Rewrite the Definition of Success with Washington Post Best Selling Author Laura Gassner Otting AKA LGO

James Robilotta: 00:00:01

Welcome to Diner Talks with James slide into the booth and let's have conversations we never want to end with friends we never want to leave over food we probably shouldn't be eating.

James Robilotta: 00:00:22

My friends what is going on Welcome to another episode of diner talks with James I'm James and I'm super pumped to be here with you today y'all What are you going to be having? You want a molten shake? What do you want? Do you want something you want like a classic eggs and bacon? What are we doing today? Over here, my friends you let me know just slide into the booth and let's have a good time. I'm really excited for today's episode, y'all. We're here today with the one and only Laura Gassner. otting. AKA LG. Oh, she is the author of The Washington Post's best selling book limitless. How do we ignore everybody carve your own path and live your best life. She also wrote another awesome book called mission driven. She helps people get unstuck and achieve extraordinary results. She served on hillary clinton's national finance committee shouldn't then she was asked to do a TEDx talk. And then her whole life changed because she became a professional speaker. Before that she served as a presidential appointee in Bill Clinton's White House where she helped shaped America. She's worked for big companies you've heard of she's worked for startups that you've heard of her passion for nonprofit and philanthropic work truly speaks for itself. Through we're committed to give back she helped build a local Montessori School, co founded a women's philanthropic initiative advise the startup National Women's pack grew a citizen leadership development program and completed three charity inspired marathons not three think I'll go run a marathon three charity inspired marathon. She lives in Boston, which is maybe the only unfortunate piece about her but we'll talk about that in a minute. She has two teenage sons and a hysterical and adorable Doberman Pinscher there's you should follow her on Instagram. Hey elogio to get your daily dose of your daily Dober let's bring her out right now. l g. Oh, hello, James. It is so good to be here. What is up my friend?

Laura Gassner: 00:02:21

Oh, my god, that was a long introduction. I'm hungry. What's your favorite? What's your favorite diner meal? I got to know this

James Robilotta: 00:02:27

favorite diner meal depends on what time of day we're going. If we're going late at night, too often I'm a grilled cheese with bacon and french fries. But I also have been known to crush a stack of pancakes

Laura Gassner: 00:02:40

All right, all right. Yeah, I go breakfast all day long in a diner. I just I got I got to do the breakfast. And it's got to be like the hungry man special where they give you like a little bit of everything, huh? Yeah, like amendment issues to bring

James Robilotta: 00:02:52

the sausage and the bacon, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah,

Laura Gassner: 00:02:55

absolutely. Absolutely. Do you want the eggs? Yes. Do you want the pigs? Yes. Do the French just Yes, the answer. Here's the theme. Yes,

James Robilotta: 00:03:01

yes. I want to be that person at the table that everybody else has to rearrange their plates because I'm having more plates delivered.

Laura Gassner: 00:03:11

Yes. And you know, a friend of mine, you know, mentioned that I run three marathons. I'm actually running my fourth on Monday, a week from today. And I have a friend that I run with in the runs that we do, we end up running, you know, you run through like four cities when you're running a 20 mile training run. But we always end at this one particular diner and she the first time ordered a toasted blueberry muffin. So they cut them up in half. They toast it and then they butter it and I gotta tell you, it's a revelation. I had no idea that the Sydney that existed in the world and it is it's changed my life.

James Robilotta: 00:03:44

It's it is a pro tip that diners have figured out. Yeah, I went to I now live in the Midwest, born and raised in New York, but I now live in the Midwest. So Perkins are really big out here. And Perkins are known for their baked goods. And so I asked them can you toast the muffin? And you would think I asked this woman for like a lobster bisque. And in the middle of Minnesota. She was like, I don't understand. I literally had to explain it to her. And she when she brought it out to me, she's like, all of the chefs are now toasting muffins and eating them and they just want to say thank you. So have you ever

Laura Gassner: 00:04:23

had a toasted glazed doughnut?

James Robilotta: 00:04:26

Have I ever had Yes, I have. That's the bomb. Yeah, right? Yeah, it's like a bagel

Laura Gassner: 00:04:34

Oh, well I mean you know so is diabetes. Right? We just the next step in the process. toasted like a bagel you'd slathers and butter on you stick it on the griddle and then you just like it's like a spoon. It's just like it's just syrup. It's It's incredible. Anyway, I'm sure all the people listening to this podcast are interested in like entrepreneurship and coaching and leadership tips are like what the hell are you talking about?

James Robilotta: 00:04:55

Well, it's funny because you jumped the gun and read ahead. Well done. Great students. But the first question I always ask somebody is what do you normally order at a diner? And so here we go, you just go. You're actually right on track. always wanting to

Laura Gassner: 00:05:11

be the star student. Unfortunately, I was mostly drunk and stoned in high school in college, so I never was the star since I can. Now it's perfect.

James Robilotta: 00:05:18

It's never too late. They say it's never too late. Now, are you born and raised in the northeast? Where's where does where do you grew up?

Laura Gassner: 00:05:27

I was born in New York City. Yeah, I've heard of it. And I was born. I was raised in Miami, Florida. Okay, great. Yes. It

James Robilotta: 00:05:35

took a hard left there.

Laura Gassner: 00:05:36

Yeah. So I can punch you in the face in two languages. Basically.

James Robilotta: 00:05:40

That's what I'm picking up. Yeah. So born and raised in Miami, how old were you when you moved down to Miami.

Laura Gassner: 00:05:46

So um, my dad was, my dad is a retired surgeon. And when after I was born, he joined the military, because that's what everybody had to do at the time. It was during the Vietnam era. And he was given the option either to move to Texas or to move to Florida, because he was in the Air Force. And he was the surgeon, he was being brought into the service as one of the surgeons that were going to work on the astronaut training program. So he said, How about Florida? So we moved to Cape Canaveral. And I spent the first couple years of my life living on Cape Canaveral. And then, about two years into a service you're supposed to serve for four years, they were like, Well, good news, the war is over. So you can go if you want, or we'll send you to our next base in Oklahoma. And he was like, so we're Jewish. And I don't know if there are any Jews in Oklahoma, and my mom was like, No fucking way. So he put on his uniform, he got in his car, he drove to our south to Miami, he didn't have a suit, but he put on his uniform, and he interviewed with some other surgeons, and he became part of a surgical practice. And that's how we ended up in Miami.

James Robilotta: 00:06:53

Incredible. Yeah, random.

Laura Gassner: 00:06:55

Yeah, we spent all this time in our lives making like plans, like, what am I going to do? And how is it going to be and then like, life throws you a monkey wrench and you're like, Okay, I guess I'll go that way. Now.

James Robilotta: 00:07:06

You're like, okay, there's no Jews in Oklahoma. So we're gonna make a choice. There's probably

Laura Gassner: 00:07:09

a lot of Jews in Oklahoma. But you know, like when you spent your entire life and like a 10 square block or block radius in Brooklyn, and then you end up in Cape Canaveral in Florida. You're like, I don't think there's any Jews anywhere else. For that there's Jews everywhere. But yeah,

James Robilotta: 00:07:24

yeah, yeah. Yeah. You just went out to go Yo, dad to go fishing for him, though. Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. That's amazing. So that is really special. What a career that you're that your father stacked up. Now. Are you are you? Are you with? Do you have any siblings? Are you an only child?

Laura Gassner: 00:07:41

I have? Well, I have one older sister who's 16 months older than I am. But I also have a cousin who moved into our house when she was in 10th grade. So she's four years older than I am. So I kind of have like two sisters. Even though one's a cousin.

James Robilotta: 00:07:55

Okay, incredible, incredible. Now growing up with a father who is actually successful and stereotypically successful, right? When we think about it's like, well go be a doctor. Right? So, Jewish doctor, Jewish doctor, right, exactly, exactly. So sometimes it puts a lot of pressure on individuals. Did you feel any pressure of what success was supposed to look like for you? Is that something that was ever passed on to you? Or were you kind of always like, Yeah, whatever. We're at Cape Canaveral working with astronauts. I you know, who cares? Right? Like you're talking about being drunk and high in high school and stuff.

Laura Gassner: 00:08:32

Yeah, there wasn't a lot of Oh, whatever. In my childhood, definitely not. Um, I mean, you know, my book limitless is basically based on the whole premise that at some point, when you're 15 1617 years old, somebody's like, hey, James, pick a major pick a college, pick a trade pick a path and you go Okay, and then you like set your entire life plan. And the thing is, you know, what you don't have when you're 15 1617 years old, you don't have but you actually you don't have a frontal lobe like literally you like the part of your brain that helps you dictate good solid logical decisions is not developed in your brain like we are asked to make the most important decisions of our lives when we literally do not have the capacity to make a good one. So what do we do we look around and we're like, well, this is why moms makes a success and so my dad thinks his success and this is what's working for my older sister or this is what my teacher saying or this is what you know, back then it was like Susan de en la la she seems successful I'll be a lawyer right? Hey kids, that's your version of saying Kim Kardashian seems successful I'll make a sex tape right like it's like there's the we have these images of what success looks like they come from the outside world and we we have to make decisions to do something with them. Before we know ourselves like forget life experience, forget world experience. Like we don't even know ourselves. That point. And so we make these decisions. And we go off to like, fill everybody else's checkboxes on everybody else's list of what success is going to look like. And then we look around one day and we're like, okay, so I'm successful, quote, unquote, as you said, like typically stereotypically successful, but I'm not happy. So what's wrong? There must be something wrong with me. It turns out there's not anything wrong with us. There's just something wrong with the definition of success that was handed to us by somebody else. Because we never took the time to stop and say, is that the definition of success? My definition of success? And it turns out most of the time, it's not. Yeah.

James Robilotta: 00:10:36

Hey, that the truth y'all we're coming with the truth bombs hot and heavy first here. And that is a such a brilliant point, because you're right, we don't have that frontal lobe. And so we're over here just looking at what other prescriptions of success other people have been handed. And so here we go a Google phone in the footsteps over here. Yeah, I had no idea what I mean, I wanted to be a marine biologist. Right? So I got a Bachelor of Science in marine biology. There's not one fish around me right now. lgl. Okay, I use my degree to impress dates and aquariums. Alright. Is that, but, but it's fascinating, though, because I wonder, I wonder, when we think about that, I think there are parts of our childhood, where we experience pure joy, where we do things that truly make us just make us happy, even though it's happiness in its simplest, most simplistic form. And so what I've also noticed and I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this is that some people when they're stuck later in life need to go back to Well, what was that thing that made me that brought me joy, you know, like I was told not to be an artist and I'm supposed to be so but I was told not to be an artist. And so I went ahead and got my business administration degree or something like that. Now I'm but yet, there's a nugget and what brought you joy earlier, so though we haven't exactly formed it. We still know what happiness is. But we shoved that aside because of what we believe society or and or parents or guardians are telling us to do. But do you believe that like, kind of at that later age, though, it's sometimes it's healthy to go back to that thing of like, well, what made me smile when I wasn't even thinking about it when I was younger?

Laura Gassner: 00:12:18

You know, I've thought a lot about that, actually. Because it's such a good question. You know, I think there's there are a lot of people who are like, you know, what, I love to do what I love drawing, I love being an artist, I love dancing, I love music. And they're usually creative pursuits, where people have said things like, Well, you can't make money at that. So you might as well do something else. Metal, just be your hobby, right? So we learn really early on that the things that cause us joy, that are creative, in our fun, are less important, and are less valuable than the things that earn us money. So I spent some time thinking about that, because I was like, Well, I don't know, maybe we should all like go find our inner child again, and like go do those things. But the truth is, I I've also like, I just turned 50, and I'm, I'm kind of a princess. And like if I spend my time like dancing and drawing and doing needlepoint and things that cause me joy as a child, that's not going to give me 800 thread count sheets at the Four Seasons, right? So like, I read, I think, I think it's a matter of thinking about like, what do you really want your life to look like? So we spend a lot of time thinking, like what I want my career to look like, and what do I want, you know, if I make bigger, better, faster, more, like more money, the bigger title, the bigger, you know, job, the corner office, all that I'll finally be happy. And I think, you know, I had a, I had a business coach. I had breakfast, breakfast with him at a diner actually. And he said, Look, what do you want your life to look like in five years? And I was like, Well, I don't know. I mean, I want to have a successful business and a successful family and I want to and he's like, Yeah, but what does it mean? Like what does success mean? Do you help Dad? How many vacations Do you want to go on when you go on those vacations? Do you want to fly first class? Do you want to you know, drive your car? Do you want to stay at the Four Seasons? Do you want to like stay at the Ramada Inn? no shade to the Ramada Inn, but you know, like what what do you want it to look like? Do you want to be somebody who's philanthropic who can give money to causes and candidates that you care about? Are you somebody who like do you value having dinner every night with your family? Or do you want to be on the road all the time? Like what do you like really nitty gritty? What would make you feel happy in your life? And I had a really hard time thinking about it because I was so busy my whole life trying to go to like the traditional definitions of success that for me to say things like Yeah, actually, I love traveling, I want to travel a ton, but I also want to make enough money so that when I travel, I can come home to a house that somebody else cleans for me because I don't want to have to come home at the end of the day on a Saturday, Sunday and be super stressed and have to like clean my toilet and do all that stuff. Like I want to own it like I'm a princess at this point in my life. But I also don't want to maximize every dollar I can from my work. I want to have the flexibility to say no to certain clients so that I can be home and see my kids, you know, at six o'clock and have dinner with them. And that changed like every seven to 10 years or so that what that equation looked like kind of changed and it may just be that I wasn't like a super creative kid that like my thought oval what caused me joy as a child wasn't something that seemed like, I don't know, like a fantasy dream world. I think if you're somebody who was creative, you might have much more of like a prison cell around you with what you're doing. But I was um, I wasn't a like happy go lucky, loose creative kid. I was the kid who was like, watching the news every night and like being righteously indignant about like the Iranian hostage crisis situation and things like that. I mean, I just, I'm a weirdo.

James Robilotta: 00:15:51

Sounds like a lot of friends. Well,

Laura Gassner: 00:15:53

I mean, like, what brought me joy then was super active about stuff that I saw is wrong in the world and wanting to make rate. So this business coach said something to me, which was really smart. Like, first he asked me, like, how do you pay yourself? And I was like, Well, I don't I mean, I like I'm bringing money in for my clients, and I pay my team of staff members and contractors, and then I, you know, put some money into like upgrading our database and our website and stuff like that. And I put a little money away for a rainy day, and then I guess I pay myself whatever's left over. And he was like, That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I think it's exact words work. Stop thinking like such a girl, which you know, what? Okay, but he wasn't wrong. I was definitely like, apologizing for being there, like a lot of female entrepreneurs do. And he said, You need to figure out what you want your life to look like, in five years? How many times do you want to go on vacation? What kind of car do you want to drive? What do you want? You know, do you want to clean your house? When someone else clean your house? What do you want your life to look like? Figure out what that life costs, and then build a business that throws off that amount of money. And it was like, basically the polar opposite of what I'd been doing up until that point, and it was a sea change moment for me. Because I it made me realize that I wasn't just like going into the office every day to do the work and take whatever's leftover, I was actually building towards something. And that something was only defined by me. So I don't know. I mean, like, Look, you're you're doing the same kind of work. You're an entrepreneur, you're like out there on your own. How do you pay yourself? Like how to, like, do you have a logic around how you do it?

James Robilotta: 00:17:26

I'm just wildly rich. So you know, everything's fine. You know? Oh, god, no, I just got hit in the face with money.

James Robilotta: 00:17:42

Yeah, I mean, yeah, how do I, how do I behave myself. So my, my wife is also a professional speaker. That's what, that's what we both do. And she talks to women about why women need women. And I talk about authenticity and vulnerability and leadership. And, and so we recently upon getting married, decided to merge our two LLCs into one and we have our own business. Now. Um, and so I would say that we are approaching things somewhat similarly to the way that you currently are as well, or the way that you know, when you when you spoke with your business coach at that time, where it's kind of like, you know, we take care of our employees and contractors and and let's make sure that they're fed and totally fine. Now, and then the next move is, the next move is to like, make sure that we're good with daycare, and some of those other expenses. And then, and then, you know, whatever money we have leftover, we try to do fun things. But I would also say that, you know, we set a goal to go and live somewhere else on this earth for a month, every other year. And so that's something that we build towards. And that's something that we're like, well, that's unacceptable if we can't do that. So we need to build that in. And so I think that's something that we do fairly well, where we kind of build in something that that that matters to us. But yeah, I don't necessarily know if we've taken that approach of like, find the number that you need to live the life you want to live and then and then just adapt your business to actually get there.

Laura Gassner: 00:19:12

truly fascinating exercise because at the time he asked me, I had 15 staff members and we were growing at like a few staff members a year and it was like we just kept doing more with like more clients. I was I was running an executive search company. So it was more clients, more searches, more travel more staff. And one day I looked at my numbers, I was like, Okay, well, we're making more money, but we're not making so much more money that it's worth the increase in stress that comes with it right? Because at the end of the day, if you have five staff members, you have five headaches if things go wrong, if you have 15 staff members, you're 15 headaches if things go wrong. If you have 40 staff members, it's 40 headaches, but it's it am you are you making enough money to make the 15 headaches worth more than the five and on top of that? Are you actually making more profit right? Because you have to Have a larger business, you have to have more, you know, overhead, you have to have like more levels you have to have like more stuff more support going on. And so it made me stop and think like, Well, okay, what do I want to take home and what kind of what size of business how many team members is actually the right size to throw up that amount of money and, and be worth it for what I'm doing. And it was funny because it sort of happened at the same time as we had a retreat and we brought on with the firm was fully virtual, we were actually all remote before it was like COVID cool to be remote. So we were fully virtual. Yeah, we were I mean, I started the company in 2002. And we never had office spaces. So we had, we had people all over the literally all over the world. And we brought everybody together once a year for a retreat, and we had this one woman who was from Harvard Business School, she facilitated the retreat, and she went around at the very beginning of the of the first day. And she's like, Okay, hi, I want everyone to go around and tell us what do you think is the ideal number of staff for this company. And people were like, 15 2054, they were pulling numbers out of their ass. And she came to me last and I was like, this is a really stupid question like, like, what kind of business? Do we want to build? What what kind of impact we want to make in the world? What kind of lifestyle do we want to have. And if you tell me that, I'll tell you how many people we need, because we could be far more profitable with five people, or 60 people than we are with 20. But with 20, we're less profitable, but we all have more flexibility in our lives, right? So like, what are we maximizing for? Are we maximizing for impact? Are we maximizing for profit? Are we maximizing for personal freedom and flexibility? Because I'll give you two of the three, but we have to make decisions based on something and making a decision based on like, how much business comes in the door and let staff for that actually might build a business that's making less money, and is keeping us busier than what we really want to do. So that whole the whole exercise of figuring out what kind of life you want. And I'm not saying like, How much money do you want for the bet and what to have in the bank. But I'm saying like, how often do you want to hang out with your kids? How many like, do you want to take a month and live somewhere else every year, you want to take two months to live somewhere else every year like? And when you do that? Where are you living? Right? So like that exercise, I felt like for the very first time pulled me away from filling in everybody else's definition of success, and actually stopping and saying, Well, what what do I want? What does my husband want? What do we want as a family? How do we want to do this, and it really opened up some pretty good conversations in our house in my business. And it really like it radically changed how we thought about what we were building and how we're building it. And as a result, actually the business grew like 100% every year for like the next five years.

James Robilotta: 00:22:44

That's incredible, great hockey stick. Yeah, that's incredible. You know, it's interesting, Laura, my wife and I have ever kept, I've had a conversation recently, because we set a we set a goal for our business of an income goal this year. And we hit it with contracted speeches by the beginning of August, which is really exciting. And so we then had this really beautiful problem to have, which is So what now? Do we smash the gas and be like, let's see how far we can blow the goodness of the wheels off of this goal and just, you know, like and hit it? Or do we like no, we should be happy with the amount that we have hit and realize that that's an amount that we had already decided that we can live a really great life with. And so instead, you know, let's make sure we take a vacation or even just not just like block our calendar, like what if we just didn't go anywhere or didn't do anything? Obviously, we probably still do some work. But maybe we're not on the road, right? Maybe it's a time where we're not putting our nine month old on a plane, right? Or something like that. But there's a fascinating balance especially. So I know if it's a younger thing or an older thing. I don't know if it changes in life, I think it's more just the individual personality. But like, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on that. It's like, we're literally asking ourselves like, what is enough?

Laura Gassner: 00:24:06

Yeah, what did you do? I want to know, what do you do?

James Robilotta: 00:24:10

tiptoed around it, and I've come up with excuses to like, are like, wow, we should probably make more. Right? Because like she's putting on a woman's conference. And I'm like, Well, you know, hotel overhead, you know, which probably gets and like, isn't this part of me, that's like, if we got the time, let's go because we also we love what we do, which is which is fortunate. Now,

Laura Gassner: 00:24:29

tomorrow's not promised. Correct.

James Robilotta: 00:24:33

But tomorrow is not promised but at the same time tomorrow is also not promised with a beautiful day that I could have with our son. Right? So that's where this fascinating balance so I'm curious like, or you

Laura Gassner: 00:24:45

could say like our son's nine month old right now and he knows us and He loves us, but it's going to be sure as hell a whole lot more fun taken off that beautiful day when he's three. So I'd rather bank some of it now and really spend time with him when he's older. Yeah,

James Robilotta: 00:24:59

yeah, yeah. This is a fascinating idea that's clearly rattled around in my head. And I mean, who knows what the right thing is to do, but, but you know, we're gonna make the decision for us. But I think the concept of what is enough. In contrast to that, let's say it's in complete contrast to the concept of limitless. But I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on that, like when you know, the clients that you have the opportunity to work with, or even just thinking in your own life? How do you determine what enough is?

Laura Gassner: 00:25:30

Well, just to back up a second to be clear, limitless is not about getting everything all the time more and more and more that actually there's one of the ideas behind limitless is that your definition of success may not be more and more and more your definition of success. Maybe this is enough. This is okay. So there there are there for like the book, the book talks about the idea of consonants, which is not success for successes sake not successful for happiness, because that's all sort of ephemeral and fleeting. This idea of consonants where you're in alignment, when you're in flow, like you said, you're doing the work you love. And it's made up of four parts, it's made up of calling connection, contribution and control. So calling is this gravitational forces thing that gets you out of bed in the morning, a leader who inspires you the business, you want to build a family you want to nurture, right, the cause that you want to that you want to serve, like something that is exciting to you. Connection is, can you see a direct connection between your daily work? And that calling? Right? Do you see that your work actually matters? contribution is how does this work contribute to your life? does it allow you to manifest your values in a daily basis? does it pay you enough to give you the life that you want? Does it give you the flexibility to give you the lifestyle that you're looking for? Does it contribute to you living the kind of life you want? And then the last piece is control? How much do you personally control? How much agency do you have that how much that work connects to your calling, and how much it contributes to your life. So the contribution piece is interesting, because we had, we have over 5000 people take an online quiz that we put up and what we have found, surprisingly, to all the companies they're trying to throw more money at people to keep them happy is that in fact, only 55% of the leading age group that's in the great resignation, right now, the 30 to 45 year olds, only 55% of them want more contributions out of their work. But 62 to 65% of them want more inspiration, right? They want more calling, they want to know their work matters. They want the connection, they want to feel like they have some control. So it's interesting that this question of how much is enough? A lot of us are like, actually, I already got enough, right? I've got enough or I know what that number is, and I can go for it. But this external pressure of bigger, better, faster, more drive the right house drive, you know, drive drive, the right car pocket or the right house were exactly the right clothes, buy exactly the right designers, send your kids to the right dance classes, and music classes and private schools and all those things. There are a lot of people who read limitless and said, you know, what I actually realized is, I've got enough right now I had one guy who read the book, and he sent me a message on Instagram. And he's like, you know, I read your book, and I finally quit my corporate job, my wife and I bought a farm house. And we've always wanted to grow our own food and make our own energy. So we did. Awesome, right? Like, that's great. So like, if your calling is that you want to, you know, cure cancer, great, that's great, go for it. If your calling is that you want to make enough money so that you can make decisions, financial decisions that you never got to make growing up, and your kids gonna have more flexibility than you had growing up because you were in debt. That's awesome, too. But if your calling is that you want to buy a mom's writing a beach house. That's cool, too, right? So like, everybody's number of how much is enough, is going to be just completely different. So I don't know like, for me, how much is enough is that I don't have to look at the number on my bank account before I make decisions about things that cause me joy method, sometimes the things that cause me joy, or go into a taco truck with my kids, and sometimes things that cause me joy, or, you know, taking a first class flight and staying at four star hotels. Everybody's different in every part of your life is different. So I don't I don't know, I don't I don't know that I can answer that. Like, can you answer that? I'm not sure I can.

James Robilotta: 00:29:22

I think in a way you did, right? In a way you did answer it because it truly is different for everybody. And ultimately what it comes down to is, is you're the only person who has to fall asleep to the sound of your own heartbeat. So you are the only person who knows what is enough. And who knows what external pressures you are allowing to redefine what your definition of success is, what your definition of happiness is, what your definition of enough is. Now Um, and so what you said is beautiful for that reason, and I love I love your definition of success. One of my definition of success is to be able to pay people to do the things I don't want to do so I have more time to do the things I want to do, right? You talked about getting the house clean the talk about getting the lawn mowed, talking about whatever it is, right? And so like, that's, that's one of my definitions of success doesn't have to be somebody else's. But that's one of mine. And so because there's some people that are like, well, I always want to mow my lawn, I want to know what's done, right? That's amazing that makes you do it, give a shit about it. Right, I got a buddy who sends me a picture of his lawn, and he sent like, protractors and everything, I'm, like, good for you. But anything, just tell me what I'm supposed to put fertilizer down. And amazing. I

Laura Gassner: 00:30:33

mean, I was talking to someone today and, and, and, and she was telling me how, like, the thing that she hates most in the world is going to the grocery store. She just hates it with like, every fiber in her being and like, I like to like, feel my produce, you know, like I like to get Yeah, baby. So you know, I I'm like, for me, if I like set up like an instacart or somebody does the grocery shopping for me and like I'm there, like, an important ingredient is missing, then all of a sudden, I have like, 78% of the meal that I want to cook. And then what am I gonna do? Right? So like, I just I like a lot of control. That's just how I operate. So I you know, I think everybody is different. And I think the other thing that's important, James is, it's also different at different ages and different life stages. So like what mattered to me. You know, you mentioned that I worked in the Clinton White House, I dropped out of law school to join the Clinton White House and I at that time, I didn't need any contribution I wasn't making, I was making like all the ramen soup and ideals and you could eat right? Like they weren't paying me anything. But I had calling out the wazoo I was inspired. I was so inspired by this guy who talked about exchanging community service for college tuition, I was like, Yes, that makes so much sense. I had no connection. I was getting a coffee for the guy who got the coffee for the guy who got the coffee. I mean, it was like, zero. And I had no control like, are they gonna send me a little rock one day in New York City The next day, Des Moines, Idaho, or Iowa, like I, who knows, but it didn't matter. That's all I needed at the time. Now, as I mentioned, I'm 50. I've got you know, two teenage kids one's in college in Houston. And my speaker page on my website now is like Laura charge between 20 and $25,000 for speech, plus, you know, airfare blah, blah, blah. And then there's questions, typical questions, does she do discounts? And it's like, yes, Laura has lots of charities that are important to her. So if it is one that makes sense for her, she'd be happy to talk to you about discounts. What if my events in Houston, right, my kids at Rice in Houston, and I said, I think I don't remember the exact wording. But it says something like, if you've got airfare and money for dinner for two at a taco truck, I'm your girl, right? Like, that's all that matters to me now. So I would forego my fee, if I have an opportunity to go to Houston and go have dinner with my son. So I think every agent at every life stage and I think those life stages probably are like, every seven to 10 years they change, right? Like think about who you were seven years ago different than now. Now you'll have a nine month old, but in seven years, that nine month old is going to be what in third, second grade third grade, taking the bus to school, like your time is going to be very different than it is now. So what you do and what you need out of your work, and how that that piece of your life dovetails with the rest of your life will be different, and you'll want different things. But we had this one size, you know, monolithic lead in type of idea that it's like, you got to like rise and grind and hustle and all that stuff. And it's bullshit, you know, like, it's like, why is there a one size fits all definitions of success? I reject that outright? Mm hmm.

James Robilotta: 00:33:40

Yes, yes. Yes. So I'm wondering, taking it back to your childhood thinking back to your childhood, I have to bring it back up because I want I want to hear a little bit more about it, which is now this idea that you were you know that you were a drunk in high in high school. And and so, you know, at the same time, you you had very strong and powerful beliefs. You know, like you said, you know, you're watching the news, you're, you're learning about what's going on in Iran, you're, you know, yelling fuck the patriarchy before it was on T shirts, right? And so, and all that kind of stuff. And so there was a part of you. That is amazing how it's kind of carried in through a lot of your life now, but I'm wondering, you know, when you were that age, what what mattered to you? What did you think you were going to be doing? What was the goal at that age?

Laura Gassner: 00:34:30

Well, I graduated from high school, thinking that I would be the first female democratic senator from the great state of Florida. That was the plan. Great. So I applied for college, went to University of Texas, mostly because there were a lot of cute boys playing frisbee without shirts on the day that we visited. Sounds pretty much why I chose it. Yeah. And you know, it's fine. It's great. Um, I graduated early from from college. So I graduated the December Last, so three and a half years. And then I went right into law school we started in January, and the January class at University of Florida where I went because like, I wasn't going to get into Harvard. So I was like, I'm gonna I want to run for office in Florida, I should go to the best law school in Florida. So I picked University of Florida. And the way that it works is you do the fall semester in the spring, and then you do the spring semester in the summer. So you're caught up to the next fall class. So I graduated from college on like, December 17, and started law school on January 3, and I was, you know, 20 years old at the time. And I was at, that's what I was gonna do. I was like, I was all in, I was going to run for office, I was going to solve all the problems, I was gonna, you know, I was gonna help, I was gonna fix things. And then I spent the first few weeks in law school, and I was that kid, I was the one that got called on the very first day, like, I'm a lot older than you, but like the Paper Chase, where they call on the student, and they just ask question after question after question after question. In that, you know, the Socratic method where they just, like, beat the student down. And I went, like, I don't know, 20 minutes or so answering questions, until finally, I didn't have any more knowledge. And I basically started crying. I mean, I was like, the teacher just tore me apart, made an example out of me. And I looked around at the rest of the students in the class. And I did not see one friendly face, I did not see one supportive person. And when I went to the library, the next week to take out a book to read about a case that was going to be on the test coming up, I found the case was ripped out of the book. And I remember thinking like, this is University of Florida, like, like, This isn't like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, like who like what's going on here. And I was just so horrified. And like, I just, I didn't want to be like the professors like, I felt like they were inhumane. I didn't respect my fellow students who were just they placed competition above knowledge. And I just like I had this idea of sort of where it was going, and where it was going wasn't anywhere I wanted to be. So I did the thing that most people do when they're in a pretty bad situation in life. I dated a really horrible person.

James Robilotta: 00:37:09

On the fire, let's go

Laura Gassner: 00:37:12

in my law school class, and I used to ride my bike to campus and

James Robilotta: 00:37:20

Gainesville,

Laura Gassner: 00:37:20

so yeah, I used to ride my bike to campus. And on that particular day, it was raining. And so he said, Well, I'll give you a ride home from class, we'll just put your bike in the back of my iraq sea, which will tell you everything you need to know about. Right, like the depth that would go in and you know, there were there. We were calling back. He's like, but on the way I want to stop this guy's campaign office, he's running for president, I want to pick up some literature. Kids listening, this is how you used to do before the internet, right? You have to like stop at a physical office. And you'd have to like actually get paper that had a candidate's campaign stances on there's no internet like the internet didn't exist. Or maybe it did. But it was just for, like, you know, like, defense contractors, but like, it didn't exist in the world. So we pull into this little tiny, teeny tiny strip mall in Gainesville, Florida. And the entire strip mall was like about the size of the office you're sitting in right now. But in the corner, there was this tiny little black and white TV. And then Governor Bill Clinton, brown head of hair, still giving this impassioned talk at the National Governors Association about this idea of community service in exchange for college tuition, make the world a better place while you're improving your life. And it was like, boom, right? a lightning bolt. Like I walked into that office like, governor who, from where Arkansas, like Not a chance in hell, George HW Bush just won Desert Storm, you have like a 91% approval rating. Everybody was like, oh, we'll just send like a sacrificial lamb in for the Democratic ticket, because clearly, Bush is gonna win again. And then Bill Clinton comes out of nowhere. He has this idea. And he talks about it. And I was like, Yes, that makes so much sense that needs to happen. And it was, I would say, I didn't realize it. But I didn't realize until like 20 years later. But looking back on it. That was the moment where my mindset went from, how can I help to what needs to happen? like the way you solve problems isn't asking people, how can I help you ask them what needs to happen and you find the solution you can offer within what they need, as opposed to making an ego play about like, how can I help tell me what I can do make me the center of the tension. And that's actually what I ended up giving my Ted x talk about, which then launched the part of the career that I'm in right now. So yeah, like, it's funny how we think everything that's happening right now is the new normal, but like, I think we have no idea that there are little bits of data that are being filed into our brain that will become lessons that will alchemize years from now, and we don't even realize it yet. We're just like gathering right now. We're gathering You just you're planting all these seeds and you don't know what's going to come up and it's like maybe you're growing a pot plant or maybe you're growing a rose garden or maybe you're growing eggplants or like Who the hell knows but I think that's really interesting that we were living in a world right now where everyone's like, well you know, are you making money from your hobby? And are you maximizing this and are you you know, are you are you making everything as much as it can possibly count? The truth is sometimes you're just gathering seeds so I gathered a lot of seeds and yeah I so I thought I was gonna run for office I thought I was gonna you know graduate from law school become a district attorney put away the bad guys like make my reputation get recruited to run for office when of course like in my fantasy of course, I was gonna win. And yeah, I mean like it's gonna be a landslide obviously. Right? Like the odds are better so slim, but in my fantasy imagination, that's what I thought was gonna happen and then I you know, I would you know, run for Congress that I'd run for senate and I never interestingly enough, never actually thought beyond that, because at the time, the only woman I'd ever seen to run for office I was higher than senator was Geraldine Farrar for vice president so like i just i just i didn't i didn't think ladies could be president i guess when I was 12 it was life plan for me. So yeah, we still have to work on that by the way, but that's a that's a diner talk for another day.

James Robilotta: 00:41:21

I agree on both of those fronts actually that yes, we need to work on it. And yes, that is indeed a whole nother diner talk but a worthwhile one. My breakfast

Laura Gassner: 00:41:34

Yeah, like I I wrote a lot of plans and pen without realizing that I should have been writing them in pencil and

James Robilotta: 00:41:41

yeah, but sometimes we need to write plans in pen because that's what gives us the courage to move. Yeah, to victory, right? Every right if we write everything in pencil that we're going to know, right? Like we kind of sit there. Yes. But at the same time on the other end of the spectrum, I love that you acknowledge this, the hustle culture, right that no one's we're Where are we hustling to? Right? Like, it's not like we're running on the first baseline, we got a goal to get to it. A lot of us was like, I got to do everything. Yeah, it's like, Where do you want to go? Where's this train that you're talking about? Like, yeah, it's

Laura Gassner: 00:42:13

like you end up exhausted but not fulfilled right? on that on you know, I love that idea of like, you have to have your sometimes you need to write your plans and pen to give you the courage. I think it's like the difference between motivation and discipline or motivation and accountability. Like you and I live in a world of a lot of motivational speakers. I describe myself as a motivational, you know, keynote speaker, but I think motivation is bullshit, I think it's not, I really do because like to say like it like it when somebody is motivated, it means that every single day, they wake up and have to re motivate themselves every single day. And I just, I don't have that kind of fortitude. I just don't like I mentioned earlier, I'm gonna run my fourth marathon on Monday, but I run charity marathons first, because I'm old and slow. But second, because if I have all these people who have donated to me, I have to keep getting up and running, because they're paying attention. And they're watching and like, I'll break a promise to myself, every single day of the week. I'm like, I'm tired. My foot hurts. I don't know. And I, but I won't break a promise to somebody else ever. Right? So like, I don't like, motivation doesn't work for me. But like accountability, capabilities, everything I don't like, what do you think about that? Because you know, you and I live in the same space here.

James Robilotta: 00:43:28

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think, I think I think motivation, plants to seed. But after that, sometimes our business is a little lonely, right? Because we're not because we're not there to you know, we'll get some water on it and get some sun. Right. That's accountability. Yeah, accountability is that next piece, but motivation, I think, I think motivation, if done right, puts the seed in some good soil, and it gives you the opportunity. But yeah, but that's it. Right? And so I think it matters, but it's, it's not the it's, for me to discount our work even further. It's the easy part of the job.

Laura Gassner: 00:44:06

Creation. Like I think motivation is very good for inspiring people to create dreams that are truly worthy of them. Right, like, I think I think it helps people to dream bigger to see what's possible to think that there could be more for them. Yeah. But to actually get there. They need discipline and accountability.

James Robilotta: 00:44:30

Yes. 100%. Yeah. I mean, the cheesy way that I put it is that as as a professional speaker, I make people pause. Hmm. And just pause for a second, right? Because if you if you never pause, and you're on the hamster wheel, right, but what if you stopped and looked around, like, do I want to be here, right, but like, we have to say, it's easier to turn a ship, if it is stopped. Then if it's in motion, we can get people to stop or slow down for a second and look around and be like, oh, maybe my language is impacting other people that are in a way that I didn't realize I said, Maybe I am prescribing to a hustle culture that's not helping me. Maybe I am enough whatever, like those kinds of things, not like that's the way that the cheesy way that I've come up to talk about it, but I agree with you. Now, I think that's why I love coaching. I'm assuming it's one of the reasons why you love coaching as well is because that's where it swings in. And you actually get to be a part of that process of change. You actually Yes, you get individuals to realize, you know, what, what kind of water do you want? What kind of sunlight Do you want, like, you know, and actually get things to change? Now, but that is, but yeah, that's how I normally think typically think about it. And, and I'm wondering for you, as you know, as we kind of talk a little bit about coaching, is there. Have you noticed certain patterns that a lot of your clients are in? And are they in repeat patterns, where you kind of like, okay, person who is CEO of a whatever health health insurance company, and now I got a CEO of a hedge fund, I got a CFO of a blank, but they're completely different entities, but yet the same patterns emerged? Have you noticed a lot of patterns with the high performing clients you work with?

Laura Gassner: 00:46:13

Yeah, absolutely. I have noticed that. I will, let's say, a handful, I've noticed that they are generally very good at driving performance in their businesses. And they are not very good at driving performance at home. Right. So they know how to be the CEO at at work. And either they come home as the CEO, which doesn't work in their house, or they come home, and they just don't know what to do, because they're not they don't have any power. So trying to figure out how to, like, meld their two selves together is something so like, they want to have as fulfilling as a home life as the success like, I find a lot of, especially male CEOs find themselves burying themselves into work, because that's the place where they feel like they have power, they have control, they, they, they, they, they get the recognition, right, like all of that some women also, but like, that tends to be more of a male CEO problem that I see with some of my clients. For the women, obviously, there's a lot of imposter syndrome and a lot of, you know, lack of confidence and concern about like, how they're coming off. And are they too powerful, they're not powerful enough, either. They walk that balance, for both, I tend and again, men have that also, right, but like that's I, if I were to gender, it, that's sort of where I see a lot of that. For both, I would say one of the things that I see is just an inability to stop getting pulled into the noise, just getting pulled into like, they're trying to do deep work, and they're trying to focus but they're also like still solving like little problems that are distracting to them and are irrelevant. And so teaching them to create boundaries and to and to let their people fly and sometimes fail a little right and figure out when the right time is to do that. I think I see that with both. And then I say the fourth thing that I see is sort of the correct tie tration of their executive presence. So when do they come on strong? When do they try to be softer? How when do they become the helper? When did they become the cheerleader just sort of figuring out how to bring the the spotlight to others sometimes and when to keep it for themselves, but sort of the whole big bucket of executive presence? Yeah, I think those are probably the four biggest things that I'm seeing right now.

James Robilotta: 00:48:41

First off, shout out to you Laura for busting out the word tie tration I haven't heard that since my organic chemistry class, sophomore year of college. It's a strong word choice. You brought up this powerful word, which is control. And control is is fascinating. You know, I know for me, I actually never drank we are different. We grew up a little different. I never I never dropped drank a drop of alcohol until I was in really my early 30s. Right. And like the first five drinks that I had, or best man speeches that I gave at weddings, I was like, I think I'm supposed to drink this otherwise it's bad luck, right? Like it's so like, it turned me into a lush, I was like, I'm supposed to do this, or I don't want to look weird, like throw it over my shoulder. But still right and so, but but, you know, there are a number of reasons historically why I didn't do that alcoholism does run in my family. And there is a gene for it. And I was like I don't know if I have it or not not trying to find out

Laura Gassner: 00:49:47

holism in my family I would die drink milk at parties. Yeah. That sounds like a very healthy decision.

James Robilotta: 00:49:53

Yeah. And so and there's other reasons right? You know, I mean, I told myself, I like being the person anybody can call if they needed anything, right? So I did a lot Add work and I love that because a lot of my friends are okay B I used to get there I used to get to drive there nicer cars than mine so and so now but ultimately you know as I did more self work a lot of it came down to control and just wanting to be in control control is a fascinating word that what is your relationship with the word control because you brought it up here a little bit earlier as well that you know you're someone who likes things the way you like things and you want it to you know you want a to b to c and that's you enjoy when that happens.

Laura Gassner: 00:50:32

Yeah, I have I have no small amount of control freakiness in me I like to sit in the aisle seat of every airplane not because I think we're going to like not because I think I'm going to survive like the fiery ball of death that is a crash but I just like the illusion of control like I am such a control freak I need the illusion of control we have we have a very specific organization system in our kitchen and a very specific organization system in our refrigerator like there's like the upper core tile is like where let Cortana is where the leftovers go the upper right corner tiles where we have like the pre cut you know berries and and veggies like the bottom is where the music's like it's it is it is a whole system What

James Robilotta: 00:51:15

did your children learn the word core tile

Laura Gassner: 00:51:22

probably they learned the word titrate so yeah I gave a speech once and and a woman came up to me afterwards she's like you use a lot of big words but I like it

James Robilotta: 00:51:35

I'm here for it I'm

Laura Gassner: 00:51:37

yeah i don't know i mean i'm i am such a control freak that I even like the precision of language right like i like i like there are so many words in the English language that there is one that is right for a moment and there are a lot that are almost right for that moment. And there's something about the the emotion that comes out of somebody when they hear exactly the word that is describing their feeling. It's like they feel seen for the very first time and it is a it is a beautiful, beautiful moment. So yeah, I am. I am a control freak. I own that. It is a I think it's okay, because I don't let my control freakiness make other people crazy. But I also understand how to communicate about it. So their lack of it doesn't make me crazy.

James Robilotta: 00:52:31

Okay, that's good. That's good self awareness. Yeah, yeah, I love that. So control is a fascinating word. And and I love that you talked about it that you often notice that pattern within men that you work with, and that you notice in women that women are battling more of imposter syndrome? Am I enough kind of things Am I the right person for the job, etc, etc. And so there's this little thing out there, I think you've heard of it, it's called privilege. And so it is, it's fascinating to hear about men, who, how, who are control freaks, and who want everything to be a specific way. And then we also talk about privilege, because ultimately, sometimes what happens is that a woman will speak up or a woman identifying individual will speak up. And they will be saying something in an assertive way. But because of the control freak nature of a male, they will become uncomfortable by it. And whenever someone becomes uncomfortable, they want to try to change or modify another person's behavior, because it's easier to point out something from someone else, as opposed to recognize Why am I uncomfortable in this moment right now. And so privilege is fascinating, because privileges this the ability to not have to worry about things when you're in certain situations. And so so as you work with men with some of these controlling behaviors, do you find yourself ever talking about privilege because I know you're someone who also is very passionate about social justice as well. And I'm wondering that comes up in those conversations, even though that's not at all what they hired you for. But as you mentioned, they bring it home, and and not to stereotype that these people are all in heterosexual relationships, but still, I think you see the direction I'm going in here. Yeah, yeah.

Laura Gassner: 00:54:19

And, you know, we should preface this by saying that the people that I'm coaching have researched me and referenced me and chosen to hire me, after seeing me online hearing what I talk about understanding my social justice bent understanding the fact that I'm going to call it like I see it. So I it may be that the way that I do it is brilliant, but I'm thinking it's more likely that the clients I have have self selected that they're willing to hear what I have to say, and that they're ready for that so it's hard for me, it's hard for me to make a comment about like gender pop up because I would imagine that there are a lot of male identifying or even female identifying and everything else who think that I'm the you know, of noxious and I scold people in all sorts of, you know, terms. I have a I have a dear friend who said to me just the other day it's like I love you as a human and I love texting with you all day long and I love you in person because but I have a hard time getting friends on social media, you scolded me the other day about International Women's Day that like not enough men were, you know, posting and doing enough and he's like, you have no idea what I was doing behind the scenes and I was like, why do you feel the need to be congratulated for what you were doing? Like the fact that I was pointing out that not enough men are working hard to open up enough doors for enough women had nothing to do with you, but the fact that she decided to make it about you and the fact that I wasn't praising you in my posts like upset you in some way? I think that's a huge issue, actually. And I think we need to think about that.

James Robilotta: 00:55:57

All man, right, that whole issue? Well, it was it was to movement,

Laura Gassner: 00:56:01

it was specifically for that day that not all men and and and I posted something where I was like, well, not all men, you know, do all these things. But not all men also are like, your silence like I'm not gonna go as far as a silence is complicity about everything. But your silence is certainly not helpful. And I think that there are I think people are so worried about pissing somebody off. Like the other day I posted. The other day I posted about this, this this young van life woman, Gabby pitino who disappeared. And this was before she was found dead. But But when she disappeared, and I posted something like, as outraged as I am about her disappearance, I'm even more outraged that the only reason every single one of us know her name this because she's beautiful. She's blonde, she's white, she's blue eyed, she's skinny. And she you know, like, like, That, to me is even more offensive. Right? Like I'm so like, I'm horrified by all of it. And not to, you know, take anything away from the tragedy that was her death. But I was like, the bigger tragedy is that there are 1000s of people who disappear every week whose names we don't know, because they're black, because they're trans because they're overweight, because they're gay, because they're old, because they're whatever, they don't fit into this, you know, idea. And as soon as I posted it, as soon as I tweeted about it, another fellow speaker in our world, texted me and he said, Oh, you're gonna lose some business for being so controversial. And I like about it, and I almost took it down. And then I went to Facebook, and I post I like, posted a picture of my tweet. And I was like, I was just told that I'm going to lose business, and you know what? I might, and that's just going to have to be okay, because I have all of this privilege. And if I don't use it, to call attention, for people who do not have it, then I'm an asshole, like, plain and simple. Like, that's it. I just, there's, I don't, I'm not saying that everybody has to get on their high horse and, and, and preach about things that they care about. But I have enough privilege that I could lose some business and be just fine if you're not somebody who could lose some business and be just fine and play it safe. But for me, I just, I don't know that I could go to bed at night, knowing that I prioritize my own personal profits. When I already have enough, right, we're talking about how much is enough? I guess how much is enough is I can lose some and be just fine. Maybe that's enough to bring this back to what we were talking about

James Robilotta: 00:58:33

before. Maybe? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I remember. I definitely I had an iron uncle who pulled me aside and was just like, hey, James, you I think you need to be a little more. Now you need to scrutinize you know what you post a little bit more just because you know, you're you're building the business, you're building a thing, and I was like, Listen, if you ain't down to get down, then we're not I don't need your money. Right? Yeah, I don't want to want it.

Laura Gassner: 00:58:56

My Black Lives Matter behind me that if that offends you, then that my guests are gonna piss you off.

James Robilotta: 00:59:03

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, yeah. No. 100%. And so that Yeah, and that's I mean, that's why it but it's interesting also in that vein, is that I social justice is a part of every speech that I give, but I don't advertise that. Yeah, because it's a little bit of give them what they want. Tell them what they need.

Laura Gassner: 00:59:25

Me, they look at my bio, and they're like, she's clearly a political person. So like, they know what they're getting like, the NRA is never gonna have me go speak at their annual conference, right? Like, yeah, and that's okay.

James Robilotta: 00:59:35

Okay, well, I bet they pay well. disappointingly, well, where's that money come from anyway. So I also think that is, we would be remiss not to talk a little bit about imposter syndrome because you mentioned that it is something that comes up with a lot of your coaching clients and it is something that affects so many individuals who don't believe That they have whatever magic they're supposed to have to be in the rooms that they occupy. And that's a lie, right? We know that from individuals. Just because you don't bring everything into the room doesn't mean you don't bring anything. And so when it comes to imposter syndrome, how do we rewrite that story? What are some ways that you try to help individuals rewrite that lie that they're telling themselves?

Laura Gassner: 01:00:25

Well, so I tell them that it's not a lie. It's not a lie that you don't have everything you need to be in that room. You don't you don't have everything you need to be in the room. But the actual truth is, neither does anybody else. Everybody else is making it up as they go along to like, there is no and I spent looking, I spent 20 years doing executive search for the biggest organizations in the world, like finding CEOs for the biggest organization in the world. And the big giant secret is that nobody walks on water, there are no perfect candidates, right? So nobody has everything you need to walk in the room. Now, women will only apply for jobs, if they are competent. If they've already done it, if they've already walked the walk, if they already can prove that they can do the job because they've already done the job. Men will often apply for jobs, because they're confident, they see what's there. They see what is possible. And they're like, yeah, I could probably do that. So when you're already starting with like, I need to be competent before I walk in the door. And then you have other people who are like, I'm confident enough to be here, I'll figure it out. When I get here. You already like you're already feeling behind. Then there's this like, then there's this, this this, this pluralistic, imposter syndrome that we have where like, if I'm in the room, and I'm overcompensating by being super confident, then you're like, Oh, well, she's so confident, I must not belong here. So you then try to like, make up for being an imposter by being even more confident. I'm like, Oh, God, James is so confident, I should be really good. So neither one of us are telling you the other one has no idea what they're doing, and we have this pluralistic imposter syndrome. But here's the thing. And there's this great article by two women whose names I can't remember off the top of my head right now. They wrote it in Harvard Business Review. And the point of the article was, all of the systems in the world we're talking about social justice issues are all the systems in the world were created by wealthy white men, wealthy, straight, cisgender white men, right? So if you walk in the room, and nobody looks like you, if you walk in the room, and it's not created for your voice, for your cadence for your personality, it's because a system wasn't created for someone who looks like you who sounds like you thinks like you who love like you praise like you, that doesn't make you an imposter. It makes the system crap. Like, we have to fix the systems. And so this article, which is fantastic, and I'll send it to you after if you want to link to it, it basically says, You are not an imposter. You've just reached a point that nobody ever expected you to be, which is kind of amazing, right? Like, it tells you like every time I feel imposter syndrome, like I don't know if I belong here, I think to myself, heavily Yeah, elogio, you're in a room that you never thought you'd be in like you've just leveled up to the next level. And every time you get to the next level, and Seth Godin talks about this also, he's like, everybody who's clinging on to the top rung has never been there before and they're all looking around hoping nobody else there's none of us have been so every time you achieve something else, I mean, Jeff Bezos, Ilan Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, like all these people that were like, Oh, my God, the cult of billionaires. They're amazing. Well, every time they earn more money, like I've never had this much money before, what am I going to do? Like, every single one of us every time we strive and we grow, and we innovate, and we iterate and we change our someone we've never been before. And so I think what we need to do is we need to not try to quiet that voice. That's the voice that saying, you might embarrass yourself, you might fail, you might totally screw up. And if we let that voice instead of being the critic, the governor that stops us from moving faster and moving forward, and allow it to be our cheerleader, that's like, you might fail, but amazing, you might learn something, you've never been here before, this is so cool. Like, this is something you never thought would happen. Awesome, good for you for getting here. Then all of a sudden, you have a cheering section. And that's way better than having a governor or having a you know, a button up, you know, like the critics. So I think I think trying to you can't silence the voice, the voice is evolutionarily been put in you to stop you from doing something stupid. So if we let the voice talk and say you might fail and go cool, that's awesome. I survived failure before I survived all of my failures up until this point, I bet I could survive this one too. And all those failures have taught me something that have landed me at a different or a better or a more interesting place. And that'll happen this time to then suddenly we're not trying to quiet the voice. We're actually using it as momentum and energy and power. So yeah, that's my thinking about imposter syndrome is Welcome, and I think it's awesome. I think it tells you that you, you know, gotten somewhere.

James Robilotta: 01:05:05

Yeah. What a powerful switch flip of our script flip of like, no, this is this is a good thing. This is telling you that that you'd never been here before. This is incredible. Look around. This is special. You made it.

Laura Gassner: 01:05:20

And you're special for making it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

James Robilotta: 01:05:24

But you said a word that people have a lot of interesting relationships with and I want to bring it back to you. We've been talking about other people, but I want to try to bring it back to you with this question. Now, you talked about confidence. And confidence is this is interesting word right? It's beautiful. I love the idea of it. Don't always have it right. I would say my my relationship, my relationship with confidence, I would describe as inconsistent or complicated, right? I once heard someone say that they're in a long distance relationship with the word confidence. And so my wife told me that story it was great. But I'm wondering you know, as I listen to you speak as you the way that you carry yourself on on social media. Obviously you have this resume that to anybody who just looks at it, they're like, holy shit, right? You're hanging out with the Clintons. We're we're selling startups. We're doing a real some amazing things opening up Montessori schools. It's incredible. And the way that you are articulate it spews confidence, and that's the way that my perception of you is I'm wondering what is your perception of yourself in your relationship with the word confidence?

Laura Gassner: 01:06:36

Yeah. So when I was 13 years old, I went to computer sleepaway camp. Like for real like, it was a sleepaway camp where you'd like program computers. It was it was a an Atari computer, sleepaway camp that's how old I am. We learned how to program basic and COBOL and a little bit of Fortran baby I am I am I and I was one of like three girls in the entire camp and still didn't kiss a boy till I went to college. And yeah, I'm still that girl I'm still that total like computer nerd girl who is a raging introvert who like walks into a party and cannot wait to leave I were very you know, nice designer clothes on stage is like body armor and I it is crazy that I'm in this job that I'm in I'd much rather have like an hour long diner talk with somebody then like work a room that just makes me want to hurl. So yeah, I think it's interesting. My relationship with confidence. Is that i i think we I like that I've a long distance relationship with confidence. I feel like mine is like it's complicated. There are some things in which I'm very confident. Absolutely. Um, and and a lot of that has come interestingly enough, in my 40s I call them the fuck you 40s like this is pretty much who I am at this point. I'm like, I might get a little better on that. 10% I might get a little worse on that. 10% but basically it's like I'm pretty much me at this 15 out right like you don't like me? Fuck you. Right? Like, I'm sure the things I can do better I'm sure that things I can do worse, but I am. I'm done. Trying to shoehorn myself into everybody else's idea of what is the right pant size or the right volume of my voice or the right social media posts or any of that, like I just I don't I don't want an I don't want millions of fans. I want like a army of 1000 who are just love me and that's all I need. That's all I need to to make the world a better place. So I'm not confident in everything I do. But I do to go back to the competence, confidence thing. We've mentioned the marathon a couple of times I ran my first mile like of my life, right before I turned 39 like of my life I'd never been never been athletic, never ever any like 7000 excuse to get a PE when I was in was it when I was in school. My t teachers like how do you have your period every week? Like I was just like, sorry, I gotta play Foursquare. And but but I I ran my first mile at the end of the mile. I said, Oh my god, like it took me six weeks to run the mile without like, needing to like lean over and puke and literally and at the end of the mile I was like well if I string three of those together, I could run a 5k so I signed up for a 5k and six weeks later I did a five Can I say did not run because like men and like double jogger strollers were passing down the hill. I kind of like stuck my arm out and clothesline them I would have but I didn't see them coming. So I was so busy trying not to die. So I did a 5k at the end of the 5k. I was like you know what if I string two of those together, I could do a 10k so a couple months later I did a 10k and then I was like oh hopped up on endorphins. So I was like, you know, if I string two of those together plus another mile, like, I could do a half marathon. So I started training for a half marathon. And as you mentioned, I live in Boston Marathon town. So one thing led to another and the next thing you know, I'm training for the Boston Marathon. Now, if I had woken up the first day of that boot camp, where I went to, like, do exercise and try to run that one mile, I never would have said, I'm good. I'm confident I'm gonna run a marathon. But because I showed myself over and over the competence, that I could do the step before the step I wanted, it gave me the confidence to say, I can do the next thing, like the women who are applying for jobs who were like, I don't, I'm not competent enough for it, I haven't done it yet. If they've done the step before they could do the thing, the guy saying go, Well, I can string all these things together, and one plus one plus one equals three. So I have confidence that I could get to three, because I've done one in one in one. So I'm my relationship to confidence. I said, I don't, I don't trade and confidence that much. I really work on competence, not of the thing that I want to do, but of the steps that lead up to the thing that I want to do. And I trust, like, you know, every Olympic gold medalist will tell you, like, get out there, their very first Olympic race, and they're like, What are you thinking about? They're like nothing. I just trust the process. Like you trust the training, you trust the process. And I think if you can be competent in the process, then you can be confident in the goal.

James Robilotta: 01:11:28

And in the moment, yeah, yeah. And then you

Laura Gassner: 01:11:31

can enjoy the ride, right? Like that. I mean, I have this marathon on Monday after run 26.2 miles, I've only run 20 miles in training, you don't run 26.2 miles and in marathon training, you run 20 right? When you run a 13.1 half marathon, you run 10 miles in training, you never been 13.1. But on marathon Monday, I'm gonna get up but I'm gonna get to 20 miles I don't be like, I wonder what happens now? Am I gonna make it isn't gonna happen? I don't really know. I haven't done this before. And I was like, there's like two, there's like the angel, the devil on your shoulders and one's like, you're gonna die. This is the worst thing you've ever done. What are you thinking? You're going to do it, you're going to be a marathoner. It's amazing. And you have to make that choice, like, only one of those voices gets to win. And you have to make that choice. So like, which one wins? Right? That just comes down to like, do your view have accountability? Do you have discipline? What was the motivation to get going in the first place? So I just, I don't know, I, I think, I think having come, I think confidence is a really terrible goal. Because you can never have confidence, because then you're not continuing to grow and striving and putting that next weird, crazy cookie, maybe it's the big promotion, maybe it's the farmhouse, rebuild your own energy and grow your own food. Like you're not, you're not evolving, if you're not scared a little bit about the goal that's in front of you, but how could you be confident about a goal you've never achieved? You can be confident about your training and about the process and feel good about that. But yeah, I don't know. I think confidence. It's what I tell my executive coaching clients, I'm like, I'm not going to make you confident. I'm not going to give you confidence that you know, you know that you're going to be just fine. I'm going to help you trust that you're doing the things you need to do. So that you believe in yourself, and that you know that you'll be just fine.

James Robilotta: 01:13:22

I sorry, I'm chewing on this. Yeah, I love this. Confidence is not the goal. Yeah, that's, that is counter intuitive to what I believe we are taught to what social media tells us yeah, that kind of stuff, right? And, but counterintuitive, and such a beautiful way. Because in some ways it makes competency more attainable. But but because since it's not the goal, then I can just be okay. With the moments that I am confidence, right? For example, when I'm on stage, right? People come up to me like James, how do you know how are you so confident? I'm like, you just literally saw me at my most confident you just witnessed the peak of me feeling good about myself. And

Laura Gassner: 01:14:09

I'm gonna go back to my hotel room, climb into the bed and fetal position to think about the three words I said wrong. And shake myself asleep. That's what the other side of this looks like.

James Robilotta: 01:14:21

100% 100% Yeah. And so, yes, what you shared about it is incredibly powerful. And I like that idea of, you know, get yourself competent, so that you can achieve confidence if confidence is something that you're interested in. But

Laura Gassner: 01:14:39

you don't have to be competent in the thing you want to do because you haven't done it yet. Right, like waiting to be competent. I think we I think we're not confident because we're waiting to be competent. And I think we have to just be competent in the training. We have to be competent in what's leading up to it, right. So like, I don't know how Monday is going to go but I know this week I can be competent in eating cleanly. resting in hydration, all the things that I need to do so that I wake up on marathon Monday and I'm like, it's gonna go as well as it can go. Yeah, awesome. That's great. But I think people who are confident just because they're confident, the emperor has no clothes like a lot of those people are just blowhards, right? They're just, they're weak. We assign confidence to the loudest person in the room. Yes. When really, they're probably the most insecure. It's the ones who are the quietest, who often are the most confident. So I think we just we have confidence we've just, we've gotten it so wrong. And I and so I just rather than helping people get it right, I just want to take it off the table.

James Robilotta: 01:15:39

Yeah, yeah, I'm there with you on that one. I'm there with you for sure. on that idea, and I it is fascinating to see the way that like you said like, the loudest person in the room is just that they are the loudest person in the room. They are nothing more than that. But how we assign who must be the most confident is fascinating and somebody that also isn't doing those people any level of service either. Now I'm right and so what if we all just dropped our shoulders and we're like, you know what, let's just show up. But that's way easier said than done. Because turns out you know, insecurities are real, but still, but still, that the pursuit of owning those insecurities, recognizing them and developing a more positive relationship with them. Note not just getting rid of them, but it will bring a positive positive relation with your insecurities. That is a goal that is attainable. Naaman allows you to show up as you are and more spaces then lets your competence shine through. But yes and so I love the way that you put that it's not about the actual achievement of competence it's about the steps towards it that you do competently that sets you up so that day that moment that meeting that speech that race that whatever it's like well, I did everything I could let's see how it goes.

Laura Gassner: 01:17:03

Yeah, I mean, that is just the victory lap that's it like the thing itself is the victory lap everything else is that's but work actually like like I saw I saw an interview with with some summer Olympian who said something like yeah, the journalist was like wow, you earned a lot of metal today and he was like No, I earned the metals over the course of the last year I just collected them today and I was like yes that's perfect. Yep, yeah. I I earned the medals and training I picked them up today. Yeah. I love that. I love that like that's exactly it. Yeah,

James Robilotta: 01:17:45

love it lgl it has been so fun getting to hang out with you. It just the the wisdom truth bombs that you dropped on it I loved hearing about about who you were when you were younger, a little bit about your family and a little bit a whole lot of it about your journey of how you got here today. Um, thank you for just being an incredible human being and and being you know, not the you know how to be anybody else. contradictory to everything we've talked about today, but still, I just I just really appreciate you. And I hope that I hope that maybe we'll get you back here in the diner again, and it's been so special getting to hang out with you. And thank you for the greatness and the thoughts that you put in this world that caused us all to take a beat and think about what am I doing? What does worthiness mean in my life? What does confidence mean in my life? What is enough mean in my life? I just appreciate you ALGEO thank you

Laura Gassner: 01:18:39

thank you so much. It's great to be here.

James Robilotta: 01:18:41

Hell yeah, hell yeah. All right, y'all. That was my time with a wonderful l g o incredible human being dropped some amazing books on you with limitless mission driven make sure that you check those out. Also follow her on Instagram. Hey, LG Oh, she is worth your time. And if you can also try to get in if you have the opportunities, I'm not sure where you are in life. I don't know how she's accepting clients in the coaching realm. But I know I got a little bit of a coaching session from LG. Oh, it was about seven minutes. And it caused me to think differently. That's the power of someone who has really powerful questions and does it in the way that she does. I'm really grateful that she is someone who I'm connected with and I'm really grateful that you are now also someone who is in that circle as well. Thank you so much for coming to the diner. And the next time we hang out y'all Until then, keep punching small talk in the face by asking better questions. You all take care.