Hal Elrod

I'm writing this review at 6:30am, after waking up at 6. I normally never wake up before 7:30am. I think that tells you most of what you need to know about this one.

This is an area I've been curious about for a long time. For some of my most productive years, I woke up promptly in the morning and went to the gym for an hour. That morning workout gave me a lot of strength for the rest of the day - more self-control, more optimism, more sense of accomplishment to start the day.

I'd always show more presumed that was specific to what I was doing (working out). After reading this book, I believe I was off on that presumption. Instead, doing anything productive to start the day can lead to these benefits. This limiting belief - that I'm a night person and that I can't do it – was quickly shut down, and now I'm hoping to give this early riser thing a try. show less

Um livro que me ajudou a refletir sobre minha rotina, seja pela manhã ou antes de dormir. Me incentivou na criação de algumas atividades que fazem meu dia começar melhor e ter mais energia para finalizar, assim como auxiliar em um sono mas tranquilo. Recomendo para quem tem alguma dificuldade de criar rotinas (ou voltar para alguma rotina) ou refletir sobre seu dia a dia. Um alerta é que não há necessidade de seguir todas as ideias do livro, mas sim, o que faz sentido para você.

This book opens up explaining that the life you’ve always wanted is within your grasp and the real secret may actually be waking up earlier. Elrod’s Miracle Morning and Level 10 life approaches to goal setting and completing tasks has become widely popular and motivating for a number of people. After reading this book and applying the ideas to my own life I can certainly see why. However, when it comes to a full review of this book I think its important to break it down into two parts: show more the ideas and the writing style.

The ideas and tips that Elrod offers are inspirational and, when you follow through with it, feels like a true transformation. They are things that seem like they should be obvious (taking time each morning for yourself) but somehow aren’t (which is where the extended title comes in). Its about taking time to focus on yourself and meet some of your basic needs, telling yourself that you can do it, and visualizing what your success will look like. There were a few suggestions that Elrod made that I disagree with based on research that I’ve read. For example, he advises putting off eating breakfast until after the SAVERS routine (roughly 1 hour after waking up) but I’ve read in several studies that its the most beneficial to your health if you eat breakfast within 1 hour of waking up. Small points like that but, as with any self-help book, ones that you can shape to fit your needs and lifestyle.

As for the style of writing, however, that’s where the 3 instead of more stars comes in. The book isn’t too terribly long but you have to wade through a lot of repeated infomercial talk to get to the point. I didn’t expect to have a one page “this is how you succeed at life” but I felt like the book could’ve lost over half of its “just keep reading and you’ll find out the secret” and it wouldn’t been just as helpful of a book.

If you’re looking to take hold of life and willing to wake up a little earlier to do that (whether you’re a morning person or a night owl, like me) then I recommend this book to you. Just be prepared to flip through a lot of pages without any real substance. show less

I read this book for free under the KindleUnlimited promotion after I got a new Kindle device. This was one of the few books that caught my attention during that short period of time. I've always found mornings to be important and this book just highlighted the fact that mornings are often part of the millionaire's formula to success. They often wake up at 5am to begin planning their day, which just goes to show how much discipline and motivation they have to do all the things on their list. show more No wonder they are millionaires! It's fascinating how Hal Elrod himself "died" several times, but that didn't stop him from living a life held back. He came back with even more ferocity to take on so many great things and to achieve monumental success.

*spoiler alert*

I like the part in the book where he encourages you to write a letter to yourself from the future when you're successful and wealthy, giving advice to your current self; how you can offer comfort and advice from that place of understanding. What an interesting perspective. He already had the confidence that he would be successful in the future and is passing on that vision of success to us, implicating that we WILL be wealthy in the future without a shadow of a doubt, and how would we be communicating to our current selves? What kind of wisdom would we hold from that other platform? How many people can live from this mindset?

He had me sold on the Savers. I think i'm going to start implementing them when I can.

Some quotes that I jotted down:

"Simply moving forward and never rewarding yourself, for me, is a message to your subconscious that all this work is for no real reason." Rewarding yourself for any accomplishment is very important!

"The greatest minds in human history have spent years condensing the best of what they know into a few pages that can be purchased for a few dollars, read in a few hours, and shorten your learning curve by decades." So true!

I really enjoyed this book and gained quite a bit from it, although there was one point which I couldn't really agree on. The whole book felt very: go go go... hurry hurry hurry, do as much as you can in every minute... And that felt kind of stressful to me. I'm at a point in my life where I find that doing things on my own time, relaxing and slowing down are necessary. I don't necessarily believe in the hurried, fast-paced lifestyle. But overall, I did enjoy picking the brain of a millionaire and getting a glimpse into the passion and grit that goes behind making so much happen. It is admirable and respectable. But I guess I would try to find a middle ground. I don't believe someone can go go go their whole life without tiring or breaking down. Balance is key. show less