Do THIS To Go From Breakdown To Breakthrough

If you want to be bigger, if you want to have more capacity, if you want to hold what you see, all of these other people who you think are your inspirations, your mentors, are the people who all have more than you that you wish you had, it's because they have decided to get back in the fire willingly, and sometimes not willingly, over and over and over again.

And we're back with another episode of.

He Said, she Said.

We are right back where we started this time last year where everybody is transferring into a new year and new goals and new situations. And some of you are coming off a great year and a lot of you, I'm hearing, are coming off a really tough year where it almost like, I don't know, you've, like, all your plans collapsed around you, all of your goals collapsed around you, all of the things that you thought held true in your life all sudden changed for you this past year.

Maybe broke.

You, maybe broke. And I want to share with you that you're not alone if that's how you're kind of feeling. As you look back on this year as we transfer from 25 into 26, because some of our highest performing big name friends all the way down to like, people we know that are, you'll never know of them, but they're just awesome human beings that also had big plans and goals and everybody in between, they're all, all experiencing this change. They're all experiencing, wait, what the hell happened to the plan that I thought was going to unfold in 2025? Now, there's a lot of reasons why, right? The economy, it's kind of funky out there right now. Yeah, the stock market is, is scrambling, but everything else is pretty stagnant or weird, especially on what I call Main Street. On top of that, AI is changing things quicker than you realize. And the changes have been bigger than you realize. You just don't realize it yet. That, and there's just this weird, let's call it liquidity issue in the system. There's lots of liquidity in the system, but it's held by a very few right now that are not necessarily investing into the part of the system that the average everyday person is taking part in. And so I'm talking to everybody from people that just have 50 or $100,000 goals all the way up to, like I said, our highest performing friends that had, you know, 20 or 30 or $50 million goals this year. And everyone's like, what the hell happened in 25? I'm having a meltdown. And the Entire point of this episode is when you feel like you might be having a meltdown, you're really just being melted down into a brand new form, a very valuable form that you're going to be able to show up as over the next several years.

Okay, so quite a few years ago, I was talking on one of my podcasts. I believe it was just a quickie. And I was in one of these phases where I was in the fire. And when you're in it, when you are in it, it is hard to see a way out and it is hard to believe that this could possibly be happening for you. It's almost like even if you're a personal development person, you're like, what the hell? You start questioning everything, you start wanting to say, like, this is a bunch of bullshit. Like, you can start people bad because you're like, okay, yeah, maybe this self help stuff worked at one point, but it's not going to get me out of this position. And I was literally just thinking about a glassblower and I was making up essentially a story while I was podcasting. And it came to be this story that I'm about to tell you. And it's been one that I essentially cling on to pretty much every year. Because if you are in, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're on the personal development journey at all, then you are going to experience what I'm about to share and what Chris just talked about over and over. Sometimes every year, sometimes multiple times a year, sometimes you go on a few good year run where you're just like, this has been a great few years and everything feels good and everything feels easy. And then all of a sudden it's like, here you are again, finding yourself in the fire. So I want you to think about a glassblower, essentially. I just want you to think about a man who's a glassblower. And he has all of his glassworks around him up on a shelf and he's got the big fire kiln in the center and he has all of these different water pitchers that he has been working on for years and they're all up on his shelf and there is a little water pitcher up there and it's surrounded by medium sized water pitchers. It's surrounded by bigger water pitchers. And that little water pitcher keeps on saying to the glassblower, he says, hey, I want to be big like the other pitchers. Why didn't you make me big? I don't understand it. I want to be big like the other pitchers. And the Glassblower finally says to him one day after this little pitcher, asking and asking, asking, why didn't you make me big? Why can't I hold all of the water that these other pitchers get to hold? And the glassblower says to him, well, I can make you bigger. I can make your capacity bigger. I can make you be able to hold all of that water, but I have to put you back in the fire. And I don't think you like that. And so it's that moment of realization of if you want to be bigger, if you want to have more capacity, if you want to hold what you see, all of these other people who you think are your inspirations, your mentors, are the people who all have more than you that you wish you had. It's because they have decided to get back in the fire willingly. And sometimes not willingly, but over and over and over again. You know, when I'm at a period of time where I'm like, oh, I want more, but I'm so frustrated and this is so hard, am I willing to put myself back in the fire for a long period of time in order to be able to melt my other form down? Cause that's exactly what would have to happen to that little water pitcher, is it would have to get completely melted down. Completely melted down and then held in the fire long enough to then expand and stretch and become something new.

And that's why they call it a meltdown, by the way. So when you're having a meltdown, it doesn't feel good, right? You're in the fire and you're literally melting, except you're being melted down so that you can be turned into a bigger, use your analogy, water pitcher or bigger, more beautiful vase. Something that holds more capacity and gets noticed more. Something that takes up more space. But you can't do it without the meltdown. I'll give you example. 2008, 2009, I had an absolute meltdown of my career. It's when the recession hit. I was in banking. It was a banking recession. You know, the whole world had a financial reset at the time. And I had to lose not only our financial position, I had to lose our career. We had to short sale, which is basically one stop short of losing your home. The big, beautiful home that we had just finished building and moved into. We had to walk away from our rental properties. We had to get rid of all of our cars except for one that was so far upside down, it didn't make sense to get rid of it, because upside down means you owe so much more on it than it's worth. You literally can't get rid of it. And then I had to melt down my. My identity. My identity at the time was, what's your next promotion at this world's biggest bank? And how many people work underneath you? And what do you drive in? And what neighborhood are you moving into next? I had to melt down what I thought were my dreams. I had to melt down what I thought was the vision that I thought we were going to ride off into the sunset with. Even though I was like, what, 29 or 8 or whatever the heck it was at the time, everything internally with me and externally with me got absolutely melted down. And let me tell you, it didn't feel like a fire. It felt like the inferno. It was terrible. And by the way, it doesn't necessarily, I don't want to, you know, paint you the wrong picture. It doesn't go by quickly. It is a long fire sometimes. It took me a long time to figure out what our pivot was. It took me a long time for us to get back on top. It took a long time for me to figure out where I could show up with value again. And I felt kind of lost with having no identity. But that was the time, and this is very important part of the story that Lori said, never again, and started becoming Lori Harder, as you know her today. First she became the fitness star, Then she became the person that won all the titles. Then she became the person on all the magazine covers. Then she became the person who had the, like, one of the largest monthly workout plans online before the rest of the world had those. That's when she got into network marketing and, you know, ended up making multiple seven figures per year with supplements. That's when all of these new things showed up and I found a new identity in this new path that we started to take together. But it didn't happen overnight. It didn't happen in a week. It didn't even happen in a year. It took me a good couple of years to show up again in what identity I wanted to show up in. In other words, the bigger, better glass vase in this analogy. And so it's going to feel like a fire, it's going to feel like an inferno, possibly. It doesn't have to take that long, but it can feel like it's taking a little too long. But on the other end is a brand new VAs, if you will, that has a lot more capacity. Because when I look back, had I stayed with that bank, even though it was a great career and worked my way up to the very top. We still wouldn't have made near what we were able to make in this new expanded form.

After the inferno, Sometimes life can actually force you out, not by your choice. And a lot of times this is a blessing disguised as, like you're saying, an inferno to literally help you expand the vessel that you're in right now. And you know, Chris and I were talking yesterday and I think that sometimes certain points in your life, there's a lot of expectation around certain ages. I mean, we all know this. Okay, taking a moment for a rich girl tip for you. If you're somewhere between 500k and a million and trying to scale beyond that and feeling weirdly stuck right now, I'm going to tell you something that no one in your circle is going to ever tell you. You're not stuck. You're just surrounded by people who can't take you where you want to go. So we need to be honest. You've outgrown your current circle, you've outgrown the rooms that you're in. And probably a whole lot of the advice that you have been getting is only going to have you regress or keep you stuck exact exactly where you are. So rich girl rule number one, proximity is a power move, you guys. You can't scale from asking people who haven't built what you want. And number two, if you're the one mentoring everyone, you're in the wrong room. So trust me, Chris and I have learned this the very expensive way. I have to tell you, this is going to hurt. We once paid 75k each for a mastermind where we were the most successful people in the room. Cute for our ego, terrible for our business and our pocketbooks. That was one of the most expensive, expensive lessons we've ever had to learn. No one was stretching us. No one had the answers that we really needed to scale. No one was playing much bigger than us. And we will never do that again. You guys, everything changed when we finally got into the spaces where people talked investments, systems scale and hiring like CEOs, not just hustling more rooms where conversations literally collapse. Timelines, you guys. And that's why we, we created the elite entrepreneur mastermind. It is two, three and a half day luxury in person retreats with incredible experiences and it's monthly challenge solving calls, it's direct access to Chris and myself. It's a curated high level network where money moves faster because everyone is thinking so much bigger. Thinking big and making millions of dollars. Is the baseline in this room. So if you're ready for that type of room that finally matches your ambition. If you're done being the biggest thinker and pouring to everyone in your space and not getting poured into, just go to Instagram and DM me the word apply. Or you can go to show notes and you can click on the link below that says Elite entrepreneur Mastermind. I will send you all of the details and from there we can book a call if you have more questions. You guys, don't forget about rule number three is to not wait for your circle to elevate you. Get in the room that literally upgrades your entire identity. And we also have the mentor collective Mastermind. If you have not hit over 500k yet, so go and check that out. And I am so excited to spend time with you in these incredible in person rooms next year. You know, out there, I have a lot of friends who are like, by the time if they're 30 and they're not married by the time they're 35, if they don't have kids, you know, if they don't have a business, if they haven't made a million dollars, like there's so many of these markers that we're unaware of that can make you feel like you're failing. And I think it's the realization that your life is actually going to reset and restart in multiple ways many times. I'm not saying that your marriage is going to reset or restart. I'm not saying certain friendships are going to reset or restart. But when you look at the grand through line of your life, like of different people's lives, yes, there will be things that reset, that stop, that start over and over again. And I think when we hold these expectations, especially where Chris and I are in our mid-40s, it's like thinking that we were going to have these set identities, this set life, that our family was going to be set, that everything's going to be set. And it's the understanding that life is so cyclical. Like you are going to go through so many cycles in your life and the difference of if it's going to be a life of growth or a life of pain, when you get to a certain part is how much you resist the cycles. And we're finding ourselves in another cycle of starting some new things again, of needing to have different ways of doing certain things, needing to leave old patterns behind that just simply will no longer work in the way that the world is. And things that we are like, wow, what worked for us Here does not work for us over here. We have to evolve again. And I think what can happen in people's brains when they get into their late 30s, early 40s, is thinking like, no, I already figured that out. And I was listening to a podcast the other day where somebody was talking about, you know, for people as they age, the way to make sure that your career, like, stays viable and you stay successful and you stay happy in your life as you're aging. They were talking about how it's your. Your ability to flex and grow and learn, so your ability to lean into. What is this younger generation doing? Where is everything going? You know, not being so stuck and so rigid. I think we could all think of somebody right now who's really rigid, who's really stuck, who's older, who's just like, they're having a hard time in life because they want things to stay the same. And we all know the one constant is changed. So how much can you lean into and flex with and learn from all of the changes and the people who are younger than you and the people who are older than you? So I do think there's this beautiful sweet spot where if we really lean in in our late 30s, 40s, and 50s, that we not only have the wisdom now, but we can then learn from what's happening now in this younger generation and being like, where is it going? And how can I apply my wisdom to that? And how can I move forward and know that the only constant is changing, change. So know that we are going to have to change.

Listen, entire income sources are melting down and changing. Entire industries are melting down right now and changing. I'm sure you can name a few of them. Entire ways of marketing or showing up online or attracting people is melting down and changing. And like Lori was talking about, you can either step into the fire of learning what's coming in the new way to do things, or you can sit back in denial, ride out what you're currently doing as long as you can until you are forced into the fire. And this is the lesson that I think is very important. You can't escape the meltdown, and you can't escape the reshaping because it's going to happen to you. But you can get a head start by raising your hand and saying, I'm going to step into the fire of learning the new things early on my terms, right now, while I can, so that I'm one of the first movers and I have first mover advantage, or I'm just going to be in Denial. And I'm going to hold on and hope and pray that somehow I get through this. And then someone else is going to shove you in the fire when you've got nothing left and you're not ready for it. And so you're either going to voluntarily go to the fire and then have first mover advantage, or you'll be shoved into the fire at the time that you least want to be. But you can't escape the change and the growth. But the important thing to remember is on the other side is a new, bigger, more beautiful vase that can hold more. And whether that is holding more love or holding more time and freedom, or holding more money, or holding a bigger home for you, or holding a better city for you, or holding a better relationship for you, you can't hold it until you are reshaped into something that has more capacity.

I want you to really look at this as a positive thing. I know that that feels insane, but I have never ever volunteered for a fire or even been forced in a fire that hasn't fully made me better, made our relationships better, if we choose. The key here is that you have to keep choosing to view this as how could this be positive for me? I understand you're not gonna necessarily get that right in the middle of it, but you sometimes you just have to have faith and know that if you're in it, you are being melted down into a better form that will have more capacity. And whenever you're met with some of your worst fears, honestly, that's how you dissolve them. You wanna know dissolve one of your worst fears is by facing it or going through it. And all of a sudden it's like your capacity for anything like that is so transformed in your perspective that all of a sudden, because of the fire that you were in, you have a new business of helping people go through the same fire that you just went through. And that's how this actually works, is the fire that you're in could potentially be your biggest blessing because it could be the entire reason that you're alive moving forward. And so I want this to be an invite into stop thinking that it's happening to you and how horrible it is. But to really say, okay, if this had purpose to it, how could I give it purpose? How can I move through this? How could I support myself through this? How can I learn about where I should potentially be going? And I know that for a lot of people this can feel really overwhelming. It feels overwhelming for me right now. There's a lot of areas of my life that feel very overwhelming. But it's one bite at a time. You have to really just figure out where your focus needs to go and wake up every day and figure out the one thing that you need to do and just move forward step by step, inch by inch. Doesn't mean that you have to do some giant leap overnight, but it does mean that you just have to start moving in that direction.

Now there's two ways that you can step into this fire that has something bigger and better on the other side.

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Free and this is not when I just talked about either voluntarily or waiting until it happens to you. This is either alone or with a professional glassblower. And what I mean by that is you can either just be one of the vases that is sitting in a shed that happens to catch fire and there's no professional glassblower there and you got to figure it out yourself for survival or a professional glassblower can say oh, you're raising your hand to be next. Great. Let me take you and let me create a plan for you. You and let me figure out what colors I'm going to add into you and let me figure out how big you want to be. And then let me tell you how many times I'm going to have to put you into the fire and reshape you. And, and let me tell you what it's going to feel like. And let me tell you how we can do it even quicker. And that's the difference between being in a community or having a coach that's the professional glassblower, or just catching fire in the shed and being left to fend for yourself. When we went through the fire in 0809, that's when we first found coaches, that's when we first found self development events, that's when we first went to Tony Robbins, when we first went to Landmark Forum, it's when we first joined a mastermind, it's when we first started going to events, it's when we plugged in to all the professional glassblowers that said, hey, it may suck right now, but look at what we can turn you into with a little bit of hard work and a little bit of planning. And so I give you that analogy to say, you can't avoid the fire, but you can come out the other end way better with some professional guidance and way quicker. And that's why we coach and it's why we offer masterminds. And we've got two extraordinary masterminds. No matter where you're at in your next level, if you're under $500,000 and you know your goal is 3, 4, 500,000 bucks this year, that's our mentor collective Mastermind, which is turning out to be the greatest freaking program on the planet. Not our words literally. Text messages that we just got over Christmas, text messages that we got the week before from members saying, as I reflect on my year, I can't believe how fast and how good this thing is helping me close the year strong. That's the mentor collective for under $500,000 earners. And then there's the elite entrepreneur mastermind. This is the small room, the curated in person three times this year, one on one, coaching calls with myself, texting access to Lori and I. But it's only for earners over 500 and most of the people in that room are seven and eight figure earners. But don't let that scare you, don't let that discourage you. It's not about who makes the most money to get into the room, it's about who's the next best fit. Because we curate that room with the right industry diversification and right skill set diversification so that everything you need this year is in that room or one introduction away. And that's our promise. That's our promise. Everything you need this year coming up as we go through the fire is in that room or one introduction away. And that's if you're earning over $500,000. Now listen, real simple DM one of us and say, here's my goal for next year. Which program would be best for me? And let's have a conversation to guide you in the right way. The lead entrepreneur is getting real full, real quick. We literally had five people join in the week leading up to Christmas, so very few seats left in that one. If you really want to just skip the line and go right to filling out an app app, you can go to Chrisharder Me Mastermind. That is Chrisharder Me Mastermind. Answer those few questions and we can jump onto Zoom. But if you want to explore which one's the best fit for you, send us a dm. Lori Harder. Hriswharter and we would love to hear about your goals for next year.

We're so grateful for you guys and we will talk to you next week. Bye, everyone.

Sam.