I read the Miracle Morning for the first time about 4 years ago. This winter, while contemplating how I can be a better, healthier, more successful person in 2020, I remembered the book and picked up a copy to read again.
Upon re-reading it, however, I was really disappointed. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with the Miracle Morning method, or self-help books in general. I like self-help books. But I wanted to reflect on some themes that I thought could be potentially harmful, rather than helpful.
In the introduction to the book, Step 2 involves acknowledging the source of our mediocrity and Elrod claims that 95% of Americans are settling for less than they want. If you think that 95% of Americans aren’t living the lives they want – I think it’s ridiculous to think that it’s an individual problem – that it’s not the system that’s the problem. Why not analyze why the vast majority of Americans do not establish financial, emotional, and professional stability.
This book also promotes a work > everything mentality. The inspirational backstory of this book involves Elrod explaining that the impetus for him to reevaluate his life was a horrible car accident, where he nearly died. He continues by illustrating his eternal devotion to the company he worked at at the time, by telling the readers how instead of spending time with his family, traveling the world, or finding other value in his life, he immediately went back to work as a sales rep at the company he had been working at. This is such a classic American thing – repackaging dystopian events as feel-good stories. In other parts of the world, the normal response to almost dying in a freak accident would be to do nice things with friends and family and to enjoy life, rather than spending all your time working for someone else’s company. But in the United States, this kind of behavior is upheld as the ideal.
Another concerning theme was the part about surrounding yourself with people who live the same kind of lifestyle you’re aspiring to live. There is a term for the result of this kind of behavior: lifestyle poverty. That’s when you go broke or go into debt by living a lifestyle above your means. That’s what Elrod is suggesting and that’s financially irresponsible behavior. Also, just hanging around rich people won’t make you rich or successful. Rich people aren’t always successful and successful people aren’t always rich. If you want to be rich, then I guess that’s a different goal, but telling people that the way to financial, professional, and personal stability and happiness is to be successful in work, then I don’t think hanging around rich people is going to help much. The majority of the people on those most-wealthy lists inherited more money than most Americans will ever see. In 2013, over 20% of the Forbes 400 list inherited enough money to make the list, which is $1.1 billion.
Some of my more minor critiques are 1) don’t take sleep advice from a sales rep and 2) don’t just go buying books on Amazon (like “Think and Grow Rich”, which Elrod mentions by name in this book FIVE TIMES) – support your local independent bookstores so you’re not further enriching the super rich and you can make members of your community financially stable.
Overall, these issues that came up in this book are issues that exist deep in American culture – alongside toxic productivity and horrible work-life balance. Working healthy hours, taking vacations, developing healthy relationships and fulfilling hobbies (that you don’t have to turn into a side hustle!) are more important to being successful and developing stability than being the first one in and last one out of your corporate job or finding rich friends. I think the actual Miracle Morning routine is interesting and potentially helpful – making time for ourselves to move, reflect, plan the day, and do what’s important to us is clearly important. But motivating it with capitalist brainwashing is damaging. Blaming individuals for a system, where minimum wage isn’t enough to live on, cost of healthcare is ridiculous, public transport is rarely available, paid vacation and maternity leave are unheard of, and pretty much any other basic human right is being kept from the average American, is not fair and not helpful.
