Timeline Expectations To Help You Win In Your Goals
18 Jul 2023 · 17 min
Lori and Chris Harder explain why big goals take longer than expected. Lori spent seven years reaching out to Marie Forleo before landing her on the show. Chris's fundraising taught him that investors need repeated follow-up to actually commit. The lesson: keep going after initial no's, follow up until you get a real answer, and find people who push you back in.
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We're not afraid of the time, work, energy and follow up. And all four of those aspects have to be in place in abundance. In other words, it's going to take more time than you think. It's going to take more work than you thought it was going to take. It's going to take more energy from you than maybe what you'd budgeted. And here's the biggie. It's going to take more follow up than you ever expected.
And we're back with another episode, episode of He Said, she Said. And today we have been talking to each other about just how much people underestimate the amount of time that most things take.
Time, work, effort and follow up.
Time, work, effort and follow up. So we're going to share a couple examples of different things in our life. Some things recent, some things past. Because I think this is really important for any entrepreneur is setting the expectation. In my personal opinion and where I have been let down in the past is just holding an expectation that isn't actually real. It's an expectation that if I trace it back, it was made up by me, by what I thought I saw, not actually knowing what the real timeline was and what the foundational work that someone else had put in. So the reason that I wanted to talk about this is because yesterday I did a podcast interview with somebody who I had asked since the beginning of my podcast. So it might have actually been seven years.
Seven years of asking.
So I had this person on my bucket list forever. And I don't know, we probably as a team did anywhere from 6 to 10 different reach outs throughout the years.
Over the course of seven years.
Yes. For this person. Maybe more than that actually. Cause I had quite a few different people reaching out and I had reached out. And what I will say is this person's team is so incredible. And this woman has such amazing boundaries as well that she had her team trained so well that I don't even really know if she knew that I was asking, even though I was asking on many different modalities.
Share who it is. Don't be so cryptic.
Well, she's coming on the podcast because we just finished the interview yesterday. But Marie Forleo's team is absolutely incredible and she's amazing. And she was the person that I wanted on my podcast. Cause she was one of the main people who really inspired me, especially back when I was filming all of She's a Badass videos, you guys. I had these videos called Busy. I had one of my company's names was Busy Girl. Healthy Life.
I cooks.
I did motivational stuff on YouTube.
You can probably still healthy recipes that were quick to make.
Do yourself a favor, if you remotely feel bad about your content, please go search Lori Harder. Busy girl Healthy Life and watch me make some, I don't know, turkey meatballs or something.
We all start somewhere, we talk about them.
But that's the whole point is y' all start somewhere and the amount of time that it's gonna take you is gonna be longer than you want. But, you know, I actually said this on the podcast with Marie. I ended up telling her about it and laughing. And I said, you know, I think where most people when you're going on this journey of trying to get what you want or reach your goals, I could have taken that personally. I could have gotten mad. I could have gotten mad at her, not really even knowing what the situation was. And instead I looked at it and I started saving her team's responses back. Why did I do this? Because they were so creative and so kind that I thought in my head, in that moment, one day, I'm going to need to know how to say no. Like this. Now. Nobody was banging down my door. Nobody was asking me to be on my podcast a bunch. I was not having demands like this whatsoever. I wasn't having people ask to speak at Bliss Project yet, like, because it wasn't really in that phase, maybe a little bit. And I remember thinking, I'm going to need to know how to do this. And so I saved them. And sure enough, as my life got busier through the years, as more people started asking me to be on the podcast, I consistently needed to learn how to say no in a nice way. In a way that's like, it doesn't mean I don't want to do it. It just means my goals are somewhere else or my focus is somewhere else. Because good is the enemy of great. And if you have a focus in one direction, and maybe even if this person is amazing and they're asking you to speak or be on a podcast and it's not in line with your goals, you have to learn how to say those no's or you're going to get distracted. And that's what we talked about on the podcast actually as well, is just the thing that she attributes a lot of her success to is really laser focused on what she wants so that she knows what to say no to. But back to the core lesson of look at how long it took me.
Yeah, Time, work, energy, and repetition. Follow up, right?
Yep.
It took you 7 years, 10 reach outs, a couple of them creative. Because didn't you send her raps that you made up? I did.
I know that she loves hip hop.
And R and B.
Like she's obsessed with dancing and she's obsessed with music. So I had written her like a little rap.
God, I wish you remembered it to.
Come on the show.
And yeah, it's funny because, you know, right now I'm raising capital for Fellow and we're raising $5 million and we came right out of the gates super, super fast. Past $2 million in commitments right away. But back to the time, work, energy and follow up that it takes. Getting the commitments that quickly was like record time. And we still have more commitments to get, obviously. But where the time, work, energy and follow up came from was. I am shocked at how many times I have to follow up with individuals to send their wires after they sign their paperwork or to sign their paperwork after they said, yes, I'm in for this amount. And I think this is the secret. You Getting Marie on seven years later, 10 retails later, or me filling my fund and the way you filled your fund, it's that we're not afraid of the time, work, energy and follow up. And all four of those aspects have to be in place in abundance. In other words, it's going to take more time than you think. It's going to take more work than you thought it was going to take. It's going to take more energy from you than maybe what you'd budgeted. And here's the biggie. It's going to take more follow up than you ever expected. Now this goes for anything. Landing somebody on your podcast, filling a fund that you're trying to do, maybe selling a course, maybe filling a, a mastermind, maybe launching a physical product. I don't care what your goal is. Hell, even getting a promotion at work, it's going to take more time, work, energy and follow up than you expect. And here's why I think people quit on it. We are programmed to survive, not thrive. Let that sink in a minute. So what does that mean if I say we're programmed to survive, not thrive? Well, our basic programming is literally programmed to make sure we don't get hurt, to make sure we don't get killed, and to make sure that we live to see tomorrow. It's not to stand out, it's not to thrive, it's not to go above and beyond. Our minds are not created that way from millions of years ago. As a matter of fact, taking risk or following up Too much or standing out or being the squeaky wheel. This is the opposite of surviving, which we're programmed to do. It's what it takes to thrive, but it's the opposite of surviving to do those things. It could put you in danger. You could be labeled as a knowing. You could be canceled, whatever it might be. So it's weird because there's a real rub here. And I think this is why most people quit on their goals, on their dreams, on their product, on their business. Whatever it might be. It doesn't match your natural way of being a human to survive. Right. Or, you know, your natural way is just to survive when you are trying to thrive.
I love this. And I was also thinking about the fact of how that aligned and how anything has aligned that I've had to really work for. I'll share another example in one second. Is that it was the right timing for them too. It was something that we saw could be a benefit if they came on, that we could promote for her something that's coming up. Actually, she has B school coming up that is like one of the most amazing programs. It's been around for 15 years, Chris.
Amazing.
80,000 people have gone through it. And so it's a program that I've taken her coffee cure, which is like.
Yep, I watched you literally turn into a copy machine.
Oh, my goodness. It converted so many people on a high ticket thing that I couldn't actually believe it. So I know her stuff works so incredibly well.
Your girlfriend's in business sales page came from you studying her copy cure and event love and you becoming an event.
Love and both selling out.
Yep.
So I am obsessed with her products. I think she's one of the best teachers ever. But seeing that need, the point is, I saw the need of, wow, okay, I could help with this. So you have to really. It's a timing thing. It's a how can you add value? Which is what we always talk about. But to another point, you know, I think everyone is just giving up too early. We have people who message us who are like, hey. Or back in network marketing, too, hey, I'm trying this, but it's not working. Okay, well, how many times are you following up? I followed up with her twice. I'm like, okay, great. Keep her name on the board until you've followed up seven or eight times. Or you get a no. That's like, no, leave me alone.
Well, I always teach people, you need to bring human beings to a definitive yes or a definitive no. You can't make up the no in your head. And you can't make up the yes in your head because that means in both those cases, you stop too short. You need to bring whoever it is that you need in order to fill a missing piece of your goal puzzle. You need to bring them to a definitive yes or a definitive no or your work is not done.
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And just bringing up a couple other places in my life where, I mean, the. The extended period of time to reach a big dream is insane. Competing. It took me four years to win a first place in a fitness competition to the point where most people, if they hadn't won it by like year two of entering as many shows as I had entered, which was an extreme amount of shows, what do they say?
Oh, it's not for me.
Then, yeah, I had a lot of people say, you know, I tried it, it wasn't working. I didn't place. And I get it, but you have to almost fall in love with the process of what you're doing and know that eventually it's gonna click. Unless it's just absolutely not for you. But for me, I knew in my heart it was what I wanted to do. And then also with trying to get fitness covers, you know, a lot of people, what they don't know is it was three solid years of me pitching.
I think after this magazine, over and.
Over after winning one of my first places, which most people are like, okay, look, I won this thing. Now you should look at me. So three years of pitching nonstop, that was crazy. I pitched so incredibly hard. And then on year three, I had to fly myself up, buy my own clothes to get this cover. And do you remember, Chris, I'm sure that you do because you lived with me through it. That cover was about to get released.
Yep. Your first cover was about to get released.
And told me, actually they didn't even call me. Someone else did. Told me it wasn't happening.
Yep.
So then I had another year of pitching after I said I was so angry.
And again, most people would have quit there.
Right.
Because they built a story.
They just kind of said, eh, the COVID wasn't strong enough. Come to find out years later, I won't say anything about it. But that was not, that was not the case whatsoever. But someone could have been really deterred by somebody saying, hey, yeah, you were up here. You spent all the money on the clothes, on the, you know, your plane ticket up here, on your hotel, on all the things.
We made the promise.
We told you this cover was coming out, and then it didn't come out. Did I give up? No, I did not. That is not where the story ended. Then I went on to get 11 covers after that.
Yep.
But most people would have quit. And that's the difference.
That is the huge difference. And again, we're not pointing fingers saying, oh, you know, you're weak, you quit. We're saying you are programmed to quit. You are programmed for your survival and safety to not stand out, to not follow up too much, to not be the squeaky wheel, to not be too loud, to not ask for what you want in too strong of a. You're programmed to not do any of those things. The problem is the reason why there's so few people that hit their truest successful goals is there's very few people that actually are willing to say, I'm not going to do what is natural to me to survive and be safe. I'm going to do what feels unsafe.
And the thing is that I. That I want you guys to realize and that we're talking about today and Chris wants you to realize is like, it's not that I didn't want to quit. I cried. Like, I cried really hard when these things did not happen. I was like, I must be a loser. Look, they're telling me I'm a failure. I already think I'm a failure. Why isn't this working? This must not be for me. Like, what they're saying must be true. But every single time, there was something in me that was like, you know what? If they can't see my value, then I guess I have to just keep showing them and I have to see it myself. So I had to remember, I am valuable. Even if just a couple people are maybe having a transformation from me. Like, I literally had to keep digging in and saying, okay, if they can't see it, then I apparently haven't done the work to show them enough. And that's when every single time I went back home and worked harder on what I was doing on my community, stopped thinking I needed these huge audiences, and just said, what can I do locally right here that could make an impact? How can I start growing one step at a time and really start making an impact locally with my people and then seeing what I can do on a bigger scale?
I love the steps that you've laid out there. There's probably one more piece of of ingredients that you need in order to really be that master follower follow upper if that's a thing and that piece of ingredients would be who do you have in your corner to keep kicking you back in the game? You've kicked me back in the game a lot of times over the years when I felt like thrown in the towel. I've kicked you back into the game sometimes when you felt like throwing in the towel. If you're listening to this and you don't have somebody who is willing to kick you back into the game in order for you to maximize your time, your work, your energy and your follow up, then that's the first thing that you go get in place a couple of individuals where you can have an equal energy exchange that care enough about you to tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. That might be your missing piece to make you a follow up machine. All right guys, well listen. Thanks for listening. We always love and appreciate you listening and sharing our quick rants. Lori, when's your episode with Marie come out?
It comes out literally this next week.
Oh my God, I freaking love it. So make sure you guys go search Marie Forleo on Lori's show. Let her know what you think about it. Thanks for listening. We love and appreciate you.
We'll see you next week.
Sat.
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