Chris Harder

It felt like every year I was getting a big new promotion and every year I was going to get a new bonus.

And the problem was I was young and arrogant and ignorant, and I thought it was going to last forever.

Despite people telling me, hey, this is probably not going to last forever.

I thought it was going to last forever.

And we were living way beyond our means.

And when I say we, I mean me, even though Lori was my wife, because I was taking care of the finances.

And she really didn't have any idea that we were that far overextended.

And so what happened was when 2008, 2009 hit, of course, it's a banking and real estate recession.

The music stopped and we were left holding the bag.

Now, some people have chosen pivots, right?

For example, my wife a couple of years ago said, hey, I don't want to do the self-development thing anymore that I'm doing.

I would love to pivot into building this beverage company.

But other people have forced pivots.

And that was me in that situation.

I was forced when they came to me and said, hey, we're going to let you go.

And here's your severance package.

I was forced to pivot.

Now, that was a scary, horrible, disastrous time in the moment.

Listen, I'm never going to convince somebody that these moments where you have a forced pivot is going to feel good.

But I will promise you, if you're there right now, or if you think that you're coming up on something like this,