517. Hidden Gifts

When you are showing up, when others are not showing up, you become the person once the music starts back up again that everybody continues to lean on.

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. Well, for now we're calling it he said she said, you, me and the dog. Babe, what are we talking about today?

Well, I'm wondering if we should just call it she said it Best.

Oh, is that how it is already?

Okay, what are we chatting about?

I want to talk about unexpected gifts. And. And here's why. I had a couple of phone calls yesterday. I had a chat this morning and it was with really high level individuals where they are just now, a few weeks into this very unique situation that we're all facing. They are just now starting to shift and see the unexpected gifts in this matter of fact, I put up a post this morning and the post literally read this. It said, for many, the coronavirus is not the crisis. The crisis is that you left the house every single day for 50, 60, 70 hours a week, leaving your family, your friends, your loved ones behind to go do a job that you hated, only to come home tired, distracted and underpaid. See, the gift and the post went wild. And it makes sense. I mean, think about it. Way back in 2008, honey, that was the gift that was given to us. It sure as hell wasn't wrapped in gift paper. It sure didn't feel like a gift. But nobody would be listening to us today without that shift. That gift in 2008.

Let's talk about why. Can we just dissect that for a moment? Because I had to have everything torn away from me in order to know even who I was and what I was capable of. Because I believed to my core that I did not. I was not given what everybody else was. I believed that. I truly thought I wasn't smart enough. I didn't get the parents who taught me that education was important. I Didn't get the family that had the opportunities or the money to be able to set me up for a successful future. I wasn't smart enough. I had massive anxiety. I had panic attacks. I wasn't. This is what I thought. And you remember this because I would say it to you all the time. I was not built like other people. These are things. These are curses that I was given that I'll always have. I'll never be able to do. My dreams of speaking in front of people, of being a mentor or a fitness person or whatever this looks like, because I am not capable of being able to speak in front of people. I am not capable of being able to follow through with different things because I don't know how, and I don't know have the education. And it wasn't until everything got ripped away from us that you had to start leaning on me as well. That I had to look at. I had to look at my stuff. I had to look at what I was believing. I had to look at where the gift was in that. I had to look at what I really was capable of and what I was making up in my mind. And I had to look at why I wasn't willing to look at it before. And that was really, really tough. I just did a podcast with Adrian Kaler yesterday, and he said, there becomes a point where the rug is no longer big enough for you to continue sweeping everything underneath it. And we're at that point right now. We're at that point for everyone, where we were at in 2008 for us, where the rug is no longer big enough, and you no longer can avoid either looking at your stuff or deciding to see things as a gift and understanding what's in your control and what's not. Because it feels good. It has a sixth sense of feeling good for people to believe that this time is not in our control and that we're out of control at this time. And if that's what you focus on, that is what you will get during this time instead of what we're talking about today.

Well, Lori keeps referring to, by the way, is in 2008, the Great Recession hit. I was in banking. I was the only breadwinner in the family. Lori never had a chance to, you know, question why she had those limiting beliefs. I was a crumb winner to, you know, have to take action, because every single year, I'd come home and I'd say, babe got a promotion. Pack up the house. I'm getting on an airplane, and move her to another city. And when we lost everything in that recession, she. The gift, the hidden gift was, I remember you saying to me, I will never let this happen again. You literally said those words. And the gift was that you were forced to. To figure out what you were good at. You're forced to take some action. You were forced to go create a career, and that's how and why everybody knows you today.

Yeah, I remember the moments of just like, believe me, I was still clinging, which I know a lot of you are still clinging to. Like, no, no, this happened to me, and this happened to us, and we've lost our house and we've lost our cars, and I'm not educated, and I have anxiety, and I have these cr. And I'm on medication for this. And it's proven. Even my doctor says this, and I have anxiety and all of these different things that were like, no, this is happening to me. Instead of realizing, you know, I had those moments. I had weeks.

I had.

I don't. I don't think we had time for a month like that. I know I had weeks like that. But then it just. You have these moments of like, oh, my God, no one is coming to save us. No one was coming to save us. And this was happening to so many other people that I was like, let's take a minute and really look at what you're capable of. It was like, no, you can absolutely go out and do some of the things that you want to do. You can actually stick through those moments of massive resistance when you used to quit. You can push through a little bit more. And that's what I started doing. I started getting my personal trainer's certification, and I was like, you know those moments that I quit on the certification three times before? What if you actually believed that you could push through it and that you could learn these things and that you could remember these things? What if you tried a new way? What if you actually stuck through these moments of resistance a little bit longer every single day? And that's what I started doing. I really started looking at, what am I capable of doing? And also, what could I open right now if I let go of all of my ego? And that is, you know, when we opened a gym as well, in the basement.

Started your monthly workout plan.

Yes. Just what are things that I can start right now? My monthly workout plan started with eight people, and four of them were free.

And went on to pay us millions just from that plan. You guys see the unexpected gifts that come from these forced shifts? Let me share a couple of oh.

Can I just say something, by the way, at this point? I had a MySpace. I think maybe we had started a Facebook, but I wasn't doing anything. I wasn't competing. There was no competitions on the horizon. These were not. These were not things that we were doing.

Yeah. So here's some unexpected gifts that I'm seeing happen right in front of my eyes from some of the clients that I talk to. One example is this. I've got a friend, and this friend speaks 70 to 75 times a year for significant amounts of money. Well, one third or one quarter of the way into the year, this friend texts me and says, you won't believe this. The rest of my year has been canceled and therefore all my income has been canceled. But he quickly pivoted, said, how can I still deliver what I talk about online to these new leaders that are forced to lead from home in this brand new time? Pivoted. And the gift was this. He has a thriving online digital leadership platform that was created in the shift out of necessity. And the hidden gift is that he was tired of being on the road all the time anyways, so now he won't have to go back to being on the road as much. I talked to somebody else yesterday, another hidden gift. She wanted to be a paid speaker, but in a different way. She performs these amazing transformations at events, and she had all these speaking events lined up that got canceled, but they were free. And she was still under the mask, the lie that she had to do these for free for some reason when she'd already proven herself of the incredible impact that she. She creates. And so she was kind of down and out that all of her free events that she was going to go perform at were canceled. And I said, what are you talking about? That's the gift. The gift is you're about to waste your year doing this for free when now you can create your media package. Now you can create your sales pitch. Now you can put together the proof that you change lives when you show up and charge all of the upcoming onslaught of events that will happen this fall. There's unexpected gifts everywhere if you look for them.

So leaders are born in uncertain times. Without uncertainty, you don't need to be a leader. What are you going to lead people who already know exactly what they're doing? Are you going to lead people who feel super safe and don't want a way out? What are you good at being able to see even if it's just your own gifts in the beginning? Uncertainty is so valuable. And the only Thing that's certain in the world is that there is massive uncertainty every single day. This is your time to really be able to grow and expand and sit in the discomfort of uncertainty. Because I believe that the leaders in this world and the people who are going to feel the most fulfilled and content are simply the people who can feel the most comfortable with uncertainty. Truly. Because the more uncertainty that you can handle, the more content and fulfilled and happy you will feel. Because there's never certainty ever, ever, ever, ever. The only certain thing is if you decide to do something that you want every single day in uncertain times. So maybe looking at your day and say, oh my God, have I always been wanting to do an at home workout but never had time for it? Well, now you can make time in the morning. Oh my gosh, can I get my kids on a schedule that they've never been on in the morning? Can I work at this day and night while we have this time to get in this routine that when I go back to work, this is gonna be freaking amazing. Can I have tough conversations with my family that I haven't had in the past? Where is the gift right now?

You're talking about the importance of certainty and how most people are lacking certainty in this very uncertain time. Except there are some very simple certainties that people can latch onto right now. For example, you can be certain that there is opportunity that has been created because of the shift, even if you don't see it yet. You can be certain that the opportunity is there and all you have to do is look for it. You can be certain that you do have skill sets and past experiences that can help people solve these new problems Today, that is another piece of certainty you can latch onto. You can have certainty that you once before in your life were a problem solver and therefore you can be a problem solver right now. So the whole key to being the most certain person in the room that then shows up as the leader is to first seek these guaranteed smaller certainties and latch onto those.

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 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 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 10,000 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 description descriptions and headlines and help you edit photos so marketing is built into 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 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@working genius.com that's working genius.com you'll be glad you did it.

Something else you can do to create for people is a lot of people might be saying, I don't even know what my gifts are. I don't even know what I'm good at. You have to sit in that question. And my friend today I just watched a video from Kat golden and she was saying Stop asking a why question and start asking a what question. So what could you do? What are you good at? And one of the questions that I always ask myself is, what what am I good at right now? Like, what in my life do I feel consistent with? And for me, during 2008, when we lost everything, the only thing that I felt like I was good at was being consistent with working out. And I knew why I was doing that, and I knew what it made me feel like. And so I was like, how can I help other people be consistent? Or what's the message with pushing through? That I can help other people, and that's where I can help people work out came from. And at the time, I don't even know if I had my certification yet. So I was like, I could at least help friends, right? I can at least help friends. Because helping people makes you feel good. It makes you feel like you're in control, and it helps you show up for something and get your mind off of what doesn't feel like you're in control. So right now maybe you feel like, wow, I'm really good at showing up for my book club, or I'm really good at helping form a community. Here's the deal, you guys. These are the times right now that you're gonna have to do shit for free in order to just start getting eyes on you in order to start being visible. So maybe you're really great at forming book clubs. Maybe you could show up every single week on Zoom and start a book club with an amazing book for the times right now. Maybe you could get people's minds off of different things just by having a wine Wednesday chat every, you know, every Wednesday at 6 or 7pm with a bunch of ladies, where you hold space for 10 minutes for each person to talk or three minutes for each person to talk. And you just create something that is really structured for people right now because that's what we're craving. And then all of a sudden, you become the person that people rely on for that. And then in the future, maybe you can charge for that. Maybe you can have some sort of membership. You guys need to start thinking of things that you haven't thought of before, and you need to ask what questions. Where my new company came from is because I sat in a what question every single day on our walk for six months that I said, if I could be doing anything in the world and had all of the time and all of the money, which we. I didn't have, but I knew that we could raise it and that I could make it and create it.

You know what you're really talking about is I've taught a couple of different questions recently and it's this. When you ask better questions, you get better answers. Question number one, ask yourself what, just like you said, what questions. What are the brand new needs that have been created in this brand new time? Because there's a lot of them.

So the what question that I was asking myself that I wasn't done completing, which I'll complete now, was what would I be doing with my life? If I had all of the time and all of the money in the world, what would I be doing with my life? What feels fun? So that is the what questions that I was asking. And all of a sudden that's when this company came and I was like, I would create an alcohol company or you know, something that was like non alcoholic rose and an alcohol company that was light, that connected women with questions on the can and different things like that. Like I would create a way to connect people through something that I thought was really fun, where I could do marketing and amazing branding and all of these things that I'm great at. And then I would ask this question to myself every single day and I kept getting the same answer like over and over. Even out of all of these wacky other that I came up with, do you remember the other things that I came up with was like I was going to open a brunch place.

Oh yeah, totally. This, this traveling brunch.

A traveling brunch where it was like women connecting and we had all of these amazing speakers and we all got together and learned how to actually network and ask better questions. So keep ask. This is the best time for what questions?

You know what you're really talking about is when you, when you find your answers to the what question. Showing up. And I need to remind people that it's never been easier to show up. I can't believe the number of people that DM us saying thanks for being loud right now. Thanks for being bright right now. Thanks for being positive right now. And I'm like, what do you mean that's easy? Like that's just normal. But to we forget that other people aren't showing up. There's a huge vacuum of leadership right now. There's a world that's paralyzed. There's a world that's frozen. People that used to be leaders, people that used to be there to be the light, they're frozen and they're scared for their own reasons right now. And so it's never been easier if you have an answer to your what question? Like, what is it that you're going to do to show up? It's never been easier to stand out than it is right now. All you got to do is be loud. All you got to do is be bright. All you got to do is be the light. And this could be the time that you carve out your name. This could be the time that you carve out your reputation. Because when you are showing up, when others are not showing up, you become the person once the music starts back up again that everybody continues to lean on.

And we have a couple different ways also that you can. If you. If you feel like you need consistency and you want to show up. You guys, I have a 30 day challenge right now. You can start at any time, any day. If you text me at 310-496-8363 and you just write the word challenge. And if you want to know about my company at drink light pink that is on Instagram and you can also text me the number 310-496-8363, you can also text that same number the little wine glass emoji. And you'll be added to my R D group for at drink light Pink. If you want to start seeing what these. What questions have gotten.

All right, guys, so ask better. What questions show up when everybody else isn't showing up. It's the easiest time to quickly appear on the scene as a leader. And best of all, just remember that this is the time that was created for you to find the unexpected gifts. Lori and I found so many unexpected gifts in 2008 when we were going through the muck and the uncertainty. And this is going to be your chance to find the uncertain gifts as well.

Just wake up with that question, right? What's the unexpected gift today?

I love it.

Yeah, I love it. All right, guys. 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.