Hal Elrod On Identifying His Big Idea: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. Brought to you by the HubSpot. Podcast Network, the ideal destination for business professionals with great shows like Marketing Made Simple. Today, we're pulling a classic EO Fire episode from the archives, and we'll be breaking down how Hal Elrod identified his big idea. To drop these value bombs, I've obviously brought Hal Elrod into EO Fire Studios, and we will be going over the most significant ideas are born from your personal experience, how you can convert any adversity that you have gone through into something meaningful and know that you are just as worthy, deserving, and capable of creating and experiencing everything you want for your life as any other person and so much more.

0:45And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Hal and our sponsors. The Gold Digger Podcast, hosted by my good friend, Jenna Kuchar, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. The Gold Digger Podcast helps you discover your dream career with productivity tips, social strategies, business hacks, inspirational stories, and so much more. A must listen episode is one of Jenna's recents on everything you need to know about affiliate marketing. Listen to Gold Digger wherever you get your podcasts. Belay is passionate about helping your business succeed with their simple, flexible staffing solutions.

1:21Download Belay's Bulletproof budget template for free, which is the exact budget template they use to grow from a small startup to one of Inc. 5000's fastest growing companies for nine straight years today. Just text FIRE, that's F-I-R-E, to 55123. Hal Elrod, my brother from another mother, my man. If I can only get you down to Puerto Rico, my life will be complete, but I want to break it down for you, my man, because you went from being a high earner Costco sales rep to opening your own coaching practice to$50 ,000 in credit card debts back in 2007 when the crash happened. Then you heard these words from Jim Rohn that I'm about to read, and it changed everything.

2:06These words were, your level of success will seldom exceed your level of personal development because success is something you attract by the person you become. Hal Elrod talked to us about that aha moment and how that led you to identifying your big idea. Yeah, I love your energy, brother. So yeah, I was at the lowest point in my life in 2007, 2008 when the economy crashed. I lost over half of my clients. That was my only source of income, coaching clients. I was coaching entrepreneurs and business owners. Lost over half of my clients, over half of my income. House was foreclosed on by the bank.

2:42As you mentioned, I accumulated$50 ,000 plus in personal credit card debt in six months. And a buddy of mine, John Berghoff, personal friend of both of ours, encouraged me to go for a run and listen to this Jim Rohn audio. And that's the quote that I heard. And I stopped running. I replayed it and I quantified it in my mind. I went, okay, if our level of success will seldom exceed our level of personal development, I need to assess two things. What level of success do I want? And where is my level of personal development in relation to that? And I think if we are all honest with ourselves on a scale of one to 10, if we're measuring our success that we desire in every area of our life, everybody wants level 10, right?

3:22Nobody's like, I don't want too much money. I want to be like a level seven. You know, I don't, I don't want to be too happy. I'll take like a six, right? No, there's one thing that human beings share is this innate desire and drive to create everything we possibly can that life has to offer. And so we all want level 10 success. And then I went, okay, what's my level of personal development? And the way that I interpreted that was like my knowledge, my confidence, my mindset, my habits, my discipline, the beliefs I have, all of these, like who am I as a person? And on a scale of one to 10, I was like a three or a four, you know?

3:55And I believe that's the disconnect for like 90 % of our society is we all want level 10 success, but are we becoming a level 10 person each day? And that was the epiphany. I went, I've got to go home and I've got to figure out what would be the ultimate personal development ritual that would accelerate my ability to become a level 10 person so that I would be capable of creating and sustaining the level 10 success that I want in my life. And I went home and I just started Googling like no fancy research is, Hey, what do successful people do for personal growth and development? What do millionaires do?

4:28What are the best practices on and on? And I came up with a list of six practices and I went, well, which one of these is the best? And there was no clear answer. No matter which article I read, one person said it was meditation. One said it was visualization. One said it was their journaling practice. And the real epiphany is I went, what if I did all of these? What if I woke up tomorrow morning and I did the six most timeless proven personal development practices in the history of humanity in one ritual? And you think about it, I think, you know, they call this habit stacking, I guess, right?

5:00In today's, you know, today's fancy lingo. But I think that for most of us, it would be overwhelming to think, okay, hey, I really should start meditating, but gosh, that's a big undertaking. I don't know how to meditate. Man, I should start exercising more, but gosh, when am I going to find the time? Journaling. I hear from Jim Rohn and these people, journaling is such a great practice for clarity. Affirmations. I should start doing affirmations that are effective. I should start reading more. I really need to read more. It's overwhelming, all these things that we got to do. I went, what if I just did 10 minutes of each?

5:36one hour in the morning. And I woke up the next morning, even though I wasn't a morning person, and I sucked at most of these. Like, I didn't know how to meditate. Affirmations felt really goofy to me, like pumping myself up. I never knew how to visualize before. You know, yes, I know how to read. Yes, I know how to exercise. But for the most part, it was a mediocre morning. Like, I didn't, you know, I wasn't good at this stuff. It was really out of my comfort zone and out of my skill set. But even one hour of poorly done practices, these six practices, I felt incredible and inspired. And I realized if I do this every day, it's only a matter of time before I become the person, that level 10 person that I need to be to create what I want for my life.

6:21And I was thinking it would be six to 12 months, the compound effect kind of gradual. and it happened faster than I ever imagined. It was less than two months that I more than doubled my income. I started training for a 52 mile ultra marathon and my depression was gone in a couple of days because I was so hopeful and optimistic. And I went to my wife and I said, sweetheart, I just signed on two more clients today. We officially are earning more than double the income we were six months or two months ago. And this is the most money we've ever earned. I go, this is amazing. It feels like a miracle.

6:52It's this little morning routine I'm doing. It's changed everything. And she goes, it's your miracle morning. And I go, yeah, I like the way that sounds miracle morning. So I wrote it down. Here's the point. Cause I know we're going to get into like, you know, how do you find your big idea? This wasn't a plan for a book. It wasn't a plan for a movement. This is where most people's big ideas are born. And it's from our own personal experience? What's the tragedy, the trauma? What do we overcome? How do we overcome it? And how can we turn that into something we can share with other people? So that for me was how the miracle morning was born.

7:31And when I started sharing with people, I just paid attention. You've got to pay attention to what I call microcosm evidence, which is where you go, wait a minute, I have shared this thing with three other people and it changed their three lives. If this could work for them and work for me, it could work for anyone. And that's where I thought, I've got to write a book. And three years later, published The Miracle Morning and never imagined it would become what it has and reach millions of people. But the rest is kind of history, as they say. But it was all born from me at my lowest point, figuring out how do I overcome this challenge and then making a commitment that I would help as many people as I could to do the same.

8:08You had your epiphany, which I love. I love how he talked about that microcosm of evidence that was fantastic. Talk to us though about the significance of finding your big idea. Because this book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, it's all about revealing the 17-step roadmap. And brother, you are step number one. You are the person that I thought of when I said, who in this world best exemplifies coming up with a big idea and crushing it? You've sold millions and millions of copies of your book. It's been translated, the last time we talked, in 37 languages. Maybe it's more by now. It's fantastic.

8:47So much has been born from this. Conferences, movies, the Miracle Morning movie recently came out, which, by the way, I was honored to be featured in. You might be in. I'm in it. I'm in it. It's a good feature. I love it. And it's just fantastic what you've been able to do with just this one big idea, which it was a big idea. But what's the significance? Talk to us about the significance of having a big idea and how Fire Nation can really learn from what you've done. I think what's interesting is you often don't recognize the significance early on, right? Until you have thousands of people telling you, wow, this is amazing.

9:25Then you go, oh, I guess it is. When I wrote The Miracle Morning, here's the thing. I think the significance has to be very personal. Meaning, for me, the reason I wrote The Miracle Morning book wasn't to sell a lot of books. I didn't have an audience. I didn't have a podcast. I wasn't nobody knew who I was. I wasn't a blogger. I had nothing. Right. I was a I was a coach. I coached a few people, you know, a dozen people. So I didn't have an audience. For me, the significance was this changed my life. And therefore, I feel I choose to decide that I have a responsibility to share this with other people.

10:06That to me is where the significance comes from. It's not about quantity as much as it is about quality. It's about this thing made a difference for me. Therefore, it was so significant in my life that I am going to take it upon myself as a member of this human family that we're all a part of to do everything in my power to pay it forward and help as many people as I can to experience the same impact, the same significant transformation in their own life. and I, you know, in some ways I would say, I would feel that would be selfish to have something that changed our life and go, eh, I'm just going to keep it to myself.

10:51And I think that it's, it's, for me, it's a paradigm shift of going, you know, we're not all separate. We're all one. And I really do view us as a family. We're all a human family. I mean, it doesn't matter where you live or what your nationality is or what your race is or what, you know, perceived differences you think that we all have, we all feel sad sometimes and scared. We all want to be happy. We want to be healthy. We want security and safety and freedom. As human beings, we have, you know, we have 99 % of all things in common and maybe 1 % differences. And yet I think too often we hinge on our differences.

11:26And for me, I love every person on the planet because I love my family. And so I don't have to know you to know that you're a human being. You just want essentially what I want. And if I can help you to get it, then I feel like just like I would my own family that I live with, my wife, my kids. Right. And of course, I'm going to do a little more for them than I probably would for you to be totally fair, you know. But at the end of the day, that to me is where the significance comes from is it's a personally what has been so significant in your life that you really would be doing a disservice to humanity if you didn't actively get over your fears and insecurities to share it and help as many people as you can.

12:09Fire Nation, if you're not drinking in Hal's energy, his love, just the commitment he has to humankind, then you got to check your pulse right here because there's some really great stuff going on. And Hal's going to be giving us specific advice to finding and identifying your big idea when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Artificial intelligence has been a hot topic this year. Even if you're not using it, you've likely heard about the many benefits it can provide, like helping you save time, brainstorm ideas, and tackle your to-do list. But how do you put this into practice? If you find yourself spending hours each day on content creation, then I've got a tool that will help you do just that.

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15:19This is the exact budget template that Belay used to grow from a small startup to one of Inc. 5000's fastest growing companies for nine straight years. Text FIRE, that's F-I-R-E, to 55123 to download the Bulletproof Budget Template and streamline your business with Belay today. So, Hal, we're back and man, I want you to take a second, give some specific advice for fire nation out there who's searching for their big idea where should they start what should they do what should they look for anything you want to share in this area take it away yeah i think in fact i just wrote something down i'm going to see if i have this note uh around trauma we've all had trauma and trauma could be that you were abused as a child or bullied as a kid trauma could be that you you know you went broke trauma could be you went through a divorce.

16:08Trauma could be that you were overweight, right? Trauma is just, it's really another word for adversity. So any experience or adversity that you've gone through, anyone who's gone through trauma in their life can turn that into something meaningful, right? So don't bottle up those painful feelings and memories. Use them to make a difference in your life and in other people's lives. And this is something that I actually, I read this in a book I'm reading right now called Time, Money, Freedom by Ray Higdon. He said, you can help others because you know what they have been through and the empathy and understanding you can bring is something those who have not gone through what you have could ever provide.

16:48So that to me is where your big idea is, is you look at what trauma, what challenges have you experienced and overcome in your life and know that there are countless other people that are going through those same challenges, those same traumas, and they don't know what you know. You might only know a little bit more than they do, but it's more than they do. And it's what they need to know that can help them. Now, on the other side, you might go, yeah, I've had an easy life. Like I haven't had a lot of trauma. I've kind of just been, you know, life's gone really well for me and I've been successful.

17:23Awesome. Well, you've also have, you have knowledge and you have experience from your successes that again, other people want to go where you've gone. So if I go back before the miracle morning, um, so my career was, I was in direct sales for, you said I was a Costco salesman, but it was Cutco. I'm at Cutco. I mean, what Costco, what am I talking about? Yeah, I sold Costco franchise, but I would have made a lot more money selling Costco's. Hell yeah. But, uh, but I sold Cutco, right. I was in direct sales. And when I hit, I hit hall of fame with Cutco when I was about 20, 26 years old, I think 25, 26.

18:02And I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I wanted to move beyond Cutco. I had hit hall of fame. So I'm kind of like, all right, I did my thing here. You know, like I've, I've extracted all the value and the lessons and like, I want to go, I want to do something else. And, uh, my dreams would be a speaker and an author. I want to be an author and a speaker, but I didn't feel like that was the fastest way to replace my income. You know, writing a book, usually it's not going to make a lot of money, right? You know, being a speaker when you've never spoken before, it's not, you don't just go from zero to, you know,$10 ,000 keynotes, right?

18:33So I asked myself, what's the lowest hanging fruit? And so this is the opposite of the trauma piece, right? You either have gone through something that you can help other people get through, or you've achieved something that others want to achieve. So when I asked myself, what would be the fastest way to replace my income in sales? What am I qualified to do? It was kind of slim pickings because I'm like, all I've done is I went from college to Cutco, you know, like I haven't done much else. And so I went, well, wait a minute. I've sold a lot of Cutco. I've had a lot of success. There are, what, 50 ,000 sales reps in Cutco, I believe, at the time each year, right?

19:1450 ,000 sales reps that would love to learn what I know from my experience to accelerate their path of success. So I had this wild idea. I go, what if I started just coaching Cutco reps? And I reached out to people in my circle of influence. I said, Hey, you know, any Cutco reps, you or somebody, you know, that might want coaching. And, and I just, I said, Hey, I'm going to do it for$200 a month for the first six months as kind of my test subjects. And I said, and then if you stick with me. It'll go to 500 a month. And within two months, I replaced my income at Cutco. And so that's just an example of going, you know, if you don't have that trauma, if you don't feel like you've overcome challenges, which I don't know once like John, like you said, check your pulse.

19:58I don't know. I don't know what human being hasn't had to overcome some challenges, but you can really draw your big idea from either the things you've overcome or experience that you've gotten through that others want help with, or you can look at what you've done, what you've succeeded, and then you can go down that road and go, others would want to accomplish this, right? You know, our buddy Pat Flynn's a great example of what was his first business was teaching people how to pass the architecture exam. Am I butchering that? Yeah, the lead exam, which was architecture. Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right?

20:35Like, what a random thing, right? What a random. Who would ever thought? But that created financial freedom for him that allowed him to do everything else that he wanted. You know, his big idea came from, what did I do? Well, that other people want to do that. I'm a step ahead. And that, right, it's just, I mean, that tiny little, you're just a little bit further ahead and people will pay you to teach them how to get where you are. And by the way, 50 years ago, this philosophy doesn't work nearly as well because, you know, let's be honest, you only had access to people like in your town, in your region, and it It might not have been enough people, but we live in a completely different world where Hal could reach 50 ,000, you know, Cutco individuals who needed his coaching.

21:15You know, I can reach people in 145 countries around the world with this podcast. So whatever trauma you have, whatever big idea you have, whatever thing you have, guess what? There are other people that need to hear your voice, your message, your mission to share it. And it doesn't need to be 500 million people. It can literally be five people that you're coaching at a decent rate, 12 people that Hal is able to replace his Cutco income with. You can really make it work, Fire Nation, because you have the world as your potential client base. Now, one thing that I did for this, Hal, is I went through your contribution in the book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, chapter one, step one, and I pulled my favorite quotes from your amazing contribution to the book.

22:05So let me read that quote to you. Your big idea may already be part of your life and you don't even know it yet. It could be one habit or activity you've successfully applied to your life with your own personal spin. I didn't create these principles. They are all timeless and have been practiced for centuries. I simply combined these practices into a system that worked for me. When I realized that this system also worked for others, I knew I had to share it with the world. So Hal, bring this home for us, brother. What do you want to leave Fire Nation with in addition to those amazing words? I want to give one tip and then we'll leave it inspiring.

22:43I want to give one thing to consider. Whether you pull from a challenge or trauma you've overcome or a success you've achieved, whether your big idea, wherever it's drawn from, test it. Right? Test it. So meaning reach out to your circle of influence, share what your idea is, share the solution, the problem you're helping people solve, engage the interest. And then start, you know, whether it's a survey or you just text a bunch of friends or colleagues, get feedback. Because that for me, I think, is where the idea I went from. Oh, it's not just me that this works for. This works for these 12 other people.

23:22Then I started sharing it on. Oh, it also. Wow. I shared it with 50 people and 40 of them were like, I'm going to do this. This is this is great. So you've got to test the idea before you go all in and, you know, don't write the book, you know, spend a year or two or three writing a book until you've gotten feedback in the real world and you've given people an opportunity. Social media is a great opportunity. Go on social media. Post it. Right. Do put your idea out there and get that microcosm evidence that I talked about earlier. And to bring this home, just know that you are just as worthy, deserving, and capable of creating and experiencing everything you want for your life as any other person.

24:06So when you read John's book, when you see other people who are succeeding at a level that might be so far or even a little bit outside the realm of what you know is possible for you based on your experience, maybe you look at them and you go, man, I've never done that. I don't quite have what they have. I don't have their experience or their youth or their wisdom or whatever. Human nature is we tend to create separation between us and those we admire, those we aspire to be like. and I just want to remind you that we're all part of the human family. Nobody was born successful. We were all born as babies that knew nothing, that couldn't walk and everyone that you aspire to be like or that you admire or that you want to follow in their footsteps, look at their success, breathe it in and go, that's what's possible for me if not things even greater and take your first step.

25:04Mike, drop, value bombs, Fire Nation. You can see why Hal Elrod is the first step in the common path to uncommon success. You can see his inspiration, his motivation. You can see why I brought him on to talk about identifying your big idea. And if you're listening to this before March 23rd, you have an amazing opportunity. Pre-orders for this book are available right now. and we have five amazing pre-order bonuses that disappear the day the book goes live. In fact, these bonuses will be pulling as the days get closer to launch. So if you want all five, you need to take action now. Head over to UncommonSuccessBook.com.

25:46One of the five bonuses, I'm shipping all three of my journals, the Freedom, Mastery, and Podcast Journal to your door,$150 worth of journal value for a$17 Kindle pre-order or a$28 hardcover. This is a no-brainer because I'm making it a no-brainer, Fire Nation. This book has so many amazing messages like Hal's and Pat Flynn, Amy Porterfield, Jeff Walker, Russell Brunson. The list goes on. I mean, I'm not gonna say her name, everybody, but every single person that contributes to this book is amazing. Every single chapter is a value bomb. Visit UncommonSuccessBook.com. Get your pre-order. Get one for a friend.