway, I really enjoyed this conversation more than I had expected, not that I had any negative expectations, but just again, I was pleasantly surprised.
So, you're about to hear this conversation with Ray. He has a new book out, which is actually why I reach out to my gut, he sent me a copy of his book which is a smart thing to do as an author, you send your book and then, it's kind of like fishing, like a little bit of bait. And if the person that receives the book, if they read it or start to read it, then you get interested, I thought, wow, I started halfway through the book and I reached out to Ray, I said, “Hey, I really want you on the show. This is really, it's a good book.”
And for anybody that wants more time, more money, more freedom, which I think that that's a lot of us, if not most of us, this book, you'll hear me talk about why I love the book, but it's so simple. I mean, it's so step by step, holding your hand from start to finish everything that you need to do. So, anyway, that's what I loved about the book, we'll talk a little bit about that today. Before we dive into the conversation that you're about to hear, I do want to just take a minute to thank our sponsor Organifi, O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I. I don't know why I always spell that, I think it's because for a long time in my head, I always pictured Organify, ending with a Y, but it ends with an I.
So, anyway, Organifi, if you're not familiar, if you don't listen to the podcast, they've been our sponsor for a while, but they make some of the highest quality nutritional supplements on the planet, so organic whole food supplements, unlike 90-plus percent the majority of supplements that you buy on Amazon or at GNC, not that you can't find whole food supplements, but the majority, they're synthetic. And things like ascorbic acid to create a vitamin C synthetic, that's not real vitamin C from nature. You want to get that from acerola cherry and different camu camu, I believe is the other herb that Organifi uses.
So, anyway, if you want to boost your health, your nutrition, you want to lose weight, you want more energy, you want more mental clarity, I take Organifi every single day, I take multiple supplements. They make their green juice, their red juice, their protein powder, especially is one of my favorites in my smoothies. So, yeah, and you can get a discount if you go to organifi.com/hal, O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com/hal, and then use the code HAL at checkout, so organifi.com/hal and use the code HAL at checkout, you'll get 15% off your entire order.
And yeah, I love their products, love their company, love their culture, love the mission that they're on. And I hope you find something on their website organifi.com/hal that you love as much as I do and be sure to use that code H-A-L, HAL at the checkout and get 15% off your entire order. All right, without further ado, my conversation with someone who I am a big fan of now more than ever, Ray Higdon.
[INTERVIEW]
Hal Elrod: Ray, my friend, good to see you again.
Ray Higdon: Hey, thanks for having me.
Hal Elrod: Good. So, I mentioned earlier, I've got a leaf blower outside my window. So, this is going to be like a real test of mental concentration to conduct our conversation while the leaf blower is in my ear.
Ray Higdon: I believe in you.
Hal Elrod: Yeah, thank you, brother, appreciate it. So, you sent me a copy of your book and I was reading it and I was like, hey, I want you to come talk about this. And that doesn't always happen, where I will bring an author on, obviously, to talk about or often to talk about their expertise, but this book specifically was one where I went, I just feel like this is going to benefit a lot of my listeners and so, write the book Time, Money, Freedom: 10 Simple Rules to Redefine What's Possible and Radically Reshape Your Life.
And I'll tell you, well, we'll get to the book in a second, I want to talk about, you open up in the book, you're open, you're vulnerable right in the beginning about kind of your rough start to your life, you had an abusive childhood. You use the word tumultuous young adulthood, which I think defines it pretty well. And I want to read something that you said in the book, you said, anyone who's gone through trauma in their life can turn that into something meaningful. Don't bottle up those painful feelings and memories, use them to make a difference in your life and in other people's lives. You can help others because you know what they've gone through and the empathy that you understand and can bring is something those who have not gone through what you could that you have could ever provide.
I resonate with that so much, I feel like the greatest gift often that we can have in our life are our biggest hardships, our greatest tragedy, our greatest trauma. So, I wanted to ask, what was that trauma for you? And how have you been able to use that to help you, help your life, and help other people?
Ray Higdon: Yeah. So, my parents separated when I was very, very young, I think I was two or three maybe. And my mom wasn't really able to care for me back then and I went to live with my dad and he had remarried. And the person he remarried, just looking back, was someone that really struggled with personal relationships, didn't have a lot of friends. In fact, I don't think I ever met a friend of hers. And I suspect she was maybe picked on or something like that, but she took it out on me, I was the punching bag.
Hal Elrod: And literally, right?
Ray Higdon: Oh, yeah, for sure. I remember going into kindergarten with a bloody nose, being instructed to tell people I ran into a door. I remember, later, probably second and third grade, where there were many, many times, even in the summer where I have to wear a turtleneck sweater because I had claw marks all on my neck. And she just really hated me and I think, hated herself, too, and took it out on me.
And so, to this day, I still can get into this pattern of, I used to always sleep in a ball because that gave me a split second when she would wake me up because she would always wake me up every single morning by grabbing my ankles and throw me against the closet and stomp on me. And that happened all the way up until about the age of 12.
Hal Elrod: Wow, and what happened to 12, what changed that?
Ray Higdon: So, at 12, the kind of court order or mandate or whatever allowed me to choose who I wanted to live with. And by that time, my mom had gotten her stuff together and was able to provide for me and so, I went live with my mom and that's when I came down to Florida.
Hal Elrod: And what parts of that experience do you think you carry with you today, both negative and positive? Mentioning that trauma is an opportunity to help yourself and help other people, like what did that experience do for you? How did that serve you?
Ray Higdon: Yeah, so I think there's three facets to it. One is it gave me a real heart for helping kids in need, like, over the last few years, we've raised over $600,000 for different charities all revolving around kids in some way, shape, or form. It just has me always wanting to do things to improve mainly, kids’ situations. It's also allowed me to share my stories and have people resonate with that and see me as someone who has been able to build a multimillion-dollar business in 5000 business, be a best-selling author, etc.
So, I think, I've been told and I see it that I've given hope to a lot of people that have been through tough times and I've met many people that went through much tougher times than me, we share some of those stories in the book. And the third interesting angle is it's allowed me to do different kinds of internal work. And I share several examples in the book too, but I'll give one. So, I have always had social anxiety, where, like, I remember speaking in front of 20,000 people in Louisville a couple years ago, getting offstage. Everyone wants to hang out and chat, I find a reason to go to my room. And that over the years, I believe, got misconstrued as, Oh, diva or ego or too good for us.
And really, it was a self-worth issue as a social anxiety thing, but I really didn't know the cause. And in Chapter 2, I talked about pluck your weeds. So, Jess, my wife, Jess and I, we were at a charity event and one of our neighbors comes up and says, “Hey, did you see the trip to Belize?” And I was like, No, and they're like, oh, man, it looks amazing. It's five days, it's a private island, private yacht, private jet, private chef, five couples only, it's amazing. And my wife is like, oh my god, this is incredible. And me, it sounded like hell, like, I mean, it made me like I just got this tightness, like that sounds utter hell to me and I didn't voice that because everyone is so like, Yay, it's awesome.
But I remember it going on the way home and I'm like, what the hell is wrong with me? I want to be a good husband. My wife is amazing in every single way and here I am, this fuddy-duddy that doesn't want to do a Belize trip, I guess, crazy. And so, I did the work. And so, I worked on myself, I did meditation, I actually worked with a hypnotist. And then, actually, I found the root problem, which I can now recognize and others often have a similar kind of pattern is when I was in the third grade, my teacher knew that something was off and had started meeting with a guidance counselor.
And so, the guidance counselor and I didn't really know, it's third grade, I don't know what's going on. And the guidance counselor started asking me about home and different things. And I never had anyone to talk to, so I wasn't allowed to go to friends’ houses, I wasn't allowed to have friends over. When I was home from school, I had to stay outside and play by myself until it was nighttime and you didn't come in.
And so, I never got to talk to anybody really outside of school. And so, this was interesting. And I opened up, I started sharing my different stories and it felt good, but one day, I showed up for our meeting, my dad's there, my stepmom’s there and the guidance counselor proceeded to tell them everything I've ever told her because she thought they were just outrageous. She thought the stories were so crazy that I had to be making them up for attention. And so, she thought she was helping me. And of course, I didn't think that at the time, but looking back, she was actually trying to help, but she didn't at all.
And that was the day in third grade that I stopped trusting anybody. And so, when you don't trust anybody, you don't allow them to get close, right? So, you keep a social barrier and you prevent people from ever getting on the inside because if they get on the inside, history proves, they'll hurt you. And so, I've had, I don't know how many relationships over the years, where I just wouldn't let people in. And if they don't get close to me, I don't have to trust them, they can't hurt me, they can do the worst to me, it won't affect me.
And so, that has really diminished the quality of my life and connections and relationships over the many years. And so, plucking that weed and figuring that out has allowed me to almost eradicate my social anxiety and allow people in. And you know what? They may still betray you, but that would be their loss, not let's not even go there because we might lose.
Hal Elrod: Yeah, they might betray you, but it's a small price to pay for the freedom, it sounds like you've given yourself, right?
Ray Higdon: Right. Absolutely. Yeah. And so, there's so many people that get mislabeled as, oh, they're this way. Well, there's a reason they're this way, something happened that caused them to make a shift toward being that way. And doing that internal work has allowed me to help unlock that in others.
Hal Elrod: Yeah, I agree, I always say that we really have no basis to judge another human being because we're judging on our own life experience. And we have no idea what it's like to be them or what they've been through. And you judge someone based on their words or actions, but it goes, well, if you had lived their life, you may be and do the exact same things. So, trading that judgment for empathy and really striving to understand, wow, a powerful story and I'm grateful that you've taken your tragedy turned it into a triumph, not only for yourself, but for your family and for tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people that you serve.
I do have to mention, by the way, we're on video, you and I right now, and for anybody listening, I just want to call out your shirt Default Setting: Gratitude, I love that. I got to find that shirt, Default Setting: Gratitude.
Ray Higdon: This is our shirt, I’ll send you one.
Hal Elrod: Awesome, cool. So, I want to talk about the book. So, again, the title Time, Money, Freedom, things that I think most people want more of, 10 Simple Rules to Redefine What's Possible and Radically Reshape Your Life, I'm going to tell you what I love about this book. It is you give people exactly what to do, like you're holding our hand step by step, rule by rule, exactly what to do, not to mention the mindset and the challenges we might have while we're reading the book. I love this, not to talk about my book here, but the point being Miracle Morning, the reason I think that it's helped people so much is I didn't just talk at a high level. I think a lot of authors do that, where they talk about high level and general concepts that blow your mind, but don't exactly tell you what to do, in what order, at what time.
And that's what I loved about your book is you broke it, if somebody, this is the one-stop shop manual kind of thing, right? Like, if you want to free up more time, create more money and ultimately more freedom, again, you gave people the step-by-step blueprint. So, I want to start with just, why did you write this book? What was the motivation? I mean, you've had this knowledge in your head, you've coached people on this kind of stuff, but why did you write the book and why now?
Ray Higdon: Yeah, and first I want to acknowledge, thank you for sharing what you love about it. From coaching a lot of people, getting to their level and helping anyone at any level be able to move forward is definitely such a powerful muscle to build, not how you process it, but how do people that don't have your experiences process or your influence or your knowledge processes, so it is written in the way of, you do not need any business knowledge to follow what's in the book.
The reason we wrote it is, and you know how writing a book goes, we started this process before the pandemic, before COVID. And then, as it starts coming out, it was just like, man in the world, we see it as the world really needs us more than ever before, but over the years, we've had people ask us, how'd you guys do it? How did you go from someone who had lost it all in real estate? I was in-person foreclosure, dead broke, over a million dollars in debt, depressed, went through a divorce, and really didn't know what I was going to do with my life. Jess was working at the makeup counter, being belittled by her manager and just not enjoying that part of her career. And how do we do that? How do we go from that to building a multimillion-dollar business from home?
And so, we wanted to share that, first, we reverse engineered, what did we do? And then, we put it on paper and really wanted to give the instructions of how anybody could do it. So, it's really, we wrote it to get this into a process to be able to hand to somebody if they want to improve their finances and relationships, that they can read this book and walk through the action steps. Why now? We thought it was needed a year and a half ago. We feel it's really needed now. And so, we just have a passion of how we can impact more people.
And I probably say it a little bit differently than most, impacting people and helping people gives me significance. So, I actually pursue it selfishly, not selflessly. Selflessly is thrown around way too much. The guy jumping on the grenade to save a squad, that’s selfless. The police officer rushing into the domestic abuse situation, that could be selfless. Me helping people is selfless, it's selfish because it makes me feel good.
Now, it happens to impact others. Society gives a nod, too, but I actually do it because it makes me feel good, it makes me feel significant because most of my life, I didn't feel significant, most of my life, I didn't feel like a winner, I felt like a loser. And that's what I was told in my childhood that I was a loser. And so, we want to impact as many people as possible and we want to make it as simple as possible, and that's why we made this book.
Hal Elrod: I love that. Thank you for that authenticity, in terms of, I do this because it makes me feel good and feel significant and I didn't feel that growing up. I think that level of authenticity is rare and I really appreciate it. And I think that it is, you can be selfishly selfless, right? I think that both can kind of coexist, where you go, yeah, I'm doing this because it makes me feel good and it helps people, like, whoa. And whichever one is first in terms of your motive, I don't know how consequential that is, if they're both there.
Ray Higdon: The result is good.
Hal Elrod: Yeah, you can be selfishly selfish, which is like, I'm going to steal from you, you're not winning, but I am, and I feel significant. I can take your life, I feel significant, but that's not a win-win. And like, what you're talking about, I call that selfishly selfless and it's a win-win, you're doing something that benefits you simultaneously while it benefits other people. So, I love that. Let's dive into the book a little bit. So, I know that you kind of frame there are three major takeaways from the book. And let's start there, what are the three takeaways for you that anybody that's going to read this book can look forward to?
Ray Higdon: You've played around with the concept, but one is that you can create a great life despite a bad past, number one. Number two, you can inspire people by sharing what you overcame and what you survived. And number three is, with more money, you can do more good. And that's a message that often gets garbled, often gets lost. And the example that we're using to back this up is, you can only give so much time at the soup kitchen, and that is awesome time, that’s great time. That makes you feel good and you should do it.
But with more capital, with more resources, you can build the wing of the hospital, you can put together the eye doctors for the children's, the world needs more of those actually. And you can build the water wells in Kenya, the schools in Guatemala, the abuse centers downtown, you can do those things. And so, we want to help people understand that just having more money doesn't make you bad, it gives you the ability to do more good.
And a lot of people, they want to make more money, but they got one foot on the brake because they think that it's evil and bad and that's what the media or politicians have told them. And so, we want to say, hey, money just, like many have said, it is a magnifier, it makes you more of who you are. If you're someone that wants to do good, if you're someone that wants to impact people, then you should have more money, that would actually be a better thing.
Hal Elrod: Yeah, you have more ability, more resources. Yeah, I've heard that, the grand magnifier. If you are a jerk, more money will make you a bigger jerk.
Ray Higdon: That is correct.
Hal Elrod: But if you are generous, more money will give you opportunities to be even more generous.
Ray Higdon: Yeah, exactly.
Hal Elrod: So, those are three great takeaways, the 10 rules that are in the book, we don't have time to go through all 10, but is there any one that stands out either as the most important or maybe one that precedes the others so that we should consider it first, the lead domino, if you will?
Ray Higdon: Yeah. So, we did our very best to put them in order. The one we've gotten the most feedback on is the pluck your weeds, rule number two. Since I've already given a story around that, pluck your weeds just to sum it up is, you identify any area of your life that is in congruent with who you want to be. And that could be as minor as we were taking our daughter to school, 45 minutes one way, 45 minutes back, and we're like, man, we don't want to spend our time, all day every day driving around. It’s like, let's just sell our house and move closer.
Hal Elrod: Yeah, we did the same thing. I love it.
Ray Higdon: It could be something as trivial as that, it could be something as deep and complex as digging into why do I have social anxiety problems and I gave that example. So, give you a different example, which is rule number 10. And rule number 10 is make an impact. This is a really important one because if you really embody and follow the rules, you will learn ways to start making enough money, whatever that means to you. To some people, if they're making six figures, they're high on the hog and that's bada-bing or making it rain. Some people, that's a million, some 10, 15, whatever.
And so, what's so important about rule number 10, make an impact, is that it allows you to continue going no matter what income you hit. And two weeks ago, maybe I was sitting with someone who has been a financial planner for 25, 30 years, has generated over $100 million in her own revenue and she can buy what she wants. She has four houses, she's got a bunch of cars, she's got the diamonds and then this and then that. And she just got to a point where I was like, Hey, what's the point? I go, oh, is there anything else to life here?
And so, she had to learn, how do I start feeling better about what I'm doing for the world? And then, you can really blow the lid off. So, for me, it's while there's blood pumping through the veins, I'm going to keep going, I don't desire retirement, that doesn't compute. I love what I do. I love making an impact. And one person that really embodies rule number 10. And it's kind of one of our key stories in there is a lady named Renee Adams.
So, we ran two seasons of a reality show and she was in Season 1. And Renee had never done a video, never publicly spoke, and had never shared her story ever to anybody, even her family. Well, it turns out, the magic of what we put together with the show, she opened up and she shared her story of physical abuse, of sexual abuse, even being trafficked. And obviously, you don't wish that on anybody. I mean, that's a very, very tough place to come from. And a lot of people that have that kind of background, they either don't make it, either by suicide or they get killed.
And so, after giving her love and condolences and all that, I told her, like, I've told many people over the years, Hey, man, if you can share your story and if you can give hope to people of what you overcame and what you survived, man, that would really be powerful and again, had never shared a story, never videoed, never publicly spoke. Two weeks later, she was speaking at women's abuse centers and then, about three months ago, she spoke at the 17th Annual International Conference against human trafficking with University of Toledo and she shared her story in front of 19 countries.
All of this was within a year, year and a half, maybe, of going from no one on the planet knows, not even my family, to 19 countries tuning in at this humongous international event. And so, we just encourage people that whatever you went through, whether it's, I didn't get approval from my father or you did go through abuse or trauma, if you're willing to be vulnerable, you have the potential to really inspire and help people. And by doing so, it can give you a big purpose.
And I'll tell you, one of the things that I didn't recognize at the time, but looking back, it was a turning point for my career, is I had been asked to go up to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and give a presentation. At the time, I was building a network marketing organization. And I gave my presentation and afterwards, I had this big, just feeling to share the story about me and my dad. And so, at that point, just a year earlier, I hadn't talked to my dad in 13 years. He had never met my sons, who at that time were 9 and 10 years old. And for obvious reasons, I had every reason in the world not to talk to him, but it was weighing on my heart and I didn't like it that I hadn't.
And so, in that meeting, in 2010, I shared that story of how I went and repaired the relationship and forgave. And within two weeks, my entire world changed, I found an opportunity, it totally changed my life. And I shared that. Immediately, when I finished, the guy who'd asked me to come and speak who didn't know that story because I've never shared it, walking up to me, tears running down his face. And he said, I can't believe you showed that story. I haven't talked to my dad in 17 years, tomorrow, I plan for his funeral.
And it just like, hit me. And first, I beat myself up and said, why didn't I share that earlier? And then, I was like, you know what? I need to be more vulnerable, I need to not be Superman, I need to be authentic, I need to be able to share what I went through to inspire others. And since I've shared that story, I have probably a hundred emails, messages, letters of people who have reconnected with their mother, their father, their brother, their sister, kids even. And so, it's just making an impact is something that there is no, okay, I've made enough impact, it's something that can keep you going.
Hal Elrod: Yeah, I think that success in people's mind is usually associated with monetary gain and status and having things, having the home, having the car. I was talking to my daughter about this the other day, I said, “Sweetheart, what do you think of success?” And she gave some sort of definition, kind of like that. And although we've had this conversation with her before, so I don't know why she's still saying that, but again, society's conditioning is damn strong, societal programming, but I said, “Sweetie,” I said, “think about it.”
I said, if somebody makes a bunch of money and then they just hoard it and they spend it all, I go, when they die, does anybody really care? I just said, “What if you measured success by how many people you positively impacted?” And if money's part of that, great, I said, but isn't that of what do you think? Don't you think? And I asked her, I didn't tell her, I said, don't you think that what do you think of that as a measure of success? And she nodded her head. And we'll see what happens when I ask her next week, but I just think that, like, I really think that what if we all redefine success that way, where success is how many lives I impact?
And to your point, Ray, the more money you make, the more resources you have to impact more lives. So, the beauty is, it's not one or the other. In fact, you kind of got to go together or if you're struggling financially, it's going to be hard to put your energy on service when you're just trying to survive. And so, I love that you've made that distinction And I love that you're a leader and I love that you wrote this book because you're going to pay it forward, I think, and you're going to create that mindset of service in a lot of other people.
One of the things I want to ask you before we close out today is what you talked about in the book, your why and your vision. And one thing you wrote and I don't think you made this up, maybe you did, I think it was from someone else, but I had never heard it before, you said, you have to have a why that makes you cry, and I resonate with that. I was in an interview yesterday, and they were asking me about my cancer journey and I was explaining my affirmations and it was like, I had five whys that I was going to beat cancer. It was for my wife because I promised her forever in a day, it was for my mom because she didn't deserve to lose another child, it was for my dad because he gave up everything to save my life, it was for my kids because they needed my love, leadership, and guidance, it was for myself.
I had these really compelling whys and most of them, there were actually six of them. Five of them were about other people, one was about me, but the point is, there were many days when I didn't have a will to live when I was in so much pain and I was so sick and I felt so horrible and I was so exhausted and things weren't looking good, that I'm just, God take me, but that why was the fuel that drove me to do whatever it took no matter how I felt, to live that purpose of serving other people. And then, I would cry when I read those affirmations. So, that hit me when you said have a why that makes you cry.
And even if it's not around some sort of beating cancer, it's your business. Like I want to change the world, I want to support my family, I want to allow my spouse to not have to work, I want to be able to give my kids, fund their college, whatever it is. Just having a why that is so meaningful to you, you're willing to do whatever it takes. So, you said though, and this is where I want you to clarify because I hadn't heard it put this way before. Having a clearly defined why isn't enough?
Ray Higdon: Yes.
Hal Elrod: That you need to move from your why to your vision and the way you define vision in the book is different than I'd heard before. So, can you explain that? How do you define a person's vision?
Ray Higdon: Yeah, and I definitely did not make up you got to have a why that makes you cry. I don't know who did, I mean.
Hal Elrod: I don't know, yeah, it's one of those out in the ether.
Ray Higdon: Yeah. And so, here's why I wrote that right there and I love that you picked that up because that's a really core thing. Over the years, I've met people at conferences, at seminars, etc., and a lot of people come up and say, I really want to retire my husband, I really want to help the kids. And often they have a compelling why, a why that is powerful, that gets buy in. And the problem is, a lot of times, I see those same people five years later with the same whys and they haven't progressed toward them.
And so, what I believe as more powerful is having a vision of who you want to become. And a vision of who you want to become, which I believe is what you actually did without knowing it, is you became the person that accomplished those whys. And because it's very different, some people, they'll say, I really want to help the kids and so, it's always 100% commercially digestible, meaning the ears that hear that, you expressing your why are, like, oh, man, that's very awesome. And so, the problem is, you can get high off of false supply. And so, you can tell someone you really want to help the kids, oh, people like that.
Hal Elrod: Yeah. And your why, sure.
Ray Higdon: Even though you haven't done anything yet, you haven't actually helped the kid yet. And so, you can get high off that supply. When here's the vision of who I'm going to become that will accomplish these whys, it's a little different. You start asking yourself, well, how would that person show up, versus, here's what I'm going to do over here, this external thing. And so, the vision of who you want to become and one of my favorite quotes that we have in there is from Dr. Rev. Michael Beckwith, pain pushes you until a vision pulls you.
So, when you have a compelling vision of who you want to become, if you can work on that enough, it can become a ruthless dictator that doesn't care how you feel, that doesn't care if it's raining outside, that doesn't care what obstacles are in front of you or what you've been dealing with in your past or your present, it can pull you into becoming that person to accomplish all those whys. And so, that's why we see it differently because one of the rules is turn your why into a vision and why that's so important.
Hal Elrod: Yeah, and I think that having that vision is different, most people think of a vision as the outcome that they want. And I guess in a way, it's an outcome.
Ray Higdon: Really, have you?
Hal Elrod: Yeah, it's your personal outcome, but most people, it's the result, it's the million dollars, it's the 100-million dollar bill, it's whatever. It's some sort of tangible, measurable outcome, that's their vision. And I'm working toward that. And I think what I love about this and again, it's just a nuanced distinction I hadn't really heard before, but I love it because you don't get to that vision, that vision down the road of that thing you want in your life until you first embody the vision of who you need to become to get to that thing.
So, I love that. I think you're putting it into a much more practical vision and you get to back test it every day. Am I living in alignment with that vision today that I live in alignment with the vision of who I need to be, what I need to do to become the person that's able to create X, Y, and Z and live the life of my dreams?
Ray Higdon: Exactly.
Hal Elrod: Absolutely love that. Well, I could talk to you all day, but I know we both got some time commitments here. Where do people get the book, Time, Money, Freedom? Where's the best place to pick this up?
Ray Higdon: Yeah, for sure. We have a really simple website tmfbook.com. It stands for the Time, Money, Freedom, tmfbook.com. On it, because sometimes when people hear what it's about, they are thinking of others, they would like to get the book in their hands or they have a sales team or if they have an organization they work with, so the links to Amazon and the Audible and the Kindle and everything is on there or there's also bulk discounts if someone wants more than one.
Hal Elrod: I would say for any, especially any business audience, I mean, if you have a sales team or I think this is a great fit, Ray, brother, any parting words before we wrap up and say goodbye?
Ray Higdon: No, I appreciate how you show up and I appreciate all you've done for society and for me, and having me on here is a great blessing and honor.
Hal Elrod: Awesome, Ray. Well, I appreciate you and I appreciate how you show up, man. I appreciate the vision that you created for yourself was a great one because how you live and how you serve others is pretty remarkable.
Ray Higdon: I appreciate it.
[CLOSING]
Hal Elrod: Goal achievers, the book is Time, Money, Freedom: 10 Simple Rules to Redefine What's Possible and Radically Reshape Your Life. If you are at any point in your life where you want to reshape it, you want to create more time, more money, more freedom, I highly recommend this. The site is tmfbook.com, Time, Money, Freedom, tmfbook.com.
And yeah, thanks for tuning in today. I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did and got as much value. And I'm halfway through the book, so I'm getting a ton more value. And I love you all. I appreciate you. Thank you for tuning in today and until next time. Go out there and achieve your goals and I'll talk to you all next week.
[END]
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