Never Stay “Stuck” Again!

I think in order to find where you're really supposed to be in life, which also always shifts, I think that you are going to have to do some things that don't look typical. And we're back with another episode of He Said, she Said.

I am having my dream morning. I know you don't love it as much as I do, but seriously, the dogs, by the way, you guys probably hear the dogs. They are laying on this dog bed between us, wrestling a little bit. We're trying to keep them quiet while there is an epic thunderstorm over the lake. While we stare at the lake up here at the lake house. Look out there. I'm not kidding. There's a whole family of like, ducks floating in the thunderstorm. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but they're so freaking cute. Okay.

It's amazing. The only reason I'm not loving it is because it's 8:20 in the morning. I wanted to go for my run and it's, hello, lightning out and it's dark.

I know, 7pm I know, but thunderstorms are my favorite thing on the planet.

It is enjoyable.

It's one of the reasons I like coming up here. We just don't get thunderstorms like this in, you know, Arizona. I guess we do during monsoon season, but we're not there during.

Not California.

Yeah, definitely not in California. It's funny because you and I were on our walk yesterday. You guys have probably heard, you know, we walk up here called the Loop. And the best thing about the Loop is it's four and a half miles. And once you're on the Loop, you can't get off the Loop. So you have to complete the four and a half miles.

You're stuck on the Loop, so you have to complete whatever it is and move through whatever emotion you're in. Even if you're feeling crabby and you want to stay in it, you don't get to.

Yeah, and it's a country rural. We go by barns and we're staring at the water. It's just beautiful. Anyhow, we're on the loop and yesterday, you know, we get a million different subjects. We're getting on the subject of like, reflecting that we came from here and all that stuff and that we just don't get stuck. And when I say get stuck, I really mean we wake up like other people do and we feel like, oh, I don't know what my next move is. Oh, I feel stifled. Oh, my business isn't going Anywhere. Oh, this is wrong. That's wrong.

I don't like where I'm living. I don't like the house I'm in, anything like that.

Yep, we all feel that way, but Lori and I feel that way as much as anybody else. I think sometimes it's important that people share that. Right. It's a natural human thing to feel stuck or to feel trapped. But then what we talked about is, holy crap, we've never stayed stuck. We've never stayed trapped. And we start going back to all these different events in our life. We have never stayed trapped because we've always made the moves that were more aligned for us. Instead of saying we what is right or what is wrong, we'd say what is aligned or what is misaligned. And then we would take massive action.

I would say becoming aligned with the person that you know that you are or really following your gut like that is going to take some ruffling of feathers. That is going to take some actions where it's going to look really abnormal to other people. It might look obsessive to other people. It might seem crazy to other people. But I think in order to find where you're really supposed to be in life, which also always shifts, I think that you are going to have to do some things that don't look typical.

By the way, did you hear the epic thunder in the background? You guys can't edit out the thunder. It's freaking awesome, Lori. Spot on. So here's why you get stuck. You're more worried about what is right in other people's eyes than you are worried about what is aligned for you and your future goals and your immediate loved ones that you care the most about. I mean, let that sink in. You are more worried about what is right in society's eyes. You're more worried about what is right in other people's eyes. You're more worried, typically, about what one person is going to think. If you really narrow it down, there's always one or two people that's truly on your mind. Then you are being worried about what's aligned for you.

And here's why I think people don't take the risk is because they think, okay, I'm about to go and do something that's gonna disappoint a lot of people. Let's just use, for example, Chris and I moved away from the Midwest where our family was. And so what you do is you put so much pressure on that one decision that you're like, if this isn't right, then Now I'm really trapped. And then I told you so. Everyone, they're gonna say, I told you so. But here's how you have to go into these decisions, Chris, and I call it trying it on. Everything is literally just temporary. Everything is just a trial. Nothing is permanent. And so these are the ways that we have freed ourselves to be able to really, truly find what is for us is we said, you know what, if we don't like it? Guess what, we'll just move back. It's fine. And it's not. We'll move back with our tail between our legs. It'll be, we move back. And we tried it, we saw, maybe it was for us or it wasn't for us, whatever that is. We don't put so much weight on these decisions. And I think that's where people really do get stuck, is they're like, I have this one decision, and if it's not right, it's the end. Like, if I leave this job and go try something else that didn't work, then everyone's going to be, I told you so, and I'm going to have to go back to that thing. No, that was just the one decision. Go try another one. We have to go into these things. Not so attached to this next one decision being the decision. You might have to try three different areas. You might have had to try three different states to move in. You might have had to try two different types of careers, Five different types of careers. But it's when we don't try is when we remain trapped, when we remain stuck.

I'm just in my mind, I'm going through this timeline of all the times that you or I felt really stuck, and I want to share some of them with people. You know, if you go all the way back, let's see here. When the recession hit and I came home, I told you, like, babe, we've been living beyond our means and we have to get rid of everything, start over in this little tiny apartment, you know, uptown, Minneapolis, blah, blah, blah. Most people would get stuck there or they would have stayed stuck in trying to make ends meet. Like, we could have figured out how to stay in that big house we just built. We could have figured out how to keep the cars on stuff. But we're like, no, I don't want to be stuck in that. So we tore off the band aid, literally fire saled everything short saled the household millionaires, and decided to start over in a tiny mother in law suite in uptown Minneapolis in that condo building, right? That's an example of making a bold move to not be stuck. Now, it was embarrassing. Remember Greg, the neighbor came over. What are you doing, man? You're going to ruin the neighborhood values, all that stuff. But we weren't going to let that make us remain stuck. That's an example. Here's another one. I woke up in a partnership in the mortgage bank, you know, about three years after that, that it was successful in regards of how the company was going, but the partnership was not successful. We had opposite leadership styles and I didn't want to be there anymore. Now, this thing was on a hell of a trajectory. Most people would have, what, stuck it out, right? You know that phrase, stuck it out? That's why you're stuck. They would have stuck it out because, well, look where this business is going. You have all this equity. Nope. I sold out for about 10 cents on the dollar. I mean, a laughable amount. And I came home and I helped you grow your brands. That led us to both growing our brands. It was a move that most people wouldn't make, but I refused to be stuck in that toxic partnership. Shortly after that, we wanted to leave the Midwest and go pursue, like, bigger dreams and go to California. Oh, we really felt like we could have gotten stuck there. Right? Because so many opinions of our parents and friends and family and all that, they weren't comfortable conversations. But we followed not what was right in other people's eyes, but what was aligned for us and for our future. And guess what? It turned out where everybody loved the decision and we had a bad year. Unhappy people, but they loved the decision in the long run because everyone's lives are better because of it. Now, I mean, fast forward, you started like pink. It was going to be a beverage company. You got kicked in the tail left and right, by Covid, by regulations, by the inflation, you name it, you got your butt handed to you for two years. Did you get stuck? No, you pivoted to this new company coming out. Still light pink, but I mean, the new brand coming out. And I don't want to say too much around it because I don't know how much you've told us, but light.

Pink is the parent company, Light pink.

Is the parent company. The point is, you didn't get stuck, you pivoted. Now you were afraid, right? Everybody investors, and you built up this whole huge social media page, everything already on one specific thing, canned beverages. But you're making this pivot and it's even better. People loved it. But most people would have gotten stuck there. Guys, we get stuck time and time again. Even if it's just like, I'm stuck in this relationship, I'm stuck in this friendship, I'm stuck in this cycle. I'm stuck in this body. I felt so stuck in my body since I got out of shape during COVID and now I feel freaking great. Took a little while, but we've never remained stuck. We've never accepted where we're at. And it's because of two things. We're willing to tear off the band aid and take crazy action. And you use your words, we try it on for size. It doesn't have to be a fit, but we've always been willing to try the change on for size. And the second reason is because we have always made decisions that are aligned with us. Instead of making decisions that are popular or quote correct in other people's eyes or society's eyes.

You have to really be willing to become a totally different person in order to not remain stuck. Because I think being stuck is just being stuck at a certain set of habits that you have in your life, A certain set of agreements that you've made verbally or non verbal with your family, with your friends, whatever that looks like. And I think in order to get unstuck, you really have to do things that are outside of your comfort zone and your belief system right now. And that's gonna feel really challenging because I think that a lot of the things that we did, we had to break our past beliefs. And when you're raised in the Midwest and you have these Midwest values and people are saying to you, what's happened to your values? What's happened to what you believe about the family? It's not that those things went away.

When you were, you're too good for this, you're too good for that.

Yes. It's not that those things, you know, went away and we didn't have them. It's that we had to figure out a new way to go and fulfill our dreams while still making sure that those values were strong in us. And while you're doing it, it doesn't feel good. You question yourself. I think that in order to become unstuck, you are going to question everything about you and who you are. But I think it's a new way of figuring out how to be. It's a reorganization. So in order to get unstuck, I think it's a reorganizing of wanting to keep those core values and how can I still show up as a good person? It might just look a different way than other people think. So I think what we got the ability to do is that when we moved away, we were able to show up as quote unquote good people or good family members in a totally different way than what they expected. Maybe we couldn't be there all of the time for what they thought that they wanted us to be there for, but instead fast forward to being able to create more money, be able to create more time freedom. We got to be there in ways in the future, in bigger ways that we wanted to be able to support in order to support monetarily, support with their dreams, be able to spend more quality time together because we got to spend more time together. So you have to understand it's going to feel and look totally counterintuitive, but the way that you're going to get unstuck is probably not going to feel good or look good to other people in the beginning. But eventually I think you become the person who can reach back, reach down and lift people up.

They're not going to be able to, let's say, associate or understand the size of your dreams and the moves that it's going to take to hit them. They're not going to understand your personal set of agreements because their personal set of agreements is going to be different. They're not going to be able to understand your paradigm because your paradigm is yours and theirs is theirs. They're not going to understand the role in life that you were put here for. At least not everyone's going to. But as long as you understand it, you have to stay true to what, to achieving what that role is to you. People aren't going to understand why you make the moves that you have to make. But you need to know which moves you have to make and then you have to make them. The most important agreement that you can uphold is the agreement to yourself of where you're going and why you're going there. And all the right people will eventually understand in the long run. The agreement that you cannot break is the one to yourself and where you're meant to go by staying stuck where you are.

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All right guys, well listen, if you feel stuck, you got two opportunities to get unstuck. A lot of times having like minded people around you and some very careful curation of conversation is how you get unstuck. My last roundtable of the entire year, which it happens to be the 2024 planning roundtable, literally is available right now. As this episode comes out. It's the first day that's available. Go to chrisharder Meroundtable and see if there's a spot left. If you can check out, there's a spot. If you can't, they're all gone. So go to chrisharder meroundtable. Again, that's chrishardter meroundtable. And guess what? Adjacent to those two days, Lori has her next Girlfriends in Business.

I'm so excited about this you guys. It's an entire day of high level networking. So if you are looking for your group of like minded people to support you, leave with your business besties. And not just that, you're going to actually be doing breakouts, working on your business and hearing from different experts who have built incredible businesses. You'll have chances for live Q and A with panels. You'll have time to connect with these other women and truly create these bonds for life and be able to give input on their business and get input on your own business and your next step. So if you guys want to come and be a part of that, you can text the word workshop to 310-496-8363. That is mid September in Scottsdale. Text the word workshop to 310-496-8383.

I love it. And they're back to back. So you could actually make all of that in one trip.

And we had that last time like 10, I think 10 women. We had at both of them.

10 women from roundtable stayed for Girlfriends in Business and they ended up having the best three day breakthrough, powerful session ever. All right guys, thanks for listening. We love and appreciate you no matter what it takes, whether it's coming to our events or whether it's just getting your own posse of supporters together or whether it's going solo for a while. Get unstuck, be true to yourself and it'll all work out in the end. Thanks for listening. We love to appreciate you. Sam.