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incorrectdeceptionquotes · 5 years

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It Takes Two

In collaboration with @s4karuna, she introduced this idea by striking up a conversation with me (so glad she did) and we’ve been building on it for a couple months and we finally decided to actually write it! XD

Hope you like it guys!

...And Happy New Year!

O'Leary's was the last stop on Team Deception’s bar hopping night, their usual homecoming tradition when they came back to New York after a national tour. Dina had somehow managed to wrangle Gunther into doing a duet with her while Cameron and Jordan were downing shots in a corner booth, occasionally heckling Gunther.

“Okay...” Jordan slurred. He was a bit of a lightweight and despite having matched shot for shot with him, Cameron didn’t seem as drunk, only slightly tipsy. “Cameron...”

“Yes Jordan?”

“I got a challenge for you.”

“Oh?” Cameron raised his eyebrows, “What are the stakes?”

“If… If you win...” Jordan garbled, “I… will dye my hair… hot pink again.”

Cameron was intrigued, “And if you win?”

“You… will do whatever I say.”

Cameron raised an eyebrow at that. “Uh Jordan, I don’t know where you’re going with this, but I just wanna be friends.”

“Ha!” Jordan slapped the table, “You wish you could land this… but no.” Jordan looked to be thinking, “If I win… I have something else in mind...”

“Are… are you going to tell me?”

“Nope! I'll… I’ll only tell you if I win.”

Cameron smirked, “So that’s how you want to play it?” He did another shot, “Fine. What is your challenge?”

“I... dare you... to take a shot.”

“Wait, that’s your challenge?” Cameron snorted, “We've been doing that all night.”

Jordan wagged his finger, “Oh-ho-ho-ho... no, my friend. Not just any... shot.” He downed another, “I’m talking about... the infamous Smoker’s Cough.”

“The Smoker’s Cough?”

“It’s a shot of Jagermeister... topped off with mayonnaise.”

Cameron scrunched his face at that, “Ew, mayonnaise?”

“It’s not… not too late to back out.”

Cameron took another one of the shots in front of him with a shake of his head. “No way.” He swiftly downed the drink, “Take that as an ‘I accept your challenge’.”

“There’s only one rule.” Jordan stated, “You’re not allowed to gag or spit it back after drinking it.” He got from his stool, “I’ll be right back.”

Cameron downed another shot. How bad could this drink be? He’d had worse things before so it couldn’t be as bad as Jordan had implied. A few minutes later, Jordan came back with a shot in hand and sure enough, it was topped with good old fashioned mayonnaise.

“Here… you go.” Jordan shakily placed the drink in front of his friend. He really was a lightweight.

Cameron picked up the shot and eyed it for a moment, “Okay… here goes.”

Jordan watched him as the blue-eyed man shrugged and downed it in one go. He seemed to be alright at first. Then his face scrunched up in disgust as he clapped a hand over his mouth to contain his coughing.

“G’ugh! It's vile!” He wheezed. “What the hell is in that?”

Jordan laughed as Cameron let out a couple of coughs, “I had the bartender…” Jordan slurred, “M-make the drink with Andong soju instead. Packs quite a punch, doesn’t it?”

“Oh yeah. Can’t help but think--” He coughed again, “That might have be cheating. Not even your hal-abeoji can drink it and he could give vodka guzzling Russian ex-soldiers a run for their money at his age.”

“You never said I couldn’t change anything.”

“Well played Kwon. Well played.” Cameron mumbled, “So what is it you want me to do?” Cameron would be lying if he said that the gleeful look on Jordan’s face didn’t make him feel a little nervous.

Three years later…

The Archive had been host to many Team Deception celebrations over the years, but this had to be a first. Helping the FBI break a major case by doing what the team did best had... sparked something in him for lack of a better word. Through the din of the party, Cameron spotted Kay in the corner, her phone to her ear as--was she smiling just now?

It wasn't like he hadn’t seen her smile before, but this one was different. It was one of pure joy, her eyes radiating every ounce of love in her heart.

It was beautiful. That smile was beautiful.

He was so caught up in his thoughts that he only managed to catch Kay saying “--okay, I’ll see you in a minute, honey.”

Wait, what?

Honey? Suddenly, Cameron was very interested to know who she had been talking to. He just wasn’t expecting there to be anyone who would make someone as cool and professional as Kay call them “honey” of all things. He shook his head and escaped to the balcony.

Kay noticed him walk out as she hung up before her eye caught one of his show posters. The past couple of days had showed her that he wasn’t just some playboy illusionist. Magic really was his life. It really meant something to him… and his brother meant everything to him, she could tell. It reminded her so much of her and Caroline in the past, she mused as she joined him on the balcony.

“Hey.” She said as she walked up next to him.

He grinned, “Hey.”

“You did good Cameron.” Kay told him, “Thank you.”

His smile only widened, “Don’t mention it. Sorry we didn’t get off to the best start.”

“Water under the bridge.”

They were silent for a moment. Cameron opened his mouth, about to ask something like so who were you on the phone with if you don’t mind my asking, when he suddenly heard what sounded like little kids squealing in the other room.

“Uh Kay? Are you babysitting or something ‘cause whose kids am I hearing?”

Kay's lips twitched in amusement. “I’m not babysitting, it's a completely different thing.”

Well, if they were going to start working together, she might as well tell him now.

“You don't babysit your own kids.”

Cameron’s jaw dropped. “You have kids?!”

Kay nodded. “Twin girls.” She had been a little hesitant to tell him that part, worried that it might hit a little too close to home. “The sitter’s just bringing them here for me.”

Cameron was about to respond, say anything other than since when do you have kids and when you gonna let me meet them, when he heard shrieking giggles as a pair of tiny toddlers holding hands, dressed in pink and purple tumbled onto the balcony.

“Oh my God,” he gaped, shocked by the sight of two identical girls with round apple cheeks and adorable little dimples waddling over to Kay, “there's two of them.”

It was impossible not to see the resemblance to Kay when they had the same feathery dark curls and bronze skin. They were perfect little copies of their mother... except for the eyes. The girls’ eyes were opal blue and star-like and Cameron’s smile was fading fast because he never considered the possibility of her being married with kids. Even though he had secretly checked her hands several times for a ring only to find nothing.

Kay laughed as she picked up one of the giggling toddlers, who had purple overalls and a gold bunny shaped clip in her hair. “Well, I assume that as a twin yourself, you’d understand that twins generally come in twos.”

Still, he had to admit that even he and Johnny weren't this cute at that age. Kay's genes were truly magical.

“Soooo…” he drawled, “Who’s the lucky guy?” He wasn’t going to try to beat around the bush this time. If she was with someone then he didn’t want to step over any boundaries.

Kay was silent for a moment as she settled her daughter on her hip. “Donor #478.”

Cameron scrunched his nose in confusion.

“There’s not really a father in the picture,” Kay explained, straightforward as always. “I honestly couldn’t tell you who he is if I wanted to. Kind of the point.” That wasn’t the part that confused him. It was just… there was something about that number. Something familiar.

“You’re a single mom?”

Kay nodded, unashamed. She decided a long time ago that she wasn't going to have a partner and ended up with two when she went in for one. She suspected that identical twins ran in the donor's family. Kay's mother had helped take care of the girls until her strength had failed and she would've been completely alone if it weren't for Mike and Lara.

“That’s… kind of amazing,” he grinned in wonder.

Kay chuckled, “Well not everybody thinks so.”

“Eh, screw what other people think.”

He suddenly felt a tiny hand tug at his pant leg. He looked down and found a familiar pair of blue eyes staring up at him in wonder. The girls had obviously inherited Kay's impossibly long eyelashes and he was positive that they would destroy hearts someday just like their mother.

He crouched down, smiling at the little girl, still amazed at the power of genetics. “Hi there.”

The girls were nearly identical, but this one had hair that was a shade or two lighter than her sister and a pink penguin print headband that matched her overalls.

“That’s Liya.” Kay explained.

“Hi Liya.”

Liya eagerly raised her arms up and her tiny voice squeaked, “Up. Up.”

Cameron gave a quick look to Kay, “Do you mind?”

Kay looked a little surprised. Liya wasn’t usually so friendly with strangers. The agent shook her head before she thought much of it. “Uh, no. Go ahead.”

Cameron scooped up the little girl and she beamed up at him. He paused as he noticed Kay’s unreadable expression, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s just… Liya usually isn’t so welcoming to new people.”

“Well, maybe she can tell I’m not so bad.” Liya rested her head on Cameron’s shoulder. He briefly caught the comforting scent of baby powder as she did so and it made him melt a little. “Who’s this other little lady?”

“This is my oldest, Ayana.” Cameron smiled at the toddler and Ayana gave him a tiny smile. “Ayana, you can say hi.”

Ayana waved and squeaked a little, “Hi.”

Cameron grinned at the little girl, “Hi Ayana.” The little girl buried her face in her mother’s shoulder and yeah, he was just about dying from the sheer cuteness of the Daniels girls.

“So Liya and Ayana, huh?”

“My mother's Ethiopian. Her grandmother came here from Addis Ababa all by herself to start a new life and I think she would've had some very strong words with me if I didn't follow the Assefa family tradition.”

Cameron chuckled as a thought popped into his head. “Does this mean that Kay's just a nickname?”

Kay rolled her eyes. “Cameron Black, you can't expect me to give away all my secrets.” She'd keep her birth name to herself for a while.

“Eh, between Mike the fanboy and Jordan’s hacking, I'll figure it out eventually. How old are the girls anyway?”

“They just turned two a couple of weeks ago.”

“Wow. Well, I should get them something then. How do they feel about stuffed animals?”

Kay chuckled, “Cameron, that’s sweet but--”

“No, no, I’m serious. Two is a big milestone.” He grinned. Somehow, for a moment, he wasn’t feeling hopeless.

“So what's next?” Kay asked, “You go after the mystery woman who framed Jonathan? I still have to prove she did it.” Cameron figured she was right, “What about your show, your team?”

“When we were kids,” Cameron started, “I was the performer, the onstage persona, but Johnny was ‘The Disappearing Boy’ hidden under the stage, behind the curtain, but he was always there for me...” He turned to face the agent he’s decided he’s befriended, “I have to get him out, Kay.” He could feel Liya’s little arms wrap around his neck in a pseudo hug, almost like she was trying to comfort him. Kay nodded in understanding, “I did notice something. Jonathan's illusionist copied every detail from your disappearing-jet trick except one.” Cameron raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You watched my special?” He turned his head to the toddler in his arms, “Did your mom watch my special?” Liya just giggled.

Kay laughed, “Okay. I saw it. It was fantastic.” Cameron grinned in disbelief, “Fantastic? Wow.” “After you made your jet disappear, you left something behind. Deck of playing cards.” Cameron nodded in realization, “We should go back to the hangar and make sure she didn't--” He was cut off by Kay pulling out an evidence bag with a deck of cards in it. He chuckled, “You already went.” She grinned. There was that smile again, “This is where I say ‘ta-da,’ right?” Ayana giggled at the way her mother was speaking. Despite being so young, Ayana and Liya never heard their mother sound so playful.

“Yeah.” Cameron smiled as he reached for the deck, “May I?” She handed him the bag. He pulled out the deck. It made a few beeping noises before it started to ring. He answered.

“Hello Cameron.” A woman’s voice came from the other line. Cameron could feel his frustration flare up. “Who are you?”

She shook her head. “Always asking the wrong questions.” “Why are you doing this?”

She raised an eyebrow, smirking slightly. “You don't remember? Don't worry. I don't blame you for that. But I've thought about you and Jonathan for years.The show's about to begin my show. Are you ready?”

Cameron heard the sound of Beethoven’s Fur Elise being played in the background. “You're in the Frankfurt International terminal. Spent the last twelve months flying around the world, and airport acoustics are pretty distinctive. Plus, Frankfurt pumps muzak Beethoven like they're afraid someone might forget he's German.” Cameron could have sworn he heard this mystery woman’s breath stop for a split second. “Tell me, did you look over your shoulder?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Goodbye Cameron.” “Get used to looking. We're coming for you.” It was all Cameron could say before the call disconnected.

“Hey.” Kay said as she adjusted Ayana in her arms, “You alright?”

Cameron pursed his mouth and nodded as he put the deck in his pocket and adjusted Liya just to make sure he wouldn’t drop her. “I’m fine… just can’t believe that after all this time, there’s a lead.” Kay gave him a sympathetic smile, “Believe it or not, this is the first time I can confidently say that Johnny’s going to come home.”

“You know, it’s really admirable that you’ve kept hope for all this.”

Cameron gave a small smile, “I’ve always believed that hope can be a powerful thing.”

They gave each other a smile and spent a moment in silence, watching the city lights before Ayana tried to wiggle out of her mother’s hold to join her sister in Cameron’s arms. Kay tried to get her to calm down.

“Ayana honey, be careful.”

Cameron chuckled, “If Ayana wants a hug too, I don’t mind.” He opened his other arm as a sign to the little girl that she could join her sister.

“You sure?”

Cameron nodded, “Positive. It’s a good thing I have enough arms because if you had triplets then things might be a little difficult,” he joked.

Kay helped him adjust both girls in a way that would be easy for him to hold them both at once. What really surprised her was just how fast her girls warmed up to him. She knew that Cameron was a good man, but it was still a little odd that Ayana and Liya could see that so quickly too.

“Hey there Ayana. You didn’t want to miss out on the fun either, did you?”

The older twin giggled as her tiny hand gripped his shirt. Kay smiled. It wasn’t often she felt comfortable letting her daughters be held by someone else, but she trusted Cameron.

“Hey Kay?”

Kay raised her eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“We have some chocolate chip cookies.” He didn’t notice the way the girls perked up at the word ‘cookie’. “Do you mind if I give them one?”

“Cookie?” Ayana squeaked.

Kay smiled. “Well, they already heard the word ‘cookie’ so you kind of have to give them one now.” Cameron laughed at that. “Why do you have chocolate chip cookies in the first place?”

“Agent Daniels,” he gasped in mock offense, “I might be a man of fine tastes, but I can enjoy a good chocolate chip cookie once in a while.” Kay rolled her eyes at his childishness.

“Cookie!” Liya babbled.

Kay’s chuckle turned to laughter. She knew the girls’ sweet tooth would distract them. “Well, we should probably get them their cookies.”

She reached to take one of the girls when Cameron just cuddled them closer to him. “You know I don’t mind holding them for a little while.”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded, “Oh yeah. You’ve had a long day too, let me help you by carrying around these adorable little ladies.” Kay couldn’t help but smile as they made their way back inside.

Three years ago…

Cameron and Jordan pulled up to the building they asked the cab driver to take them. “Why are we here?” Cameron narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

“Why do you think?” His friend responded, “This is your punishment.”

“Oh my God, Jordan, you don’t mean...”

“Oh… but I do.” Cameron rolled his eyes, “Hey! You lost our wager.” Jordan retaliated, “If you had won, you so would have watched me dye my hair pink!”

Cameron paused. “...You’re not going to come inside to watch me do this are you?” Jordan gave him a look. “I’m sorry Jordan, but the way you say things all sound very suggestive!”

“Just go do it!”

“Fine.” he huffed. They both got out of the cab and went inside the building. It was a bank and all Jordan had dared him to do was make a donation. He stayed at the front desk until the deed was done. There was nothing to be ashamed of. It wasn't as if Cameron was the first person to make a donation like this.

In fact… he was the 478th person to make a donation for that particular bank.

#deception #deception fanfiction #cameron black #kay daniels #kaymeron #jordan kwon #it takes two #renewdeception #savedeception #deception abc

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t0mat0-pot4to · 7 years

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#JayDickWeek2017 Day 2: Confession Under Fire

Everyone is wondering how Dick and Jason got together.

How could they mess up so bad? The plan was simple. They will use the jet to get to the Watchtower, beat up the bad guys then get out. No talking with the other heroes. No distractions were available. And still they messed up. Instead of having a fight in the tower, they managed to get chased on the jets. So now they were avoiding everything that was thrown at them, try to stay far from the Earth's atmosphere so direct shots didn't get to land.

There was no back-up free. Everyone was busy with their own plans. They could keep the chase for a little longer, until things lighten up.

But things went wrong again. Someone got inside, then two then three more. They fought, breaking so many things inside. The main parts on the outside were hit and broken. Oxygen was running out. Wires everywhere. The control panel didn't work anymore. Red lights bathed them.

From their seats, they saw the outside. The galaxy was sure a big thing and how insignificant they were compared to other planets.

"Hey, Grayson?"

"I'm listening Jay." Dick replied kicking his feet on top of the broken panel.

"Since we are in this situation. I think it's the right time to tell you that I admire you." Jason commented imitating Dick's actions. His arms rested on the sides of the chair, while his head looked forward.

"Same here." He answered, looking at Jason with a smirk. "I wanted to ask you this long ago but I thought that I shouldn't. But, right now I don't even think I have a tomorrow for it so...I like you and all."

"Way to go Golden Boy." They laughed. "Yeah, I kind of like you too. Especially when you don't talk at all. It's nice, really."

"That's the nicest thing you've said to me today, thank you."

"So...do we kiss or what?"

"I got this."

Dick stood up, facing Jason. He stepped closer to Jay's right, leaning forward. He couldn't help himself but to laugh at what they were about to do. Slowly he kissed him, holding his left cheek. The kiss lasted a few seconds before they separated, to chuckle.

"This is probably the gayest thing Imma be saying today but, gee, your lips are so good." Jason expressed, blushing a bit, causing more soft laughter from his partner. Then they both laughed.

"Yep, gayest thing I've heard today."

Well, they were so far from Earth now. It looked like a tennis ball from the distance. Neither of them said it directly but they knew that it was the end for them. All because of a mission that didn't go as planned. They started to wonder how everyone else what doing, since communication collapsed.

They didn't say anything for a solid minute. Then Dick leaned to kiss Jason again. A few quick kisses on his lips then in the corner, slowly walking in front of him. Jason sat properly not sure what was happening but, boy, he couldn't resist it. One of Dick's knees rested right between his legs, while the kisses had started lowering to his jaw.

Knock. Knock.

Dick was forced to hold back to find out were the noise came from. From the window with many scratches, he could clearly see Hal Jordan. He grunted before walking towards the window. He wrote something on the window as some dusk and steam was there.

'What?'

Dick saw Hal laugh as some writing in green glowed from his ring.

'Am I interrupting something? I mean, I could rescue both of you later.'

'Just get us home. Not a word.'

'Yes, sir.'

"Oh my goodness Stephanie!" Barbara cried holding back her laughter. The others did laugh, well, only those who understood the last part. "We have kids here, you know?"

"I didn't tell them to listen tho'!" She excused herself, with a big grin in her face. "Plus, they are Dick and Jason! I'm sure it happened at some point."

"Dick would've told me if he did." Wally said as he chewed chips. "Plus, they've been together for only three months. Dick isn't that type of guy."

"Is it jealousy a sense?" Kate looked at him with a playful grin making him blush. Everybody else exploited in laugh.

"Like hell I am! He's my best friend." He mumbled grabbing another bag of chips fro himself. "And I have Artemis. I don't want him."

"Sure you don't babe." Artemis kissed him in the head. "Anyone to take another guess? Which doesn't involved any mature content?"

"We'll take a guess." Said Kate with Babs leaning against her.

After a long night patrol, Jason was walking in the empty streets. He was too busy to notice someone behind him. Next hing he knew was that he was tied to a chair and pretended he was doomed. He quickly noticed Arsenal, Roy Harper, and Starfire, Koriand'r, tied up too. Since they didn't move, he assume they were knocked unconscious.

"Look who decided to finally join us."

"I don't like crushing private parties." He rolled his eyes. He needed a way to free himself fast and keep his friends safe so they wouldn't harm them. "So, what's the deal? Do I owe you money?"

"Oh no. You owe me more than money. A whole company to be precise. If it wasn't for you, I would have gotten the deal of a lifetime!"

"You might not be able to see it but I'm silently laughing under my helmet."

"You think you are funny, but not today! Today I'll make you a deal. You'll get rid of my enemies and I'll give you your loved ones in exchange."

He went quiet. Now there was no way he could free them. Like, he didn't mind the killing but he wasn't sure what they will think of him after finding out he killed people for them.

"Why so quiet, Red Hood? Wasn't expecting that?"

"Of course I wasn't! I lost you went you said you couldn't kill your enemies so you needed me! What kind of thug are you? Even my dog could be better."

"So funny. But, will your friend Arsenal like a wake up bullet? Or Starfire? It's so hard to decide who should laugh with us tonight."

Now is when Jason started to try to free himself. However it didn't last long as guns were out pointing at him. It was suicide if he continues.

"I died once but a crowbar in the head by a clown. Satan will be disappointed if I go to hell with you as my killer."

Quiet. Jason needed to think fast.

"I'm so sorry to interrupt this little meeting of yours but, I can't let you kill my precious fugitive. So, what do you say if we all lower our guns and talk?" That voice was familiar to everyone in the room. And Jason didn't know if he was grateful or not for the new-comer. "Oh, come on! You know my name!"

Nightwing jumped from the pillars holding the ceiling above them. A smoke bomb was dropped and the bad guys knew it was done for them. The sound of heavy things falling, some breaking, gave Jason an idea of what was happening in there. Once the smoke curtain fully vanished, Nightwing was in the middle of the room with unconscious thugs around him. Some were shot by their own mates and some still growled in hurt.

"Oh my! What a mess I've made. Let me make it up to you." He turned to the leader, who held a gun pointing at him. "Put the gun down or else I'll be force to knock you out."

"No chance pretty boy."

"My pretty boy is still tied up, so you better make it fast." He challenged before dropping his weapons on the floor. The sound of it echoed in the room and the blast of a bullet broke it. First shot and missed. Nightwing avoided it easily. He moved closer as bullets flew by him, none close to hit him.

...

"Pretty boy." He called Jason, standing in front of him with a bright smile. He didn't say anything else while he untied him. "Got anything sharp?"

"My looks count?" Jason joked trying not to swear out loud.

"See, I could leave you here but I'm too nice. So better help or else..." Dick whispered something in Jason, with a playful smile.

"Fine. Left pocket." He replied turning away from the oldest.

Dick gave a triumphant smile then went to search the pocket. His left hand ran from Jason's knee to his thigh, 'looking' for the pocket knife. With his right hand, and without permission, he took Jason's helmet off. And made him look at him directly.

"The hell are you doing?"

"Take a guess." He whispered back before taking out the sharp object and cutting the ropes. He stayed with the knife a bit longer, just watching Jason's reaction with a smile.

"Oh my! Oh my!" Zatanna interrupted so they wouldn't continue. "That is not family friendly!" She joked as they laughed.

"Fine. Maybe we went a bit overboard." Babs said faking innocence. She did a little fistbumbed with Kate.

"I can assure you that did not happen!" Roy said out loud, pointing at the girls with his drink in hand.

"Me too. I don't recall that happening." Kori was a bit confused about said story but was completely sure it didn't happened.

"Ok, ok. Maybe Roy and Kori weren't there at all but it could have happened anyways." Kate defended.

"Anyone else?" Zatanna asked taking a slice of pizza from the box.

"Since everyone is making things up, I'll have a go!" Wally accepted.

Both Jason and Dick were being chased by some super-villains and the police. The reasons were a robbery and a murder. Neither of them were caused by them but they just couldn't stop for anything. It happened in the middle of Gotham as cars passed and people walked to late dinner shops. The moon was bright above their heads and no sign of the other members were present.

"So, what are you up to?" Dick asked as they jumped from one building to another. He seemed to be enjoying the chase somehow.

"Well, I don't know right now but it's not good at all." He responded, half turning to shot the man shooting at them in a helicopter.

"Excuse me, serial killer. Will you kindly not shot him?"

"Then?"

"Don't jump." He said as he rolled down in between two building. Jason reacted a bit late causing him to tripped down losing his balance. A hand caught his to swung him to a balcony in front of them. "Hold yourself up for a second." He pleaded before letting go and landing on top of a air conditioner box, without ripping it off the building.

...

They stayed on lower grounds for a bit, following their chasers close. Their spy skills kicked in but were soon put away as they escaped. Now they were underground, in the sewerage, following a track send by the Red Robin.

"Tim said that we'll be able to reach the bat-cave if we follow this." Dick commented showing his phone screen to his partner. "If we are lucky, Killercroc won't be roaming this place right now."

"Now that's a stereotype." Dick giggled at the comment said. "It's true. Just because he is a big-ugly-ass crocodile doesn't mean he'd at the sewerage."

"Maybe you could show me movies were it doesn't happen. I'd like to find one." He offered lending his phone to Jason.

"It's said then. Tomorrow night in my place."

"Oh boy, you are so gonna regret doing this."

"Then you should be grateful you are pretty. If you weren't, then you'll be doomed in society."

"I'll take it as a compliment. Thank you." He elevated his hands to the back of his neck, smiling. "It's been so long since we had a decent talk."

"Last week, when I told you that my apartment wasn't a safe place."

"And then you let me sleep in your bed. Yeah, good talk."

"It wasn't a good talk." He said and suddenly noise coming from their right side made them stop. "Great, now what?"

"We are going up if anything happens. Head East if there's anyone chasing you. I'll go West. Loose then. Beat them up. I don't care but we will meet outside the manor. Understood?"

"Loud and clear boss."

The noise was coming closer so they ran forward. Then the noise ran towards them too. There was no way to loose them so their plan was to be followed.

"Hey," Dick stop Jason once they were out. Not much time left. "Be careful, ok? I know you can do just fine but be careful."

"Same to you Golden boy."

Dick quickly kissed Jason in the lips. Then they were off.

"That was beautiful!" M'gann spoke happily. The other girls had the same reaction and the boys just stared in confusion.

"That's from a movie. Isn't it?" Tim questioned first, not wanting to believe that Wally just said what he said.

"Of course! Or a book. I don't remember." He answered, making the guys sighed in relief. Even some of the girls did.

"I don't see it. Both Jason and Dick are too proud to run from a fight, but I'll give you a seven out of ten." Raven replied, with the others nodding to her statement which was partially true. Especially from Jason.

"C'mon Rae! Even you know this could've happened...at some point." Garfield stated not truly sure himself.

"Indeed Beast Boy, but she is also right." Kaldur'ahm, Aqualad, affirmed.

"They would not retrieve if it was not an order." Cass mentioned. "It's clear on the battleground."

"Ok ok. My turn!" Kara declared.

The 'original' bat-bros were almost falling asleep on their way home from a special mission. Almost not making it home, especially the younger ones. So the older ones decided to carry them. Once they were in safe zone, with Alfred helping with some wounds from the younger ones. The Justice League was also there, in a special meeting with the Bat.

Neither group was surprise to see the other. It had happened so many times it became a tradition whenever they were over in the batcave.

Dick and Jason stayed back to join the meeting, while Tim and Damian were forced to get some rest. Again, it had happened so many times before no one was really surprise.

"So, the Secret Society is at it again? Gee, don't they ever get tired of losing?" Dick expressed while he typed something on his phone, although he wasn't really paying attention to the screen, they knew he was probably the one who absorbed all the information.

"We are afraid so." Martian replied, as the images of the Secret Society appeared with all their information. Then there was a second of silence before he talked again. "We will be busy dealing with an abnormally on the other side of Earth. Nightwing and Red Hood, you'll recruit the Young Justice and the Teen Titans for the job. We know you and the others are more than capable but we only want you to slow them down until we come back."

"Understood boss." Dick answered, putting his phone aside to concentrate on the new mission that was given to him.

"Any new information or dates will be send to you. Anything important must be send to us instantly. That will be all for now." Marian concluded, given the others a glance to see if they had anything to add.

"Ok. Jason and me will be out. Meta-humans are attacking central Gotham." Dick informed before heading to the exit with Jason behind. "Good night everyone. Don't worry about us too much."

...

"Got the what we wanted?" Dick asked, still looking back at the direction of the manor. Not a good idea when riding a motorbike, but he is the Nightwing. He was more than capable to do that and more.

"Yup. Being a street rat pays off in situations like this." His partner responded, holding a bag over his head. As much as they tried to be responsible on the road, they couldn't do it. "You know we are gonna get in hella trouble when they find out, right?"

"It will be worth the laughs."

...

Now they were off the roads, on top a building. The lights from the city hugged them away from the darkness of the night. Both excited to see the precious thing inside the leather bag. Jason took out Diana's Lasso of Truth, then threw the bag to a side. It glowed in golden magic, fascinating both.

"It's more magestic than I thought...It's just...Wow."

"It's an Amazon weapon. Created and used by Gods." Jason mumbled still holding it before giving it to Dick, who just admired the golden colour. "Who you wanna try it on first?"

"I don't care. We have, we use it. We don't have much time before Wonder Woman finds out."

"We could use it on the meta-humans, since we have to take them out anyways." Jason suggested with a smile on his face, Dick's reaction was priceless for him. He could have swore his partner didn't even noticed.

...

"Ok, so the bad guys escaped and now we are tied up. In the Lasso of Truth. In the middle of the night. We are a mess." Dick sided look at his weapons on the floor next to them. Near those were Jason's guns with empty bullets and fresh smoke coming out of the guns' muzzles. It was quite a hard fight.

"So...hum...Mind finding a way to free ourselves." Jason pleaded clearly uncomfortable by their closeness. Although they were back to back, he knew Dick was so calm about it.

"I could try leaning back and see if I could free my hands." His partner suggested as he inclined his head on Jay's shoulder, giving away his smile. As much as he tried to see Jay, his position wouldn't allow him. "Ok, I need you to stand still while I do this. If you don't, we are gonna fall and that's gonna be really bad for us."

"Yeah, yeah. I know. Hurry up."

Dick pressed himself against Jason's back, leaving just enough space for him to slide his arms in from. When he made it, he could finally let his breath go. Jason relaxed while he sighed, like Dick did. Before he could say anything, Dick was doing the exact same thing again as he tried to untie the knot. But didn't last long before giving up and wailing.

"I can't. Try twisting the rope from your side or something." He finally stated.

Jason couldn't even reach the rope with his fingers so he shrugged his shoulders. His action was enough for Dick to sigh again. Dick giggled.

"Want to ask me some burning question?" He asked and the rope glowed in a bright golden, so he figured out it was doing it's magic.

Jason gulped. He was clearly fighting the need to tell the truth.

"Come on little wing. You know neither of us can lie in this situation." He teased while leaning his head back in Jay's shoulder.

"I hate you. And yes, I do want to ask you something."

"Awww, what is it?"

"Since you been out with many people. And you are currently not dating anyone. What are your types?"

"Man, that's some silly question. However, because you are asking me, I'm gonna tell you." He gave a quit pause before answering. "I don't really have a type but I tend to fall for people who...I tend to fall for people who I have rescued once and vice versa. Yeah, I know, it's weird."

"Why?" Came out quickly out of Jay's mouth.

"Why? Oh, I don't really know. Something to do with trust. If they could save me, I could trust them with my life. If I can save them once, I can do it twice. Three times...I could protect them..." Dick went quiet all of the sudden. Still mumbling nonsense under his breath.

It was quiet.

"Who do you like?" "You." They both asked and answered at the same time. Their guards were down so they didn't notice until they heard the answer.

"Oh my goodness! You like me? Really? Red Hood likes Nightwing? Oh my gosh!" Dick teased surprised. Then the next thing he did was letting the rope go, freeing them. He basically pulled the Lasso and picked his weapons up, rushing away from Jason. "I'm so telling everyone about this!"

"You...You! You come back here now! Nightwing!" He tried processing what happened before picking his guns up and lifting them. Both guns pointing at a near Nightwing, fingers pressed against the trigger.

"Come on! Let's get moving pretty!" He screamed picking up the leather bag from the beginning, then putting the Lasso in it. "You could try shooting me babe, but that be such a mean thing to do! It's nearly midnight and Bats will be out soon! You coming or not?!"

"That did happened once. The Lasso thing but not with those questions." Duke pointed out, while the bat-fam laughed at that memory.

"Yeah, it was bad." Luke continued. "They were forced to stay away from each other so they wouldn't kill the other one."

"Yeah...I've been there...Not good." Conner rested his head on his hand, half-closing his eyes to Tim who just smiled 'innocently'. "Don't trust them. Especially a guy called Tim who will force you to deal with it."

"Really?" Kara questioned with eyes filled with hope. "What happened?"

Before Conner could answer that question, two familiar voices caught everyone's attention and tried finding were they were coming from.

"Oh! Wow. Why are all of you here? Wait! You guys didn't call me? Oh my gosh. I fell so disappointed." Dick dramatised with a funny look in his face. They all laughed at his reaction. "My friends and my family, together. In the same room. Not fighting...Who are all of you?! Where are my loved ones?! No. Don't tell me. Just...Just leave!"

"Shhh, they are safe." Kate winked at him, holding her finger in her lips telling him to stay quiet.

"Oh my! Jason! They have our family! And friends! And...and..." He pulled Jason's arm, who rolled his eyes as he was pulled towards his boyfriend.

"You guys, I hate all of you." He said, pointing at everyone in the room.

"We love you too Jaybird." Babs winked at him, taking a sip from a coke can.

"Gee, like, excuse me? Pretty girl, he is mine." Dick released Jay's arm before walking up to his ex-girlfriend, almost face to face with her. He just looked at her, quietly. Then he took one of the cans in the table, blowing a kiss to the redhead. "We are going out. See you on patrol. Lots of love!"

"Wait..." Tim called right before Dick and Jason walked out of the living room. When they both turned to see, the younger one made a sign to come closer. "We have a question. And we really want answers."

"Oh...What is it?" The oldest was the only one who looked worried, although Jay didn't looked at the conversation, he was pretty aware of his surroundings.

"This is dumb. They want to know how you and Todd got together." Damian finally talked, looking away from his phone. Jon, who was next to him, lowered his headphones to listen to the conversation.

"Well. It is kind of dumb but I guess, we could..." The oldest glanced at his partner for help as he didn't know what to do or say. They both shrugged not knowing exactly. "I mean, it was really stupid." He tried joking it off, so they will forget about it but he knew they wouldn't let it go.

"We were talking about it." Jon gave a little explanation, while looking at the others who kept their gaze on Dick.

"Well...there's two times, same day." Dick sat on the back of the couch, looking above his head as he tried remembering that day. Jay forced himself to stand next to his partner, with his hands on his hips.

It was early morning when Dick found Jason overlooking Gotham. They didn't talk straight away but soon loosen up and started talking about their day. As much as they tried looking away from each other, there's was always something that drew them to look back.

"Wanna go eat something?" Dick offered with a smile. It was early, too early to be seen by anyone they knew so it was perfect timing.

"You are paying."

...

They fought over the place, but since Dick was too nice, he let Jason choose. At the end they went to a Chinese restaurant, which kindly serve them anything they wanted. They have saved so many places, they don't remember all of them. Despite the time, they got some lunch instead of breakfast.

"This place is nice." Dick whispered, drinking his tea like Jason did. They weren't talking too much, just casual comments and responses. "We should come here more often."

"We?" He was surprised, almost shocked to hear that pronoun.

"Um...Yeah..." He was saved as their food came. He shook his head, attacking his food and this told Jason to not talk about it anymore.

The more time they were together, things lighten up a bit. Dick grabbed the fortune-cookie, breaking it to read the tiny paper folded inside. Soft chuckling came out his mouth, which drew Jason's attention.

"It says 'You should date the person next to you'. So, wanna date? It says on the paper." He declared, leaving the note on the table, eyes locked on Jay's.

"What?"

"Um...Maybe I could win you over with food...Yeah, that could work."

>>>

Since they spend the morning together, Dick managed to get Jason to be with him for the rest of the day. Of course out of their 'work' suits, to change in normal clothes. It didn't take long for them until they visited many places.

"Stay here, okay? I'll just get something for Tim and Damian."

"I'm not five years old anymore, Grayson."

A few minutes later, a lady walked up to Jason with a flirty look on her face. Jason was clearly uncomfortable but tried to play it cool.

"Hey, beautiful."

"Hello?"

"Why are you so lonely? No girl with you?"

"What? Madam, please, I'm waiting for someone."

"Oh, it is a young girl? I could wait with you, make you some company."

"I'm with someone." He mumbled loud enough for her to hear, who looked shocked. "So please, leave me. Or else..."

"Oh! Hey babe!" Dick came rushing with a bag with some sweets inside. He quickly hooked his arms with Jason's, slowly pulling him back. "I'm sorry madam but we need to get going now. Enjoy your evening!"

When they were away, the oldest was laughing quite loudly. The youngest only looked down, still embarrassed about what had just happened back there.

"Sooo, babe?" Dick muttered turning to softly kiss his left cheek, making him blush. No answer came so Dick kept talking. "Are you okay? If you want me to stop...I-I will do it..."

"It's okay." He murmured, half turning to face him. "Thank you...You know, back there...With the women...Arg...You know what I mean..."

"Yeah..." He side-hugged Jay's waist, pulling him closer. "Want to go home? I could take you. Then..."

"Shut up. Just shut up Dick."

"Wow, that's so nice of you." He replied, resting his head on Jay's shoulder. "So, do you want to date me?"

"You guys disgust me!" Damian focused on his phone again, pulling his headphones down covering his ears resuming whatever he was doing before.

The others just laughed it off before turning to see the couple again.

"Yup." Dick stood up before looking at Jason, who just shrugged his shoulders once more. "We are out then. See you around later?" Everybody else agreed with nods, so they both went out.

...

"Are you happy about embarrassing me?" Jason moaned pulling himself away from his partner. The afternoon light bathed them, with just few minutes to the night. Neither talked until the night came.

"I'm sorry..." Dick apologised felling a bit weird. "I just couldn't tell them the real thing...Hum...You know...That day..." He sighed.

Jason looked away.

"Come on Jay. You know neither of us wants to remember that especific day." The oldest stood in the edge of the building, overlooking the city. "Forget it, okay? It's better that way..."

"Yeah...Let's get going Golden boy." They both laughed.

#jaydickweek #jaydick #jaydickweek2017 #jason todd #richard grayson #batfam #batfamily #my writing sucks

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285: How to Have a Miracle Morning and Organize Your Day With Hal Elrod

New Post has been published on http://healingawerness.com/news/285-how-to-have-a-miracle-morning-and-organize-your-day-with-hal-elrod/

285: How to Have a Miracle Morning and Organize Your Day With Hal Elrod

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

This episode is sponsored by Fabletics, my current source for all my gym wear. In the last six months, I’ve discovered several new types of workouts that I’m loving. From group classes focused on flexibility, to high intensity work, to underwater weight and breath training, I’ve been loving trying new things and Fabletics has activewear for all of it. And I wear one of their pieces pretty much every day. Their mission is to make affordable high quality workout wear available to all of us, and I love being a VIP member, which unlocks special benefits. Here’s how it works… when you go to fabletics.com/wellnessmama and take a 60-second quiz, it matches you with a showroom of styles designed for your body and workout type. Before I forget, Fabletics is offering my listeners an incredible deal you don’t want to miss: Get 2 leggings for only $24 ($99 value) when you sign up for a VIP. Just go to fabletics.com/wellnessmama to take advantage of this deal now. Also, free shipping on orders over $49. International shipping is available and there is absolutely no commitment when you purchase your first order! Here’s a tip: make sure you enter your email address when you take the quiz to get notified about new styles and special. I’ve found out about some amazing sales through that link. I also personally recommend the power hold leggings which are awesome for everything from lifting weights to yoga.

This podcast is sponsored by Organifi, my source for super high quality superfood powders that are often part of my meals, especially when I travel. Green juice, their most popular drink, lets you incorporate farm fresh, gently dehydrated ingredients into your diet and lock in the extra vitamins and antioxidants. I just add to water and drink! It’s my go-to for veggies in the morning and is packed with chlorella for detox, spirulina and turmeric for detox as well as pain and inflammation, mint for improved digestion, matcha green tea for energy, and ashwagandha for cortisol and stress balance. Organifi also has a red juice with antioxidant-rich superfoods like cordyceps, reishi, and rhodiola plus an abundance of red berries. It’s sweet and fruity but low in sugar. It’s designed to fight aging, improve energy and metabolism, and sharpen cognition so I often drink it midday. And lastly, their the Organifi Gold drink is awesome at night and is filled with turmeric for skin health, ginger for achy muscles, turkey tail for immunity, and coconut milk for healthy saturated fat. Check all of these out at organifi.com/wellnessmama and use the code WELLNESS20 for 20% off.

Katie: Hello and welcome to the Wellness Mama podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com and this episode is all about maximizing your morning routine. I am here with Hal Elrod who is on a mission to elevate the consciousness of humanity one reader at a time. He’s the author of the international best seller “The Miracle Morning” as well as his newest book “The Miracle Equation” and he’s doing just that.

After overcoming multiple near-death experiences that we talk about in this episode, and impacting millions of lives, he has dedicated his own life to showing others how to overcome their challenges so that they can fulfill their unlimited potential. This is a super fun episode, it has some really practical tangible things that you can implement in your own morning. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed recording it.

Hal, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being here.

Hal: Katie, it is a pleasure really, thank you so much for having me.

Katie: Well, I’m so excited to chat with you because I am a huge believer in the power of a story. And I know from a little bit of research about you and from reading your books that you have actually quite an amazing story that has multiple chapters. So, to start with, for those people who are not familiar with you, can you just give us an overview of who you are and your story and how you got to this place that you are now.

Hal: Yeah, I’ll do the high level because I’m a keynote speaker I’m very long-winded, and if I start to get into the story which we can dive into each one. But, you know, all of a sudden, I’ll realize I haven’t even taken a breath yet and I’m like 12 minutes into my story. But, so, high level. When I was…I grew up very average or mediocre if you will, meaning, you know, I was a C student. I wasn’t an athlete. I wasn’t popular. I didn’t really have, other than all the gifts that, we’re each born with unique gifts, I didn’t really wasn’t born with any really amazing standout talents. And then when I was 15 I fell into a job DJing. I DJ’d school dances, and weddings, and anniversaries, and then I got hired at the radio station. And that became my dream was to be a radio DJ.

And then fast forward at 19, a buddy of mine almost tricked me into going to work with him and he was in sales, and he sold Cutco cutlery. And I had no interest in being in sales. I was at another radio station at that point after my first year of college. And I met the manager, Jesse Levine and ended up, Jesse really sold me on the idea that, you know, setting my own schedule and having no ceiling on my income, and it was kind of, and all the experience I could gain. I decided to give it a shot, and I started selling Cutco cutlery, and in my first 10 days I broke the all-time company record. Which meant I’d sold more kitchen knives in the first 10 days of anyone that had worked before me in 50 years. And it was kind of a crazy thing for me because I went from being this average kid to like, “Whoa, I didn’t know I had this in me,” you know. And that for all of us, we have so much more within us, so much more potential than we have yet to tap into.

A year and a half later I was giving a speech at a Cutco Conference and driving home after the speech in a brand new Ford Mustang. I just bought my first new car. I was hit head-on by a drunk driver at 80 miles an hour. And my car spun off of the drunk driver and the worst was actually yet to come, you’d think what’s worse than a head-on with a drunk driver at 80 miles an hour, but, the car behind me, I spun in front of them and they crashed into my driver’s side door at 70 miles an hour and crushed my car door into the left side of my body. And instantly I broke 11 bones. I broke my femur in half, I broke my pelvis in three places, I broke my arm, my humerus behind my bicep in half, shattered my elbow, broke all the bones around my eye, my eye socket was shattered, severed my ear and begin losing a lot of blood. And that night I bled to death. I was dead for six minutes on the side of the freeway. After they pulled me out of the car, the car was kind of keeping me alive. And I bled to death, I was clinically dead for six minutes, rushed to the hospital, in a coma for six days, I flatlined twice more in the coma. And when I came out of the coma, I was told by doctors that I would never walk again, and I had permanent brain damage.

And, you know, at any age, that’s tough to take, but at 20 I had a lot of goals that involved, you know, walking again, and the use of my brain. And I decided that I would not accept the doctor’s diagnosis as the ultimate fate, that I was going to believe I could walk again and have faith that I could walk again until I was proven otherwise. And I’d accepted that I would, and I’d go, “Well, maybe I’ll never walk again.” And if I never walk again, I told my dad, “I’ll be the happiest person that you’ve ever seen in a wheelchair dad, because I will not let a wheelchair define my quality of life. I will not let it define my emotional well-being.” And the power of the mind-body connection, three weeks after the crash, two weeks after I came out of the coma, the doctors came in with routine X rays and they said, “We don’t know how to explain this, Hal, but your body is healing so quickly that we’re actually gonna let you take your first step today in therapy.” And even me being, you know, faithful, and hopeful, and optimistic, I was thinking maybe I could walk in like a year, not in three weeks, you know, or two weeks after I woke up, and I took my first step and the rest is kind of history as they say.

And then I’ll kind of wrap up the big picture story with just two other pieces. In 2007 when the U.S. economy crashed, that was kind of what I would call my second rock bottom, the car accident being my first. During my second rock bottom, when the economy crashed, I kind of crashed with it. I was an entrepreneur and my business failed. I couldn’t pay the mortgage, I lost my house, I physically started declining in terms of my body fat percentage tripled in about six months. I wasn’t exercising, I was depressed, I was scared, I didn’t know how to turn it around.

And I created this morning ritual. This was like my desperate attempt to turn things around. I created a morning ritual. I wanted to create the ultimate morning ritual. And the idea was that, I was studying the world’s most successful people, just googling and looking for what are their rituals and routines? I need to start changing things in my life if I want my life to change. And I kept coming across morning rituals that I’m like, “No, I’m not a morning person, like what else do they do?” And long story short there or long story longer, I decided to create, I go, “I’m gonna create not just the morning ritual, I’m gonna create the ultimate morning ritual. I’m gonna take like the best personal development practices in the history of humanity, and I’m gonna combine all of them.”

And the next morning I woke up and over the course of an hour, I meditated for 10 minutes, I did 10 minutes of affirmations, 10 minutes of visualization, 10 minutes of exercise, 10 minutes of reading, and 10 minutes of journaling. And that morning, I went from being depressed and scared to going “Wow, I feel inspired. I feel motivated, I feel energized, I feel optimistic. If I start every day like this, it’s only a matter of time.” But I thought it’d probably be, again, like six months to a year of this slow, gradual compound effect. But within two months of doing this morning ritual, didn’t have a name, it was just personal development in the morning that I did at 5 am. And within two months, I more than doubled my income, I went from being in the worst shape of my life physically to deciding to train for a 52-mile ultramarathon, I’d never run before. And I completed the marathon, you know, six months later.

And I went to my wife and I said, “Sweetie,” I go, “We just officially have surpassed the highest, two months ago we were in debt and couldn’t pay the bills. We just surpassed the highest monthly income we’ve ever had,” which at that time was $12,000 a month. And I said, “It feels like a frickin miracle that, you know, this little morning ritual it’s like how it’s changing my life.” And she goes, “It’s your miracle morning.” And I go, “Yeah, miracle morning,” and, you know, it wasn’t a book I just wrote it down. And, you know, now “The Miracle Morning” is a book and it’s sold 1.7 million copies, it’s translated in 37 languages, it’s practiced every day by, you know, over a million people.

And then the last part of the story is. Two years ago, I woke up unable to, I couldn’t breathe, I had trouble breathing, and turned out I took 11 days of me having my lungs, 16 pounds of fluid drained from my lungs every day and a half I’d go to the ER and have a giant needle stuck in my back through my rib cage. And it took them about two weeks to figure out what was wrong, but I was diagnosed with a very rare aggressive form of cancer, acute lymphoblastic leukemia and I was given a 30% chance of surviving. You know, I’ve two small kids, they were seven, my daughter was seven at the time, my son was four. And, you know, for any anyone but especially a parent, you know, the idea of leaving your family without a father was terrifying.

And I made the same decision that I made when I was told I would never walk again. And I thought, “I will maintain unwavering faith that I will beat this cancer and live a long, healthy life with my children until I’m proven otherwise.” And I’m very grateful to say that after the most difficult year of my life where I was in the ER fighting for my life many times and almost dead and lost 25% of my body weight, at six feet tall I was 127 pounds. But I’m about a year of being cancer-free and in remission and now on a mission to elevate the consciousness of humanity one person at a time. And that brings us to today.

Katie: That’s incredible. And I’m so curious, because I feel like when presented with a really tough scenario in life, and you’ve definitely had a couple of those, people can go a couple of different ways. And I often see people fall into that like “Why me” mentality and I’m curious, why do you think it is that you didn’t ask why me, or take those answers that you were given from the doctors at face value? What do you think in you made you able to resist that and to choose an alternate path?

Hal: Yeah, and I think I know pretty close to exactly why. And I can’t take all the credit for it, it was really a mentor of mine. When I was in my Cutco training on day two I think, my manager and mentor, Jesse, taught us what he called the five-minute rule. And he said, “Look, sales is a microcosm for life, when you go out there, you’re gonna have goals and you’re gonna have dreams and ambitions. You’re gonna be working towards things, and you’re going to run into obstacles, and challenges, and adversity. You’re gonna, you know, be working towards a goal and, you know, be on track and then you’re gonna have your biggest order for the week, they’re gonna call and cancel.” And he said, “This is just, it’s just reality. There are a lot of things that happen that are out of your control, and you can only control the things that you can control.”

And he said, so the five-minute rule is that, whenever something happens that is unpleasant, or painful, or scary, or difficult, he taught us to literally set our timer on our phone for five minutes. And we got five minutes to complain, cry, vent, punch a wall, like whatever, you know, just like urgh, feel the pain, feel the emotion. And he said, “When the timer goes off, you take a deep breath, and you say three very powerful words ‘Can’t change it.” And you remind yourself that, “I can’t go back in time and change it. So there’s no value in continuing to feel upset about it. The only intelligent choice that I have really to make is to accept it fully and be at peace with it, and then be proactive to move toward where I wanna go in my life or in my work.” You know, get on the phone, make more calls, whatever it is in that setting.

And so I had, you know, when I first learned the, and by the way, this is one of those important lessons I teach now even when I speak. I mean, it’s crazy to think 20 years later I’m teaching this to thousands and thousands of people and, you know, in live audiences and online but it’s still this five-minute rule where, when I first learned that, like most people, they’re like, you know, I thought, “Can I get like a five-day rule, I need to be pissed off for like five days, like, five minutes is not enough.” And sure enough, the first few times I did this little five minute rule, I’d set the timer and the timer would go off and I’d go, “I’m still mad, like, I’m still upset,” right?

But here’s the interesting thing that happened. When we elevate our consciousness, when we become consciously aware of a different way of thinking or living, a better way of thinking or living and we start, you know, we be aware of it, and then we stay present to it, and we live in alignment with it, it changes everything for us. And what happened is, after a few days, maybe a week of doing this, where, you know, at first I thought, there’s no way I can get over it in five minutes. I would set the timer for five minutes and I’d go, “Son of a gun, I can’t believe that lady canceled the appointment, I’ve been working on this for weeks, and gosh, darn it, urgh, oh, man.” And then I pick up my phone and look at the timer and I’d have, you know, four minutes and 32 more seconds, and I’d go, “I’m over it.” And I’d go, “Why sit here and stew on something I can’t change for another four and a half minutes when I could probably make three more calls and schedule another appointment to make up for that one?” And so the five-minute rule became a kind of a five-second rule, where I just needed five seconds to go, “Son of a….,”, you know, and just get upset and feel it for a second. But then I just moved on.

And so I applied that in every area of life, not just my career, not just sales. So when I would be in traffic, I remember when I literally can picture myself on the freeway in Sacramento, when I had this first time I realized this applied to traffic. And this is for anybody, you don’t have to get cancer or be in a horrific car accident to apply the five-minute rule and apply this idea of accepting the things you can’t change. But, when I was in traffic one day I went, I was frustrated, I was running late, and I was just going through my head, just all the thing “Oh, I’m gonna lose this appointment, or I’m gonna lose this…” and all this stuff. Things that were all out of my control and I went, “Wait a minute, I can’t change the pace of the cars in front of me, I can’t change that I’m running late, and I can’t change the way the person reacts when I get there, that’s not up to me. But I can choose how I spend every moment in this car.” And to me, this is a metaphor for life. We can choose how we spend every moment of our lives regardless of what’s going on around us. It doesn’t matter what’s going on around us, it’s what’s going on inside of us that determines our emotional well-being and our quality of life. And so traffic became a sense of joy for me. I went, “Hey, when I’m in traffic, I’m just gonna be grateful, I’m gonna be grateful for everything I’d be grateful for.” It’s a time to slow down and think, you know.

And then the day I was diagnosed with cancer, because I had 20 years of practice or 17 years at that time of practicing this five-minute rule. The day I was diagnosed with cancer, I called my wife because she was out of town when I found out, and I was told I had a 30% chance of surviving. And I called her and I said, “Sweetheart, what I’m going to tell you is probably going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever told you. But I wanna preface it by saying I believe this is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. It’ll probably be the most difficult thing that’s ever happened to me and for our family, but I believe it’s the best thing because this is going to give me the greatest opportunity to learn, and to grow, and to become better than I’ve ever been before as a husband, as a father, as a leader, as a human being, and I also believe it’s gonna allow me to impact more people than I have ever even imagined.” And, you know, I will be honest, she did not take that same stance of it being the best thing that ever happened that day. In fact, I don’t know if she’s still quite there yet.

But, yeah, but I mean, it really stemmed from that simple realization that there’s no value in feeling sorry for yourself or dwelling on something after the fact, after it’s already happened. And sadly, I mean, a lot of people are suffering over their childhood. They’re still suffering over things because when they, you know, abuse or something that happened when we were kids, and we think it’s the abuse that’s causing us pain to this day, but it’s not abuse, it’s that we haven’t made the decision to just accept it and be at peace with it. So, yeah, so that for me was the biggest difference.

Katie: That’s amazing. And you mentioned your parents as well. As a mom of six, I just thought about how amazing and tangible that is to use with our kids, you know, when they’re upset, or they’re facing something, give them those five minutes. And I’ve had, like a neuroscientist and movement specialist on here before that said, you know, kids are great because they actually do express their emotions with their body and they shake it out, and they yell, and they do all that. But give them a time limit on it, and be like, “You know what? get it all out.”

Hal: Yeah. And then that empowers them like, “Hey, I’m setting the timer, do whatever you want,” right? Like, give them a punching bag, you know what I mean? Make it fun, you know. And then, you know, they could literally be upset and then kind of laughing and, you know, and it’ll help them get through it faster. That’s a great connection of parenting. Yeah.

Katie: Yeah, I love that. And you’ve also mentioned the word miracle a couple of times, and I’m truly impressed by your ability to keep a really positive mindset in the face of some pretty drastic life, you know, challenges. But I’m curious how you would define the word miracle, because I feel like that word can maybe have different meanings to a lot of different people.

Hal: Yeah, I’m glad you asked that because you’re right. It’s a really loaded word. And I think that for a lot of people, it has a bad rap. And it has a bad rap for a few different reasons, right? I think the biggest one is, miracles are thought of as random passive acts or events. And if you’re religious, maybe you believe that, you know, God creates miracles, right? So you really, you know, all you can do is pray and then, but again, passively sit back and wait, right? Or hope.

I personally am a big believer in personal responsibility, right? You know, with my car accident, I took ownership. “I’m going to walk again.” With cancer, “I’m going to beat cancer.” With “The Miracle Morning,” “I’m going to change millions of lives.” Like, I’m not gonna hope that Oprah finds me. I’m not gonna hope that, you know, this miracle drops in my lap. I believe in the power of personal responsibility. And I really believe that, you know, along those lines, that, to the degree that we take responsibility for everything in our lives determines the degree of power that we have, personal power to change or affect things in our lives.

And so the way that I define miracle is really more of a practical, actionable, and even measurable way. And so I define miracle as any meaningful outcome that is beyond the realm of what you currently believe is probable for you. I’ll break that down. Any meaningful outcome, right? So, you know, for me it was beating cancer, doesn’t get much more, when your life’s on the line, there’s no more outcome more meaningful than living, right? Than actually making it through. When I had the car accident it was walking again. When I was, you know, with my career, right? It was, I wanted to reach millions of people with this Miracle Morning message, and I didn’t know how to do that. I didn’t have an audience, I didn’t have a platform, I didn’t have anything, you know, and by the way, I will tell you, my goal was to do it in one year, and I was 99.9% short of my goal the first year. I was 99.7% short of my goal still up to the second year, and it took me six years, but I just kept at it, I kept at it, I kept at it.

So, any meaningful outcome beyond the realm of what you currently believe is probable for you. And that word probable is important, I didn’t say possible. And the reason is this. If you’re an optimist, which I would consider myself, an optimist to the point of delusion. Like I’m very optimistic, right? It’s worked out for me, but I always say there’s a fine line between optimism and delusion, and I do cross it, you know, quite often. But, I’d err on that side I think and be okay with that. But, we don’t pursue that which is possible, right? So if you’re an optimist, you believe anything is possible, but we don’t pursue that which is possible, we pursue that which is probable, right? Katie, think about it, like, you know, when is the last time that you or that anybody, you know, was like, “I have this goal, this dream, and I think that the odds of me achieving it are slim to none, so I’m gonna give it everything I have.” Right? Like, we don’t work that way.

And that’s why most people, sadly, that’s what my new book “The Miracle Equation” is all about. Is it’s like, how do you move your biggest goals from possible, to probable, to inevitable. Because, for most people, we have these big goals and these dreams and these things we’d love to achieve but because we don’t believe they’re probable we never even try. What’s probable is, “Hey, I know that if I show up to work, I’ll get a paycheck, and I can at least buy food and pay my rent, or my mortgage, and my car payment.” And that, at least there’s certainty, at least that’s probable. So I’m gonna keep doing that because I don’t know that all these goals and dreams and the life that I really want, I don’t know that it’s very probable.

In fact, what we do is we check what I call our rearview mirror in our subconscious mind, and we look for evidence of what’s probable, and if we’ve never done something before, right? If you wanna start a business, or write a book, or, you know, lose weight, or whatever the goal or dream, whatever your goals or dreams are. If we check the rearview and we go, “Gosh, there’s nothing in my past that shows, that gives me evidence that I could do these things, I’ve never done them.” But if you look at the world’s most fulfilled people, successful people, happy people that have made the biggest impact in the world and even just in their own lives, they all had to step out on faith. And I’m talking about faith in themselves, that they could do something that when they checked their rearview, there was no evidence they could do it. They had never done it before.

But you have to do that, you have to step out on faith. And that’s the first step. Stepping out on faith is the first step to move your biggest goals and dreams from possible, which is existing in a void of nothingness. Everything is possible, and nothing is…right? Like possibility, it doesn’t matter what’s possible, you have to move your big goals from possible to probable, and the first step in doing that is stepping out on the faith. And I believe doing it in writing, right? Putting it in writing, so that you have, it’s tangible, it’s physical, you can hold it in your hands or at least, you know, look at it on your iPhone. But just step out on faith that you can do something that you’ve never done before.

And that first step, just the step of considering it, right? And putting it on paper is considering it not just as a thought in your head that’s fleeting, but actually where it’s a little more tangible. And then once you consider it, start to read that every day and marinate it, and then support it with, what if that were to happen? Why would that be meaningful to me? How could that change my life? How could that change my family’s life, right? And write those things down, put them in front of you, look at them every day and then, I think was Mark Victor Hansen. I love when he said this, and I remember this, I saw him give a speech, gosh, 10 years ago. And he said, “Look, people never make changes…” and I’m paraphrasing of course, but he said, “People never make changes because they think they have to go from where they are now to where they wanna be and they’ve got to like make one leap there, you know, or make a complete 180.” And he said, “That’s challenging, that’s mentally challenging to even think about that.” He said, “Don’t try to make a leap.” He said, “Just lean into the changes that you wanna make.”

And that’s what I’m talking about here, right? As you write it on paper, well, what might my dream look like? What might that tangible, measurable miracle look like? What would that look like? And then support it with some, you know, some bullet points underneath. What would life be like if I were to do that? And then ask yourself how, how might I do that?

And the first step is often a Google search, right? People are coming, they’re like, “I wanna write a book, but don’t even know where to start.” I go, “Have you googled how the words, “how to write a book?”” And they go, “No,” I go, “That’s pretty low hanging fruit. I would start there,” right? And all of a sudden, you’re gonna have 10,000 articles that will tell you exactly how to do what you now think you have no idea how to do, you’re five seconds away from learning how to do it, right?

So, the point is, and this is a long answer to your question, but, a miracle is any meaningful outcome outside the realm of what you believe is probable for you. And the first step in achieving said miracle is to step out on faith, put it in writing of what that miracle would be for you, what that big goal or dream would be for you. And then just start leaning, leaning into it.

And if you’ve waited years, you know, if you’ve spent your entire life not pursuing your biggest goals and dreams, well, what’s another, you know, just start and just, you don’t need to rush. Just take the next month to just journal about it, just journal for a month, right? What would it look like? What would that make your life like? How might you do that, right? And just lean into it, and then you can start to actually formulate a plan.

And then, by the way, the second decision of “The Miracle Equation” is extraordinary effort. And that’s where, that doesn’t mean that you need to work 80 hours a week, right? That just means doing one thing every day. That just means leaning every day. Extraordinary effort is not about working long, hard hours, it can be, but that’s not what it has to be, it’s about consistent effort. If you do one thing every day that moves you closer to your goal or dream, your success is inevitable, the only variable is timing. And most people, they just never get out the gate. Because they check that rearview mirror and they go, “Yeah, nothing in my past says that I can create this extraordinary future.” But, you can. And then one day, you’ll look in your past, you go, “Wow, I can create anything I want for my life.”

Katie: I love that. I think two important things that I’ve noticed in my own life that you just mentioned, is that consistency variable. Certainly, my husband and I often say doing the right things long enough, consistently, and it takes all of that. But I also love that you brought up taking ownership and extreme ownership, because that’s another thing I really have tried to instill in my kids and in my own life. Because I think it’s one of the most freeing things we can do. Like you said, we have no control over the things that happen to us in a lot of cases. Certainly not how other people may talk to us, or act toward us. But we always do have control of our own reaction and our own actions in our life. And so I think when you make that mental switch it’s a whole new world of freedom. And I love that you talk about that so much.

Also, I feel like, especially with “The Miracle Morning” there’s a lot of people in the world who know a lot of the good things that we should be doing. And we know that we should, you know, eat healthier, and exercise more, and get enough sleep, and all of these things, and meditate, and journal. And it’s the actual tangible shift, like making that actual habit is often the most difficult part. So I’m curious if you have any tools for people to make those changes stick, or to really truly commit them into a habit.

Hal: Yeah, a couple of things. Number one is, when I was writing “The Miracle Morning,” that was my biggest insecurity as I was writing is I go, “How am I gonna get people to actually do it?” Right? Because I’m like, because I go, “Everything I’m saying makes sense.” They’re gonna be like, “Yeah, this is good I should do this.” But, you know, I was going, most people have a limiting belief that says, I am not a morning person. That’s the majority of society when surveyed, it’s like 72% I think say, “I’m not a morning person,” it might be higher than that. And I thought, “How am I gonna enter into a conversation that they’ve had in their head for the last, you know, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 years, their entire lifetime that says, “No, no, I’m officially not a morning person, like been there, done that, tried it, like doesn’t work for me, like, I’m a night owl,” you know. And so that was my biggest insecurity.

So I will just say this. The fact that now well over a million people around the world do “The Miracle Morning” on, you know, an average of like five to six days a week, is evidence that you can do it too, right? I don’t just mean do it being “The Miracle Morning,” but do it being the things that you need to do, and I’m gonna will unpack, you know, to answer your question, kind of how to do that. And there’s a few things, the first and foremost, right? And we talked kind of a lot of what I just talked about with the leaning into it, right? Just start small, put it on paper, right? And “The Miracle Morning” it’s a really great tool to start, and I’m not saying this because I wrote it and I’ll make $1 if you buy it. I’m saying this because I’ve seen this transform so many people’s lives, right? Millions of lives, is that how you start your day sets the tone, the direction, and the context for the rest of the day. In other words, a way I like to put that, and actually this is from Steve Pavlina who I was…I read his book when I was writing “The Miracle Morning.” He said, “If you win the morning, you win the day,” right?

So, most people start their day with a lack of self-discipline and procrastination is how they start it. So meaning, if you hit the snooze button, that is, by default, procrastination, you are procrastinating on starting your day. And, you know, I say in the book, I say it kind of jokingly but seriously, I say, you think about how crazy it is to, you know, we all wanna have this amazing, happy, successful, extraordinary life. But when the alarm goes off in the morning, that is life’s first gift to you, it’s life’s first opportunity and it’s also life’s first challenge. And most people, the alarm goes off and it’s like we’re saying to the universe or to our own being, our own selves, saying, “Yeah, I know I say I want an extraordinary life, but not as much as I wanna lay here unconscious for nine more minutes,” right? And then we hit the snooze button and then it goes off again and you’re like, “Yeah, I wanna be happier and healthier and more successful, but I’d rather lay here for nine more minutes.” And we’re literally giving a message to our subconscious that says, “I don’t have the discipline to get my butt out of bed in the morning, let alone create the extraordinary life that I really want.”

However, if you can change that one habit, and that’s what “The Miracle Morning” I think worked, it’s doing this for so many people and it really is a miracle is, if you can learn how to, and that’s, you know, the book teaches you like, how do you beat the snooze button if you’re not a morning person. And I can give you guys, in fact, let me right now, I don’t wanna keep you like in mystery and make you buy the book, like here’s how. There’s a whole chapter on this in the book, it’s called “The Five Step Snooze-Proof Wake Up Strategy.” And I’ll just give you the most important step.

The most important step is, move your alarm clock across the room. Actually, there’s two, number one is set your intentions before bed. So, before bed, you need to say, “I’m waking up tomorrow at this time, even if I feel tired.” And actually have a…you can actually download, if you go to tmmbook.com, as in “The Miracle Morning” TMM tmmbook.com you can download the “Bedtime Affirmation.” And this is what I used in my own life and then I put it, you know, as a bonus for the book. But it’s word-for-word how to set your intentions the night before so that when you wake up in the morning…when the alarm goes off in the morning, you like jump out of bed and you’re excited. And if you think about any time, Katie, that you were excited to wake up in the morning. Like did you celebrate Christmas growing up for example?

Katie: Yeah, absolutely.

Hal: Okay, so I always when…I’m cautious when I say that because if someone didn’t celebrate Christmas, I don’t wanna, you know, what’s the word I’m looking for? You know, like make you feel left out. So think about like the first day of school, or a vacation, just think of any time in your life when you went to bed like a schoolgirl, right? Or a schoolboy, just excited like, “I can’t wait for the morning,” you know, and for me it was Christmas, you know, as a kid. And, Katie, let me ask you, but was it hard for you to wake up Christmas morning?

Katie: Definitely not. It was hard to stay asleep on Christmas morning.

Hal: Exactly. So I’m guessing you did not snooze on Christmas morning, correct?

Katie: Definitely not.

Hal: So here’s what that shows. That shows that we all have the ability to wake up and jump out of bed. But what was the difference? You had the intention before bed to wake up the next morning with excitement and enthusiasm because there was something you were looking forward to. And when I was not writing “The Miracle Morning” before it was a book, when I was doing “The Miracle Morning” in my own life, I realized I have the ability to wake up excited. I know I do because if there’s ever something I’m excited to wake up for I wake up. But most of us wake up and we’re like, “Oooh” or we go to bed and our intention is the opposite of excitement it’s, “Urgh, I gotta wake up tomorrow at 6 AM and go to work again, and I don’t wanna do that.”

And I went, “I have the ability to wake up excited every day.” But I have to take response-ability to access that ability by creating my own intention before I go to bed of what the morning is going to be like. So, in my mind, in my body, in my emotions, before I go to bed, I set my intention for what I’m going to feel and do when I wake up in the morning. And most people are very unintentional about the morning. They leave the morning up to those first few moments when the alarm goes off, it’s usually on our bedside table, and our level of self-discipline is close to a zero, maybe it’s a one or a two, right? You just reach over you hit the snooze button, you reach over you hit the snooze button.

So the first step is setting your intention before bed. And if you want a map on how…a word-for-word approach on how to do that, go to tmmbook.com you can get the free, you know, thing, the bedtime affirmation. But the second logistical step is you have to move your alarm clock as far across the room as possible. If you can reach it on your bedside table, even if I set my intention, I’ll still usually fail because I turn it off, I hit the snooze button while I’m still half asleep, right? And so, for me, the alarm clock is across the room, it’s actually in my bathroom, which is within hearing distance, you have to able to hear it, but that forces me out of bed, across the room.

So if you do that alone, that starts your day with intention, it starts it with purpose, it starts it with discipline. And now, and then you go do your Miracle Morning. And now you’re, the point of “The Miracle Morning” is really to put yourself in a peak physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual state every day, so that you are at your best. You are, and essentially think of it this way, every day, “The Miracle Morning” ensures that you become a better version of the person you were when you went to bed the night before. And when you start your day like that, it’s hard to not have a great day, like you are on fire and you win the morning and then you’re the best version of yourself to win the day.

So, you know, that, to me is like the linchpin strategy, it’s the one thing you do that affects everything else. And I’ll cut myself off and then, you know, I could talk for an hour on strategies of getting yourself to do the things that you know you need to do that you don’t feel like you have the discipline to do. I mean, we can go a little deeper on that. But first, Katie, any thoughts, questions, or comments on that?

Katie: No, I love that. And I would love to go deeper on that because I think you explain it really well, and what I’ve read of your work. And I think that is the biggest struggle for so many people, because I see people and I’ve done it myself, get in that cycle of like, “You know, I’m gonna start training for a new thing.” And I’m like all about it for three weeks, and then it kind of dies down, or that you eat really clean for three weeks and then it dies down. So how do we maintain that? Like, how do we, even if it’s that thing that so exciting to us, how do we maintain that enthusiasm over the long time?

Hal: So, I’ll tell you an external and an internal strategy. The external strategy I’ll start with which is, accountability. I believe that accountability is arguably one of the, if not the single most determinant factors in taking ourselves to the next level. And if you think about it, you look at the world’s most successful anybody, right? Meaning athletes, CEOs, they all have a high degree of accountability. And it’s a huge factor in their success. You know, show me an athlete, especially as they were younger, you know, growing up, right? Maybe they hit a level of maturity where they don’t need as much accountability of course. But, you know, I don’t think you’ll find an athlete that doesn’t credit their coach. If they didn’t have practice scheduled every day at 3 pm with a coach that would kick their butt off the team if they weren’t there on time, they probably wouldn’t have practiced, they would have been at home playing video games, right?

You know, you look at a CEO, you know, 40 or 50-year-old CEO, if they didn’t have to answer, look at all the accountability in their world. They have stockholders they have to answer to, they have an executive assistant, they have an executive board, they have employees, they have just a general company. And if it wasn’t for all those sources of accountability, they’d probably be screwing off a lot more. But, you know, as they’re screwing off, and they’re watching a YouTube video, and then they go, “Oh, shoot, I’ve got that meeting at 2.” Well, that meeting is a source of accountability that gets them off the YouTube video, or off of, you know, Words With Friends on their phone, and gets them to do the thing they need to do. And if it wasn’t for the source of accountability, they probably wouldn’t do it.

Now, what we have to realize is, why we resist and resent accountability. And once you understand the source of resistance, then you go, “Oh, okay, it is time for us all to grow up,” and I include myself in this, and actually embrace accountability. So you think about this. I believe the reason most human beings resist, resent, and avoid accountability at all costs, is because it was forced upon us as children when our brains were developing. You think about, you know, my parents made sure I ate my vegetables. I didn’t wanna eat my vegetables. If it wasn’t for the accountability from mom and dad, I would not have eaten those vegetables, right? I didn’t wanna take a bath. But they made me take a bath. They held me accountable to take a bath. Most days I didn’t wanna go to school, right? Unless you’re one of those weird kids that loves, my daughter loves school, but I was like, “I don’t wanna go to school,” right? But they got me out of bed, they had to fight me out of bed and I went to school. My teachers held me accountable to turn homework in, and study, and take tests, and so on and so forth.

If it wasn’t for the accountability that was forced upon us by the adults in our lives as kids, I think that most of us would be malnutritioned, uneducated, dirty little kids, right? But what happened was, we didn’t ask for any of that accountability. And whenever nobody was looking, we avoided it, because it was forced on us. And then the problem is, we turn 18 and maybe, you know, you leave the nest, you go off to college, and I don’t know about you, but I ate junk, I was like, “Screw vegetables.” I lived jack-in-the-box. Looking back, I don’t even know how I didn’t have a heart attack at like 20, you know, but I ate jack-in-the-bo…I’m like, “Screw I’m eating whatever I want.” I’m staying up till 2, 3, 4, 5 am playing video games I’m…Like, it was a downward spiral of mediocrity for me.

And if it wasn’t for me finding a mentor at age 19 when I started selling Cutco, and him getting my stuff together, you know, and holding me accountable. And that’s it, I had accountability gifted back into my life. And because of that, I became the person that I am today. I developed discipline, and consistency, and self-belief, and the various attributes of an achiever.

And why did I develop those? Because of accountability, in all fact, I’ll tell you how much accountability I had. The first 10 days when I broke that company record, I didn’t break that company record. I mean, I did, but it was because of my mentor. I had to call him every morning when I woke up at a specific time, I had to call him at 7 am. So I was awake and ready to be on the phone by 7 am. Then I had to call him after every single appointment that I did during those 10 days and let him know how I went. And that was so he can manage my mindset and expectations because I was new to sales and I had a lot of no sales, a lot of disappointment. He would remind me it was okay and keep going and this and that. I had to call him after every single appointment, I had to call at the end of every day.

So, his philosophy was, he wanted to wake me up every morning and he wanted to put me to bed so he could manage my expectations, and that level of accountability. So I did 62 appointments, so I talked to him probably 90 times, at least 90 times, you can imagine making 90 phone calls to someone. And because of that accountability, I broke the all-time company record. Now, I earned it, I was 19 I earned $3,800 during those 10 days, which was a fortune for me, you know, for most people it’s a lot of money, it was an insane amount of money. And who I am, I literally can look back, those 10 days shaped who I am today. And accountability was the number one key to that. And so I would…in fact, we’ll just I mean, we can leave it at that, that’s it.

And in “The Miracle Morning” I talk about that in the book, how important accountability is. I encourage everyone to find an accountability partner. And, if you are wondering, “Well, I’m interested in this, but most of my friends or co, like they’re not into this kind of stuff,” you know, maybe they are maybe they aren’t. The Miracle Morning Community is a Facebook group that I would invite everyone to join. It’s free, we’re not selling anything there. Right now there are 200 and last time I checked 219,000 people from over 100 countries in there. And arguably, you go in there, just scan through the posts, and you will be inspired. It is one of if not the most loving, non-judgmental, supportive, growth-oriented communities on or offline that I have ever seen. Case studies are being done right now about this community.

And you can go in there and let people know what time zone you’re in, and, you know, and that you want an accountability partner. And typically you’ll find one, you know, within an hour, and someone that’s on this journey with you. And when you go in there you find there are people that have been doing “The Miracle Morning” for, you know, over 1,000 days, and there are people that will just like you, it’ll be day one for them. But yeah, it’s great, it’s called The Miracle Morning Community. You can also go to miraclemorning.com and just scroll down, there’s a big picture that says “Join the community.” And, you know, it’ll take you over there. So, either way, you can find it.

Katie: Awesome. I’ll make sure that’s linked in the show notes as well, at wellnessmama.fm. When it comes to a morning routine, do you think that there are specific, like a framework that is pretty much good for everyone? Or are there like different variables that are gonna work better or worse for different people? And if so, how do you identify which things need to be in your own Miracle Morning?

Hal: Yeah, it’s a great question. So, in the book, Chapter 9 out of 10 I think, it’s like one of the last, Chapter 9 is “Customizing The Miracle Morning to fit your lifestyle.” And then Chapter 10 is “The Miracle Morning 30-Day Challenge.” And we could actually, that would, you know, that’s something I could touch on is like, how do you change your behavior? You lean into it, and then you commit to a 30-Day Challenge. Meaning you do it every day, you have someone holding you accountable. And at the end of those 30 days, you’ve acclimated to this new habit, and it could be a habit of getting rid of a bad habit like, you know, quitting soda, or smoking. Or it could be a habit like, you know, adding a morning routine when you’ve never been a morning person.

And again, I mean, you think about, if you’re at all having self-doubt around this because maybe you’ve tried and failed in the past to make changes. You know, there are hundreds of thousands of people in that Facebook group that will tell you, “Hey, I didn’t know I could do it. I didn’t think I could do it. And I did it. And I’m now a morning person,” right?

Customizing it. Yeah. So, yeah, so customizing it. So, the way that I encourage folks, like I’m a very big believer in, A, I don’t know it all. In fact, I know closer to nothing than all, right? I’m a big believer in that I should be a student of life, student of everything. But so I don’t think that I know it all, first of all. Number two, I rarely think there’s a one-size-fit-all for everybody. I don’t think that exists too often.

However, “The Miracle Morning” is made up of six practices, which I mentioned earlier. But let me give you a more memorable framework. This is my brilliant wife, I was writing the book and I go, “Sweetie, I’ve got these six practices. These are like the most timeless personal development practices in the history of humanity. But I need a way to like organize them so people can remember them or they like flow together.” I said, “All these authors are so smart, and, you know, they, Stephen habit has got like “The 7 Habits” oh, sorry, Stephen Covey has got “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and Robert Kiyosaki has got like the “Cashflow Quadrant.” And all these authors are smart enough to create like a framework and I don’t know any way to connect these six practices.” And she goes, “Why don’t you consult a Thesaurus and see if you can arrange some of the wording so it creates an acronym that people can remember.” And I, you know, gave her a big kiss on the lips. I’m like, “You’re so brilliant.” I’m like, “That might work,” right?

And so, meditation became silent, which I actually like because a lot of people like to incorporate prayer into their silence time, right? And journaling became scribing, which, you know, it’s a fancy word for writing, but it created an acronym which could not be more fitting for what the practice is. And the acronym is SAVERS, or I call these the lifesavers, right? But S-A-V-E-R-S, so, the first S is for silence, these are the six practices of “The Miracle Morning” by the way. The first S is for silence, the A is for affirmations, the V is for visualization, the E is for exercise, the R is for reading, and the S is for scribing, right? So those are the SAVERS, and I believe it’s the perfect acronym. Because these literally are the six practices that have proven over centuries, that they can save you, and save me, and save all of us from missing out on the life that we really want, you know, missing out on living to our full potential. So they really are the lifesavers, right? It’s such a fitting acronym.

And what I encourage people to do is, for the 30-Day Challenge, do all six of these, because you don’t fully know the benefits, or if something resonates with you until you actually give it a fighting chance, right? Give it a fair chance. So do all the six of the SAVERS for 30 days.

Now, you can customize the order. And you can even change the order over time. You can experiment and play with these, right? So, give you an example. I start with meditate…I start with silence. Many people, though, and I don’t the percentage, but a lot of people have said, “Hal, gosh, you know, I tried meditating, but then I fall back to sleep.” They go, “I’m not awake enough for it to, you know, like I need to start with exercise.” So they move the E to the front, and they wake up, and they do some stretching, and some yoga, and some jumping jacks, and push-ups, and run, whatever they want, right?

And then in terms of the duration, the SAVERS, the first day I did the savers, I did 10 minutes each, just because it was my first day I thought doing an hour I’ll do 10 minutes each, right? And then that works. I’ve evolved where I usually do 30 minutes of reading, and then I do five minutes of the other SAVERS roughly five to six minutes, I guess is what it would be. But, so I like to read longer. And so I just I meditate for six minutes. I do the other ones for shorter periods of time.

Exercise, I do an app, there’s an app called 7 Minute Workout. And it’s a great app. It’s a full-body workout in seven minutes. In the book, in that chapter, there’s something called the 6-Minute Miracle Morning. And this came about because most of us have an all-or-nothing mentality, which is like, “Oh, I woke up late, or, today I have to leave early so I’ve only got like 10 minutes or 15 minutes. So I guess I’ll skip my Miracle Morning today.”

And one day I had that internal dialogue and I went, “Wait a minute, what if I were to just do one minute of each of the savers? What if I were to sit down and just close my eyes and just meditate and get calm for one minute. And then I pull up my affirmations and I read them for a minute. And then I close my eyes I visualize, you know, my most important priorities being executed flawlessly today for just a minute. And then I jump up and I do a 60 seconds of jumping jacks get my heart rate flowing, get the blood going right for a minute. And I pull out a self-help book that I’m reading, and I just read a page for a minute, and then I journal what I’m grateful for just a minute.”

And I did that that day, and I went, the benefits. It’s like I got 80% of the benefit with 1/10th of the time. And there aren’t too many things you can do with that, you know, get that kind of return on investment, and I went, “This is incredible.” And that’s why I put it in the book, because I go, “Look, I don’t advocate that you do a six-minute every day, you can’t go that deep. But, it just shows that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.” So, the answer to your question is, I would start your first miracle winning 30-Day Challenge. And by the way, most people their 30-day challenge when I give a speech and, you know, people aren’t necessarily reading the book yet. They don’t have, some of them don’t have the book yet. I always say, look, for your first 30 days, just start your challenge by waking up 30 minutes earlier, don’t even go the full hour, just make it easy. Just lean into it, right? Lean into it, 30 minutes earlier, and just do the R, just read, that’s it. It couldn’t be easier. Wake up 30 minutes earlier and just read “The Miracle Morning.”

And then once you get to the chapter on the SAVERS and you start reading about the S, and I teach you a really simple meditation practice, right? Then you can incorporate S and R. And then when you get to the section on, you know, the next day on affirmations, add A, and just lean into it gradually. And then at the end of the 30 days, you can decide what you wanna do. I don’t visualize every day, for whatever reason, visualization has never resonated with me. But I do use it if I’m going to have a specific thing I’m doing, like if I’m giving a speech, I’ll run through a movie in my mind of visualization. But there’s some people in The Miracle Morning Community I often will survey and go, “Which SAVERS do you like better than others, which resonate?” And it blows my mind that some people like visualization is the number one thing that impacts their life and their day. For me it’s affirmations, and some people they go, “Yeah, I don’t jive, I don’t, I struggle with that,” right?

So I always say, for the first 30 days, do all six of the Savers, play with the order, play with the duration of each, and then at the end of 30 days, create your own Miracle Morning. And then while you’re doing, the beauty of it is, “The Miracle Morning” takes a minute to learn, a lifetime to master. Because, you know, meditation I mean, I’ve read, you know, master meditators say that after 10 years of meditating every day, they started to feel like they were getting pretty good at it. Ten years, right? And then after 20 years, they started to feel like they were starting to kind of master it. And then 30 years, they actually mastered it, and I’m like, so each of the SAVERS, you can just, you can play with, you can adjust, you can keep them fresh, you can try new modalities. New affirmations, new methods of visualization, you can do guided meditations, you can do meditation apps, right? So I mean, these are, it’s really this free-flowing ritual that you get to customize and create and add to.

Katie: I love it and I’ll make sure to recap those in the show notes and of course, put a link to the book so people can really dive in.

Katie: Our time has flown by. You’re such an eloquent speaker. A few questions I love to ask at the end. The first being, are there a few things that you feel like people either don’t know or misunderstand about what you teach?

Hal: Yeah, I think that one is the idea that “The Miracle Morning” is about waking up earlier. Now, granted, I mean, A, you may need to wake up earlier depending on if you wake up now at the last minute. Most people wake up because they have to, right? They literally go, “What’s the last minute that I can wake up and not like lose my job, have my children taken away from me, get divorced, right?” I call it your mediocre morning, you know, where you’re like, it’s the last moment I could wake up and not have my life fall apart.

Now, if you’re waking up in that way, then yeah, you need to back up the alarm 30 minutes. But a lot of people wake up and they just, the first, you know, half-hour of their day, or hour of their day is spent just checking Facebook, and scrolling their phone, and checking e-mail. So, it’s really not about waking up earlier as much as it’s about waking up better. It’s waking up and dedicating the first part of your day to elevating your own consciousness, putting yourself in that peak physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual state so you can become a better version of who you were when you went to bed the night before. That’s the first thing, is it? It’s not about, you know, getting up super early. It’s just getting up a little earlier. And the benefits though are so profound that, trust me, it’s worth going to bed 30 minutes earlier if that’s what it takes, right? Thirty minutes less of Netflix at night to have a radical shift in your life is very worth it.

And then the other thing that I would share is that, personal development is not enough. That is actually, my new book that just came out “The Miracle Equation” that’s kind of why I wrote it, is that, I’ve been in the past I’ve been guilty of being what I would call a personal development junkie. And I think a lot of us fall into this trap where, once we learn personal development, we start reading books, and listening to podcasts, and learning all these new ideas, you know, we get excited and we’re like, “Wow, I’m like,” and we start almost our ego can get fed like, “Wow, I like I know more than other people. Other people aren’t reading. All my friends and family aren’t reading these books, and listening to the show, learning this stuff. And they need to, like I’m smarter than they are,” right? So that’s one thing is ego can get, you know, become a part of it. I think when I was younger that was for sure part of my journey.

But just a big part of it is, we actually trick our brain, our subconscious into thinking that learning and growing in and of itself is enough to improve our lives. And while it improves our lives at a certain level, like, you know, if you learn new ways of looking at life, like the things we talk, like the five-minute rule for example, right? That’s like an internal thing that you learn and if you implement it, you start to see that, “Wow, I can be free from my emotional pain, like I don’t need to feel, I don’t need to dwell on things and feel sorry, I can just let them go after five minutes.”

That does change your life, but for the most part, we have to actually change our behavior to change our life. And what the problem is, when you think that just learning is enough to change your life. You know, reading books on finances doesn’t increase your income. Reading books on finances doesn’t increase your savings, right? Reading books on finance or on being healthier doesn’t make you healthier, right? You actually have to change your behavior.

And so while “The Miracle Morning” is arguably one of the most effective practices for personal development, you have to compliment it, you have to follow it up with a process for goal achievement. And that’s what “The Miracle Equation” is, is it’s, okay, you’re learning in the morning, you’re doing your Miracle Morning, you’re growing, you’re evolving, you’re elevating your own consciousness, you’re becoming a better version of yourself. Great. But you can do that and still stay in the comfy confines of your comfort zone, right? Like stay in your house and keep going to work and not doing anything differently. You’ve got to have, “Okay, I need a process. I need a method for getting out of my comfort zone and actually getting clear on defining, clarifying, planning my biggest goals and dreams. And creating a process that will make my success in achieving those goals and dreams inevitable.”

And that is, so that’s, to me, the biggest mistake people make is thinking that the personal development is enough, it’s only half the equation so to speak. And I wrote, “The Miracle Equation” is that is the, “Okay, now, here’s the process for goal achievement that will support your practice that you have for personal development. So you can actually take this growth that you’re experiencing and turn it into a tangible, upgraded reality that creates measurable results in your life.”

Katie: Hmm, such a good point. Secondly, is there a book or a number of books that have drastically changed your life? And if so, what they are and why?

Hal: Yeah, the book that changed my life, probably more than anything is called “Conversations with God.” And it is, you know, I always, the word God is also like miracle, it’s a loaded word. And some people are religious, and some people are spiritual, and some people are atheist. And so, you know, you get a lot of different reactions. I read that book when I was 20 years old, and, by the way, to be very transparent, you know, I grew up Catholic. I then started studying a lot of the world’s religions and just I’m happy to help people, you know, where I kind of my stance on this is. To me, I seek truth and wisdom in all religion in all spiritual practices, even in atheism. Like, to me I try to look at all of it and not think that there’s one right way and that everybody else is wrong, that my way is the right way. And I try to go, “Hey, everyone has their…” You know, I’m looking for truth always and to me like I said I lean toward I know nothing, or I know very little compared to what I can learn. So I’m just trying to learn and grow.

So “Conversation with God” it’s definitely not a religious book. I would say it’s a spiritual book for sure. But, yeah, I read that when I was 20. And, you know, in the author Neale Donald Walsch, just, you know, “Conversation with God” book four which it’s like technically I think he’s written over a dozen books. I’m actually reading book four right now, which is probably why that book is on my mind, you know, that whole series. But yeah, that’s a book that really opened my eyes and I’d encourage you to, you know, to read it with an open mind and consider it. And, yeah, that’s a book that for me was very, very, very impactful in how I live my life and how I view my life, and my purpose in life, and my place in this world, and how I can make the biggest, most positive impact.

Katie: That’s so good. I was actually on my Kindle right now. And I’m about to start reading and I’ll make sure it’s linked in the show notes.

Hal: That’s awesome. That’s so great. Wait, book one or book four?

Katie: The first one.

Hal: Oh, cool. Cool.

Katie: Yeah, excited. Any parting advice or takeaways you wanna make sure we leave with the audience today?

Hal: Yeah. There’s one that I, you know, for me, this has become a major affirmation, which, you know, I won’t go into, I won’t go down that rabbit hole. But I define affirmations as you’ll see in the book very differently than most people do. They’re not woo woo, it’s like really using affirmations to program your mind and your behaviors for success. And the way that, one of my most important affirmations, and this is the parting wisdom I’ll leave you with, is that, you know, as human beings I think that we all, we have trouble creating space in terms of time between where we are and where we want to be. We look at where other people are and we compare ourselves, or we look at where we think we should be or could be and we’re in this place of often scarcity. “Man, why am I not there right now? I wanna be there now.” And it’s, you know, our brain is not very patient, where it goes, “Okay, there’s where I wanna be, hmm, it might take me five years to get there, right? To get there, I need to find this journey and be at peace with where I am, and do something every day to move me close to where I am.” We just look at where we wanna be and go, “Urgh, I’m not there, why am I not there? Why is it taking so long? Why am I not?” You know? And we have these feelings of scarcity and inadequacy.

And so here’s the lesson. And I think that, you know, it probably took me hindsight to learn this and I share this, because I tell people don’t wait for hindsight, don’t suffer for years the way that most people do to get to this place. And here’s the lesson, is that, when we finally get to the place in our lives, when you finally get the place in your life or your business, any area of your life that you’ve been working so hard for, for so long. You’ve been wanting it for so long. You almost never look back and wish it would have happened any sooner.

Instead, when you get to the place that you’ve been working for so hard for so long, in any area of your life or just in your life as a whole, you look back and you go, “Oh, the timing and the journey were perfect. And every obstacle and setback along the way was a necessary part of my evolution to become the person that I needed to be to create the life that I’ve always wanted.” And with that hindsight, with that wisdom, to bring that into your life right now, the lesson is, the applicable lesson is, be at peace with where you are right now on your journey, even if it’s difficult or painful, while you maintain unwavering faith and put forth extraordinary effort to get to where you want to go. And know that when you finally get there, the timing will be perfect.

Katie: That’s a perfect place to put a pin in it for today. But, Hal, thank you so much for being here. I know that you are busy and it’s an honor to chat with you today.

Hal: You’re so welcome, Katie. Thank you for having me on. It’s an honor and you’re a special human being because I felt like that was, everything I talked about was like through me, like you brought out the best in me, the divine. So, yeah, you have some special Mojo, so, thank you.

Katie: Oh, thank you so much. And thanks to all of you for listening and sharing one of your most valuable assets, your time, with both of us today. We’re so grateful that you did. And I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of “The Wellness Mama” podcast.

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/podcast/hal-elrod/

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