She’s a serial entrepreneur, podcast host and author. And she’s determined to get people who have the money and mission to make “big leaps” in their entrepreneurial dreams in the right room. Basically, Lori Harder’s exactly who you want to run into in an elevator if you have a big idea. But just a few decades ago, the multimillionaire was a high school dropout.
In the meantime, she helped her dad install bathroom fixtures, owned a gym, modeled, made coffee and even became a fitness world champion. She’s built an empire around herself and is coaching others to do the same. Here’s what a typical day looks like for the once financially struggling teen.
6 A.M. – READ
You won’t hear many entrepreneurs say they wake up and grab a book, but that’s what Harder does some mornings. (Harder published her own book, A Tribe Called Bliss: Break Through Superficial Friendships, Create Real Connections, Reach Your Highest Potential, in 2018.) Other times, she listens to lectures from people like author and motivational speaker Gabby Bernstein, who’s someone she’s “always loved.”
“I’m in a place in my business where I’m observing the fear of, ‘Is this going to go well? Is this launch going to go well?’” So, Bernstein’s app, The Universe Has Your Back, eases that fear in the mornings.
“I wanted that reminder of not to focus on what you’re afraid of but on all that could happen.”
6:30 A.M. – WALK
The “Power 9” is a verbal exercise Lori Harder and her husband, Chris, practice on their morning walks. Here’s how they break it down: “Three gratitudes, three ‘excited-abouts,’ and three things we are manifesting,” and they end with a “wish well.” That part is a wish for someone else, such as a well-wish for someone who is struggling.
“I used to be really in my head all the time—really frantic, really anxious. I was always focusing on what I didn’t have, rather than what I had.” That scarcity mindset is far in her past now, from negative thoughts about not being smart enough to being too busy. Her husband helped her reframe her focus onto the positives.
Her two Sheepadoodle dogs, Bonkers and Bananas, accompany them. Lori and Chris often have epiphanies about what podcast topic they should use from their life for their next “He said, She said” episode.
10 A.M. – PODCAST
Harder has nearly 1,100 episodes on her podcast Earn Your Happy. But you might not find her planning and scheduling them months in advance. She and Chris sometimes chat 20 minutes beforehand about what they want to talk about together on the show. “We were just talking about how important it is to always focus on what you want and what you have… instead of what you don’t have in your business yet,” she says. They’ll text about the topic and head into the podcast recording ready to go, without any scripts, “because it’s relevant to our lives right now.”
She and Chris just launched The Dinner Series, three networking dinner events, where they plan to arm participants with questions in breakout sessions to help people get the answers they need for their business. It’s about “getting in the room” with the right people, a topic she podcasts about and is on a mission to teach others, so they can level up, too. One segment is on how to ask a question faster. “You don’t need all the backstory. You don’t need to ask five questions. You just need the one most pressing question for you right now.” When people don’t have those skills, she says, they “waste” opportunities because the people they need to ask have “one-question type of time.”
NOON – ASKING QUESTIONS
“Who are you to think you can ever do this?” These are the thoughts the old Harder battled. They came up when she started to learn how to invest. When Harder started her company, she envisioned having women involved in her company. But she wanted to ensure they felt like they owned the company and were a part of it. “It was the idea of… only take on women investors and have them own it.” But she didn’t believe she could raise money. So, she found out how.
Harder has asked questions all the way to the top by “finding who’s doing what you want to do.” But those answers don’t come free. “For me, I’ve always bought into the room. I’ve always paid for my next level,” she says. This is how she battles her “old story.” “All our old stuff comes up whenever you go to do another big thing.” Instead of percolating on that, she asked, “Who do I know?” It’s the question she encourages others to ask all the time. “You have to have some skin in the game… you have to put something on the line, and you have to show up for yourself and your business.”
2 P.M. – LUNCH AND LEARN
Harder heads to lunch with a “super successful” woman in an adjacent industry. They met at a female founder event and hit it off. “I was like, ‘I need to learn from this woman.’” Harder asks her questions, as she’s someone a few years ahead of Harder on a journey to success, Harder says. She helps others similarly, especially if they “show up in the rooms” where she’s teaching. It means they are ready to roll.
Lori Harder tells her about her own “zones of genius” and asks about whether she has a CEO or stayed CEO, in addition to other company structure questions. (Harder’s zone is “eyeballs and enrolling people.”) Harder asks her to share launch numbers on campaigns similar to her own. “I don’t just set pie-in-the-sky goals… I want to build this in a way that feels really smart. I’ll also ask her… what I’m not seeing.”
4 P.M. – PHOTO SHOOT
Harder participated in a photo shoot as part of a two-day campaign shoot for a skin care product she’s investing in, working on web content, social media, videos and helping the consumer understand the product. “[It] was really fun to work with other creative people [to learn] what the vision is and to get everybody’s ideas and watch it come to life.”
Harder knows it’s a “game changer, energetically,” to work outside of her house, so days like these are the best.
10 P.M. – WINS
At the end of the day, the Harders express three wins. “It makes us realize that, even on the hard days, there’s always good.”
This article originally appeared in the May/June 2024 issue of SUCCESS magazine. Photo courtesy of Girl Squad.