Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Lori Harder on Pivoting in Business and Reinventing Your Mindset for Success | Entrepreneurship | YAPClassic
Fri, 21 Feb 2025
At a pool party, little Lori Harder got up on the diving board only to hear her peers chanting “Whale!” And just like that, she went from a bubbly child to one who hid because of her body. Refusing to accept that her size was genetic, she threw herself into the world of fitness. Through relentless hard work, she became a 3-time fitness world champion, gracing the covers of fitness magazines. But she didn’t stop there. She built a successful fitness brand and has since excelled at other businesses. In this episode, Lori shares her journey of reinventing herself time and time again, including lessons on rebounding from failure and pivoting in business. In this episode, Hala and Lori will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (03:11) Mindset Shifts from Childhood Struggles (08:16) Finding Motivation Through Hard Times (12:02) First Steps into Entrepreneurship (19:17) Scaling her Fitness Business Online (26:51) Selling Success in Network Marketing (30:53) Launching a Successful Podcast (32:55) Opportunities Unlocked with Podcasting (33:21) Joining Lewis Howe's Mastermind (33:51) Starting a Podcast: Tips and Challenges (35:10) Teaching to Learn: The Ultimate Life Hack (37:02) Raising Money Through Podcasting (40:38) Pivoting for Business Growth in COVID (50:24) The Importance of Relationships in Business Lori Harder is a serial entrepreneur, top podcast host, and bestselling author known for her expertise in personal transformation, mindfulness, and entrepreneurship. She is also the founder of Glōci, a skin routine you can drink. A former 3-time fitness world champion, Lori turned her passion for fitness into a thriving career in network marketing and coaching. She hosts the Earn Your Happy podcast, a Forbes Top 11 business podcast. Through her events, podcast, books, and courses, she helps women connect with their like-minded tribes, take bold leaps in business, and live out their entrepreneurial dreams. Episode Sponsors: Shopify - Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at youngandprofiting.co/shopify Airbnb - Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com/host Rocket Money - Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to rocketmoney.com/profiting Indeed - Get a $75 job credit at indeed.com/profiting RobinHood - Receive your 3% boost on annual IRA contributions, sign up at robinhood.com/gold Factor - Get 50% off your first box plus free shipping when you use code FACTORPODCAST at factormeals.com/profiting50off Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap Youtube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ Social + Podcast Services - yapmedia.com Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new Entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship podcast, Business, Business podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal development, Starting a business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Psychology, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Marketing, Negotiation, Money, Finance, Side hustle, Startup, mental health, Career, Leadership, Mindset, Health, Growth mindset, Career, Success, Entrepreneurship, Productivity, Careers, Startup, Entrepreneurs, Business Ideas, Growth Hacks, Career Development, Money Management, Opportunities, Professionals, Workplace, Career podcast, Entrepreneurship podcast
Chapter 1: What is the significance of Lori Harder's childhood experiences?
And I just had no idea that you had this transformation. So I'd love to understand what was it like for you as a kid? How did that actually shape who you are as an entrepreneur today?
Oh, my gosh. Coming from a family that it really stemmed from all of our joy came from connecting over food. It was just as far as I can remember back. All of our extracurricular time, when we were sad, when we were happy, when we were bored, we connected over food. And I remember having a really loving childhood as far as family and parents go, but also the
there was a lot of pain that's connected to when you use food as a crutch. Because when I think about my mom, my sister, and all of my mom's sisters, who she had four sisters, there was a lot of anxiety. There was a lot of depression. There was a lot of health issues. There was a lot of self-loathing. So it was kind of a mix of everything.
And for me, having those moments as a young kid, I remember when I was eight or nine years old, it was the first time I realized, oh, this is going to be a little bit painful being in this body. I got invited to a pool party with a bunch of friends in my church. And I remember having such a massive crush on this one kid.
I was that kid who was so outgoing before this, even before this moment, which we'll chat about in a second. But It was always, oh my gosh, look at my dance moves. Look at this dance I made up. Record me. Somebody put a camera on me. This is who my personality was at the core. And so I remember going to this pool party and I got this new swimsuit because the love of my life was going to be there.
And I could not wait to go up on this diving board and show it off and do this cool flip. And I remember walking up, one of my best friends at the time, she was super skinny. She was climbing up the ladder in front of me and looking at her legs going, oh my God, being that young going, oh, I wish I could be that thin. And all the boys liked her.
And I get up on the diving board and I can hear the kids, my friends chanting something. And they're saying whale over and over and over again. And I just remember standing on the edge of the diving board and having that moment of, I want to hide. And so I went from this really outgoing, look at me, can't wait to perform. I want to sing. I want to dance.
I want to be your friend to starting to hide because of my body. And I remember being under the water though and thinking literally, I'm not going to let this happen to me. And so even though I was really young, I started thinking, is there a way that I could have this not be my destiny?
So fast forward to being about 11 or 12 years old, I was sitting at the table with all of my aunts and again, a really loving family, but a lot of struggle around weight, thinking that this was our genetics. And we were all sitting around eating at a family get together. And they had known that I started working out, just doing some exercising at home, doing exercise videos.
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Chapter 2: How did Lori Harder start her journey in entrepreneurship?
When you're held like a spring and you let go, it's like we had a disastrous life for a few years there. It was drinking and partying and it just was not a great experience. So how do you build a network? How do you overcome anxiety? How do you even start to dream when you've never seen the possibility in your social circle of what is possible for you because it's never been in your social circle?
And how do you create an entirely new identity outside of this woman that I used to be or girl that I used to be who was very much like, okay, we need to make sure we just preach about the Bible. And if you struggle, that must be righteous and really challenged money story, challenged with my weight and all of those different things.
So that's why I love what I do now because I feel like I'm a bit of like a excuse eliminator. Because when I hear things, I'm like, oh no, yeah, you can do this. Like I did it. Let me show you. So it's funny on podcasts. It's like, oh, we got to go back to the beginning again. But the beginning is so important. It's so important to see where we all came from to know like you can do it too.
This is so possible for you.
Totally. And now you're on stages with 15,000 people. You always have these awesome events. You've got amazing companies. So you've totally transformed yourself. So you became a fitness influencer, essentially. You became a fitness model. You were a three-time world champion. Talk to us about the first real entrepreneurship experience that stemmed from that.
My very first entrepreneurship experience was because our back was up against the wall. So I will say, I think that life offers us the perfect challenge in order for us to use it to find our gifts and to find our purpose. And so I got married at a really young age. I met my husband when I was at the end of 20, almost 21.
And we were those people who just knew fairly quickly that we were gonna be together. And he had the same, you know, he was a big dreamer. He was into fitness too. And so when I married him, We were able to go, okay, what are the big dreams that we want?
Except I was more supporting him because what I also haven't shared is that because I was homeschooled through high school and there was just a whole lot going on with my parents, I never graduated. I have never gotten my GED. I've gone back to try to get it when I was younger and still failed it. And I just was terrible at math and testing.
Come to find out much later is I just had never learned how to test. Yeah. So when I married my husband, he was on an amazing trajectory in his career. When I met him, he was fairly successful. But when we got married and we just put fitness and each other and this dream of him building this career and me supporting this dream, it started to take off. But his career was in mortgage and finance.
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Chapter 3: How did Lori Harder pivot her fitness business online?
There was no mirrors. There was no nothing. So I'm like, okay, how's a girl go and figure this out? And I remember my husband and I went to a Walmart and we got the flooring. the flooring you put in like a toddler's room, like the, you piece together. We put that down on the ground. We found black. Thankfully it wasn't all different colors.
We put that down on the ground and I bought a couple sets of weights, but because they're expensive at the time for me, I bought a lot of those straps that bust and pop in your face, you know, like the rubber and bands. So I was like, I don't normally train with bands, but girl's going to learn how to train with bands.
And then I bought those mirrors that you put on the back of your door, like as a teenager, the sticky mirrors. And I bought three of them. It's like all I could afford. And I remember this woman coming down because she had answered an ad that we had put out there and she pulls up in a Range Rover. And I didn't really know what a Range Rover was at the time, but I was like, I know they're expensive.
And I was like, oh shit. She's about to walk down to this janky basement with my janky things. So she walks down the stairs and I go, don't mind. We're under construction. We just opened. We're going to remodel all of this. So thank you so much for being one of the first clients. She totally didn't care.
She stayed with me for like three years into the studio that I had ended up getting the year after. And it was just one of the most beautiful lessons. And it was one of the biggest things that shaped me is the biggest, most beautiful things start really small. And you'll gain your deepest insights there for everything.
Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors.
Hey, Young Improfiters. These days, I find myself with no time. I'm juggling work, dating, everything else that life throws in my way. And honestly, healthy eating has fallen to the wayside. There's just never enough time to plan, shop, cook, clean up after cooking.
And what happens is that I end up ordering all these groceries, being optimistic because I want to eat healthy, but all the food goes bad before I get a chance to cook it. So I knew that I had to make a change and I recently discovered Factor. It's been amazing because they've got chef-made gourmet meals that make eating well so easy. All the meals are dietitian approved.
They're ready to heat in just two minutes. And so I can feel right and feel great no matter how much time that I have. And Factor arrives fresh to your doorstep. They've got 40 different options to choose from across all different types of dietary preferences. And so I personally like to have Protein Plus. I work out every single day, so I like to have protein with every meal.
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Chapter 4: What role did network marketing play in Lori Harder's success?
So one of the women that I gave it to, she's like an editor for this big company that she works for. And she loved me and I loved her. And she was like, Lori, I love that you're doing this, but I'm going to... help you format all of this for free because you're giving it to me for free. And so that was my first experience. She helped me level up my brand.
And also this experience of go look and trade. If you're great with the workouts, but you're not great with this, go and try to find people that you can barter with or trade with. And so that's really how I started doing a lot of different things.
I had that moment of, wait, if this is working for this, why couldn't I go barter for this or barter for that for now until we can really get this thing off the ground? And so that's how the online fitness membership started. We had that for like nine years. We did challenges to get people in there. First, it started with a 30-day challenge.
Then as people's attention started to deplete, we did a 14-day challenge. Then a seven-day challenge ultimately was our challenge that really, really crushed, that just did really well and brought a lot of people in. So we always hovered from like 1,000 to 2,500 members paying around $89 a month in It was a great, great membership that I loved until I didn't, until I decided to pivot.
And I remember when I made that decision because we were doing some other things too. We had really gotten into business and entrepreneurship. And my husband couldn't understand why I would quit something that was making really great money. That is a whole other conversation.
But when you grow into something after nine years so different and I was so thoroughly enjoying the entrepreneurship world and events and being in that energy and helping those people, it's weird. It's like your soul can't even do the other thing anymore.
And identifying as a fitness person anymore, I was identifying as me being a person who loved fitness, but I wasn't identifying with me wanting to help people necessarily on their fitness journey. I really wanted to do a full pivot into helping people with their business and money and big dream journey.
Well, that makes sense because I feel like the easiest way to start as an entrepreneur is to scale something out that you're really good at. right? So you were really good at fitness. You didn't dream about becoming a fitness teacher. That wasn't your ultimate dream, but that was what you could when you had no money, a way for you to make a lot of money, right?
It reminds me of starting my social agency. I never wanted to have a social agency, but I was really good at it. So it was my first business. And so I just did that. Now I'm passionate about my network. My agency is doing great, but that's not really my passion. I always wanted to have a podcast network, right? So it's so cool that you were able to realize that.
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Chapter 5: Why did Lori Harder decide to change her career focus?
and had an amazing business for a year and got to take all of my clients, which was a gift to me because I didn't want to give them to someone I didn't trust. And so that was my first big, oh my God, this is what money can do. That's exciting.
So awesome. So you have a huge podcast, which has just recently joined our Yap Media Network, which is so excited about. I love it. And Lori, you're a legendary business female podcaster. I remember when I thought of Lori Harder, I thought podcast first. I don't know if it's just because I'm biased. I'm in the podcast industry, but I always knew you as a podcaster and a big podcaster.
So at what point were you like, all right, I'm starting this podcast?
Oh, man. Okay. I had listened to podcasts. That's where it all started from, number one. I was such a podcast junkie. I was a huge Lewis Howes podcast fan. And then I joined his mastermind because I would listen to podcasts and I had messaged him. I would tag him and message him and just give takeaways from the podcast. Like, thank you so much. Oh my God. Because I was a big runner.
So when I would run three to four times a week, I was doing six miles each time. That's a full podcast. That's like an hour podcast. And so I was just consuming these podcasts while in state, right? When you're running and you're working out or you're walking, walking is huge, you're just in a state where you're going to absorb, you're going to crack open, you're going to get more ideas.
So podcasts completely changed my life. They were my running and walking mentors. They would change my mindset. They would help with my anxiety. It was everything for me. And so when I joined Lewis Howe's Mastermind after messaging, he had talked about it on his podcast. I would have never found it if it wasn't for that. So I messaged and he was like, you should join it. And I was like, me?
I should join this? That feels really scary and crazy. And it was a big price tag. And I brought it home to my husband. He's like, we should join this. And so we joined it. And I think being in that and really just hearing he made it more accessible. like impossible. And so I just decided, okay, I'm going to start this.
And I also was feeling that I wanted a way to deeply connect with my audience more. I was feeling like the captions or just the little bit that you get to post on social does not tell the story. And I'm like, I've got a story to tell. It's very different to feel like you have a story to tell than to put yourself in a What the hell do I have to say? I'm a big dummy.
That's how that can feel in the beginning. Oh, here's a tip. If you want to start a podcast, please go back to your favorite podcasters. Pick three to five of them. Go back to their first three episodes, and I promise you, you'll feel so empowered to start. You'll have no problem. I listen to mine and I'm like, oh my God, it's so bad. And I'm so proud of that girl.
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