Wind Down with Janet Kramer and I'm Heart Radio podcast.
All Right, this week's Thursday Therapy. We've got podcaster Lorie Harder on. She's got a podcast called Earn Your Happy. Find your purpose, build your network, and make money doing what you love. With Earn your Happy, a motivation packed podcast, she says, you'll think bigger, dig deeper, and gain the confidence to go for your world dominating goals. So let's see how to do it. Let's get her on. Hi, Hi, how are you. I'm I'm good. I love you. I
love everything that you do. And one of the things though I didn't know about you is I didn't know your high school dropout. Yeah, when did you leave high school?
Well? I was homeschooled through high school. So I literally started homeschooling in eighth grade and honestly like didn't do much schoolwork because my parents never monitored it whatsoever. So I probably still have an eighth grade level in multiple things. And I actually love sharing that because it's such so many people have the education excuse, and I'm like, yo, like you can you can go and do and create
whatever you want. So yeah, I mean that was that was so probably you know, like fifteen or sixteen, I really stopped doing anything with school.
I'm curious about the homeschooling. How did you choose to be homeschooled or did you want or was it something that like your parents wanted for you.
It was a little bit of both. My parents didn't necessarily want it for the education purposes, but I was raised in a more restrictive religion. I was raised as a Jehovah's witness, so it was more important for me to go door to door every day and talk about the Bible than it was to go to school. So a lot of people in my congregation were getting homeschooled.
In fact, I'd probably say like seventy percent of the kids were, and it was almost like this weird badge of honor to be homeschooled, to go like more into, you know, talking about the religion.
So I think it's an interesting thing that you said to about the education, because I mean, I barely graduated high school. The only reason I think I graduate is yeah, I mean I was not the smartest. But I think a lot of it was my you know, my parents divorced when I was thirteen years old, and my dad, you know, he moved out of the house and my mom, I mean and even him too, Like they weren't I didn't take the essayts I didn't have I just kind of got by and I wasn't you know, I wasn't.
I was kind of a B C average, like not average, like I don't like sees average student, but like they didn't really enforce good grades, if that makes sense. Like they were just kind of like, oh, great, you got to see and I'm like, okay, cool, you know, so I didn't really put even even I tried really hard when it came to math I did. I never understand it.
I still this day will not understand it. But you know, I think a piece of me now as a parent, I'm like, okay, I think I need to kind of split the difference because I love that they weren't super strict on me, but at the same time, I wish they were a little bit more because all my friends are like, oh I got this and that I felt a little dumb, you know, and I think I then would like make comments to be like oh yeah, and then they're like, oh, what are you going to do.
I'm like, well, I'm not going to get into a college, so I either have to go to a community college or I'm going to follow my dreams and go be an actress. And it's like I felt, Yeah, I felt like my friends were laughing at me in a way, and not that they were. They're probably so supportive, but that's how internally I was like, well, you're stupid. You can't go to college anyways, and so you know, obviously
I went to follow my dreams. When I look at like my mom's generation, and you know, she didn't go to college, and so her thing was always like, well, I can't have this job because you need an education. I'm like, yeah, but there's so many things that you've wanted to do and you haven't done them because you're just basing things off of you don't have a college graduate.
Like she wanted to be like a hairdresser and like in or really follow her dreams with that, but she's like, well that doesn't make money, and then I want to do this, but I need an education. So I'm like, yeah, but you don't. Really. I'm like, look at like kind of what I would teach my kids now, it's like I want you to have the education. At the same time, you can build so much more as well, like, look at how I've been able to do my life from
not having a degree. So it's I don't know, I'm just I'm curious, like where you've kind of found that balance in any advice you could give.
Yeah, I feel I think I feel very similar to you that I wish that there was a bit of an expectation there because I think I would have at least risen to half of it right whereas I was, you know, I was a very free spirit still totally am. Like it is a challenge for me to set up structure in systems, and I really thrive in it, but it is not my it is opposite of my strength.
And so now it's like, you know, it's interesting because back when you were talking about your mom, like, the conversation around education was it was so important and you had to have it if you thought you were going to get a good job. And even even you know, when I'm thinking back when I was like twenty in first on my own, I lived in a city called Madison, Wisconsin, and they were so all about college there because it
was a big college town. And I remember waitressing and people being like, what school are you in what college are you in? In the second that I would say I wasn't, they were like, oh that's too bad, Like what are
you going to do with your life? And so I think that for me, I felt the exact same way as you, as I was like, this is apparently this is everything, and this is so important and I feel so dumb and I felt so much shame around it that it's like I started to hide it and try to figure out things that I could do without the
high school diploma or without the education. And it's actually why I got into fitness is because it was one of the only things I could find that didn't require this, Like I could almost bypass this high school diploma slash education, but still be able to build a career out of it.
And the crazy part is is looking back at my journey, like that became one of the biggest stepping stones for so many other things that I did that sometimes were forced into these like you know, these other areas out of pure lack of options, and then from that I turned it into to something way bigger.
For sure. Well, and I think there's there's a little advantage and why I look at it as advantage some might think it's a complete disadvantage, but it kind of gives in it again. Growing up in my mom's single house, like always had to fight for things. You know, if I wanted a car, I had to I waitress. I bought myself my own car. I did you know all those things that I had to I had to quit things that I loved because I had to you know,
pay for certain things. But when it came to not having that degree, I didn't have a fallback plan, so like I don't. I had to succeed, and then I had to throw darts and go, okay, now I'm going to keep you know, in which I think it has hurt me in some ways because you know, when I look at back and certain career routes that I've taken, I almost check a box and then I move on instead of really honing in and like mastering it.
I feel like I'm talking to myself.
Really okay, cause but I that's the piece of me that I'm like I need. I need almost like help on, I think, because yeah, when I look back, I'm like, Okay, once you got your award for Best New Artists, You're like check that. Now let's go here and move to the next one and then let's completely do something different.
And I don't know, I just I don't know. I don't know if that's the piece of me that's scared that I'm going to lose it all and I have to just keep creating because if not, then you know, I don't have a fallback plan. So I need to have a bunch of plans. But then I'm like, well, where am I really like honing in on something to make it be the most special thing?
M like a jack of all trades, a master of none.
I think of that a lot. Yeah, I have some girlfriends who just they go so deep instead of wide, And I've been called like the Queen of pivoting, And I don't know if that's a compliment or not, because truly, it's like I started in this, you know, fitness career and did so many different things in that, from you know, starting a gym, to having at the time one of the biggest online memberships, to like winning all of these different world titles, to going Okay, I'm done, and like
cutting it off, like literally cutting it off, like closing down the membership even though it was still thriving, And I just felt like that part of my chapter was over and I had so many more interests. So this is where I'm curious for you. I think I'm a very curious person. It's hard for me to stay in things for long. So I do think that there is a number of us who are meant to be. Have you ever heard like a lot a lot of people
are like starters. Some people are are are the people who go and start the idea, get people involved in the vision, and potentially those other people can carry the vision out. So I think what I'm learning more and more about myself is that if I want to start something, I need to work harder on finding potentially the people who could continue to carry that vision or business out, and if they can't, then maybe I do really do some work around. Is this something that's supposed to be
more long term for me? Am I avoiding, you know, sitting in the mundane because I get bored and I'm avoiding mastery, Like this is a question I sit in all of the time. But looking back, because we obviously it's easier to connect what's the Steve Jobs quote, You
can't connect the dots looking forward, only backward. I really can't imagine staying in those things for much longer than I did, because where I'm at now, I feel like I understand it finally in my I'm like, Okay, this is all added up to be where I want to be right now.
And where you're at right now. I mean, obviously you've got your podcast Earn your Happy. Where did that concept come to you? And what is like, what do you think is the biggest earn your Happy kind of mantra?
Well, Earn your Happy actually came to me when I was in a season of really meditating. I'm kind of out of that season. I'm trying to get back in it.
It's hard to get back in because I did the same thing. Alan and I have my fancy and I used to meditate all the time together and when I was pregnant, and then it was just after that things I don't have time, don't time, don't have time, you know, like even even too mes no out of time, Like I can't do it.
Oh my god, I'll have to share a link with you. I just got like these things that you put in both hands and they make these amazing sounds that are supposed to be incredible frequencies. But it's three minutes, and so I've been doing it every morning and.
It's like, okay, I've just told these things.
It's three minutes. I'm like, and even my husband's doing it now, so that's very rare. So I'm going to send you the link for those. Yeah, but Earn Your Happy came to me in a meditation because I was really and I was asking the question, like, what do I want to call a podcast? What's been a theme of my life that feels really important to me? But also what would something what could I talk about that
doesn't pigeonhole me? Because, like I just said, I'm like a squirrel and I like all very interested in a lot of things. So all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I just heard Earn You're Happy. Because I really struggled, you know, even as a teenager into my twenties and thirties and even now. But I have a lot of tools. I really struggled with anxiety and depression, and I used to think, like, well, aren't we just supposed to be happy? Like why do I not wake up happy every day?
What's wrong with me? So instead of the question of like how do I make myself happy? I was stuck in the question for years of why am I not happy? Every day? Well, that's not a very good question to be asking yourself because you're going to find answers for exactly the question that you're seeking that you are asking yourself every day. So if I'm asking myself why I'm not happy, like what's wrong with me? I'm going to find why I'm not happy, and I'm going to find
what's wrong with me. And so in the in this meditation of like earn you're happy, I had the realization that I don't think that all of us are just naturally happy. I do think there are those select few. I think I married one, thankfully, because he really helps me. But at first I was like, what is wrong? Like why are why are you like this?
He's an answers up like yeah, you can get it, Yeah you're fine. Yeah.
I was like, you can start being like how you want to be. But it's twenty years later and he's not. So here we are. But I realized that I had to start doing a few things in my twenties, thankfully, or even as a teenager, I started realizing this, I need to move my body. That always makes me happier, that helps me with anxiety. I need I need to eat healthy because truly what I eat shows up in my feelings. And so at a younger age, I realized
that like I was eating a plate of emotion. So I started looking at food as like, how is this going to make me feel? And that was a huge change for me. Did it make me eat way better right away? No, but it helped me start to correlate my choices with is this going to make me happy in the long term or not? Because I was really a short term type of like pleasure. I want to have fun, I want to do all those things, and
it was making me really unhappy. So earn your happy ws we need, like, I want to talk about all of the things that you have to do to create happiness in your life. And that was right down to your career choices, like are you stuck in a career you don't love? Does this align with you? Know the person that you are? And I wanted to be able to talk about business. I wanted to be able to
talk about life choices. I wanted to talk about relationships because that's huge and how important challenges because I think that we forget when we're thinking of happiness that we have to create this chosen resistance every single day or every single week and order for us to get stronger and order for us to make ourself proud. And I think people leave that off of the table as well.
So that's where that came from and why I love talking about this range of you know, what actually makes us happy?
Yeah, And I think there's such an important piece in that too, where you know kind of said about people they kind of think they have to be this way is I know nothing is perfect, and there's going to be hard days, you know, like when I do this sad and you know, happy with the kids at dinner table, Like I understand we're going to have sad pieces to our day or we're going to have like one one day just might be a day, right, But if the longevity of your days are if there's more of those,
then I'm like, you don't have to be like you can you don't like this is your life, right, you get one of them. So it's like, if if you're so unhappy in your marriage, don't don't stay because you think that, And obviously I go to marriage because I'm like, that's what I did for seven years is stayed in
some things. I'm like, well, I don't think it's going to be any better, And I'm like, you know, what ends up being better is your your happiness, and and like you it is better because you'd rather you find happiness within yourself and like you get to create your own surroundings. And that's something that I've just like been such an advocate to being like you are in control
of your happiness. You might not know why first, so yeah, I talk to someone right, so therapy or whatever, but like you have, you do have the control for it. I think. I mean, now, if people that suffer from chronic you know, depression, I don't know that side, and I can't even imagine how hard that is. But when it comes to you know, certain things in your life or career, it's like, you know, you do have a choice.
And I've realized now I'm like I'm saying no to more things now because I'm like I don't want to be away or this is too much, or I'm exhausted, or I'm going to come back and I'm going to feel, you know, like I don't have my kids or so it's like I think, but you think you get that with age too.
Oh my god, I am. I am so in that place now where the realization of a couple things that you had mentioned. But I your environment is stronger than your willpower. And I think that a lot of our happiness or unhappiness is coming from what we're surrounded in, and the control that we have over our environment is more than I think we realize, especially if we're in a tough situation. But it is the hardest thing that you will have to start to change, because.
Oh it's the hardest. Don't wish it on the worst enemy. Like my divorce, like I thought was gonna kill me until I realize, oh my god, it was the best thing that ever happened in my entire life, you know, But you don't get that when you're going through it. It's awful. Changing something that is familiar is so hard.
We're more willing to go back to an un or a familiar pain, even if it's the most painful thing ever, because unfamiliar like fear and pain of the future, is even scarier to us because we're like, what if it could get worse? And I think that's the that's the question we're asking, and it's why we it's why we don't take the risk. And so whenever I'm in that place of oh my god, what if it could get worse? What if I could lose this? What if that? What if we focused on what if it went even better
than I thought? Like, that's the question that I've been I'm launching a new company right now, and every single day, instead of sitting in oh my god, what if this goes wrong? What if this happens? What if this happens, I'm like, what if it all goes right? What if it's even better than I could imagine? And so I start to visualize that, like when I'm meditating now or when I go on walks, It's like it gets me
into a creative place. And also it brings creative ideas in different ways to support yourself and different things that you could do to help move the process along quicker. Where when you sit in the fear of like, well, this is as good as it gets. What if you know this happens or what if it gets worse? That's such a place of fear and it shuts you down, it really does. But that transition into the new question
is like the hardest thing you'll ever do. In your life, like I have to remind myself fifty different times a day, sometimes one hundred times a day, to be like, if your thoughts were all a reality, Like if all of our thoughts came true, what are you manifesting right now? And so I catch myself and go, what am I manifesting right now? Like what am I creating? What emotion
am I creating? What am I attracting? Because we know this emotion attracts people in things, And even if you don't believe that right now, like you have to borrow someone's belief. You have to go find people who have been through what you've been through and listen to their story. Because in the beginning of me like changing my life in so many different scenarios. You know, there was a time in two thousand and eight when my husband and
I lost everything. We lost our homes, cars, jobs, like everything all at once because he was in the mortgage and finance industry and we were like three hundred thousand dollars debt in debt in the Midwest at the time,
that was like three million dollars. We were so overwhelmed, and I remember, you know, working to change our money mindset and belief about where we were was like the biggest uphel battle of our lives, and a lot of the things that we did to change it felt really stupid, like they didn't feel like they were working or like it was real. I remember we did this book together.
Every night before we went to bed. We would read Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harvecker out loud, and we would do the things that it's said in there, and you'd be doing totally stupid things that after you've lost everything, you feel so dumb. You're like, is this really working? It's like I have a millionaire mind. I'm changing my mind about X, Y and Z. But you do that long enough, and all of a sudden, you
truly are reprogramming. And we change so much during that year of just saying, you know what, screw it, we don't have anything else. We've lost it all. We have nothing left to lose by looking foolish. And sometimes that's the most powerful place you can possibly be is at your rock bottom, and you can't rob people of their rock bottom, and you also can't skip your rock bottom. I think it's the most powerful thing because it's like that, it's almost that burn the boat's moment where you have
no other options. You've taken everything off of the table and you just do the things that could actually work.
And I thought of when you were talking to one of my girlfriends, Maria Manunas, has this quote. She would say, you know, when doubt would creep in, or to change the positive, you know, to change the mindset to positive. She would go, I wonder what it's going to be like when I get that call that I got that brace. I wonder what it's going to be like when I
get the diagnosis that I'm clearer. I wonder. So it's like you're putting that out instead of like, oh god, I'm sure it's going to be bad, It's like, no, I wonder what it's going to be like when it's good, you know. And so I love like the changing of the mindset. But also something too that you spoke about anxiety of I've dealt with anxiety for quite a long time too, and I've been recently looking on the inside and I didn't know how much gut was affecting anxiety,
and so I've changed so much. I've been on kind of like an eight week reset gut stuff, you know, eating now for food sensitivity too, But when it came to the gut, I was like, I feel so much better in my anxiety. I'm like, wow, I haven't actually even had anxiety. I don't, and it's because a lot of that is triggered through your gut, and which I had. I had no idea. I just thought I was like, oh my PTSD back when I was nineteen, like I,
and that's what triggered it all. But I can so tell the difference too when my gut isn't in check with the foods that I eat. And I saw that you have a venture not what's I don't want to mispronounce it. It's a glowkey glowsy glowsy okay, can it's a daily beauty supplement creative with superfood ingredients to transformer scanning gut. So can you tell us more about that?
Yes, well this came out of I don't know about you, but I was using hydration products all the time because I'm like a toddler and I want to drink more water, but I need it to be flavored, and so I am like pumping these hydration products and not really it's so weird. I'm not really looking at what's in them, because I just loved the fact that it made me
drink more water. But I'm like a health and fitness person, So one day I'm like, what exactly is all in these different things that I'm taking, Like, oh my god, I'm either paying for really expensive salt or I don't love what's in these other things. And I thought, if I'm already doing this and this is like a really easy habit for me to stick to and other people to stick to, what if I put stuff in here that actually helped us with our wellness and beauty routine? Like,
because I believe skin is so much. Yes, there's amazing topical things, but because of my just like lifetime of health and fitness, people are like, what do you do for your skin? And like, honestly, I've eaten really healthy and watched my stress and water and happiness and all
the things. But I was like, what if we put this all into one packet that helped you drink more water and was a routine for you that just I think so often when we feel you know, to someone who also has experienced anxiety, like if we can just get back to the simple things that make us feel good, and make us feel proud. Sometimes it's those moments that you have to yourself that you're so routine and habitual that can really help you get back on track in
your life on so many things. So that's where this came from. And we wanted, you know, talk about the brain gut access, there's also skin gut access because so much of what we're eating comes out in our skin as well. So we did a probiotic, We did hyaluronic acid prickly pair, vitamin C, zinc, magnesium, sea salt, coconut water, and we put it all in a packet together to be a skin routine that you can drink.
I love the packaging too, it's really really great. Yeah, there's a menatic vite and see magnesium zinc prickly pair which I then this is sea salt coconut water powder. I mean this is great. Girl. Where can where can get this?
They can go to get glossy dot com.
You guys, go on get glossy. It's g E T G L O c I dot com. I could I feel like I could talk to you forever. But we got it. We have to wrap it, and I hate it. So LORI tell our listeners where they can find you, and thank you again so much for coming on.
Oh my god, anytime, anytime I can chat with you is a good day. So obviously get Glossy dot com is the main place that I'm hanging out right now, but also on socials it's just at Loriharder and then the podcast.
Which is Earn You're happy, I'm all right girl, We'll talk soon. Thank you, thank you so much for having me