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:
- Say what you want out loud. “I’d love to have more real conversations” is enough.
- Ask if they’re in. Make it easy to say no.
- Ask a question past the social layer, like what’s been pulling at them lately.
- Let the pause sit. Don’t rescue them from it.
- 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.