Chasing Opportunity – Marcus Whitney LIVE with Laura Gassner Otting
This episode’s guest on #MWL is Laura Gassner Otting. She and I discuss life as we enter the “new normal,” her course, and her book, “Limitless.”
Laura's journey into entrepreneurship is a good one, and the lessons learned could be a huge help to potential entrepreneurs themselves!
Where to watch live:
https://youtube.com/marcuswhitneysvideouniverse
https://facebook.com/marcuswhitney
https://linkedin.com/in/marcuswhitney
https://twitter.com/marcuswhitney


MW
what's up it's thursday I still
have not slept a decent night in three
days and that's all because of you
people
who have kept me running on adrenaline
with the launch of this book
um thank you so much it's been a
completely I was just talking
with uh our guest for the day about how
humbling this moment in time is when you
you spend all this time working on
something and you put it out in the
world and you just can't believe
anybody actually wants to spend a second
reading what you
wrote um and so to get the feedback that
i've gotten this week has been
incredible but this is a really good
time to
transition into my guest who has far
more experience in this thing that i'm
currently experiencing
uh she is a best-selling author uh she
has a fantastic course that i've been
able to audit
for uh the last couple of weeks in
preparation for our talk
uh and just sort of a total badass
person so i'm happy to have her on the
show
uh you can find her everywhere online at
hey lgo this is
laura gastner odding laura what's good
LG
hey
marcus thank you for having me today and
what a great week to be
here i'm so excited yeah
MW
yeah it's it's
uh
I think this is this is perfect right
because i'm feeling
uh uplifted right now i'm feeling super
excited about things and at the same
time like I really want to talk about
um you know what we
what we need to be thinking and feeling
and doing in this in this moment to
totally take advantage
of of this moment you know what I mean
LG
yeah absolutely but can we take a minute
and just celebrate that your book
launched number one in the
entrepreneurship category on amazon i
mean that's
huge that's amazing i'm so so exciting
yeah thank you thank you we that was
like that was like the stretch goal
um and uh my publishing partner scribe
media
you know zach over there was like dude
i've seen so many people get close they
get into like number three on that
category
so for you to get to number one is a big
deal I don't know i've never done this
before like I don't
you know I don't have a frame of
reference but um it
it certainly felt validating to to hit
that that mark so thank you very much
LG
yeah I mean I think there are a lot of
people who are like i'm a number one
amazon best seller but they're like
number one amazon and like some teeny
weeny little
unimportant strange like you know
one-handed birders who juggle category
right like no offense to the birders who
juggle right or who have one hand but
I I I can see the hate mail coming but
entrepreneurship is huge and so I think
what that says
is you have a lot of people in your
corner who are excited about this who
have listened to you who
know what you have to say who know your
message and you've who you showed up for
for a long time
who are now showing up back for you so i
think it says both that you've got a
great network and that your message is
one that's resonant and needed right now
MW
well uh again i'm humbled and uh
thank you for more kind words um
you know I just feel very optimistic
about the world at the moment
even in the midst of everything that's
going on and uh that's why I think
you're the perfect guest for today so
uh if you would let's just take a second
because I know this is gonna be a very
fast 30 minutes between us
uh
Just share with the viewers and
listeners your story.
LG
Yeah so my story is... I am an accidental
author. I'm an accidental speaker. I
grew up thinking I was going to be the
first female US Senator from the great
state of Florida.
And then I got to law school, and I was
like
“this sucks. I don't want to be here.” It
was like organ rejection, and so what do
you do
when you're in a bad place? You date a
guy who's terrible for you. So I started
dating a guy
who -I like to say had great taste of
precisely two things:
the first being obviously girlfriends,
and the second
being unknown presidential candidates
from tiny southern states- and
one day, it was raining and he drove me
home from
from campus and he's like, “I just want to
stop at this guy's office. He's running
for president.
I want to pick up some paperwork” because
this is like back before the internet he
actually had to like
go to campaign offices. And I was like
Governor who from where?
MississippI or sorry...
Arkansas. Like not a chance in hell. Yeah
and um
and uh I walked in and there was this
this video of then Governor Bill Clinton
telling the story about uh how there's
nothing wrong with America that can't be
fixed with
what's right with America. And he offered,
as a policy proposal,
um community service. Community service
in exchange for college tuition, and I
was like oh my God yes! That has to
happen. So I dropped out of law school, I
joined the campaign,
and then the next thing you know, he gets
elected president.
He ends up in the white house. I end up
in the White House. I helped create the
Americorps program,
which was a crazy first job. And then
after about four years I was a little
bored.
I wanted to do something else. I come to
do the thing I wanted to do, and I
went to talk to a headhunter. And that
headhunter was based in Boston, and the
guy I was dating then
-who was a much better guy for me who
I've been married to for almost 25 years-
was about to move to Boston, so I was
like, “well that's really interesting.
I should work for you.” and he's like, “you
should work for me.” And I was like, “great
what do you do?”
And so I ended up in Boston as a
headhunter, and I worked for him for four
or five years
until I had that moment of rage that
every entrepreneur’s had
when I realized I can do this better and
smarter and faster with more
authenticity and more integrity, and
probably more profit for myself
and less cost for my client. And I walked
into his office and I was like, “here's
the way” and he was like “there's the door.”
So I started my home company, and then I
ran that for 15 years and I sold it
five years ago yesterday to the women
who helped me build it. And after that,
I had this moment of like, I don't know...
identity crisis when I was like, “if I'm
no longer “LGO,
CEO. here's my card…” who the heck am I?
Right so I started blogging, and um
the executive producer of TedX Cambridge
saw one of those blogs and said that
would make a great talk. And I was like
no way,
I don't want to do a talk. I don't want
to do a Ted Talk. I don't want to speak...
that sounds
terrifying. And my then 15-year-old
looked at me and was like,
“um don't you tell me I always have to do
hard things?”
That's the thing that my kid decides to
listen to, so the next thing you know, I'm
on the stage.
2,600 people, three mezzanines, beautiful
gold guild walls, you know crystal
chandeliers, and I'm speaking. And then
that talk gets attention,
which gets attention, and i'm moving on
and on and I'm getting offered to speak
places for money. And I was like, “well
that's an interesting job.
Tell me more about that.” And then when I
started getting offered
even more money, I noticed the other
people on the stage at you know 10 and
15,000 all had books, so I was like well I
better get me one of them.
So I wrote Limitless, and that brings me
here to you today.
MW
wow great job encapsulating
decades uh multiple relationships
you fit the child in there I mean that
was that was fantastic um
what what a great background so so let's
let's uh let's
circle back to the the moment
where there's a couple of things I want
to jump on there uh the moment where
you're at the company and you real you
have that moment of rage
um I I tried to frame that
in my book as a personality type
that I that I basically call uh
ambitious
creative rebels which are these people
who
it's very very difficult for us to exist
in someone else's structure
like like like because because
you know it's it's it's not that they're
doing it wrong
they're doing it wrong for us
LG
and you
can't help but see possibilities so
you know about five years into starting
that my own company I ran into my old
boss from the white house the man who
helped you know who ran the office of
national service to create americorps
okay
and so this is you know 15 years later
at the time or 10 years later and and he
was like i've been watching you i've
been watching your company grow i'm so
proud of you
did you always know you were an
entrepreneur because I did yeah and i
was like
thanks and then I went home and I was
like wait a minute
did he just call me unmanageable I think
he just called me unmanageable
and you know I you know our our our
mutual friend scott stratton likes to
say that
entrepreneur is latin for bad employees
maybe that's true but it's not that you
can't exist in someone else's structure
it's just
you you always see improvements and
possibilities and so when somebody
else who runs the structure doesn't or
doesn't want that or has their ego so
wrapped in it that they can't handle it
you can't help but just you can't be
frustrated you can't be there
MW
yes ex that's exactly right that's
exactly right the best job I ever had
was a startup where I was a fifth
employee and I stayed there for four
years and it was unbelievable because
there was more work than there were
people
right so we're all too busy to be in
each other's shit you know what I mean
yeah and and and the point at which i
had my
micro rage it wasn't a full-on rage but
where I had my microwave was we got
from from five people to 50 people and
politics just start setting in yeah they
just
they just do like I wonder even as the
ceo of the company that you eventually
sold to the women who helped you build
it like did you
feel like you had built something and
then started to feel like a slave to it
in some ways like
LG
oh boy yes so there was the mobile like
okay so every entrepreneur I know goes
through this right where you
leave where you are because you have
this idea this innovation is this
iteration of something and you do it
and then you you you grow it and you're
doing the work and it's great and then
it's successful so you have to bring on
more people so you bring on more people
and all of a sudden
all of a sudden instead of being the
person who's out there creating the idea
or being the iconoclast to saying like
hey
sector this should be done differently
look at my solution and they go whoa
okay you're busy managing people and all
of a sudden you've got like mary from hr
talking to you about sick leave policies
and you've got you know joe from
accounting
asking you about like well what
percentage should we charge for people
want to pay credit card versus
checks and you're just like I don't care
not interesting and so for me the the
the big
aha moment was the day that I realized i
don't actually like
executive search like the work that my
firm is doing like I love
solving the problems for our clients
because that's entrepreneurial that's
innovative but I don't actually like
executive search and
and I had we started the firm because i
thought of an entirely new way that this
service should be delivered to the
entire non-profit sector
and then all of a sudden rather than
having to be the person walking into
pitches convincing these like you know
old you know traditional white guys that
this
virtual firm this is back in 2002 like
virtual didn't really exist
rather than having to convince them that
we were the way they were like oh yeah
every firm we're interviewing today is
virtual
and I realized I I we grew this firm 100
every year for the first 10 years and i
was busy pulling the firm over the next
hill of innovation
and my team was like awesome could we
just
take the car out on the road and see how
fast we can drive it like
stop fussing with the engine and I was
more interested in the fuzzing and the
improvement and the innovation
yes and they just wanted to run the
company and here's the big
moment that I realized it was when I was
complaining to an old
mentor of mine and I was like the people
who work for me just aren't that
entrepreneurial and he was like
no you're the entrepreneur they don't
need to be entrepreneurial
they have jobs that's right you're the
entrepreneur and I was like whoa
just because people want to work in a
really entrepreneurial setting
doesn't make them entrepreneurs and that
means that no matter how like
i'm never going to be speaking their
language and that's hard
that's lonely it is lonely
MW
it's so
lonely
and like you almost have to go through
one entire cycle of that experience
to get it no one can explain it to you
because when people come in
to a two-way startup like i'm talking
sub 10 employees when those people come
in
like they're there for it and we're
shoulder to shoulder and we're all
working on it and that still
doesn't mean that they're actually an
entrepreneur
LG
so when I the day that i
announced to the firm that I was leaving
I can't tell you how many people came up
to you they were like you can't leave
I I was thinking about you know maybe i
was going to leave next year or the year
after that but you you can't leave and i
was like
because I founded the company i'm
supposed to die in this chair right no
thank you
so here's the other thing that I that i
realized is that
my job as the ceo as the entrepreneur
was to be 18 to 24 months ahead of the
market at any given time
like I had to be determining what the
problems
what the solutions were to problems that
the market didn't even know existed
because that's how I got the jump that's
how I was ahead of everything
so if I was really good like firing on
all cylinders
I was 18 24 months ahead of the market
now my team who's delivering services if
they were really good
if they were firing on all cylinders
they were focused on
this client this report this day this
week
this you know this month maybe they were
thinking about the quarter
maybe so the better they got at their
work and the better I got at my work the
further divorced we were
and that's a pretty I mean you want to
talk about lonely the better I did my
job the better they did their job the
lonelier we all got
and so that's a you know it's hard to
go and talk to your team about
where the firm is going when they're
like I got a client report due tomorrow
right right you're like charlie brown's
teacher right so to continue to always
have to give them their kool-aid while
you're going thirsty
MW
it's so hard it's so hard yeah it's so
hard i
am I am relating so much to everything
you're saying right now
and it makes me feel very validated
in terms of how I have navigated
my my you know because even if you're an
entrepreneur like you still have
a professional life right it's like you
know what is it that you do
and i'm still an owner
and a I didn't sell my ownership in my
in my venture
fund but like i'm not their day-to-day i
don't have
like direct management responsibility
yeah and it's so much better for
everybody like it's
so much better for everybody
LG
well there
was also the moment where I realized
that I was a terrible manager
like terrible like bad like abusive
manager
MW
yeah yeah I mean like like you you
the way you manage yourself you can't
manage everyone the way that you manage
yourself right that's not
that's not something you you can do and
also I think back to your point about
not caring about the uh
you know how much gets spent on uh how
much gets spent on
I don't know this expense or or this
sheet of paper
it's like if you don't love it it's hard
to be good at it right you know what i
mean
if you don't love it
LG
and it's hard to
fake it
for an extended period of time yes you
can fake it once or twice but like you
can't maintain that
so you know I am I am a
great champion I am the friend you want
in your foxhole I am the friend you want
in the corner i'm like I will go
toe-to-toe with like a six foot 10 400
pound guy in a bar fight
yeah for you i'll never do it for myself
because i'm deeply confrontation averse
but if you attack my people I am like
all over you like if and
and if i'm gonna celebrate I will scream
from the rooftops like the jewish mother
maven yenta that i
am but I am not a manager and when i
tried to manage it was like
it was like it was like when I try to
have those conversations with those
teens and they're like looking at me
like they
know they have to pay attention but you
know they're like I wish I could be
anywhere else like they can't fake it i
couldn't fake it
and my team they were doing such amazing
work that I knew that they needed
somebody better in that role and that's
a hard thing in entrepreneurship to be
like you know what
I actually suck at this the fact that i
suck at this means that
my people aren't being as great as they
can be which also doesn't allow me to be
in the space where i'm
really shining and I have to this is the
time I need to bring someone in both for
their own protection but
also so that they can they can grow and
thrive and so I can as well
MW
so this is uh I think a wonderful segue
to talk about your book because
there is something very counterintuitive
when we've all sort of been taught
from a young age we've been conditioned
that
this is the way you go to school and
then you go to grad school and then you
get said job and then you
ascend in that company and you manage
lots of people
and that is the path to excellence and
you know achievement and all that other
kind of stuff
I think it's so
refreshing to hear you talk about all
the things that you were not good at and
all the things you had to shed
on your path to writing a book called
Limitless.
LG
Yeah Limitless, how to ignore everybody
right. How to ignore everybody, carve your own path,
and live your best life.
So when I left the White House and I
ended up at that big search firm -which
was the
biggest search firm and the the marquee
firm the top firm in the country that
did specifically non-profit and mission
driven
executive search- I thought I'd made it. I
was like, “this is amazing. This is
terrific. I'm at the best firm,
check, right. High marquee value, check. You
know, good brand prestige, check.”
Now I need to lean in. I need to say yes
to every single thing. I need to figure
it out later. I need to sacrifice friends,
and relationships, and all of that,
and I did. I became the youngest vice
president in the history of the firm.
And I got to the top. I was in the corner
office that looking over all of Boston
-the Boston Commons- and I looked around
and I was like...
the top of what? I'm sitting in the
office, and my clients are on the other
side,
and we're about to seal the deal on a
big contract. And
I realized that I didn't actually care
that much about their mission. I was
doing the math in my head about whether
or not I'd make my nut for the quarter
early so that I could impress everybody
around me. And I
realized that what I actually cared
about -the reason I was doing this work-
was because I actually wanted to help
change the world. I wanted to help those
clients to
do the amazing work that they did even
better with the
lever of talent. That was what I brought
to the table.
And I was sitting there patting myself
on the back all proud of myself, and my
fancy title, and my fancy view,
and my fancy bonus that I was gonna get,
and I actually wasn't living in
continent
uh with the with the values that I held
dear. And that was a moment where I was
like, “I need to leave.” Like I leaned in,
but I leaned into what? And I think that
happens to so many of us because
look... I had a huge problem with lean in
when I first read it -and it's not
because I was upset about Sheryl
Sandberg and
sort of how she uh got her success. She
has, you know, huge amount of privilege,
and good for her. She'd be folly not
to use it; we should all use whatever
privilege we have-
my issue was how she defined success. And
she defined it as like
this one, fastest and most expedient path
to the corner office, and if you aren't
doing that, you're failing.
The same with entrepreneurs. If it's not
bigger, better, faster, more...
you're failing. So fast forward a number
of years, and I'm sitting at my search
firm,
and we brought in this very impressive
Harvard Business School
professor to come and facilitate our
retreat. And there were like 30 of us
there at the time,
and she went around the room as her
opening question, and she said, “I want
everyone to tell me how many people do
you think would be the ideal number of
staff members
for this company?” And so everyone's like, “75...
32... 12…” Like people are just pulling
numbers out of their
buttholes, and they she got to me at the
very end,
and I said, “actually I think that's the... I
think that's a terrible question.”
MW
Yeah,
what does that question even mean?
LG
Like why? Like are
we maximizing for profitability?
Are we maximizing for impact in the
world? Are we maximizing for personal
flexibility in our own lives?
Tell me what we're maximizing for ,and
then I'll tell you the kind of company
we need to build to get there.
So I think a mistake that we make is
that we think we need to lean in. We
think bigger, better, faster, more. We think
the bigger title, the bigger house, the
bigger car, the bigger whatever
is success, but I'll tell you... in 20 years
of doing executive search, I called
thousands of people on behalf of my
clients. These bold-faced super
successful names,
and they all took my calls because even
though they were super successful,
they weren't actually all that happy.
MW
so so so how how does that like how how
did you take that
and put it into the book like
give me give me the give me the the one
one minute drop on the book because i
want I want to get into the course
and yeah yeah
LG
so the book is based
around this idea of consonants
right if if if uh bigger better faster
more if everyone else's definition of
success doesn't make any sense
what does make sense for you how do you
be both successful and happy and
the way you do that is you live in
consonance with who you are and we all
know consonants
it's alignment it's flow it's when the
what you do
matches the who you are and what i
learned is that it's made up of four
things
and those are the four things that we
talk about in the book and in the course
and just quickly
there are four there's calling which is
this gravitational force the thing that
gets you out of bed in the morning it
could be
a cause that you want to serve it could
be a leader who inspires you it could be
a family you want to nurture it could be
a business you want to build
then there's connection connection is
does the work you're doing
actually matter can you see a direct
line from the work you're doing right
now today your inbox your calendar your
to-do list
to the calling you want to serve third
is contribution
does the work contribute to the life
that you want to live the money you want
to earn the career trajectory you'd like
to have the values you want to manifest
on a daily basis
and then lastly is control and this is
where us entrepreneurs really
you know can feel it do you personally
have control do you have
agency to affect how much your work
connects to that calling and how much
the the work that you do uh contributes
to the life that you want to lead
MW
love it I love it that's yeah
yeah the
LG
simple framework
MW
that's a great
framework that's a really good framework
LG
each of us at each age in a different
stage of life want different things so
when you were 24 you probably wanted
different things than you want right
when you want right now
and when you're 54 you're going to want
different things so the amount of
connection calling contribution control
will change at every age and every life
stage but we get it wrong because at
16 17 years old someone says pick a job
pick a trade pick a college pick a path
and we're like okay
right but we don't have a frontal lobe
so we actually make a decision
based on the rest of our life before we
literally have
the mental capacity to make a good one
and then 20 years later we're like well
I thought I was supposed to be a lawyer
I thought I was supposed to be a
accountant I thought I was supposed to
be a whatever and now there's sunk costs
so I guess i'll just keep doing this
life is short like why would you do that
and especially now during covet and
people keep
talking about the new normal I reject
the new normal because I rejected the
old normal you're an entrepreneur we
have rejected the old normal so
when life goes back to normal is the
life you want really
that's probably not so this is such a
great time
to actually think about what do you want
your new normal to be what do you want
this life to be that you only get one of
and you might even be halfway through at
this point
MW
so so when did you shift from the book
and speaking to making an actual
course like what was what was the what
was the leap there was it was that like
a
oh I see all these people with with
books that are speaking also have
courses I better get one of those too or
Was there something where
you felt you wanted to uh
engage more deeply with with the people
who were resonating with the book?
LG
Yeah well so I kept, I kept getting...
coming off of stage,
and I would sit in these uh in the lines
where people would would uh...
I'd sign the book for people, and they
would say, “God you know, I love it. It's
great… they would like blow
smoke up my ass, they were like so
complimentary. And they were like,
“uh how can I go deeper?” And I was like,
“you can't,
sorry.” Like I just didn't, I was... honestly
when the book
when when the book first came out, I
wanted to have a course that went along
with it, but
I was too much of a wimp. I didn't think
I could get it right. I didn't know how
to do it. I was overwhelmed by the
technology,
and then fast forward to covid, and it's
like
March 12th, and my kids are going to be
out of school on March 14th for spring
break and I'm thinking they're probably
not going back.
And at that point, we were all
thinking we're all gonna get
sick so I was like, “I better get this
thing done before I get sick because
people are gonna be home for a long time.”
So I just said it's time I gotta just do
- I'd worked with Pam Slim
a couple months earlier just thinking
about the outline, and then I just kind
of got distracted and
and just was scared to pull the pull the
um pull the rip cord.
But then when covid happened, I was like,
“Well stages are going away,
this is going to be my stage now. I
better figure out how to do it because
if
what I want to do... if my life's work
is to help empower
and engage people and living it fully...
living into the life that they want -like
leaning into their best version of
themselves and not everyone else's
definition of it-
if that's what I want to do, and the way
that I do it is by helping people
understand
how to actually create their own
definition, well what's the best medium?
And if the best medium used to be a big
stage in front of thousands of people,
and that's gone, well now what's the best
medium?
I thought it was the second best medium,
but it turns out there's more people
here
than there were in that room. And also,
it's never been so democratized
to be able to be in front of more people.
There's no gatekeeper. There's nobody
saying,
“you can be on my stage. You can't be.” I
just create my own stage. I just go live
every day, and I
create my own stage. And it's incredible
to me what just a little bit of
creativity and that entrepreneurial
mindset...
suddenly it's like the whole world is
reopened.
MW
Yeah I mean you're you're one of the
people
that I have been watching as I've been
on this journey of going live every day.
Like you, Joseph Jaffe,
Chris Brogan... you know these people who
just like sort of leaped in, and I was
like,
“I can do that.” You know what I mean, like
I can and should do that. It's just
it's just a good practice. And it's also
keeping me sane by the way. Like you know
as you as you said...
so my everyone's got like a different
take on the new normal. Mine is
is “build the new normal.” Which, and you
know the point just being like,
this is the opportunity of a lifetime.
Like literally. Everything is kind of
flattening out,
and we can build it back up exactly how
we want. And are you gonna step into that
opportunity,
or are you going to let it happen to you?
Like, you know, there's never been a
time like this.
LG
yeah I mean there's a part of my course
there's an exercise where it's you know
it's it's
called the driver's seat right and are
you in the driver's seat of your life
or are you in the passenger seat of your
life and I think so many of us
think we're in the driver's seat of our
lives and then we kind of get complacent
and the next thing we know we're like oh
well why do I go to this place on
vacation or why am I working
so hard to send my kids to that school
or you know why do I feel like I need to
chase that next promotion
yeah I don't know like we kind of forget
and I think what happens is
you know in our companies we have
regular meetings you know at weekly
meetings quarterly meetings etc to think
about strategy
but we don't have it with ourselves we
don't have it with our families
my family we have a weekly family
meeting and we sit down and we talk
about our goals and who we are and what
we're doing and who's where each week
and
you know who needs a new bathing suit
and you know stuff like that
but you know we've only been we've been
doing it for like four years or so but
it completely changed the way we run our
family because
now we're actually all going in the same
direction right and I think
it's time this this period in covit has
been
has been so incredibly uh
difficult and and uprooting and you know
it's like it's like seismic shifts in
the earth
and tectonic plates and we're falling
through them and yet
we've survived it so far I mean I know
some people haven't right I mean
I I understand that this is real we're
talking about the collective
society like a society like we've made
it this far
we're going to keep making it what are
you going to do with it and and and are
you going to look back on this time and
say
I was actually able to reset
to refocus to re-strategize to take
control over a light that I didn't even
realize that i'd lost control over
it's it's it is it is a a gilded
opportunity that's being handed to each
and every one of us i
completely agree so what are you most
excited about
right now you were talking can you talk
about the thing you're getting ready to
do
yeah yeah I wonder how yeah yeah yeah
yeah
preview yes yes yes so
when limitless came out it debuted at
number two on the washington post
bestseller list
right behind michelle obama amazing
wound I got like nine
million more books to catch up to her
but i'm i'm working on hey that's a good
number two that is a solid number two
girl let me tell you it's a solid number
two i'm proud of that
and I also shared the stage with malala
took a selfie with malala when I got off
stage right so I was like michelle obama
malala
no matter how long I lived this would be
the weirdest week of my entire life
so i'm on a red eye on the way home and
I was supposed to be you know beautiful
live flat first class booked by the
client you know great
uh red eye and i'm too old for red eyes
but I had a big thing the next morning
and I was malala friday so like i'm i
couldn't miss either one of them so i'm
on this red eye
and there was a there was a mechanical
problem with the plane so they switched
the
the plane before we got on and rather
than being in this great live flat seat
i'm in an
upright center seat in coach you know
why aren't
right but still I was exhausted I left
it all on the stage
I was I was at the end of like book
debut week so you know right i'm
exhausted
I get it so I at 4 30 in the morning i
open up my laptop and I was just like
it's 4 28 a.m or maybe it's 7 28 a.m or
maybe it's 1 20
8 a.m I don't even know where I am right
now but I think i'm somewhere like 13
000 miles away from vancouver and 700
miles to go back to boston but somewhere
between the blur that was yesterday and
the blur that will be tomorrow is the
space i'm in right now
and the space i'm in right now is wonder
hell and it was because I realized that
I was so
incredibly moved and humbled that
anybody wanted to spend as you said even
five minutes thinking about this thing
that I wrote
it was so wonderful and also I had never
been so tired of my entire fucking life
it was hell it was wonder hell and
here's what I realized about wonder hell
wonder hell made me really hungry
because wonder hell is the space in your
psyche where
your burden of potential comes and
unpacks its backpack and camps out with
a little cot and goes hey
hey buddy what you got for me you have
just realized that you
set your goals here but the world is
saying it should be here and are you
going to live into that or are you going
to let it pass you by
and once you see that potential you see
through the rubicon of what you can be
and you know that it's just there with
maybe just a little bit more work
you can't unsee it and so i'm fascinated
by people who have lived through these
moments of wonder hell where they
have realized that there is multitudes
of more
inside of them and they have to dig
deeper to get it and they actually
realize they want it so I was like if
people keep telling you if you name it
you can tame it i'm like that's
that's horseshit if you name it you can
claim it like it's not just enough like
today's show great but I want to be a
good morning america I want to be in
bruce witherspoon's book club I want to
be under the oak tree with
oprah I mean she's got to talk to
someone all right
why not me right so I realized that like
your burden
the burden that you feel of your own
potential is only as big as your ego and
what I realized was
I actually have a pretty big ego i
didn't I didn't know and
i've been taught my entire life because
that's how we're socially
you know that's how we're socialized but
especially as a woman
probably you as a person of color were
like don't be too ambitious
right don't have too big of an ego don't
get don't don't get too big for your
britches and all of that
and what I realized was the hell with
that if my mission on earth is to
empower people
and help them live an even bigger life
if I don't do everything I can to do
that then i'm stealing from them
i'm stealing from them so I want to live
this future
I want to live into my potential so my
next book is um
i'm just going to interview people who
have lived through these moments of
wonder hell
and who have thrived in them instead of
the ones who have
been drowned by them because I think
that there are lessons that we can learn
and so
you know I started going live every day
on facebook and then I got sick of my
own voice so I was like i'm just going
to interview other people lgo tv and so
you're going to come on
I think in next week or the week after
and so we're going to talk about you and
you know I think your story be a great
story for this but you know that feeling
that feeling of
I can't believe this is working and also
oh my god i'm so tired
uh I I love that so much because
uh it gives me a framework for what I am
experiencing
right now i'm so tired and i'm so
humbled and overwhelmed and uh because
this is live streaming you know we get
some chats and like I don't
I I can never respond to the chats in
real time but
kate o'neil who is like my sister from
another mother I love her so much
has so much to do with the fact that i
actually got this book out the door
uh just gave us a nod for discussing the
burden of potential
um and yeah it's a thing it's a
real thing yeah and the thing about the
burden of potential
is that is that you don't feel it if you
don't recognize that you actually have
that potential so it's not like a
false thing it's not like you just have
this inflated sense of ego
like as soon as you feel that burden
it's because you recognize that you
actually do
have another gear inside of you like you
you wouldn't you wouldn't feel the
burden if you're like this is all I can
do like I left it all on the field
but the fact that you know that you have
more that's why you feel that weight
so heavily on your shoulders so i'm just
i'm fascinated by people who
see that who feel it and then who figure
out how to kick it up yet
another notch okay fastest 30 minutes
love it that's what you said it would be
dude uh any anything else
oh gosh um well people are interested in
fighting so much oh i'm gonna do that
for you don't worry i'll
do that for you anything else oh I just
can't wait to have you on mine next week
okay that would be that's gonna be
amazing um you are
unbelievable we're gonna have we'll have
to do this more regularly just because
like totally just
selfishly this was really good for me
this was really good for me
yeah you're good I would love to do this
and i'm very good at what you do laura
seriously
um thank you everybody out there I know
you want to go follow this incredible
woman uh
hey lgo I love also the lgo thing I just
think that's a
badass handle um that's super slick so
it's really easy to find her everywhere
online
hey lgo um and uh
limitlesspossibility.com if you want to
learn more about the book and the course
and all that good stuff
uh as for me this is as I think
most everyone knows book week and it's
been really great and
I am uh just grateful humbled and
everything we just talked about
uh but if you haven't picked up a copy
you know where to get it you can go to
amazon it is still
only 99 cents for uh another four days
or something like that on the kindle but
you can also buy
signed versions which so many of you
have and i'm grateful for that
at my store creativepower.com uh the
podcast marcus whitney's audio universe
everywhere that you get podcasts
and marcus whitney everywhere online
that is it
we will be back tomorrow with the final
final episode of the week and send y'all
into the weekend
safe and inspired and until then let's
build a new normal y'all peace