Keep the Faith: Grow Beyond What You Think is Possible (Even During Hard Times)

We know the sleepless nights from two until frickin 4:30 in the morning where it just makes you feel worse the next day. Where you have brought in every bad memory from your past, everything you've ever done wrong, everything you've said wrong, every dumb move you've made, all the doubt that comes in the this is it, it's finally over. I'm not gonna be able to do it. We understand that more than you could possibly know. Those are the times that make you. I am together with my husband Chris Harder, who also has his show, the Chris Harder Show.

It's my first time in our new podcast studio.

First time in the new podcast studio and we really felt the call to record this episode because we have been there more times than we can tell you. And I think people aren't really talking about just, just how many hard seasons that you hit, not only as an entrepreneur but in life. So we want to make sure that you know that you're not only alone, but we want to share the actual method that Chris and I do. Now. We had no idea that Chris and I were doing a method when we were doing it throughout our lives. But we keep going back to this framework that has helped us so much and now we've put it together for you because we want to share exactly what, what we do when we felt challenged or when we feel like we can't grow or we've noticed we're even doing this in our biggest growth seasons. So this is something that you're going to be able to follow along with no matter what.

And I want to start by reiterating what you said. I think people always assume that things are always going better for other people than they're actually going. I think they always assume everybody has more success than they have. I think they always assume that they always have more money than they have. So it's so easy. Throw money at this, throw money at that. I think they always assume that everything unfolds their way and that is not the case. I feel like we have a hard season probably every two years, meaning we get like a really good 18 to 24 month run and then we step into a really hard 12 month season and then we get another 18 to 24 month explosion and then another really hard 6 to 12 month season. And what I've learned in this cycle is one it happens way more than anybody lets on. I think that's the important thing that we're talking about today. So you're, you don't feel alone. If this is happening to you. Number two, once you realize it's a pattern, once you realize it's a cycle, it stops scaring you. And you're more prepared to weather the storm and come out even stronger on the next up cycle. And you especially are able to do that kind of using the method that you and I are about to talk about.

I think that this is one of the most important things that we can share because all you see online is somebody's big launch, or you hear that everything is going amazing, or you see these dollar amounts over and over and over. And I remember when we were first really getting started, Chris, and we were launching programs and we had a membership program and I would be constantly comparing myself to certain people that I would follow. And what I learned years later that I wish I would have known because I literally beat myself up. And I like, what's our problem? Like, why can't we hit these numbers? And even though looking back, we were hitting incredible numbers, I didn't realize that people were spending a ton of money either on Facebook ads or they were paying their affiliates a ton of money. They were paying for their marketing. And you and I didn't even know about paid marketing at the time. Like we were fully organic, comparing ourselves to people who were doing paid marketing and we're like, oh my God, they did a, you know, they did a seven figure launch and this was the first time they launched that program. And little did we know that they spent $600,000 on Facebook ads. And so I was realizing, oh my God, they're having the same launch as we are. They're just paying to get the people. So we were actually doing better. These are little things that I want to highlight to people who don't realize if you've launched organically and you've done okay and you're comparing yourself to someone who's done a lot bigger launch, you have no idea how much money they put into marketing to get that number. That you might actually be doing just as good as them or just a little bit behind.

Well, they're running an entirely different business model. There's two different business models, right? There's high overhead, high reward, or there's low overhead, lower reward. But the joke is this. When I analyze almost everybody out there making money in personal brands or solopreneurs or small businesses, the net net, the take home is darn near the same. So you have to choose. Which headache do you want? Do you want all the moving pieces, all the overhead, all the upfront expenses, all the team members to have a great big top line number that you can brag about and then when you deduct all those expenses, you've got your net of, you know, whatever. Or do you want a small team and less obligations and less upfront spend and still net a really good number that's close to what the other number would be, but with way less of a headache. And there's not a right or wrong answer here, by the way. These are both right answers. It's what's right for you. But the reason we share this part of it being a secret podcast is the secret is you have to know which business model you're doing so you don't compare yourself to the wrong business model and think that you're failing because.

You'Re going to leak so much energy. Like, I can't tell you. I wish I could have gotten all of that energy back that I wasted on comparing and being upset when life was going pretty good at the time and we can make it bad and that's something else that we don't see. I want to share a time where to the outside world it looked like everything was going amazing for me. Like, it actually looked like I was on top of the world and back in my fitness competing days. When I started, after four years of not winning anything and getting really dialed in and putting in some of the hardest work of my entire life, I. I ended up having a year where I literally won everything. I swept three titles that have never been swep before. I was Miss Bikini America, I was Miss Figure America, and I became Miss Bikini Universe that year, which was absolutely insane. I did not see that coming. But it was all of the crazy hard work and all of the massive sacrifice and restriction in my life that got me to that place. But what people did not see, and while I want to just make it clear, it was so worth it, I needed to do that. I needed to put all that sacrifice in my life. I needed to sacrifice weekends, I needed to sacrifice friends. I needed to break through a plateau. And there are years like this that are vital. They're rocket ship years where you're going to use all the fuel that you possibly have, maybe even more reserve fuel. You're going to be running on nothing in order to break through that atmosphere to the next level. That was a breakthrough year for me. Now, what people don't see on breakthrough years is that was the loneliest I've ever been in my entire life. We were not going anywhere with friends because I was watching my food intake so much and you always get ready.

For a photo shoot or competition.

Exactly. Always wanted to be photo shoot and competition ready. I felt so restricted, so isolated. I didn't. My diet was kind of getting dialed in, but I still didn't 100% have that all dialed in. So, you know, as a woman, when you're not getting all the carbs that you need in the proper nutrition, like, you feel depressed. And I hadn't had my period for like two years. I was not feeling good. Like, I was unwell in so many areas, but so incredible in other areas. And I want to let people know, like, in your biggest breakthrough years, sometimes it's the worst year of your life simultaneously. So I think that when people looked at me from the outside, they're like, oh, my God. That's the epitome. You must feel so amazing. I've never felt lonelier. I've never felt more isolated, and I never felt worse in my body, if I'm being honest. I was exhausted, I was overworked. And I will say, though, that that year I would. I would repeat it all over again because, you know, I would do it different now, knowing what I know. Absolutely. But I think it's important for people to know that you're looking at some people. Maybe you're looking at a content creator. Maybe you're looking at someone who just got a influx of followers. I remember when some of our friends got like a million followers almost overnight. And to everyone else, they're wishing that that happened to them. And to these people, they feel like they're drowning. They feel like they have to keep it up. They feel like, who do I have to be in order. In order to make this, you know, in order to live into this person? Am I going to keep this up? Am I going to lose this? How do I sustain this? Like, the amount of stress that can come with some of these big blessings people don't understand.

I remember being out to dinner with one particular couple, and the one half of the couple was at peak fame and finally reached the kajillion book sales that they always wanted. And I mean a kajillion peak, peak fame. Every single stage, every single celebrity talk show. And she almost started breaking down crying, saying, I have never been so tired. I have never been so unhappy. I've never been so un. Overworked. And I remember you and I went home that night because we were like, this is what we want, right?

That was what I wanted.

And we had a moment. We're like, this is not what I want. Careful what you asked for. This is not what. I don't want to look and feel that way. This person was a skeleton of their prior life.

We turned to the ship after that.

We turned the ship. Now, this is not a, hey, you know, be cautious, don't chase down your dreams because you're going to pay for it podcast.

I'm all about that chase.

Right? I'm all about that chase, and I'm all about accomplishment. This is a understand the methods you're going to have to incorporate and we'll share those in a little bit in order to succeed in the up cycles, which can be just as tiring and tough as the down cycles. And I want to go back to this upcycle and down cycle for a minute. Remember I said, you'll have a couple of years at least. Our pattern, a couple of years of just killing it, and then a really tough year of, what the hell? And then it goes into another couple years of just killing it and then another year or whatever, like, oh, what the hell? And I remember one of these upcycle down cycles. I was looking back recently at pictures. We were looking for some pictures for some marketing stuff, and I said, babe, look at this. Like, look at everything we did in 2018. My God, we were on fire. And book launches and we're everywhere and hanging out with every celebrity person and all this stuff and invited everywhere and every country and all this stuff. I go, oh, my God, look at 19. This is insane. We're everywhere. And then some. And all of a sudden, it hit me. When 2020 hit, we were so tired and so burnt out and so over it that when the pandemic hit, we were relieved. Now, to be careful, I'm not relieved that the pandemic hit. People were hurt or lost loved ones. But, I mean, we were so relieved that the world shut down because we didn't know how to get off. I didn't know how to get that medical straight. And it was killing us. It was killing us being everywhere all the time. And so part of your upcycle, because we were printing money, is also, you have to learn to manage it with some of these tools that we're going to talk about, or it'll quickly become your down cycle. And then 2020 became a major down cycle. Matter of fact, that was a down cycle so people can understand our pattern. 2018, 2019. Literally couldn't stop printing money. 2020, all of a sudden, not only does the pandemic hit that affected everyone, but then my dad passes away in June of 2020, and we lost waffles, our dog, which was like our child right before dad passed and the world is shut down. We had to refund all your Bliss Project people, which was a couple hundred grandma make any more money because the.

World'S shut down and we didn't know if the hotel was going to refund us for a while. We were going back because they weren't going to originally and they were like, yeah, we're people were not getting refunded because they were, they were screwed too.

And then so I, we had to go home to Wisconsin, take care of mom and everything. And I didn't even realize the depression that I was headed for and the grief that I was headed for. I thought I was experiencing it, but my God, as the second half of 2020 unfolded, I didn't want to do anything and I shut down everything around me and it was just like burning stuff down around me and this person.