Embracing Your Wonderhell with Laura Gassner Otting

Thank you for tuning in to the True Grit and Grace podcast. I'm Amberly Lago, and I'll be sharing inspirational stories of resilience and empowering ideas to elevate your business and your life, ignite your passion, and fuel your purpose. Welcome to True Grit and Grace. I'm Amberly Lago, and I have such a treat for you. The birthday girl, Laura Gassner Otting, my friend LGO, just flew in town to record and I could not be more excited. And first of all, she is the first returning guest to True Grit and Grace. And I wanted to have her on because she's got something very exciting. As you can see, Wonderhell, her new book is here, but she's an entrepreneur. If you haven't heard that episode in the beginning, One of the first, I think one of the first guests on the show. If you haven't heard that, you will go back and listen to that. You can learn more about her story, but I want to talk about her new book now. She's an entrepreneur. She's an instigator. She's a motivator. In fact, she speaks all over the country. She's a sought-out speaker and got a new TED Talk that went viral. You have to check out her new TED Talk. That's— I've watched it 3 times, just to let you know. I'm not kidding. So her book Limitless was amazing. And I am just excited to dig into your new book. And I have to say, LGO, I was talking to my oldest daughter on the way here and she's like, oh my gosh, she was dying. She's like, please ask her these questions. So I have—

Yes.

I've got a list of questions. I was on auto drive writing out questions for my daughter and I put it in my story also on Instagram. What do y'all want me to ask LGO? So I've got questions Thank you for being here.

Oh, I'm so excited to be here. I'm so excited to be your first return guest. And I'm actually going to now go down the list of all of your previous guests and just systematically take them out so that I will be your only returning guest. That's now my new goal. I didn't know I had that goal in life. That is now my new goal in life. Yes.

Okay. Well, first of all, too, I remember being so nervous to interview you because you're such a big deal.

And that's hilarious because I was so nervous to be interviewed by you because you're such a big deal. And I was like, oh my God, I gotta really get my act together. And then we did it over Zoom and we turned on the camera and you were in your closet.

Oh, I was mortified.

And I was like, thank God she's human. I feel so much better.

Oh, I remember that. I remember the gardeners came and I was like, no, I have to have this sound good. And I remember going, okay, I'm— I am not going to be late for her interview, and I went in the closet and I was like, hi! I mean, I had my hair done, makeup, and I was like, hi, yeah, we're in the closet because the gardeners are here. And I was like—

It was amazing. It was— you did me such a favor by being a human, because then I could be a human. I was so nervous.

It's still one of my favorite interviews.

It was so good. And then I interviewed you for Wonderhell, which was one of my favorite interviews.

Yeah, that's, that is insane. Like that you interviewed me for that. I was telling my daughter about that, my oldest daughter. And of course my youngest daughter's here in the room with us doing B-roll for us. Can we just talk about that TED Talk you just did? That, by the way, it went viral.

It's insane.

It's insane. But it's so freaking good. You texted me the minute it was like, okay, it's live. And I watched it. I've got goosebumps right now, seriously, because it was that good. And on the way here, I'm like, and it was very strategic because you did that TED Talk and you basically talk about Wonderhell, which is coming out. When is your book coming out?

April 4th. So we just launched the pre-order campaign, all the free bonuses and all those things, like last week on my birthday.

Oh, I already signed up. I already got the free bonus. I already got the free bonus. Tell— I love Wonderhell, by the way, and my daughter who's 27 is in Wonderhell right now, and I kind of am too because I'm about to do my first in-person event.

Yes, in North Carolina. Yes.

Tell everybody, what is Wonderhell?

Okay, so you know that moment where you've achieved something, just like the first little bite of success you've had, and it could be a huge thing. Maybe you sold your first company. Amazing. Maybe you just sold your first tube of lipstick, right? It could be any amount of success, and you have this moment where you're like, it's exciting, it's amazing, it's humbling, it's wonderful. The work that you do opens more doors than you ever thought possible. But as you peek through those doors, you also see even more doors that you never thought possible. And suddenly you see this image of who you can be.

Mm-hmm.

This potential. And all of a sudden you're like, oh, maybe I want more. Maybe I can be more. Maybe I could be bigger. And then you're filled with anxiety and uncertainty and, you know, nervousness. It scares you, but it excites you. So it's wonderful, but it's also hell. It's kind of wonder hell. And wonder hell is that space in your psyche where the burden of potential walks in and goes, hey, Amberly, what you got for me?

Hmm.

Are you gonna live into this newfound you that you didn't even know existed last week, last month, last year? Are you gonna let it pass you by? And I believe that you feel your wonder hell directly in relation to your own Imagination, right? So the more of the excitement and ambition you might have, the more you feel that burden of your potential. And here's the joke of the whole thing is that every single one of us always at every moment in time is in wonder help, 'cause we're constantly standing with one foot in yesterday and one foot in tomorrow. And so we're always in this place where we're like, this is who I was and now I've just figured out who I can be.

Mm-hmm.

So now what do I do?

Oh yeah. And I relate to that. I remember when I got asked to do my TED Talk and it was on my bucket list. It was something I would— I dreamed of doing.

But you thought you'd do it later when you had more practice, when you're— and all of a sudden it's right there.

Well, you and I, I think for— it was my first time on stage.

The one I just did was my second TEDx, but the first one was my first time on stage also.

Yeah.

And it's so funny. And it's terrifying, but also exciting.

It is. But also I have I have to say, like, you and I, we're so much alike in so many ways because even our TED Talk, our very first TED Talks, it was our first time. We are wearing like identical dresses.

Yes.

I swear. And we're both still— we're all kind of like—

And we're talking like a TED Talker.

We are a TED Talker.

Yes.

Let me do this just right. Yes. And the difference between your first and second, oh my God.

I've gotten a PhD in speaking basically between— well, and it's funny because that first talk, I mean, yours got way more attention than mine. My first talk is something like 14,000 views and this current one will have a million views by the end of the month. I mean, it's just—

It's exploded.

But the difference—

Tell us the title of that talk. Why Success Doesn't Make You Happy or Bring Happiness or something like that.

Yes, Why Success Doesn't Bring— something like that. Why Success Doesn't Equal Happiness or Bring Happiness.

Which is great.

The title is great because Success is a keyword.

People are always looking for success and people are always looking for happiness. And so you listening, if you've ever wanted to do a TED Talk, I think my mistake with mine, I did not— you know, people search titles of things, whether it's on YouTube or a TED Talk. You nailed it. People want success and people want happiness. And they also are like, I'm successful, but why am I not happy? Or when I get successful, will I find happiness?

Right. I am successful. Why aren't I happy? Well, my first talk was called Stop Asking, How Can I Help? And lots of people Google, how can I help, about stuff. But it had to be— the title had to be good, but it also had to be super compelling in the beginning. And my first talk, I walk out on stage and I start telling my story, whereas the second talk, I walk out on stage and I ask a question of the audience that immediately connects their story. And I think that's a pretty big difference. Nobody wants to know your story. They wanna know their story. And so even though I tell my story during it, I start by talking about that. Now, yours is so compelling because it's such an outsized story that you can't help but look at it.

It was kind of a train wreck or a motorcycle wreck.

A motorcycle wreck, right. I mean, even this morning, when I was telling you, I'm talking to a speakers bureau, like, you need to have Amberly on more stages. And I told the story and I could see in the beginning they were like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, another speaker. And then I described the story and you could see them sitting up in their chair like, oh, oh, tell me more.

Thank you for that, by the way.

Well, they all have to support each other. That's how we succeed, right? That's how we get there.

And that is what you and I have become friends and done. We call ourselves the Legendary Ladies.

I mean, come on. Absolutely. I mean, truer words have never been spoken.

That's right. That's right.

But you know, there's 2 different kinds of people in the world, right? You've got people who have that abundance mindset, Where I know that if I'm on a stage, it's my job when I get off the stage to tell them about you. And when you're on a stage, I don't look at that and say, oh, that's one gig I didn't get because she got. I just go, great, she's going to recommend me when she gets off the stage.

Sure.

But then there are these people who have this scarcity mindset. And you know they're sitting in the corner, and they're keeping score, and they're taking notes. And they're only judging your rise by seeing their own stagnation. And there's smiles in the front, but they're all knives in the back. And we know them, we know them. You can see them. They're the ones who smile with their mouth but not their eyes, right?

Yeah.

It is so lovely to be in this place in my life where I know that I can reach out to you and be like, hey, Amberly, I need your advice on something. And I know you're gonna give it to me from your full heart. And I just, I think that's the only way to get through wonder hell is to have people in your life who are on that ride with you.

That is, I think, the most— and for me, what has helped me the most get through Wonder Hill is because I think when you're in Wonder Hill, it can be very lonely. You can feel like you're the only one going through it and you reach a certain level of success. And then who do you reach out to? And you have to find your people. And so when we found each other, I was like, thank goodness. Like, I, you know, it's so nice to be able to recommend each other, ask each other questions, ask for guidance, all those things.

I just know that, like, if I ask you a question, you're going to tell me all the details. You ask me a question, I'm going to tell you all the details. Like, I'm not going to fudge around numbers. I'm not going to pretend that something's something it's not. I'm just going to tell you, like, oh, you like my new website? I built it myself with Squarespace. Like, I'm not gonna be like, oh, I've got this fancy this and this fancy that. I'm just gonna tell you because I don't know, like, what's the— life is too short.

I think last time you were in Dallas, I went to go see— you were speaking at a huge event.

Yeah, that 5,000-person event at the Gaylord Conference Center. That was insane.

We went and sat and, and just talked and talked, and it really helped me because there were some things that was going on with some business stuff I was doing. And you were like, oh no, that's a no. That's a no. And when you have friends in your life that you're like, you know, in your gut, you know what the answer is, but you can ask those questions and like, oh, that's a no. And so I think it's so important for people to reach out. I think what helps build that connection is that you can be authentically yourself and you can be vulnerable. And I can tell tell you what's going on. That helps you get through Wonder Hill.

So the book is wrapped around this idea of an amusement park. Because like, you think amusement parks are going to be fun. You go and you're having a great time. You're gonna go on all the rides. You're gonna eat all the food. And then it's like 3 o'clock in the afternoon and the sun is beating down on you and you're dehydrated and a little bit sunburned and that corn dog in your stomach is like not so happy. And you're waiting in line for the roller coaster and you're like, I thought this was gonna be fun. Why isn't this fun? Success is kind of the same way. Like, you get to a certain level and you're like, I thought this was gonna be fun. Why is it just getting harder? Every level brings a new devil.

Yeah.

So the book is, it's arranged around these 3 towns, like you're at an amusement park. There's Impostor Town, there's Doubtsville, and then there's Burnout City. And so in each town, there are different rides. So the roller coaster is about things being uncertain, and the bumper cars are when you get knocked off course, and the merry-go-round is maybe you wanna take some time and like, Just stay where you are and not keep growing. But the Ferris wheel is one of my favorites because, you know, you get on the Ferris wheel and you're like hanging out with your friends. You go all the way to the top and you can see the whole park. You can see all the people and you get this perspective. And you keep going down to the bottom. You say hi to your friends and then you go back up to the top and you see all the perspective and you go back down. And each time you're like, do I— are these really my friends? Are these really the people I should be with? Like, there are people in our lives who belong there for the long term. You've known them forever and they belong in your life forever. And then there are people in your life who you've known forever, but maybe they're part of your history and not part of your future. And so I love this idea that every time you climb to a new height, it's not that you're better than people 'cause you're higher, but you get this perspective on all these other people and who is there bringing you forward? Who is there bringing joy? Who is there being additive to your life? And who's kind of sucking the energy out? Who are those energy vampires, those sort of toxic people that you just, you come down and you're just like, you know what?

Bye. Yeah. And also, I think too, um, when you do reach certain levels of success, you have people that start to come out of the woodwork and they're like, oh, hey, I want to help you with this thing and I could really be there. And then you find out they're, they're not there to really help you. They're ready. They're just wanting to take something from you. Yes. I I am such a giver and I love helping people. And I can't tell you, I've learned actually the hard way that I've been burned a few times. So how do you distinguish and then maybe set some boundaries around people who are the energy vampires? What do you do?

So I call them like the long-lost uncles, you know, like you win the lottery and like, hey, I'm your long-lost uncle so-and-so, you know, like they're not, They're not really your uncle. But here's the thing. I think that you can be somebody who— I grew up in a house where the overarching idea was if you're not screwing someone, you're getting screwed.

Oh.

Okay, fine. That's aggressive and it's a very combative way to grow up. And I'm very confrontation averse probably because of that. I think I'd rather love hard and just go forth fully open-hearted and get screwed a few times than to walk through life really guarded. So I don't know that I would say that I have boundaries, but I do have a long memory. So, you know, screw me once, shame on you. Screw me twice, shame on me, right?

Yeah.

I think I would rather be burned every once in a while than not be warmed by the fire for the majority of the time.

So I have a question, uh, with— since we're on the topic of relationships, um, that my oldest daughter wanted to know. Okay, like, she's probably gonna get mad that I said it's her. She goes, ask for a friend.

It's a friend of my oldest daughter.

It's a friend of my oldest daughter, but my— she's very I mean, she's—

Apple tree. Makes sense.

Well, thank you. I won't say what has just recently happened, but it's huge. She's at Yale right now and she's got 2— like, if you would get one of these opportunities, it's huge. She's been given 2 opportunities. I won't say it yet because I want to get her permission before I do that. But she's very high achiever. She's done so well. She's also in a relationship. And so how do you balance your drive and this wanting to go after your big dreams, but you also have a relationship and you want to— what do you do? When's enough enough? When do you stop going after all that success and go, oh, wait a minute, here you are? Or how do you create balance? I don't even know if I asked that question right, but it's, I mean, I understand that because even for me traveling a lot for speaking events, I mean, I just got back in town last night and I was out of town the week before, the week before that. Like it's been a lot. And I, and you know, my husband kiddingly, he better be kidding.

Yeah.

But he's like, I'm going to find myself a waitress.

And I'm like, I'm going to find myself an attorney. Yeah. Right.

I'm going to find an attorney. You better watch that. But it's hard when you're going forward and all these— you're achieving this, and then you're like, oh, but I need to give it— I want to give attention to my spouse or my partner or my boyfriend or girlfriend. How do you do that, handle that, balance that?

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. When my husband and I got married, and we'll be married 25 years in March, the guy who married us, a judge, he actually had us— we didn't write our vows. He wrote our vows for us, but he wrote our vows from a letter that he asked us to write to each other separately. And he wanted us to write about how we met, what love means to us, how we knew the other one was the one, right? Like what we sort of expect our lives to be together. And I don't remember much about my letter or the vows, but I do remember saying on my wedding day that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him because he made me a better version of who I am.

Hmm.

He didn't make me into somebody else. He didn't put up with who I was. but he made me a better version of me. So I don't know if this is about balance between your love life and your work life. It's about alignment, right? It's about, is the person that I'm with, does he or she make me a better version of who I am? They're not asking me to turn to somebody else, but do they make me a better version of me? Like, I know that I'm smarter, that I'm funnier, that I'm more empathetic. I know that I am deeper when I'm with my husband or when I'm doing something. My husband's read 2 personal development books in his entire life, and they've been both of mine.

Right?

He will read them before it goes to the— he'll say to me, I will read it once. Just tell me when you need me to read it. Because he hates personal development.

He hates it. Our husbands would probably get along really well because my husband is just— he's like, that's not my thing. I am not going to read the personal development. That's your thing. You go off and do that thing.

My husband's like, I will read it one time. You tell me what one time that should be. So if you want it early, if you want it late. So literally, he's the last reader before it goes off. to the publisher. But knowing he's going to read it, I'm writing it thinking like, this can't be a bunch of motivational BS, right? Like, it's gotta be something that he would read also. And I've worked in the White House. I've briefed the President of the United States in the Oval Office. I've been in the C-suite of every major corporation in the world. But when my husband tells me he's proud of me, that's like— I know that I've done something well. Like, he's—

It matters.

My husband and my kids, that's it. Those are the— that's it. And I think a lot of times, especially when we're young, we look for approval from so many people. So I guess I would say for anybody who's trying to figure out like, how do I manage being a go-getter and also being in a relationship? The person you're in a relationship with should love you for being that go-getter. And if they resent you or if they are jealous or if they miss you, like our husbands say that, but they're joking. They're so proud of us. They would never want us not to do the thing we're doing. Also though, I realized years ago when my husband and I were first dating, we ended up in a long-distance relationship. And so when we would spend the weekend together, it was like 100%, we were all in weekend, totally focused. And then several years ago, I was in Las Vegas. I was having lunch right after doing a keynote and I realized I live in the same house as my husband. We're in the same bedroom, we share the same bed, and yet I'm in a long-distance relationship with him because I'm still gone once a week, every other week. So why don't I spend the time that we spend together fully focused and present? You and I are friends, we're in a long-distance relationship, but when I'm with you, we focus and we talk to each other. So every relationship we're in, whether it's your boyfriend, your girlfriend, whether you're young, whether you're, you know, your, your parents, your, your spouses, We're all in long-distance relationships. So I think the way to have the alignment is to make sure that that person, whatever their love language is, like, be so present with them in that moment. And then they don't resent us when we're doing our thing.

That's so good. You know, I just had that realization also this weekend because, yeah, because I flew to LA. I was using my friend's studio. Um, to record a virtual event, to speak at a virtual event, because they have a beautiful place. And, and afterwards, I, you know, I stayed a day later to spend time with her and I was fully present and we went to lunch, we went for walks, we talked, we stayed, and it felt so good. It was like really connecting. I was not on my phone a lot. I was just like fully in it with her. And I thought, this is how I need to be.

Yes. So when you go home, that's how you should be with your husband or with your kids or with your friends or whoever you're with. And it's hard. It's so hard because that phone is constantly like, pay attention, pay attention. Yes.

But that, that's such good advice.

So I treat all my relationships as long-distance relationships now, even if they're in the same house as me.

Okay. Let me ask you some more questions. Okay. Listeners, we've got a few questions from Instagram. Okay. One of the questions, it's about limits. I think it's someone who read your Limitless book. Teach people how to ignore Ignore rules that create limits in life. How do you ignore those limits that other people put on you or that you put on yourself?

Oh, so I believe very strongly that all of us have this lie that we tell ourselves, and that lie is, people won't like the me if I'm the me I really want to be. Okay. Here's the thing.

They won't.

That part's not the lie. The part is that those people actually matter. We give so much weight to the opinions of people who don't actually matter. There have been times where I've ran into a random stranger at a coffee shop. I mean, somebody I haven't seen in 20 years, and I'll tell them what I'm doing, and they'll be like, oh no, you can't do that. That's too scary. And I think, oh my God, I can't do that. It's too scary. But what they really mean is, I'm I can't do that. I'm too scared. But yet that little seed of doubt takes place in my brain and it becomes this cancerous little node and it grows and it grows. And then as soon as something goes wrong, I'm like, oh, that high school friend I had was right. Okay. That high school friend I had has never been right about a thing in his entire life. And yet I've given him power over my dreams. Why am I doing that? Or my parents. The last time I lived in the same house as my parents, I was 17 years old. The milk carton's back in the fridge on empty, but the car back in the garage, you know, even emptier. And the radio was, of course, up on full. So I, like, when I tell my parents what I'm doing, they give me their opinions. And my parents love me, but they don't know me. Last week I posted, you know, Wonder Hell's coming out, and I posted this video of myself. You saw, I'm like sitting on top of my desk and I'm wearing overalls and I am housing a sheet cake.

Eating a sheet cake.

Like from the center.

So did they say something about that?

They didn't. But another speaker that I know called me a As soon as I put that video up and said, Laura, you gotta take that down.

What?

That's so off-brand. Everything you put up, you're so polished, you're so put together, and there you are. I've never seen you in overalls ever. And you're like, hey y'all. He's like, I've never heard you say y'all. I'm like, I say y'all all the time. I went to University of Texas, right? Like, he was like, that's so off-brand. And I'm like, no, you— I know that you—

What's so off-brand about you?

There's never been anything more on brand than me housing a sheet cake in a pair of overalls.

Well, yeah. And one of the things that I really, love about you is from, from when, from years ago when I first started following you on Instagram, is that you keep it real, that you will get on camera. You did a video when you were going through all your skin stuff and you got on video and you're like, this is how you have to put on makeup.

I look like the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

It was bad. But you were like, this is what I have to do. But you know what? It shows other people That, you know what, you're, you're human. We all go through stuff, but you weren't gonna let that stop you from using your voice, from getting on camera, from doing your interviews, from doing what you had to do. You're like, yeah, this is it. This is what I have to do right now. And look at you now.

I mean, look at you and look at your leg, right? You get up on camera and you put it right up there in front, and it is like, here I am. I make my mess my message, right? As Robin Roberts says. I mean, I think that's so important, especially when on the outside world everybody sees success. So for them to see what it actually takes and what's really real and what's really hard. But when he called me and he said that, I thought for a second, I was like, oh, is it off brand? Should I take it down? And even though I had so much joy in that moment and I had 100 people immediately like, oh my God, that's the greatest thing ever. I love it. And like, people know me. Like, I've been to the fanciest restaurants all over the world. There's nothing I like better than nasty supermarket sheet cake. Like the nastier, like the kind that when you like eat the icing, you can like feel the sugar granules. Yeah, like, I mean, I love it. I love it. And I was eating it like, I was, I ate like from the center. And then I had a second sheet cake at dinner for, yeah.

I saw, I called you.

I mean, I love me some sheet cake. So when he said that, I was like, You know, actually, it is who I am. And so I wrote back to him and I was like, well, number one, I didn't ask for your opinion.

Good for you.

Number two, you're wrong. And number three, people actually love me more because of the sheet cake. And people every year are like, where's the sheet cake? Like, it's a thing. But for a moment I thought, maybe he's right. Maybe I should take it down. And then I remembered, I don't actually care. He doesn't actually know me. Who does know me? Who does love me? Who does, you know, know where I'm going and see me for who I fully am? What's their opinion? And when I ask for their opinion, then suddenly I don't have those limits that other people are putting on me. He wanted to limit me with his idea of who I should be in the world. Sorry, I'm just going to be me in the world.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think sometimes, a lot of times, well, a lot of times people that are the closest to us that, you know, like they've never written a book and they are like, oh, write a book. That's a lot. You're going for New York Times bestseller? Well, who do you think you are?

Oh, I love that.

Who do you think you are?

They think you're too big for your britches. I had somebody say, you charge a lot of money for your speeches. Maybe you should charge less at first and get some— do a little more. A lot of us have been in the grease for a long time. Maybe you should— It was the kind of like, who do you think you are sort of thing. And I was like, who do I think I am? I think I'm somebody who stands on stage in the center of my excellence based on 30 years of hard work that you didn't see me do. That's who the hell I think I am.

Hell, mic drop on that right now.

And every one of us does work in the dark, those hard hours that nobody sees. And then they question what they see in public?

No.

It's years.

It's years. Do they know who you are? Apparently they, they don't.

But here's the thing, most everybody's statements and opinions that they have about somebody else has more to do with themselves, right?

I wish I was sitting there when they said that. I would just go, do you know who she is? Because I mean, seriously, the years of experience that you have had. And, and the thing is, and I've had people That have actually asked me, they're like, well, you know, I don't know what you do. Like, how do you make money? And I'm like, do you realize I've been coaching for 20—

How do you make money? The answer is by the fistful. But here's the thing, like that guy who said like, oh, you gotta take that cake eating photo down. Like I said, well, you know what the sub 1A is to the one I didn't ask is the sub 1A, I don't care. And by the way, the sub 1B is, and thank you for giving me fodder for my next blog post, my next podcast, My next chapter. Like, yes, thank you. I'm gonna use this story now. Thank you very much. I'm gonna make money off of your ignorance, 'cause that's how we do.

But, you know, I love that you have that confidence that you're like, I am gonna take the experience and I'm gonna ask for what I'm worth.

And, you know, 'cause I'm 52 now and I like to call them the FU 40s. Took me a while, but I got through the FU 40s. It's my mother. My mother calls them the FU 40s. She's like, you know what? I'm pretty much who I am. I may get a little better if I'm lucky. I'll probably get a little bit worse. I'll go to school when people give me feedback on stuff that's real.

Yeah.

And I'll work on it. But for the most part, it's kind of who I am at this point.

And what would you tell to somebody who maybe it's they want to be a speaker, maybe it's they want to be a coach, maybe it's they want to write a book and they don't quite have that confidence? What's your first advice to give to them so they can start building their confidence?

I would ask them what they know in their life based on what they've either studied or researched or what they've lived. What do they know, right? So you know that it's important for you to show up as your full self. You know the importance of grit. You know the importance of the grace of God. You know the importance of these things based on your life experience, right? You could not have written that book before your accident. You would have written a totally different book. You couldn't have written that book. And Once you think about what do you know based on your life experience, did you grow up poor? Did you grow up rich? Did you grow up all over the world? Did you grow up in a small town? What do you know? All of us have a story. What you need to do is you need to take that story and then tell it in a way that other people can see themselves in the story. So, one of the things that I learned in 20 years of doing executive search, my job was to sit people down and find out their story. So I had the great privilege and the great burden of hearing people, like when I would ask a question like, how did you get good at crisis communications? People would say, well, you know, I had this one woman who said to me, and I remember I was interviewing her in the Harvard Club in New York. It was this very stodgy, old, pale, stale male type place, and we were eating club sandwiches or something and flat Coke, and I was interviewing her for a job for, this is before 9/11, but she had worked at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, And I said, how'd you get so good at crisis communication? And she put her fork down and she looked at me and she said, my dad was a drunk growing up. And I never knew on Friday night if he'd come home with an envelope of cash, a bag of groceries, or a broken gin bottle that he'd whip at my head. You get pretty good at handling crises.

Wow.

And I spent 20 years getting to hear stories like that. Everyone has a story, at least one story that make us who we are. And so if you wanna write a book, if you wanna speak, if you wanna coach, think about, like, don't do book reports on other people's lives.

Yeah.

And my friend Scott McCain calls them book reports. Don't do book reports on other people's lives. What do you know? Because when you talk about what you know from the center of your experience, you find the center of your excellence and it becomes, your confidence becomes contagious because you can't help but be confident in your own story. It's something you know better than anything else on earth.

It's so true. You know, I was just coaching someone through their keynote. It's so wild because I get so caught up on my keynotes and like, what should I, how should I open? What should I say? And my law, but somebody else, I love solving other people's problems.

It's so much easier than my own.

And just, I can nail out their keynote, like pull, especially if I know them well, especially I can say, you need to tell that story, that right there, you need to do that. I mean, it's like, it's so much fun for me and I can, And so I was giving them input for their keynote. They were practicing it for me and I was taking notes and giving feedback. And she's like, yeah, yeah. But you know, if I get up there and I mess up on my transitions, I'm like, always go back to your truth.

Yes.

I said, I told her, you know, your story, your truth. I said, if you fumble or whatever, just stick to your truth. You know, your story that will give you the confidence no matter what, who cares if the slides mess up. Go back to your truth. Just keep, you know.

And, you know, it's really convenient when your truth is that your life is imperfect, because then if you mess up on your slides, it's part of your truth. It's part of your story. It's okay. It's actually compelling.

I was given a keynote, and, uh, it was the first time, by the way, that I ever had to do my own headset and put my everything on. And apparently I didn't do it very well because I'm on stage and it came off. And so in the middle, I was talking about things don't always go as planned, and I rolled that right into it.

Nice. See, you're a professional.

And it's like, just put it back on, whatever. But, but yeah, just being yourself, then it— people get to know you more anyway.

You know, when I saw you in Dallas, I think I told you I was about to go on stage and tell a story I'd never told before, and it was a story about being really sick in 2021. So as you know, in 2021, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that 800 people in the entirety of the United States have ever been diagnosed with. So, you know, you don't wanna be the interesting patient. You never wanna be the interesting patient. But I, for 4 months, would walk in the doctor's office stripped down naked, and they'd be like, interesting. You're like, yeah, great. Could you heal me? Could you fix me? And if you had asked me in March of 2021 if I'd be sitting here right now in February of 2023, I would not have put a dollar on it. I would not have bet any money. And our friend Erin King was like, you gotta tell that story on stage. And I'd never told the story before. And I got up and I told that story on stage. And that was my first ever standing ovation.

Wow.

'Cause I stood in my truth of this imperfect, unpolished, uncertain life. But I think we think that if you're on stage, you have to be perfect and polished and have all the answers. But the truth is that every day I get up, and even though I wrote a book about living outside of other people's limits, I still had that guy telling me I shouldn't be eating cake on social media. It happens. It's constant.

Yeah, it is like we can hear good things or see all the great comments and blah, blah, blah, but the one—

Oh, I know. I can tell you by heart my 1-star reviews on Amazon. Can I tell you about the hundreds of 4 and 5-star reviews?

No. Oh yeah.

But I can tell you by heart the people who say that I'm a clown cliché and that I'm not funny or that I think I'm funnier than I am. That was one of my favorites. But that's the thing about Wonderhell is that every time we get to that next level, there's a whole new devil.

Yeah.

It just gets harder. And what's interesting about Wonderhell is when I was in Wonderhell, I interviewed 100 different glass ceiling shatters, Olympic medalists, startup unicorns. And here's what I learned. Every one of them at every single level, even if they've had a 40-year career and they're starting their like 5th company, They still have the same imposter syndrome and doubt and uncertainty and burnout as all the rest of us. So what I realized is that there's like, it doesn't go away. You just have to learn how to get comfortable being uncomfortable.

Yeah, which is sometimes hard.

It's hard, but if you know it's part of the process and you know—

That's it. If you know it's a part of the process and you're like, oh, okay, there's that uncomfortable feeling again.

Yes, like I talked about in the TEDx, right? It's a screaming voice inside your head going, you haven't done this before. And really what it's saying is, it's the cheerleader going, you haven't done this before. So you're changing it from being this governor sort of stopping you from doing things to being the cheerleader. It's not a limitation, it's an invitation. And if you change your interpretation of the feeling, like, you know, when you get on stage, that fear and nervousness is the same feeling as excitement. It manifests in your body exactly the same way.

Mm-hmm.

So if you say to yourself, I'm not nervous, I'm excited. It changes how you feel about the emotion. If you say, oh, this isn't me hitting the wall, this is me breaking through the portal to the next step, it changes how you experience the feeling.

That's so true. It's just that flip in the script.

Yeah, so success doesn't feel like we think it should, 'cause we think it's gonna get easier, but it gets harder 'cause you get that bigger hunger, that faster pace, that burden, that harder burden of the bigger potential.

And I tell you, like, I think, what is wrong with me sometimes?

I have that feeling hourly.

Because I'm like, oh my gosh, I just, you know, I know how hard it is to write. For me, it was hard to write a book. I know you wrote Limitless in like 6 weeks.

I did. I wrote Limitless in 6 weeks, but it took me 25 years and 6 weeks to come up with it. It took me 2 years to write Wonderhell because I'd been working on that for 25 years and not even realizing it. But Wonderhell, I had to start from scratch.

Yeah. Well, that was actually what I was going to ask you. Because you started doing interviews. I didn't know you had this plan.

I didn't know I had this plan either.

Because you were doing interviews during COVID and I got to be one of your interviews. And it was interesting for me to be interviewed by you because you said something during that interview that I had never thought about, that it was like every— like as you were asking me questions, I was like, yeah, when I was laying in the middle of the street, the first thought I had was, oh, I might have to train clients on crutches. And then other things I said, you're like, oh, so you're always thinking of other people or something. I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was like, ooh, she is— ooh, could you be my therapist?

Well, I mean, that's the professional hazard of being a headhunter, right? Is that you're always trying to figure out people's stories. And then if I were interviewing you for a job and I was presenting you to my clients, I would be like, she's always thinking about other people. Interesting. Then I would go into the reference check stage and I would be asking all the people I'm doing reference checks on you to find out how that works really well and how it builds culture and how it helps people and how maybe sometimes it gets in your way and it creates some self-harm and maybe it creates burnout. So I would look at that and I'd be like, let's just scratch that. Let's pull on the thread and let's see if there's more there or if it's just this good thing. So I've spent 20 years listening to what people say and what they don't say. And then you'd sort of take that and you sort of figure it out. So in headhunting, you spend about an hour to an hour and a half interviewing someone. Well, these are for like C-suite positions of like major organizations. So—

You can tell I've never had a C-suite position.

I hadn't either. I'd only sat in the— yeah, but this will blow your mind. You probably spend 18 to 24 hours in the reference check. Like I will do references and, and I would keep a reference on the phone for like 30 to 45 minutes. It's not just like, did they work there? Were they good? I spent almost as much time with a reference as I do with the candidate when I was recruiting because that's when— the person who shows up at 9:00 AM on a Monday is not the one who shows up at 3:00 AM on a Tuesday when all hell breaks loose. You want to really know who the person is and past his prologue. So when Limitless came out, I had posted something on Facebook. I'd been doing the speaking event in Vancouver. And I was one of 5 speakers, and the 5th speaker was Malala. Like Malala, Malala, right? Like, you know, cool, right?

What year was this?

This was 2019. And the book had been out for like 3 weeks. This is maybe like my 9th keynote of my life. And I'm one of the opening speakers for Malala. That's on a Friday. On the Saturday morning is my goddaughter's bat mitzvah. So like, I can't miss Malala. I can't miss the bat mitzvah, right? You want to talk about balance between the go-getter. So I take a red-eye, and I'm too old for red-eyes, right? Red-eyes are rough.

Oh yeah.

You only take them if you really— I take one every 3 years, 4 years if I have to. So I'm on this red-eye, and I'm sandwiched in the seat, in the center seat in coach. It was the last seat I could possibly get, and I'm not falling asleep. So I open up at 4 in the morning, I open up my laptop, and I type out this screed of a Facebook post at 7:00 AM Eastern time. And it's something like it's 7:00 AM or maybe it's 1:00 AM or maybe it's 4:00 AM. I don't even know anymore, but I'm 1,200 miles from where I'm going and 1,200 miles from where I was. And all I know is that the space I'm in right now is wonder hell. And I wrote this in 2019 and I talked about how—

That was 2019?

2019. And I talked about how—

Well, I've heard you interviewed where you talk about being on that red-eye and being in between.

Yes.

So that, it was 2019. That was when you realized it was wonder hell.

And then 3 of my friends, one of them said, 'cause I said like, I've done this big media. I've done this. It's really exciting, but what else could I do? It's opened up my eyes to possibilities that I didn't even know was available to me. I didn't even know it was a possibility. I didn't know anybody. That's for me? Now, how much more can I do? I got hungry. I realized that I had ambition. I had ego that I didn't even know existed. And once it was there, I needed to feed it. I needed to shove more sheet cake into it. I needed to feed it. But I didn't do anything with it. And then when the pandemic hit, I was like, maybe this is a good time to figure out how to get out of wonder hell. So I started— what happened was during the pandemic, I just went live every day. That's when you saw me with the stuff. Every day at 10:00 AM, I went live. And then I got sick.

How many times did you do that?

Oh, I did it every day for like 2 months.

Really?

And then I got really sick of my own voice and my own story. And I was like, I should just talk to friends. So then I invited people like you to join me. And then I was like, well, maybe I'll ask them about this moment that if they've had this moment. And then it just sort of grew into all of these conversations that I was like, there are themes here. And what's interesting about the themes is that—

And it doesn't matter if you're my daughter's age, 27, or my age, 50, that it— there— you can be in Wonderhell.

Every one of us at every moment in time is caught between yesterday and today and tomorrow and who we're gonna be and who we have been. And we are constantly evolving creatures. And that was one of the— I thought I was gonna— I literally thought I was gonna figure out how to get out of Wonderhell. And then it was like 30 or 40 interviews in where I was like, there's not an answer. There's not a way out. We just have to learn to plan for it and be excited by it and to grow from it and to anticipate it, right? To see it as this portal rather than a finite step. I'm going to finally get to the thing that's going to be it. And you're an athlete, I'm an athlete. Anytime, if you say, I want to run A 4-hour marathon, the minute you run a 3:59, you're like, maybe I could run a 3:40-something. We're never done. And it's not saying you gotta keep going and going. This isn't a hustle harder, bro. This is a how do we figure out our true potential and live into that with everything we have? That's what I'm trying to figure out.

And yeah, and another question my daughter asked was, when's enough enough?

Yes, yes. And I think that— I think it depends on each one of us individually. So I'm spending the next 4 months basically living on an airplane, living on an airplane, and it's gonna be rough. And then we're going on a family vacation at the end of June into the first week of July, and I've already told my family I'm going to limp onto that plane. Like, I'm gonna crawl onto that plane. It's gonna be ugly.

Mm-hmm.

But I'm giving it everything I have right now. I wanna make a list. I want it to be big. I want wonderhell to be in the Merriam-Webster's. I want it to be like a new word that everyone's like, I'm in wonderhell. Like, it's a thing we actually— it's a feeling we didn't realize that there was a word for, and here it is. And the only way to do that is to go hard right now. But after I do that, the season ends.

Mm-hmm.

And then I have time.

Mm-hmm.

Right? So my son's going away to college, and we're gonna spend the summer just— I'm gonna just— I just hug on him every moment I have. So I think, when is enough enough? When is enough right now? And does this fit into your life right now? And it's like, you don't need to be dating Mr. Right. You need to be dating Mr. Right Now until you're ready for Mr. Right. It's seasons. So I think looking at life as a sort of very long thing changes that question from how much is enough to what's right for right now.

I love that. What's right for right now. Because I have had my husband go, you know, when he sees me actually really physically limping when I get home from an event, he's like, it scares him. I think he doesn't want to see me in pain or whatever.

Because he can't fix it.

He can't fix it. And he's like, and he's actually said to me, when is enough enough? I mean, you're going and going and going, and when's enough enough? And I'm like, It's a season. And I am so grateful I have these opportunities and it brings me joy. And yeah. And so—

There's a ride in Wonderhell in the 3rd section that's called Burnout City. That's the merry-go-round.

I was gonna ask you about that.

And you know, the merry-go-round is like slow and it's peaceful and you chill out. And I actually interviewed your fellow podcaster, Jordan Harbinger. And, you know, he's been given every opportunity in the world to like grow his show even bigger. He was like, you know, kids spell love T-I-M-E. And he said, my kids are little and there are only gonna be so many days where I'm gonna be able to like, hey, let's skip school on Tuesday and drive to Disney World before they're like, you old fart, I don't wanna spend time with you. Right? He's like, I wanna take that time now. And he's like, so he was saying that he gets to interview people who are in these moments where like they've just launched a book, they've just launched a new business. Like they're in the season of growth. And so he talks to them and he asks them what's going on. And then they say to him like, well, where's your book and where's your course and where's your this and where's your that? And he's like, I don't wanna do it because what he finds out from all of them is that they're all so miserable in these moments. So I fully expect the next 4 months to be exhausting and kind of miserable, but I'm also building something that I know for the next 4 years will pay dividends.

It's so true. And that's how it was when I wrote my book. I mean, I had no idea what doors it would— it opened a lot of doors for me. And I really, I had no idea that I would be invited on the Today Show.

Right.

With doctors, and you were all over. Yeah. But I just— it was a season and I wanted to go. And I was traveling all over the book signings all across the country. And same thing, I was like, I am going for it. This is my chance. I'm going for it.

There is a window when the world pays attention to you and you have to grab it.

That's right.

But obviously there are moments, right? So if I got a call from my son being like, I miss you and I'm having a problem with this, I would cancel a thing. I'll be on the next plane. There are things that rise above your health, right? There are moments. There are moments. I mean, right after I finished housing that cake, I drove to my doctor's office because I thought I was having a relapse of this autoimmune disease. And I was—

Was it the cake?

No, it wasn't the cake. Although when I was at his office, he's like, so, you know, you do have some inflammation. You should probably watch your sugar. And I was like, yeah, about that.

'Cause I swear, if I eat cake, sugar, anything, it flares my nerve. It flares the nerve disease up.

I definitely paid the price for it. I definitely paid the physical price. I won't say it wasn't worth it.

Yeah.

I wouldn't do it again every single week, but I do like cake. But I went and he was like, so are you happy? Do you have additional stress? How's your diet? And I was like, well, I've got a lot of stress. My diet's crap. I've been drinking cocktails all weekend. I'm like, yeah, yeah, okay. So there are puts and takes. So if I wanna continue doing this for the season, I have to not eat any more cake. I gotta watch the sugar. I gotta watch the alcohol.

And your athleticism, I think, do you think that helps with that? Because I know for me, when I am in a season of traveling, like I just got back from 4 different speaking events, I prepare for it like I'm preparing for my next track meet. I, and I know when you were about to do your TED Talk, you were like eating clean. You're like, my arms are going to be so ripped for this. And they were. And the thumbnail for your TED Talk, by the way, Yes, they picked that.

They picked that thumbnail with my arms. Yes, I mean, that was, I think that's part of why it went viral, 'cause it's this very powerful, it's a power pose, right?

It is a power pose.

But I do, and I think that's, so here's, you know, it's funny, because I'm sort of formulating this answer as we're talking about it. My answer to when is enough enough is when it puts the rest of your life in harm's way. When you can't do the workouts, when you can't watch the diet, when you can't, like, if there's a drinking issue, right? Like, if the other things that you're trying to watch in your life that allow all the systems to work, if you can't pay attention to those, that's probably when enough is enough, because that's just, once the ship turns off course, at least for me, it turns off course pretty hard. Like, I'm either eating clean, I'm exercising every day, or I'm housing sheet cake. There's not really a lot in between. So if I've lost control over the parts of my life that allow me to refill my battery, good food, good nutrition, good sleep, good relationships, then the rest of it, I don't— good hydration, right? Then the rest of it, it doesn't matter because I'm not going to get on stage and perform well. You can't get on stage and perform well if you're limping. You can't get on stage and perform well if you're distracted by the pain. You can't do it.

Yeah, exactly. And so I think that is so important for so many people to hear that enough is enough when The ship is going the opposite. You're going from eating clean, living your best life, watching what you eat. You're skipping your workout. I mean, you're doing your workouts too, eating like crap. Maybe for me it was addiction, but that was enough pain. Enough was enough. And I'd like, okay, this is enough, enough. I'm turning to the alcohol. And thank goodness I— but I had got to get back to basics. Of, like you said, hydration.

Well, I talk about this in Wonderhell, actually. I say, like, for me, when I fall into the gutter, I fall, like, face first. Like, it's just— I don't stumble. It's like full in. So what are the 4 building blocks of good health? There's nutrition, hydration, sleep, and movement. And so I set up this system where it's, okay, you drink a gallon of water a day, you follow whatever diet you want, whether it's paleo or vegan or macros or whatever the thing is that you do, 8 hours of sleep, And 60 minutes of movement. And that 60 minutes of movement can be running, it could be yoga, it could be meditation, right? Or walking. It could be whatever the thing is that you want. But here's what I used to do. I used to say, oh, I don't have time for an hour-long workout. I'm not even going to bother. And now, so it's like, I don't get any points. And now I say, well, I've got time for a 15-minute walk. I'll give myself, if I'm at a scale of 4 points, I'll give myself 1 point, right?

Mm-hmm.

I didn't get to sleep 8 hours, but I slept 6, so I'll get 3 points. I drank all my water, so that's 4 points. I followed my nutrition, that's 4 points. an average of 3 points or more, that's a win. It's a win for me. I have a little spreadsheet. I actually literally use a spreadsheet when things are getting tough because it sort of keeps me honest with myself. And then there are 2 columns, what went well today, and not what went wrong, but what am I going to do differently tomorrow? So I don't punish myself for I didn't have the full hour. I only had 15 minutes. I'm like, what's going to work well? What should I do tomorrow? Tomorrow I'm going to make an appointment with Amber to have a phone call, and I'm going to tell her it's going to be a meet and move. So she knows I'm going to be walking. Yeah. So if I'm not out of breath, she's gonna be like, what's going on? Why aren't you walking? Right? So that's the thing I do. So just having like, what are the, what are the foundational elements for living a healthier life? So for me, those are— that's what I do.

That's so good. And I think that would help everybody, whether they're an entrepreneur or they're a mom chasing around kids and they want to be a better a more patient mom because I know I'm more patient when I always say, halt, don't ever get too hungry, angry, lonely, or tired.

Yeah.

And so I have to check myself. I need to halt lonely or tired because if I ever get any of those things, I make bad decisions. I start to want to get into those bad habits again that I used to do. But I also tell people to snack on exercise because I mean, I love snacking. But I always say snack on exercise. And they're like, what do you mean? I'm like, well, don't— you don't have time to do an hour all at once? Then do 10 minutes here. Do 5 minutes here.

Yeah. It turns out if you take 4 different 15-minute walks during the day, that's your 60 minutes of movement. Yeah. Wonderful.

During COVID when I had clients that were at home working, I'm like, you know what? Set a kettlebell or some weights or a band by your office door, by the staircase, by— and they were— that was a good reminder for them to just go and snack on exercise throughout the day.

How many coaching clients do you have that are moms and entrepreneurs who just— they are so busy pouring themselves into everyone else around them, and then they—

They're last on the list.

They're last on the list.

Uh, that would be me for a long time until I hit a wall, until I burn out. And then I was like, this— I always ask the question, how's that working for you?

Yeah. So how are you— how do you prioritize yourself when you've been on the road of like, you know, nonstop?

Well, like on the plane yesterday, I thought, okay, come on, Wi-Fi, come on, Wi-Fi, work, work, work. Because I needed—

I did the same thing.

Yeah. I'm like, I know I need to get everything I need to do done on this plane because when I get in the car with my family, I want to be able to go out to— we go to Cracker Barrel.

Have that long-distance relationship.

Yeah.

Right? You want to be present.

I want to be able to talk with them and be with them. And then when we got home, and then I took my daughter to the aquarium store, and then we did some other stuff, but I just, I wanted to be present. And so, but I know because I got sober in 2016, And I lost my sobriety for one day a year and a half ago. And I knew it was because I wasn't putting me on my list. I wasn't— I was letting things slip. Oop, let the exercise go. Oh, forgot to pray. Oop, didn't go to that meeting. Oh, didn't get enough sleep. One by one, they started to fall off.

And they seem like nothing when they're individual.

Nothing, but it added up over time. They stacked up and stacked up. And then all of a sudden, When I had a really, really hard day, I wanted to check out, and I didn't have— like, you had all the points of all the good things you had done. Mine had gone down and down and down and down and down till there were nothing. And so that was very scary for me. And I, I took—

I didn't know about that. I didn't know that. How did you get— how did you pull yourself out of it? Or who pulled you out of it?

Myself. Well, I am very, very honest, and I know without honesty you can't be sober. Without honest— honesty and integrity is the most important thing to me in relationships, relationship to myself and everything. So I knew, you know, it wasn't like I drank. I took one pill, which did nothing for me, by the way. I wish I could say it was—

Such a bummer. You break it and it's not even worth it. Yeah. That's a sign. That's a sign right there.

I wanted to escape the pain, and I knew as soon as I took that pill that I'd lost my sobriety because I took it for the wrong reason. And, um, I called— I went to bed. Not like I did anything wild or had a good time. I, I, I immediately felt shame and disappointment. Sadness. And I went to bed and I called my sponsor the very next morning and I cried and I said, I effed up. And I had to start over, which sucked. But it was instead of— and I beat myself up for it for a long time.

Yeah. I think that shame spiral is, you know, we're all so afraid of failure. We think failure is finale. It's the end of us.

I felt like I let myself down.

But didn't you learn so much from it?

I had to flip it and, and start focusing on what it taught me.

Yes.

And that it could have saved my life and it could have been so much worse because what I learned from it was I needed, I need to take care of myself. And, and also your impact is only as big as you are healthy. Like, and I have to really take care of myself or everything else falls apart and I don't get to do the things that I get to do.

You were not sober for a day and a half, but you probably were quote unquote off the wagon for like weeks leading up to that. You know, like you had sort of fallen off emotionally and it's— that was just the sign, right? You were sober, but you weren't you.

I was sober, but I wasn't I wasn't emotionally sober.

Yeah, yeah.

Because I fell off.

Yes, but now you know next time you'll see, you'll recognize that earlier. You'll recognize it as soon as it's happening.

Yeah, and my sponsor, I mean, I'm glad she's a great example for me because she had lost her sobriety too. And she said, you know, I didn't lose my sobriety when things were going really bad. I lost it when things went really, really good.

You want to keep the party going.

And she's like, you know, Hmm, I've got my dream life. Things are good.

I'm in a good place. I'm in control.

I'm in control. Maybe I don't have a problem. Luckily, I know I, I've never had a problem with pills. Thank God. Never. But that scared the crap out of me because I thought, what if— where's that gonna lead? I don't want to go down. I don't want to go down that road. I, I gotta tell on myself real quick, and I think that It takes that radical acceptance and that honesty and awareness if you want any good thing to happen to you, if you want to keep succeeding, if you want to do better, if you want to be better. And so, yeah, it sucked. It sucked.

But think about how many more people that you're helping because you tell that story. I mean, the story that I tell about you in Wonderhell is how open you are with your story, with the pain that you went through and not just, I was in this thing, I had this accident, now I talk about my, you know, what did you call it? You're like, you're—

I'm like deformed.

It was really funny 'cause I have it in the book and my editor was like, is it okay to call her leg that? I'm like, she calls her leg, like put it in quotes. Like she calls it that. And they're like, okay. And the story that I tell is that you not only talk about that, but you talk about addiction, you talk about your life, you talk about what it meant. And the ability to bring your truth into the world has helped so many more people. than if you hadn't done it. So I just adore you that you're so open about what you've been through because it's so true. Failure is not finale, it's fulcrum. It's where we learn and we grow and we iterate and we iterate and we figure out who we are. And it turns us, I think, into better people. And just think about how much better your sponsor is for you because she didn't tell you, I got sober and I stayed sober forever. Everything's perfect.

She also It helps me relate to her and feel more connected and have the hope for, oh, well, she did it. I can do it too. LGO.

I love you too.

I am so inspired by you. I tell people about you all the time. And I'm not just saying that. I mean, my, my old sister, she's like, oh my gosh, you're interviewing LGO.

I know. I was talking to Speaking Bear this morning about you.

I just, I did.

It's, yeah, it's mutual admiration society.

I'm telling you. And it's just such an honor to have you back here on True Grit and Grace. You have the most incredible deals if people buy your book. And it is incredible. I'm going to buy— I've already told— I'm buying your book for everybody in my mastermind. Like, they're amazing. I'm serious.

Amazing.

Thank you. Yeah. And I've already pre-ordered and all that, but tell everybody they can get like All these special deals if they preorder. It's amazing. I was very impressed with that, by the way.

I'm a hustler. You know that. I'm a hustler. I'm hustling.

It's amazing.

So the book comes out April 4th, and anybody who buys the book before April 4th, because of course presales help people get on lists, it tells the bookstores to stock your book, it tells media to cover your book, so presales really matter to authors. Anybody who orders it before April 4th gets a free copy, an ebook of Limitless. They get some of the Limitless collateral. If they buy 5 books, They get the Limitless course for free, which is like a $300 course. If they buy 50 books, I'll show up in their mastermind for a half hour. I'll do a one-on-one coaching session. And 300 books gets me in their event for a keynote. So this is one of those, like, normally costs $25,000 to have me in a keynote. 300 books plus shipping is like $10K. So it's—

Oh, I thought you were like already a millionaire. Up to $50,000 for your keynotes.

Well, when this book comes out and it's a bestseller. No, I mean, maybe I'll get to $30,000. I don't know.

But yeah. I already thought you were $50,000. So y'all are getting her first still, by the way.

I would like to get there, but that's part of the hustle.

In a few months, yeah, it'll be $50,000.

Well, from your mouth to God's ears, right? Let's—

It will, just because you're that amazing. I've seen— I mean, I, like I say, I, I, when I say I've watched your TED Talk 3 times and it just came out, seriously. But you're amazing. Thank you so much for being here. Again, tell us one more time where they can get it.

The book is called Wonder Hell, so you can go to wonderhell.com and preorder it. And of course it's going to be available on Amazon and anywhere fine books are sold, but wonderhell.com is where all the preorder goodies go.

And that's easy enough to remember.

Easy enough to remember. And I always tell people my name is Laura Gassner Otting. My good friends call me LGO. So I'm available on all the socials at @HeyLGO. That's how you find me.

I love that. And verified now on Instagram.

Verified, which makes me amazingly cool to my 18-year-old.

Oh, that is incredible.

The most important opinion of all, my teenager. Let's be clear.

That's right. Well, thank y'all for tuning in. I appreciate it. We appreciate you being here on True Grit and Grace, and we will see you next week.

Bye.