Chris Harder: Giving | The Business Blast Podcast #935

All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Chris Harder with us. He's an entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist, and founder of the hit podcast For the Love of Money. So welcome to the show, man.

Tyler, man, I'm grateful to be on. How you doing?

I'm doing great, man. I'm pumped to have you here. And what we like to do on this show is right from the, right from the get, we like to get to know you. So What is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?

Oh man, there's too many to choose from. Um, let— here's one for you because this is a message that should fit everybody. So about 4 and a half years ago, I ended up reading 30 books in 30 days. And the reason why I ended up reading 30 books in 30 days is my wife was on this rocket ship doing all the right things, and I was just kind of hanging out because everything was good. But the problem with being good when you know that you've got greatness inside of you is that that gap between good and great feels really crappy. You know you should be doing more and you're not. So I had to do something to spark this, get me out of good and launch me to great and keep up with my wife. And so I came across Tai Lopez, and I didn't know him back then like I do now. I didn't know who he was, but I came across him in his garage, you know, the famous video. And he said he reads a book a day, every single day for, in his entire life, and I thought to myself, if this dude is this successful and can read a book a day every single day of his life, maybe I should try and read, I don't know, a book a day for 30 days. And it started growing me, started stewing me, and sure enough, I was like, I'm doing it, 30 books in 30 days. So, as I started to read these 30 books in 30 days, right about the middle of these books, and by the way, just for context, all of the books had nothing to do with, there was no common agenda other than it had to help me in some way, and it had to be less than 300 pages. So there was like how-to books, autobiographies, spiritual books, business books, totally random. But halfway through all these books, around book 15, I remember I was in bed finishing my book and I looked over at my wife, Lauren, and I'm like, babe, you're not gonna believe this, but so far 15 out of 15 books have all had a really strong common thread, and that strong common thread is that giving is the secret to whatever that book is trying to push. Like, want better business? Give more to it. Want better relationships? Give more to it. Want a better body? Give more to it. Sure enough, as I continued on through 30 out of 30 books, all 30 out of 30 random books with no common agenda shared the strong common thread that giving was the secret to everything you want. It became this game changer for 2 reasons. Number 1, I felt like I cracked the code to getting everything I want, and it also confirmed this generous side that I've always had and why things had seemed to fall into place for me. It reinforced this theme of giving is the secret to everything you want, and I just took that thing and I like ran with it.

Got it, okay. Do you still read, like, are you still doing a book a day or not anymore?

No, not at all. I bet you I finish a book every 3 to 4 weeks now. I should be doing better than that, but I'm not.

Well, yeah, I mean, that's very interesting though, that you found that common thread, 'cause I always thought, and I just would like to dive deeper in this real quick, were you like reading the physical books or were they audiobooks?

Physical.

They were physical. Okay, got it. And how long, like, on average did it take you each day?

Because I feel like that's 6 to 8 hours. Every book was a little bit different. I remember I kept this log of all the books and how long it took me. Um, you know, some of them were shorter, so it took me 4 hours. Some of them took me like 10 hours.

But yeah, because I know there's like speed reading and stuff. Like, I do audiobook on like 2x speed normally, because like to read, you know, like 10 hours, that's what most people will work in one day. So if you're reading a book a day And it takes 10 hours, then you don't have any time left, so.

So you know what I did? I had totally, for pure context so that no one gets intimidated by this, in my adult life, I had never finished a book at all, cover to cover, in my adult life before this. So this was like this leveling up moment to build a new habit in me. And when I started, I was a guy that I'd read a page and I couldn't tell you what was on it. I'd read it again, couldn't tell. It was painful. But about 2 weeks in, Lori looked over at me and she's like, are you really reading? I'm like, yeah, because I was going like this. And, um, she grabbed the book for me. She's like, what'd you just read? And I told her and she was blown away. So you can grow that muscle really quickly.

Got it. Okay. And I actually was like that when I was younger too, like comprehension. My comprehension scores were very low.

Oh man, me too. It's horrible.

Um, so thanks for sharing that with us. Uh, next one I got for you is, what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?

Interesting. I would say this: the power of relationship capital, the power of pulling the right people together, creating collaboration among them, it starts to build up this relationship capital for you. The more you can connect others, solve their problems— hey, this guy should know this guy, they've got a project they should work on together— you connect them, they have success, builds up this relationship capital for you so that everything you need when you finally have a project, a goal, a business, whatever it is, those people are sitting there waiting saying, how can I help you? How can I repay you? And so this concept of relationship capital is a real thing, and it's more valuable than capital capital in business. Because think about it, in business, your money, your capital capital, it's always going to go up and down. And when you're just starting, it starts at freaking zero. Except if you have all this relationship capital, now you can get things done as a favor, things done on trade. Sometimes they'll invest in you, sometimes they'll lend you the money. So it by far is the most valuable capital you can possibly have.

I, dude, I couldn't agree more. Short story on that: when I was 20, I dropped out of school and I wrote my first book. Had no idea what I was doing, and the only reason like the launch actually went so well is because I had built all these relationships with like no agenda because I didn't know I was going to write a book. I just building relationships, going to conferences. That was my way of learning after I dropped out. And then when I launched my book, all these like conference coordinators that knew a lot of people helped like promote the book to their socials. And that's what like skyrocketed the book. So more, and I had like, I was in debt, I was negative $80 grand.

So like, see, and your relationship capital came through, man. And now I know that you've got Authors Unite. So look at how that like launched your life.

Yeah, exactly. That was the game changer. So I couldn't, couldn't agree more. So, it might be the same answer, but my next question is, what's your best piece of overall business advice? So, not necessarily industry-specific, but if it's the same, we can skip it, but maybe you have to—

It's related, but we can change it a little bit. It's play the long game. So, when you're building these relationships, don't do a favor on Tuesday expecting that your relationship capital is gonna pay you back next Tuesday, right? Play the long game, but that goes for everything, for how you treat your money, for which investments you choose, for when you create your marketing plan. You can either go scorched earth and get everyone to buy right now, but if it's not great, then you're never going to sell them again. Or you can play the long game and make sure that your product is freaking spectacular. It's going to change lives so that when you finally get them to buy, they're going to be lining up to buy your next thing, your next thing, your next thing. So playing the long game will always pay more dividends than anything else you can do. And the problem is people are impatient, and so they burn themselves in business every single time when they're going for that short dopamine hit instead of playing the long game.

Yeah, agreed. Um, so now let's talk about your younger self. So if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?

Oh man, treat people kinder. I've got this saying, it says ego is your greatest overhead. And I had to develop it, the saying for myself, um, because I was arrogant and ignorant and ran around, um, treating people as though they were either in my way or expendable, or just that I was better than them, full of judgment. And so I would go back to my younger self, and I would say ego is going to cost you more than anything else. If you think about it, when I say ego is your greatest overhead, I mean ego will cost you relationships. Ego will cause you to speak up when you shouldn't and not speak up when you should, right? So think about those two things. Out of ego, sometimes you say something you shouldn't, but also your ego is trying to protect you. You're worried about what people think, so you don't speak up when you actually should. It'll cost you the most money because you'll buy dumb things for ego that you shouldn't be buying. It'll cost you everything, man. So yeah, I'd go back and I teach myself that ego is going to be my greatest overhead, and the sooner I can mitigate that, the better off I'll be.

Yeah. So I think perfect leadway to the next one. So in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?

Choice. Here's the key to happiness. Having the choice, creating a life where you have the choice to work when you want to work, to do the type of work you want to do, to create the type of impact you want to create, because happiness comes from creating impact, to be able to choose who you're going to collaborate with and who you want to work with, to just be able to choose how you want to show up in the world instead of being bogged down by a 9-to-5 job and being crabby and irritable even though you don't want to show up as that guy or that gal. Choice is hands down the freaking key to happiness. 100%.

And then, so, all right, I'm excited for this. So even though there was a common thread, maybe there was one that stuck out. So what is the best book that you've read and what's the number one thing you learned from it?

Man. Okay. So many books. I always believe that a good book recommendation is personal because people are in different spots in their life. And so what's amazing for me might not reach them right now, but there's this one book and it just happened to be book number one in the 30 books by coincidence. But it's called Tuesdays with Morrie, and I try to read it every single year, once a year, because it's an easy read, it's a great story, it's a true story, and it teaches you to make sure you stay in touch with what's actually important as you get busy, as you become successful, as you get out there, as you think you're accomplishing the goals that you want to accomplish. It reins you right back in and reminds you of what's important.

Agreed, yeah, anybody watching or listening to this, highly recommend that book.

Yeah, you can't read that book without crying, and if you do, dude, you don't have a soul.

I agree, man. That's so good. And then what is your favorite quote and why?

I've got a quote on my arm here. It says, "Live as though the universe conspires in your favor." And whether you believe in like spiritual stuff, like law of attraction, or just from straight common sense, when something happens to you, if you can frame it as it's happening for you and find the lesson, find the value, Find the long-term benefit. Find why it's happening for you instead of it happening to you. That change in perspective has a trickle-down effect. So you're either going to spiral out of control and ruin other interactions the rest of the day, or you're going to use it to create a snowball in your favor, and that's going to start attracting and causing other things to come in that you want to have happen. And so you have to assume that the universe conspires in your favor and that every single thing that's happening is happening for your growth or to give you a break or to save you from something else.

Mm-hmm. Dude, love it. Thanks for coming on.

Man, my pleasure.

The last one I have for you, where can the audience best find and connect with you online?

So I made a commitment that I'm only like hanging out on Instagram these days. I made a commitment that despite audience size, anybody that sends me a business question, I am I promise I will respond to it. So I still respond to 100% of my DMs. So go find me at Chris W. Harder on Instagram.

Awesome, dude. That's awesome that you do that too. Um, so yeah, thanks again for coming on, dude.

Totally my pleasure.