40 Year Old Book Predicted Our Downfall (feat. Hal Elrod)

This week, Granger sits down with Hal Elrod for a conversation about faith, struggle, and the choices we make when life takes an unexpected turn. Hal shares parts of his journey, including the times he’s had to face setbacks that could have left him bitter or broken, and how he found a way forward through gratitude and trust.

Together, Granger and Hal talk about what it really means to give your life to God, not just in words but in the daily decisions that shape who we are. They dig into the tension between holding on to control and letting go, and how that surrender can bring a peace the world can’t offer.

The conversation isn’t heavy the whole way through. There are lighter moments, laughter, and the kind of warmth that comes when two people connect over both faith and real life. It’s a reminder that we all face challenges, but we also have the choice to lean into hope and to keep our eyes fixed on what matters most.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So there's so many fearies with technology these days, with AI,
where it's going, how it's affecting us, is it making
us dumber? And we think we all have to think
about it at some level, and me included, we're going
to unpack this today. We got a guy named hal
Elrod a friend of mine. He wrote this really good
book called The Miracle Morning, which is going to give
us some practical steps to be able to understand the

(00:22):
world that we're living in. But what I want to
talk about is also a book that came out a
long time ago that I believe predicted all of this.
And it's not George Orwell's nineteen eighty four It in fact,
it came out after that, in nineteen eighty five, and
it predicted you could say, TikTok in itself, or at
least the world that we live on, the TikTok world

(00:44):
that we live in. So, Hank Tight, it's going to
be a really good discussion.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Here's the podcasting.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
It's funny because you came in here and you were like,
how long will you banter before you introduce me? And
I'm just kidding. We're just gonna start with hal El
rid Is here. Yeah, and yeah, it's crazy to say this,
but this is actually the first time we have met
in person.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
I know, I know. It's where were You've known someone
in a capacity for years and you're like, wait, I've
actually given you a hug until today. It was the
first hug.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yeah, and I certainly feel like I think I would say,
I feel like I know you more than you know
me because I was introduced to you in twenty seventeen
with The Miracle Morning, the book that I'm holding right here,
this yellow book that has been on every bookshelf I've
had in the last seven years or so. It had

(01:43):
such an impact on me in my life and my brothers.
It came from my youngest brother, Parker. He found The
Miracle Morning, first introduced it to Tyler and I.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
We read it and I still have my Miracle Morning
every single morning.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Is The contents of it have certainly evolved, but that's
not the point. The point is there is a structured
morning routine that I never skip.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
There are times when I will do this in a
a airport terminal. Yeah, you know, I don't like those
Miracle Mornings. There have been times when I've done it
in some very strange places around the world, in a tent,
you know, in Cuba. I've done it all kinds of places,
but most consistently right here in my house.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
And well, when I room with friends, like if we've
in the past, is I guess it is going back
when I was younger and I used to room with friends.
But I've been in the Miracle Morning for thirteen years,
and and i'd room with I remember my friend Brad specifically,
and we'd room together at a conference that go you know,
you know, some sort of entrepreneurial event, and I never
miss a Miracle Morning. So without when not wanting to

(02:53):
wake him up, I would get up and I would
go into the bathroom of the hotel, right in the
room we're sharing, and I'd do my Miracle Morning on
the floor or sitting on the toilet with the seat up,
you know, like or down or whatever. Right, But so yeah,
it's like it just it's such an integral part of
my day and it's been, you know, for seventeen years.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
That is a strange connection that you and I have
that I too have sat on many hotels amber or
so you know, is asleep and I don't want to
wake her. There's no, I don't really want to go
down to the lobby. Yeah, you know and like deal
with you know, yeah, you know everything. So I just
do it right there on the bathroom.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
You might be one of the first people that I've
talked to that we share that in common.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
That's certainly I'll put a little towel out there.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (03:36):
So if we jumped on the elevator on the ground
floor together and we're both going to ten, can you
say in those ten floors, just what the miracle more
morning is?

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yeah, Miracle Morning.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
It's a morning ritual made of six practices that are
organized by the acronym savers S A V e r
S that stands for silence. That's your prayer, meditation, affirmations, visualization, exercise,
reading and describing, and any one of those practices done
daily will change your mindset, change your emotional well being,
changed your life. When you do all six of the

(04:07):
world's most timeless personal development practices daily, right, you experience
results that are so transformative that I think you'd agree
grade right that it creates miracles. You're like, I can't
even believe how this has transformed my life and how quickly,
so I think we're all on four to eight.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
So I think, here you go, Yeah, what what the
Lord has done for me through the miracle morning to
be able to to utilize really, what's to me? This
is the only quiet time of the entire day.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
And I just thought of as you're saying that, I thought,
you know, something else you gave me was Day one.
It's in the book, right, the day one app? Right, yeah, right,
the journaling app. Yeah, this is where it came from.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yeah, that's funny.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
I'm on year seven of day wow.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
And there are so many new journally apps that have
come out in the last seven years. Yeah, and I'm
just like, I don't want to break my streak. Yeah,
you know, I don't want to get you So, so yeah,
journaling in the Day one app because I'm not good
at keeping physical physical I'm just not good. As it's
probably and we'll get into this, is it's much more
beneficial to have a physical spiral and tin as beneficial

(05:15):
as that is. When I'm on that hotel bathroom floor
or I'm in that airport terminal, I'm like, I don't
have my stuff.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
Yeah you know, Yeah, that's the beau of the right.
Using an app is that especially if it transcends like
onto the I'm at home my computer, I can access
the app and updates automatically. Right, So yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
A physical one because I can't read my writing after.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
That's true too.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
What a favorite place you've ever done? Miracle morning?

Speaker 2 (05:41):
Favorite place I've gotten my? I know mine for sure,
I honestly probably you know. I know when I would
go to Cabo with my family. We had a time
share forty years there and uh, you know, wake up
and it's like the sunrise over the ocean, sitting out
on the balcony, families and they're asleep, and I'm just yes,
I've am vacation, no pressure of not working. You know,

(06:02):
it's like that's the special time.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
I love the beach ones for me. I've sat many
times on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, Okay, and
there's a there's a place where you could sit where
it's it's the It sounds a little morbid that the
you know, the Jews have have all their tombs and
it just but it's beautiful in a way. And you
could see the sun comes up behind you and as

(06:28):
it as it comes up, you know you've done this
with me, and it hits the city, the old the
ancient city, at a certain time at about six am.
It just hits it and it glows in this beautiful light.

Speaker 3 (06:39):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
And sitting there and then I've also done American Morning
on the on.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
The old wall side.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
Facing the east, sitting in a little little niche inside
the ancient wall, doing it there.

Speaker 4 (06:55):
So that's incredible, which is a little scarier than it
sounds because if you look down.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
Ah, it's just straight straight down. Oh wow.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
Yeah. Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Do you know Dietrich Bonheffer by chance,
he was a pastor, German pastor during World War Two.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
He was actually killed by.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
The Nazis in a concentration camp because he resisted assimilation,
and on top of that also had a was caught
in an assassination plan against Hitler. But Dietrich Bonheffer started
a small seminary in during Nazi Germany, and his thing

(07:35):
was he told his students do not speak to anyone
until the Lord has spoken to you through his word.
And so their morning routine was reading and meditating and memorizing, inscribing,
and and then eventually sitting under teaching before they were

(07:55):
allowed to speak. Wow, And so there there had the
miracle morning. Idea of capturing harnessing the productivity of a
morning is as old as humans are. Yeah, and the
wise ones have always done this.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
Well, it's interesting what you just said. So A, I
haven't written in the Day One journal in a long time,
and I wrote it this morning, totally interestingly, very interesting. Yeah, yeah,
which is weird. I mean I literally haven't written in
it in months, you know, but this morning I did.
And what came through me is, uh, first thing I
wrote down I am a child of God is like

(08:33):
I call these divine downloads. And right now I'm really
studying my studying the ego, my ego, humanity's ego, trying
to really understand what it plays because I misunderstood the ego.
I always have thought of it as you know, the
need for significance, arrogance. Right, Oh, this guy's got a
big ego. And and as I've learned more and more

(08:55):
about it, is I'm realizing, oh no, this is just
this is your identity. This is it's not just you
have a big ego, it's the ego is our identity.
And here's what came up for me this morning in
Day one just came through me, if you will, It
was ego is thinking, spirit is receiving. I think that's
what I wrote down right, Ego is thinking, so meaning

(09:16):
that thought is a verb, right or think you sorry?
Thinking is a verb. Thought is a noun thinking, right,
I'm thinking, and we're literally using our ego to try
to control things and figure things out. Whereas when you
just quiet your mind to the point of what you
just shared, right, and you just then you receive, you're receiving.
You're not thinking, You're not generating the thoughts at the

(09:38):
verb the action of thinking, You're receiving these this divine
guidance from God. And so yeah, so I literally wrote
that in my Day one journal this morning, that distinction
between you know, ego is is the thinking and the talking.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yeah, that's so fascinating. People ask me a lot. They're like,
how do you I just don't know. You're so faithful
and you're you just trust the Lord. I say, bro,
I wake up half atheist every single day. I wake
up with a hard heart, resistant to the things of
the Lord, and so I have to I can't even pray.

(10:14):
Another guy, George Mueller, strangely enough, another German, but ended
up being a pastor in England. And Mueller felt this
disconnect when he would wake up and start to pray,
and he's like, my prayers were so weak and watered
down and distracted. And he found that's because he wasn't listening.
He was speaking talking to God, but he needed to

(10:36):
open up his word and to be able to absorb
and meditate on the word of God first, so his
heart would start to soften or like an old diesel
engine that slowly warms up after it's been cold, and
then he's able to pray, and then he actually has
coherent ideas. And I have definitely found this with me.
I can't. It is like like claws on a chalkboard

(10:59):
if I wake up and either I talk or someone
another human starts talking to me. I'm sure you've done
this for so long?

Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yeah, sure.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
If you wake up, God forbid you wake up in
a time when someone's like, hell, I need you to
do this, You're just like everyone stop.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
Well, so interesting. I actually I wear earplugs to sleep
and I keep them on now during my miracle morning.
Oh you usually take them off like halfway through. But
it's there's something about the like silence to the tenth
degree where I'm like, I'm completely inward now, so right
eyes closed, can't hear even a peep, and now it's

(11:36):
like pure reception from spirit, from God that I'm not
thinking I'm not hearing. I'm not I'm just totally you
know inside.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
Yeah, I totally get it. So people are probably listening
right now with what does this, any of this have
to do with the topic that this podcast is titled, Well,
actually has everything to do with it. First of all,
how is the perfect guest to kind of walk through
these ideas? And I hope I could kind of peel
back your story as we walk through some of these

(12:07):
practical things that we're all realizing that we're all distracted
at some level. We're more distracted than we were ten
years ago, much more distracted than we were fifteen or
twenty years ago. If you're a if you're younger right
now listening, you've maybe always been distracted and don't know
ever what it's like to concentrate or to listen to

(12:29):
a sustained conversation or argument from someone else. But this
is something that people humans have always been able to
absorb A sustained thought, or listen to a two people
sustaining a thesis, or read a book and not be
distracted every single page. This is new to humanity. And

(12:54):
you came up with a podcast. What's the name of
your podcast.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
The Achieve Your Goals with hal el Rod podcast?

Speaker 1 (12:59):
The Achieved Goals with how l Rod podcast. Recently, maybe
a month ago, top of my head, you came out
with a podcast that was something like how are AI
and technology making us dumber? Something like that. That was
like the title, and I listened to it on my
morning walk and I was like, a lot of things

(13:22):
went through my head, but one of them was I'm
going to text how right now and ask him if
he wants to be on my radio show because these
are good practical things. And then I want to ask
him if he wants to go on the podcast to
talk about this very thing. So before we get into that,
we we're going to tackle this whole idea and we'll
call it the TikTok generation, the TikTok phenomenon. You know,

(13:45):
we're not talking about specifically TikTok. We're talking about thirty
second you know, bits of entertainment coming our way through
whatever medium.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
It might be Swipe entertained me more, Swipe more so.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
But let me start with how you've almost died twice. Yeah,
certainly your story isn't what it is without that perspective
of facing death.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:15):
First one was a car accident. Yeah, can you tell
me who you were the day of the car accident
and who you were in the months that followed.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
I followed, Yeah, I like that question. That's framing. So
the day that I saw I was twenty years old
when the car accident happened, and I was you know,
there's so many ways you get answer the question of
who I was, right, I was like professionally, I'd been
selling Cutco for a year and a half, which is
important because I was giving a speech at a Cutcoat
conference when the car accident happened. But like who I was,

(14:46):
if I'm really being honest, and you know, I was
just I was a really I was a great son.
I was a good like I was.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
I was.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
I was a good kid. I was faithful. I'd gone
to church my entire life, and I was very very positive,
very optimistic, and I had learned something in my Cutco
career a year and half prior that served me in
the car accident, which is called the five minute rule,
and we can unpack that more, but it's basically, when
something goes wrong, you set your timer for five minutes,
give yourself five minutes to feel sorry for yourself, get mad,

(15:14):
like whatever emotions come up, feel them fully, don't suppress them,
don't put on like no, no, I'm supposed to act like
nothing's a big deal, like feel it fully. When the
timer goes off after five minutes, you go, can't change it.
I can't change it. Yeah, So now I can either
continue dwelling on it, being upset, angry, blah blah blah,
or I go, can't change it, accept it and move on.
And I had applied that for a year and a
half in my Cutco career when I'd have like a

(15:36):
no sale or a canceled order, or it was in traffic,
and go, all right, there's no point in staying upset
for the next thirty minutes. Might as well enjoy my life.
And so yeah, so that's who I was leading into
the car accident, and then afterwards about the car accident.
Sagan tell us about the car accident itself. Yeah, so crazy,
I'm driving, So I give a speech at a Cutco

(15:56):
a small Cutco division meeting, like forty of my peers
twenty years old, and I got a standing ovation, which
that was like a real high point in my life.
I was like, oh my gosh, standing ovation. This is
so cool. And a dream of being a professional speaker
had been born during that year and a half of
giving all these speeches at Cutco events. And I was
driving home in my new Ford Mustang. I bought my

(16:17):
first dream car with my Cutco commissions my own money,
like you know, so I'm like, I just got my
own apartment, like like literally, I'm living at nineteen or twenty.
This is the dream. Bought my car, got a great career,
got great friends, like love my life. Everything is great.
And a drunk driver, a man that I had never
met before, got on the freeway going the wrong way
and he was doing roughly. They asked himate eighty miles
an hour in a full sized Chevy truck. I was

(16:38):
in my little Ford Mustang doing about seventy miles an
hour and he hit me head on at full speed.
My car bounced off the drunk driver. It spun sideways
when it hit the drunk driver. Kind of off center,
and I was hit in my door, my driver's side door,
at seventy miles an hour, by the car behind me.
And so if you could imagine like getting hit in
your door the entire left side of my body. I
broke my femur in half, my leg in half, my

(16:59):
pell in three places. My arm was broken in half,
shattered my elbow, severed, all the nerves in my forearm
I sawet was broken. Ear was almost completely severed. Like
it was about as bad as you could get. And
I was clinically dead when they pulled me. It took
him an hour to cut me out of the car
with the jaws of life. And when they did, I
had lost so much blood over that hour, just slowly bleeding,

(17:21):
and the car was keeping me alive right like literally
the pressure of the door was holding me together and
my heart stopped. And so I was clinically dead for
roughly five to six minutes on the side of the freeway,
and they put me onto They revived me, pumped blood
into me, defibrillators, put me on a helicopter, and I
was transferred to the hospital, where I spent six days

(17:42):
in a coma. My poor mom and dad like now
as a dad looking back, going, oh, they had it
worse than I and my like they had to sit
there and I flatlined two more times during the coma,
so like they had you know, i'd dead at the scene,
flat lined again. And so when I came out of
the coma right answer the question how was I? After

(18:02):
I was faced with this unimaginable reality, like, wait, I
what happened to me? Why am I all bandaged up?
My eyes, bandaged up, my ear, my leg?

Speaker 3 (18:09):
I'm you don't remember that time?

Speaker 2 (18:11):
I don't remember anything. And in fact, my memory was
so bad that you could spend like you could come
visit me. Let's say you're my aunt or uncle or friend,
and we spend the morning together. Then you go to
lunch and come back, and I would not remember that
we spent the morning together. So it's really bad. So
my poor parents had to also keep telling me I'd
fall asleep, wake up, go wait where am I? And

(18:32):
they would be like you were in a car at
you know, they'd keep having to like relive telling me
and me facing it and going what happened? Oh my god,
you know, it's like Groundhog's Day. And so within a
matter of days as I'm processing what does this mean?
I'm going to be in a wheelchair the rest of
my life? That's what they're saying is the most likely outcome,
And like all of a sudden, I went, oh, wait
a minute, the five minute rule. Like I can't change

(18:56):
that I was in a car accident. I can't change
that I broke eleven bones. I can't change that I
have permanent brain damage. And if I'm in a wheelchair
the rest of my life, if that is what happens,
I can't change it. And I was like, interesting, So
I start replaying like the last year and a half
of applying this five minute rule, and I'm like, you know, okay, yeah,
this is a way bigger deal. But like the philosophy

(19:19):
is the same, Like what's the point of dwelling on
something and wishing the past were different, wishing that I
wasn't in a car accident when this is my new
reality and I get to choose to let that ruin
my life and blame the car accident, or I can
be the happiest, most grateful human being that anyone's ever
seen in these circumstances. And to wrap up the story,

(19:41):
the Doctor's called my parents in one day, and they said,
how are they? They said, we're concerned with how we
believe that he is either in denial or delusional because
he's always happy. They said, every time we interact with him,
he's smiling and laughing and joking. And that's not normal
for someone, let alone a twenty year old that's been hit,
you know, by a drunk driver told they're never going
to walk again. We believe that he can't face his reality.

(20:02):
It's so painful for him that he just is checking out.
We need you to talk to him. So my dad
comes in and he says, hell, and my dad's like
trying not to cry. I mean, it was really you know,
he's like express the doctor's concerns. And he said, how
I know that when your friends are here, you guys
are laughing and joking and your upbeat and you're positive.
And he said, but like, how are you really feeling

(20:23):
like when the lights go off at night and it's
just you and your thoughts and you're thinking about maybe
never walking again and all of this. And I said, Dad,
I'm not in denial. It's the opposite. I've completely accepted
my reality as it is. I can't change that I
was in a car accident. What's the point in feeling
sorry for myself or wishing I wasn't in a car
accident and causing myself emotional pain? And I said, go

(20:44):
tell the doctors that I have unwavering faith in God
and in my ability to heal that I might walk again.
I'm going to maintain faith that I will walk again
while it's simultaneously accepting that I might not. But if
I don't promise you, Dad, you and Mom have nothing
to worry about. I'll be the happiest, most grateful person
that you've ever seen in a wheelchair, because I'm in

(21:06):
a wheelchair either way. And like when I share this
message on stage, like when I'm speaking, I always say, like,
raise your hand. If you have something in your life
in the past or it's going on right now that
causes you emotional pain, the thought of it, the memory
of it. You wish it didn't happen, it wasn't fair,
and you've spent your whole life the thought of that
just causes you, uh, mental anguish. And every hand goes
up and I go, yeah, what's your wheelchair? What's the

(21:27):
experience that you realize you can actually choose to accept
it doesn't mean it was fair, doesn't mean it was right,
doesn't mean it was easy, doesn't mean it wasn't you know,
a horrible thing that happen to you, but it's not
happening anymore, and you can't go back in time and
change it. So the only intelligent choice that we all
have is to accept our reality exactly as it is
and move forward. And I don't think it's a coincidence

(21:50):
that not being in fear of right, which fear causes
stress in our body. So I wasn't in fear. It
was like, I'm at peace with whatever the outcome is,
walk again, perfect, don't walk again, okay, right, like whatever, whatever,
I'm at peace, and I have unwavering faith that I
will walk again. So I'm visualizing walking every day. I
am praying to God that if it is his will,

(22:11):
I will walk again in the future like and God.
If not, I'm totally at peace. Maybe I'm supposed to
give speeches from a wheelchair and that's part of my
I don't know, right, but I don't think it's a coincidence.
The last thing I'll say is the doctors came in
with routine X rays and they said, we don't know
how to explain this was a week after that conversation
with my dad. They said, we don't explain this how.
But your body's healed so quickly. You're going to take

(22:31):
your first step today in therapy if you're ready. And
I was like, whoa, I wasn't thinking that soon, like
a year maybe, And I took my first step that
day and the rest, you know, it's kind of history.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
It's incredible, man, Thank you that that story is in.
It's in the book. Can you imagine me kind of
going through this? And my life was pretty put together
reading American Morning, having my own American Morning, And then
I lost my son Yea in June of twenty nineteen

(23:03):
and kind of faced the same kind of the same
scenario after that, in the aftermath of well, this is
reality now, yeah, I can't change it. What will I do?

Speaker 3 (23:14):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (23:15):
And it you could think hearing your story and then
here you are, happily ever after. That's amazing. You know,
you know the Lord gave you this wake up call
and that, but that's not what happened. Then another near
death experience happened to you.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
Yeah, yeah, man, And when this one happened. I was like, God,
what am I come on? Like? What am I supposed
to which is a good question. Exactly Well, And that's
a great point, is I always say you should always
ask why me? But not from a victim mentality of
oh poor me, why me? But why me? God? What
am I supposed to do with this?

Speaker 3 (23:51):
Right?

Speaker 2 (23:51):
Different frame, same question? But yeah, So, thirty seven years old,
I woke up struggling to breathe one night and spent
the next eleven days in and out of the hospital
every other day, having about a leader to two leaders
of fluid drained from my lung and they couldn't figure
out why. And I was finally diagnosed with a very rare,
aggressive form of cancer. It's called a cute lymphoblastic leukemia.

(24:14):
And when I was diagnosed, it was like my organs
were shutting down, so my lung was filling with fluid,
my heart was failing, my kidneys were failing, and I
was told that I needed to start chemo immediately, chemotherapy immediately.
I'm at M. D. Anderson Hospital at this point, three
hours away from home, with my wife sitting next to me,
talking to the oncologist and he's telling me what I've got,

(24:36):
and you know, I said, well, let me do a
little bit of research. I'm not going to just start
this chemo regiment right away. I want to see what
I can do naturally. And I reached out to some
of the best holistic oncologists in the country and they said, hell,
there's nothing that anybody naturally like, there's nothing we can
do for you at this stage. You need to start
chemo immediately. And I decided, Okay, if the best holistic

(24:59):
on just in the country, like, I'm not going to
go rogue if they don't think that they can help
me because I'm too far along and there's nothing like
I need some fast acting, you know treatment. I said,
I am going to do everything in my power. I'm
going to take number one, take ownership for my health.
I'm not giving it to the doctor. This is on me.
I am. I'm I'm one hundred percent in charge. The
doctor is a team member, and I'm going to maintain

(25:20):
faith that he will do his best. However, I had
asked him, like, what part does diet play, and mynn
COLLG just goes, does it matter as long as you
do chemo. I'm like, all right, So I can't trust
you other than we just took this conversation.

Speaker 1 (25:31):
Yeah really yeah, well you can't trust a doctor that
says that.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's interesally.

Speaker 3 (25:35):
I had that.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
It's funny on the way here. I had a conversation
my friend who's doctor told them the same thing. Who's
dealing with some sort of kidney the thing. Yeah wow,
But anyway, so yeah, so I'm like, oh, I can't
trust you in terms of and not that I don't
trust your your heart or your intentions. I trust your
education correct what you have been taught through your traditional
treatm right is not. And so I decided, Okay, I
guess I have to do chemo and to be fair

(25:56):
or not to be fair. But like my chemo, this
chemotherapy regimen, it was eight hundred hours of chemo. It
wasn't one hour a week. It was one hundred consecutive
hours over the course of five days, twenty four hours
a day. It was It's one of the most aggressive
chemo therapy regiments, and the survival rate for the cancer
is thirty percent, largely because the survival rate for the

(26:16):
chemo is so it's like either your organ shut down
and you die, or you do eight hundred hours of
chemo and you die. So it's like having to face this.
And I had a four year old son and a
seven year old daughter, so it's like I'm being told
there's this thirty percent chance I'm going to be a
dad in the future, I'm gonna be alive, a seventy
percent chance I'm going to die. And the day that

(26:38):
I was diagnosed, my wife was really naturally scared and
a I apply the five minute rule, I'm like, Okay,
I have cancer. Can't change it, not going to dwell
on it, not going to live in this state of
fear and anguish. And it's like, okay, I have cancer,
how can I I'm going to be as positive and
accepting and peaceful and proactive as I can be at
number one. So that's like the immediate for me, the
five minute rule, Like let's go okay. And then there's

(27:01):
this thing I call the Miracle equation. Have you read that,
by the way, So it became it wasn't a book
similar to The Miracle Morning, it was my own thing.
So when I was in sales, I was trying to
break these all time records and I'm like, how am
I going to do what's never been done before? And
I came up with these two decisions that I now
call the miracle equation, and it worked and most of
the things I achieved were with that formula. The day

(27:22):
that I was diagnosed with cancer, I was like, oh,
the miracle So first five minute rule, I'm like, got it. Okay,
I'm at peace. Let's go. Now how am I going
to beat it?

Speaker 3 (27:29):
Right?

Speaker 2 (27:29):
I like, okay, now I'm at peace with it. But
how am I going to be alive for my kids?
And I was like, oh, the miracle equation. And I
told my wife and soon I started thinking about this.
So like, the miracle equation has worked every time I've
used it, And it's an explanation, very simple. It's two decisions.
I will maintain unwavering faith no matter what the results
are along the way until the last possible moment. So

(27:51):
when you're working towards any outcome, beating cancer, writing a book,
you know, becoming, achieving a dream, whatever, it's like, I
will maintain unwavering faith even though I'm going to be
discouraged along the way. I'm going to fail along the way,
I'm going to fall along the way, and normally people's
faith waivers when they encounter those obstacles. So it's the
decision like, my faith might waiver, but I'm gonna keep

(28:12):
you No, I'm committed. It's unwavering faith no matter what.
The second decision is extraordinary effort, meaning even if I
don't feel like it, I'm going to do the thing
I need to do to generate the outcome that I'm
maintaining unwavering faith towards. So those two decisions over and
over and over, and so I was like, that's it.
I'm going to maintain unwavering faith that I'm going to
beat cancer no matter what. There's no other option, and
I'm going to put forth extraordinary effort, meaning I'm going

(28:34):
to relentlessly research and implement every holistic practice known demand
anything any other human being has done to beat cancer. Naturally,
I'm going to do that in conjunction with the chemo.
And so I told my wife, I said, sweetheart, I
know you're really fixated on this thirty percent survival rate.
That data point is terrifying you, and I get it.

(28:55):
That's scary, I said, but I want you to realize
that's a global statistic forever human being, including those that
live in fear, those that eat terrible diets, those that
have no faith, those that have no self discipline. I'm
none of those things, I said. So here's my statistic
that I believe is true for me. There's a one
hundred percent chance that I will be among the thirty

(29:18):
percent of the people that survived this cancer because I
will do everything that they did and ten times more.
And that was my true belief, and so I operated.
That became my reality, and I wrote affirmations to remind
me of it, because there were times during chemo that
I was I was like on dust doorway, I was
in pain, I was sick, I felt terrible. Fear would

(29:39):
creep in and I would be like, I'd read these
affirmations that were on my bedside. Nope, I am committed
to beating cancer and living to be one hundred years
old alongside Erslaine the kids. No matter what, there is
no other option. That was my affirmation. I read it
over and over and over until it literally my entire
consciousness became that reality.

Speaker 1 (30:03):
If you're trying to get a gift for someone that
you think has everything, how about a special video message
from me. It's easy to do. Go to cameo dot
com slash Granger Smith and you put in the prompt
what you want me to say. I get that message
on my phone. I'll say happy birthday, happy anniversary, whatever
personalized message you want me to say to whoever you
want me to.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
Say it to.

Speaker 1 (30:22):
I send it to you and you give it to them.
It's pretty cool. Go to cameo dot com slash Granger
Smith and so now you enjoy life. You look at
TikTok all day long, roll do you lay on the couch.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
And thirty second snippets. Man, that's the answer.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
All disciplines went out the one amazing. Yeah, just to
enjoy life like you do, and you know, just be entertained.
You watch Netflix like relentlessly. This is who you are.
You know, that's amazing.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
That's what you had me on. Dude. I'm the example
of what not to do.

Speaker 1 (30:59):
Let's go to two near death experiences I did.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
By the way, I am cancer freed. I guess I
should have ended that story with what how how it
turned out?

Speaker 3 (31:08):
So it worked?

Speaker 1 (31:08):
How your story is unbelievable. I've got an affirm as
you were saying talking about affirmations, I've got one when
I sometimes when I'm talking to guys that are just overrun,
they believe in the Lord. They trust the Lord. That
they're overrun with anxiety and fear, fear of the world,
which in itself I'm underlening as i'm talking, which in

(31:31):
itself is a sin because anxiety or fear or depression
is always an overflow of a near not trusting the
Lord totally. God took people out of Egypt and in

(31:53):
going into the Promised Land, and and they sent spies
into the Promised Land to look, and they come back
and they go, ah, it's scary, like there's giants in there.
Then they're really hard people. I don't think if we
went to take this land, I think they would defeat us.
And the Lord said, I told you this was your land.

(32:15):
I took you out of Egypt, a part of the seas.
I took you out, and I told you you're going
to go in here. And now you're saying you're scared.
So because of that, you're going to wander around for
forty years in the desert, and this entire generation will
not get to go. So we miss a blessing. It
doesn't mean that we're not God's people. But it does
mean that sometimes we miss a blessing from the Lord

(32:37):
because we're not trusting. Yeah, and so sometimes I take
people to this and this is a perfect reformation that
you're saying, Isaiah forty three. If you could read this
and trust the one that says it, who in the world.

Speaker 3 (32:52):
Would you fear?

Speaker 2 (32:54):
What would you worry about?

Speaker 1 (32:55):
Cancer? No, a car accident, no, losing a child. No,
you wouldn't, because he says, fear not. I have redeemed you.
I have called you by name your mind. When you
pass through the waters, I will be with you, and
through the rivers they shall not overwhelm you. And when
you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and

(33:16):
the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord,
your God, your savior. Because this whole chapter starts out
thus says the Lord who created you, who formed you.
If if this sovereign God formed you and created you
and has you in the palm of his hand, then

(33:38):
our fear is always just a result of not trusting that.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
Yeah, it's fear of faith, right, it's fear of faith. Yeah,
that's exactly right.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
So in light of that, the fact that you don't
sit around and watch TikTok and get overwhelmed by and
self indulging entertainment on digital devices. Because you actually speak
wildly against this this type thing, not to say that
you don't enjoy some moderation.

Speaker 2 (34:06):
Moderation, moderation.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah, absolutely, So this is an interesting discussion I had
with a friend recently that we were talking, actually talking
about The Chosen, and I don't want to I'm not
making an argument here. Maybe another episode Have the Chosen,
you know, the the TV show The Chosen actually hurts
our theology to some extent because the Word of God

(34:31):
was always meant to be spoken and heard or read.
It was always the word, and the word transforms, and
when we start supplementing with visual it starts to change
the way that we consume it. So we're this, this
is the conversation we're having. And he said, have you
read the book Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman?

(34:52):
And I was like, never heard of it. He said,
check this out. Came on the eighties. I was like, okay,
I get the book. This is only a few days ago,
like not planning on this being part of you coming over.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
Got it?

Speaker 1 (35:03):
So I open it up. Written in nineteen eighty five.
It's a response his thesis automatically first page is a
response to Orwell's nineteen eighty four. You remember this, yeah,
and so he's saying, it's nineteen eighty five. Now this
is what we could this is what we could know
from Orwell's nineteen eighty four.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
Interesting.

Speaker 1 (35:23):
A lot of the fears that he was predicting in
four nineteen eighty four didn't happen. But he argues, there
is a book by Huxley called Brave New World, less popular,
but maybe you've cleared it.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
I have not read it yet, but I think I
own it. Yeah, Okay, if that means something, so here
we go. Okay, go.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
Keep in mind, written before the Internet, before smartphones, social media,
but uncanningly prophetic.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
Here's how he starts out. This is in his forward,
Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally
imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no big brothers required
to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity, and history. As
he saw it, people will come to love their oppression,
to adore their technologies that undo their capacities to think. Wow,

(36:15):
let's stop right there and just consider the podcast you
just put out of a technology, and this is thirty
years much longer before this, Okay. What or Well feared
would be that those that people would ban books. What
Huxley feared would be there would no reason to ban
a book, because there would be no one that wanted

(36:37):
to read one. Or Well feared that those who would
deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give
us so much that we would be reduced to passivity
and egoism. Wow or Well feared that the truth would
be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be
drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Or Well feared we

(36:57):
would become the captive culture. Huxley feared that we would
become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the
feelies or orgy porgies. As Huxley remarked and Brave New
World revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who were ever
on the alert to oppose tyranny failed to take into

(37:19):
account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions, and nineteen eighty four,
Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain, and Brave
New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short,
or Well feared that what we hate will ruin us.
Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. Wow,

(37:43):
that's crazy, I'm profound and it's so true teen eighty
five he wrote this, that's wild.

Speaker 2 (37:49):
Yeah, it's so true. The and I need to read that,
by the way, so Brave New World. I think we
have that book. But interesting, but I had never heard
of it, the like the dichotomy between the two perspectives. Yeah,
and I did. I will tell you. I'm a member
of this author Mastermind and they we have a little

(38:10):
WhatsApp group that we are communicating author stuff all the time,
and they just put a statistic of reading for pleasure
is down something like forty percent. You think about that, right,
because it's like, well, why would I read for pleasure
when I've got all these games on my phone and
I've got right the you know, YouTube and TikTok and
all that like you that include audiobooks.

Speaker 3 (38:30):
I don't know listening for pleasure.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
I don't know. That's an interesting because.

Speaker 3 (38:33):
There is a big difference between listening and I wouldn't.

Speaker 1 (38:36):
Count that because like oral transferral has has it outdates books,
so it predates books. So listening to an audiobook, as
long as you're not being distracted by the device that
it's playing from, I think is excluded from this conversation
because listening and absorbing in that way is is always

(39:00):
been a thing sure right the he he makes an
argument that print culture, books, sermons, debates, newspapers always encourage
irrational argument like a sustained thought. He makes mentioned that
it was Lincoln and who was fred who was doing?

Speaker 3 (39:26):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (39:26):
Douglas.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
Lincoln was debating Douglas and the presidential debates, and they
would travel with these debates and it would be the
main event at the county fair. So people would go
to the county fair and the main attraction was to
sit watch the presidential debate for six hours. Take a break,
go get some popcorn, and use the restroom, come back

(39:49):
and continue.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
There were six hours long.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
And they would just follow every argument of the debate
and just fall just track. And it was never about
the way the president looked the way. It was never
about his appearance or how old or young he was,
or his ethnicity, or it was about his ideas. What
does he have to say?

Speaker 3 (40:09):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (40:10):
And who you are opposite. The ideas don't really matter
these days.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
Now it's sound bites, sound bite right. Actually I heard
I was at that same author Mastermind, and Don Miller
was speaking. He founder of story Brand, and he in
presidential candidates hire him to work on their campaigns because
he's all about crafting story. And he talked about how
the uh he was using Trump as an example. He's like,
how did Trump win? Sound bites? Not not deep content?

(40:37):
It was what was his his immigration policy?

Speaker 3 (40:39):
Bill?

Speaker 2 (40:40):
Oh wall right, And he was like, you know where
he's like, and he's like, Jeb Bush wrote a whole
book on immigration, but he's like, but Trump had the
memorable SoundBite. So yeah, so it's interesting. So the point
being like, it's appealing to today's distracted, low attention span,
non deep thinking culture, which is you know, which is
too bad?

Speaker 1 (40:58):
It is. I when I put out my book, I
so many people. I don't know if this I don't
know if my audience would say the same thing as yours,
but so many people said, your book's at first one
I read since high school.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
Yeah, you get that.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
Wow? And I'm like, thanks, yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
Yeah, you know, hopefully it's the first of many. That's
how I want your.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
Yeah, yeah, but if we become a culture that doesn't
read a book. And by the way, Miracle Morning what
a great first book to read if you haven't read
one since high school. This, yeah, this has been a great,
a great thing because it sets you up for.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
I mean, reading is one of the aspects of the
Miracle Morning. So you start in the Mirork Morning, and then
all right, what's the next book after this one?

Speaker 1 (41:39):
It is so Miracle Morning is a great book to
get you on the track.

Speaker 3 (41:42):
But we we're.

Speaker 1 (41:45):
In trouble in the society. If we if we can't
sustain our concentration, if we are constantly distracted, then I
don't know. I don't know how long we could sustain
organization in our societies. I don't know before we just

(42:08):
burst into chaos. So how what are considering the podcast?
How is AI and technology making us dumber? You had
two points in there, or to two broad topics that
everything came off of, but but one of them was
is it replacing God for us? And so kind of

(42:29):
going back to the beginning of our conversation with like
Bonhoeffer listening and don't speak a word to I wonder
how many people wake up and immediately take their phone
off the nightstand and start scrolling yep to see if
there's a common or a like or a new, a new.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
I'm sure there are studies for that, but it's I
think it's a lot, you know, a large majority of people.
And what that does is it puts you in It
puts you in a state of reactivity. So immediately you
are stimulating a nervous system. In this you're in a
reactive mode. You're reacting to the notifications, You're reacting to
all of these incoming messages. In terms of replacing God,
the God is experienced in silence, right, You don't hear

(43:07):
the message of God typically when you're when you're over
stimulated and you're listening, right, It's it's in moments of peaceful,
purposeful silence, which is why Jesus would go meditate for
you know, hours a day and connect with God. And
so when we grab our phone, even if we're not
listening to something like we think of silence typically as
auditory silence, but there's visual silence. It's like if you

(43:28):
are stimulating your brain, you're immediately missing out on that
ability to receive divine downloads, divine guidance if you will. Yeah.
And then the other way that the technology is replacing
God is like is specifically with chat GPT. You think
about it, imagine before technology existed, or even before Google.
Google started replacing God before Google existed, go back to

(43:53):
before the internet existed. Well, when you when you wanted
when you wanted help with anything, when you wanted an answer,
where did you go? You either went to another human being,
which is a child of God, an extension of God.
Often the word spoken from that human might be the
God delivering that message through them to you. Right, So
you're getting the message from God through someone in your life,

(44:13):
or you're going direct to the source and you're in
a state of prayer and or meditation and you're receiving
those inspired thoughts from God. But now, when you want
to know something, what should I do? Oh? Click, Oh cool,
that's what I should do. There it used to be
there's a thousand articles. Now it's Oh, there's an exact
word for word message from an entity that I asked

(44:35):
a question to, in that entity being chat GPT, and
AI I think is replacing God's God.

Speaker 1 (44:42):
Yeah, So do you think sometimes want to hear you
talk about this? Do you think that this is like
smoker's lungs that when you stop smoking, your lungs regenerate.
Would could your brain do that and be good as new?

Speaker 2 (44:56):
I would think so. And again this is not an
exter I'm not an expert in m terms of neuroscience
around this, but just common sense. Why is like anything
that if you don't use something at atrophies. That was
kind of my other point of the whole is AI
and technology making is dumber. It's like who remembers phone
numbers anymore? You don't because you don't have to. You
learn your phone?

Speaker 3 (45:15):
Right?

Speaker 2 (45:15):
Who remembers how to get Like? Like if I don't
have a GPS, I'm like, how do I i? I
GPS to places that I go every week?

Speaker 3 (45:21):
Like?

Speaker 2 (45:21):
Oh, I was like why use GPS? And I'm like
it's just automatic, and I'm like I want to, I
don't know, make sure I don't make a wrong turn
or whatever. But things we don't use atrophy And so
with Chad GPT or Gemini or any you know, uh
language learned, large language model, any tech like that. With AI, uh,
we're not using We're not using our cognitive abilities anymore.

(45:43):
We're not using our critical thinking and the longer it
goes without that. And MIT just came out with that study.
It was right after I did that podcast episode that
MIT came out with a study on how it is
actually you know, they measured x amount of people and
how it is affecting their ability to think, to reac
called information, to remember information, to process information. So now

(46:04):
there are you know, I t is studying this thesis
that I put out there, which is like common sense
would say, AI is making a dumber because we're not
using our brain.

Speaker 1 (46:13):
Yeah, absolutely, it would be common sense. You have been
convicted even on your own digital calendar. Yeah, where are
you landed with that today?

Speaker 2 (46:22):
Yeah? I mean I still use it. It was the idea
though that I don't remember what I'm doing the next
day because I'm so relying on my calendar. So I'm
still consciously incompetent in that regard of.

Speaker 3 (46:32):
Yeah, I get.

Speaker 1 (46:32):
It's like and I'm just as guilty. In that Postman Book,
I wish I had it in front of me. I
don't have it in front of me. I've got the
Miracle Morning in the Bible. But the Postman Book. He
makes an interesting argument too, that a big shift happened
when the clock was invented. I think it was like
the twelfth century. Okay, the mechanical clock was invented, and

(46:53):
we quickly became people that lived moment by moment according
to a clock instead of moment by moment according to
the moment.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
Yeah, like if you, if you, if.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
I had you, you live in Dripping Springs and I
live way north of your hour and a half.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
It took you about an hour and a half to
drive here.

Speaker 1 (47:13):
But but you told me when you're going to be here,
because you knew, and so I knew that you're going
to be here according to the clocks that we both share.
And now it's not even about our watches are winding
a clock. We are all sequenced to the clock that
hits all of our phones to the minute. Yeah, that's
how long has that been going on? Ten years? No

(47:34):
more than the older.

Speaker 4 (47:35):
The synchronization, the organization of time hasn't been in the
last twenty five years. So because we and the reason
I know is in radio, we had to for a contest,
a big contest for multiple stations. We all had to
be on the exact same time. So every station brought
in an atomic clock oh wow, and they SYNCD up

(47:56):
to a satellite. This is before iPhones, Yeah, and before
they were all all doing it, and they all and
so you had to run the contest. You had a
three second window that you could miss, and you had
to run it at the exact same time everywhere. And
once we did that, we were all on the same time.
And I remember when that happened and where it was,
and that was about.

Speaker 3 (48:15):
Twenty five years ago.

Speaker 4 (48:17):
Yeah, I mean shortly after that, all of our phones changed,
the numbers changed at the exact same time.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
And we didn't really we weren't conscious of that change
in our life. It just happened, Like how wouldn't have
gotten here seven minutes late without telling me? And then
and then say my watch is sorry, my watch is
four minutes slow, And I go, oh, yeah, I'm three
minutes fast exactly. No worries like that doesn't happen, but

(48:44):
that crept up on us quick. So Postman's argument is
that everything changed with the mechanical clock, and we interesting
because otherwise you would say I'll come on Thursday to
be on your podcast, and I'll get there when I
get there, Yeah, come in the morning. Maybe maybe morning
is if something yea, if my horse is well watered,

(49:09):
and and I would say absolutely.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
I'm coming at sunrise, right, you know, like you.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
Know, my wife will have a meal for you. You know,
we'll just we'll just put and and stay the night,
you know. And and I don't know, and then maybe
you'll you'll head home. You know, it's at sunrise.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
But I don't.

Speaker 1 (49:25):
We have become it's we have become changed by even
the technology of a mechanical classes.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
It's just me or do you long like we described that.
I'm like, oh, how nice man, That's the way life
is supposed to be, you know I do. Yeah. And
you know what, going back to the talking about God
and technology, uh, and and that God is experienced and
accessed in moments of silence, right, that's when we hear
the whisper of God through our intuition or whatever you

(49:53):
want to call it. You think about going to the
bathroom now you used to the bathroom, and you might
get a download, you might get a message from God,
right that a hit like, oh I just had a
really inspired thought or a reflection of something that happened
in my spouse earlier that I'm actually gonna do now
better because no, you don't have that. You have your

(50:14):
phone in your hand and you don't. It's completely removed
that ability that that's not the ability. The ability is
still there, right, but the opportunity to actually connect with
our creator in the moments throughout the day while you're
standing in line, what you're that smartphone has robbed us
of so much.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
So are you are you still doing this? Are you
still going to the bathroom without your phone?

Speaker 2 (50:37):
I go, I go through phases, I got are you
right now I'm about Yeah, No, I've got the I've
got the phone with me in the bathroom. But I'll
do thirty day challenges. The irony, right, is all use
an app called uh, what's the app called?

Speaker 3 (50:51):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (50:52):
It's an app?

Speaker 3 (50:52):
Or you use technology to help technology?

Speaker 2 (50:55):
It's not use technology right right?

Speaker 4 (50:57):
What was the one that you had that you had
to you had to tap brick Yeah, we had to lock.

Speaker 3 (51:02):
It again for you to Yeah, it's technology to.

Speaker 1 (51:04):
It locks all your apps that you don't want out
and you tap in to activate it and you have
to tap out. So like if I come up here
to work and I'm bricked out, then you still have
to physically go. It's under our refrigerator to the little
plastic thing and I have to tap my phone and
to unlock the apps that I the distraction apps that

(51:27):
I might want. But yeah, it's crazy how we use
technology just help us to mitigate technology, which is.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
Better than not using technology to not like meaning if
you're just if you at least hey, I'm aware I
have an issue. And if I'm using the tech to
help me use the tech less, I think that's a
you know, that's in that positive Well.

Speaker 4 (51:46):
I remembers having a conversation too with someone from Apple
saying this, we're using using technology to help us not
use technology.

Speaker 3 (51:55):
Yeah, and he's blown away.

Speaker 1 (51:57):
Yeah, uh, postman urgent. I was trying to kind of
come up with some kind of summary here, he or
just churches and schools and governments, not the cave to entertainment.
The Texas just passed that new rule that no phone.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
I'm so glad you said that. So yes, last night
my wife and I went to my daughter who just
turned sixteen, just went to her meet the Teacher night,
and they want a couple of teachers were talking about
how they passed this lawn Texas right where no phones
not just in class, not in the halls, like you're
not on your phone out anywhere on campus unless it's

(52:31):
an emergency or right. I mean, but they talked about
how amazing the teachers, how amazing it's been that the
students a just the in class. They're not distracted looking
on their phone right where the teacher. I was, hey,
pay attention, right, Yeah, But in the hall, they said,
it's amazing. Everyone's heads are up as they walk to class,
and they're looking at each other and they're saying hi.

(52:51):
And then they said, and then in the in the
lunch hall, the lunch room, whatever you call it, it's
so much louder than it used to be. Everyone's talking
to each other. And I was like, I just got
like warm and fuzzies. I was like, Oh, that's amazing.
I actually lean over to my wife. I go, I literally,
I go, I'm so glad we live in Texas. She's
like me too.

Speaker 1 (53:12):
That report right there is unanimous. I've heard that same
from every person that's reported it. No one has said
any less than that. No one has been like, no difference,
We're not a big deal at all. Everyone has been like, ah,
the teachers are just raving about it. It's just a
different environment because they don't have phones. What is that
official rule for someone that's listening not from Texas. They

(53:35):
it's it's no phones at all. I mean, you're it's
like expulsion if it's even seen even in the halls.
What do you know the exact rule or.

Speaker 3 (53:45):
The past a teacher? Oh, I need to ask her.

Speaker 1 (53:51):
It's like the phone has to be off and in
your bag.

Speaker 3 (53:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:53):
Now I will tell you that. I know there's a
way around it because my daughter did text me from
the bathroom.

Speaker 3 (53:58):
Yes, but.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
You know, very minimal. I the only time you can
have your phone is for you know, a minute a
day at school while you're using the restroom.

Speaker 4 (54:08):
She said that there were times you were allowed to
have them. Lunch you could have it, and so maybe
it's a little.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
I guess you can't get a lunch, which I again
hearing the report on that that everybody's talking more love that,
you know, love.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
That you hear like an old Kinburns documentary on the
Civil War and he'll read a letter from a soldier
and it just sounds like this just beautiful intellectual masterpiece
from this common soldier on the battlefield.

Speaker 3 (54:38):
What is happening?

Speaker 1 (54:39):
What's happening to us, all this technology and all these advancements,
and we're obviously not getting smarter as a as a species.

Speaker 2 (54:49):
Well, I had my our neighbor's son, he is seventeen,
I think, and he said that at the high school,
Dripping Springs High School, he said. One of his teachers
finally just she got frustrated one day and she goes, look,
I know you guys are all using AI anyway, I'm
not even gonna fight it anymore. Like you want to
use AI, use it. He's like, so it's great. So
my report that was due I use AI to create it.

(55:10):
I said, So did you learn anything? He said nothing.
I just said I need to report on this. Here's
the parameters and the rules. And I go, do you
understand how bad that is for you long term? Like
I get you feel like you got away with something,
but you really didn't. And and so that it's scary
because like those that are born with this technology from

(55:31):
day one. Yeah, man, it's it's it's pretty wild.

Speaker 1 (55:35):
So the world is trending to need miracle mourning more
than ever, even more than was this twenty sixteen when
you wrote this book.

Speaker 2 (55:42):
The original published in twenty twelve. Okay, so I actually
chose a pub date. I wouldn't forget it was twelve twelve, twelve, twelve,
twenty twelve. But then the one you're holding on your desk,
that's the updated and expanded edition. And I released that
one twenty twenty three, So just copy twenty three.

Speaker 1 (55:58):
Okay. The world is trending to need this more and
not less. I think people understanding the need to have
a systematic approach to these things, to a systematic approach
to silence, and a systematic approach to reading something, listening

(56:20):
to a sustained argument at some point, describing or or
journaling thoughts that you might have a systematic approach for
me and and for many Christians and reading the Bible.
I read a very structured plan that I've done for
this is my sixth year, and I don't ever skip it.

(56:41):
And I and it's always in the morning, during the
miracle morning. So and exercise is part of this too.
We should we should always include exercise. And then by
the time the day starts, your miraical mornings finished, and
the day starts, there's less weight because you have achieve

(57:01):
You've achieved what your brain is hungry to achieve. Tell
us about the app, the Miracle Morning app.

Speaker 2 (57:08):
Yeah, so I was the Miracle Morning apps probably the
most requested thing by the Miracle Morning community. And when
I say a Miracle Morning community, I define that as
a few things. We have a Facebook group with three
hundred and fifty thousand people from over one hundred countries.
So that's that's actually called the Miracle Morning community. And
it's crazy. It started with me and my mom and
dad and my buddy John, like two of my friends

(57:29):
named John. Like that's how it started. And I never
you know, it just organically grew into these hundreds of
thousands of people that read the book and then came
to like connect with each other. And so the most
requested thing in the last I mean, what's thirteen years
since the original book came out is an app and
it's and the common story is how when you're gonna
create a Miracle Morning app. I use six apps for

(57:50):
my Miracle Morning. I have a journaling app, a reading app,
a meditation app, I got a you know, I got
a habit tracking like. I got all these apps and
so for me, it was I'd get quotes from app
like companies like what would it cost to create an
app that replaces all six of the adapps. They're like
two hundred thousand dollars. I'm like, I don't have two
hundred thousand. I don't know anything about apps, and so
I'd always say no. And then a friend of mine,

(58:12):
Josh Eidenberg, we friends for a long time. He finally
was like, Hey, hell, the community wants an app, Let's
give it to him. And so we started basically just
convinced to me, be like, hey, we don't need to
do the Dream app. Let's just start with a ten
like or he goes, how much could you afford to
start with? And so we started with a really basic
app and then and we sold it for like five bucks,
and then we sold fifteen thousand of them to the community,

(58:34):
and then we reinvested one hundred percent of the profits
to make the Dream app. So that was his strategy,
and I was like, and it worked. And so now
you nowload the app for free and then there's you know,
like you can upgrade to a premium version, but it's
got a built in journal and affirmations and that my
favorite is there's guided tracks, so you literally push play
and it and it could be six minutes to ten

(58:57):
twenty thirty four. Whatever you decide how long you want
the track to be and what you want it to
be on. I need to make more money. I need
to build confidence. Like here's what I want the Miracle
Morning to be focused on this morning. You hit play
and then typically it's me or Lucy Osborne's the main
voice of our Miracle Morning app. She guides you through
Miracle Morning. It's done for you kind of you don't
have to even think about it or know how to

(59:17):
do it. You hit play and and it walks you
through it.

Speaker 1 (59:20):
That's incredible, man, and so needed. Yeah, so needed and
so fun to see. What's such a good idea to
to to now be going on its second decade? Yeah,
you know, of effectiveness and something. I personally hope that
we can get a Monday Miracle Morning with how on

(59:44):
after midnight about three thirty in the morning for those
people that are you know, really starting the morning early.
Maybe we'll do No, it's it's actually the back after
that hour, so it'd be like three forty three forty five.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
Well, interestingly enough, it's actually again it's we're coming full
circle because a I was a d from midnight to
six am when I was after my first year of college. Right,
so it's like back on the midnight to six shift.
And my miracle morning for seven years eight years started
at three thirty am, So I did my mirk winning
every day at three thirty am. After cancer, I decided

(01:00:17):
to back it up. I'm like, I'm gonna sleep more.
But but yeah, but that was literally my start time
for almost over half a decade was three thirty am.
So I'm like, yeah, let's go, let's go help.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
Mean to be the voice you hear right now, are
hoping to have on after midnight? Still working out, you know,
first we got to figure out how really was they do.

Speaker 4 (01:00:35):
But but well now that he knows he doesn't have
to do it at three thirty in the morning.

Speaker 3 (01:00:40):
Yeah, we're tracking along. I think a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Just have like some practical some practical steps. Like the
one example is is how just simple and general these
practical steps could be. It'd be like, hey, thirty day challenges,
go to the restroom without your phone. Yeah, no, challenge
you that and that's one of the three steps for
to do.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
And I'd start with a seven day challenge until the
next week I got a seven day challenge. Sure, we'll
check you in with y'all next Monday.

Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
Maybe that's a part of it. Is like every episode
is uh we there's like a seven day like, hey,
for the next seven days, read this quote or implement
this idea or do the thing right.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
That's that man. And sometimes it's like, let's do a
one day challenge. Yeah yeah, and if you could do one,
let's do two. And if you do two, let's do
the whole week. Yeah. I would love. I'm going to
finish this amusing ourselves to death. Neil Postman book written
and published in nineteen eighty five, which I believe was
like we could call the book that predicted TikTok, but

(01:01:36):
yeah we should. You guys should check out that book
and read that. Make that book be your first book
to read during your miracle morning while you're you know,
pressing play on the on the americle morning. App So, Bro,
thank you so much. It's it was such an honor
having you here in the studio.

Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
It's a mutual honor. Thank you so much for having
me Granger. I really appreciate you, man.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
Thank you so much for hanging out with me on
this episode. To the Grangersmith Podcast. I appreciate you being here.
If you're listening right now, go ahead and rate today's podcast.
It helps more folks find the show. And if you're
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(01:02:19):
a question you want answered right here on the show,
just email me podcast at grangersmith dot com. I'd love
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see you next time. Ye you