Mic Drop

A Punch in the Face, Wrapped in a Warm Hug (ft. Laura Gassner Otting)

Episode Summary

In today's conversation, the dynamo Laura Gassner Otting enlightens us all on a wide range of topics, including the fundamental shift she made in her delivery that not only led to her first standing ovation, but also led to greater audience engagement and more speaking gigs. We also cover how she overcame a crisis of identity and came out stronger on the other side, plus a creative hack that allowed her to get her first high-quality video reel. All that, and much, much more.

Episode Notes

A Punch in the Face, Wrapped in a Warm Hug (ft. Laura Gassner Otting)

Laura Gassner Otting on getting through fear and getting more with less

OPENING QUOTE:

“I gave that talk holding on to the lectern. Like if I let go, I would fly into space and die. It was so scary but at the end of it, they handed me a check.”

-Laura Gassner Otting

GUEST BIO:

Laura Gassner Otting, known worldwide as LGO, has been described as a punch in the face wrapped in a warm hug. After selling her extremely successful executive search firm, she entered the speaking industry and promptly blasted off. Applying extreme levels of curiosity, intensity, creative problem solving, and drive, she hit escape velocity in record time and continues to scale fast. She's the bestselling author of two books, and her extensive body of work is helping her deliver meaningful value to audiences around the globe.

Links:

CORE TOPICS + DETAILS:

[3:08] - Lessons from Taylor Swift

Keynote speaking advice from an unexpected source

We start the episode in an unexpected place — a Taylor Swift concert. Laura shares how impressed she was with the way that Swift left plenty of space for the audience to be part of the show simply by cheering and showing appreciation. She goes on to say that this is something all keynote speakers could apply to their own approach. The more the audience feels like they’re having a conversation rather than receiving information, the more engaged they’ll be.

[5:49] - The First Ovation

A small tweak to delivery that paid massive dividends

How did Laura get more out of her speaking career? By giving less. “The first standing ovation I ever got was when I decided to…give 48 minutes of content during a 60-minute keynote.”

She goes on to share how allowing moments for the audience to laugh, cry, cheer, and respond turned her speeches into conversations — and that made all the difference. It didn’t just lead to her first standing ovation. It also led to major upward momentum in her career as she became an in-demand voice on stages everywhere.

[9:10] - Laura’s Identity Crisis

It’s not all smooth sailing — even for LGO

After feeling on top of the world having just sold her company amidst huge success, Laura had to face a moment of transformation. Who was she now that she wasn’t “LGO, CEO”?

Then, a contact encouraged her to get onstage. She gave her first talk ever at TEDx Cambridge in front of 2,600 people — and was terrified the entire time. But she got through it, delivered her message, and discovered something about herself. She had a passion for speaking. That discovery was waiting just on the other side of her terror. What discoveries do we miss because we’re afraid?

[13:48] - The Creative Hack

A video reel and a shot of career rocket fuel

Early in the development of her speaking career, Laura had a problem. She needed a video reel, but had only been onstage once. How could she put together a reel of multiple successful performances when she didn’t have multiple successful performances.

Simple. She rented an auditorium, brought an audio-visual setup, and ran through multiple pitch-perfect lines in multiple outfits. Boom. All of a sudden she had a professional-looking reel with what appeared to be multiple killer performances — even though most of them had come from the same day.

The rest is history.

[37:19] - From the Today Show to the Top of the Bestseller List

Uncommon results require uncommon methods

How did Laura get a book blurb from a huge name — one she didn’t even know — that landed her spots on the Today Show and the bestseller list?

Well, she asked. She relentlessly reached out to Amy Cuddy, until finally she had the chance to bug her in person. To her shock, Amy agreed to let Laura write a blurb on her behalf for approval. Laura didn’t stop there. She wrote an audacious, intensely positive blurb. And it worked!

RESOURCES:

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ABOUT MIC DROP:

Hear from the world’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing tipping point moments, strategies, and approaches that led to their speaking career success. Throughout each episode, host Josh Linkner, #1 Innovation keynote speaker in the world, deconstructs guests’ Mic Drop moments and provides tactical tools and takeaways that can be applied to any speaking business, no matter it’s starting point. You'll enjoy hearing from some of the top keynote speakers in the industry including: Ryan Estis, Alison Levine, Peter Sheahan, Seth Mattison, Cassandra Worthy, and many more. Mic Drop is sponsored by ImpactEleven.

Learn more at: MicDropPodcast.com

ABOUT THE HOST:

Josh Linkner is a Creative Troublemaker. He believes passionately that all human beings have incredible creative capacity, and he’s on a mission to unlock inventive thinking and creative problem solving to help leaders, individuals, and communities soar.

Josh has been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which sold for a combined value of over $200 million and is the author of four books including the New York Times Bestsellers, Disciplined Dreaming and The Road to Reinvention. He has invested in and/or mentored over 100 startups and is the Founding Partner of Detroit Venture Partners.

Today, Josh serves as Chairman and Co-founder of Platypus Labs, an innovation research, training, and consulting firm. He has twice been named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and is the recipient of the United States Presidential Champion of Change Award.

Josh is also a passionate Detroiter, the father of four, is a professional-level jazz guitarist, and has a slightly odd obsession with greasy pizza.

Learn more about Josh: JoshLinkner.com

Episode Transcription

Laura Gassner Otting:

And I gave that talk holding on to the lectern. Like if I let go, I would fly into space and die. It was so scary but at the end of it, they handed me a check.

Josh Linkner:

Hey MicDrop enthusiast, Josh Linkner here. Delighted to be bringing you season two of MicDrop. I love our conversations with speakers and industry leaders alike so we can unpack the industry and we can all perform better. Let's get after it and get better together. Mic Drop is brought to you by Impact Eleven, the most diverse and inclusive community built for training and developing professional speakers to get on bigger stages at higher fees with greater impact, faster.

They're not just elevating an industry that we all know and love, they work with thousands of speakers to launch and scale their speaking businesses, accelerating time to success, earning tens of millions of speaking fees, landing bureau representation, securing book deals, and rising to the top of the field.

To learn more about the Impact Eleven community, schedule a free strategy session today by visiting impacteleven.com/connect. That's impact E-L-E-V-E-N .com/connect.

On today's show, I sit down with Laura Gassner Otting, known the world over as LGO. She's been described as a punch in the face, wrapped in a warm hug. Love that. After selling her extremely successful executive search firm, she entered the speaking industry and then, well, blasted off. Applying extreme levels of curiosity, intensity, creative problem solving and drive, she hit escape velocity in record time and continues to scale fast. She's the bestselling author of two books, and her extensive body of work is helping her deliver meaningful value to audiences around the globe. She's also a truth teller, which I just love.

A few months back, she challenged me to be better than my excuses and wow did that land for me. In today's conversation, LGO shares plenty more truth bombs. We cover a wide range of topics, including the fundamental shift she made in her delivery that not only led to her first standing ovation, but also led to greater audience engagement and more speaking gigs. How she overcame a crisis of identity moment and came out strong on the other side. A creative hack that allowed her to get her first high quality video reel, which in turn propelled her speaking career. And a counterintuitive approach she used to land on the bestseller list and also on the Today Show. We even discuss what we all can learn from Taylor Swift on how to drive better audience engagement. Get ready for a high energy conversation with the one and only, LGO

LGO, my friend, welcome to MicDrop.

Laura Gassner Otting:

How are you, Josh?

Josh Linkner:

I'm so excited to be with you. Thanks for joining us. You're just sharing that you wrapped up the Taylor Swift concert with your son last night, so I'm sure you're energized and a little exhausted as well. And that's kind of the feeling many of us get when we're out on the road speaking of course and here you got to absorb some genius there. Any fun observations about the concert before we dive into some content about you and the speaking industry?

Laura Gassner Otting:

Yeah, so one of the things that I noticed ... I mean of course I was sitting there watching the entire concert, enjoying the concert as a fan, enjoying the concert as a mom, but also just watching how she did what she did. So there were several things. I think she knew that the fans love her. She knew that the fans think that they are part of her success, and there was this moment where she just let them applaud her. She let them scream for her and she sat there and acknowledged in this kind of cheeky way where she would look behind her at one section and look ahead of her at the other section and kind of looked to the side real quick.

And each time she did, that section would explode and she just let them do it. I think a lot of times when we speak, we might say a funny line and we just continue to go right over the laughter of the audience and keep running forward or if they clap for us, we don't stop and we don't let them. And sometimes I think I have found that I've been the most successful on stage when I stop and I let the audience kind of be in on it with me so that they're with me. So that was the first.

The second was that I noticed that she was ... It wasn't just that she was smiling like this sort of fake smile. She found what she loved about it and connected to her dancers on stage, to the backup singers on stage, to one of her guitarists who was her guitar teacher when she was 12. She found the thing that she loved and she ... I'm sure there's a ton of stuff she didn't love. Like the night before, it was a monsoon rainstorm, she was probably pretty miserable. But she found the thing that she loved and she kept finding ways throughout her performance to reconnect to that in a way that brought that joy present for everybody. So I think those two things were getting a masterclass from the master herself.

Josh Linkner:

Well, it's such a great example for us all that we can learn from. I mean, she is amazing. Whether you love her music or not, you can't deny that people love her. And she does, not only such a genuine sort of humble way for being such a superstar, but also this notion of letting the audience participate. As speakers, sometimes, we're so focused on ourselves and our content and we get up there and just rough shod through it as opposed to letting it breathe a little and letting your audience get a chance. People enjoy participating, not just only consuming. And so when you give them a chance to join the fun, it can really make a difference.

Laura Gassner Otting:

The first standing ovation I ever got was when I decided to not give 60 minutes of content during a 60-minute keynote. But to give 48 minutes of content instead and slow down and pause and let them laugh and let them cry and let them cheer and let them respond. I didn't understand it when I first started speaking, but speaking is a conversation with the audience. The audience just doesn't say their part out loud. Or sometimes when I'm speaking with MLMs or network marketers or franchisees, they do say their part out loud. So they don't say their part, but you still have to give them time to say their part or to think their part or to feel their part. That lesson fundamentally changed the way that I show up on stage, but also fundamentally changed the way I prepare to show up on stage. I don't have to cram all the stuff in anymore. I can just kind of be there in the moment with them.

Josh Linkner:

That's so good and that's something personally I need to work on myself. I tend to cram too much stuff in. And you're right, you need to let things breathe. So Laura, you've been enjoying a heck of a ride over these last several years. This is a second career for you. You were wildly successful in the executive recruiting role. You built a company. You sold the company. You were then, several years back I think around 2017 or '16 or so, really called to speak. Can you give us a sense of how you went from such success in one area and willing to burn the bridges and what called you to become a professional speaker?

Laura Gassner Otting:

Well, what called me to become a professional speaker was a call from a woman by the name of Tamsen Webster, who was the executive producer of TEDx Cambridge. And so my son, the one I went to Taylor Swift with last night, when he was nine years old did a TEDx for Tamsen, which is crazy. He was a little bit of a lazy writer, but he was really, really smart. And so when he was young, he was really into fashion and food and just sort of hospitality blogging. He was just interested in the world style. So we made a little blog for him and he would write a paragraph about a restaurant we'd gone to. Or if he watched the Oscars, he'd write about what fashion he loved. And I just started posting those blog posts on Facebook, so grandma could see it.

And one day I'm training for the Boston Marathon, and this tiny little sprite of a woman comes running up to me in mile 18 of a 20 mile run. And she's like, "Hi, I'm Tamsen Webster. And I was like, "Are you real? Am I hallucinating? What's happening here?" And she's like, "I saw your blog post. Do you think that you and your son might want to do a TEDx about how he found his voice?" And I was like, "I don't know." I was touching her. I'm like, "Are you really real?"

And so I come home that day and I said to my son, "Remember that that event we went to six months ago where those astronauts were on stage and they were talking?" And he is like, "Yeah." I'm like, "Would you ever want to do one about how you found your voice? Because this woman wants to know if we could do it together." And he looked at me, I swear to God, nine years old, and he says, "Well, if it's all about how I found my voice, Mom, why would you be on stage with me?" So I'm kicked off of stage before I even get on on.

Josh Linkner:

Amazing.

Laura Gassner Otting:

Because he's nine, I go to with him to all the training and the chaperoning was the best professional development I'd ever had in my entire life. Later I said, "Tamsen, you should really go off on your own and do this. You should teach people how to write speeches." So she did.

A couple years later I sell my company. I have this moment of crisis of identity when I didn't know who I was, when I was no longer LGO, CEO, here's my business card. And she calls me back because I myself then started blogging. "You wrote this blog post, it's really great. You should get on stage, you should do it." And I was like, "No way. No how. Speaking is terrifying. I don't ever want to do it." Toby's in the backseat. And he's like, "Well, Mom, didn't you make me do it? Shouldn't you do it now?"

So I ended up giving the very first talk of my life at TEDx Cambridge in front of 2,600 people, Boston Opera House. 2,600 people packed into three mezzanines and gold gilded walls and crystal chandeliers. And it was terrifying, Josh. It was so terrifying. I spent 11 and a half minutes worrying that my lunch was going to come out of one end or the other. But that talk got some attention and I got offered $1,500 to fly to Boise, Idaho to go give a 45-minute talk. I called Tamsen back and I'm like, "Help me make 11 minutes and 45," and she did.

And I gave that talk holding on to the lectern. If I let go, I would fly into space and die. It was so scary. But at the end of it, they handed me a check. And I was like, "You mean, I just spent 20 years in the deliverables business consulting, writing these huge giant reports at the end of five month, six month projects, and all I got to do is talk for 45 minutes and you hand me money. Tell me more about this job. I like this job."

So then I started doing all the training and all the stuff. What I found along the way in the training was that most people, and I didn't find this at Impact Eleven, which is why I have come to love the Impact Eleven community so much, is that a lot of people who train you teach you how to speak like them. I spent a lot of time talking like a TEDx talker. I talked ... I'm not going to badmouth any of the people who are training out there, but I spent the first few years of speaking, basically doing my best imitation of other people on stage. Until finally I've realized, "Oh, I stand on stage in the center of my excellence and my expertise based on 30 years of a career, of personal experience, of research, of networking, of learning. I just have to stand on stage as that person."

So it wasn't that I was out of my depth, I was just out of my lexicon. I was out of my skillset. I didn't know how to do this thing and translate this thing in my voice. But really the journey of me becoming a speaker was really trying to understand how do I be the full me on stage, so that what I have spent time learning can come through and not worry so much about how do I block the stage and tell the joke and get the standing ovation. But how do I get the content down first? And once I understand what it is that I bring to the stage, then I could figure out how to perform it and present it.

Josh Linkner:

That's so true, and I think we all want more of you and less of you trying to be someone not you. So I think it's such great advice. So we're going to talk a lot about your body of work and your new book, but back to that moment when you were scaling to where you are now because in just a few short years, you really accelerated dramatically. When I first met you, I felt like, to a degree I was looking in the mirror a little bit. Of course not physically, but I love your intensity. You're an intense person. I'm just jogging the Boston Marathon and I'm doing this and conquering that, and you're like an A driven charger and I tend to be like that too.

And I admired how you took on the speaking industry and I felt like I did that back in the day also where not every... I'm not being critical, but some speakers kind of you know. I want to go tell war stories. They maybe don't take it as seriously. You and I believe, probably you even more than me, when you got this, like, "I'm going to treat this seriously the same way I scaled my own company. I'm going to treat it like a business."

So with that mindset of both intensity and professionalism, maybe you could share a little bit about what you did in some of the early days as you were launching and scaling your own speaking practice that our listeners might benefit from.

Laura Gassner Otting:

Yeah. I am a little bit of an go bigger go home person, and I love going home, by the way. It's just when I go big, I go big. If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it. That's it. And I was actually just texting with another one of our Impact Eleven colleagues, Riaz, this morning and he was looking at the seats we had for Taylor Swift and he is like, "They are such good seats." I'm like, "I know. I only go to good seats." It's not because I go only go to good seats, it's because I haven't been to a concert in 10 years. So all the money I would've spent on all those tickets, that would've been bad tickets, I go to one concert I really care about. So I budget my energy and I budget my time in that way.

I think it's the same thing with speaking. We really have to think about what are the things that are going to catapult us to where we want to get to? So for me, when I had that TEDx and the TEDx Cambridge is one of the top tier TEDxs. So it has five camera shoot and, as I mentioned, full audience of people. You get professional training. You have amazing sound, hair and makeup, all of it. So you look great. You look great. And the problem is when you're first starting to speak, you don't have any video of you speaking. You don't have a reel. And so I put together a reel with a whole bunch of B-roll and that. I got some feedback from some fellow speakers that are like, "It's great, it's amazing, but it's clear that you've only spoken on stage once. You need to go get more reps both so A, you can get better and B, so that you look like you have been on stage more than once." So it de-risks us for the bureaus or the clients to hire us.

Well, I knew that I could get better by just practicing, practicing, practicing, doing training, speaking in my living room. I could invent some reps, not reps on stage. You need those too, but I could at least do something there, but what I didn't have was video. And so me and five other speakers who I also knew who needed video all decided that we would rent a theater in downtown Boston on a Tuesday morning. All we had to pay was basically the labor union fees for the guys who were opening and closing. We brought in a camera team, we brought in a sound team, we brought in hair and makeup. And what we did is we said, "Okay. We're going to do soundcheck in the morning. Wear one outfit. We're going to each talk for 10 minutes in the morning and in the afternoon. So mini talks, whatever kind of material you want to put out there. So that's two more outfits you need to bring. Oh, and we're also each going to introduce each other at each of the different events."

So I might get on stage and I might say, "I've spent my career thinking about why success doesn't equal happiness. And as somebody who has spent 20 years in executive search, this is what I've learned. It's all because we're pursuing success as defined by other people. Our next speaker also likes to think about how we find our way." So boom, I have that one nailed line that I can use. So if you're doing the math here, that's five different times you're on stage and five different outfits. And we had different backdrops for each of them. And boom, all of a sudden, I had six gigs in my speaker reel. I was the wizard of Oz.

But what that allowed me to do is it allowed me to storyboard what the body of work that I brought to the stage was in a way that I knew that there were certain lines I needed to nail in my video. So suddenly, I could start getting booked on actual stages so I could get actual actual video of me doing it. And then the minute I started getting booked on stages that had big audiences or beautiful rooms, I spent some of the money I was getting paid to actually bring in camera crews. So I just started collecting video, video, video, video so I could watch myself and get better, and also so I could start making the reel look more and more and more professional way earlier than I really had any right to do.

Josh Linkner:

I want to call out a couple of things there. So the obvious literal translation is get great video and reinvest in your business. Awesome. But the thing I want to really call out is that you were problem solving.

Laura Gassner Otting:

Yes.

Josh Linkner:

You said, "Hey, to get from where I am now to where I want to go, certain things need to happen." Instead of throwing up your arms in defeat and saying, "Well how can I..." Like you just said, "I'm going to figure this out." So you took this personal initiative to first identify what those obstacles were and then find creative workarounds to get there. And that's what scrappy entrepreneurs do. And I think that's what successful speakers do.

Laura Gassner Otting:

There were so many gifts that I got out of it. I get introduced now as a punch in the face wrapped in a warm hug. It's a great line. It gets a great laugh. Everybody's so excited to see what is this person going to be when she comes out on stage. And then at the end of my talk, I can be like, "Look. I was introduced as a punch in the face wrapped in a warm hug. So let me give you a little bit of that. Here comes the punch in the face part." Then I give them the you got to get off your ass and do something and here's the warm hug, because you're better than that and you can and I believe in you. Yay, everybody cheers.

So that came out of one of the other speakers looking at the bio that I gave to introduce me. And he was like, "This isn't good enough. This doesn't capture you. What you really are is a punch in the face, wrapped in a warm hug." So it gave me an opportunity to be seen by speakers who were far more experienced than me, who knew what my energy should be on stage and helped me to find how to be me.

So again, another reason I love Impact Eleven, and you didn't ask me to plug Impact Eleven but here I am, is because I am able to be surrounded by other speakers who are better than me, more experienced than me, who've been around the block, who can answer questions. And I think that was a problem I solved for, but I didn't know I had the problem at the time.

So I feel like I got very lucky having that learning of realizing that the only way to get to where I wanted to get to was to think about the speakers who I wanted to become when I grew up, who are my aspirational and just study. I watched my own tape, but I watched their tape too, really studying how they do it, but what they do on stage, but also how they present themselves on their website in their reel, in podcasts that they do, how they talk about themselves, what their bio reads like, what their stage introduction reads like, all of those things we can... There's so many clues for each of us in everything that every... Everybody's playbook is right out there on the internet. It's pretty easy to find.

Josh Linkner:

So good. As I was preparing for it today, I came across something that you said, and I wanted to ask you to maybe unpack this for us a little bit. You said what true success comes from is a combination of four elements, calling, connection, contribution, and control. How should we interpret that in general, but more importantly, as keynote speakers looking to drive and build our own practices?

Laura Gassner Otting:

Yeah. So my last book, Limitless, is focused on the idea that when we pursue success as defined by other people, we get to the top and we're like, "Okay. The top of what? Why doesn't this feel good?" And it doesn't feel good because it's empty. We're pursuing somebody else's idea. And what I've realized in these 20 years in executive search was that the people who I called who were super successful, who all called me back because they weren't very happy despite all this success. They didn't have these things. There were a handful of people who did.

So they had calling, connection, contribution, and control. Calling, this gravitational force that wakes you up in the morning. A business you want to build, a leader you want to serve, a societal ill you wish to remedy, a message you want to communicate. Connection. How does your daily work get you closer or further from that calling? So what's in your inbox? What's in your to-do list? What's on your calendar? Contribution. How does this work manifest in your life? So what kind of lifestyle do you want? What kind of values do you want to manifest on a daily basis? What is this brand, this paycheck, this cause? What is it helping you to do in your life? So how is this work contributing to your life? And then lastly, control. How much personal control do you have? How much agency do you have about how much your work connects to that calling and how much it contributes to your life. And each of us at every age and stage want different parts of this.

So you introduced me and said that this is my second career. It's really my third. My first was in politics. And when I dropped out of law school and joined a presidential campaign, I had all the calling in the world. I was inspired by this leader. I was excited by his ideas. I had no connection at all. I was getting the coffee for the guy who got the coffee for the guy who got the coffee. I was the peon's peon. But contribution, I was getting paid all the ramen soup and idealism I could eat, but I knew if this guy won, I might have a pretty interesting job. And also, I was manifesting my values on a daily basis. And control, who knew if they were going to send me to Poughkeepsie or Little Rock or Los Angeles? I just went where I was told.

Now I'm 52 years old and I'm almost an empty nester. I've got a husband with a super stressful job. How much of each of these things I want are very different. And so I was very sick in 2021. I didn't know if I was going to see 2022 type of sick. And when the pandemic ended and the world started to open back up again, I had been charging 15K before the pandemic and I was starting to get 20. And I just decided I, this'll age me a little bit, but I was like, "I'm going to pull a Linda Evangelista. I'm not getting out of bed for less than 25K a day." And I just put on my website that my new rates were 25. I just decided for me, it wasn't worth the risk to my health, the leaving my family, it just wasn't worth going to take any gig for any client, for any amount of money they're willing to pay me.

I was going to work for clients I loved, that I cared about, that I believed in and I was going to... I knew the value that I brought on stage. And I was not any longer in this place where I was just going to like, "Well, I'll just pay whatever I can get from people. I'm going to ask for my value." And I put it on my website, and Josh, within three weeks, I got three gigs at that rate. And I was like, "Okay. There's something interesting here."

So my rubric changed in that my calling, it became this an interesting thing. I wanted to work for clients who I really loved. In terms of connection, it wasn't going to help me build a speaking business and to show up, as you said, as me on stage if I didn't care about those calling. So I really had to have that. It had to connect to what mattered to me.

In terms of contribution, I wanted to get paid more. I wanted to be recognized for the value that I brought. And in terms of control, I was no longer going to take 16 planes and a bus and a train to get to some super remote place for five grand and miss my kid's last whatever he was doing in high school. So everything changed, but my rubric's going to be different than yours. And each of ours is different at different ages and different stages.

And so for speakers, I would say we really have to think about what are you trying to build? What are you willing to sacrifice right now to build it, and are you building a thing that you want to build or are you just building a thing because everyone else in the industry is judging your success by that thing? I was talking to another speaker in ImpactEleven, and he said, "If we do 40 gigs at 25k, that's a million dollars." I was like, "Yeah, that's great. If we do 25 gigs at 40k, that's also a million dollars." He wants more volume because he's in an earlier part of his career, so he wants to just be on the road, be on the road, be on the road, because he wants to just build.

I'm in a different part of my career. I want to be very selective with the events that I do, and I'm more interested in, how do I get raise my rates without increasing my volume? The conversation I'm having with Bureaus isn't, "Hey, how often can you book me? I want to be booked every day. I'll flex down to whatever you want. Book me, book me, book me." My conversation with bureaus is, "What is the minimum number of times you need to be booking me each year so that I'm top of mind for you at this bureau?" Then, how do I get to that number?

Josh Linkner:

Becoming a keynote speaker is an amazing profession. The top performers earn millions while driving massive impact for audiences around the world. But, the quest to speaking glory can be a slow route with many obstacles that cannot knock even the best speakers out of the game. If you're serious about growing your speaking business, the seasoned pros at ImpactEleven can help, from crafting your ideal positioning, to optimizing your marketing effectiveness, to perfecting your expertise and stage skills.

As the only speaker training and development community run by current high level speakers at the top of the field, they'll boost your probability of breakthrough success and help you get there faster. That's why nearly every major speaker bureau endorses and actively participates in ImpactEleven. The ImpactEleven community provides you unparalleled access to the people, relationships, coaching, resources, and accountability that compresses your time to success. To learn more about the ImpactEleven community, schedule a free strategy session by visiting impacteleven.com/connect. That's impact E-L-E-V-E-N.com/connect.

Thanks for sharing that. I love not only those four Cs, which are crucial for us all, I also really appreciate and want to thank you for being comfortable talking about money. I know that it's funny, people, it's a sensitive topic, and if you talk about you want to increase fees, it might sound, oh, greedy. It's not, it's just not. I think it's, we're running a business as do other people run businesses. When people amass wealth, yeah, they could adorn themselves with ancient jewels or whatever, but they could also donate it to charity and they could take care of their family and they could invest it back in their community.

Money to me is just stored energy and it's not something that we should avoid talking about. I think it's beautiful. It's funny, my busiest year, I did 163 events and I was at I think 35k. I don't want to do that, and it's not in a selfish way. It's funny you said that. I'm just also very transparent, like you. My new goal is to do 60 at 60. It's $3.6 million in revenue, 60 at 60. But again, I appreciate that you're willing to talk about that and something as speakers, I think, we should be comfortable as we grow our practices.

Laura Gassner Otting:

I think we absolutely should. Look, two weeks ago I was in Atlanta, Austin, flew back to Boston for a day for again, another one of my son's last senior things, and then LA. LA wasn't just LA, it was LA and Anaheim. I flew into LA, took a car service to Anaheim, signed 650 books, took a car service back to LA, woke up the next morning, did a TV hit on a whole statewide station, went back to Anaheim, gave the keynote, and then went back to LAX to get on a red-eye going home. I did the math and I was on airplanes 27 hours within a six day period. If you count the time I was in a car service or sitting at the airport lounge, that was 46 hours of just sitting and waiting. That takes a toll on us.

They say they don't pay us to speak, they pay us to travel. But, each one of those gigs was super important. They all made sense for me. They were the right thing to do. I don't regret any of it, but I mean, hands up to those speakers who do that every single week. I don't want to. I can't. I don't know. I know that the more you speak, the more you speak, and there's a critical mass where you break through, and I'm not there. For me, this is a little arrogant being like, "I'm going to not speak as much and I'm going to speak more," but I don't know that I physically can or that I would have the joy.

Again, watching Taylor Swift last night, this woman, she is just three hours all day. She's on, and it is just on, on, on. It's not like she can hide anywhere. It's her in the middle of a stadium of 70,000 people and she has to bring it. I know what kind of IVs they pump into her. It's very impressive. I do think we have to be really clear that if we're going to go from 35 to 40 to 60, is that just volume or are there specific things that we need? It's branding and it's different content and it's a different level of relationships. It's different logos. There are certain things. When I did the rent out a theater thing, I knew that what I needed to break through at that level was more reel, R-E-E reel, I needed more video. I'm curious how, as you're thinking, I know you're interviewing me, but I'm sort of thinking about, how do you go from where you are today to 60? Are there markers that you're like, "If I collect these feathers in my crown, then I am a 60 speaker?"

Josh Linkner:

Well, that's the thing. I mean, we're all at different places in the process and there's different things for different people. When we look at, and you and I have talked about this, like that speaker performance card, there's about 10 core dimensions that drive fee and volume. Some of it is just being terrific on stage so you're captivating a bunch of spin. Some of it is having marketing materials that are really, really good. When you get into the finer strokes, like in any profession, it's the little nuances that matter.

You can't be sloppy on even 5% of the time. Everything has to be an A-plus, whether it's your marketing video, your downloadable content, your bureau strategy, your social media, your content and marketing, and ultimately eventually starting to build fame and demand. I mean, the best way to get to do 60 speeches a year is to get 120 offers. You only raise your fee when you're getting more offers than you can handle, so all these elements I think are interconnected. It's the same route as you go from 60 to a hundred, or whatever else.

I wanted to get back to, so you said, again, I love that you were talking about again your commercial success, but I know that you're not on a plane doing all the work you did 46 hours in airports and trains, in automobiles and in planes and all this stuff, only for money. I mean, you've obviously had a lot of success and all that. There's no right or wrong answer, of course, we're all different, but I'm curious, what's really driving you? I mean, what's in your heart that, because there are other ways you could make a boat load of money. You're wildly successful, super smart, you could go be a trader on Wall Street. But, what's driving you beyond the money to go to put yourself through this and make the sacrifices to contribute to others?

Laura Gassner Otting:

I'm fascinated by puzzles. I'm fascinated by games. I'm fascinated by how things work. I was the kid who took everything apart when I was little. Here's what I'm interested in. The very first time I gave a talk, that TEDx in front of 2,600 people, first talk of my entire life. I walk out on stage and I said something funny and somebody in stage left laughed. I was like, "Ooh." Then I said something deep and somebody in stage right went, "Oh." I was like, "Yes." Suddenly it was like I was addicted. I was like, "I want more of that." How interesting.

I'm interested in two things. Number one, I'm interested in the asymptotic curve of speaking. You will never be perfect. There is no perfection on stage, but you can keep getting better and better and better. Like, oh, if I say the line inverted, it hits differently. If I do the close where I do the call to action before and then I close with the personal story, mic drop, I get the standing ovation. If I present myself this way in the beginning, I just find it so interesting that if I change the wording on the slide and that's the one people take more photos of, and just the constant feedback of people in the audience tweeting and retweeting or sharing on Instagram or social media something you said, so you're constantly in this sort of public feedback. I mean, this is my roots in politics. You're basically constantly polling and tweaking messaging, that is so interesting. The asymptotic curve, how do you get better and better and better and better, number one.

Number two, the money, just the game of the money. Why does this guy get put on stage for $5,000 and that guy gets put on stage for $50,000? It's not because the $50,000 speaker is better. Sometimes they're better, usually they're better, but they're not always better. There's fame and there's materials and there's connections, and just it's perception. It's, what is the perception of this human? I want to know how to get better and better and better at putting myself in a position where I know that I deliver on stage. How do I make sure that as I'm getting better delivering on stage, and I have a lot of work to do there, we all constantly have a lot of work to do there, how do I also make sure that my external perception also gets me to that place? I'm just so interested in, how does the business of the business work? Those two things I think are probably what have driven me in this.

Then there's also the moment where you're walking from stage back to the car or back to your room, we're so privileged in this ridiculous job, and somebody comes up to you and they're like, "That thing that you said on stage, it really spoke to me and you've inspired me. I didn't think I was going to be able to do the," whatever, quit my job, leave my husband, run the marathon, "but I've decided to do it." Every time somebody says that to me, I say, "I'm on all the socials @HeyLGO. I want you to write to me tomorrow and I want you to tell me you're still doing this, and then I want you to tell me when you've done it." I can create these connections with people.

I have 20,000 people on my email list. Every single message that comes back to me, I personally respond to. I personally write every weekly newsletter myself. I know that's not the smartest business thing to do, but I feel a deep responsibility if I'm going to be on stage and somebody's going to make a decision about their life, about their work, about their family, about themselves, based on something that I said, I better get it right. If they're going to follow up with me, I sure better respond. That's just respect. I just feel so lucky to just be in this place right now. Yeah, that's it.

Josh Linkner:

That's so beautiful. I'm so happy for your amazing trajectory and success. I love the way your mind works, your curiosity, the problem solving, the fix the puzzle. It's so cool. Your new book, which I am so excited about, we were chatting about right before our launch, and it's of course now become a global sensation and bestselling book. The book is called Wonderhell: Why Success Doesn't Feel Like It Should and What to Do About It. First of all, can you give us a quick synopsis of the book, just a quick overview? Then I'd love to hear any thoughts or suggestions you have for speakers or authors that are in the process of launching their own book, and what could we learn from your amazing success in this launch?

Laura Gassner Otting:

Yeah, so here's what I'll say. Okay, so Wonder Hell is about the moment in between who you were yesterday and who you've just realized you can become tomorrow. Each one of us at every point in our life has had some amount of success, whether you sold a business or you've just sold your first tube of lipstick. Right? It can be big, it can be small. In that moment you see a version of yourself that you didn't know existed and you're like, "Oh, what if I could be that person? Is it okay? Am I allowed to want more? Can I do it?" It's wonderful, it's amazing, but it's also stress inducing and anxiety provoking and imposter syndrome rendering. It's hell, it's wonderful, and it's hell, it's wonder hell.

Here are the two pieces of advice that I would give to people. Number one, everybody says blurbs don't sell books. Don't worry about the blurbs. What I will say is that blurbs sell media. If you're a first time author and nobody knows who you are, nobody's going to care. If Josh Linkner says, "This book is amazing." Then somebody who cares about Josh Linkner is going to say, "Oh, well, if Josh likes this person, maybe I should check them out." It just helps. Again, it's the same idea of let me get a bunch of video, all the things we can do to de-risk ourselves.

When Limitless came out, I had hired a publicist and they had sent a bunch of press releases out, and Amy Cuddy had blurbed that book, and I didn't know Amy. She was a friend of a friend of a friend, and I basically stalked her until, because I wanted to interview her for the book. When I finally six months later, saw her at an event, I was like, "Hi, I just wanted to say hello. You don't know me. I'm the crazy person who's been stalking you by email." She literally looked at me and she was like, "Well, since you couldn't interview me, would you mind if I just blurb the book instead?" I almost fell off my chair. I was like, "Okay." Then she said, "Yeah, just write something for me and send it to me, and if it's good, I'll take it." I wrote the most audacious blurb ever. Counterintuitive kick in the ass. It was just amazing. She was like, "Yep, sounds great."

I had this crazy blurb and then the Today Show it and said, "Well, we don't know you, but we love Amy. We thought we'd check it out." I ended up on the Today Show because of that. Right? The blurbs do matter if you're trying to rise above the fray. I would pay attention to that. The second thing that I would say about the book is that as we're writing the book, we really feel like, oh, I can't tell anybody about it. I want to sort of keep it a secret. I'm not really so sure. If we can continue to ask people to read early drafts and to tell people early stories about it and really involve them in the same way we call this a callback, that Taylor Swift invites her audience to be part of the show, to cheer and to scream sing along, inviting people in to be part of the process. People in politics, they say, if you want money, ask for advice. If you're raising money, ask for advice.

It's the same thing if you want people to buy your book, if you want the sort of groundswell of support of people who want to support you and post about it and talk about it and buy the book and tell their friends about it, if they feel like they are part of your success, they're going to be much more likely to want to tell people about their shared success than just some other random person. I think that is pretty universal advice for everything. I love writing, I hate promoting. I could write books all day, but promoting is awful. I guess that's the third piece of advice is have an end point. It's going to go into a certain end point, and then you're like going to slither onto a plane and go on vacation somewhere.

Josh Linkner:

Well, I hope that you're definitely doing that because it's certainly well deserved. As we round out our conversation, you said earlier on that people refer to you as a punch in the face, wrapped in a warm hug. Knowing that we're now here today chatting not only with each other, but with thousands of speakers at varying levels of their own career. These are people for the most part that their heart is in it. They're doing the work that they really want to contribute. They want to build a business, take care of their family, all that kind of stuff. What punch in the face and warm hug do you have for our listeners?

Laura Gassner Otting:

Here's my punch in the face. My punch in the face is that we need to make sure that we are on stage talking about something that we know in our bones to be true. Not giving book reports, as Scott McCain likes to say on other people's writing, but actually something that through your life experience or through your research, you don't have to be somebody who climbed Mount Everest. You don't have to be the first this or that, or gold medal, whatever. We all have a story of something that we know to be true. Again, whether it's through our own personal experience or through our work. That's sort of the punch in the face, get up there and give that talk. The warm hug is this, you don't have to actually give every single detail of that story. It doesn't have to be the chronology of that.

Don't stress so much about your story. How do I tell it? How do I get through it? Because what happens is a lot of times early speakers, and I'm guilty of having done this, spend 45 minutes of a 60 minute talk talking about their own story, and they don't quite get quick enough to the why the hell the audience should care. Start with the lessons that you learned from the story. Start there, and then all you need to do is the bare minimum of how much you need to tell. When I get on stage and I talk about being super sick, I don't talk about and then I had started with a rash and then I couldn't breathe and then this and that, and I didn't talk about three months of trying to figure out how to be diagnosed. Nobody cares.

I say in 2021, I was diagnosed with a rare disease only 800 people in the entirety of the United States have ever had. I didn't know if I was going to see 2022, don't worry about me. I'm fine now. I made it to remission. In that moment, I had to make a decision to do things differently. Just like you here today had to make a decision. This is why I'm excited to be here. At the end of the thing, I tell the story about the triumph, but what are the lessons? Let yourself off the hook. Tell only the bare minimum facts that you need to get to why those lessons matter. It takes the pressure off.

Josh Linkner:

Such a great point. It's funny, I play music, and one of the differences between a more mature musician and a less mature musician is that they actually play fewer notes because they're more concise in their artistic choices. I think the same is true with speakers. Speaking of artistic choices, I just want to end with a thought. I'm just so impressed with you, your intellect, your drive, your curiosity, your puzzle solving, and your deep commitment to your own success and the success of others around you. There's no question in my mind that your star will continue to rise, and I'm just grateful to have you as a friend and grateful to have your contribution today on Mic Drop. Thank you LGO.

Laura Gassner Otting:

Well, right back at you. Part of the reason I joined Impact 11 is because you've been one of those speakers who I've been watching for a long time, and I've been like, "What is Josh doing? Because he knows what's going on here." You bring, not just I'm going to be a slick speaker, but also I'm bringing this actual research and evidence and body of work to what I do. I'm thrilled. What a great way to start the day.

Josh Linkner:

Awesome. Well, thanks again LGO, and thanks everyone for listening. We'll be back next episode. I feel like Laura's energy could power a bus station. A few things that really grabbed me from today's jam session with the incredible LGO. Number one, I love her scrappy, intentional approach to problem solving. She saw obstacles and barriers, but then took the initiative and figured it out. The mark of a great entrepreneur and a successful speaker. She really is a puzzle solver, a skill that we all can develop to help us thrive. Number two, LGO isn't afraid to talk about commercial success, and we shouldn't be either. We can create massive impact in people's lives and enjoy boundless financial rewards. Professional speaking, it truly is an and, not an or. Number three, I appreciated how Laura unpacked the notion that true success comes from a combination of four elements, calling, connection, contribution, and control. A powerful framework for us all. LGO, my buddy, thanks for the punch in the face. Thanks for the warm hug, and thanks for inspiring us all to get out of Wonder Hell to achieve remarkable success.

Thanks so much for joining me on another episode of Mic Drop. Don't forget to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. If you love the show, please share it with your friends, and don't forget to give us a five star review. For show transcripts and show notes, visit micdroppodcast.com. I'm your host, Josh Linkner. Thanks so much for listening, and here's to your next Mic Drop moment.