[Podcast] Finding Your Consonance and Becoming Limitless

Laura Gassner Otting discusses the importance of finding consonance in your life and what the 4 C's on consonance are. She is the author of the Washington Post bestselling book, “Limitless: How to Ignore Everybody, Carve Your Own Path, and Live Your Best Life.” During this episode we discuss why purpose is such a hot topic right now, if people can still have an impact even if they work in the for-profit sector, and what advice do she has for listeners looking to achieve the goals that they have set out for themselves.

Make sure you check Laura out across all social channels at @heyLGO, on her website, and you can take an assessment to learn what’s stopping you from becoming limitless, and what you can do about it. 

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MACHINE-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT

What follows is an AI-generated transcript. The transcript likely contains errors and is not a substitute for listening to the podcast.

Welcome to episode number nine of the Built Unstoppable podcast. I'm your host, Justin Levy, and today I'm joined by Laura Gassner Otting, who is the founder of Limitless Possibility. And the author of Limitless, which became a Washington Post bestseller debuted at number two right behind this woman, that you may recognize Michelle Obama with her book Becoming, which deserves a huge congrats to you. So, welcome to the show.

Hey, Justin. It is great to be here.

So, in your book, you talk about this topic around consonance, and you have these behind these four C's. Could you expand on that and why consonance is so important in people's lives? 

Yeah, so I spent 20 years doing executive search and in that job as a recruiter, I was paid by my client To call thousands of leaders, people boldface names that you'd recognize and get them to consider taking a new job that they'd never even thought about that they didn't know existed in an organization, they might not even have ever thought about working and from a search firm that they'd never heard of before.

So I was paid to call thousands of leaders, because they were super successful at what they were doing in their current job. And those thousands of leaders all took my calls, because despite the fact that they were super successful, they weren't very happy. I was fascinated by the fact that success on paper doesn't actually equal happiness in real life. And so I started to think about the handful of people that I interviewed the handful of leaders I interviewed who seemed to have both success and happiness.

I started to think about my own career, and the decisions and the choices and the moves that I'd made at those major moments of transition.

What I realized was that we all had one thing in common and that was consonants. consonants being this this Gravitational momentum this this this frictionless belonging this idea that the what you do matches the who you are and what I realized was that it was made up of these four C's of calling connection, contribution and control calling being that thing that gets you out of bed the cause you want to serve the leader that you that that inspires you the business that you want to build a family you want to nurture connection does your work actually matter?

Does the work you do on a daily basis your email your contacts, you are sorry, your email your your your calendar, your telephone list your to do lists, do they match the column you want to serve? Contribution?

Does the work actually bring something to your life that allows you to have the lifestyle that you desire, the career trajectory that you need or manifest in your values on a daily basis?

Then lastly, is control. Do you have personal agency over how much your work actually connects to your calling, and how much it contributes to the life that you want?

What I found is that time and time again, when people made decisions that aligned with their personal rubric of this consonant, they were able to have both success and happiness. 

Now, you briefly touched on it, but why do you see so many people focus on purpose right now? 

Well, I think that there has been since really the 2016 election, and I think it was brewing for a while before this, but I think the 2016 election was really the sort of cataclysmic moment for a lot of Americans where we were forced to think about what we actually stand for what we're actually doing with our lives.

What are the what, you know, what, what is meaningful to us, and I'm not going to get political, you know, depending on whatever side of the aisle your listeners may be on. They may define that purpose differently.

But it was this moment where suddenly we really had to think about it and it became part of the conversation that we were having companies were advertising in the SuperBowl in 2017.

As you'll remember, suddenly, it was no longer you know, Paris Hilton under weather with their sloppy burger on the on the hood of a car. But companies were falling all over themselves to show that they cared about the environment or children or women or people of color, etc.

So I think that was happening at the same time we have millennials, who, you know, get a really bad rap, but they are going to be 75% of the workforce by 2025. And they are pushing this conversation about purpose like we've never had before, because they don't have the work on one side and home on the other.

They've always had lives that were intersected, that intersected The both of them because there's been social media, they've always lived out loud. And so we're having these conversations and that was even pre COVID. So now we're in this place where people are like, Oh, God, you know, when life goes back to normal, quote, unquote, is the normal I'm going back to really the life that I want.

I think that's created more conversation around purpose than ever before.

Now, when does life does go back to whatever that new normal will be and looks like obviously. What advice do you have for listeners looking to achieve their goals or, you know, take this into account that they've set out for themselves? 

Well, I think that I think that we have to stop listening to everyone else's definition of what success needs to be. I think that's where we get it all wrong in the first place.

So Justin, you remember when you were in elementary school, some teacher was probably like, you know, you'd be really good at this. And then you're like, Okay, I guess I won't be a fireman or an astronaut. I'm going to do that thing.

I had a teacher who said you're really argumentative. You should become a lawyer. And I was like, Oh, okay. I mean, first I told her she was wrong, of course, because, you know, I was meditative. But then I was like, Yeah, okay.

I created a path that got me to law school where I started the very First day, I looked around and I was like, I don't want to be here. I don't want to be a lawyer. This doesn't make sense for me. But I thought that that was the definition of success.

And then, you know, I started dating, you know, a guy who was terrible for me, because I wanted to do anything but that he didn't.

He introduced me to this random, you know, Governor from a small southern state that was that that was running for president. I was like governor who Bill Clinton from where Arkansas and not a chance that's not gonna happen. But I still join the campaign and I dropped out of law school and everyone freaked out. And then it all turned out. All right.

So I think we have these moments where, whether it's like organ rejection, and we can't continue to do the thing we've been doing for everyone else. So we stop and we do something for ourselves, we do the thing that actually matters to us.

Or maybe, you know, eventually something like COVID comes along and we just have to figure it out again, but there are these moments where we have to just say what is success mean to me doesn't mean the big fancy house doesn't mean the big fancy car doesn't mean the fancy title and the you know, in the fancy company, or maybe it means moving out to like an 1800s farmhouse and making my own energy and growing all my own food.

I don't know, we're all going to have very different definitions.

But my advice to people who are trying to figure out what to do now is to start with this question of, who are you giving votes to in your life? And are those actually the people who should have voices in your life? Who actually matters? Who's defining success for you? Is it coming from you? Or is it coming from someone else?

Because if it's coming from someone else, you can't be insatiably hungry for someone else's goal. So no matter how hard you work for it, you're not going to be that successful. And even if you are, you're not going to be that happy. So it's got to be an inside job. It's got to start from you and your own definition. First and foremost.

Now, I will say that dropping out of school and going to work for Bill Clinton turned out okay for you, you became a political appointee.

Helped found the American Job Corps which has gone on to be wildly successful for a lot of Americans. So thank you for that, by all means, but it shows that you went to go do something political or not, but you went to go do something that mattered to you instead of that path that you were told the stay on.

Now, for people that want to do meaningful work that are drawn to it. I think it aligns, you know, in our conversations and what you've written about that it means that they need to go into a non profit sector. Do you agree with that?

So I actually don't agree with that. And I talk about this in in Limitless. And I feel like given the fact that I dropped out of law school to join a presidential campaign worked in the White House left that too join one of the the top recruiting firms that did specifically nonprofit work and then started my own firm and ran that for 15 years and worked with some of the largest nonprofits, foundations, universities, advocacy groups in the world.

I am an unimpeachable source on this statement.

You can do important work that makes the world a better place without sacrificing your own wallet.

And not only that, not only are there jobs in the nonprofit sector that actually pay a good wage, not only is it a place that you can go that actually makes sense but there are corporations that are socially responsible, that are you know, that are that are doing work in ways that are good for the environment that are paying a fair, you know, that have fair labor practices that are promoting women and black people and people of color. 

But there's also something to be said for if your highest and best use is making a ton of money in the for profit sector as long as you're not like actively Oh, abusing people in those roles you're not you know, tying kids to looms in Bangladesh, as long as you are not, you know, doing something that's horrible.

And you take some of that money and you donate it to nonprofit organizations or causes you believe in, you might actually be doing better by those causes.

So if you're working if you what you care about is curing cancer, and you could work in an organization and advocate for funding research to cure cancer and you're making, I don't know, 50 grand a year and you're sacrificing and you're, you're having a hard time, you know, putting rent on the table. And also, you know, raising children and all of those things.

If you are capable of making $100,000 somewhere else in the private sector, and donating 25 grand or 10 grand into the nonprofit sector, you actually might do better by that organization by becoming what's called a philanthropist, right, for which you get all kinds of praise than being the person who's struggling in that nonprofit.

So I think that there are tons of ways to serve and I think the problem is that we get this idea of calling wrong Because we think that the only way to have purpose is to wear the white hat is to take the shirt off your back and give it to a poor kid in need.

When the truth is, there are tons of ways to have purpose. And, and not only that your purpose might not even have anything to do with curing cancer, you might just care about buying a Maserati in a beach house, that may be your purpose. And that's fine. I'm not going to judge you for it. 

But we get into trouble because we think that purpose only has one definition. And we're worried about all those friends with their little wagging fingers going. I don't know, it seems like your work isn't you don't have a lot of purpose.

Your purpose is only your purpose. And so let's all stop purpose shaming each other.

Let's figure out what our highest and best use is. Let's figure out what it is we care about what the problem is we want to solve in the world. And then what the solution is that that problem means. And then what the work is that we can do to help get there together.

Whether it's, you know, getting your family and getting out of debt so that your family can actually make decisions that you were not able you didn't have available to you or maybe it's curing cancer, maybe it's buying a Maserati and a beach house.

That's just your purpose, and nobody else gets to decide.

Absolutely. And I think that, you know, even for those people that do want to donate, that wants to give back monetarily, we have so many options these days where you don't have to be making hundreds of thousands of dollars and right in that $25,000 check or or more.

You know, I always equate it to my wife and I give to feed in America because of my background and in how I grew up. And $5 serves 50 million or sorry, $50 50 meals. So that coffee that you might go to buy at Starbucks today can serve 50 meals to people that are in need of food. 

Yeah, I'm glad that you brought that up because I didn't want to out your story. I'm glad that you brought that up.

Because so for example, somebody might look at you and say, Well, if he cares that much about feeding the poor, you know, he grew up hungry, if he cares that much about this, why does he go work for Feeding America? Why does he go work for a nonprofit that does that.

But I would argue that doing the work that you do for for profit puts more money in your pocket, so that you're actually able to give in those ways and doing the work that you do actually allows you to build a much bigger brand, and a much bigger platform so that you know more people so that every year at Christmas time when you put up those links.

So this is what Laura and I do. Here is my story. This is why it's important to me, would you please give you're actually able to leverage more money to the organization because of the work that you do and where you do it.

So if your calling is that you don't ever want anybody to go hungry. Nobody should go to bed hungry again in this in this wealthy nation of ours. Then doing the work that you do outside of that actually helps serve that cause much better. 

I also think that one of the things that many of us get wrong is that people wear it as a badge of honor and talk about it too much, right? It's part of their ego.

So they feel that if they don't put it on social media, if they don't have it as part of their bio or something, that doesn't mean that they can't impact it.

Right.

You and I have several mutual friends that have never spoken of the good that they do for the communities or for their friends in do not need to do that. There is no need for them to do that in interviews and blog posts.

On social, you know, and, and with what I've gone through, you know, with my surgeries and everything, some of those friends have reached out privately and I've never kind of outed them. They just reached out helped us, you know, and I tend to respect those people even more than the people that publicly talk about it shirt if you're doing one of these contribution campaigns, so that you see me asking others to help contribute to maximize, you know, double triple the amount that you can make.

I'm all for that, and I think that's wonderful. But I I appreciate the people that that do it because it's part of who they are. And that don't promote that all the time. Every day. 

Yeah, I mean, I'm actually pretty cool with people doing whatever it is they're gonna do as long as they do good. I'm, I'm pretty cool with it. Because I believe that everybody on this planet is fighting a battle we know nothing about, you know, I mean, if somebody's showing off about the fact that gay 14 cents to the United Way, there's clearly some other struggle that they're dealing with and, and I'm alright with that what I'm, what I'm not okay with is when people talk about the good work they're doing.

And other people feel like they need to shame them. You know, like, it's not enough. It can never be enough. You know, they're like, I gave 14 cents and I went, well, why didn't you get 15 cents, you know, 15 cents would have made much more difference. It's more it's, I get more upset about the people who sit on the sidelines, and who are, you know, keyboard warriors and judges and scorekeepers while they're actually not themselves doing jack, like those are the ones who make me crazy.

Sure. And I love that term going back here. What you're talking about a couple minutes, go around. ashaming that is, uh, I've never heard it put that way before. So I'm stealing that I'll give you credit.

There's just a lot of martyrdom around doing. You know, it's like, especially in the nonprofit sector, especially in politics, you know, two worlds that I've come out of, there's the like, Oh, well, you didn't sleep under your desk last night.

Clearly, you're not working that hard, you know. And, and I just, you know, I, I think that that has to stop because it, it's just really, I think it's, I think it's unfair. And I think that it's, it's short sighted and and I do think, I do think that we should all allow other people to find their own version of success because when we do that, then people actually are happier and you find that happier people are actually more giving in to nonprofits and, and to causes and to political campaigns.

So, you know, that's my goal is to just like, figure out a way so that you know, the hurt people hurt people, right? So if we can find a way for more people to find success that is consonant with who they are, that that feels right for who they are, so they can feel fulfilled in this one big juicy life that you get on this planet, we none of us know how long it's gonna last.

So if you can help people to be in a place where they're actually feeling really good about themselves, they suddenly become much more generous with their money, with their emotions, with their spirit with their platforms. And I think that benefits us all.

Now, ensure that I link this in this in the show notes, because I have a feeling this could go down this path. But if you had to provide someone with a practical tip that they could use in their career.

What would that be?

Are we talking about somebody earlier in their career? Oh, yeah.

So I would say, the closer you can get to the action, the better you'll be even if you're just bringing the coffee. So I think we often get told to go for the biggest title we can get.

You know, like if you're the if you're if you're the the assistant manager of the Fourth Division on the 12th rank, you know, somewhere in, you know, the western region, you're still an assistant manager. And that's awesome.

What I would say is you should just go be the executive assistant, or the like, you know, coffee getter in the CEOs office, and holy cow, are you going to learn some things, you're going to have great connections, you're going to see how decisions get made, you're going to see what actually happens behind those doors so that you don't feel imposter syndrome when you actually get there yourself.

And every every job I've ever had, every success I've ever had is because I was the person who followed the CEO to the to the elevator, and like, briefed them on the next meeting.

And while I was doing that, they got to know me, and I got to know them and I got to actually see that they put on their pants one leg at a time, just like everybody else and it's It was absolutely definitional, to my trajectory, to put my ego aside and put myself in an absolute Pantheon get the coffee for the guy who got the coffee for the guy who got the coffee kind of role, but I was, you know, to quote Hamilton in the room where it happened and the lessons that you get behind the scenes you couldn't pay for in an MBA program.

Absolutely. In the length that long shirt that I put in the notes is the blog post that you wrote in the bathroom a cab? Oh, yes. The look the learning lessons that you would give to somebody. So I think it was 20 or 25.

Yeah, it was, it was what I wish I knew when I was 22. And I literally like tapped it out on a on a on my on my phone in the back of a cab in New York City and then just press sent and and it's really funny. I think we spend so much time thinking and overthinking and perfecting everything we're doing. And I'm certainly learning this lesson that when you put out that's, that's polished and not rife with typos, but is still pretty raw and pretty authentic.

People really respond to that people like there's so much polished nonsense misses. The other thing I'd say to young people is that you know, all those like hustle porn Instagram photos of like, you know, people with their, you know, wearing t shirts, but little will be nice. I mean, what's up with that, right?

Like, if you're wearing a T shirt, it's still more to be wearing a wool beanie, but like, t shirts, and will beanies, and they're standing in front of like a G six and a fancy Ferrari And oh, by the way, those are rented right there. It's their fake photos and it's all this hustle porn nonsense. So we have this idea that like it has to look a certain way but it has to look your way. Like if successful, be successful.

It looks like you and it feels like you and you know you and I talked about this before we started recording earlier today. I interviewed Alan Mulally, who is the former CEO of Ford and former CEO of Boeing and widely credited for saving both of those companies.

He told this incredibly compelling story about how when he supervise the first person to ever supervise he micromanage and micromanage and micromanage because he that's how we saw the people above him doing it.

And finally, the his, his one employee walked in, and he was like, I quit. He's like, what you mean, you quit? Because I don't want to work for you. You're micromanaging me. It's terrible. And Alan's like, well, what what can you do? No, don't leave. What can I do to fix it? And he was like, you can be you.

He's like, you know, you're smart, and you're authentic and you're warm, and you're acting like them. And that doesn't work for me and I want to work for you because you're you. So, you know, understanding how to find your own voice is it doesn't happen when you're, you know, pretending to be the guy with the T shirt in the beanie.

Absolutely. And, and it's funny, you know, you and I were talking about Alan, but then, you know, something I was thinking about.

Right before we jumped on was, you know, the first team members that I had the pleasure of managing, sat down with me. So, you know, I certainly believe in being more of a friend to the people that I manage, right? Like I'm not sit on the throne and kiss the ring type of person. But they approached me one day, when we're having a staff meeting, they said, Listen, you're being too much about friend, we need you to step up and make decisions and hold the line for us.

And I always thought that I was right like I would go out and I would be the barrier, you know, I'd take the, the heat for things and I'd certainly making decisions, but I was trying to leave more things to them and you know, put it into their hands and you know, all ships rise and empower them, but they think they collectively like three

For people came back to me and said, No, like, we like what you're doing. But we need you to put pressure on us and, and help us to learn. And so that helped develop my management style even more still I treat, you know, want to treat people friendly and again, not sitting on the throne, but I also have gotten better at making hard decisions and you know, having to have the team buy in on that.

Yeah, I think that we make a mistake when we I mean, I know at least I made this mistake when the first time I started managing people is that I confuse being friendly with being friends.

I tried to be friends and that was hard and uncomfortable and awkward for them because I was the boss. That was unfair, frankly, to them. And I was just because it's lonely at the top and I thought we were all in this together and it turns out, they don't want to be my friend to be my employees but they are Every my friend, and you know, I remember the first my friend and one of them on Facebook and they were like, I don't know what to do.

Say No, but also EAC. Right? So we have this thing. And I think what happens is that managers don't actually have conversations with their employees about what they actually care about.

And so this whole rubric of consonants of calling connection, contribution and control can also be, it also can be overlaid to management, because, you know, if, if two thirds of your staff at any given time is not engaged at work, I mean, I think the statistics are something like 22% of your staff at any given time is engaged in work, or sorry, a third, a third of your staff at any given time is actually engaged in the work and we know that engaged employees are 22% more productive for their company.

So if you think that you two thirds of your staff is basically not paying attention, which is I'm sure even worse now as people are working from home in times of COVID.

They're either you know, not paying attention or they're stressed or they're burnt out or they're worrying about a lot. If things right now, if you don't understand their why if you don't understand why they're doing the work they're doing for you, as a leader for this product for this brand, for this company for this paycheck, whatever the thing is that encourages them the most, then you're actually not having real conversations with them about what they care about.

You're having conversations about what you care about. You're having conversations about what they care about. And the beauty about having conversations with your staff about whether they're there for calling, or whether they're looking for more connection or whether they are just thinking about how this works is going to contribute.

Maybe they couldn't care less about the company and they couldn't care less about the work they do as long as they're getting that paycheck. like everybody's rubric of consonants will be different.

But if you have conversations with them, what what they actually care about, you'll actually be able to, in a friendly way, understand who they are. Because what happens is, for example, salespeople, you have lots of noisy, flashy sales people who were like I sold this much and I sold this much and I’m amazing. I'm the best thing since sliced bread and the bosses like Yes, you are. And we really need the revenue. So I'm going to give you a big fat bonus.

And then they give the salesperson a big fat bonus, because I think that's what the salesperson wants. And then the salesperson walks back in their office sometimes six weeks, eight weeks later with that, like, what have you done for me lately face on.

And it turns out that if you just had a real conversation with that person, you might have found out that what they actually care about is they care about giving back, they're there because they actually care about these issues. And they're, they're torn because in order to sell a lot, they have to travel all over the place. And that means they can't serve their community.

But if you just put them on your corporate philanthropic, philanthropic committee, they may be super happy but you don't know that if you're trying to be friends with them, but not have these friendly open conversations about what actually brings them consonants.

Absolutely. And I've had similar conversations with other friends and things of that nature who have worked for large companies and had the opportunity or are making a lot have money, but they don't feel connected to their company.

They could be some of the largest brands in the world that a lot of people would give anything to work for. And yes, it's because there's not a connection for that person. And that I think that that connection could be at different levels.

They may not be connected to their management team, or to the senior leadership, or to what the values of that company are, you know, one of the things that I see a lot in Silicon Valley, and I'm sure it happens elsewhere, I just experienced it in Silicon Valley, is that some companies, you know, every company says that they have the same stuff, values, you know, they care about their employees diversity, like there's this checklist, right?

They have a gym, they have a cafeteria, it's all the same thing. But the companies that I talked to When I'm changing jobs or what have you, I diversity and inclusion is something that really matters to me. And that is like I dig in on those conversations with those companies, because I can point out really quickly how much they care and how baked into the culture it is or if it's just the checkbox.

Yeah. And the fact that they have kombucha on tap in the brain, or you can bring your dog to work on Fridays, you get your dry cleaning, delivered for free doesn't do squat for the righteous indignation that you have about the fact that there's not inclusion and diversity in Silicon Valley, right.

I mean, that's just and and and if I knew that, about you, as an employee, it would be so easy to manage you and inspire you because in addition to the work that you're doing for which I'm paying you, I'm going to get a ton of free labor you know, from you in The diversity and inclusion committee on you know, our recruiting committees, all of those things, it's gonna be great because you're going to be so inspired by that and you're going to feel seen, you're going to feel valued, you're going to feel important to not just the work that you're doing, but the cause that you're moving forward.

And, you know, that is the way to get employees to really give you all of themselves. I mean, think about it if if I brought you in, but I'm like, I only want what you give me from nine to five, the rest of what you have in your life, I don't want anything to do with it, I would lose so much of the value of what Justin brings to the table.

But if you allow someone to bring a whole self to work, you get all of them and why wouldn't you want all of somebody?

Absolutely.

And I think it goes back to a bit of what you're talking about with, you know, the assistant manager and you know, choosing the EA position or what have you.

You don't need to be at the top of the structure, right. You don't need to be the VP senior director or whatnot.

If you have something that's very meaningful, maybe you're both, maybe you're the senior director or VP with this role, you know, with this thing such as head of, you know, diversity inclusion, or in head of this exam, this holiday that you're going to put together because you're from a certain culture or whatnot, but you might be lower down within the company at, say, an entry level.

But because you're so passionate about that culture team, or diversity, inclusion, or whatever it might be, you're more aligned with the company even at a entry level position than you would be if you are at that VP level role, who only came into work to focus on the stuff that rolls under a VP. 

Oh, yeah, I mean, that that that first job in the White House that I talked about being the person who brought the coffee to the guy who brought the guy brought the coffee.

The guy that I used to follow to the elevator and give them the briefing papers, was a man by the name of Eli Siegel and Eli ran the 92 campaign and could have had any job he wanted the world to give him Ambassador France like, easy, great, cushy job, but he wanted to create America because he believes so much in service.

And I remember sitting at this big long mahogany table in the old Executive Office Building and all of his, you know, older, you know, MBA PhD, you know, brilliant advisors were around the table talking him about statistics and research and all of this stuff. And it was super stuffy.

And there were like six of us that were like the young and hungry there was like a room off to the side, we called the Romper Room, because it's where all of our guests were smashed into this tiny little room. And there were six of us.

I remember they were all went through this whole thing, this feasibility study, and how do we create a miracle and how do we roll it out? And what does it look like and what a service and what are the ad campaigns and all this stuff.

Then at one point, he just put his hand up, and he turned to us and he's like, I want to hear what all of you have to say. And the whole room went dead silent cuz these adults, quote unquote were like, what do you want to hear from those kids?

Those interns like, well, I want to hear from those volunteers like, we're here with our background and our research and our resumes. And he was like, I want to hear from all of you.

And it was the scariest moment of my entire life. But what we share just our gut reactions to some of these things, change the way that the program was created that program that now a million people have served and, and, and the I would be lying if I were to tell you that I did throw up my mouth a little bit before I spoke.

I mean, it was terrifying.

And also he made it clear that there were no wrong answers. He just wanted our feedback. He just wanted our opinion. He didn't want you know, us to go, you know, give him this long thesis. He just wanted to know what we thought about the slogan or the color scheme or, you know, the issue areas.

If he hadn't done that, he hadn't turned to us, you know, 21 year old 22 year olds, 23 year olds in this program that was being created for 18 to 24 year olds would have flocked because he would have just gotten a bunch of information from a bunch of 40 to 50 year olds.

So if you if you don't include everybody in the room, whatever you're doing is so much poorer, so much more shallow for it and, and and and I do believe that it's it is it is the mark of a good leader to listen more than they talk.

He definitely taught me that because I think, you know, one of the things that happens when you're a leader is you you're expected to talk a lot. And the more you talk, the less you listen, the less you learn.

And so it is understanding why you're there understanding gives you consonants understanding, you know, why you do the work you do, and then being able to look around the table at each of the people there and understand what inspires them, why they do the work they do.

What gets them engaged and motivated, helps you to have the kind of conversation where you know how to bring everybody into the conversation in ways that it may be terrifying, but they also feel comfortable being part of it.

You know, I, as you know, was on Good Morning America with limitless and how did I get on that because I spoke at an event and I was an easy person to work with. And I helped the emcee, get back on track multiple times.

So he gave my book to Robin Robertson was like, you need to read this. It's really good. And then she loves it and asked me to come on.

But how did I get to that event?

Because our mutual friend Mitch Joel, years earlier invited me to come to something and just like, hey, come hang out at this event that my company is sponsoring. And it'll be fun. And here's the you know, here's the flight you should take tomorrow, if you're free, you know, booked that flight and come on up.

And I did and I didn't even really know him that well at the time. But he was sponsoring the event the event had as its keynote speaker, Joe Biden, he's Canadian, but he knows that I'm deeply involved in American politics.

He's like, Hey, you want to come hang out with me and Joe Biden, it'll be fun and I was like, okay, but I didn't have any like, did I know at the time that I was going to write limitless that I was going to go on a media tour that I was going to speak at this event that I was going to, you know, Robin Roberts would be on stage with me that the MC was going to hand them but no, I didn't know any of that. I just knew that he was an interesting person who did interesting stuff. 

I think if you hang out with interesting people who do interesting stuff, interesting things happen eventually.

You know, it's you were not replying to his text at one in the morning like, oh, okay, this is gonna get me the promotion for sure.

You were just like, he's a good guy. I'm going to help him. And who knows where that leads to.

But I think I think it's, you know, if you go through life, with this, like scorekeeper mentality, like, I'm only going to help the people who I know can help me, then you end up with a pretty empty bucket. I think and I, you know, there there have been people that I have been able to reach out to that I've helped me with my book that have helped me with my businesses that have helped me get on stages.

And people are like, how do you know them? And I'm like, because I knew them 25 years ago when they were nobody, and none of us thought that we would be wherever we got to you know,

That guy talked about earlier, Eli Siegel, he was best friends with, with with Arnie Miller and best friends with Sandy.

Oh my gosh, I'm forgetting Sandy's last name, who ended up becoming the national security adviser and Arnie was the one who ran this giant search from I went to go work for and Eli, you know, ended up you know, in the White House and, and and the reason that the reason that I ended up working for Eli and Arnie was because years earlier, they all met on a campaign for McGovern, who was running for president.

And when Eli was running the campaign, he hired Arnie Miller to run the state operations and Arnie Miller hired this young couple named Bill and Hillary Clinton to run Texas. like nobody knew where anybody was going at the time, but they were united, all with the same idea that they wanted to move a cause forward. And, you know, it's when when you when you when you operate out of a place of like Machiavellian self interest.

You're never You're going to get as far as if you move towards something where you're working together towards a cause. And so identifying that common thing you care about, and then how you're working connect to it, how it contributes to your life often will become clear in the long run. And then like how much control you need?

Well, that really just depends on how old you are and what your family situation is, and all of those different things. But each one of us at any given moment in time, have a need different amounts of these in, you know, at different variables.

But if you try to game the system and figure it out, you probably get it wrong. I mean, when the book came out, I did like 150 podcasts.

And one question I used to always get is, if you could go back and give advice to your younger self, what would you tell her? And you know, yeah, I wrote this, like, what I wish I knew when I was 22.

But I was like, wait, advice that I give my younger self that's listening to this podcast on a mobile phone that was recorded over the internet. None of those things existed when I was 22. Even if I didn't know who I was, or what I wanted or where I was. I was going I would have been wrong.

So you know, it's more important to collect interesting people than to collect name brands, you know, boldface names right now, and in the way that you know, you, you got to know the CEO because you served him as opposed to, you know, sucked up to him and was a sycophant. That relationship is a much better and much deeper relationship now.

Absolutely.

Now, a question that I ask every guest that comes on the show. What does being built unstoppable mean to you?

So, it's a really great question, because I think for me, you know, I wrote a book called limitless how to ignore everybody carve your own path and live your best life.

So for me, being built unstoppable means that you have found within yourself, the thing that you care about that you want to do that matters to you so that everyone else's opinions, don't stop your forward momentum.

It's not To say that you're always going to be right because none of us know what the hell we're doing. We're all making it up as we go along and every seven to 10 years or so, you, you know, recalibrate and reassess, and retarget.

But being unstoppable means that nobody else stops your forward progress, that you keep moving forward, you make mistakes, you know that failure is not finale, but it's fulcrum, and from the failure, you learn, and you grow, and you iterate, and you change and you evolve, and so being built unstoppable means nobody else stops you because of their ridiculous opinions about what you should do or could do or God forbid, can't do. 

And finally, where can people find you on?

Yeah, so my name is Laura Gassner Otting. It's a lot of names so all my good friends like you call me LGO, so I am on the web at heyLGO calm and all the socials at heyLGO on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and if people are interested in learning more, they can ask Take a four question quiz super easy at my four questions calm, that actually will help them understand whether they need to have more calling more connection, more contribution or more control in their life.

Fantastic. And thank you so much for being on the show where

it was a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me, Justin. Awesome.

Thank you. Bye bye bye