The Secret of Success = Clear 'Why' | Interview with Laura Gassner Otting | The Ask Avi Arya Show

Was sort of a mandatory thing to do. How do you go through a process which you don't really enjoy?

You know, it's a real. It's a means to an end question. And I think you're. I think you're right. It's the man that I worked for when I went to the White House, the one who ran the Office of National Service.

Laura, thank you very much for being part of this, the Askaviyaria and the Internet Moguls of the World program. What I'm most excited about and what I always tell people is the shortest distance between two human hearts is a story. And so therefore, we like to start every interview with a story. So what I'll do is I'll tell you my hero introduction, and then I'll ask you to give us yours.

Okay?

So, Laura, my name is Avi Arya. Father of two girls, six dogs, husband to a superwoman, a streetcar racer, turn hotelier, now social media marketer and founder of Internet Moguls, where we bring in the best people from all over the world to be able to guide kids, their parents and their grandparents on one aspect of entrepreneurship or digital marketing so that they can use that knowledge, save some time in their current lives, implement things faster, get better results, and be able to save. Utilize the time saved with their family.

That's fantastic. That's fantastic. Okay, so I can be much shorter than that. My name is Laura Gassner Otting, and I help get leaders unstuck.

Lovely. Perfect. Whatever. What? Whatever. And so now we'll talk later about how leaders get stuck in the first place. Great. So thank you for sharing your story. Now, that was a short format story. Now we have a longer format story. I told you my story last time. We would now love to hear your backstory.

So my backstory is that I am an accidental entrepreneur. I never intended to run a business. I never intended to become a CEO. I never intended to write books. I never intended to get on stage and speak. But at every moment of my life, at every age and at every life stage, I had something I wanted to do, a problem that I wanted to solve. And I would ask myself, what's the solution that that problem needs? And am I capable of providing that solution? Do I have something within my toolkit to provide that solution? And if it is, then what's the right medium through which I can do it? Sometimes it's through political activism. Sometimes it's through HR and staffing. Sometimes it's through getting on stage and being the carrier. Sometimes it's through running A company and helping other people to be better versions of themselves and expand and scale what that is. But for me, I never really pursued the title or the job in terms of ego. I was really more looking for solving problems. And every time I solved a problem that was interesting to me, I found myself in a more and more interesting place with more and more interesting people.

Tell us about your childhood.

So I grew up in Miami, Florida. I was born in New York City, grew up in Miami. And I was a deeply awkward and wildly unpopular nerd of a girl who went to computer sleepaway camp when I was 14 years old. Like we. I went off into the Poconos and like out in Pennsylvania, and we learned how to program BASIC and COBOL and FORTRAN on the Atari computers. This is like back before Macs even existed. And I remember there was this crazy company out in California who was creating this computer that had like an apple for a logo. And we were all like, what? Macintosh? Atari's where it's at, man. Cool. So I was the only girl at that entire camp, basically. And I still didn't kiss a boy till I went to college. So that gives you. Paints a picture just how much of a super nerd I was. I had to give a talk last year I was flown to the Netherlands for a client of mine and I gave a talk to all of their salespeople and they do low code solutions for small businesses. And I was like, you are my people, programmers. So my childhood was very much marked by just kind of like I was the kid, I was the kid who just. I went for the A's and I joined all the clubs and I got all the check marks and I, you know, I like did student government and I did all the things and I collected the resume and I did everything I was supposed to do. But I never really figured out who I was until I was much older when I stopped trying to be everyone else's version of what success was supposed to look like. And I figured out what success was going to look like for me. And then I did that instead.

Lovely. At this point in time, I want all the, all the, all the youngsters and their parents and grandparents listening to this. On behalf of all of them, I'd like to ask. When you get the A's and when you do everything that you want, it's obviously because you are talented and you're driven and you're top 2, 3, 4%, and that's fine. Everybody can do what they want. But while doing that, and now thinking of Laura all those years ago and now all the other youngsters who are looking and getting inspired as they watch this. How important is it to strive, do your best and still okay if it still get a C?

So I think what happens when we're in school when we're younger is we take a whole bunch of classes. We take science and we take math and we take history and we take language and we take a foreign language and we take music. And you're expected to get straight A's in everything. But Avi, I don't know about you, but I wasn't somebody who was excellent at everything. I am really good at certain things and honestly, trying to be really good at everything and get straight A's and everything was to the detriment of the stuff I was really good at. I actually wasn't able to dig deeper. I have two kids now, they're 16 and 18, so they're in 10th grade and 12th grade. They're almost finishing high school. And I can't wait till they get to college because they'll be able to take things that they care about, they'll be able to pursue a, they'll be able to go to graduate school, they'll be able to really dig deep in what interests them. And I think when we allow ourselves to pursue a path that is full of unfettered curiosity, we really get to discover so much and so much that is new. Now that said, I still have that 16 year old and 18 year old who still need to get into college. So, you know, the world does have shortcuts. The world has shortcuts where they're like, what's the gpa, what's the test score, what's the this, what's the that? Because the world is really big and we need to have these shortcuts so that we can cohort people. So you have to, you have to play the game a little bit. So you have to do well enough in the classes so that you're allowed to get to the next room. I think that it's all about increasing your optionality. And I'll probably say this a lot with you today because this is a real theme of mine. If you walk into a room that has one door and that room, you walk through one door and that room has two doors, you've increased your optionality. If you walk into the next door and that room has three doors, you've then increased your optionality again. But if you're getting Cs and Ds, then you're reducing your optionality so right now, if you're a young person and you're watching this, it's your job to do whatever you can to increase your optionality for the next step. Because then you can decide when you get to that next step if you want to take that path or not. But if you don't do your best now, you're reducing your future options later. So really what it's all about is while you're still figuring out who you are, if you're 15, 16, 17, 18 years old, you literally do not have a frontal lobe. And I don't say that to insult. I say that because if you don't have a frontal lobe, you do not have the capacity to make good, sound, logical decisions. Your brain just has not developed to that point yet. So, Avi, when you have young people and they're like, well, I guess I should have this major, I should go to this college, I should pick this career, this trade, this job, this path, you can't possibly know that yet. And the only way that you can increase your optionality so that when you get there, you can, you know, grab that choice, you can grab that gold that, you know the brass ring is if you've done enough to make sure that you those options, once you get to the point where the frontal lobe.

Is fully formed, that is fan. I love that optionality. I'm going to mark it and highlight it over here. So at any given stage in life, and I guess for kids more because they have a longer Runway, but actually anybody in life, whatever we're going towards, we must be mindful of the fact that if what we're doing today may open multiple doors, if you just put in that 20% extra, give it our best. Excellent. I love that. So you told us your backstory. You told us that, you know, you were an A student and then finally you did all of that. You got into high school, all of that, and that's when you discovered who you are. What happened next?

Well, so I was always interested in politics. I was that kid who was just always watching current events. I was fascinated by it. I had sort of righteous indignation about the way the world should be and the way that the world wasn't. And I thought I was going to run for office. I was going to be the first United States senator of the Democratic United States senator from the great state of Florida. P.S. that job is still open. There still hasn't been a Democrat elected to senate. Florida. So 30 years later, get your act together. Florida. Right. But. But I digress I thought I was going to run for office. I was really interested in that. And then I started to realize that the path to get there was law school. Everybody who had been running for office, this is like the pre Trump era. Everyone had been running for office. Who was in elected office in the United States had a legal background. So I was like, all right, I guess I'll go to law school. So I went to college. I went to college young. I graduated early. I was 20 years old, sitting in my first semester of law school, looking around, going, I've made a huge mistake. I don't want to be here. I don't have anything in common with my peers. I'm not impressed by any of my professors. The light at the end of the tunnel is not a light. That is interesting to me. What have I done? Done? So here's where the story kind of gets funny. I did this thing that everyone does when they've made a very bad life choice is I doubled down and I made another very bad life choice. And I started dating a guy who was terrible, terrible. Like one of those guys that it's like, what are you thinking? Kind of dating now. I joke around that that guy had really good taste and only two actual things in life. The first was obviously girlfriends, and the second was unknown presidential hopefuls from tiny Southern states.

Really?

So he says to me, hey, it's raining. You rode your bike to campus. Let's put your car. Let's put your bike in the back of my IROC Z, right? Everything you need to know about this guy. Blast the Def Leppard. And we start driving back, and he's like, but before I drop you off at your apartment, there's this guy who's running for office, and I want to pick up some paperwork on him. And now, kids, this is before the Internet. So if somebody was running for office and you wanted to get material, you would have to actually go to a local office and pick up, like, some mimeographed material and read about their policy statement. So I was like, governor, who? From where? Arkansas? Not a chance. But we stop at the campaign office, and I follow this terrible guy into the campaign office. And there in the corner on this teeny little black and white TV is then Governor Bill Clinton. And he's talking about this idea that there's nothing that's wrong with America that can't be fixed or right with America. And he offered as a policy solution, national service, community service in exchange for college tuition. And it was like a lightning bolt hit me. And I was like, that needs to happen. That needs to happen. And so I started to volunteer for the campaign, and I started to stop attending classes. And a few weeks later, all four principals, Bill and Hillary Clinton and Alan Tipper Gore, came to this tiny podunk town of Gainesville, Florida. And we got 36,000 people to show up at this rally. And the national campaign office was like, who are those volunteers? We need to hire them on staff. So I got hired to be on staff of the Clinton Gore 92 campaign. And by hired, I mean I was paid all the idealism in ramen soup that I could stomach, but still, it got me out of this relationship, and it got me out of law school. So I ended up working, volunteering on the campaign. And then I walked into the White House the first day after inauguration, and I ended up volunteering for the office that eventually created AmeriCorps. Now, I spent six weeks volunteering, and then I was eventually hired, which is a whole other story in itself. But, you know, the path to get me from where I was to where I am now was definitely not straight path. Where it was like, okay, that makes sense. You went to college, you figured out who you were, and everything worked out. Absolutely. Not at every agent, at every life stage, who I wanted to be and what gave me consonants, what gave me alignment and harmony and flow in my own life was totally different. And I had to rediscover that all the time, which sounds like a burden, but was, in fact, a gift.

Well, now, so you say it's a gift in hindsight, obviously, but for people who are right now, because I love your story, from wanting to be a programmer to saying, I want to do law because I want to run for office, and I want to run for office because I want to make a significant impact, but I don't necessarily enjoy the process of becoming a lawyer and all of that. And so therefore, you left that and you went straight into the action. You said, let's do the practical before the theory. And we know presidential campaigns and all of that, you put yourself there. So you put, like they say, if you want to become something, surround yourself with those people who are doing what you want to do. So between education, just a side question right now, between real education, which is the process, to the destination, and I love the destination. This is what I want to become. I want to run for office, but I need to do three or four years of law school for the students and everybody listening right now. What if I'm not enjoying the process, but I really want what the process will give me, at the end, an opportunity to sit on a table where people will say, are you an attorney? Yes. You can then run for office, for example, if that was sort of a mandatory thing to do. How do you go through a process which you don't really enjoy?

You know, it's a real. It's a means to an end question. And I think you're. I think you're right. It's the man that I worked for when I went to the White House, the one who ran the Office of National Service, had a lot of people who were just like me that he mentored in. One of them is a man by the name of Brad Meltzer, who I actually happened to know when I was in high school. We grew up in the same town, strangely enough. And he's now grown up to be this multiple New York Times best selling author of thrillers. And he's also just launched this whole line of children's books. So I recently launched a podcast, LGO TV Big Talk, where I'm interviewing people who have had really interesting experiences in their lives and just having interesting conversations with interesting people about interesting stuff. And he shared a story on the podcast that we recorded just Friday where he wanted to go to law school. And Eli Siegel, the man who was our boss, had gone to law school or. Sorry, he wanted to go to business school, and Eli Siegel had gone to law school, and Eli said, brad, you could go to business school, and if you go to business school, you'll do business. But if you go to law school, you could do law or you could do business, right? It's like a really good training for anything that you want to do. Because the lesson behind that is you have no idea what your life is going to be like for the young people who are watching this. You think, you know, you think that you go to school for this thing, and then you are that thing for the rest of your life. And the truth is that most of you will have three and four and five and maybe six different careers, not because you failed, but because you keep finding success and finding other things within you. I mean, Avi, look at you, right? You're a race car driver, you're a hotelier, you've been in the travel industry. You've done so many different things, and it's not because you failed at them. It's because each time you did it, you found something else that was interesting. So I think what happens is we think we have an idea of what success will be. So we start on a path to get to that success. But along the way, because we have this unfettered curiosity, we learn things about what that success is or about what we want or the world changes and success still feels like success when we get to wherever it was we're getting. But it may not look like what we expect it to look like when limitless. My book, how to ignore everybody, carve your own path and live your best life came out. I did 150 podcasts. I did so much media. I was on national tv, I was on national TV in the United States and Canada. I did all, you know, you name it, I did it. And I had this one guy on a podcast ask me the dumbest question I could possibly imagine. And it was this, what advice would you give your 22 year old self who's listening to this? And I was like, I'm going to be 50 in February. I was like, my 22 year old self who's listening to a podcast that's being recorded over the Internet that I'm hearing on my mobile device. None of those things existed when I was 22. So if I had given my 22 year old advice based on, you know, like on where they are now. The world changes so much. Even if you know who you are, the world will change around you so much that you're going to have to keep rediscovering. So if you're in the suck right now of law school or college or training for whatever is that you're training for, what I would say is just understand why you're doing it. So the work that you're doing right now, the schooling that you're doing right now is connecting to some calling, some part of your life that you want, a business that you want to build, a cause that you want to serve, a leader who inspires you, a family that you want to nurture. Something that's out there, the work that you're doing right now is putting you in a better place to be able to serve that calling. It's connected. It may feel terrible, it may be hard, it may be stressful, but just keep in mind that calling that you want to serve, and if what you're doing right now is connecting to it, then it absolutely will feel fine because it's consonant with who you want to become. If it's allowing you to manifest your values, if it's allowing you to create the career trajectory that you'd like, if it's allowing you to have the lifestyle that you want eventually, if you see the means to an end, Then just keep focusing on that, because, you know, the days are long, but the years are short. So you'll get to where you want to get to. But just like, I understand that all pain right now is local and exquisite, but just remember that the years are short, and you're going to get there faster than you think.

That is fantastic. And I promise you, just that last five minutes is going to help thousands of people understand why they're going through what they're going through happily, or maybe not so happily.

Can I just. Before we move on, I'll also say this. If you're like me, and you're looking around and you're like, I've made a huge mistake. I actually don't want what's at the other end of the tunnel. You can quit. It's okay.

Thank you for saying that.

You're not gonna spontaneously combust. It's gonna be all right.

Right? No, thank you for saying that. You know, there's. There's so many children and their parents and grand. I don't know. We're all. You and I, we're all in spaces where we speak to a lot of people on stage, offline, online. And, you know, when you get off stage, there's so many people who feel you got the answer to everything. And so, you know, so I speak to a lot of parents, and they, like, my children are crying every day because this, you know, because they feel they're not good enough or, you know, how much to push, where to push all of that information coming from. So it is so hard. So thank. I deeply mean it. Thank you so much. For clarity. The last five minutes are actually going to help thousands of people say, you know what? It's okay to do what I'm doing or leave and do something else. It's absolutely fine. You know, there is no fixed trajectory to where you want to go, and where you want to go is also uncertain. So let's just enjoy the, you know, the ride.

Yeah. I mean, because, look, here's the thing. When I sold my last business, I ran into a friend I hadn't seen in a number of years at a Starbucks. And she was like, what are you doing now? And I'm like, well, I just sold my last business. I think I'm going to go into venture capital. And she was like, what do you mean? And I was like, she's like. She's like, you. You. You just did executive search for 20 years. How are you going to go into venture capital? That's so scary. You can't do that. And what she meant was, that's so scary. I can't do that. So I think what happens is we have these ideas and once we decide to, like, step off the path of what everybody else considers to be success, how everyone else defines success, the traditional path that everyone else took, and sud. We want to do something a little bit different. It's terrifying to other people. And we let that terror infect us like a cancer. And when we let it infect us like a cancer, we believe it. And then the tragedy is we don't move forward. We believe that that's too scary, that we can't do it, when in fact, it's just that they're too scared. And so I think it's really important to not let our ambition be dulled by someone else's lack of imagination. And that happens so often. And so we end up in these pasts that are just grooved by other people because they're right for other people. And we end up building an amazing life that's an amazing life for other people and not for us. And so if you're a young person who's watching this, the question I would ask you is not how do you fit into everyone else's definition of success, but how do you figure out how to define success for yourself, for you, for a unique, interesting, quirky you? Because there's only one you on this planet. Your success doesn't have to look like anyone else's success. And your success today, it's not going to look like my success. It's not going to like Avi's success. It's going to look like your success. But your success today will also look different than your definition of success 10 years from now and 20 years from now and 30 years from now. When I was on that presidential campaign that I mentioned earlier, I was more than happy to be paid in ramen soup and idealism. Now, as I mentioned, I'm almost 50 and I'm a princess. I like to go places and drive fancy cars and stay in hotels with 800 thread count sheets and fly first class. Then I was more than happy to sleep on a campaign bus and grow. And your definition will change. But the only way to really live a life that's consonant with who you are, with what really causes you joy, is to continue to ask yourself, am I living someone else's life or am I living my life?

Interesting. So how do I. So sometimes it overlaps, right? Because if I'm not sure about who I am and what I want and so I'm constant because I also believe a lot of human beings sometimes are scared to look within and even spend 20 minutes alone. I'd rather put on social media and listen to somebody else say something to me. Because if I'm spending time alone, a, I find that confusion and the air of all of that confusion around me, and then I'll be like, it's so difficult to confront myself and write down what I really want to do. So just spending your time with yourself and because I've never spent time with myself, then when I come across this interview of Laura, and Laura says, discover what you want for yourself and what your success looks like. I have no idea. I don't know what I want.

Yeah. So why are we afraid to spend time with ourselves? Not because we're afraid to be wildly successful and happy, because we're afraid to fail. Right? We're afraid to be disappointed. We're afraid to look within and maybe see that there's hard stuff that we have to do. And I think it's because in our world, we have been told that failure is finale. That if you fail, it's all over. Everyone will be disappointed in you. Your parents won't love you, your spouse will leave you, your bank will take back your house. Right. Like, we have been told that over and over and over again that the worst possible thing that can happen to you is failure. But I want to redefine that, because I think the worst possible thing that can happen to you is not to fail. Like, if you don't fail at something, you haven't stretched the bounds of imagination in your life 100%. Now, there's a line that I give in my talks when I get hired by companies and by colleges to go out and give these big talks to thousands of people. And there's a line I talk about how failure is not finale. It's fulcrum. Failure is the place from which you learn and you grow and you iterate and you get better. And the first time I gave this talk, I did it at Renaissance Weekend, which is a big Davos kind of festival of ideas. And I took gave the talk, and as I was doing it, I'm like, failure is not finale. It's Fulcrum. And then I looked stage left, and there sitting on stage left was Commander Tim Kopra of NASA. And Commander Tim Kopra of NASA's been on not one, not two, but three spacewalks. And I was like, failure's not finale. It's Fulcrum. Except for you, sir. For you, it would mostly definitely be failure. But for the rest of us, as long as there is oxygen in our lungs, you can recover, you can grow, you can try new things. Failure is the place from which you're like, oh, that didn't work. I should try things another way. When they interviewed. I read an interview, I don't know, in BusinessWeek or Forbes or Harvard Business Review or something about the founders of Google. And they asked them, so both of your parents are academics. Do you credit that with your success? Because, you know, you're being so bright and being so experimental. And they were like, no, we're actually both Montessori kids. And now I'm a Montessori mom. So, you know, this is a little plug there. But we're Montessori kids, and in Montessori, the way that you learn is that there's never a dead end. There's just always more questions to ask. And so if we look at our lives as if there's never a dead end, there's just always more questions to ask that failure is not finale. It's Fulcrum. It's the place where you're like, oh, I'm not good at that, but I've discovered that I'm great at this. In the process, then we can continue to change and become better versions of ourselves and really expand the bounds of our imagination and what we're capable of doing. But it starts with redefining failure. Not as finale, but as Fulcrum. And then if we're okay with that, then spending time in here becomes a whole lot less scary.

Fantastic. But the thing is, I'm 30, and I should have been, you know, my cousins are successful. I'm 40. My neighbor is successful. I'm 50. I should have been at this stage in my life. I should have had these two cards. I should have paid off my. My debt by now. So, you know, all these questions plague us when we compare ourselves to others. As soon as I hear failure is not. Is not permanent, and it only is a. Is a. Is a seeding ground for something new. Like, while I'm basking in the. In the newfound knowledge of saying yes, there is no pressure on me. I am allowed to fail because there's no end to it. There can be more questions. Hang on. Maybe my spouse, maybe. Maybe my best friend, maybe somebody says, you should have made a success of your life by now if you followed a path and kept. Not kept on going from one place to the other. And that, again, throws off our audience, you know, off track. And Say, oh, my God. Just when what Laura said made complete sense to me and I found that lightheadedness and I said, yes, I can do it. I'm now again plagued by these thoughts of how should I deal with comparison?

Yeah. So let's talk about how we look around and we're like, that person's successful and that person's successful and they just bought a new car and they are flying first class and they're doing this. First of all, 98% of that is nonsense, right? Like all these, I call them like, hustle porn stars. Like all the hustle porn that you see on social media and Instagram. Posts of people in front of their G6 and their Ferraris. Frankly, half of those are either rented or they're like someone else's. Or they just happen to happen. They happened upon a Ferrari on the street and they took a picture in front of it. We spend so much time judging our bloopers by everyone else's highlight reels and then we beat ourselves up. This sort of self flagellation. Like, I'm not as good as everyone else because they seem so happy all the time. Look at their perfectly decorated home. Well, maybe they're absolutely indebted to their eyeballs. Oh, look, they have the most beautiful, you know, holiday decorations. Well, maybe they were screaming at their spouse the entire time they were doing it. It was miserable. They have a pretty picture. Like, you really don't know what's happening in someone else's life. So take a step back and just make sure that you know that everything that you see, like objects on Facebook, are not the same as they look and are not same as in real life. Right? So, number one, most of that's nonsense. Number two, I think the four worst words in the English language are, I'll be happy when I'll be happy when I get the car. I'll be happy when I get the raise. I'll be happy when I get married. I'll be happy when I get divorced. I'll be happy when I lose five pounds. I'll be happy when I gain some muscle, whatever. I'll be happy when all that does is it tells us, it puts us in this place that says happiness is only one purchase away. It's one raise away, it's one weight loss, get rich quick, whatever, away. We have to figure out a way to be happy now because every time you get to that next step, there's always going to be someone else. My father grew up pretty poor in Brooklyn, New York, and when he Was young. He would walk down to the harbor and he would see these beautiful boats that would come into the harbor and they would circle the Statue of Liberty and then they would, you know, boat away. And he said to himself, one day I'm gonna make a lot of money, I'm gonna buy a boat and I'm gonna do that. And he ended up becoming quite successful, ended up becoming a surgeon. And he, and he, and one day he bought a boat and he bought a beautiful 48 foot boat. And he took that boat and he took it all the way up the intercoastal from Miami all the way to New York and he pulled it into a slip in New York harbor and he sat on the back of the boat feeling really proud of himself for about five minutes until somebody put their 60 foot in next to him.

Wow.

So the lesson is someone's always going to have a bigger boat because when that guy pulled the 60 foot billion, you know what happened next? Somebody pulled an 80 foot boat. And there's always going to be somebody who has more, who has better, who is richer, thinner, prettier, faster, whatever. The thing is, the question is, why are you running a race that you don't even necessarily want to win? Right? So if what you're thinking is I could make something of myself, these people are already in college. These people already have their degrees. These people have a, you know, a side hustle where they're making this money, is that what you want? There are people who read my book who said to me, it's incredible. It allowed me to not apologize for wanting to have that full on corporate life where I'm just going 100% all and not having children and just doing the whole thing perfect. I've had people who are like, thank you for writing this book. It allowed me to come out of corporate life, buy an 1800s farmhouse and go grow my own food and make my own energy. Two people get completely different messages out of this book. Because the message of the book is if you're giving votes in your life to people who shouldn't even have voices, then you're giving away autonomy over your own happiness. You're continuing to say, I'll be happy when society tells me I've gotten the next checkbox. I'll be happy when society tells me I've gotten the big enough boat. And what we have to do is we have to say what's going to make me happy? What's going to make me happy? Maybe, you know, a completely different life. Avi, that's Going to. What's going to make you happy, but we have to find that within ourselves at every age and at every life stage.

I love that and I loved what you said at every age and at every stage, because it changes things, you know, move and. And that's natural, and it's okay to understand that it's going to move. You want something different at a different stage in your life, and then all of a sudden you work for something, you don't want it anymore, and that's fine, too. So, Laura, you talk a lot about, you know, you were off on a bike with this gentleman you were dating, and you went to this office and you found Bill Clinton playing or talking on a TV screen and change the trajectory of your life. And then you met a friend of yours recently who told you what you know, how do you. How can you become a venture capitalist? And so you. Do you believe in coincidences, in serendipity, in things happen, and you should be aware of things happening. And, you know, you. And I mean, these kind of. I've always believed that amazing things are happening all around us. People are coming to our lives. Television show. Anything that you're doing is coming for a reason, and you choose how to react to it. Do you believe in all of that?

Oh, you know, I've just been reading a whole bunch of stuff about, like, radio frequencies and, you know, what's happening, like, in your brain and like, the brain chemistry. And it turns out that the CIA in the US actually, like, as early as, like the 1940s, was. We're doing experiments and looking at people's brains and trying to figure out how you can influence decision making with all these subliminal stuff. So I don't. I don't really believe in coincidences. I believe in alertness. I think that, you know, I think that there are moments in time where you are open to different opportunities because you've either shed some baggage from the past or you've finished a project and you just have more time, or maybe you finally decided that you believe that you're worthy of the next thing. You know, I always say to people, the way that I get people unstuck is I can see them. I can actually really see them. I have this. My superpower is that I'm able to look at people and in pretty short order figure out what they can do, what makes them special, and reflect it back on them in ways that either they can see it for the very first time, or they can actually believe it for the very first time. And act upon it. And within days, sometimes of coaching with me, I will get clients that will call me back and say, oh, my God, you can't believe what just happened. I just got offered this promotion or this, you know, I just, you know, was able to run, you know, my fastest mile ever. Like, whatever the thing is, like the thing that has been stopping them, they found a breakthrough. And I don't think it's coincidence. I think it's because they just opened themselves up to the possibility. People, when I get off stage, come up to me all the time and they're like, laura, thank you for giving me permission to live my life the way that I want. And I'm like, I never said the word permission. In fact, I only say the word permission once in the book. And it's kind of mostly in passing. Like, I don't give anybody permission. You give yourself permission. But sometimes it's when we. When we are introduced to ideas, they take seed in our heads. They germinate in ways that suddenly there'll be an opportunity. And you might not even have noticed it before, but because that seeds in the back of your head, suddenly, like, you see the thing out in your peripheral vision and you clock it where you might have missed it. So I don't know if there are coincidences. I think, like you said, I think there are things that are happening all around us all the time. I think sometimes we just don't. We just don't grab it because we don't. We don't see what's happening over here. So it's really about expanding that vision, I think. You know, I think what. What is the expression? Something like. Like luck is when opportunity meets hard work. And I think that's absolutely right. I mean, I. I've. The harder I work, the luckier I get.

Nice. I like that. I wanted to ask you. You recently mentioned. I mean, a couple of minutes ago, you mentioned you're going to be 50, and I think you look fantastic. I would have never guessed you look 50. That that also means that you have a very important place for rituals in your life for you to look the way you do. Maybe you work out yoga. So tell us about the importance of rituals and routines in your life.

So I do. I have. I have. I have a crew. I have a crew of people. Right now we're, you know, in the midst of COVID So I have a garage that's like two cars plus. And I'm a competitive rowing team.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. So we. Which. Which is sort of a whole other Story in itself. I just started rowing a few years ago. I actually ran the first mile of my entire life 10 years ago when I was about to turn 40. So I'm a very late to life athlete. I had every excuse to get out of physical education that you could possibly imagine. I mean I had like 6 billion excuses to get out of, to get out of PE class. But, but I have now during COVID we have a series of rowing machines that are in our garage that are all six feet apart. And a friend brought over an old TV and every morning at 6:30, I don't know what the workout's going to be. I don't know who's going to show up. But every morning, first strokes at 6:30 you can come whenever you want. Everybody has the code to my garage. You warm up, do whatever you want. But at 6:30 we're on our ergs and it's like ready row. And we start and somebody comes up with a workout. We took one of the walls of our garage and painted it with whiteboard paint. So somebody, whoever gets there first gets to write whatever work. And sometimes it's a long hard workout and sometimes it's brutal and you know, sprint speed work. But I think what's important is having a crew of people around you. Crew rowing, but I think that's important. Jim Rohn is famous for a quote of that you are the average of the five people you keep closest to you. Right. You know that you've heard that before. I'm sure other people have talked about it and I think that's really true. Right. The five people you've come keep closest to you are all obese. You will become obese. It's the science that is shown in science. And here's the really interesting thing about that. The scientific studies have shown that they don't even have to be people who are physically proximate to you. They can be your. You could have four best friends who live on the other end of the country from you.

Really? Wow.

And if they're obese, you will become obese. It is fascinating because they control what's on your social media feed. They control the text text that you're getting, they control the messages that you're getting. These are the things that you're getting over and over and over again. So it doesn't even matter. You are the average of the people, the five people you keep closest to you. But there's a second quote that I also like, which is by the legendary basketball coach John Wooden who said that you'll never outperform your inner circle. And I think that's an even better one because you can have this group of people that are around you, but if you're never going to outperform your inner circle, think about it. Every time you leapfrog in your life and you find more inside of you, you find the next layer inside of it demands that you also have to create a different inner circle to support that part of your life. I'm not saying get rid of your old friends, but I'm saying the people that you keep around you, your inner circle, should be some people that you want to mentor, because that helps you figure out who you are and find your voice and get over imposter syndrome. But it also appear because you need somebody who you can, you know, like, commiserate with. But you should also have some people you aspire to be like, who demand a better version of you, who don't let you settle for mediocrity. And this crew that I have who shows up every morning, I'm gonna be 50, but the group of people who I work out with are all 26 to 30.

Nice. I see what you're saying.

They don't let me. They do not let me settle for mediocrity.

They bring it.

They bring it. They. They lay the hammer down and they will lean over. At one point this morning, they. One of them leaned over at one point and they were like, hey, lgo, come on. And I was like, oh, okay. Like, they could tell that I was like, I just came off a three day juice cleanse and I'm a little like low energy. And I think they could tell that I was a little dipping. And they were like, we don't. We don't have mediocrity around here.

Nice. Lovely. Now, let's talk about the amazing book you have. It's called Limitless. I love the color, I love the infinity sign on it. Tell us, how did Limitless. Why Limitless? I mean, you, you. I'm really grateful you have been, you know, you opened up your life and how. What. And you know, you were vulnerable enough to say that there were times you were doing exceedingly well, but you were not sure of where it's heading. And when you thought it's time to move without putting in a lot of intellect, you said, I just don't feel this is right. And you move. So it. For the, for the common person right now listening and saying, hey, you know what? Laura just like us, and she's found so much success, she Looks good. She works out in the morning. I want this life. And I, too, have the thoughts that Laura has, and she's giving me the permission to say all that is fine. So on behalf of everybody listening so far, 42 minutes and 17 seconds, I deeply want to thank you on behalf of all of these people, because if to me and all of these people, you have given the permission to say it's absolutely fine, now with all of that and your years of work and, you know, running for. Working with, you know, with very famous politicians and, you know, getting up there and all of that, how did Limitless come out about. I mean, that's like your child. You said you have two children. I'm sure this is the third child. Talk to us about your third child.

So the book kind of came about, and again, it was an accidental sort of thing when. So I, very quick story, left the Clinton White House. I thought I wanted to get back out of the campaign trail. And my mentor at the time was like, you're 25, so you're way too old to be a campaign staffer and eat cold pizza and. And sleep on high school gymnasium floors, but you're too young to be the domestic policy advisor. So you should talk to my friend Arnie Miller, who runs a big search firm that does specifically nonprofit work. And you'll find a job at a nonprofit, hide out for four years, and then come back and do something big on Al Gore's campaign. And I was like, great. Sounds terrific. So I sit down with Arnie Miller about three days later, and five minutes into the interview, I realized that his office was in Boston. And the boy I'm dating at the time, he was much better than the one with the irox, was about to move to Boston. So I was like, you know, I should just come work for you. And he was like, you should come work for me. And I was like, great. What do you do? And he was a headhunter. So I became a headhunter. And by the way, the boy did move to Boston, and I moved to Boston, and now we've been married for 23 years. So that story worked out.

That worked out.

But I became a headhunter, and I did executive search work specifically for nonprofit organizations. And after being there about four years, learning really from the best and the brightest about how to do this work in a way that I thought was meaningful and so high quality, I realized that there might have been a different way to provide services to some of our clients that couldn't afford the really expensive services that we were offering. And I walked into his office, and I was like, there's a better way. And he was like, there's the door. Basically, it was like, you could keep doing the work, work the way that I'm doing it, or you could leave. And what I realized, because I had figured out that there was a solution that the clients really needed, I couldn't keep providing something that I didn't think was the solution. Because if you're not the solution, what are you, the problem? So I left in this moment of righteous indignation and rage, and I started my own company. And I ran that for 15 years. And about 10 years into it, I had this moment where I realized I got just hadn't learned anything new in a while. And I really enjoyed the innovating and the iterating and the changing and the figuring out how to do the work better than it had ever been done before. And when you're a CEO, your job is to figure out what the market needs before the market even realizes that it's got a problem. If you're the CEO, you have to figure out 18 to 24 months ahead of the market, whereas your staff is like, if they're doing really well, they're focused on today, this project, this client, this problem. So the better I got at my work, and the better they got at their work, the further apart we were. And I was just kind of lonely. I wanted to keep iterating, and I wanted to keep innovating. And they were like, can we just take the car out and see how fast we could drive? And I was like, no, but we could do this other new, interesting thing, and they just didn't want it. And so I just had this moment where I thought, you know, what they really need is somebody who is super geeked out about the work, and that's not me. And that was a moment of emotional maturity that I'm proud of myself for having. But it took a long time to get to realize that I could keep running this firm forever, but I'd be bored. And they actually need a different kind of leader than me. I should go and give them the leader that they deserve. So I turned to my business partner, who was the leader that they deserved. I was like, you know what? You should lead this company. And she was like, I don't want to leave the company. I'm not a CEO. I'm not you. And I'm like, yeah, but they don't need me. They need you. So just like, each of us need different things at different stages. So do our communities and our countries and our companies. So I left, and again, I thought I wanted to do venture capital. And then I spent a lot of time interviewing with venture capitalists, and I realized I didn't actually like them. I was really interested in the work, but I didn't want to go work for some guy. And they were all guys who wasn't gonna have my best interest at heart and was interested in sort of the churn of money making versus actually creating impact in the world, like, actually doing something that was meaningful. So I got very involved in Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and was taught they were talking to me about possibly running presidential personnel. You know, the people who decide, the cabinet secretaries and the ambassadors need a big job. And during that time, I also happened to be chairing an arts auction for a local nonprofit. And a friend of mine introduces me on stage to, like, give the big talk and raise the big money. And she's like, this is my friend Laura Gassner Otting. She dedicated dedicates your life to philanthropy. Now, remember, at this point, I'm not employed because I left my business, sold my business to my team, and I hadn't figured the next thing I want to do. So I am now the chair of an arts auction at a gala dedicating my life to philanthropy. And I look down at my hand, and I'm holding a little plate and a cocktail fork, and I'm like, I don't know if I want to stick the fork in my eyes or her eyes. And there's nothing wrong, wrong with dedicating your life to philanthropy. But I was just like, it is not a complete story, and I need to be like, I'm a serious person. So I went home that night, and I bought lauragasterautting.com hey lgo.com, my website, and I started blogging about some of the things that I see in the world, some of the problems. Some of what I think is the problems that are out there that we're not solving and why. And one of those blog posts got noticed by somebody who was the executive producer of TedX Cambridge, which is the largest TedX TedX outside of Big Ted. Lovely called me up, and I answered the phone on speakerphone, driving my kids home from school one day. And I will never forget this. She asked me if I would consider. She's like, that last blog post you did, it was terrific. You should do a TEDx, talk about it. And what do you think? And I said, no way. In fact, I think I dropped a Couple F bombs. I was like, no, that's terrifying. I don't want to do it. I'm not interested. No, thank you. Goodbye. Hung up the phone. Kids, my 14 year old is in the car next to me and he looks at me and he's like, mom, don't you always tell me I have to do hard things right? And don't you always tell me that if it doesn't challenge me, it doesn't change me? And don't you always tell me that life starts on the other side of the fear? And I was like, yeah. And he's like, so what gives, mom, huh? So I call her back and I say yes. And six weeks later, I'm standing in the little center of that red circle in front of 2,600 people at the Boston Opera House with like, gold gilded walls and crystal chandeliers, giving my first ever public speech.

Oh, first ever public speech. Wow.

First ever public speech. And it was terrifying. And that talk got some attention. And they offered. People offered me money to go speak places. And I was like, wait a minute, I can. You're gonna fly me somewhere. I'm gonna get on stage, I'm gonna for 45 minutes about something interesting, and then I'm going to leave and you're going to hand me a check. That's an interesting job. Tell me more about that. So I kept getting offered that over and over and over again. And then I started to notice the other people on stage that were getting paid bigger and bigger and bigger checks all had books. I was like, I better get me one of them, right? So I started writing a book. And the book I was writing was called Purpose Doing Work that Matters, Very serious book. And I sent it out to a publisher and the publisher's like, yeah, I don't know. It's okay. I think there's something more here. I think that there's a different book that you should be writing. And I think that book is going to be a big idea book. And it's all about how success doesn't always equal happiness. I can see it in there. So let's do a big idea book in hardback. In the spring, when big idea books come out great, it hangs on the phone. And I was like. And I totally pan. And I called a friend of mine and I was like, I don't know what to do. What am I gonna do? What am I gonna call it? How am I gonna write it? And he was like, laura, what do you want people to feel like after they've read the book. And I was like, I'm just. I'm so frustrated by everyone else being so limited by everyone else's idea of who they can be and what they can be in and how they have to be. And I just wish they could just stop listening to all these other people and decide who they want to be and just go live that life, and then they'll be happy. And he's like, so you want them to be limitless? Limitless. Ignore everybody, carve their own path and live their best life. I was like, yes, I love you. You're amazing. I don't spend nearly enough time with you, and I need to hang up the phone right now and go write that book. And literally Limitless poured out of me three weeks after that.

Wow.

That's how it came about.

That is fantastic. So I love what you said, that unlike almost everybody on the planet, your book is not telling people an ideology to live by. You say, here is an experiment that allows you to be you.

This is the meta moment, right? Because when I was trying to write purpose, doing work that matters, I was having a really hard time getting the book out. I was trying to write it, and I thought I had to write it because I needed to have a book to be on stage with those people. And once I was released from that, once I was like, you know what? I'm gonna write a book called Limitless. That's not gonna look like Harvard Business Review. That's gonna be yellow here. There it is over there. It's gonna be yellow, and it's gonna infinity sign. It's gonna. And it's gonna look totally different. Suddenly I had consonants like, it was all in flow. The what I did matched the who I was, and it all was easy. And I think what happens is we spend so much time being exhausted because we're busy. I mean, young people who are. Who are dealing with lots of classes in school and pressure and tests and young parents and entrepreneurs, and we're all like, I'm so tired. But I would argue that the exhaustion doesn't come from the busy. It comes from the code shifting and the costume changes that come in between the trying to do all these things that we don't actually care about. The organ rejection feeling of this is so hard. So what I do in the book is I don't tell people how they should live. I give them a rubric. I give them a framework by which they can ask themselves questions and decide what's going to be consonant for them today. How much calling do they want in their life? How much connection do they want to that calling? How much of the work contribute to the life that they want to have? And do they care about having control over any of it or not? Right. Some people are entrepreneurs and they want to have control over everything. And other people like to be in the passenger seat. And that's totally cool, but everyone's definition is different.

Fantastic. Laura, you, before we started this interview, you showed me blueprint. Can we pull that up on screen?

Yes, absolutely. So I created, you know, we've talked a lot today about the elements of consonants, of calling, connection, contribution, and control. We've talked about a lot of the things that people, you know, the questions that people say to themselves, like, I'm not ready. What if I fail? Or I haven't done this before? I don't really know. This is all uncertain. Or like, what if people don't like the person that I'm going to be? We've talked about all these things, and so I put together for your audience, and they can find this@heylgo.com avi so hey lgo.com avi they can go to my website, they can download this in a, you know, in a much, you know, bigger form. And it's really, it's an infographic that really walks them through the four elements of consonance, the three lies they may be telling themselves that get in their way. Some really important questions to ask themselves about calling, connection, contribution, and control. And then four questions that they can just journal a little bit about what success means to them and what they might need to change in order to have that kind of success and how their work or their school might help them to get to the life that they really want and what specific things they want to change right now to envision. You know, if they've got teams that they're managing or if they've, you know, got a family that they're working in to really have a conversation about what limitlessness could look like for them and in their future. So that's at heylgo.comathi.

Perfect. Perfect. Thank you for personalizing this for us. Can we just run through any, like you said, the three lies you tell yourself. Was that it?

Yes.

Can you just run through that quickly?

Yes. So we all have three lies that we tell ourselves that get in the way of us and success. And the first one is I'm not ready. I'm not ready. It's not perfect. I can't start. And here's the thing. It's never Going to be perfect. It's never going to be perfect. Because if it's perfect, that means you haven't set your goals big enough. We talked earlier about expanding your imagination and really flexing out to as far as you can go. So it's never perfect. It's never going to be perfect. And you're going to learn along the way how to continue to perfect and to grow and innovate and to change. So just start. Just start. We think that confidence comes from having these great big dreams. But it turns out that confidence comes from competence. When you take one foot in front of the other, if you want to run a marathon, what do you do? You do a 5k first, and once you've done the 5k, you prove to yourself that you can do a 10k. And once you do the 10k, you run a half marathon. And from there you go. Confidence comes from competence. So you're never going to be ready. But just start. One foot in front of the other helps you figure out how you can actually get ready. The second lie, I'm just going to pull this. This. I'm just going to pull this back up for people because I have it. I have it on here, so see if I can do that. Turns out that I'm not that tech savvy. So here we go. So here we go. So the second lie that people tell themselves is, I've never done this before. Oh, my God. I've never done this before. And I might fail. It might be terrible, I might embarrass myself. It might not work out. I've never done this before. And. And what I want to ask people to do is, rather than listen to this voice, this governor in our head, that is the governor on the gas pedal and on the fuel of our engine, rather than letting this governor say, you've never done this before, you're going to fail. Interpret that differently. Listen to that voice differently. Listen to it, say to you, I've never done this before. Go you amazing. Good for you for training. It's a totally different way to think about it. And then the last one is, people might not like me. People might not like me if I live the life that I want to live. And now the first two lies, I'm not ready. Or, or. Or I've never done this before, are those are lies. Those are absolutely lies that we tell ourselves. But what I want is, rather than that lie, I would rather you realize that the people who, you know, might not like me, that's actually not a lie. But in Fact, that's true. People might not like you if you become a different version of yourself. If you live a bigger life than the life that they really wanted you to live when they liked a smaller version of you. That's actually true. But that's okay. That's where I say, think about the people who you are asking. Think about the people who you are relying on. Who are you giving votes to in your life? And should they even have voices? So I'm not ready is a lie. No one's ever ready. Go anyway. Oh my God, I've never done this before. Well, yeah, that's a lie too. You've never done this before. Amazing. People might not like you, fine, but why those people and why are you listening to them? And why are the ones that, those are the ones that you care about that are influencing whether or not you live the bigger version of your life? Because again, you don't want your ambition to be limited by their lack of imagination.

That is fantastic. Laura, we have almost come to the end. We asked for an hour, we got 58 minutes of non stop. You know what? I love an interview even more. Like entrepreneurs, you like to multitask. So I have this selfish thing, I'm like, I'm always thinking, what are the kids going to learn? What are their parents going to learn? Have you got something for the parents? Parents, great. And seldom get something for myself as well. Because when you're listening to so many things, it's not that every person who's coming on to the interviews is not adding value to my personal life, but I just maybe get, you know, I just get into the interview mode and I'm thinking about my audience. I'm just saying, okay, I got everything done, it's structured, they're going to love it. But I love this as much as anybody else would because in the last 60 minutes I want to say you have given me permission. On 29 October, I turned 44. But the story I told you was when I said, when I was 18 years old, a streetcar racer who could never become a streetcar racer. But everything around my life, my jackets, everything is still around cars. And I love that. And so I like to live a life where I want to take care of all my responsibilities. But I never want to, like, never want to give up on my dreams. I still want to be that kid who always wants it, you know, wants to try everything. So in the last 60 minutes I went back with you when you told me story of your body of high school, I went back to High school as well. You know, when you talked, spoke to me about, you know, you know, inflection points in your life, I also found some crossroads that. And how I did. So I went back. Because you're a great speaker, you're a great storyteller, and I can see that you're a very empathetic person as well, because you've been able to understand through different life experiences, yourself and other people. And that's what reflects in your book, that you're not forcing people to say, come on, get up in the morning and do this. Otherwise, you know, you understand that it's hard, it is tough. And everybody. So you're just giving everybody of. Not even a roadmap, let me say you're just giving everybody an open canvas and saying, you are allowed to be you. And that is so freeing. That is so freeing. People are crying every single day. Kids, parents, grandparents. Because I don't think anybody grows old. We just get gray hair. We don't. We're still kids at heart. We've still got unresolved problems and issues, and we still like to cry. Not necessarily be tears, but we still cry about things we want to talk to people about or things we've not spoken to people about. And I want to be as vulnerable as, you know as. Because your one hour talk allows me to, you know, to open up and be vulnerable to sales, that all of us have the ability to be who we are, but we're scared. We nervous. What will people say? I'm not ready. All of those things. And when you say it in a format to say you're not telling anybody to be anyone. And I keep repeating that because your book is not saying be this, be that, be. You're saying just be limitless. And this is how you become limitless.

And the world, I mean, the world is a terrible place right now. We need people to be the best version of themselves they can be. And here's the thing. If I tried to be you, Avi, I'd be a total failure at it. I can't. I could come really, really close, maybe, but I could never actually be you. And if you tried to be me, you'd be a total failure at it. But what we can be and what we could be so, so, so. Well, we could be so great at is being ourselves. So I want people to be themselves, to be the very best version of themselves that they can be. And what do you have to be today? You just got to be better than the you that you were yesterday. That's it.

That is just fantastic. Laura, on behalf of everyone who's listen, who will be listening to this, listening to this right now, before, during and after people are going to be in the post production, the editors, because I know when they listen to every single word and they're like, they send me comments saying this was fantastic and I know this is going to blow it out of the park. So thank you so much for your time.

Thank you so much. And again, if people want to check it out, they can go to heylgo.comavi and it will be there for them. And thank you so much for having me. This is great fun.

One last question before we let you go. Entrepreneurs who want you to speak for them or hire you to for consulting or want to buy your book or whatever, how can they reach out to you?

So all my good friends call me LGO. So my website is hey lgo.com so hey h E y and everything about my speaking, my coaching is all on that website. The book is available on Amazon.com it's available at Barnes and Noble, I think up in Canada, it's at Indigo. And really anywhere fine books are sold. And if you can't find it, just reach out to me. I am Eylgo on all the socials.

That is fantastic. Thank you very much.

Sam.