By: Georgi DeMartino;
Mosaic Staff Writer,
Hal Elrod, a youth and college motivational speaker, gave students more than a few simple rules and a handful of inspirational quotes when he appeared on campus last week. Better known as “Yo Pal Hal,” he gave them a new attitude thanks to his very unique experiences.
While reading Elrod’s story, keep a quote he used during his speech in mind. Yo Pal Hal says, “You have two lists to look at in your life. The list of negative things in your life, and the list of positive things in your life, and sometimes people think their quality of life is determined by which list is longer, and that’s not the case.”
At the age of 15, Elrod started working as a DJ on his own radio show for three hours every Thursday. With some help from his mother, he came up with a cool, new DJ name—“Yo Pal Hal.” Elrod was nervous about what his DJ name should be, and his mother was trying to help him be creative. Of course, Elrod was hesitant about such a “dorky” name, but clearly, he ended up using his mother’s idea.
At the age of 20, Elrod was a top representative for the company Cutco, a multimillion-dollar company that sells cutlery tools. One night Elrod was driving home from one of his best presentations he had ever given for Cutco, when a drunk driver struck his car. The driver had been driving the wrong way on a main highway. At 70 miles per hour, Elrod had nowhere to go and was seriously injured in the accident.
When emergency workers arrived at the scene, Elrod had no heartbeat, but after five to six minutes of rehabilitation in the aircraft he that lifted him to the hospital, EMT workers were finally able to get his heart beating again. Doctors put Elrod into a medically induced coma and were not sure he would ever recover. There was a risk of permanent brain damage, as well as the potential that he would never walk again.
Elrod was determined, and three weeks after he woke from his coma, he took his first step. His improvement did not stop there though. Elrod is now a well-known motivational speaker, at only 33-years-old. The way he conducts himself makes it impossible to tell he has ever been through such a tragedy.
As the motivational speaker he is today, Yo Pal Hal uses his story as an example that life can hand a person some pretty tough challenges, but it is important to remember to learn from the bad things, and focus on being thankful for all the positive things they have in their life. Elrod says, “When you change the way you look at the quality of your life, the quality of your life will change.”
One rule Elrod gave was the “Five Minute Rule”. You can only be negative about something for five minutes, and then after that it isn’t worth it. Another rule was to accept the things in your life that you cannot change. His key term is “Can’t Change It”. Once someone realizes there are things in life they can’t change, they will learn how to live an easier life.
One last idea Elrod offers to his audiences is the idea of a “dream board”. A dream board is a bulletin board of some kind with all your goals and aspirations on it. Yo Pal Hal says, “If you can dream it, and you can believe it, and you can see it, you can achieve it.” He suggests googling “How to Make a Dream Board” to find creative ways to make a dream board
If anyone is interested, two free chapters of Yo Pal Hal’s new book are available at miraclemorning.com or find him on facebook at facebook.com/yopalhal
