#378: Pivot Mastery Unleashed with Lori Harder: Navigate Obstacles & Surpass Expectations - Your Ultimate Guidebook

You know, as a founder, you're the visionary, you are the enroller. It is literally our job to solve problems and re enroll in the vision. Like, get a different vision, re enroll, get everyone on board.

Come on this journey with me each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals, overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow.

I'm ready for my close up.

Hi and welcome back. I'm so excited for you to meet our guest this week.

We're so excited.

Lori harder has built three separate seven figure businesses. She's the founder and CEO of the beauty hydration company H2 Glow, the bestselling author of A Tribe Called Bliss, a transformational speaker, and the host of the Earn your happy podcast with over 50 million downloads. Her career started in fitness as a 3 time Fitness World Champion, 11 time Fitness Cover model and gym owner. She's had thousands of students attend her events, go through her courses, and be in her membership programs. Her biggest passion is creating products and companies that support ambitious women to grow their businesses and dreams. Lori, thank you so much for being here today.

I am so excited to be here.

You crack me up. All right, so people look at you and they say, oh, this woman is so beautiful. Of course she's successful. She has everything going for her. I love your backstory. And for anyone who doesn't know it, will you please share that your life hasn't always been rainbows and mystical fairies?

Oh, I'm so glad that you ask about the backstory, actually, because I feel like, you know, the bios are 15 to 20 years in the making and that's one of the things that I really want people to understand is how long it actually takes. And that's also why I'm so passionate about talking about falling in love with the process as well, because we're always just only in process. So let's go back. I'm going to take you back all the way to when I grew up in a little town called Marquette, Michigan. Tiny, tiny town. Most people don't even know where that is because it's an upper Michigan and they don't even know that there's an upper part to Michigan. They're like, are you by Detroit? No, no, no, let's go eight hours. Like, let's go Canada. Let's just say that. So from a really small town. And my circle of influence was even smaller than the small town because I was raised in a more restrictive religion. So I had a congregation of about one, and I wasn't allowed to associate with anyone outside of that. So my entire life, it was just this congregation of 100 people. I went door to door talking about the Bible, and I was homeschooled through high school. So for me, when I thought of my future, it was very limited because you weren't really allowed to go out and do big things. It wasn't what you were supposed to be thinking about, because really, I'm going to use a lot of biblical talk here, but you were really supposed to be just working and storing your treasures up in heaven. So for me, really young age, I remember around the age of 13, I started to get, like, these visions of something bigger for my life. I didn't know what it was. I just knew that when I watched women on TV who were, like, doing either fitness competitions or who were dancers or performers or even, like, speakers, that something inside of me would just, like, my heart would race. I would, like, feel like. Like your body's coming off of the ground. Like, I would just get these big visions of, could something like that be possible for my life? And quickly I would come back to reality and say, this is not going to fly within the way that I'm being raised. So I knew this as a teenager. It started to become really real to me that I wasn't going to be able to share about these dreams or ideas that I had, because you weren't really allowed to do those things. Like, it was frowned upon to go to college. It was frowned upon to do more than just be talking about the Bible. So with that, as a teenager, that started to feel really suppressed. And I had the realization that when I was 18, I was going to leave. This became a real internal conflict. And I like to talk about this even if you're not relating right now to exactly what I'm talking about, even if you're not relating to the religious portion. I want you guys to put yourself in this place where you've probably been before, where your dreams aren't matching your reality, or your current family's beliefs, or your current community's beliefs, or what feels possible for you within. Within your town or within wherever you live. And so it's like that moment of, wow, how do I even make this work? Within this reality where nobody thinks this is a good thing, nobody thinks this is possible. This goes against a belief system. So at 18, I had to make the decision that when I left, I really left. Like, it wasn't just about leaving my home. It was like I was making a choice for myself and for whatever life that I was hoping to have and had to leave the other one behind. I knew nobody in this new land of, like, leaving. I didn't have any friends. I had a couple friends, and they kind of did the same thing. But it was like being out in this new world of everything was uncertain. That's really when I just started dabbling in a lot of different things. It got worse before it got better. It was kind of like that, you know, when a spring is held really tight and you realize that you now don't have that someone holding you down. I just went crazy for a while. And something else I want to add was a lot of people knew me for being in the fitness world. When I was in my late 20s, early 30s, and growing up, I was an overweight kid. I had some extra weight on me. My whole family was overweight. And my whole life I was told that it was our genetics. So, you know, I remember being around the table, sitting at the table with all of my aunts. I have five aunts. And I don't know if I brought up what I wanted to do or brought up that I was starting to work out. And they said, well, it doesn't really matter because you'll always be fat. You'll be fat like us forever. It's who we are. And so these were the conversations that were going on in my head. And I remember in that moment when they said that, my whole body said, no, like, I reject this statement. I'm going to figure out what it's going to take in order to change whatever this curse you think that you have. And so that's when my life started to get into. When my mom would go to grocery stores, I beg her for fitness magazines. You know, I'd be like, if you're going, can you grab me this? Or can I go with you? And I'd bring the magazine and be like, we're getting this magazine. And I'd read that, you know, these women were saying what they were doing. And I had the realization that I wasn't doing any of those things. I wasn't eating healthy. I wasn't moving my body in the way that they were. So I was having these breakthroughs in my teenage years of maybe it's not genetics. Maybe if I did these other things that these people were doing, I would get a different result. So it's really the background that I want to share in order to kind of say where I came from, but also to relate to everybody listening because I'm sure that they've experienced something Similar that we're all. You're probably tuning into this podcast because you're trying to break a pattern, because you're trying to start something new, because you're trying to find people who also, you know, believe in a bigger vision for their life.

I love that you shared that these people were speaking this. What was their truth and trying to speak it into your aunts and you're rejecting what they're saying. That's not easy to do. I know firsthand when you have family speaking to you that way, because of course they mean it from the kindness of their heart or from, you know, all that they know and just they think they're protecting you. That's not an easy conversation to have. How did you get yourself to actually leave and like make that leap? That sounds super scary for an 18 year old.

How did I leave? You know, honestly, I just was ready to do it at that point, I think because I started getting these feelings at the age of 13. By the time I was 18, I just felt like I was ready to go. And I have to give so much credit to my parents because they were so loving and they also, my dad instilled such good work ethic into me me that I wasn't also afraid to take care of myself because it was a really big deal that everyone in the family participated and took care of something. It was just expected of you to do that like at a young age. We were going down to his kitchen and bathroom shop and sweeping and, you know, earning an allowance and making money and on the weekends, that's what we were doing. So I think that I had a really good foundation of, yes, this wasn't matching and I wanted to leave. But that also made it harder because they were loving people and it's not like they were doing something wrong. It's that our belief were so totally different. But I did have that really good like establishment of being able to take care of myself.

How do you go from getting out on your own and saying, all right, I'm going to start reading these magazines and start practicing what these people are preaching and seeing what happens for me to becoming literally a cover model, a fitness champion. What does that look like?

So that is where I love to share. This took me a long time. So you guys. I joined my first gym at 16 years old. I was already working out. Literally at 8 years old. I was my older sister's like workouts with her and so I had already really good establishment of working. Like I had established working out. I kind of like understood It. I was in my routine, but I never had the nutrition part dialed in. And when I moved out, I got really heavy into drinking, and I put on a bunch of weight because I was just, like, drinking. I was lost. I was depressed. I was eating terrible food because I'm in my early 20s. I'm living off ramen. I'm going out. You know, I'm eating three meals during the day, and then I might as well be eating three more from, you know, midnight to 3:00am so it wasn't going well. So it wasn't until I met my husband and we got married. I got married really young. I was 24 years old. But it wasn't until I had a little bit more sturdy of, you know, a daily life and a routine that I was able to start looking at nutrition more. And so at that point, these different visions and dreams of what I wanted to do were starting to get a little more clear. And I had seen women doing fitness competitions on tv, and I was like, okay, I'm seeing that these women who are on covers of magazines are also doing these fitness competitions, so maybe this is something that I should do. And that's when I thought, okay, I'm gonna try to learn how to do this. And I had started dabbling myself with, like, kind of following what they were saying in the magazines. But there wasn't a whole world. This wasn't really online. Nobody was, like, saying how to do it. And one day I was watching mtv, of all things, and there was, like, a real life show on there where it was real life. I want to be a fitness competitor. And there was a woman named Kathy Savage on there who was helping this woman become fitness competitor. So I started researching her the next month. She came out in this Oxygen magazine that I read all the time, which is a fitness magazine. And she was putting on a fitness camp, like, to teach women how to do fitness competitions. I had never flown alone. I hadn't really ever even traveled much at this point. I jumped off the StairMaster that I was on, ran over to my husband, and I was like, I'm gonna go to Boston, you guys. I'm from the Midwest. I really didn't travel. I didn't even know what east coast people were like. I was like, I'm going here. I'm gonna do this thing. I'm gonna just figure it out. So that's what I did. I go to this fitness camp. I'm like, a total introvert at this point. Like, I was the most shy human being ever. I had Social anxiety. I would have panic attacks. I had plenty of them while I was there. And so I land in Boston that I just remember it was, like, the biggest culture shock of my entire life. Like, I thought everyone was yelling at me, even though they were just talking, like, how they normally talk. And so I go to the fitness camp, and I'm just like a wallflower in the back. And I remember it being so overwhelming that I was. I don't know if I'm going to be able to do this. Like, this isn't my personality. These girls are so loud, and they're, like, really good at getting attention, and they're just, like, outgoing and out there. And it was the last day of that fitness camp. And I'll never forget when she had us walking, like, doing these, like, model picture, like, being an introvert and, like, being so scared and having her ask for you to do a model walk in front of everybody, like, a stage walk. And so I was like, you better just suck it up and give it all you got, because you're either gonna look stupid, like, scared and stupid, or you can actually look like you're trying. And so I did it. I, like, really tried. And she said one thing to me, one thing. She was like, oh, you're made for this. That was it. And I had never had somebody breathe life into me with words like that, and I had no idea what that was capable of doing for someone. And that was the first moment of, wow. Like, when you are around the right people and when people who are doing it say something to you or something positive, you can actually change the trajectory of someone's life. And that's what she did. I took those words and ran with them and really started to throw myself into fitness competitions, which, by the way, did not go well for a while. It took me four years to end up winning a fitness competition, and it took me, like, six years to get on a cover, which I have a cover for. I'll stop, but I have a cover story for you as well.

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Thank you for sharing the timeline, how long it took. Cause that's amazing. And thank you for also sharing how you felt like you were so out of your element, but you invested in yourself, you took the risk, you showed up, you risked looking like an idiot, right? Like you risked it all and moved forward Anyway. The funny thing is I am from Boston. I am friends with Kathy and I was with Kathy a couple years years ago. She was saying the kindest things about you and about your husband. She's such champions for both of you. And it just, to me, it just reminds me, good people and doing good and taking care of people in life always comes full circle because that's how you end up getting connected to other good people. So it's just, it's so amazing. You know, she's so proud of your journey. She's so proud of you. And it just like she's your biggest champion in the world still on the East Coast.

I mean, I can't imagine, I don't know where I'd be if that's the importance of people and putting yourself out there. And when you're drawn to someone, like, just go, go, just go. You never know what's going to happen.

All right, give us a cover story.

Okay, so this is year five, I believe. And at this point, I had done so much pitching to this particular magazine called Oxygen magazine. This was the big dream. It was to get on the COVID of this magazine. It was like back in the day, you guys, if you were in the fitness world, it's the COVID magazine you wanted to be on from. When I started doing fitness competitions, that's also when you would start doing like your photo shoots and you'd be pitching and you'd write in, hey, I want to be in. This is who I am. I do this, I work out like this, I eat like this, I want to be on the COVID This was old school pitching, right? You just kind of just like, look at me, I'm doing another photo shoot.

Look at me.

Am I good enough for the COVID And so, you know, I'd send in once a month. Like, literally once a month, I'd write to these people. Is it possible for me to be on the COVID or in the. You know, get a layout or whatever this looks like. I'd love to do a workout for you. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Every single month. Like, they were very nice, but every single month it was a no. And so, you know, you try and you go to these different places where the editors are, and you try to get to know people. And that was really, really helpful of, like, actually establishing relationships. Then I got the. Like, I'm not sure where this whole idea came from. I think it was just like, podcasting and starting to hang around with people who are really doing the do. And I had the realization that pitching is one thing, but creating relationships is a whole other thing and adding value. And so this is when my pitches really started to change, and I started to look at this magazine as a business business, because that's what it was. Where a lot of people were not thinking of it that way. It was just like, put me out there. Don't you want me to be on the COVID Like, no, they don't. They want to know how you can help them. Like, what is your audience? Like, what value can you add? So this was a huge epiphany realization for me of, how can I add value to them? And I started really even just setting up my life like that, like, thinking, how can I be valuable enough for these people for them to even want to put me on the COVID for them to want me in a layout? So I wrote a cookbook. I did some, like, YouTube channels where I was doing recipes. I had started a big community, a fitness community. And I worked really, really hard on just building up value within my community and building value with women and building value in relationships. And so my pitches had started to change. And when that started to change, they were like, okay, we'd love to have you come up. You can do, like, some recipes, you can cook. You can also put this on your YouTube. I know that you said that you were going to go speak on stage. We would love if you would share the COVID Like, you said you would like all of these different things. Okay. Or not the COVID Cover, whatever you're doing. So I go up in there. I'm gonna go shoot a test cover. Now, you don't get flown up to these things. You pay for everything yourself. Like, you get ready, you Dial it in. I Prep for the 12 weeks. Like, I am like hungry and tired and broke because at this point in our life, we also had just lost our house, we lost our cars in the recession. Like, everything was, was downhill for us. So this was a really big deal that I was taking money we didn't have and I was investing it in something very scary that may not happen. Like, my husband was not super excited about it because he was like, this is a little hobby now. He doesn't say that anymore, but this was like the whole narrative going on. So I fly up there to do a test cover and a layout and we do a whole cover shoot all day long. Everything, the outfits, the hair, the makeup. They're like, this is amazing. Like, very much this is going to be be used as a cover. And so I go home and I'm like, oh my God, my dream has come true. Like, they get the COVID story, we do the whole thing. It's coming out the next month. And so this is now year five in the making of rejection. So when I finally get it, I'm like, oh my God, this is it. And so a month before the COVID comes out, I get an email that the COVID is not coming out. And so there were rumors that this happened a lot. And once that you didn't come out, you never went up again. It like, it was like the kiss of death. And so I just had this moment of my dream is over. Like, I can't believe I just did that. Nothing's coming out. Why isn't it coming out? They don't give you a reason. So you're just stuck there thinking that you're ugly or something or that you suck. And so I was like, oh my God. So instead of letting my brain go there, which I did for a day, Heather, like, everybody, like, truly, I was like, oh, my goodness, this is the worst thing that could ever happen. I decided that I was just going to be so valuable that I was going to become undeniable not only to them, but everybody else and to myself. And so this went on a year trajectory of creating a life where it was like, no one's going to ignore me because I'm not going to ignore myself. I'm going to decide that I'm valuable with or without this cover. And so that's always a choice we can be making. I could have either said I suck. I knew it. Look how long I waited. And I'm still not the girl. They won't even tell me why. And it was a decision to Go, nope. I am deciding that I'm good enough and I'm enough and I'm going to show them. And so I kept pitching. I just kept right on pitching the whole next year. One year later, I went up again finally, and the next year they said, yes, we can try this again. And then that went on to 11 covers.

Oh, my. That is incredible. I love that story because it's just so much rejection over and over again and not quitting and, and choosing to add value. And sadly, and I'm saying this because I don't want people to think of you this way, but sadly, many people do. Whether any type of beauty, fitness. People will marginalize a woman and say, you know, she's just pretty. You are so smart, so business savvy. You've built such a massive community, businesses. I mean, you have so much success. Was it hard for you, once you achieve this great success over in this arena, to get people to take you seriously in a business context?

I think at the beginning it was. But I also, I never really had a problem with, like, pivoting for some reason. And I think it's because I don't look at it as pivoting. I just look at it as. There's so many things in life that are layered. Like even fitness, you can't do fitness without mindset. So I would always talk about the mindset portion of fitness. So during my fitness years, I never was just talking about the workout ever. That was so boring to me. Anybody can. You could literally download any workout from the Internet that. And get really fit from it. If you have the mindset and you have the nutrition, it wasn't like rocket science. There's no thing that's going to make you a certain way unless you have all the puzzle pieces. So for me, it was. I had always been talking about mindset because it was always my biggest struggle. You know, still to this day, I wake up and it's me against me. Like, there is still a girl in there who wants to be lazy, who still finds it very easy to say really negative things to herself. Like, so I every single day started almost doing it for me on Facebook, like writing mindset posts. And that is where it didn't seem weird for me to start transitioning into personal development is because I was already really talking about it. And so it took me about a year to really notice from, like, my events and even email lists and like, social following, when I really decided to go from fitness into personal development. I did notice it took about a year to, like, really, really get more into the arena of personal development. Pivoting into it. But I had been talking about it so much that when people think about pivoting, you should really just start talking about the thing that you want to do next or adding it in or showing that, hey, it's not. I'm not just this. I also love this. And so it doesn't feel like a crazy pivot or it doesn't feel like people are only going to think of you as the other thing that you were. You're really showing that you're more well rounded.

Oh, I love that. Because if we're not pivoting all the time, we're not growing, we're not going to figure out that next great opportunity. So I've watched your journey. I saw you take the TEDx, write your book A Tribe Called Bliss. I mean, you had on the outside looking in. It looks like massive success after a massive stage book deal. Did it feel that way going through that time?

It didn't. It didn't. I was proud of myself because I was doing the things I have tried during my fitness career was more when I was like accumulating these wins but I wasn't allowing myself to feel it. And I will say that I learned this lesson because when I won fitness competitions, finally after year four, I had won three fitness competitions in one year, like three national titles, and went from nothing to that. And I remember after I won the first big one, I went up in my room and sat alone on the bed and said to myself, was this it? Like this was the moment that I was waiting for this whole time and that I didn't allow myself to enjoy and that I struggled for and fought for and didn't have weekends for. And I'm literally sitting in a room on the bed by myself. Like, it's not the finish line, you guys. Yes, it felt really good on stage, was amazing.

I cried.

It was incredible. But it's so brief that you better love who you are and you better learn to fall in love with the process. So that's really the moment after that that I was like, girl, you better love your day to day life and you better love the challenges and you better learn to love the struggle. And it's not like I fell in love with it overnight, it's not like I still even love it, but my perception of it is so different and I understand that I need it. Like I need the challenge and I need the struggle and I need to be solving challenges in order to be happy. Happy. Because when you're not, you truly are not happy without that and you're not growing. That's really where I learned to fall in love with the journey. So when things were all happening after that, I guess it felt like I was doing all the things that I wanted. But I will say, the new struggle that I was having outside of falling in love with the journey was comparing myself to other people. So even though to a lot of people it looked like I was doing amazing things and I want to skills, I was comparing myself to people who were 100 times further than me. So I didn't know how good I was doing until now, to be honest with you. And I wish I could go back and go, girl, like, you're doing amazing. Don't compare yourself to those people's journeys.

How did you finally get that? Because so many people struggle with comparing themselves to somebody else, myself included.

Part of it was getting in the rooms with those people later. Like, allowing myself to get in the rooms with the people who were way ahead of me, like, thinking I was worthy enough to do that, that to actually listen to the conversations of, oh, I heard those numbers, but I didn't actually know you were splitting that with all of your team and your people. And I didn't know that, you know, you did X to scale. And I'm just not willing to do what you did in order to get there. So then I'm fine with it. Fine with you being there if I'm not willing to do that or, you know, the numbers that you're hearing really aren't real. Like, that was happening a lot too. You start to, like, hear these different things in the industry and you have no idea. So I think that getting those rooms and hearing the real story, that's one of the biggest reasons I love. I am obsessed with events, I'm obsessed with masterminding. I'm obsessed with sitting in groups of women and really talking about our numbers and what's going on. Otherwise you fall into a trap of thinking you're not good enough and not knowing the story when that's not the case at all. When you could actually be doing better than people, even though your launch was less and they just had to pay people out way more. I learned that one as well. I was like, wait, I was doing better from these people I was comparing myself to because they were paying so much more in outgo to even get those numbers.

That is so true that we can cough these stories in our mind of what's actually happening. Having no information, no basis to assume that we know anything. It is crazy and so often we're way off base. So thank you for that clarity.

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How did you navigate from there to launching your companies, to growing your podcast to the level and scale that you have? Like, what was that next version?

Like?

I'll talk about the podcast just because a lot of people say, like, how'd you grow your podcast so big? Like, well, you're seven and I've done like three episodes a week for seven years. So I mean, that's one way is just being consistent. And you know, people really started to notice my podcast like three years ago on what, year five. So it's kind of like the whole thing, you guys, is just finding something that you can do consistently that you somewhat enjoy because. Because it's all going to turn into work, but also if we can create some joy around it, that's amazing. And just keep showing up consistently because there's so many brands right now that I'm even looking at and comparing, but also being inspired for this new brand that I'm about to launch. And I'm forgetting they're on year five. You know, I'm looking at them going, oh my God, they're crushing it. When were they. It's important to go and look. When were they established? What did the start look like? And I was just sitting with a friend last week that we were visiting and he said to me, he goes, you know, know, I'm about to start my podcast. And do you know what I did? I went back and I listened to your first podcast. And then I went back and I listened to Ed, my Litt's first podcast. And then I went back and I listened to. He just kept naming these people and he said, you know what? I feel good. I feel like I can start my podcast.

Everyone sucks at the beginning. You have to start. I love it.

Yes. It was such a good thing to think about is you guys. I remember I used to compare myself to Marie Forley all the time. When I started doing video, I had started a YouTube channel channel. And I wish that I would have gone back, I did later and go watch our first YouTubes because I'm like, oh, I could do that. Like, we all start in the same spot. So I think that that's, you know, one of the most important things you can do on the journey.

I know that not every business that you have had has been successful. Can you walk us through what it's like for you? Having some failures in business and how do you come out the other side of it?

I've had a lot of small failures. I think every week is made up of small failures. But I've had some very big, big, big, epic failures. And I actually would never, ever wish them away because the woman that I've become on the other side of them is better than any possible version of myself that I could have imagined. Without them, like, there would be no way for me to get to. I can sit here and tell you I am so proud of myself for making it through the last two and a half years that I've made it through that I would never wish it away. Even though in the moments it was very dark, like 3am waking up, stressed out, out, scared. And I'll tell you why. So right before the pandemic, I think it was 2019 or 2020, I had set out, I had gotten this big vision that I wanted to do products. I was very interested in products. I wanted to do a product company. I was like, you know what? I love courses and I love events. But, like, I really want this new challenge. I want to connect women in a different way. So I started a non alcoholic rose spritz company and an alcoholic version. So there were two versions. And I was going to put questions on the back of the can because I wanted more mainstream women to get this message of connection that I was talking about in my books and that I was talking about on my podcast. And I thought, what are mainstream women doing? We're kind of connecting over cocktail hour. We're going out, we're having wine, and we're wondering why we're coming home, you know, feeling disconnected and crappy. So I thought, I'm going to make this light rose spritz. I'm going to put these connection things on the back of the can. Well, everyone thought it was a great idea because we all wanted something lighter and we all wanted to connect, connect. So I had raised $2 million from 54 women who all loved this vision and also loved the journey of being in a products company, because if they got to see it, maybe they could be it as well. So that's why a lot of women were investing too. Well, they got to see it, but they also got to see a lot of the struggle, which is very Powerful. And so they're still on the journey with me. But as the pandemic kept going, what happened is it took me a while to even raise the money and, you know, get ready to even start this company. And as we were getting started, the pandemic is happening, which then happens during the pandemic, called the candemic, where you can't even get aluminum cans and where the price of aluminum went up, then the price of shipping went up. And then co packing got shut down for a while. Manufacturing co Packing, they weren't able to take new people. But what was happening is the people who were helping us set up, we're still taking your money, even though the people on the other side were not really working. So it was a very interesting moment in time where if you had products or anything like that, it was just kind of either all on hold or skyrocketing. So during this period of time, it's like we're trying to move the needle. We're trying to make things happen. We're trying to, like, have all this stuff come together. And we went to hundreds of different places. Literally the number on the spreadsheet of the all of the different places that we were going to. We went from being able to before the pandemic, like, get the people that we would want to work with and maybe have them, like, help us with pricing because they want your business, to having them say things to us like, like, okay, maybe we'll take you, but you have to pitch us and you have to tell us how much money you think you're going to make in the first three months. And you have to set the number that you think you're going. This is a real story. Set the number that you think you're going to hit in three months, your projections. Then you need to give us $15,000 on top of this to hold it. And if you don't hit that projection, then we keep your $15,000 and you're out. Out. This is from a vendor. So I would create pitches, I'd get on there and grovel. And I was like, this is where my time was going is. I was like, this is insanity. And so I had a few moments where I was like, there were things that put us at a complete stop, which I'll tell you. But in that moment, I was like, wait, even if we land this and I give them the 15k on hold and we don't hit it, like, let's just say we don't hit that number, they're going to keep my 15k, then I don't have somebody to go to, and we're out. Like, that would be done because I'm not in line for another spot because no one's taking me. Do you know what I'm saying? It would be stopped. It would be on a halt. And so I was like, well, I can keep going. I could get another backup plan to then do what? It was a crazy, crazy time. So with that said, then I was running into these different things. My investors where the licensing company, first, they wanted all their socials, which that's not a great thing for them to part with. They didn't want to give their social securities, but they ended up doing that. And then the second thing that they came back to me with two months later as we were going down the road of licensing, was they wanted each individual fingerprint of every single investor. And I'm like, I have celebrity investors. They're not gonna go give you their fingerprint as well for an investment. Like, they're gonna say no. So that was a huge moment for me where I couldn't move forward. Not to mention we had done all the numbers as much as we could. I'd be operating in the hopes of getting bought in two to three years without knowing and continuing to operate in the red and just raise more money. I had a very, very, very universally lucky godsent woman sent to me, and she is a huge deal in the alcohol industry. Talking about, like, if you have an alcohol brand, you're consulting with this woman, or she's worked with you, so we actually become friends. And she says to me, I'm going to tell it to you real because I show her everything, Everything. She says, you can either continue to raise money and you would need to start raising $10 million today to even have a chance to get out in the world at all. And maybe, maybe you'll do this. She's like, I'm just telling you the honest truth. Like, if you're a celebrity, maybe. And I even tell them this. So I was just looking at two roads, and I was like, this is not a smart business anymore. This is where a true business woman, where a true business person would say, this is dumb down. Let's pivot. So that was my moment of this is not smart. Like, even though everybody thinks we're going in this direction, even though this was the dream that we raised the money on, this is no longer a smart vision. Like, you will be stupid to continue down this path, that you're just going to lose their money and Then you're going to have to ultimately tell them, sorry, this failed, even though I had a feeling it would right around this point. But I kept going because I was too scared to tell you or I felt too stupid to pivot it, or whatever other reason is going through your head.

This is interesting to me because I can see both sides. I also believe in there's always a solution, right? Like, we can always find a way. And like you said, there's another vendor out there, there's another shipping company, whatever it may be. What have you learned from that experience that can help inform you and others moving forward? How do you know when it is time to let go and move on to something different, or when it's time to push through?

Well, I had pushed through at that point for like a year and a half. You know, we were throwing money at it that just money wasn't working. I was like, really getting great relationships with people who were high up in the alcohol industry. That wasn't working. And honestly, at the end of the day, it was just your numbers. Like, if your numbers aren't going to pan out no matter what you do, I couldn't charge way more for this product. In fact, I was already going to be charging the very top, top, top. And the only way to get those numbers down was massive scale, scale. And I wasn't going to be able to hit that massive scale at the rate that I wanted. So how did I know? I think that, you know, there's a spot where you just need to really sit and look at your numbers realistically and say, is this even a smart business? Are my margins at a place where in the next year or two years they could even be where I want? And the answers were no.

And how do you retain those investors, retain those funds and then bring them on the journey with you to something, something new?

Well, you live a little bit of your personal nightmare by yourself for a while.

What?

It was like a solid week that I had to process. I cried. I was up in the middle of the night. I was like, I can't believe I have to go and tell these people this. And so I reached out to a few other people who had companies and a few people's companies who we invested. And I was like, wait a minute, I'm an investor in these companies. And they've all pivoted. All of them.

Them.

They've all pivoted from their original products. They've all discontinued either a product. Maybe they had a product suite of like, three products. They just continued one or two and added two more, or they've added 10 more since they started and then really kind of stopped this other one that's not really working. So I was like, wait, I think this happens all the time. I just need to talk to somebody to help me learn how to tell the story to my investors who's been there before of why this is a good thing.

Thing.

So that's what I did. I got on the phone with these people and I said, hey, here's where I'm at. Here's why this is so much smarter. Here's why this new idea is way better. What do I do? And they're like, oh, my God, this happens all the time. And actually, you're one of the people who people like to invest in because it means that you're not willing to get so stuck in your ego or fear or worrying about what people think to not go and change. So that really helped me that they're like, no, no, no. This is a trait that you want in a founder. This is amazing. I'm so proud of you for doing this. I'm proud of you for doing it while you have money left. And I was like, wait, I'm proud of me for doing it. Okay. I'm going to be proud of the fact that I see that there's money left, like, a good amount of money that we could go and create something with the same vision, different product. So I think this product is even more aligned now. So what happened is, you know, as a founder, founder, you're the visionary, you are the enroller. It is literally our job to solve problems and re. Enroll in the vision. Like, get a different vision, Re enroll. Get everyone on board. So I just took that on because I am a natural enroller. And I thought, okay, I first have to, like, really understand and see how this could be better. So I let myself sit with that. It's like such a better fit for the community. The margins are a million times better. It's a better product.

Product.

I'm more excited about it. We can market it in such a. A way that doesn't have all the red lines that alcohol has. Like, we were so limited, and I can create an ambassador program with this one. I couldn't pay people on the other one. So I just gathered all of that evidence of why this is better, created a story around it, wrote that investor letter, really, truly believed it when I sent it. I still do, and I still know it. And I can say that 98 of them were super excited. And the other 2%. I literally got on the phone with and I had a conversation. So I just. As I got those emails back, I asked if they would jump on the phone.

I love that you reached out to people who had done it before so that you could have them talk you through what succeeded for them or didn't succeed for them. So smart. And then you were your honest, vulnerable self and stepped into what your strengths were and made that work for you. So congrats on that because I've never gone through something like that. But listening to it, my heart was racing. Just hearing. I mean, when you said up at 3 in the morning, probably trying, of course, because you're thinking you're. You're jeopardizing the trust that other people put in you. And just when you really care with a lot of risk, there is a lot of heart rate and anxiety that can come with it. That is not easy, but excellent job. Are you so excited moving forward with this new product?

I am so excited because, you know, as we were building the other company, it felt like I was going uphill. And every time I'd get higher, extra weight was added. And with this company, I feel like things are happening. The relationships are working. We're so excited about our vendors. Like, people are excited to work with us. We actually get to negotiate on pricing. It's a totally different world. Not to mention the product is just such a better fit. It's a daily beauty hydrator. The name that we have chosen is glossy because it's all about glowing skin. And it is a skincare routine that you can drink. So we're really excited about it because I'm all about little things in your life, little daily rituals that really move the needle for you and make you feel really good, that just kind of like reconnect you and recommit to who you are. And for me, whenever I've had hydration products, because I love them, always have loved them, especially once I moved to the desert, I was like, oh, my God, I need all of the hydration products possible. Plus, I don't know about you guys, but I'm like a toddler when it comes to water. I want it to be flavored. When I drink it, it just helps me drink more of it. And so I'm excited about this product because it's something that I use, that I love, that I know that my community loves. And I also know that we typically drink water not just because we want to hydrate, and we know we should, and it makes us feel better, but we think about our skin. Right. Whenever I drink water, I'm like, I know I need this. My skin's really dry. So why not put all of these amazing skin superfoods in there that are also going to help your skin and. And it tastes amazing. So it's just a really great fit for my community because I know they're already using it. I feel like a lot of us are in that place where we do want to feel our best and we want to look our best, and I think that's women in general. And I can also be able to create a beautiful ambassador program, which Heather. I have a background in network marketing. I love helping people get paid, women especially. So that's what's really exciting me most right now is the idea that I can also give people a product that they become obsessed with, and when they do, they can also get paid if they refer it.

It's amazing. You can see the dots connecting when you look back. But it was impossible for you to know, looking forward where this was going. You had to move forward through that unknown, taking those risks, having those 3am nights where you couldn't sleep to now come to a place where you're saying everything is actually coming together. Do you think, looking back, I had horrible situations in Covid as a. Well, do you think looking back, it was a function of timing, or do you think looking back that this was the plan the whole time you were meant to do this better product, this more innovative product?

I believe firmly it's always meant to be this. And I also believe I was meant to go on that journey. The lessons would take me a month to sit here and tell you about. And I know that you know that because you are out in the world doing big things. But yes, I believe it was always meant to be this. I can't actually believe I started with the other one now that I. I'm here. But yes, I think it was always meant to be this.

You mentioned that you have these routines and these small things that you do over and over again. I know that you have a text program. Can you break down for us what those routines are? What are you sharing with people and tell us how to sign up so we can get more of this wisdom?

Yes. Well, you know, for me, I've never been that person. It may sound like it in my life where it's like I just go all in with these big things and my life changes. It's always been little incredible, incremental things that I have done. It's like habit stacking. Right. It's the idea of atomic habits. It's like, just start this one thing because, Heather, I know you talk about confidence all the time. It's like confidence comes from when we keep promises to ourselves and I think we lack confidence and people don't know how to create it because they over promise to themselves. I learned really quickly in life, just start with a little promise to start small and be like, okay, I did this for a week. I'm proud of you. Or oh, okay, I did it for three days. That's so good. Let's do it again next week. Chris and I, my husband and started something called the Power nine probably ten years ago. And it's super easy. It's just in the morning we wake up and to each other, if you don't have a partner, you can write it in your journal. You can do it to yourself, you can text it to a friend. Chris is traveling on the road right now. We voice noted our Power 9 to each other. It's three gratitudes, three excited abouts and three things that you're manifesting. But I will send it to you and tell you why this works and exactly how to do it and what it's done for me in my life. So all you have to do is text the word power to 310-490-68363 and then I'm going to send you the Power 9. Because truly that's been the thing that even throughout all of this, Heather, like building this new company, I have kept my excited about like within my business. Instead of focusing on what's negative in the morning, I'm like, I'm so excited to build this. I'm so excited that I get to include women on this. I'm so excited that I get to create a community with this. Even if I'm feeling so much anxiety about something or scary to send that investor letter or whatever it is. And then also the manifest, it just stays right in front of my mind every single day. And I think it's so important to say what am I shooting for today? And that's really what this does.

Clearly it's working, right? So guys, sign up for this text program. I'm going to put it in the show notes below. I'm signed up. Lori, thank you so much for all the work that you're doing. I am cheering you on. Guys, check out Earn your happy podcast. Over 50 million downs downloads. This girl's put the work in and she is breaking it all down for you. Lori, we are cheering you on. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun.

Oh, my gosh. Guys, until next week, keep creating your confidence. I decided to change that dynamic. I couldn't be more excited for what you're going to hear. Start learning and growing. Inevitably something will happen. No succeeds alone.

You don't stop and look around once in a while. You could miss it.

Come on this journey with me.