830. Create Your Own Luck Today

I think that the only way to get those blessings, or to get that quote unquote luck is to be fully prepared and be someone who's willing to take the action, who's willing to have courage, who's willing to be bold, who's willing to put the teams together in order to make that vision come true, and who's willing to sit in the uncertainty and take the risk of these big visions that are waiting. Welcome to the Earn your happy podcast. I'm Lori Harder, founder of Light Pink, bestselling author, three time fitness world champion, and I'm a crazy, multi passionate entrepreneur. My journey has taken me everywhere, from being a broke waitress, barista, retails associate, and personal trainer with massive anxiety and no belief in myself, to later becoming a multimillionaire in love with my life. In 2007, my husband and I lost everything. We found ourselves hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. At rock bottom, we had no ideas and I had education to fall back on. This is when I found personal development and learned everything I could about business. Not by choice, but because I realized no one was coming to save me. The conversations on this podcast are going to let you know that you're not alone and that we all feel like we don't know what we're doing. We're going to give you the tools to help you face your fears, take action, start your business, and grow those massive dreams that are keeping you up at night. It's time to create a life that you can hide from and put so much on the line that your higher self is forced to come out. You're going to stop waiting for someone to approve of you, and you're going to anoint yourself. Because I'm obsessed about building businesses that give women a platform. I want to feature you. So if you text the word podcast to 310-496-8363, you can get your questions answered on our Q and A segment along with a shout out. And if you rate, review and subscribe to this podcast, we're choosing someone every month to get coached and featured on our show. It just might be you. So let's get started. And we're back with another episode of He Said, she Said. And today we are talking about creating your own luck.

Here's why I wanted to talk about this, and I know you want to talk about it for a separate reason, but there's this great debate out there is luck when opportunity meets preparation, right? You hear all these people beating the drum like, oh, there's no such thing as luck. It's just when opportunity meets preparation, and if you're not prepared, you're going to have bad luck. And I used to really beat that drum, by the way. Or is luck a real magical, mystical thing where you get handed or dealt something magical and you call it luck, or you get dealt something crappy and you call it bad luck? And spoiler alert, I think it's somewhere in between.

Right.

I don't think either party where they say, oh, they're so lucky, like, everyone's just been wildly blessed out of the blue, I don't think that party is necessarily correct, but I also don't think the party that ignores the magical side of luck and takes full credit for the luck that they've gotten in life, I don't think that party is necessarily correct either.

So I think it's mostly hard work. I think it's 90% or more preparation and hard work. And I do believe that there is 10% of luck always at play. And here's the thing, is that I think a lot of us get the 10% card. So are there some people who maybe never get it? Are there some people who maybe get less or maybe get some different things, like really shitty hands dealt to them? Absolutely. But, you know, after almost 900 episodes of my podcast at this point, I can tell you that, you know, the people who have gotten the shittiest hands tend to be the ones who are most successful and tend to really turn their life into a life of that preparation and of that, you know what? I'm never gonna let that happen to me again. And here's the action that I'm gonna take, and then they're ready for the opportunities that I believe are constantly out in the ether, floating in the universe. Because what I believe is that the world is constantly. It has millions of opportunities out in the universe at any given time.

And.

And all of these ideas and opportunities are just looking for the person for it to land on. Like the opportunities are seeking the vessels, meaning the people in by way that it's going to come out into the world and become an actual reality. So I think that the only way to get those blessings or to get that quote, unquote luck is to be fully prepared and be someone who's willing to take the action, who's willing to have courage, who's willing to be bold, who's willing to put the teams together in order to make that vision come true, and who's willing to sit in the uncertainty and take the risk of these big visions that are waiting So I do believe in luck. I do believe that there's like 10% luck at any given time. That's just, it just happens. It's just like they say, some people are born more lucky. I'm not sure, because if we really unpacked it, Chris, I think we'd find where they created a lot of their own luck.

This is really fascinating because I don't want to ignore the fact that everyone comes from different starting points, right. Some people come with a head start, some people come with a bigger hill to climb than others from day one. But if I used you and me as an example, one would have looked at me and said, oh, he started with a head start. Some advantages, an upper middle class professional family that valued education, that had two great parents that did the, you know, work their tails off to give us a good life. And then there's you, who also had two great parents who worked their tails off to give you a good life. Right. So that's lucky. But then you had a. They look at where you, you know, you came from, from in terms of your parents spent most of time in, in poverty and, and struggle and in the middle of nowhere, Upper Michigan, like literally middle of nowhere. And, you know, you had some big strokes of really bad luck, I guess, no pun intended.

Didn't finish high school, didn't go to high school, didn't have the education.

And so if you and I were strangers, people would point at me and say, well, he started with advantages. And they pointed at you and they'd say, she started with disadvantages. He was lucky, she wasn't. Except having known you now for 20 years, I have watched you carve out, hunt down, seize the moment, and go out and make your own damn luck. And sometimes the disadvantage is the luck. Because if we use your, and my example, if we took this further, you could say, there's some parts of life where I had it so good that it was a disadvantage that I was soft or that I was spoiled or that I was, you know. Right. Yeah, you could say some of your parts that some would say struggle is where you build these muscles. And your luck was that you had little things, didn't bother you, and you had huge metaphorical muscles to accomplish things and thick skin and whole nine yards. So it's really interesting as we unpack this because again, I don't want to be insensitive to someone who started with a bigger hill than somebody else, but sometimes that bigger hill is the mother freaking luck.

I will tell you that the most motivated I have Ever felt as far as just do or die. Like when I've experienced do or dire moments, it's been when I just have hit rock bottom, when my back has been up against the wall, when there is red negative in the bank account and I don't have anyone to ask to borrow it. And I can say that those are the times that have propelled me the most. And you know, now if you're sitting in a cushy job or you've got like a pretty decent life, you have to create the motivation. You actually have to create the pain that gets you to move. You have to create the why. You have to create. You have to use both, right? You have to use the pain of not in action. And then you also have to like really tap into your why. And it's not that you can't do it, you can absolutely do it, but it is something that you just have to work a little harder because it's not just there every day in your face. Like, you hate your house, you hate your car, you don't have a car, you're broken down, you've got a red bank account. Like, literally those are things that you're like, well, shit, I need to, you know, work and figure this out. And obviously a cushy life is like, well, I'm comfortable. I like my doordash at night. I like my Netflix. I like the people around me. I'm just comfortable. So I want to talk about just some of the times that, you know, because I was writing a list, I was really trying to like get in touch with the times in my life where we have created what might be perceived luckily and, you know, again, luck is when preparation meets opportunity. And we've acknowledged that we do believe there is such a thing as luck or lucky people. But for me, it's been about creating what I wish existed. So even on my run today, I was with Lindsay Schwartz and you know, she's my running partner every single week and also one of my best friends. And we were talking about, we were like, you know, for this year we need to like go and get in the rooms and like network and be in these expansive rooms. And where are they? Like, which ones should we be in? And we said, you know what, screw it, let's create the rooms. And this is what you and I have always done. Like, we've been like, you know what, let's actually create it. We just did it last year. We were saying, I wish that there was a place for high achieving couples to go and meet with other High achieving couples and like collab and have these experiences and we're like, well, there's not. So, you know what? Let's create it. And that was not easy. These are like these moments where on the outside they're like, must be nice. Or they have all these great friends and people just want to come together. I'm like, that took so much time, effort and planning and we were so freaked out about that that no one. I mean, that took way longer to fill than we ever expected. We were like, nobody likes this. Nobody wants to be our friends. Like, we went through imposter syndrome and like, what the hell? And then we filled it. But I think from the outside looking in, that's one of those moments where people just think you have these great people in your life. And that was so intentional and took so much work. You know, the Bliss Project event was one for me where it was like, I wanted to be in rooms connecting with epic women. And I didn't know what rooms those were. And I wanted an event like this. I wanted to go to one and I didn't know of one. So I said, I'll create it and then I'll share one more and then I would love to hear yours. But for me, I had always, you know, especially once I started launching different businesses. And I knew that, you know, I just wanted to grow. I wanted to grow in a lot of different ways. I wanted to start a company and I wanted to network. I needed to be in these, like, really high level networks of people. And I was like, how am I gonna ever, like, be worthy of these rooms? How will I get invited? I'm just kind of a no name to these people and, you know, doing these huge things. And I had tried to break in in other ways and it just wasn't working. And then I realized that the podcast was like my VIP ticket to a front row seat to an hour connection call with people who charged $10,000 or 50,000 DOL or whatever it is, or who never go and connect with other people, right? So I was like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna create my own networking experience and be able to have this time with these people that I would never get. And now people say, oh, she's so lucky. Well, she can just like go waltz in and, you know, send an email to someone and connect with someone. That is not what happened at all. It was, you know, I'm almost in, what, year five or year four or five of this podcast. I'm almost to 900 episodes. Like, guys that is putting in work for a network. So, Chris, how about you? When have you created your luck?

That's funny. I was going to use these podcasts. I was going to say, I think people look and say, well, yeah, they're lucky they have a giant audience to sell to. Or, yeah, they're lucky they have a giant audience to, you know, raise money with. Or, yeah, they're lucky they have this giant audience to collaborate with. Except that's been a lot of blood, sweat, and tears creating an audience. Right. It's consistently serving and serving and serving. And then if you take any time off, it's like all the work in the past was for nothing. So you really gotta make sure that you are being consistent enough to create your own luck, be it a big audience or be it anything else. I think another time that comes to mind is when the recession happened in 2008, 2009, and I was in banking, some would have looked and said, hey, that is, I feel so bad for them. Such bad luck. Chris lost his incredible career and then they had to short sell their home and they had to walk away from their rental properties and also, oh, my God, what an unlucky, you know, series of events for them. Except it had nothing to do with luck. Number one, the recession is just a circumstance. It's not good luck or bad luck because I have a lot of friends that got very rich during it. We got poor, but I have friends that got very rich, so. Right. So you can't call it good or bad luck. It's just a freaking circumstance. Number two, yeah, it wasn't pleasant to go through. I will not try and make anyone think it was pleasant to go through. But I will tell you, without that rock bottom moment, we wouldn't be in entrepreneurship in the way that we are right now. And I call that great luck. Great luck that stemmed from a crappy circumstance. And so I really think luck is. You know, everyone says it's when operate, when, when preparation meets opportunity. I'm going to add to that. I think luck is surely how you view circumstances.

Wow. Yeah.

Do you view them as something that can improve your life, or do you view the circumstance as something that is going to take away from your life and that's how you end up saying, I was lucky or I was unlucky.

Wait, this is so crazy, because some of the most unlucky times of my life are the most lucky. So one would say being kidnapped in Mexico and held hostage for eight hours in a taxi cab and being physically beat and abused is very Unlucky. But I have to be completely honest and tell you that if I would not have had that wake up call, my life was going downhill fast. And do I think that that was like a universal gift? I honestly might say, maybe because I was in such a bad place and had such a thick skull, you guys. Like, I don't know if anything less than that would have woke me up. I am so lucky to have had that experience. That, number one, made me get so close to God after that. Like, it was just so crazy what I experienced during that and then also made me wake up to the people I was hanging out with. Like, I was like, these are not good people. This is, like, not the life that I want. And that is what really started me on the. Like, my life is meant for more. Because up till then, I didn't think it was. I was like, I don't know why I'm here. I'm a piece of shit. Like, I'm a loser. I'm living a shitty life. Well, I was. I mean, I wasn't adding any value to the universe, being a lump of shit and drinking all the time and hanging out with shitty people. So that really made me realize, like, I had some serious flashes during that of, like, you know, you're meant to do big things and you gotta get yourself out of these situations. So that is one of the luckiest times of my life.

I'll tell you. As you described it, I'll tell you something that's coming to me. I think everybody should look back on their last year and they should look at everything not as good luck or bad luck. Like, list, like, at least 10 events that happened in the past year. Okay? And don't look at them as good luck or bad luck. Look at them as a circumstance and find where it could have helped your life. Even if you didn't take advantage of it. Even if you. You didn't spin it positive, right? Even if you just let it knock you down.

That's so good.

You should write down the 10 circumstances that happened last year, and then you should look at it and say, how could this have been for me? How could this have been good luck?

That is so good.

Because I love that. So much muscle. You start building new muscle where you start treating circumstances differently and turning them into opportunities. And then everyone's gonna look at you and say, oh, so lucky.

Mm, totally. I love this. And it's. It's so many. Just like everything else in life, it's so many layers. And I could keep digging into this But I think that is what I hope that everyone gets out of this is just to really look at the moments where you really are lucky. Like, where it's like, oh my God, how was I right here at this moment to meet this person, have this opportunity. I used it. That is incredible. Like taking those moments and just like really letting those sink in and realize that they're all around you all of the time. And then really knowing that being prepared is going to create so much luck, creating what you want is going to create so much luck. And also looking at the circumstances of your life and realizing that that could have been or was one of the most epic opportunities of your life. And if you can't tell, Chris and I have. We take pretty much everything that has ever happened to us in life and we really look at why it was for us and I think that is why not. I think, I know that's why we still create or we create our own success and that we're happy with our lives. And we don't. You and I definitely don't have regrets. We do not look back on our life with regrets. We don't look back and say, I wish that. When have. I've never, I've never thought that, like, I wish that wouldn't have happened. I wish I could take that back. Like, even if it's things I've said or done that I wish I could. You know, like a lot of people wish they could take back those moments. I'm like, no, because I've grown so much from them. And like, yeah, maybe you're, you don't like certain things that you did, but my gosh, what great lessons that now you'll never be that person who acts that way again or whatever that looks like. So yeah, just really sitting in that. I love what you pointed out. With the holidays and the new year coming, you probably are looking around your house thinking that you would love to upgrade and freshen up your environment. And there is no easier way to do that than with your window treatments. Nobody covers windows better than Blinds.com. blinds.com brings your space to life in your way. They have free design help. Other retailers may claim to have experts, but blinds.com has spent nearly 30 years building an award winning team of over 100 design consultants that are ready to help you create your dream space. Always convenient, always tailored to you. Three ways to shop 1. Perfect fit. Whether you want to DIY have it all done for you or you're somewhere in between, choose what works for you and rest easy knowing the fit is guaranteed. So the holidays come fast, you guys, and you can freshen up your window treatments fast as well. And unlike some competitors, the price you see is the price you pay. No hidden fees, and there's zero pressure. From blackout in motorized options to classic shutters. Blinds.com has window treatments for every room, style and budget, even shades for your outdoor space. The Black Friday deals@blinds.com are going strong all month long, so don't miss your chance to save big. And as always, our listeners still get $50 off when you spend $500 or more. Just use code earn at checkout limited time offer rules and restrictions apply. See blinds.com for 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 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 10,000 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 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's shopify.com happy hear your first cha ching this new year with Shopify by your side.

Yeah, it's funny Laurie. It's Everybody has an opportunity from this moment forward to choose how they're going to see their circumstances as good luck or as bad luck. And then to choose how they see other people's Circumstances. If they look at our story and say, oh, must be nice to have an audience, they missed the whole point. They missed the point where we turned what other people would have called bad luck into good luck. And then that would empower them. They would start seeing patterns of, oh, I see what this person did. I see what that person did. Those patterns would empower you to reinterpret your circumstance and to turn it into something magical.

Look, we just interviewed. And, you know, I thought of this topic to talk about because we. We just interviewed Tony Robbins last night, which never in my life. I mean, I guess I would have been like, yeah, I hope I interview him. But I wouldn't have guessed it five years ago. That it would have come to us and been, like, such a beautiful opportunity. And that's where this came from, is like, we were ready for that. We were in a position where we were ready to do that. We had an audience for him so that we could add value. And that was just a moment for me of, wow, that just. I know so many people are like, oh, you're so lucky. But I'm like, it's only because we both had these podcasts that we created an audience, that the numbers of people can add value to him, and sharing his message on these podcasts can add value.

So I want to have a closing thought, and it's this. When you said you believe that the magical luck, like the strokes of magic, where it had nothing to do with our preparation or anything, that was 10% of the occasions, right? 10% real magical luck, 90% were preparation, met opportunity. I think the one thing that we need to put a bow on this is that 10%, when it does unfold in your favor, they're not small strokes of luck. They're usually magic, like, huge strokes of luck. And those 10% have to really be appreciated as well, because I believe that you'll attract more of it into your life. If you appreciate the 10% of real magical luck that actually does land in your lap, you know, the person pulling you back as you're about to step into traffic, that's just lucky that someone is there paying attention, or the car that swerves and misses you last minute, that's just luck, right? There's no. I didn't prepare for that. I wasn't working out, and I was able to get out of the way. Nothing like that. So the 10% of true luck is freaking huge and magical. But the other 90%, folks, it's up to you.

So good. Well, you guys, we're so grateful for you always. Chris and I really love this part of our week where we get to come together and discuss different topics and know that you know we've gotten to meet so many of you who listen to our he said she said episodes and sometimes they only listen to these babes so we must be doing something right. So we're just so grateful for you and just feeling extra grateful for our audience this year because we know that it's the place that we get to truly be us and do what we're here to do, teach and share and all the things. So just really expressing that to all of you and if you love this text it to somebody, share it with somebody. It's always like such a gift when we get to see who is listening and we know we get to meet some of your people as well. So you guys we will see you on the next podcast. Bye everyone.

Appreciate you guys.