627. We're Leaving California!!

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No matter where you are, there's pluses and minuses and you have to lean into the pluses and mitigate the minuses.

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.

And we're back.

Welcome back to another episode of he said, she said. And this is, this is Kind of a tough one. This is kind of a tough one.

So here we are recording our last ever podcast. Don't worry, not for the shows. Don't, don't freak out, everybody. But our last ever podcast in this house in California. And I guess this is. Other than our Instagram announcement, kind of like the official announcement.

We didn't say much before this.

Yeah, we didn't say much before this. You know, some people were guessing, but yeah, we are leaving our beloved California. And oh, my God, do we have so many mixed emotions about it.

Yeah, I have days where I'm like, why the hell are we leaving? Like, why?

If you could see a chart. If you could chart my emotions just today alone, not to mention the last several weeks as it became more and more real, it would look like one of those. Those heart rate charts where it's spiking, you know, up, down, up, down, up, down. From the cries to the excitement, back to the cries and to the excitement. And so people are probably like, well, why would you leave if you're crying? Why would you leave if it's that sad or if it's tearing your heart out? Because it is tearing my heart out to leave. It's because I love California and Santa Monica and Los Angeles, mostly for what it was for the almost one decade that we were here. And we've changed and it's changed and it's not goodbye. It's more like moving our home base to a place that gives us more space and ease where we can recharge and then still very much having a life back here where we get Airbnbs. We're back. Every. I've made a commitment to all my. I've got so many good guy friends here.

You've got the best friends here.

The best ever. I made a commitment that I will be back every 30 to 45 days for our guys dinners that we do and all that stuff. So it's not goodbye.

Easiest flight ever, by the way.

The relationship is changing.

Yeah, I. I think, you know, is this the right choice here? Here's the thing. I. Oh, you know what? I did a podcast about something like this that has helped me so much. And. And I think this might help you, Chris. Like, there is no wrong choice ever. There is literally no wrong choice. There's always just a choice and it's a lesson, and it has an outcome, and you can always change the outcome and you can always make a new choice.

You know, one thing we do really well, we find the win or the positive in every, every single Thing we do. So, like, if we were moving to Cambodia right now, I don't even know if Cambodia is good or bad. By the way, don't, like, send me hate mail, but move to Cambodia right now. I. Once we got there, we'd find a way to be like, this is the best thing we've ever done. And we've always done that.

Yeah. Because we'd find the lesson in it. So even if we lost all of our things on the way there, like, we would be like, okay, this is awful. And, yes, we'd feel it. I'm not saying, like, oh, yeah, we were so resilient. We would just bounce back. We feel all the feelings, and then we say, why did this happen? And how can we make the best of this? And why did it make us better?

Please don't jinx us. We're not gonna lose all of our things on the way there. No, the moving people will get there just fine.

You know what I was just thinking is, when I got my very first fitness magazine cover and I. None of my stuff showed up.

Oh, yeah.

That's what that made me think of. Like, and how I literally had a moment of like, who are you gonna be in this moment? And I think we always have that choice of, okay, who are you going to be in this moment? Like, what are you going to choose? Because tonight we could choose to be like, I can't believe this. Maybe we're making a bad decision. Like, we're. You know, our identity is so wrapped up here, and, like, we are obsessed with the people and the weather, you know, and I could go into a spiral of, like, I moved here because I feel depressed and, you know, weather that I can't get outside every day, and what if the heat is too much? You can go down any spiral at any given time. And I.

The problem is the spirals aren't real life.

They're not real life.

Because look at the real life. Real life is we're going to, you know, be there seven to eight months, and then the four to five hot months, we're going to travel and be back in California.

And it's kind of good that we're forced to travel to go see people. Because you know what? This last summer, because we were forced to travel a bit. Like, we went and saw family and saw so many friends that we haven't seen in so long. And we were like, whoa, this is the happiest that we've ever been, despite having the biggest struggles of our lives with your dad passing and, you know, I know your dad's hand is all over this.

You know, he always secretly wanted us to move. My mom told me that he always. Because guys, for those of you that don't know, my parents come out here every single winter for five months and they don't live with us, but they live seven blocks away every single winter. And my dad never liked it here, but he just liked being by us. And he always.

He didn't love la, how busy it was and just the thought of.

He was a simple man that liked space.

Yeah, he liked space. He's like, what the hell?

So we talked about, you know, the sadness and some of the feels and you know, all the, like, what California's meant to me. Can I ask you a few questions about it?

Absolutely.

First question, what is one of the best things that our California chapter gifted you?

Understanding that opportunity is everywhere and people like I think it was, it's just really understanding that people are like, people love to work together and sometimes it can come off as networking or bragging or something, but it's really just like out here, they just to get right to it. Yeah, they're like, you know, what are, are.

Nice to meet you.

What do you have my opportunity and do I have your opportunity and could we create something together and, and I think it taught me to be really, really bold and I think it also taught me to not get wrapped up in the comparison because you could compare yourself all day. Someone's always better, younger, prettier, especially out here, more talented. Like there's an 18 year old billionaire who's ready to just whatever. And I think it's just a reminder that like blaze your own trail and be really present because there's just always there, there's always opportunity. And I think it's just, it really is the land of opportunity.

So what it gifted me was the best relationships. I've never had such a good tribe of epic friendships, I mean dream friendships, like good quality ones. It gifted me the best relationships I've ever had in my life and it also gifted me like such a larger perspective in terms of how big I think, you know, this really is the land of the dreams where the thing that people make fun of LA and California for is, oh, it's just a bunch of dreamers and everyone moves out there to be an actor, an actress or you know, make it big. I loved it, I fed off of it and it made me think so big, Lori, that like, that's one thing that'll never diminish for me is how big this place is always.

And we'll always come back for that reason. Because I really believe to my core that no matter what path I would have chosen, if you run that path into the ground, like something will happen here. And do I think this can't happen in other places? Of course it can. But you have to have this type of mentality, the dreamer mentality. And you and I have always been dreamers.

You and I dream every day on our walks.

We're like, wouldn't it be cool if.

Yep.

Like, and I hope that like the one thing you take from this podcast is that our living in California has rubbed off on everybody else to really think big. And the wouldn't it be cool if. And like leaving where we were from and coming out here just made me realize you're not weird. No, you're not weird. If you've got some big bold dream or you think that you can even though you're from a small town or you have a background where no one in your family has made it before. That's what California is all about.

I love how accepting it is of no matter who you are or what your dream is. Oh my God, it goes here.

I could literally walk around in a clown suit and people would be like, amazing. Do you want to work at my kid's birthday party? Cuz you're pretty awesome. Like you can make money doing anything. You just need to like take the glass. Like it removes all ceilings off of anything.

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Okay, next question. What is one thing you're most excited about? Moving to Scottsdale?

I'm in a phase in my life where I really am. Like, I'm in my. I'm building a business, and I'm building it from home, essentially. And while hopefully I can get out in the world eventually, when, you know.

We can do that once Covid's gone.

Yes, I need, you know that I'm. I'm a psycho about my spaces. Like, they nurture me. My environment. My environment must nurture me. I don't care. When we didn't have money, like, I still made our spaces, like, immaculate, whether it was super clean. Everything has its place. Like, my spaces give me energy. And I'm very excited for this phase to have a larger space. Like a yard. Like, that will nurture me a bit more. And while this house is absolutely freaking lovely, I think it's also the environment where I'm going and running errands. It's like, you guys, some days I can't even find parking. So I come back home and don't run dirt.

All that stuff is.

I've been going to the doctor a lot lately, just for some different things. And it's like, it's so challenging. It's like, it takes hours and hours, and I can't find parking spots. And it's $20. It's 20. I now, do I care? No. But I'm saying for the average person, I'm just really recognizing, like, it is.

$20 for me to go park at my doctor.

Yep.

And because there's no other parking, like, when people are like, go park somewhere else, there's no parking. Like, I could maybe park six blocks away, like, find something. But.

Well, you look at, when we go to dinner anywhere other than Santa Monica, we have to leave. So for those of you guys like that don't know the topography here, Santa Monica, to all the great dinner spots, let's say in West Hollywood, Beverly hills is between 8 and 11 miles from our house. That's it. 8 to 11 miles. When you grow up in the Midwest, you're like, oh, eight miles is eight minutes. Like, you have this default calculator. We would have to leave at 4 o' clock for 7 o' clock dinners here. And I just got tired of that.

Yeah. And while that was. That was a freaking amazing part of our lives. That was the best part of our. You know, I moved here when I was. I think I just turned 31 or like end of 30. It was the best way to spend my 30s. And now I'm creeping up on 40. It's so funny. There's a country song that I used to listen to when I was super young. Like literally eight years old. And she says, Now I'm staring at 40 right in the face, and that's all I can think about is this country song. Anyway, so random. But. But tangents are important. They're not.

Let me tell you what I'm excited about. My word for 2021 is space. I'm craving it, I need it. And everything from this new home that I'm so excited about to the layout of the property it's on to the neighborhood it's in to, you know, Arizona parking lots to Arizona parking, getting around to the ease of getting our giant ass motorhome in and out when we take trips. Everything about it represents space to me. And I don't know, ever since dad died, I was just done with the condensed crazy go, go, go. And I craved space. And this place literally gifts me space.

Yeah, I. It's just, it's a, it's a million little things that when you're working really hard, as, as hard as we do, because Chris and I, me and you, grind. Yeah, we do. We just. It's in our personalities. I wish I could be the podcast who was like, you know what? We're gonna help you do the four hour work week. Like, we don't do that. It's. It's in our DNA that you and I aren't really happy unless we're kind of grinding on something.

Right.

Take that how you want, guys, we're.

Having some wine, so however you want to take that. But it's, it's the little things that kind of wear at you just right down to like, you know, we went and got. You went and got the motor home and we have to go and get parking passes for it from the city. You have to go put them up in your front yard. You have to go buy your own cones and put those out. And then sometimes people still park in our spot. And so then we really don't It's. It's literally insane. Like, it's just.

It's just tough. It's a hustle. It's a hassle.

Now, have we ever, ever even mentioned this before or said anything that anyone.

Oh, wait, we did a podcast where I was beeping at the people that parked in my motorhome parking.

All right. But other than that, here's what I want people to know. Like, other than that, we don't talk about it because it's not a problem. Like, it's not a problem.

Everywhere has its pluses and minuses.

Yeah. And we've just always been like, you know, the price of living in California is frustration.

Well, I'm going to be very frank about that. So there used to be this return on investment that was worth it. So everything from the cost of living to the hassle of getting around to the crowdedness to some of the craziness, there was a return on your investment. So if all of that was the investment, the return was the greatest restaurants, the greatest opportunities, the greatest business climate, the greatest, you know, parks, ocean, you name it. But a lot of that isn't available right now. Part of it is the economy here, part of it is the, you know, is Covid here, part of it is politics here, Part of it is all that, but it's just not here anymore. And the return on investment has gone away. So no different than getting out of a relationship that used to be great or you making sure you cash out when you see that your, you know, stocks are about to take a dive. Yeah, that's kind of what we're doing, is we're just making sure we cash out early while we're towards the peak.

And by the way, it's still magical here. Like, if it's. We. We've got some friends who. It's their dream to be here. Like, they just got here, you know, within the last year. They need to live that dream.

Yep.

We lived it for 10 years. We might come back. Like, that's still on the table, Right.

She says that she means we might move back because we're coming back. Like, yeah, we're coming back, and we're.

Probably gonna spend two months here in the summer. Yep, that's the plan right now, anyway. So we'll either, like, rent or Airbnb somewhere in the summer. Great opportunities here, and, you know, bring our RV back, whatever.

That looks like sand in Malibu. That's what I want.

That would be amazing. We'll definitely do that.

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And my thought just disappeared. What was I saying?

I love when that happens.

What was I saying?

Well, you're. You're talking about there's still, like, a lot of reasons to be here.

There's so many reasons to be here. So if you're listening and you're in California, my God, don't let us, like, kill the romance. Because we. Chris and I romanced like, our socks off in. In Los Angeles.

Right back to another one of those references.

And the reason. The reason why we're so sad to leave is because it's so magical. It's the best weather in the entire planet. I think it's the loveliest place in the entire universe. And we have traveled a lot and been to a lot of amazing. Sorry. Our dog is, like, trying to jump out a window, apparently.

Is your life that bad?

Please don't jump out the window. Window.

I don't want all, oh, my God. I'm a California cheap doodle.

I can't. My name is bananas. Okay. So with that said, I just. I feel like it's just our time to see if there's something that we're missing.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing. So, like, you can always come back. I think people put too much weight on their decisions. One thing you and I have always been good at is we decide quickly. We're so permanent. Yeah. We're so decisive, and we're never afraid to come back to something. We don't get too attached. Thank God. We're attached to each other, but we don't get too attached to anything else.

Yeah.

And so if we go there and it's awesome.

Yay.

It's a win. If we go there, we're like, oh, we miss it. We'll sell our house there, and we'll come back. It's that easy.

That's okay. That's another huge takeaway. Is. Is for me, it's like, nothing is permanent. Don't push some. Don't put so much weight on it. Just like you said, like, nothing is that big of a deal. Like, even when you feel like Your world is crumbling.

Looking back, I want you just for.

One second to think of all of the moments in your life that you were like, oh, my God, if this happens, this. And especially right now, just in the. In the current state, so many people are like, oh, if this person is elected, my world is this. If this person is elected, my world is this. We're all going to look back in a year and be like, And I was still able to somewhat, for the most part, probably live my life. Like, we can't put so much weight on all of these little things. The reason that we do that is because we believe we're not in control and we haven't yet taken control over our lives. And that's why life keeps happening to.

A lot of people.

There's something you and I have done so well, and I say that so that people, like, grasp it and do it for themselves. We take 100% responsibility. I don't care who's in office. I don't care what city we live in. I don't care what the circumstances are. We take a hundred percent responsibility for our outcome.

I haven't always done that, but when I did, my life got good. Right? My life was real shit pie sandwich before. I didn't take control.

All right, so your last thoughts about moving to Scottsdale and leaving California?

I'm just in a weird place today because I'm just like, in limbo. So just give me one. Like, I'm almost to the point where I'm like, just tell me where I'm living so that I can start living. Because I've been in limbo for, like, you know, we've been in limbo for about two to three months.

Well, we decided. Yeah.

So my last thoughts are just like, wherever we land is going to be great because we've always made it great and we'll come back. And I almost feel like we'll be more intentional with friends here, because that is one thing about Los Angeles is, like, it's hard to be intentional. People are really transient. And it's also, like, really easy to put things off because life is more challenging. So you kind of don't want to do a ton of stuff with people all the time. So I actually. My last thoughts are like, we're just always going to make it great.

Yeah. Yeah. My last thoughts are you and I. And this goes for everyone listening. No matter where you are, there's pluses and minuses, and you have to lean into the pluses and mitigate the minuses. And so if we're staying, we'd be great. And if we're going to Scottsdale, that'll also be great because we choose to make it great. Scottsdale doesn't make people happy. Los Angeles doesn't make people happy. Nowhere makes people miserable.

Right.

It's choosing to lean into the greatness of each situation. And that's what we're going to do going forward. Yeah, guys, thank you so much for listening. Listen, if we resonate with you, if you're like, wow, I'd love to hang out with them and if you're a high performance couple doing really, really big things, we have one spot left in our high performance couples experience that we put together for 2021. And if you remember, what we put together was picture, like literally luxury ski resort towns and five star resorts and, you know, personal parties at our new home in Scottsdale. And the most like celebrity couples and celebrity relationship psychologists and all this stuff coming to our place, to our locations to collaborate and for us to ask questions of this is a container where really high performing professional and entrepreneurial couples said, I want to put our relationship first and our business a very, very close second, but relationship first in 2021. If this is what you're craving, listen, the investment, because we are going out to make sure that we bring in these super high level celebrity business couples and all that. The investment is steep and to, you know, make sure that you mesh with the other five couples that we've chosen to be in this. That's steep as well. But if you hear this, you're like, dang it, that's what I need. I want you to just text us. We'll start the dialogue. Text couples to 310-421-0416. Again, just text couples to 310-421-04116. We'll start the dialogue there. In the meantime, you guys cheer us on while we move from California. Scottsdale. We need all the support that you can give us. It's an emotional adventure. And hey, what's life without those?

So true. We love you guys. Until next time. We will see you later.

What happened to earn your happy?

I know, it's your podcast too. Yeah, we decided to earn your money.

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.

It.