Lessons - The Dropout Who Built Three Businesses by Mastering One Skill Nobody Teaches | Lori Harder - Founder of Lite Pink & Host of Earn Your Happy (30M Downloads)

In this lessons episode, discover how clear boundaries and honest expectations can strengthen every relationship. Understand why resentment often signals an unspoken limit. Explore how accepting people for their unique strengths creates deeper connections and uncover how saying no with confidence can protect time, energy, and trust. There are obviously, there's a lot in the book. There's seven agreements. But you mentioned a few that included honest communication, dropping expectations. I mean, if you're going to pick, I don't know, like you pick the most, I don't want to say impactful because I don't want you to have to rank your ideas from best to worst. Yeah. But what I mean is what are the things that people have the most trouble with? What is the one thing that was like, this is never done. This is the one thing that moved needle for me the most. That is, I guess it's like, um, it's, it's something that people take for granted or a misconception about communication, relationship building, tribe building, whatever it is. I've got two. Um, I think boundaries and expectations are, are really big ones. Um, For my life and for what I've found, like, in other people's lives. I work with mostly women, like, when we do events and stuff. So I think that setting boundaries in a friend group seems crazy to people. They're like, oh, my God, I can't imagine. Like, that seems really, like, strict. Oh, my gosh. Describe what that means, too. Like, paint the picture of what that looks like. So what happens is, you know, you, okay, let's say you're going to start one of these groups and you find these two other people and they're like, great, let's meet every other Thursday at 7 a.m. for one hour. And this is what it's going to look like. There's this format. It's going to be 20 minutes each. There's going to be a person who times it. No one can go over. You're never late on the calls. The calls never run over time because then what happens is someone's going to get resentful because they can never plan around it or they're always late to pick up their kid or whatever that looks like. And if you miss more than two in a row, then you're just not in the group anymore, unless it's obviously a huge family emergency or something. Because we want people who are committed. And to a lot of people, that scares the shit out of them. They're like, um, no, like this is, that's a lot. That's too much. Like, that doesn't even feel good. And I'm like, okay. And then that's not necessarily what I'm looking for right now. And I think for people to say that exactly what they want and exactly what they're looking for and set rules and parameters and have boundaries around it. I think that that is like it goes against what we think is nice or what we've been raised to think is nice. Like, oh, you should understand or, oh, you should, you know, give them the opportunity or the opportunity of the doubt. Is that the right word? Benefit. Benefit of the doubt. Benefit of the doubt. But I know you're, so it's like, and you're Midwest. So you're super nice. Oh, oh my gosh. Painfully nice. Like this was so hard for me to be like, this is what we said. And it's not, this is not what's working. And so the result that we all want is not happening. And so people really, really struggle with holding like, that boundary or holding that expectation around what they want. And then expectations are huge because, so for me, this one translated, there's a million different ways that this can translate. But when I first really started looking for girlfriends and when you're older, this is like, oh my God, how do you even make friends? I had this best friend checklist in my head and I didn't know that I had Got it. So maybe anyone who's ever been single before can understand. You have this idea in your head of what you want. And the second someone kind of falls out of that, you're like, I don't know, I'm not really interested. And so I wanted this girl to work out. I wanted her to be adventurous and fun. I wanted her to like whine, but not too much. Like she couldn't be too crazy. Her to be like fun and funny, but also want to go super deep. Like she needed to do, she had to be into like what I was once in a while. So fashion sometimes. I didn't even know this was going on. So when somebody would like not fall into these things, I would write them off. I'm like, God, they're just, I'm just not really, you know, I'm not this. I can't lean into they're like this or they like that or they didn't like this or yeah, but they don't. What are we going to do in the winter that she doesn't snowboard or go on trips? It's so boring or oh, she only wants to talk about business or oh, she only likes to adventure. So guess what? I had zero friends still like after two years of trying this because I just that's truly I had a checklist. So the expectation of nobody can be everything for you. No one person can be everything for you. You have to collect people. And when you do this, when you see the thing, when you find, just one, just find the one gift that they bring into your life and focus on that. And then go find the other person who, like, you know, I'm an I'm an adventure person. I love to adventure, but I don't like to just adventure. That's not my life. So I had one girlfriend who always wanted to surf and I was like, I can't just like always surf with you. But now I'm so obsessed with her because she's the girl that I'm going to go to when I'm like, let's just adventure and I don't want to talk about anything else. And now I have my business friend who I know is actually incapable of not making everything about business. And now I'm obsessed with her. I don't have to be irritated that that's all she wants to do. Because when I can put them in these categories of who I know they are, they can show up so incredibly them and help me in a way that I can't even fathom in my life. And I appreciate them so deeply. And also, this is life-changing if you are in a romantic relationship. I was going to say that. Because not only... It's like Chris doesn't have to be everything for me anymore. My husband doesn't have to listen to me when I want to analyze the shit out of everything for the 200th time. I've got my best friend, Lindsay Schwartz, who's going to be like, say it one more time. You know you need to process again. Where he's like, he's heard it once and wants to fix it. Like, it has changed my entire life. You can take it a step further. I think even, so the boundaries that I think people don't set, they are like communication boundaries, like how much you text, how much you called, you have to respond right away. And obviously it gets more sensitive with like a romantic partner, but I think business partner, employees, friends, nobody sets boundaries and we're always on 24 seven. And even friendships can be draining if you're, you're sending six minute voice notes, right? Ha ha ha ha. And the person feels guilty that they didn't respond right away. That's not good either. Totally. So one of my favorite things to do is if you're like – You know, where do I even know where to start with boundaries? Is you just have to ask yourself, where are you feeling most resentful in your life? So this might bring up like, it might bring up people's names. It might bring up, you know, and most likely it's going to bring up somebody's name. You'll probably have one to three people where you're like, oh, I'm so resentful of this. And typically, I believe majority of those relationships could be saved by you going, okay, okay. What am I saying yes to that every single time I'm getting resentful of this person because I haven't set a boundary or I haven't told them that that's not okay or I haven't told them like, hey, I'm just not going to pick up your call if it's before 9am because that is my gym time. Like, those are all things that we don't have to carry around and feel resentful. In fact, I think not setting boundaries is you sabotaging relationships in your life. Wow. I, yeah, because you could, you could save the relationship. Because setting the boundary. But it's too hard to set the boundary. Well, it's hard, but then there's going to be a point where the relationship is so stressful and you're so resentful that I actually believe there is a point. where setting the boundary becomes a more comfortable thing right before the relationship is broken. But it's in that moment that you choose to not set it, and then you break the relationship. I think that's what happens. Mm-hmm. Because the feeling of resentment, it will overcome you. And then the hard conversation no longer feels that hard when you're actually aggressively pissed off at a person. It doesn't feel bad anymore because then you have anger driving that conversation, which is not good anyways. But you could still have the conversation and you won't feel as apprehensive about it. Oh my gosh, I have so many moments of this, but we have this really high-performing friend that you probably know, like super high performer. And we end up moving next door to this person, like we see them in the neighborhood all the time. And he ends up asking us to dinner. And we have this incredible dinner with him and his wife. And we're like, oh my God, that was so much fun. And at the end of the dinner, he goes, look, I like you guys. But if we're going to be friends, you have to know that I probably won't do this again for a year. Like you can't, I probably won't answer texts. I'm terrible. This is the kind of friends that I have. We need to be able to drop in and pick up where we left off. And if you want that kind of friendship, I am all in. And if not, I can't do it. We were like, great, that's how we are. This is wonderful. But I was like, that is next level. Like he couldn't even leave the dinner without telling us because he didn't want to feel. And that's what he said. He's like, I can't even feel any sort of like, I have to do something because he was that at his capacity in life that he's like, I won't even let anything in. Like, I thought that was so next level, like refreshing honesty that Chris and I like high fived after that and we're like, we should be this way. This is awesome. Yeah, that's intense. But you know what? Nobody's offended. I was not offended at all. No. I was grateful for the... I was grateful to witness what that looked like. Like what that could look like because I wasn't offended. The way that he said it was so like, I want you in my life, but this is the only way this will ever work. And so for me, I took that as a lesson of... where could I actually gain something or gain a relationship that I'm avoiding? Because I do this all the time. I avoid where I know I could be girlfriends with someone or couple friends with people. But I'm scared they're going to want too much. And that's not where I'm at in my life right now. So that was really refreshing. And I've used things like that. Just like up front being like, hey, I'm not that person who's going to respond back to text right away or whatever that looks like. And that just kind of takes you off the hook. And then it also gives you an opportunity to see how that person respects you and respects what you stand for. And I think that's also very telling. Oh, my gosh. So I just I'm sorry, I'm going off because we were just both podcasters. And this is such a good conversation. Go on. Go on. So I just I just interviewed Trent Shelton and we were talking about it. And he said, I wrote it down. He said, if if a no makes somebody upset in your life, it probably was never meant they were probably never meant to be in your life. Like if you setting a boundary, if you saying no for you, like if it's truly something that gives you peace in your life and helps you be more you and keep the things that are sacred, you know, in your life, then that person would have eventually burned out of your life anyway. Or it's a good thing because they they weren't for you anyhow. So it's just such a good reminder for me. If it if no turns people off, they were not meant for you. And how many relationships, oh my God, like I was going to say, how many relationships last? I keep thinking about it in like a romantic context because those are the ones where you have trouble saying no the most. But I think, of course, friendships, business partnerships, people that you should have fired. Maybe times you should have fired yourself from the company because they weren't serving you. These types of relationships, they can last. in a non-romantic context for years, in a romantic context, I think for, like, lives. Yeah. And you know what's interesting about that as you were talking, thinking about it... I think that's when people start cheating and stuff like that, too, because they don't want to have hard conversations, so it's easier to sneak away. And, yeah... And so I think that's where, okay, so thinking in terms of like romantic relationship, I think, you know, if the no, because maybe someone's thinking, okay, well, that just lets somebody have bad behavior and never do the things, you know, never compromise or maybe do the things that people want. But if no turns people off and makes them upset, that's one thing. But no is also an opportunity for the other person to have a conversation around, hey, no. When you said this, this is how this made me feel. I understand that this is a boundary, but maybe we could compromise here. So I do still think it holds true. Like if no makes people upset and turns them away, that's not a great person because you do want at least somebody to open up conversation around. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.