677. Are You Caught in the Middle?

Get that skin in the game or you're always going to be stuck in the middle. And misery comes from being stuck in the middle.

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.

Hey everyone, we are back with another episode of he said, she said and today's. Today's topic I'm super passionate about because it's real. Because it's real. And I have struggled with it and I think everyone struggles with it and they really think that it's possible to get things done without going all in. So let's talk about that.

Well, today's subject is are you caught in the middle? And we don't mean like in the middle of drama or in the middle of a fight. Are you caught in the middle of a commitment with yourself? And this is who it really affects, right? It doesn't affect the mega lazy who are doing nothing. They're not caught in the middle. They're like, hey, I'm doing nothing. I'm proud of it. It doesn't affect the mega dedicated because, you know, they're rare, but they're on the other side. Where they're all in the middle is like me many times or you many times. And it brings us unhappiness. And the middle is this. You're super high potential. You've got really big dreams. You work towards those big dreams, but part of you still wants a different life or part of you still wants an old life or part of you still wants old ways. So this applies, like, do you want a better body? Do you want a better business? Do you want a better bank account? Are you stuck in the middle? Do you want one thing? Are you working towards it? But you still got some old habits holding you back.

Look, I, like, I have been stuck in the middle and I'm really making changes right now with my fitness and I'm working hard, but I'm not doing all the things that I know it actually takes to see the result. It's not that results aren't happening, it's that the results that I want are not happening. And I think that this applies to everyone's business. And a lot of you think that you're working hard right now and you're not getting the result that you want. And I can probably tell you that 99% of you are not working hard enough or smart enough.

Well, here's a great example of being caught in the middle versus someone who's not. So I just went on this two day guys trip where, you know, once a month I go have dinner all around, wherever we fly in. And it's a way for us to connect and maintain our friendships with high level guys. And I was there and, and before getting there, one of our friends, Josh, he's like, dude, I'm totally getting in shape. I'm not drinking this entire month. I'm like getting, you know, back to where I want to be. I said, oh, me too. This was like maybe a week before. I'm like, oh, me too. I've been eating so good and I had, I've been eating great, I hadn't been drinking, my body's looking better, I'm feeling better. Like if people listen to the show, they know that that's been a challenge this year for me. And so get this, here's the difference between being stuck in the middle and being committed. We fly to la, we have this guy's dinner, Josh or I order a glass of wine and he looks at me, he's like, dude, I thought you weren't drinking for the month. I thought we're like doing this thing. And I'm like, ah, well, it's just a glass of wine, I'm have that tonight. And it turned into two and turned into three where he ordered sparkling water. Now we're sitting there with six guys, you know, shooting the beep and like having fun and the whole nine yards. And so I kind of felt like, oh, it's fun, I want to have wine tonight. Whereas he's like, oh, it's fun and I'm still sticking to my goals. That's the difference between me being stuck in the middle. Because then I woke up not feeling good the next day, not getting a workout in, and him sticking to his goals even though we're both in the same place, right?

These, these decisions that we're making compound. And I want to talk about this in terms of your business. It's kind of like, you know, I want to go back to the first like eight years of you and I getting ourselves out of the hole of being $300,000 in debt and, you know, losing everything. We went eight years, potentially. I can hardly remember one weekend off. In order for us to get out from where we were, we literally worked every single weekend. Now, whether that was two hours or, you know, 16 hours or 20 hours on the weekend, we had to do something really big and extreme and different than what we were doing in order to completely change the tide. And that's the difference is in the beginning, when you're turning that ship, it's going to take everything that you've got because you don't have momentum yet. You don't have the people that you need. You don't have the habits yet. So, you know, I want to go as far as saying sometimes times in the beginning it's grueling, like it can be grueling. But I have to say, I believe the middle is more grueling. I think it's more painful to have, you know, one foot on one side of the fence and one foot on the other. Essentially, all that leaves room for is a post up your ass and it hurts.

Well, it is confusing bad because it's like being in a relationship where you're on again, off again, on again, off again, but you love that person.

Torturous, right?

You're either all in or you're not. Because it can be torturous to be one foot in, one foot out, and bringing it back to business. Like you just said, it's so true. Like being all in looks like this. Only surrounding yourself with other people, doing big things, or only taking ideas from your peers that are running at the same speed as you or making that investment. That might scare you a little bit, but you know it's going to be the one that causes you to be all in, because now you got so much skin in the game. Those are the things that it looks like in a business setting. Right. We talked about diet setting before. That's what it looks like in a business setting. To be all in and to not teeter totter, teeter tottering. Where misery comes is this. Oh, I think I'm going to finally learn how to do X, Y and Z. Buying the course on it, but not taking the course.

I just saw a quote yesterday. It said, part of the investment is the transformation. I can't remember whose page it was on.

No, part of the transformation is the investment.

Yes, part of. Sorry. Part of the transformation.

Who was that? You showed it to me like this. So good.

I know part of the transformation is the investment. And I can think of this even with my company right now. Chris and I put so much money into, like, light pink. And that was the transformation for me. It was the decision to move forward. And it would have been really easy without my investment, very large investment into the company to give up when it got hard. Like, oh, maybe this isn't for me. Everybody's telling me that I just got into the most challenging industry. And then what I did is I doubled down because my soul was like, this is what you want to do. This is where you want to be. This includes all of the things that you want your day to day to look like. You know, connecting with different women, marketing, getting a product out there, raising money. Like, all of the these things that really challenge me. And I ra. I upped the ante by bringing in investors, and that was even scarier. Now I really can't get out because I'm responsible for other people's money, meaning I did that to myself on purpose because I needed to make sure that my investment transformed me into the person that I know that I'm here to be on this earth to bring this thing forward. And without those large investments, whether that's what I just said or whether that's monetary or whether that is, like, completely changing your life in a certain way or committing to something huge, you need those or you won't follow through.

Oh, my God. You just gave everyone the answer. How to stop being stuck in the middle and to go all in. That is, put a big enough chunk of skin in the game that it hurts so bad that there's. There's no going back. And I don't just mean money, guys. If you're sitting there like, must be nice. I'm broke. I don't mean money. I mean, if it's. If you're on your diet game, then come up with something so embarrassing that you have to stick to it. Right? I know. I'm doing that. I'm not going to share what it is right now. And if it is your money game, then come up with something where you have to sacrifice something so big that you stick to it. Get that skin in the game, or you're always going to be stuck in the middle. And misery comes from being stuck in the middle.

It's the worst.

It's.

It's literally the worst because you keep going back and forth in the moment of disappointment. I don't know about you, but I woke up so many Monday mornings where I was like, I literally can't believe I did this to myself again. Like, I worked so hard last week only to go hang out with these people who don't bring me up. I don't feel, like, fulfilled. I feel really disappointed. There's no worse feeling than being disappointed with yourself. And it might be really hard to break that barrier and move to the next level, but I'm telling you, you can do it. And the more that you just jump and the more that you, hey, you know what? I've never done anything in my life good without an extreme. So whenever people are like, oh, go super balanced, I'm like, do actually. Do you actually know what that would, like, look like to start moving that needle? And what happens is, a lot of times you start extreme and you find a balance, but without them, it's really tough to make change.

Yeah. You know what else I just want to add to that? I've never done anything good in my life without having somebody else there to hold me accountable and cheer me on. Right. So, I mean, the metaphor going back to people who keep going back to a bad relationship, they're one foot in, one foot out. Here's how you stop doing that in life. You literally go to somebody who you look up to or somebody who intimidates you or somebody that you want the approval of and say, here's my goal. I need some help. Can you be my accountability partner? And damn it, if you don't have someone like that, then invest in somebody like that, like a coach. Because when you've got somebody else in your life to answer to, it makes it so much easier to stop being stuck in the middle and to go all in.

You know, I want to point something out, because some of you are like, oh, God, you know, I've extreme dieted before in that field. I've done extreme things in that field. Here's what I want to say. I. The plan doesn't necessarily need to be extreme.

Oh, I love that. But your commitment does.

Your commitment does. So the plan doesn't need to be extreme, but your commitment does. So, you know, even with. When I was first doing fitness competitions, I couldn't go extreme. You know, extreme dieting didn't last long. But what. What I did was I put a lot of money down on those competitions and told everyone what I was doing and brought them along the journey, you know, found different partners and teammates to. To. So that I was surrounded by it. And it was little by little by little, every single day. And along with this company, some days, I have days where I don't feel very productive. I'm like what the hell happened? How did I stay in my inbox all day? And the thing is though is that it pulls me into doing at least one big right action a day. And I have to say, one big right action a day can really create something. It can create a tsunami.

Yeah, absolutely.

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All right, guys, we're so grateful for you as always. Let us know what your biggest takeaway was. If you're gonna try to go all in. No, if you're gonna go all in, tag us on Instagram. Let us know where you're at.

Appreciate you guys. Thanks for listening.

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, Sam.