350: How did you get into speaking?

There's something that I've always been good at, and it is fast forwarding to the future and seeing if I will be happy if I don't accomplish this goal and bringing the pain of that feeling of not accomplishing it into the present moment. Welcome to the earn your happy podcast. I'm Lori Harder, founder of The Bliss Project, 3 Time Fitness World champion, fitness expert and cover model, turned self love junkie, lifestyle entrepreneur and author. Each week I'll bring you a guest or a thought that will help you bust through your fears, connect to your soul, and get focused and clear so you can elevate your life, business, and relationships. We don't wait until we're ready for someone to tell us we're good enough. We take what we want and we anoint ourselves, get ready to earn, own, and unapologetically rock your happiness every single day. Are you with me? Here we go. Welcome back to another episode of questionably awesome.

Where it's awesome all the time.

It's not even a question.

The answer is yes.

The answer is always yes. In the house of questionably awesome, do you know what I can't wait for?

What?

A questionably awesome photo shoot. Ooh. I think we should make it super weird and goofy.

I think that's the only way it would be.

I think it should include pillars of sorts. Like where we could be maybe Chris standing. Exactly where we could be. Standing behind a pillar with our head.

Just, like, rested on it like a 90s sitcom.

Oh, my goodness.

Popping out.

Popping out of pillars.

Popping out.

Did you see those girls in that new photo shoot? I'm so inspired. It's popping out of pillars. I don't know.

Pillars are very on trend.

They really are. 20. If it's 20 years ago. They totally are. Here we are, back to pillars. Do you know how many people have come up to me and been like, oh, my God, I decorated with pillars all the time? Yes.

Pillars are just.

Yeah, they're.

They're very.

The pillars of life. You know that. They really are. Okay. So how are you?

I'm really good.

You went bowling?

I went bowling this week. I went to a really cool workshop on Sunday.

Oh, my God. Tell me about.

Was these two local coaches and it was about. One of my friends invited me to go and you talk about. What did we talk about? Oh, we talked about was a lot of meditation and going with your gut on things and listening to your inner compass.

Did anything come through for you during it? You know how, like, sometimes you leave and you get one message that you're like, yeah, I knew I shouldn't have eaten those sausages.

That's exactly what came through.

You're like, rumble guts. They're like, follow your gut. And you're like, what is this gas telling me?

Yeah, pretty much. That's.

Excuse me. Oh, excuse me.

But it was really neat.

So what came through?

I don't know if I had any huge breakthroughs.

Yeah. Was there like a message though that was like, you need to slow down or you need to bowl more or.

Yeah, it was about bowling more. And it was just. It was good to think about. Oh, they talked about being in low moods. How sometimes you're just in a lower mood and that's okay. And to recognize that and just to. It was a lot of pausing about pausing before you make a decision or before you say something to your partner or in a business setting. So many good things about taking a step back and just waiting.

Oh man, that is so good. And I feel like you and I share so much in common about the low mood things because I think we hold ourselves to like a wait. I'm a happy person and why do I feel this way? And am I depressed or is there something wrong with me? I don't know if you feel that way that far, but like all the time, oh my God. And I'm like, what is. So I've let go of like the question, what is my problem? Because that just makes me feel worse. And now I'm like, cuz Chris is so good at it. He's always like, that's okay.

Yeah.

He goes like we talked about, like, enjoy it, enjoy it. No. Oh, what's wrong with me? And so I think that hearing that from. I don't think it's talked about enough. Meaning that low moods are actually just such a big, big part of like a normal day. For the most part. Yeah. Like, go ahead.

Well, one of the teachers was just saying when she had that same realization too. And then she'll recognize, oh, I'm just in a low mood. And she'll just ride it out and then go to bed and the next day it's good to go.

Or maybe it's not. Yeah.

And that's okay too.

I've had, I think I had a year of lower moods. Yeah. Where I'm just like every morning I would wake up and be like, something's wrong. And I was like, no, there's just a lot of clear, like low moods can be massive clearings. If monitoring your thoughts, if you notice that you're thinking a Lot of negative things, like, oh, about yourself or about your life or your job. I think that's where the work needs to be done. But when you really are doing the work and you're just in a low mood, that's when we start to question ourselves. Like, what's wrong with me? But it's just a low mood. Like, you're actually maybe lower energy. It could be something you ate. It could be something that you need to go through Right. In order to get to the next place that you're going. So if you're out there in a low mood, hey, enjoy it.

Enjoy it.

Yeah. What do you want to tell people about being in a low mood? To enjoy it.

That we all have them. And maybe pick something good on Netflix to compliment your low mood.

I couldn't agree more.

Get on that sofa.

Get on that sofa. Ride that sofa. What if we put saddles on sofas so that when we, like, sat on them, we didn't feel lazy? We were like, what are you talking about? I was riding all day.

I'm sitting upright.

Yeah. Oh, we should make horse chairs where it's actually a horse. And we're like, no, I was riding a prairie. Yeah. And they're like, what did you actually do? You're like, I was watching Netflix.

I watched the Office.

But what if you watch westerns the whole time during it, and you, like, kind of like, kick the. The chair. The horse chair with your heels a little?

Then I would say you're not in a low mood.

Do you think that's exercise?

I would say that's very effective.

We need to make those. I really think I'm gonna get rid of my furniture and just have two fake horse chairs.

I think that's neat.

So Chris and I can watch TV like that, and you and Adam can have those in your living room too. You'll be like, look up. We got saddle up. We got TV to watch. We're gonna active watch. All right, so tell me your quote.

Oh, cool. It's by a music producer, Rick Rubin, and I like this podcast called Broken Record, and it's really interesting. If you like music.

Music.

He says, I never decide if an idea is good or bad until I try it. So much of what gets in the way of things being good is thinking that we know. And the more that we can remove any baggage we're carrying with us and just be in the moment, use our ears, and pay attention to what's happening and just listen to that inner voice that directs us, the better.

Wow. I love that. So much.

Isn't that cool?

It's so cool because I was just in a room of people who like amazing entrepreneurs, but we can just question ourselves to death before we do something.

Yeah.

And the main theme that came out of the room, like one of the main themes was like, you won't know until you just try it. Like, there's no way to know and get feedback until you put something out there or you try something.

Yeah, just do it.

Like, my dad was so annoying with that growing up. He would make me eat anything and everything and I'd be like, ew. Because he would. He loved. He was one of those dads who was. He would eat like those canned sardines and he loved it and like liver and all of the gross things as a child. And he would literally like force feed me and just make me try a bite. Cuz he was like, stop it. You don't know what you don't like. And oh yeah. It became a theme in my life. So then I do that to people now and it's terrible. Like, I get really trying to get.

You to try new things always. Yeah.

Try new foods that were freaking disgusting. Disgusting. Yeah.

It was like Beanie weenies.

I don't eat canned foods. I'm from up north. I don't know. You should eat canned foods up north because it's the only way it's fresh.

Yeah.

Because it's cold. Exactly. Nothing is growing there.

No. It's all an iceberg.

Unless you grow like mushrooms inside of your house under a sun lamp. I don't know. All right, my quote. This is a very. I just found this in 10 seconds, but I like it. Be happy. Be yourself. If others don't like it, then let them be. Happiness is a choice.

Let.

Life isn't about people pleasing everyone. And. Okay, the and part's mine. I don't know who said this. This is from thedailyquotes.com so I just want to say somebody, when we were talking about people pleasing once, we were like, we need a whole episode on this. And I got a lot of messages that said, yes, please do a whole episode on it. So maybe we just do an episode on people pleasing at one point.

Yeah, I'm great at that.

Yeah. I mean, we should call everybody's name out that we're annoyed with. I'm just kidding. We're people. Please. That we've been people pleasing and we secretly resent and then just send them the podcast and be like, I have something to tell you.

Here's a Message.

Here's a funny message. I hope you laugh.

That would.

Yeah, that's one way to air ourselves out.

Let's just let it out.

Hey, do you have the review?

Hey. I do and it's really good.

Okay.

It is from Elizabeth D. 77. She said. Thank you. I feel like Lori is talking directly to me each and every episode, especially episode 345, which completely resonated with me. I am moved by her authenticity, her tenacity and her compassion, and have felt a connection even through the podcast. I listened to the questionably awesome episodes with her assistant Evans every Sunday as I clean. And I cannot tell you how many times I have to stop as I'm laughing so hard. Truly appreciate each and every episode and I will make it a point one day to meet this sunshine of my day. Thank you, Lori, for everything you do. Keep jamming.

Oh, my God. Doesn't that just make you so excited? That was the sunshine of my day. Oh, it's fresh. Wow, that is. That's like sweet rolls. That is amazing.

Fresh out the oven.

Oh, my God.

Elizabeth D77.

Elizabeth D. 77. Please email our customer service, customer serviceaurieharder.com Nailed it. And we will send you something super duper awesome. Do you have. Do you have one of the questions?

Yeah, it's really good.

Who that from?

It's from at Be your own. You. How did you get into speaking? How did you get into speaking, Lori? Was it started from your podcast?

I was probably like a year old and I was like, I think I thought everyone else was doing this. I was like, okay, I. No, but I. Those are my first words. My parents were like, she's going to be a bright one. Yeah, but.

HSR eats.

That was a real laugh. Oh my God. Okay. How did I get into speaking? It's how we get into anything. To be quite honest with you. I think that there is this path that you just lay over everything. So I just started going to speaking events and I started looking at who was speaking. And then I looked if there were any different courses or different people who could help me with speaking. But also I looked for really low hanging fruit at things that I could create or speak at. Even if it was just like four people. If I was creating a group, like a women's event or something like that, I'm like, hey, everybody, let's. Do you want to get together too and talk about like health and wellness and whatever? I just started doing these small things and also doing things online. I wanted practice in really small Groups because it made. I was deathly afraid to speak. Like, beyond. I would have rather jumped out of an airplane for real without a parachute on. Like, just push me out. Yeah. Because speaking felt like certain death to me because I would get, like, crazy panic attacks. So I had to learn how to move through those panic attacks. And I had to know. I had to find people who are also just as nervous as me. And I did.

Yeah.

And they let me know what they did. And then to get out there speaking, I just started asking. I, like, would email people and be like, I really want to speak. Are you looking for any speakers? I think making a real is really good. I think telling them what you can offer is really good. I think being prepared and doing all the things that speakers do. If you don't know what that is, message a bunch of speakers or email people who do, who are speaking coaches. You have to start putting yourself in places and telling people that you want to speak.

To follow up on that, Kayla Wilkey at Kayla Wilkey asked, did you have any fears that got in the way of starting things? So were there any fears that got in the way of. You just talked about being scared of speaking. So how did you push through that?

I mean, this answer is. It's. Nobody wants to hear this answer because it doesn't feel good. It's awful. Like, every day is scary. So you either. There's something that I've always been good at, and it is fast forwarding to the future and seeing if I will be happy if I don't accomplish this goal and bringing the pain of that feeling of not accomplishing it into the present moment. And I think that's important to do. Like, take things off the table for you and say, you know what if I don't do this? Guess what? Like, I pretend like it's not even on the table. Like, it's being taken away from me.

Yeah.

I picture someone saying, guess what? You know that speaking stuff that you want to do or, you know, those events you want to start or, you know that coaching business you want to start or whatever it is, you can't do it anymore. Like, I pretend something happened, whether it's like, all of our rights are taken away or we no longer have anything online, whatever. And they're like, you can no longer do this thing. And I think of how I would feel, and I think of how lucky we are to even be able to do it, scared or not. I think of how desperately miserable and sad I would be because it would be taking away my purpose and the thought of that alone when you really sit with that is like, how would I not be using this opportunity? How would I not be pushing through? How would I not be showing up? So I'd rather deal with the pain of pushing through the discomfort than the pain of never doing it at all. Right. So what's something for you that you want to do that you push through the anxiety?

It can be anything. Going to an event or trying a new class or something. And of course it's always scary when you first start it. But that's just part of life. That just means you're living.

It does. So what? But you are. Here's the thing. Like so many people don't go to the class or they don't go to the event. Like so many. And it shows in. You know, when you worked with us, like, it shows in ticket sales. Like you always have like a at least 10 attrition rate, meaning they just don't show up and they don't get their money back. Right. In a lot of it's majority of the people who don't show up is because they have fear.

So true.

So what do you do, like when you're like, I'm. Because yeah, you buy the ticket. Your higher self buys the ticket. Right. Your higher self books the class, but then your lower self is like, stay home, you don't need it.

Well, it's kind of like I remember before I went to college, my mom told me, she goes, if you at least show up to class, you, you're gonna get a C for just showing up. If you at least show up, you know you're gonna pass the class because showing up is half the battle.

Right? Just show up. Wow.

Just show up. So I guess maybe that mindset kind of stuck with me. Like if I can at least make myself walk through the store, then something good is gonna happen.

Wow, that's like the coolest thing I've ever heard.

Whoa.

I love that. Like, just show up. You're at least going to get a seat. For me, like when I was in school, if I got a seat, I was like, yes. If it was math, I was like.

Yeah, same math was so hard.

That just made so much sense because you're at least something will shift whether you even like you don't have to do any work when you're there because you actually getting there is a shit ton of work. So hard it's like, wow, props to mom.

Yeah. Thanks mom.

This, this podcast is dedicated to mom.

Thanks Mom.

What if I get a mom? Tattoo. Do you think my mom would be upset if I told her it wasn't about her?

Yes.

Do you know what's so cool about the name Mom? Do you know what's so cool about the name Mom?

That is universal.

Yeah. And I could pretend it's about my mom. Just kidding. Mom, I love you. I would. I would be like, actually, you're. You are. When you look at this upside down, you're the wow factor.

Yeah. Wow, Mom.

Wow, Mom. I think that's a great tattoo. Everyone who's. Who is thinking about tattoos. Didn't we talk about tattoos last time? Yeah, we did. Wow. What did you see?

I did not get one, though.

Are you going to get one maybe next week of your dog?

Yeah.

You know what? I found a great artist who could really jazz up your puppy on my face. You know, the, the chest tattoos are like really popular right now.

Yeah.

You could get his face right, like right below your bust line.

Oh, that would be really nice.

When you wear those plunging dresses, which is often. Yeah. So people will be like, is that your dog?

Is that who I think it is?

And you'd be like, why, yes, it is. Yep.

Yep, it is.

And you could start barking.

Maybe I will.

And like puffing out your chest every time you bark. And then.

2026 is the year that you launch your business. It's the year that you've become the boss. You become the leader. That idea that you have that has been eating at you forever, ever, that just will not leave you alone is going to come to life. Maybe it's something that someone tells you you should always sell or a store you've already designed in your head. And with Shopify, 2026 is when you finally make it happen. Shopify gives you everything you need to sell online and in person. Millions of entrepreneurs have already made this leap from household name to first time business owners. Just getting started, you guys. I use Shopify for glossy and I remember when they sent me my little shopping bag celebrating my 10 sales and I literally cried because I was so scared to take the leap. And I'm so glad that I did and that I use Shopify. It gives you all the tools to easily build your dream store. You can choose from hundreds of beautiful templates that you can customize to match your brand setup is fast. With Shopify's built in AI tools that write product descriptions and headlines and help you edit photos. So marketing is built in too. You can create email and social campaigns that reach customers wherever they scroll. So as you grow, Shopify grows With you, you can handle more orders, expand to new markets, and do it all from the Same dashboard in 2026. Stop waiting and start selling with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com happy. Go to shopify.com happy that's shopify.com happy. Hear your first cha ching this new year with Shopify by your side. Too many people finish their workday feeling frustrated, drained and unfulfilled. I know that. I have experienced that myself. And the good news is it doesn't have to be this way and you don't need a new job to fix it. Patrick Lencioni, author of the Five Dysfunctions of a Team and more than a dozen other bestsellers, created the working genius assessment to help you pinpoint the kind of work that gives you energy, the kind that lights you up, and it also shares the kind that drains it. So over a million people, including me, have taken it and completely changed how I lead and show up every day. If you're a CEO, an entrepreneur, or someone who just wants to level up in business and in life, working genius is going to give you the clarity and confidence to operate in your strengths and find greater joy in what you do. Because confidence isn't pretending to be good at everything. It's knowing where you're truly gifted. Take the working genius assessment today and get 20% off with code earn@workinggenius.com that's working genius dot com. You'll be glad you did it.

All right. Thanks, mom.

Thanks, mom for that.

And did we have any other questions? I don't think we did.

I don't think we did.

Okay, let me think of on the fly question. Oh, I want to know.

Yes.

How wedding planning is going.

It's not really happening right now.

Yeah, you know, it's weird. There's a weird. There's a weird point where you don't need to be planning.

Yeah, I should probably be planning, but I've done a little bit, but not much.

You know what I just thought like you could really do a cool pop up business of wedding planning like where you do the rv where it's like a really cute RV that's all decorated and it puts out string lights on the beach and they do cocktails and just one stop. Pop up shop RV or get hitched. Oh my God, how cute.

And the trailer hitch a little pump.

Yeah. Get hitch.com. well, get hitch.com is totally taken.

Well, but you shouldn't have said that out loud because that's A business.

I know someone is starting an rv. Wedding planning.

Even if it was just a little. A mobile office where you could just hop in there. They. They walk through the list. You get everything done in like, three hours.

Totally. And it. It's like a Vegas. Like a rolling Vegas. Get hitched. Oh, my God. They just go through cities like. Like. And for all those women who are, like, pressuring their boyfriends, they could be, like, get hitched. Just coming through.

You know what's interesting about wedding planning? I was all scared about it and thinking that everyone's gonna, like, put all this pressure on me.

Yeah.

Really hasn't been like that.

It's been awesome.

It's been really cool.

Well, look at that. Lifting the veil.

Isn't that just lifting the veil and all? Oh, my God, you are full of puns this morning.

Apparently you need to stay up really late and feel super tired and get. That's where the puns go.

Lifting the veil. They just keep on coming.

I'm trying to think of something about a garter, but it's not happening. Yeah, something about you don't need to guard your energy as much as you thought.

No, you don't.

No, you're totally fine. Yeah. And people offer you help and you.

Can just accept it.

How does that feel?

Really nice.

Are you wedding dress shopping?

I've made one appointment.

Oh, my God. Is it. So I have to plan for one of my friends, figure out how to book a spot. What did you do, just call around and find a place you liked or what?

I went through a word of mouth.

Recommendation, so I have to ask some mouths.

You have to ask mouths.

Okay.

You can also look on Yelp maybe, but I don't know. I feel like a big mouth things. Yeah, that maybe a friend of a friend would know.

I think I'll ask. Yeah. All right, Evans. All right, Lori, we're gonna wrap this thing.

Okay.

So do you have a wrap? Do you?

Chicka chicka cha cha chicka chicka chicka.

Chow chow, chow, chow.

Make your day a meow meow.

Oh, I love that one. All right, you guys. We are so grateful for you. And as always, there is no reward for listening to this all the way through, so we wish there was.

Sorry.

Have an amazing day. And until next time, question. Don't ever question your awesomeness.

All right, bye. Bye.

Thank you guys so much for spending this time with me on the earn your happy podcast. I am so glad that you stopped by. If you could take one second to share this episode with someone you think would love it. That would be absolutely amazing and we would be forever grateful. Also, please leave us a review if you feel so moved by going to itunes and and leaving us an honest thought, an honest comment. Tell us what you think, tell us what you want to hear more of. It would really help us out on our journey to helping thousands and thousands of people. Until then, don't forget to earn your happy. Thanks again guys. Bye Bye.