Buying new supply planning software is the easy part. The real work starts once the contract is signed. From a full planning suite to a focused tool such as the Sunstice S&OE module, software built for short-term execution, every rollout depends on people, data, and process as much as on technology. Get those right, and the system pays for itself. Get them wrong, and planners quietly drift back to their old files.

Why Planning Software Projects Stall

Implementations rarely fail because the software cannot do the job. More often, the trouble comes from vague goals, poor data, weak ownership, or a go-live date chosen for convenience, not readiness. These issues tend to surface late in the project, when fixing them is slow, disruptive, and expensive.

A structured approach doesn’t remove every risk. It does make problems visible early, while there is still time to adjust scope, budget, or timing.

What Are the Steps?

Define Clear Goals and Success Metrics

Start by writing down what the business expects to change. Typical goals include higher service levels, lower inventory, fewer expedites, better forecast accuracy, or a shorter planning cycle. Each goal should include a baseline figure and a target so you can measure progress objectively after go-live.

Vague aims such as better visibility are difficult to manage against. Specific targets give the project team a way to prioritize features and keep scope under control when new requests appear.

Illustration: QuinceCreative, via Pixabay

Build a Cross-Functional Team With an Executive Sponsor

Supply planning touches sales, operations, procurement, logistics, finance, and IT. A project team drawn only from one department will miss requirements and struggle to win support from the others. Each function should name a representative with real decision rights.

An executive sponsor matters just as much. They resolve conflicts between functions, protect the budget, and signal to the organization that the project is a priority. Without that backing, key users often get pulled away by daily work.

Redesign Processes Before Configuring the Tool

Installing new software on top of a broken process simply speeds up the same mistakes. Before configuration begins, map how planning works today, where decisions are made, and where handoffs break down. Workshops with planners usually reveal workarounds that never appear in official procedures.

Then agree on the future process. Decide planning frequencies, approval steps, and who owns each decision. The software should support that design, not dictate it, although good vendors can share proven practices from similar clients.

Clean Up Master Data Early

Lead times, lot sizes, bills of materials, routings, and units of measure all feed the planning engine. If they are wrong in the source system, the new tool will produce plans that look precise but cannot be executed.

Illustration: Yamu_Jay, via Pixabay

Data cleanup usually takes longer than teams expect, especially in companies with several ERP instances, so start it in the first weeks of the project. Assign owners for each data type and set rules to keep the records accurate after go-live.

Plan Integrations With ERP and Other Systems

A planning system needs a steady flow of orders, inventory, forecasts, and capacity data. Most of it comes from the ERP, but MES, warehouse, CRM, and BI platforms may also be involved.

Document which data moves in each direction, how often, and in what format. Decide early whether to use standard connectors, APIs, or custom interfaces. Integration work is often on the critical path, so delays here can push back the entire timeline by weeks or months.

Test With Real Scenarios Before Go-Live

Test cases should reflect real business situations, such as a supplier delay, a large promotion, or a sudden capacity loss. Running the new system in parallel with the old process for a few cycles helps build confidence in the results.

Skipping this stage can be costly. In 2001, Nike said problems with a new demand planning system contributed to about $100 million in lost sales. Nike and its vendor disagreed about the cause, but the case is still cited as a warning about going live too quickly.

Train Planners and Manage the Change

Training should go beyond button clicks and explain how the tool reaches its recommendations, so users understand when to accept them and when to step in. Involve key users early in the design process, since they become natural champions later. Share quick wins openly in team meetings and internal updates. Seeing a colleague save hours each week persuades people far more than any vendor presentation.

Photo: RonaldCandonga, via Pixabay

Roll Out in Phases and Time Go-Live Carefully

A pilot with one region, plant, or product family lets the team resolve issues on a smaller scale. Later waves then benefit from the lessons learned and from experienced users who can coach their colleagues.

Timing matters too. Hershey switched on new ERP, CRM, and planning systems in July 1999, just as retailers were placing orders for Halloween, its busiest season. Order processing problems left it unable to deliver roughly $100 million worth of candy that fall, and quarterly profits dropped sharply.

After Go-Live

The first few weeks after launch, often called hypercare, need extra support from the project team and the vendor. Planners will raise questions, find data gaps, and request small changes to screens, alerts, or reports. Fast responses during this period protect user confidence.

Once the system is stable, review results against the targets set in step one. Continue tuning parameters, adding scenarios, and expanding scope. The strongest rollouts never really end, because the software becomes part of how the business makes decisions.

Many entrepreneurs start looking at rental property once they have savings they would like to put to work outside the stock market. A carefully chosen rental can bring in monthly income, build equity as you pay down the loan, and offer tax advantages a brokerage account does not. Getting to that first purchase looks a little different when you work for yourself, though, and knowing why before you start house hunting can save months of frustration.

The first surprise for many self-employed buyers is the mortgage itself. Conventional lenders typically ask for two years of personal tax returns, and the deductions that shrink your tax bill also shrink the income a lender can count. That is one reason investors often turn to lenders such as Ridge Street Capital for investment property financing, including DSCR loans that qualify a purchase based on the rent the property can produce, not on personal income.

Photo: AS_Photography, via Pixabay

Treat the Property as Its Own Investment

When you buy a rental, you act as an individual investor. The property should stand on its own numbers, completely separate from what your business earns. If a deal only works because your salary quietly covers a monthly shortfall, it is not really working.

Study the Market Before the House

Location shapes your rent and resale value. Before you fall for a listing, look at local job growth, population trends, typical rents for similar homes, and property tax rates, which vary widely between states and even neighboring counties. A modest house in a growing area can easily outperform a beautiful one in a market with flat demand.

Run the Numbers Beyond the Rent

Your budget should account for vacancy, routine repairs, big-ticket items like a roof or water heater, and property management if you will not handle tenants yourself. Management companies commonly charge 8–12% of monthly rent.

Plan for the Cash You Will Need at Closing

Investment property loans usually require more money down than a home you live in. Conventional programs commonly start at 15% down for a single-family rental and 25% for a two- to four-unit building, and many private investor loans cap leverage at about 75–80% of the property value. Closing costs, inspections, and appraisal fees also add up.

Lenders also tend to ask for reserves, which means cash left in the bank after closing, and several months of mortgage payments is a common benchmark. Keeping that money in a dedicated account makes it easier to document and harder to spend elsewhere.

Choose a Strategy Before You Choose a Property

The right loan depends on what you plan to do with the home. A buy-and-hold landlord, a house flipper, and a vacation rental host face different risks, earn money on different timelines, and rely on different financing.

Long-Term Rentals

Long-term rentals with 12-month leases usually offer the steadiest income and the simplest management. Because the rent is predictable, budgeting for the mortgage, repairs, and taxes becomes much simpler.

Fix and Flip Projects

Flipping typically relies on short-term hard money loans, often with 12-month terms and higher interest rates than rental mortgages. Experienced flippers judge a deal by its after-repair value, or ARV, not the asking price. First projects often run over budget, so build in a 10–20% contingency.

Photo: mastersenaiper, via Pixabay

Short-Term Rentals

Platforms like Airbnb can bring in more revenue per night, but income swings with the seasons and with local rules. Cities including New York have tightened short-term rental regulations in recent years, so check zoning, permits, and HOA bylaws before you commit.

Know the Rules That Come With Being a Landlord

Landlord and tenant laws are set largely at the state and local level. They govern security deposit limits, notice periods, and eviction procedures, while federal fair housing law bars discrimination in advertising and tenant screening. Reading your state’s rules before you sign a lease can prevent expensive mistakes.

Insurance changes too. A standard homeowners policy is built for owner-occupied homes, so rentals typically need a landlord or dwelling policy that covers the structure, liability, and in many cases lost rental income.

Think Ahead to Your Next Property

Few investors stop at one. Once a rental has built equity, or if you bought it with cash, a cash-out refinance lets you borrow against that property and pull out funds for your next down payment, repairs, or reserves. If the home already has a mortgage, the new loan pays it off and replaces it with different terms, so compare the rate and costs before tapping your equity.

Buying a first rental is less about finding the perfect house than about building a sound process. Know your numbers, pick a strategy, line up financing early, and learn the local rules. Do that well and your first property can become a lasting foundation for future investments.

The thermostat effect is the reason hard work alone rarely keeps you at a new level: your non-conscious brain has a setting for how much you earn, how hard you push and how good life is allowed to feel, and when you drift above or below it, it pulls you back. That’s how John Assaraf explained it to me. Willpower can lift you for a few days. If you want the change to stick, you have to change the setting itself.

This was John’s second time on the Addicted2Success podcast. After his first episode, I kept hearing from listeners that he was the standout, because he didn’t just tell people to stay motivated. He broke down what happens in the brain. So I opened with this: what’s the underlying block that stops people from having financial success and achieving greatness?

He said when you get into the science behind success, you also have to look at the science behind failure: what stops somebody from getting up one more time. I agreed. Failure is just as important as success. Everyone sees the glory, but they don’t hear the story.

What is the thermostat effect?

John used a hot day in Australia to explain it. You get in your car, turn on the air conditioner, and the car settles at 22 degrees Celsius. You feel great. Then you roll down the windows and hot air pours in. A sensor in the car picks up that it’s 20 or 30 degrees hotter than the setting, and the air conditioner cranks as hard as it can to cool it back down. Do the same thing in the middle of winter and the sensor picks up the cold and sends heat through the vents.

He called it a control and response mechanism. Whatever the setting is, the system protects it.

Now apply that to someone who wants more success. They read more, go to events and use willpower and persistence to raise their performance. John said that for three, four, five or seven days, it works. Then a mechanism in the brain notices you’re burning a lot of mental energy and starts pulling you back to your comfort zone. You get doubts about whether you can sustain it. You procrastinate. And then, in his words, “you’re going to tell yourself rational lies why you can take your foot off the gas and get back to your baseline.”

The part most people miss is that it works in reverse too. If you drop below what you’re used to, the same system kicks you out of bed early, sends you to the book, the event and the networking night, and keeps you working until you’re back at your old level. Not higher. Back.

That’s why John said “so many people try to focus on using sheer hard work to change the thermostat.” Hard work moves the temperature. It doesn’t move the setting.

Your brain runs on autopilot

He gave me a second picture that made it even clearer. You and your mates are on a 50 or 70 foot yacht off Bondi Beach with the autopilot set due north. Somebody grabs the wheel, turns it 30 or 40 degrees to the left and walks away. The autopilot turns the boat straight back to north. Somebody else swings it east and walks off happy. The boat goes right back to where it was heading.

John said human beings have an autopilot too, and it’s the non-conscious brain. Whenever there’s a deviation from what it’s used to thinking, feeling and doing, something he called the error detection mechanism kicks in and says correct course, correct course, correct course.

He listed where it shows up. People who double their income and then sabotage it. Someone who loses 20 pounds, looks great, and gains it all back. Someone who finally gets the promotion and feels so uncomfortable in the new environment that they get demotivated.

Take the anatomy as John’s way of teaching it, not a settled textbook diagram. The pattern itself, most of us have lived.

I had this upper limit

When he said it, I told him I was literally feeling it. I had this upper limit. I broke through it a few years earlier, and then all these things started coming into play, especially with my finances. I started thinking about tax more. I’d tell myself I didn’t want to make more because I’d have to pay more tax.

Looking at it now, I’d love to pay more tax. It means I’m making more money.

John jumped on it. That was the rational lie, and the freaking weirdest part, he said, is that you believe it. It’s the error detection mechanism wanting to keep you stuck and comfortable.

That’s the trap in one sentence. You don’t feel your thermostat pulling you back. You feel like you’re being smart.

Where fear slams the brakes on

So I asked him the question I really wanted answered. Where does fear come into play, and how can we punch that fear in the face?

He walked me through a scene. Say you and I decide to triple our income this year. High fives all around. In John’s telling, dopamine gets released and we feel like we’re going to conquer the world.

But underneath the hood there’s a fear. I’m not smart enough. What if I fail and embarrass myself? What if I succeed and can’t maintain it? Within moments, hours or days, you realize what it’s really going to take, and the fear circuit lights up.

John said that’s when the system floods with epinephrine, cortisol and norepinephrine, three chemicals in the stress response. Those stress hormones are real; Harvard Health’s explainer on the stress response walks through how the body releases adrenaline and cortisol when it senses a threat. John’s point was what it does to you. Real or imagined, emotional or financial, the pain works the same way. The brake on motivation slams shut and you start to procrastinate.

He said the untrained person feels fear, puts the brake on and retreats into what they’re comfortable doing. That’s the thermostat doing its job. His line that stuck with me was that ignorance is not your friend when it comes to neurochemistry.

It’s the stretch, isn’t it?

When I look back at my business, the times I really grew were when I put 20,000 down for coaching. I remember thinking, holy crap, this is a huge financial stretch for me. And something happens to you. You start absorbing more information. You get even more committed, because you know you’ve stepped outside the blueprint you had. It’s like burning the ships. You’re not going back.

John said most people can’t do that because they haven’t had a lot of practice making micro decisions around fear. Before they put the money down, the what-ifs start. What if it’s the wrong decision? What if I worked all that time for it, or borrowed it? What if I don’t apply what I learn?

Then he told me to pay close attention, because the brain’s default “goes to what could go wrong first before it goes to what could go right.”

His fix was to expect it. If we did a deal together, he said, he’d warn me upfront that a pile of negative thoughts would follow, and that it’s normal. Then he’d ask me to flip the switch and look at the other side. If we execute the plan, is it possible we hit our goals? What I took from it is that the what-ifs aren’t proof you made the wrong call. They’re the thermostat noticing you’ve moved.

Become a better observer of yourself

John said training your brain starts with being acutely aware of your own sensations. What’s my heartbeat doing right now? What’s my breathing doing? Am I anxious and stressed, or calm enough to think clearly? Can I respond instead of react? He called that a skill, which I love, because a skill can be practiced.

I told him about something Joe Dispenza said when we had him on the podcast: “Maybe we’re just poor observers. Maybe that’s our biggest problem.” John said Joe’s a friend, and that the observation starts with yourself. How do I respond when I’m uncomfortable? How do I feel when negative self-talk is going on? What am I actually afraid of when I’m procrastinating?

He also said that, in his view, procrastination usually comes from low self-esteem. If you knew how to do it and loved it, you’d do it. People put things off because they feel doubtful or worry somebody will judge them if it isn’t perfect.

If you’ve ever wondered why your energy disappears right after a big goal, the honest answer usually isn’t laziness. It’s what happens when motivation runs out and the old setting is still in charge.

How to reset the thermostat

I asked John about limiting beliefs, because I feel like they’re always kind of there from a very young age. We can improve them for sure. I don’t believe anything’s hardwired. It’s soft-wired, and we can change it.

John said a belief, from a neuroscience perspective, “is nothing more than a cluster of cells that have gotten together and connected over time repeatedly.” Your parents, school, siblings, TV and books all gave you some of yours.

Then he told me where his own setting came from. He moved from Israel to Montreal at five, spoke Hebrew and couldn’t read or write it yet, and was put in a class of 50 kids speaking French, with English as their second language. He said he sat there two years staring at the wall. Kids spat on him in the playground because he couldn’t speak English. He got into fights and stayed two years behind until he quit in grade 11.

That’s where “I’m not smart enough” came from. He carried it until he was 19, working for $2.30 an hour, when a mentor asked him why he really believed that.

What John did next is the most practical part of the whole conversation:

1. He wrote a new setting. Affirmations like “I am good enough,” “I am smart enough” and “I can learn whatever I need to learn.”
2. He repeated it for hours. He recorded his affirmations and goals and said he listened to them two or three hours a day in his car.
3. He built proof under it. His mentor had him read, listen to audio and practice his skills one hour a day, so his confidence and certainty had something real behind them.

He said things started clicking one after another. By his account he made $31,000 at 19 and $151,000 at 20. Those are John’s own numbers, not a promise of what affirmations will do for anyone’s income. The lesson I’d take is the combination. He didn’t just chant his way to a new setting. He changed the belief and the skills at the same time.

Your business can only grow to the extent that you do

John’s biggest example wasn’t personal. It was a team. He said that at RE/MAX they hit a plateau at about $1.2 billion in sales, and he knew that wasn’t the ceiling. Instead of teaching them to sell more real estate, he said they started retraining their brains: their financial set point, their expectancy point, how they thought about prospecting and the high income, high impact activities.

Over the next four years, he said, sales grew by $3.3 billion to about $4.5 billion a year, and his agents averaged $128,000 when the typical agent was making $30,000 to $40,000. Take those as John’s figures from his own company. If you’re stuck at a plateau despite your continuous efforts, his argument is that more tactics won’t move you. Moving the expectation might.

He said the same about his coaching clients. Without mindset and emotional management training, maybe five or six percent got great results. With it, alongside the skill sets, he said it was 62%. I told him that’s an insane result.

I truly believe your business can only grow to the extent that you do. You are the starting point for everything.

Success is a pattern you can learn

John keeps Rubik’s cubes on his desk. Some people solve one in seconds, blindfolded. His point was that it’s all pattern recognition.

“Success is a pattern,” he said. So are being healthy, being wealthy and having a great relationship. In his view, learn the behavioral pattern and you get a predictable result almost every time.

That took me straight back to being seven. I watched Space Jam and ran around slam dunking the top of the door frames. My mom gave me Rare Air, the Michael Jordan book, and I remember wondering how a guy built like so many other NBA players could be so different. Later I learned Kobe Bryant used to watch replay after replay of Jordan. What he was really studying was the pattern. Success leaves clues.

John said LeBron and the greats before him all studied the patterns of great players. Then he said the line I think explains the whole thermostat effect: if he gave a hundred people the blueprint of what to do, one might do it. Train their brains and their emotions as well, and he said he could get 60 to follow through.

Here’s my take. If you keep hitting the same ceiling, stop asking how to work harder and start asking what your thermostat is set to. Notice the rational lie when it shows up. Take the stretch that scares you a little. Then change the belief and build the skill under it, every day, until the new level is the one your autopilot defends.

FAQ

What is the thermostat effect?

It’s John Assaraf’s name for the way your non-conscious brain holds you at a familiar level of income, effort and comfort. Push above it with willpower and it pulls you back. Drop below it and it pushes you back up.

Why do people slide back to their comfort zone after a breakthrough?

In John’s view, the brain notices you’re spending a lot of energy outside your normal setting and starts producing doubt, procrastination and rational-sounding excuses until you return to your baseline. Hard work changes the temperature, not the setting.

What are rational lies?

John’s term for the sensible-sounding reasons you give yourself to ease off. Mine was not wanting to earn more because I’d pay more tax. They feel like good judgment, which is exactly why they work so well at keeping you stuck.

How do you reset your success thermostat?

John’s approach was to change the belief and the skill together. He repeated recorded affirmations and goals daily, practiced his skills an hour a day and built confidence on real proof. Expecting the fear and what-ifs is part of the process.

Is willpower enough to change your life?

Not on its own, according to John. Willpower can lift your performance for a few days, but if the non-conscious setting stays the same, it pulls you back. Lasting change comes from shifting the belief and the pattern underneath.

Deeper connection starts with asking permission. Most of us leave coffee or a workout with a friend and think, “We didn’t really connect,” because nobody said they wanted to go past the surface. Lori Harder’s answer is simple: tell people you’re looking for deeper conversations, ask if they’re in, then ask better questions.

Lori came on the Addicted2Success podcast as a fitness and health expert, a professional network marketer, a coach and the host of the Earn Your Happy podcast. She told me her show had hit a million plays and downloads in about eight months. Plenty of shows don’t get near that in two or three years.

She hadn’t even wanted to host. What sold her was an hour with thought leaders she’d never otherwise get on the phone. I told her I’ve paid some of these people $20,000 to work with them.

So I asked her what she’s looking for. She didn’t hesitate. Peace, happiness, growth and connection. Every day. Connection is the key right there. It feeds the other three, and the rest of our conversation backed that up.

Why she spent years doing it alone

The book Lori was finishing was about building tribe and community. When I asked why that mattered so much to her, she said that for a really long time she did it alone. She had her husband Chris, plus books and podcasts, but she grew up in the Midwest where growth “wasn’t a normal conversation.” And when you start to grow, some people feel like you’re outgrowing them.

She came from a strict religious family. She loves them. They just weren’t into health or fitness, and every time she went back to old family and friends, she felt herself getting pulled away from where she knew she was supposed to go. So at 18 she moved far enough away that she didn’t have a ton of contact. For a long time she felt like a terrible person about it.

She saw it as building armor: go away, get the tools, then come back able to handle the old situations. Without those tools, she said, your environment is always going to win. She quoted a line she loves: “Your environment is stronger than your willpower.” I agree with her, and it’s why I think changing your environment is sometimes the fastest move you can make.

What I respect is what came after. Now she can go back and accept people where they are, instead of asking why they won’t come on the journey with her. Trying to shift people who don’t want to shift is a lot of pressure to put on yourself.

The answers are in the person sitting next to you

Lori holds a lot of retreats and events, so I asked her for the most powerful exercise people can use to live in their bliss. She said connecting with other people, hands down. She’s obsessed with holding space in a room and teaching people to ask each other real questions.

Then she said this:

“Every single answer is in that person that is sitting right next to you on the subway, at a restaurant, in line at Starbucks, wherever. And we are so off in our own world and we’re so disconnected that we miss the answer every single day.”

Not just the inspiring ones, either. Even if somebody is nuts and you decide you don’t want them in your life, that’s useful. You just learned a boundary. You got some perspective on how other people feel. Cut yourself off from that and you end up isolated inside your own story.

I love being self-reliant and mentally strong. That’s a big part of what I’m about. But you can only work so much out inside your own head. I’m forever a student in the student chair. Usually I learn more from watching how someone shows up in a room, the questions they ask, the way they carry themselves, than from anything they say.

The wall you built as a kid

The best story Lori told was against herself. At a retreat in Costa Rica there was an Italian guy who was, in her words, the definition of a hug monster. A hug every 30 seconds. He talked about cuddle puddles. That was already a lot for her.

On a day of sharing circles she was emotionally exhausted. In a one-on-one exercise he asked how she was feeling, and she told him the truth: she wanted to be back in her room, quiet and alone, because she really enjoys being alone most of the time.

He said, “No, you don’t.” She said, “I don’t?” And he said, “No, that’s a story you told yourself when you were a young kid as protection.”

Her first reaction was, how dare you. But he was right. She grew up in a religious family that didn’t celebrate holidays, she was made fun of a lot at school and she was bullied about her weight. So she told herself she was better off alone. In that moment she realized, “I actually love people. My heart yearns to be around people so much, but I throw up this protective wall.”

She said it took a good year of work, and the walls still go back up sometimes. The difference is she notices now.

I tell the people I coach that it takes habitual action and dedication to break a story like that. A lot of people think their beliefs are hardwired. I don’t. Nothing is hardwired. It’s always softwired. You can untangle it and rewire it. It can take a while, and it takes courage to face it first, but ask yourself where you’d be if that story stopped running you.

Lori put it in gym terms. If you walked into a gym full of foam squares and bubbles, you couldn’t get stronger. The more challenge you put on a muscle, the more strength you gain. She thinks life works the same way. She also thinks you’re allowed a processing period first. You don’t have to find the lesson the same afternoon something hurts. The people we look up to are the ones who shared the struggle and showed they got stronger. That’s inspiration through action, showing others what’s possible through your own actions.

Why deeper connection starts with asking permission

This is the part I’d tell anyone to steal. Lori said a lot of us think we’re connecting when we aren’t:

“We go to coffee. We go to a workout and we leave and we’re like, didn’t really connect.”

Her diagnosis is that we’re afraid to go deeper. We’re afraid to ask the questions. So she does something most people never do. She asks permission. Not necessarily the first time you meet someone, but she’ll say something like, “Hey, I’m looking for deeper connections with people. Would you ever want to join this group? We meet on Thursdays. We ask deeper questions.”

She isn’t knocking small talk. She said there’s a place for it. But if you’re craving more, “you have to know how to create that,” and you need the other person’s permission to go there. Her version is almost a contract: “Are you opted in? Cool. We’re both opted in. Let’s go there.”

That sounds awkward until you try it. Research summarized by the American Psychological Association found deep conversations feel less awkward and leave people more connected and happier than they expect. We overestimate the risk.

Here’s how I’d put Lori’s approach into practice:

1. Say what you want out loud. “I’d love to have more real conversations” is enough.
2. Ask if they’re in. Make it easy to say no.
3. Ask a question past the social layer, like what’s been pulling at them lately.
4. Let the pause sit. Don’t rescue them from it.
5. Agree on how you want feedback, and when.

Don’t fix the pause for them

That fourth step came from Lori’s own podcast. She said she’s learning hosting isn’t about her. It’s about giving guests the space and time to answer.

When she asked a question that made someone dig deeper and they paused, her instinct was to jump in and let them off the hook. On podcast time, she said, two seconds can feel like five minutes. Now she doesn’t fix it for them. Even if they fumble around for the answer, they’re probably heading somewhere they’re excited about.

I think that applies way beyond podcasts. Most conversations stay shallow because someone fills the silence.

Find people who’ll tell you where you’re limiting yourself

I told Lori I used to want to be friends with absolutely everybody. Now I’d rather have a tight group with really deep relationships. My friends know they’re destined for greatness, so we push each other and call each other out on our own crap. Do well in public and you get haters and yes-men. If someone keeps telling me everything I do is amazing, I love them, but I stop going to them for feedback. Sometimes you need tough love.

Lori has a mastermind of women that meets every other Thursday at 8 a.m. The question they bring to each other is, “Where can you see me limiting myself?” She admitted it’s not always fun. It takes a blow to the ego. She said she’s grown more in the last two years with these people in her life than she ever thought possible.

The detail I liked is that they have agreements. She can say, “I don’t want to be told right now that I’m upper limiting myself. I just want to say what I’m feeling and then you can tell me later.” That’s not dodging feedback. That’s knowing you’ll get it, just not mid-vent.

Mastermind groups can change your life. I’ve started one and been part of many. Everyone’s more invested, so they value the time and actually show up to connect. It’s why I believe every entrepreneur needs a mastermind, as long as it’s built on honesty and not applause.

Connection at home: take the walk

When relationships come up with successful people on my podcast, it shows me everything’s touching everything. Plenty of entrepreneurs make millions and can’t hold a relationship together. Lori and Chris work together, and she was open that it hasn’t always been smooth. When Chris came home from managing around 300 mostly men at a mortgage office, his communication style was the quickest way to the point. She was his wife, and she felt like he didn’t care about her feelings. For about three months she wanted to send him back to work.

What fixed it was getting specific about how each of them wants to be talked to. If he says something short in a heated moment, she tells him she didn’t like it and how she’d have responded better. He does the same to her. She pointed out that we often treat the people we feel safest with the worst. They wanted the lifestyle of working together badly enough that the vision won.

Their ritual is a walk. Lori said the first 30 minutes is usually business, but the walk is what has carried them through losing a house together, Chris getting laid off and family issues. “I really believe the answers come through movement,” she said. Most couples who are fried just turn on the TV. She wants to talk to the person Chris, not the business partner Chris.

When people come at you, look for the love

Every coach needs a coach. Michael Jordan was the best in the game and he still had one. So I asked Lori for the best advice she’s had from a mentor. She went to Gabrielle Bernstein’s message that everything can be worked through and healed through love. She said finding that message freed her in her network marketing business, where she and Chris have 125,000 people in their downline. That many personalities, plus money, can bring out a lot in people.

To be clear, that’s her figure and her experience, and I’m not pitching network marketing here. Her point wasn’t about income. It was that most fallouts happen because a story covers up our compassion. When someone comes at her, she tries to see the whole picture: where they’re coming from, what they don’t understand yet, what they can’t see.

My go-to is gratitude. It’s part of my daily habits, and when there’s tension with someone, I start with what I’m grateful for. It just recalibrates the whole conversation. Lori told me she’d just done it on a text with her brother. Things were heating up and she wrote, “Stop. What are you grateful for right now?” Then he answered, and the whole conversation changed.

Be the person who connects people

In ten years, Lori hopes people will say they got connected to an amazing group of people through her and Chris, and that it changed everything for them.

I see this all the time. When I ask people how they found my work, they usually name the person who introduced them. They never forget who connected them. That’s the power right there. With the people I coach, I look for where they can collaborate or cross-promote, and sometimes that intro matters more to them than a coaching session.

Lori called hosting a podcast putting out “the bat signal” so amazing people can land in one place and meet each other. You don’t need a podcast to do that. You need to ask for depth, hold the pause and make the intro.

Her last 30 seconds to the world: “No matter what is happening right now, it’s happening for you.” Then ask how it could be happening for you, and how you could love a little more.

FAQ

How do you create a deeper connection with someone?

Tell them you want deeper conversations, ask if they’re open to it, then ask questions past the surface. Lori Harder’s approach is to get both people opted in first, so going deeper feels invited rather than forced.

How do you move past small talk without it feeling weird?

Name it. Something like, “I’d love to have more real conversations” gives the other person a choice. Small talk still has its place, but research shows deep conversations usually feel less awkward than people expect.

Why do some people push others away?

Often it’s an old protective story. Lori believed she preferred being alone until someone pointed out it was protection she built as a kid after being bullied. Noticing the wall is the first step to lowering it.

What should you do when someone pauses before answering?

Let the pause sit. Lori learned not to rescue guests from silence, because two seconds can feel like five minutes. People who fumble for an answer are often heading somewhere meaningful.

Is it okay to outgrow friends while you’re growing?

Lori thinks you sometimes need distance to build your tools, because your environment can beat your willpower. Later you can go back and accept people where they are without trying to change them.