366: The Truth About My Messy Journey

When your back is up against the wall, you have to do the thing that you don't think that you can do. And for me, that was facing my fear and figuring out how the f to earn some more money. And I am so grateful that this happened. 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 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 the earn your happy podcast. And it's time for another quickie because there's always time for inspiration. And I love seeing all of your stories of where you're fitting this in, whether it's getting ready in the morning or on a walk or on your recruit to work, whatever that is. Thank you guys so much for taking me with you. It's always super fun to know who I'm talking to when I see you guys on stories. So today. You know, something that I really realize sometimes I don't share is I live so much in the present or in my planet of what I want to be doing. And I've done so much work around the old stories and the old limiting beliefs, as I know you guys do the same, that sometimes we can completely forget to share the actual journey. And I think that even though I do share a lot of my journey, I don't really get super granular. And I thought that this would be kind of a fun episode to be able to take you guys through the actual timeline of my life. So I'm gonna take you through the pretty much the middle section where I want to show what the journey really looks like and how long it truly takes to either form new beliefs or new habits or really dig yourself out of sometimes that really dark place that many of us are either in right now or that we have visited in the past or we're afraid to go back to. And I want to start out with just saying, you know, in the I'm going to basically start sharing from like 16 on. But I will tell you, I just had like a download of how important it is to Tell people that whatever you see now is absolutely, you know, in anyone's life. In anyone's life. Whatever you see now, it's a beautiful reward for the journey that they've been on. And to never, ever, ever judge where someone is at right now, because we do not know what lessons they need to teach. And sometimes you have to go through some really crazy, ugly, awful experiences that we could judge really, really, really hard, whether it's ourself or others, in order to come out of the other side and save people who are either in or going through the same thing. I just actually had an amazing podcast that's going to be coming out in a few weeks, really talking about some. Some of her journey who I'm not gonna say the name yet, but really some of her journey that a lot of us could really be judgmental on. And I will tell you that I have so many parts of my journey that I'm not even prepared to share yet, but they will probably be shared in the future that I know I had to go through certain experiences in order to teach and share and have massive compassion for everybody who's going through them right now and to not judge. So with that said, I will tell you. Growing up from 0 to 18, I was in a very small town called Market, Michigan. And it was like literally what felt like three hours from anywhere with like a real mall. I just use mall as a reference point because it was that like, we called it the North Woods. The we actually have a name. It's or a nickname for who we are. We call ourselves the Yoopers. And there's an actual. If you want to know my life in a nutshell, I just want you to Google Duh Yoopers D A Y R I believe it's Y O O P E R S And that was a band that pretty much just sang about what it was like to live in the Upper Peninsula. And you can just listen to one of those songs and it will summarize pretty much what I heard growing up and my life. So lots of trees, lots of imagination, lots of playing outside. Just to give you an example, When I was 16, I was on a road trip with my friend. It was like an hour road trip and it was in the middle of the night. And I will tell you, she was not the best driver. She was a pretty crappy driver. But I will say I can't blame her for this happening because my eyes were peeled on the road as well. We were on this road trip and it was during deer season, which means that A lot of the hunters are scaring the deer out of the woods, and there's just a lot of deer at that time. And in one hour, we hit two deer and one bear. Do not worry. Not too many animals got hurt during that time, but it was something that you absolutely could not avoid. Like, they literally jut out in front of your car. So that's what the up is like. With that said, I want to tell you just the journey of kind of how my work life and my life generally went. And we'll see where this goes. Just so you can see how your journey maybe matches up. Maybe you're in the middle of it. Maybe you are feeling like you're on the other side. I know that I'm still in the middle of it, which is really, really exciting, because growth is what we're here for, no matter how much that hurts. So. All right. At 16 years old, I started working at a coffee shop. And the coffee shop's name was Beanorella's. And I learned so much about just being a really amazing employee and going above and beyond, and also how important recognition was for me. It made me so excited to make somebody proud. And I also took so much pride in my job over making really good coffee, because I was obsessed with coffee. I also learned that I really liked. I liked hard work, and I liked when I could kind of, like, set my own tone. So I would always bring in my CDs and put them into the CD player. And I wanted to create an atmosphere for people. So at a really young age, even at 16 years old, I was all about, like, how can I create a really good experience for people? And looking back, I think that's so funny because it's something I'm obsessed with now. How can I create a really great atmosphere and experience for people at an event? It's one of my favorite things to do, whether I have people over for dinner or whether I'm doing an event. And, yeah, I would bring my Fiona Apple CDs and just, like, be like, oh, if I love this, everybody must love this. And great coffee and a great experience. And so that was my 16 to 18 job bean. At 18, I ended up moving out because I did. I was raised in a more restrictive religion, and I was like. Just felt like I was held like a spring. And at 18, I was just. I was. I'm a Sagittarius, you guys. Like, the opposite of what you want to do to a Sagittarius is take away anything that feels like a freedom. So I Was like, get me out of here. I need to go see the world. I need to be able to speak my truth. I need to figure this out. But before I did that, I got myself into a lot of trouble because after being in a more restrictive lifestyle, I bounced around like a spring and just went wild for a while. So with that said, when I was 18, I moved out on my own with some roommates and I worked at a TGI Fridays because I had no education and didn't have any, you know, college degree or anything like that. So I was like, okay, I can be a waitress and I can, you know, just really, really hustle to make great money. And I remember my rent was $250. We split it down the middle, so it was $500 split 250. And her and I, my roommate, her and I shared a one bedroom. So we both had our, like, twin size beds in this one bedroom. Well, TGI Fridays wasn't really cutting it. I was working double shifts. I was exhausted. And a girl that I knew who worked at TGI Friday said, hey, I also work at Hooters. You should come work over there. I make X amount of dollars in tips, and it's so much easier. I was like, okay. I feel like this is like, oh, my God, if my parents ever found out, they would absolutely kill me. And I went over there for an interview. I ended up getting the job. I still worked at TGI Fridays and I worked at. At Hooters, and I ended up working. I ended up quitting. No, sorry. I got my third job because I was, like, ready to just make money. I was spending money faster than I could, than I could make it. I was drinking every single night. Probably partially because I felt bad about taking that job and lying to my parents. You guys. I never told my parents I work there until last year, until I was 37 years old. You want to talk about suppressing your truth? That would be living a double life. Suppressing your truth. So that was me living a double life, suppressing, numbing, feeling so bad about it, drinking, you know, trying random drugs just because I was so, so, so like just in that exploration phase and also massive guilt phase over just the. The point that my life had ended up in, but also not willing to not keep exploring because I just experiences really at that point. So worked at TGA Fridays, worked at Hooters in some place called Muskie Lounge, all at once. And I remember I was driving from Muskie Lounge was like a. Like a dingy on the lake, like, cocktail place. That people went and they pulled their boats up and they would like have late night cocktails and you served food in metal buckets like french fries and you know, fish and chips and things like that. So I was slinging metal buckets, like I would carry them on my arms. And I remember one night in this Musk Lounge job only lasted like three months. So I was working three jobs for about three months or something like that. And I remember going from TGI Fridays to Muskie Lounge and I was in my little Geo Metro and I was so tired and I was so hungover and I was so depressed and my anxiety was like through the roof and I just sat and I would cry in my car up until I knew I would be late for my next job and I knew I had to go and I would just drag myself in from place to place to place. Like is this even an existence? Like what is this? I'm 18 and I feel like I can't drag myself through this existence.

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So what ended up happening is I kind of hit a wall and I ended up quitting all of them except for H. Hooters. And I went full time Hooters and it was just a lot of different experiences there. And I'll tell you, it was hilarious because my boss was always like, you need to sit down and talk to the guys more. You'd make more money if you were flirting more. You'd make more money if you actually made them feel important. I was like the most uninterested Hooters girl ever. I would just be like, hi, what's your order? So I didn't make as much money as the other girls, but I was not will. I just couldn't do it. I was like, I can't. Like I'm just gonna be a waitress here. I will give them good service. But I, I'm not that person who's like the networker who can sit down and some girls, I mean, you guys, it wasn't just about the guys and flirting. Like some of them were just like, they Were just like salespeople. They were so good, it was insane. So I learned a lot about sales there, to be honest, because they would upgrade. You know, it's just selling food, selling beer, selling food, selling yourself, basically selling your personality. So learned a lot there, but just had a moment where I was like, you know what?

Great experience.

My soul's totally done here. Gotta move on. Like, I just was being. I knew I was made for more. So I upgraded my life and I got a job at a somewhere in the mall called TSR Wireless. So this was in Madison, Wisconsin. And TSR Wireless was a cell phone and pager company. Now this is right when cell phones were getting so. Like the very, very, very beginning, you guys, I sold pagers. Like, I thought it was so incredibly cool to have a pager. And the cell phones that were there were like, most people weren't even buying cell phones. It was selling pagers. And I remember like, oh, my God, this pager has like a clear case. This is the coolest pager I've ever seen. I dropped like, I don't know about you, but I dropped so many pagers in the toilet because you wear them on your waistband. But with that said, I learned sales. That was the first time that people took time to true sales. Like, what does it look like to close a deal? What do you have to say to actually get sales? Because I was pretty much only paid on. I believe I still got an hourly there, but then I was paid on commission. And then when cell phones got more popular, I remember it was like $10 per pager that I would get paid and then like $17 per cell phone. Oh, my God. I had no idea what a motivated person I could be when I was actually, you know, counting how many different things that I could sell. So I ended up doing really well at that job from 18 in, or, I'm sorry, from 19 until about 20. And they moved me to Milwaukee. They were like, hey, the Milwaukee area is really growing. There's a lot of opportunity there. I wanted to move to Milwaukee, so I moved and I moved out on my own. Completely on my own. It was the first time I had my own place. It was a one bedroom apartment. And I started that job and it was probably only a month or two later. I'm terrible with timelines. And I was at work. This place was again, in the mall. It was in Brookfield Mall in the center kiosk. And I had just gone in for an evening shift. And I think I usually reported in at 3 or 4 and they were like, hey, they called me up. Hey, you can close the kiosk early tonight. I was like, oh, awesome. That's great. And they're like, well, it's not really great because this is a permanent close. The company is going out of business. And I was like, what? Like, I just moved here and got my own apartment. Like, I had all of these responsibilities. And so I was freaking out because I had nowhere to go, and I had already gotten in with this company. And I was really worried because, you guys, I really had zero, like, background in education. And here I am in Milwaukee, and I'm like, how am I going to make money? I was doing great at this sales job. This is how I was affording my rent, how I was affording my. My car. And so got on unemployment right away. And it was one week later, while on unemployment, my car got stolen. So I have no car, I have no job, and I'm, like, completely desperate and out of luck on my own in Milwaukee. My parents were always in debt. They had no money to give me. I had no one to borrow money from. I had to figure it out. So what ended up happening is I went back to my old boss who was running that company, and I was like, where are you going? What's going on? Is there any job opportunities where you're at? And he had kind of paved the way for a lot of us who had gotten laid off. And he was like, hey, I'm going over to AT&T. I'm going to be a distributed district manager over there. I'll put in a good word for you. So a few weeks later, I ended up getting that job, thank God. So from 20 to 21, I worked at AT&T selling cell phones. And I can honestly tell you, I learned the art of closing people and taking people through a sales process. And you have to ask for the clothes, and you have to tell people what they need, and you have to tell them why, and you have to tell them why you think it's important and different and why they just told you have to get to the point of why they want this and why they need it. And I really learned about that or I would starve. So with that said, I was like, I won't be eating or paying for a new car if I don't figure this out right away. So I even scraped rides together when I started that job, because I did not get a car right away. I had no money for a car. So scraping rides together, asking friends, taking the bus, whatever that looked like so 20 to 20, 21 and then 22. What ended up happening was I had moved back in at 21 after my lease was up, living on my own for a year. I moved back in with roommates because I felt really lonely. And I happened to move back in with some people who were not super awesome. And there was some just crappy stuff going down and I needed to pay off. I needed to pay off a lot of credit card debt. I needed to just get my life together. I had massive credit card debt, like I said. And I also just was in relationship, a really bad situation. There were people coming in and out of my house. One of my roommates made keys for different people. So there were like strangers or somehow they got keys. So there were like different strangers that I would wake up to in my living room. So I called my dad and I said, hey, I don't have to give you all details, but my life is, like, kind of falling apart right now. It's in massive shambles. I'm, like, kind of scared for just crap going down around my house that I do not want to be a part of. And I need to pay off my debt and I'm buried in it, and I don't know how I'm going to get out. I was like, at complete rock bottom. I had destroyed relationships in my life. I was drinking every single night in debt over my ears. Like, did not know what to do with myself. Just felt like a loser. I always. The way that I would talk to myself was, you're a loser. You're disgusting. No one wants to be around you. No one's gonna accept you. Like, what is your malfunction? Like in my higher self, literally, I could still hear it, but I was numbing it out. And the more that I even heard my higher self say, you're made for more, the more my lower self was like, really look around at your life. No, you're not. You're never going to amount to anything. And so 22 moved back, or 21. 22 moved back to Green Bay, Wisconsin. Ended up starting to work with my dad doing kitchens and bathrooms, which I had done when I was really young or always helped him out at a shop sanding countertops. And he would teach me how to put in cabinetry or finishing work on cabinetry or flooring or things like that. So I worked with him for a while and ended up paying off a lot of my credit card debts and moved back home. This is when I was still not really, you know, telling my parents what went on or what I was up to because moved back in and again had a curfew because I was in my parents house and here I am at like 21, 22 years old. So from there did the kitchens and bathrooms, was starting to pay off debts, ended up meeting my husband, but started also in the interim working at a place called Jodigo, which was a coffee shop, like a to go coffee shop in a little hut from 23 to 25. So when I got married at 24, I still worked there. So 23 to about 25 I worked at Joe to go slinging to go coffee. You gu. It was actually an amazing job and I make great tips and I like again loved making people's day, loved memorizing orders, loved just being that person that they looked forward to. At this point, I knew that I wanted to be a personal trainer, but my anxiety and my fear and really believing that I didn't know how to. I really thought I was dumb. I labeled myself. I. I truly look back and I know that I was such a hard worker because I thought that I was so stupid that if I worked hard enough that it would make up for my lack of intelligence. Like book smart. And I'll tell you that one of my grandpas, he has passed away now, but something that just was left with me that was kind of a painful memory is just he celebrated my sister for being so book smart, for being such a brilliant human being. She was like straight A's on math and she was a genius in school. And my grandpa was always like, oh, you know, celebrating just smarts because smarts you like that because he was a scientist at the Pentagon. So this was my adopted grandpa or the grandfather who adopted my dad when he was 13 from an orphanage. And so I remember he was teaching my sister something and he said to me, he's like, oh no, you wouldn't understand this your sister is. There's your sister's smart. And it just stuck with me forever, like, oh, I'm not the smart one, so I better work hard.

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Wanted to be a personal trainer and I ended up trying to take the test and never completed it. Like I never even completed the studies and I kept telling myself I'm like I don't understand this and I'm never going to understand it. So I quit. So I kept going at Joe to go and then at 26 we ended up moving and to Minneapolis and again I wanted a better job I wanted to be, you know, I knew that I wanted more, but I was too afraid to go out and try to get anything. So instead I worked at an Ulta, which is like a big makeup store. I did the checkout counter. I would load or unload the truck. I would stock merch, and I ended up doing makeup there as well. And that was like, ooh, I get to do makeup. This is so exciting. Which was freaking awesome. But I didn't get to do it all the time. It's like, they're like, lori, you're great on the truck. So we assigned you to the truck Again, I'm like, oh, my God. They know I'm a hard worker. I. I should really start slacking. I didn't, though. So then from 20, I ended up just, like, could not handle that job anymore. So at 27, I started in a salon, and I was the receptionist, you guys. 27, I still was way too afraid to follow through on my dreams. So while I was at the salon, this is when I did my first fitness competition. And this is when I started getting a little bit of confidence by doing something that really scared me. And even though it wasn't a job, it was something that really, really made me face my fear of fear of stage and being out in front of people and anxiety. My anxiety was through the roof from probably 20 to 27, but it really took a massive turn at, like, 25, 26, you guys. Where when I was 24, 25 is when I started taking all of the antidepressants, anti anxiety pills, and realized that they were completely numbing out all of my emotions, and I had had to end up. I ended up quitting those cold turkey, which I do not recommend. Some people really need to stay on medication, but for me, I had ended up on so many that I had a moment of realizing that I had to face this anxiety and fear or my life was going to continue down this insane spiral that I had started of avoiding everything. Like, I thought I was going to end up in a padded room because I started to become so even socially afraid to go out and even talk in front of people, our friends. Like, I couldn't even hold a conversation in front of four or five, like, of our friends at a dinner table without experiencing a panic attack when attention would be focused on me. So with that said, 27, I was doing my first fitness competition working as a receptionist. And then, let's see, where was I? I'm writing this. Or I wrote this down at that point is when Chris's job. When the economy in 2007 took a downturn, he was in mortgage and finance and he ended up losing his job and we ended up losing our house, we ended up losing our cars and we ended up being a few hundred thousand dollars in debt. So guess what happened. When your back is up against the wall, you have to do the thing that you don't think that you can do. And for me, that was facing my fear and figuring out how the f to earn some more money. And I am so grateful that this happened. So something I want to point out. If your back is up against the wall, thank God, because it's going to make you rise to the freaking occasion. And if your back is not up against the wall, do something to put your back against the wall. So I still do things to put my back against the wall, like financial things that make me show up. So whether it's hiring a coach or whether it's going to an event or whether it' on something or whether it's saying I'm gonna start a company or whatever that looks like right now, I literally am like, how do I make my higher self come out again? Because it's real easy to get awfully comfortable in your comfort zone that is actually starts to be suffocating. So I'm always trying to do things to stretch me. So let's see. At 27ish, I took my OR, I ended up going back and, and getting applying for a certification course and going through the certification course and then taking the test and I failed. And then I went back a week later and I passed. But I'll tell you, when I first failed, I was like, you are such a loser. This is not for you. And I was like, if you don't buck the F up, you are never ever going to get out of this horrendous rut. And you guys, I just got so sick of my own own bullshit excuses. Like, you know that point where you can't even like look in the mirror because you're so over making excuses? That's where I was at. And so 28, I ended up having my personal training certification and got a job at LA Fitness. Well, they weren't hiring trainers who didn't have experience yet, but they were hiring salespeople. So I ended up doing sales at LA Fitness for a while and from there the sales converted into training spots opening up and I became a trainer. Well, the training there was $6 per 30 minute session and I was hustling so hard to make no money. Now it Was the best experience I've ever had in my life. Because, to be honest with you, I had never been in more fear over training people, feeling like I was super inexperienced. So I remember my worst fear was, what if I get, like, a doctor? Or, what if I get. What if I get a chiropractor? What if I get these people who know. I don't know anything, like, outside of my test? And what happened, my first few clients, I had a chiropractor and I had a doctor, and they loved my training. And here's what I focused on. I was so freaking nervous. I was like, they're gonna know. They're gonna know. They're gonna know that I don't know everything about the body. They're gonna ask me what this muscle, what this muscle's name is or what this joint does and which way it moves. And, you know, because I'm thinking from the personal training test, they did not care. They just want to know that I'm going to keep them safe and give them a good workout. And by all means, that was my focus, and I knew exactly how to do that, and I just focused on making them feel good and giving them a good workout. So wherever you're at right now, don't focus on the fear, because something great will come out of your worst fear actually coming true. I promise you. So, so decided I could not do that hustle anymore, but didn't have a way out. And I started to share my passion with the people that I knew in my life. So I didn't even know I was doing this. But, you know, it became the best thing that I can look backwards and share with you. And I'll tell you what I did. I was telling my clients that my dream was to own my own studio. My dream was to really make this like a fitness brand, like a big fitness brand, or be like, a fitness celebrity who could really help a lot of people. And I told this to one of my clients who was a chiropractor, and she said, I just opened my own chiropractic's office. I have a basement that is unfinished. Like, exposed beams and wires and insulation and all of the things. But we can trade my sessions in the first couple months until you can pay me rent. And I was, like, done. A week later, I was in that basement. Exposed beams with some closet mirror. Do you know what I'm talking about? The back door, the mirrors that you glue to the back of your doors. I glued three of those up. One ended up breaking right away. Kept that up for the whole year, you guys. I put down that foam padding that you buy from Target, like where kids normally play, like those squares. And then I got some elastic bands, like for. Or elastic bands. Help me. Those. What do we call them? Whatever bands for working out. I got a Bosu ball, I got a stability ball and I bought some weights. That's all I could afford. I had no money. Chris and I had no money at this point. So we invested in this gym that was downstairs. It was clean, but it had exposed beams. You could see all the wires clearly in a basement. And I just started taking clients and I told them that I was remodeling or I was waiting to finish this basement because we just moved in. I. I had no intention of finishing it. I had no fricking money. So with that said, trained for one year and I ended up making such good money there that I opened my own studio. So at 30 years old, I ended up. Or 31 years old, I opened my own studio. 32. I found network marketing and decided this was my way out. I was going to make a bunch of money doing network marketing. And I really, really, really decided that this was going to be the way that finally gave Chris and I a break and that he would join me. And I will tell you that it became that because I was so fired up and I was so incredibly in my why. And just for timing's sake, I want to tell you that I ended up working so hard at network marketing knowing that this was something that I could do no matter what. I could share something I freaking loved with people and I loved, loved the company that we are still with is Isagenix, and loved this company and loved what this did so much that I decided it was going to be the thing that created the platform that all of my dreams could live on. And that's exactly what it did. We did not quit until we created the lifestyle and the income that we wanted and until we knew that we did this for other people as well. And I will say that staying in that, staying with that for the seven or eight years that we've now been in it and really taking that money and creating other platforms and creating these events and being able to have E courses, be being able to help so many different people has truly been so foundational for us that you know where, no matter where you're at right now, it's about remembering to always appreciate the money that's coming in from the thing that you are doing now. And I've had to do that so many times I wanted to close my gym early. I wanted to stop my. Some of my different programs that I have early. I wanted to stop training early. But you have to wait. You have to wait until you can transition into the thing where you get the money for the next thing. Or if you know, you're that person that just tears the band aid off and is in so much pain that you have to make something happen, then maybe that's you. Maybe you can take the leap and you know that about yourself that you just have to make it work because your back is up against the wall. But you guys, I'm so grateful for you. I. I will continue this story at another time, but for quickie's time's sake, I know that I'm already over the 30 minute mark, but I wanted to tell you about what that journey really looks like. And I'll have to pick up where we left off at that, really the network marketing point into where I'm at right now because that, that's a whole second half of my journey. So let me know if you want to know the rest. I can absolutely create a podcast or a quickie off of the rest of it, but I want to know, do you feel this way? Are you in the same journey as me? Are you? What point in your journey are you at? Let me know your takeaways and share this on your stories. And you guys, I'm sending you so much love today. And until next time, earn your happy. Bye, everyone. 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 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.