Hal Elrod: Hello, friends. Welcome to the Achieve Your Goals podcast. This is your host, Hal Elrod, and today’s episode is going to be a stream of consciousness episode, for the most part. These are my favorite episodes, by the way. It’s when I just feel inspired to share, typically a singular idea with you. And I might have a couple of notes. Right now, I have no notes. I do have some song lyrics that I’m going to read to you. But the premise is just that it’s like this is what is on my heart coming through me right now. And so, hopefully, it’s of value to you as it’s become valuable for me. And today I think I’m going to call this episode How a Song Changed My Life or Transformed My Marriage, I should say.

And it is powerful how music and lyrics specifically can really impact us. I know that many of us can relate to like if you’re going through a difficult time, and there may be a song or an artist who you felt like just got you, or spoke to what you’re going through, and music can be therapeutic in that way. There’s a song by an artist, by the name of Teddy Swims. And the song is All That Really Matters. And I won’t read you the entire song, but I’ll read you some of my favorite parts, and here are the lyrics, by the way. And this really, if you’re listening to this episode, and I always keep in mind that people are in different situations in life, right? So, this helped me with my marriage.

I also realized, though, that someone listening might be going, “Man, I’m going through a divorce,” and when I hear these lyrics, it’s like digging a knife in the wound of like, “Oh man, I can’t apply these lyrics right now because I’m now getting a divorce.” So, I want to set the stage, set the table with this perspective, with this premise, which is apply this to the relationships in your life, those that you still have the ability to affect the relationship in a positive way. It doesn’t mean it’s going well right now. In fact, it might be barely hanging on by a thin thread. And I don’t just mean romantic relationships. I’m talking all relationships, with friends, with family, with loved ones.

For me, I apply this to my wife, but I really think about like all relationships. This makes me realize the importance of all relationships. All right. So, here are the lyrics from Teddy Swims, the song, All That Really Matters, and I’m not going to sing it to you, by the way. I’m just going to read these.

If I could crawl in my mind

And give any advice to my younger self

Find something you can hold onto

Find someone who’ll be there for you

‘Cause that’s all that really matters in the end

Find somewhere you can come home to

Find someone that’ll die for you

‘Cause that’s all that really matters in the end

Is love, love, love

‘Cause it’s all that really matters in the end

So, when I heard that song for the first time, and it’s probably been six months ago or so, I listened to it, it’s on my playlist. I listened to it quite regularly. And when I first heard it, I think I was in the midst of like a petty argument with my wife, Ursula. I don’t even remember that. That’s how insignificant the argument or whatever was going on was. But I just remember that I was like, “Oh, I’m so frustrated with her.” And I don’t like this conflict that we have. I personally am someone who avoids conflict. That’s a deep childhood wound that we’ll unpack another time. But the point being, I listened to the song and I was like, “Man, the things we’re fighting about that we’re arguing about, that we’re not getting along, those don’t really matter.”

What really matters in the end, according to Teddy Swims, and it resonated with me, is find something you can hold on to, find someone who will be there for you. And for me, that is my wife. That is Ursula, right? We have love and history and loyalty, and we are committed 100% to each other through thick and thin. And so, it was just a reminder of all that really matters. What really matters, it’s our relationships. At the end of our lives, it’s our relationships. I’m reminded of my good friend, Jon Vroman, who founded Front Row Dads, and he realized he founded Front Row Dads when he had the idea, the realization that all of the things that he was putting his energy into, and that he was telling himself were most important were things like how much money he made and the speeches he was giving and how many books he was selling.

And I know I reference the story in Jon a lot because it really is his perspective, his realization, his wake-up call became my own, which is like, “Oh yeah, at the end of our lives, none of that’s going to matter.” None of the stuff that we spend most of our time on, thinking about, worrying about, focusing on, literally just working on, at the end of our lives, we’re going to look back and be like, “Man, what really mattered were the relationships that I had with the people that I loved.” So, for me, that’s my wife, Ursula. That is my daughter. That is my son. That’s my mom and dad. That’s my sister. In fact, I was journaling this morning about how grateful I am in my life, how great things are right now.

Lots of challenges going on, but I realized that my perspective, because of the challenges in my life, I wasn’t allowing myself to really be present to how blessed I was. And I invite you to consider that for a few moments. Are you so focused on the problems in your life, the challenges, that you don’t allow yourself to feel joy? Like, that’s how I wrote it in my journal. I might read that journal entry to you next week or something. I don’t have it in front of me right now, but I wrote, “Man, I haven’t allowed myself to feel joy in the way that I want, that I feel like we all deserve since before cancer.” Because as soon as I had cancer and I was given a 30% chance of surviving, it was like that joy, that freedom, that inner peace, it was tainted. It was like, “Oh, wait a minute, I might die and leave my kids without a dad.”

And while I still focused on being grateful and I did my Miracle Morning every day, it wasn’t quite the same like that joy that I enjoyed, no, that wouldn’t even be a pun. Never mind. I would say, no pun intended, but that’s not even a pun. But that joy that I had before cancer, like it was never quite the same. And I realized that this morning, and I go, “Man, I am giving myself permission to get back to that joy.” And I was like, “Well, what brings me joy?” And I wrote, started just writing the things down, and reminding myself of how powerful it is to just simply write what you’re grateful for and feel it. Allow yourself to feel the joy of the gratitude in your life.

So, I thought, I wrote down my daughter and I, our relationship’s fantastic right now. It’s the best it’s maybe ever been. And I went through a couple of difficult years, and that was just from like age 13.5 to 15.5, where the teenage years, as they call them. If you have a teenager or if you’ve had a teenager, you probably get that. Every kid is different, but I have talked to many parents, especially in my fellow Front Row Dads in the Front Row Dads group that they’re like, “Oh yeah, man. My kid was the sweetest. We had the best relationship. And then, oh, there was a couple of years there or a year that was really difficult during the teenage years.”

So, I went through that and now, really through so much intention and effort in reading books on having a teenage daughter and how to connect with her and really going above and beyond to try to nurture our relationship. We’re at a fantastic place, and so I wrote that in my journal, how much joy. Then I put my hand on my heart, and I experienced how much joy that brought me, that after all the work and all the challenges and the difficulties and the fear that what if I never get the relationship back with my daughter that we once had when she was younger? I feel like we’re in a great place. So, there’s that. I wrote down my relationship with my wife and how dedicated we are to each other and how much we love each other. So, I wrote all these things down, right?

But the point is, it was all relationship stuff. And actually, after all the relationship stuff, I wrote down some work stuff. I’m like, “Ooh, I’ve got some really big podcasts coming up.” And if you don’t know this, let’s quick pause, quick commercial. I have a book coming out, The Miracle Morning After 50, and it’s sitting in front of me, which is the only reason I remember to even tell you this. You can pre-order it right now. It’s The Miracle Morning After 50: A Proven Path to Joy, Vitality, and Purpose for Aging Adults. It’s the first Miracle Morning Series book that’s come out in I think three years. We have the Miracle Morning for Real Estate Agents and for College Students, and for Parents and Families. And the Miracle Morning for Writers and The Miracle Morning for on and on. There’s a whole series of Miracle Morning books if you didn’t know that.

You can get them on Amazon. But the newest one and the first one in three years is The Miracle Morning After 50: A Proven Path to Joy, Vitality, and Purpose for Aging Adults. And I’ve worked on this book with my co-author Dwayne J. Clark for over three years. In fact, I think close to over four years. And Dwayne is the founder of Áegis Living, and he has revolutionized caring for people in their fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, and beyond. And what makes this book unique, if you will, is it blends the Miracle Morning personal development strategies with science-backed approaches to thriving in the second half of life.

So, you’ll learn how to customize the Miracle Morning life-changing SAVERS routine after 50 for 50-year-old plus, and then also discover ways to optimize brain health, increase longevity, reconnect with your purpose, and so on and so forth. So, if you are over 50, it’s a great book for you. If you’re under 50, this is like the best book you could buy for a gift for someone that you love for the holidays, a parent, a loved one, so on and so forth. So, it’s the Miracle Morning After 50. And again, if you go to miraclemorningafter50.com, you can get bonuses for pre-ordering the book. So, when you pre-order the book at miraclemorningafter50.com, you also get four bonus chapters that we did not put in the book because it would’ve just made it too long, but they are some of the best content.

So, that’s the new book. Anyway, that was a tangent/commercial. I wasn’t intending to mention that, but the point it came up because I was writing that in my journal as well of the things that I was grateful for. However, back to the premise of the message today and the episode, and the song that transformed my marriage, All That Really Matters, by Teddy Swims. Go listen to that song. And again, I’m going to read the lyrics one more time, and even if you heard them before, please consider how you can apply these to your life and your relationships, whether it’s your significant other, whether it’s your mom and dad, whether it’s a parent, a spouse, a grandparent, a kid, child, a friend, loved ones, et cetera. Here you go.

If I could crawl in my mind

And give any advice to my younger self

Find something you can hold onto

Find someone who’ll be there for you

‘Cause that’s all that really matters in the end

By the way, let me pause. I just realized you could apply this to yourself. You could apply this to God, like your relationship with yourself, someone who will be there for you. Are you there for yourself? Do you love yourself? You could also, again, apply this to God, something you can hold onto, someone that’ll be there for you. Alright.

Find somewhere you can come home to

That could be inner peace by the way.

Find someone that’ll die for you

‘Cause that’s all that really matters in the end

Is love, love, love

All right. Goal achievers and members of the Miracle Morning Community, wow, we’re at 13 minutes. This may be the shortest episode I’ve ever done. And that feels really good, actually. I want to keep more of the episodes shorter so you can get in, get out, get a quick hit of inspiration, a shift in perspective, something you can apply to your life to enhance it in a meaningful way, without taking an hour to get there. So, alright, I love you. I will talk to you next week, and remember, all that really matters is love, love, love the people in your life who love you and who you love. And I love you so much. I’ll talk to you next week.