the bossbabe podcast - 323. The One Exercise That Will Give You Clarity On Your Next Best Move

Episode Date: September 14, 2023

Get ready to think big - like, billion dollar big. In this episode, we’re revisiting a previous conversation we had with Lori Harder about the time she realized she wasn’t having the same conversations with her girlfriends about 300 million dollar exits and preparing for a billion dollar exit like her husband was having with his friends at dinner. Just like Lori, if something is missing in your life or business and you’re wondering what to do next, we’re sharing the one exercise that's going to help you gain clarity on your next best move.  HIGHLIGHTS What Lori did next after she had “checked all the boxes” The time Lori realized she wasn’t having the conversations about 300 million + Billion dollar exits that her husband and his friends where having (and what she is doing about it) The one exercise you can do to spark better ideas + gain clarity on your next best move FOLLOW bossbabe: @bossbabe.inc Natalie Ellis: @iamnatalie

I think what we need to understand is like, you are the only one who will be gifted with the vision in the beginning. And it's up to you to stay faithful enough to it, long enough for it to deliver the rest of the pieces. A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on.

She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. Welcome back to the Boss Babe podcast. I am really hoping you're enjoying these mini episodes because we're able to pull from all of our previous episodes that did so well, some of the nuggets that I feel like you need to hear again. I know I need to hear them again. And it's giving me so much motivation. I love that I can just throw them on when I'm getting ready, driving in the car. So I hope you're enjoying them. We're prepping right now for a new season with so many interviews. And so

this is giving us the space to be able to still create two episodes a week for you guys and be recording a ton of new content. So let me know what you think. Leave us a review. It means the world and really supports the podcast and DM me. My DMs are always open. I'm Natalie. Let me know what kind of topic you want me to cover, what kind of guests you want me to have on the podcast. And if you have any specific recommendations, send them my way. With that, let's dive in. I'm in a place that maybe some of your people, maybe they're about to hit it. Maybe they won't hit it for like five years and maybe they'll never hit it, but I think that they will. And it's the place where you start accomplishing in your life. So you start checking off these things that you want to do. And all of a sudden, you're going to find, because I know who your women are that listen,

they're going to find that they check all the boxes. In 2017, after I wrote my book, I did the thing. I went on the 12 or 15 city tour. I don't remember, but I did the thing. I had done the things that I had put on my to-do list of life. And what I didn't realize is I didn't plan past that book. And I didn't think about what I really want in the grand scheme. And I loved writing and I loved speaking, except in my day-to-day life, what that looked like was a lot of alone time, being lonely on the road, going and speaking on stage and then going to my hotel room because I'm exhausted and not going and socializing after.

And you're doing a lot of work by yourself. I didn't have a partner. I have my partner, my husband, Chris, but he's doing his own business as well. And so I was finding that I wasn't living a life daily that I loved. I had these major highlight moments. But if you would look at the grand scheme of like my months leading up to them, I felt kind of isolated and lonely. And it's not because I didn't have a social life.

But what I wanted was to be working with someone, like collaborating with someone and not just someone. I wanted to be collaborating with people. I wanted to look on my calendar on Monday and be like, oh, hell yes. Like, I can't wait to like talk to her. I can't wait to go podcast in person with them. I can't wait to, you know, collaborate and create business ideas and, you know, do the hard stuff together. Even if it's, you know, because business is always hard. It just is. There's a lot of hard things about business. Don't you want to do that with someone? Don't you want to go through that with someone? And it makes it actually fun, you know? So when

I had that realization, I thought if I write another book, if I do more speaking, it just, it wasn't lighting me up. Like I couldn't get that like soul lifted feeling, you know, like I couldn't get, I couldn't feel light around any of those ideas. And it just, it wasn't exciting me. I felt terrible that it wasn't exciting me. I'm sure I can relate to people where you're like, oh my God, I like don't even know what I should be doing. And that's when I really started. Our friends have this thing, Rob and Kim Murgatory called stupid idea time. And Chris and I play stupid idea time all the time when we're in a situation. Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform, Kajabi.

You know, I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity, which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place. So it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students. So if

you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet, now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial. Go to kajabi.com slash Boss Babe to claim your 30-day free trial. That's kajabi.com slash Boss Babe. Like this. Okay, stupid idea time, which means obviously anything goes right oh my gosh i went through so many ideas i was like okay i want to have this place called brunch and it serves only brunch but there's like speakers and all these women and you get dressed up so it's like kentucky derby style and you have champagne and networking and it was going to be this was right before covid right it was going to be like an actual place and that was fun because

i played with that one for a while. And the more that you play with it, what happens is I could see why I wouldn't like it. I was like, what would my day to day look like in that? What would, you know, what were the tasks that I would need to be doing? How would this look? So that's why stupid idea time is so powerful is it lets you play the idea fully, all the good parts, and then all of the not so good parts also start coming like, yeah, but then there's this and there's that. And you can do this with a friend if you want to go on walks, you can do it on the phone if you're like, hey, let's just meet for stupid idea time. And just, it is amazing. We start our meetings like that. It's the most empowering thing because

it allows everybody to come with the wildest ideas. And we know that the wildest, craziest ideas, there's usually one in that pile that you're like, that's not so crazy. That makes total sense. This would be freaking awesome. I truly believe ideas come... I always share this. I think it's like Ikea. You go to Ikea and you see the vision of the kitchen or the living room and you're like, yes, that's what I want. But then you go home and it comes in pieces and phases. One day, all of a sudden, you're like, oh my God, this was the piece that is going to either set it apart or change it. So many people, I think when they start with an idea, it's easy to

write yourself off because you're like, I don't know. with an idea, it's easy to write yourself off because you're like, I don't know. I don't know what would make it different. Or I'm not sure. Oh, that's hard. I don't know about that. Oh my gosh. You guys, it's the easiest thing to do and the hardest thing to do. Meaning it's simple in terms of Google was my best friend. I think what we need to understand is you are the only one who will be gifted with the vision in the beginning. And it's up to you to stay faithful enough to it, long enough for it to deliver the rest of the pieces. A big part of this is my husband had started investing.

He got really interested in investing in different companies. So I think at this point, we're invested in like 10 different startups. So at the time I started Light Pink, I think we were invested in four. And so I was kind of starting to sit in on these conversations. I used to zone it out, because I have the story, I'm bad with numbers. So I kind of would just sit there and uh-huh, uh-huh, and be interested, but not really understand it. And I had this realization

after I'm listening to my husband and his friends talk about this $300 million exit of a guy I'm sitting next to. And then this guy over here is talking about wanting to do a billion dollar exit. And I was like, I'm not having these conversations with my girlfriends. We're having conversations of, I don't know if I can sustain this. I'm successful. Or yes, maybe we're lucky enough to do seven-figure launches or whatever that looks like through the year. And that's a big goal, right? That's a lot of years of work. And many people are lucky to even get there. We know the percentages are fairly small on that. I think it's totally doable and possible. I mean, more than anything. But at the same time, I know a lot of my girlfriends were getting burnt out. It was just like, I don't know if I can continue this over and over and over

without another opportunity in their head and sight. And so I was sitting at, I don't know if I can continue this over and over and over without another opportunity in their head and sight. And so I was sitting at that table going, wow, I wonder if they knew how to do this or sat in on these conversations, if they would be choosing to continue to stay in that cycle or if they would be starting to think of a different opportunity. And so that is when I just had this moment of like, I don't know what the hell I'm doing, but I think that I could at least start to learn and bring this conversation over here.

So I actually started asking those men at the table and I'm so grateful for them because they held the door open for me. They were patient with me. They taught me so much about investing. One of the guys, Bill Glazer, literally was such a mentor for me. He was on text or speed dial whenever I had a question about how to raise money or how to structure something or what do I do in this situation or what if

they're doing this or how would I format this contract or what could this look like? What is even possible? Is this possible? So it was messy. It still is so messy, but I think that's, that's what I want people to know is like, I was so afraid. Oh my God. I mean, like every single day I was so afraid, but I was also so excited at this concept of the potential of opening these new opportunities, not only for me, but for everybody who got involved.