You Do Not Need Motivation To Start Moving with Lorie Kleiner Eckert

Motivation is not something we wait for, it is something we build, and this conversation makes that feel practical instead of preachy. Nicole sits down with author and longtime motivational speaker Lori Kleiner Eckert to talk about what it really takes to reinvent yourself when life changes fast or breaks your heart. Lori shares the heart behind her book, High on Life, a collection of short slice-of-life stories designed to leave you with clear takeaways you can use immediately. 

We dig into Lori’s simple two-step reinvention recipe: lock in a healthy daily routine, then do one thing each day in the direction of your new life. That “one thing” can be tiny, especially when you are grieving, burned out, or overwhelmed, and that’s the point. We also unpack the mindset shift that changes everything: motivation is kinetic energy. When you take action first, even in the smallest way, you create momentum and prove to yourself that you can move. 

From there, we connect the dots to gratitude practice as a real tool for mental health, resilience, and beating the modern “meh” feeling. We talk about noticing small wins, giving yourself credit, and finding gratitude in ordinary moments, from family time to a meal that nourishes you. Lori also shares how journaling and writing prompts can help you access your inner voice and capture the lessons you are living right now. 

If you want a clear routine, a grounded approach to self-care, and a way to start again without forcing it, press play. Subscribe for more conversations like this, share the episode with a friend who needs a reset, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

Welcome And Meet Lori

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hello there and welcome to the next episode of Overcome Yourself the Podcast. As you know, my name is Nicole, and I'm so excited to be here today with Lori. Now, Lori is an author, and she talks about the high life. Did I say that correctly?

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Okay, good.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Yes, High on Life.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Yes. Okay, so High on Life. And so I would like to let you take it away, Lori. Please tell us a little bit about who you are and who you help.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Okay, be happy to. So my name is Lori Kleiner Eckert, and I have been in the motivation field for over 30 years. And my new book, High on Life, is actually my fifth book. It just was published in September by Bancroft Press. I have, let's see, so I like to say that I am a cheerleader or I work as a cheerleader and that I say life is difficult, but you can handle it. And I talk about I have some recurring topics that are just exactly perfect for your podcast. One of them being how to reinvent yourself, another being self-care, which we all need to talk about and so forth. So let's see, I um I worked as a motivational speaker for 10 years and I illustrated my talk back then with quilts that had words and symbols pieced into the design, so very unique. But in every case, when I was telling my audience about the quilt, or now the writing that I do, I'm telling the stories of my life, hoping that you can glean life lessons from them. So that has always been my MO. That's my MO in my artwork. It's my MO across five books that I've written. And currently I write a blog on my website, which is lauriekleiner-eckert.com. And it goes out twice a month. I write two stories a month, but they're always a slice of life story. They're always have some life lessons tucked in there. And if you subscribe subscribe to my blog, you you hear from me twice a month. So my subscribers just heard from me today. You hear from me on the second

A Treasure Chest Of Life Lessons

SPEAKER_00 2:31

and the fourth Tuesday of the month. And today they got a story about me finding a treasure chest in my basement. So it's just uh I found uh there's a desk down there that has three drawers in it. And I see this desk all the time, but what's in the drawers? I hadn't looked. And we all probably have a treasure chest with three drawers that we haven't opened in a long time. So what's in there? And so as it turned out, there were treasures, meaning life lessons in each one. And um, and so again, I hope that my my audience will identify with that. In the top drawer, I had stuff from my dad, who's deceased. In the middle drawer, I had stuff from my significant other, who's also deceased. And the bottom drawer was folders from all kinds of trips that I've taken, which I can't hardly even remember that I took all that those trips. There were 18 or 17 or 18 folders. All of that was pre-pandemic. So that was kind of reminding people, you know, you've had fun travels in the past. If you can't afford it right now or can't fit it into the schedule, why don't you go look at your photo album from a trip 10 years ago or something like that? So that's what I so as I tell the stories of my life, I hope other people will glean life lessons. So your theme, so that's who I am, and who I help, try to help is everyone. An author is not allowed to say that his or her book is for everyone, but I really think mine is. So um, High On Life has uh 36 stories. So even if you're not a big reader, you can enjoy High On Life because each story is two or three pages long. So everyone goes to the bathroom, take it with you to the bathroom. And um every of the um every story in High On Life has a one-line takeaway that's beautifully illustrated. So it's a it's a little book. I'm holding it up for you for you to see, Nicole. Oh it's uh it's a little book, it's six and a half inches square, so it's kind of like a coffee table book because it has all of these beautiful images in it

The Two Step Reinvention Recipe

SPEAKER_00 4:56

and all of these great stories. Uh so shall I tell you maybe about how to reinvent yourself since that is so your podcast is where transformation begins and how to create a better you. That seems to be right down your alley, or would you rather ask me something different?

SPEAKER_01 5:15

I love it. Let's go with it. Yes, talk to us about reinventing ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Okay. Well, um, I think that we have all reinvented ourselves dozens of times, depending on how old we are. And so I want people to recognize places where they have reinvented themselves so that they know, oh, I've done this before, I can do it again. So we reinvent ourselves when we graduate from high school, when we graduate from college, when we enter a relationship, when we break up with someone, when we get married, when we get divorced, when we have children, when we get our first job or our second job or our third job. Every time we're reinventing ourselves. So there's happy reinventions like graduating, and there's sad ones like breaking up with someone, getting fired from a job, flunking a class. Um, but the same rules hold true for both. And even if we're talking about a happy reinvention, such as um a college degree, wow, that's big time, you know. Well, first of all, when you get the college degree, you think you're there, when in reality you're just at square one on the next journey. You haven't you've reached one journey, you've entered one journey, but another another one is just starting. But even if it's a happy um reinvention, like after graduating from college, what do you do with that degree? So um there was a Broadway musical that I'm gonna draw blank on its name, Avenue Q, and the opening line of Avenue Q is a guy coming up out coming on stage saying, I just got a degree in English, and waving the piece of paper in the air. And the second line is, what do you do with a degree in English? Which I really identified with that because two out of three of my adult children have degrees in English. And what do you do with it? My my son uh went on to become uh to get a master's in secondary English education, and when that didn't quite pay enough to raise a family, he became an attorney. So that's what he did with a with college, with a degree in uh in uh English, anyway. So even then, you know, you've got a degree, but what do you do with it? You have to, you have to work to get to the next place. So my recipe for reinvention is very simple because if you're if you're reinventing yourself at a bad time in your life, after you've broken up with someone, after there's a death in the family, you just want to lie on the sofa with the blanket over your head. You don't go want to go anywhere, do anything. So um, so especially when you're in a reinvention after something awful, um, it helps that my recipe only has two steps to make it really easy. So the first step is that you have to have a healthy routine uh and you have to stick to it. So this means you gotta wake up, you have to have uh eat, nourish your body, you have to exercise, you have to get dressed every day for women. If you wear makeup, put on makeup, but certainly make sure you brush your hair and become the best you you can be. So all of that is in your daily routine. I can't tell you what that is, but you know what you do on a daily basis when things are working for you, and you have to replicate that every single day. That's a stiff order, but you gotta do it. And then step two in my personal reinvention, again, want it to be so easy, so it's just two steps. And the second step is uh do one thing, just one thing a day in the direction of your new life. And I suggest that you get a notebook or even just a visa paper as your accountability log, and you write down today's date and what you did to reinvent yourself. So again, if uh uh one time when I was really very bereft, uh, was when all of my children had left the nest. And sincerely, Nicole, the silence in the house was heavy. It pushed down on me. I couldn't almost get up off the sofa. And uh I I was beside myself. I had been a mom for uh so many years. What was I supposed to do? Well, I was supposed to take one step a day toward my new life, so I got up off the sofa and I um I looked up volunteermatch.com online to find out what volunteer opportunities existed for me. And that was it though. I only had to do one thing. I had a fine volunteer match.com. I didn't have to then call three people or anything like that. I just had to do one thing. And so that so really, if you do one thing a day for like seven days, you're going in a new direction. That's all there is to it. You are off and running. Um, and if you're doing a happy reinvention, like that college degree, uh, maybe you know, you can do more than one thing a day. So in that case, there's a hack. I don't have um uh ADD, but there's a hack for people who do that. The way to get things done is to set a timer and work for that amount of time. So that's a great hack in life, you know. So set a timer for 15 minutes if you're in a happy reinvention and make many phone calls or make many email uh send many emails or do many Google searches. But again, always write down in your accountability log that you did it. And it's just amazing how that adds up. It it really is. It's just it's wonderful. Yeah. Um, so

Why Motivation Shows Up After Action

SPEAKER_00 11:37

so that's my recipe.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

I love it, I love it. And one of the things that I talk about in my book is that motivation, what we think of as motivation is is a lie. It's not it's it doesn't just hit you out of nowhere, right? And a lot of people think, well, tomorrow I'll be motivated to go to the gym, tomorrow I'll be motivated to you know do the job applications, tomorrow I'll be motivated to make the calls to my clients. And motivation doesn't work like that. Motivation is kinetic energy, at the way that I looked at it, right? And it's exactly what you're describing. And in order to actually access that power, that energy, that motivation, you have to start doing something. Right. And so that's exactly what you're talking about, is getting momentum. So the fact that you pick up your phone and you're like, I don't have to call them, I don't have to commit to doing 30 minutes, I just have to find a place where I can look for volunteer opportunities. You go on Google and you're like, I like this one. Check, you're done. That's it. That is the task. Um, but then now tomorrow, you're like, well, I already have the phone number, so why don't I just call them up and see what's going on? Right. Or now that I have the website, why don't I look for the phone number today? And tomorrow I'll give them a call. Um, and a really important part of my journey was being able to learn how to see and appreciate those things because I would do those things and then not give myself credit, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Because you're like, I haven't done anything. So another thing I talk about was catching myself, saying, I didn't do anything today. I didn't do anything today. I would sit down for eight hours at my computer, you know, typing out my book, editing, taking stuff out, moving stuff around, making graphics. I'd be like, I didn't do anything today. And it wasn't until I was able to like put a stop to that and be like, wait a second. Why don't we look at the small, tiny steps? Because it's not about, you know, like winning the Super Bowl. It's about am I am I doing the fundamentals that'll help me get there and help me win? Right. And so gratitude, I'm I'm bringing it all back around to gratitude because gratitude is like, you know, my big thing. Um, I had to learn how to practice, I had to relearn, right? Because it we like you said, um we can fall off track and we gotta get back on. And so practicing gratitude and sitting down and being like, well, I am grateful that I found a place to volunteer today. Um I'm grateful that I was able to get up off the couch and brush my teeth and go on Google, and now I feel accomplished because I don't have ice cream on my shirt anymore. You know, um, yeah, yeah. So I want you to tell me what what part in in what

Gratitude That Starts With The Smallest Wins

SPEAKER_01 14:42

you do gratitude plays. Like, did you find that to be an important part of this whole process?

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Oh, oh, definitely. And uh I have to say about your exam, I loved all of the examples you gave because they were teeny, tiny steps. Those are great. Take them, and they add up. There is a story in the book, it's called a little bit plus a little bit equals a whole lot, and so they add up for time. But as for gratitude, oh yes, uh, but I like the spin you put on it that you're grateful for the things that you accomplished. I'm I don't do one of my lessons is like in life is to learn self-acceptance and self-love. So I'm gonna learn from you, and I'm gonna say, not only am I grateful that all of this happened, but uh some of it I made happen or whatever, I'm gonna try and claim some of it. But there's a story in High On Life called, again, so I'm telling the stories of my life so that others can glean life lessons so that they can see this applies to them too. And it's called uh 30 things to be grateful for at my daughter at my granddaughter's soccer game. Okay. So one of the things, which reminds me of your shirt with without ice cream on it, one of the things that I was grateful for that day was that some other grandma had her shirt on inside out, Nicole, but it wasn't me. And there were, you know, there were just 30 things. I found a parking place at the park. Um, it was a really hot day. None of the little kids passed out from the heat. My daughter came to watch her daughter play, so I got to talk to my daughter, my son-in-law is the coach. I'm grateful that he has a life that allows him to do such a thing. I had 30 things to be grateful for sitting at four for 40 minutes at a soccer game. There's, and then the one-line takeaway, because the book has all these one-line takeaways, is there is always something to be grateful for, always. And we used to do that with our kids at night when they were little, you know, we a spin-on on gratitude. What was your happiest thing of the day? Just to remind them that there were happy things. And sometimes the most famous answer, again, which is a story in High Own Life, but the most famous answer was from my daughter Shayna, who said her happiest thing of the day was chicken and corn. So that was her way of saying chicken. But anyway, chicken and corn. Well, amen. You know, how did we stop to think? I I had oatmeal this morning for breakfast. It happened to be really pretty yummy. I haven't stopped to be grateful for that. And I should be. Some people are hungry, some people have illnesses that don't allow them to eat or taste buds that aren't working. There's so many things to be grateful for. That I'm so thrilled that that's one of your big things. I'm impressed. I'm impressed.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Thank you. Yeah, and like, you know, I learned it in a hard place, and I try to bring it down to the smallest, tiniest little detail that I can. So, like when I think of going to one of my sisters', you know, baseball games, softball games, and she used to play, I imagine thinking about like the green and the grass. Like, I love how green the grass is today. I love how blue the sky looks, or that we have clouds, or that the temperature is not too hot. It's hot, but like it's not like we're boiling a live hot and it's not cold, right? Um, and so trying to bring it down to like even if I don't have anything, if it's not something on me, like what? Because when I I I had lost, I had miscarried my baby, and I had to grab onto something. And I was like, am I gonna, am I just gonna rot away here and just go with her, or am I gonna live? And so I had to find anything to just grab on to be like, you know, start crawling back up. And so that's those tiny, like even I like to say, even like just being grateful for the perfect combination of gases that allows us to breathe. Cause like it's it's perfect. It's like the perfect amount. If there's a little bit more oxygen, we wouldn't be here, a little bit less, we wouldn't be here. So even just the tiniest little things like that, like what is there any any little spark of glimmer? And so I always try to focus in on the smallest thing because you never know where someone is. Um, you know, and so I love that. I love that you mentioned like even just the fact that people are present, that you have someone to look at, that the sun is out, that everybody's with you, and and enjoying those moments, even the oatmeal, right? Because it is so easy to just be like, well, it was just oatmeal, yeah, but it nourished you, and it had pecans in it. Oh my god, it was so delicious, it was delicious, right? Yeah, and so um, you know, high on life, like the way that we destroy apathy, because there's this. I was reading an article about this sensation where it's not depression, but it's just a general meh. Like we are society that has access to everything, anything we can imagine. We have water, we have food, we have everything, and it it can kind of get numb. And it's just this meh, you're just this meh. It's like you're not depressed, but you're not happy. And the way to combat that is gratitude. Like, what what what do you have right here, right now? What is around you that you you can you know you can use um to combat that? Because if not, you're just gonna be dragging yourself through life like meh, like everything. I have a great apartment, but like it sucks because I don't have this McMansion. Like really, you know, so really enjoying right now. And I love I love that that's what your book is about, and I

Having Everything And Still Practicing Self Care

SPEAKER_01 20:51

love that that's like that's your whole thing. It's beautiful. So thank you for sharing that with us.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

Oh, I'm just so thrilled I'm so thrilled we're on the same uh white wavelength with all of that. That's wonderful. I have a lot more uh what notches on my belt for years live than you do. So I'm actually in a place where I feel I have everything. Basically, though, I have to say that the only thing I ever wanted was kids. So I did get kids and I've got 10 grandkids, so I'm really a very fortunate person. But so I'm a little further down the road and I really do have everything. But what do you do? How do you make sure having everything equals happiness? That is still a trick. That is still a trick. And gratitude plays a really big part in it, and which you know allows you to take time and smell the roses along the way and all those kinds of things. All those really trite kinds of uh quotes are just so amazing and have so much to teach us, you know, like you have to nourish to flourish, you know. It's like, oh yeah, you do take care of yourself. So that's I I started off saying to you, that's one of the things that I still struggle with. I'm great at taking care of kids, grandkids, friends. I'm I'm great. I don't do as much for myself. So what would what you know what would it look like if I did more for myself? I'm working on it.

Writing Prompts And The High On Life Journal

SPEAKER_00 22:19

I'm working on it. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

Um now, how can we stay in touch with you? Um, oh, did you I don't remember if we talked about this before? Did you have a gift for the audience or something that we can use to stay in touch with you? I know you mentioned subscribing to your blog.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

Sure, sure, sure. Um, let's see. Uh I hadn't thought of it in terms of a gift, but if uh so High On Life has 36 Lice of Life stories. I never want to proclaim that I have cornered the market on these kinds of stories or on this brand of wisdom or anything like that. You have all these stories too. So at the back of High On Life, there's some blank pages so that if you're inspired by any of these stories, you can write your own stories. And then we just released the High on Life journal, which is 158 blank pages, but it has those one-line takeaways. There's always something to be grateful for. But if you go to my website, which is you just always have to remember my name, Lori Kleiner Eckert, that would find me on Facebook, on Instagram, on uh X, on my website, you'll find me everywhere. Um, if you go to my website and scroll down the home page, there are writing prompts because I think that your inner voice has a lot to tell you and what better to access it than writing. So um, so yeah, so each of the stories in High Own Life, I'm in progress on it. I just posted the 20th one 26 minutes ago at noon. Um the 20th, uh the the 20th set of writing prompts went up on my website. I I think that that is a great gift. Journaling is a way, it's a gift you give yourself, it's a way to be in touch with yourself. And and uh a quote in High On Life is when your when your heart speaks, take good let take good notes. So that's what you're doing when you journal. So yes, laurie kleinerrecker.com, scroll to the bottom of the play page. It says high on life writing prompts at this point in time. There are 20 of them. Every Tuesday there'll be a new set, and I hope everyone loves them.

A Little Bit Plus A Little Bit

SPEAKER_01 24:44

Nice, that is amazing. So thank you so much. And we like to end off with a final quote. So, what is your final tip for the audience for today?

SPEAKER_00 24:53

Oh, well, I said it a uh already once, but I I love it. And it is a little bit, plus a little bit adds up to a whole lot. So you have a friend who um is a trial attorney, father of five, and he also, when his kids were young, wrote a dozen novels. How did he do it? One page a day, each and every day. A novel, an average novel is 350 pages. He wrote 330 and 65 by writing one a day, and has more than a dozen books out. So a little bit plus a little bit equals a whole lot. Those teeny tiny little steps you said you were talking about. Oh my god, do they add up? It's a great life lesson.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

And how do you write one page at a time? One word, one letter at a time. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

You keep bringing me back. I love it. I I say that no step is too small, but you have taught me something. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Oh, I love it. Okay, cool. Awesome. I know we're gonna be good friends. Um, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for joining us today, Lori. And we will catch you guys next time on the next episode of Overcome Yourself the Podcast.