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Just A Moment
From Failing Law School to Helping Build AmeriCorps - Laura Gassner Otting (LGO)
00:25:52
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- [00:01]
A
Hi, I'm Brant Menzwer and welcome to my show Just a moment. As a former world touring musician turned keynote speaker and author, I've experienced my share of life altering moments that have both broken me and propelled me forward. How you leverage those moments or push through them will define your destiny. Each week on my show, I'll provide tools on how to maximize those moments as well as interview some of the most successful entrepreneurs, entertainers and athletes on how the power of a single moment changed their life. Join me to learn how to change what's possible for your life. It'll take just a moment. Today's guest went from political powerhouse to high end head huntress with the speaking resume and book sales worth bragging about. Laura Gassner Otting talks with us today about moments, momentum and how sometimes having no plan will get you exactly where you wanted to go.
- [00:57]
B
Foreign I'm Laura Gassner Otting and this is my moment. I grew up in Miami, Florida. Miami, when I grew up like a hundred thousand years ago in the 70s and 80s was like lawless place. It was like Scarface era Miami. I walked through metal detectors to go to high school, like way back before school shootings and we had off campus lunch. I think I was probably drunk and stoned for most of high school and still graduated number 27 in my class. So it was one of those places where they were just happy that we weren't dead or pregnant at graduation. So you pretty much could have the run of the place. My father was a surgeon and my mother had a bunch of different careers before I was born. She started off as a biology teacher. When I was born she became stay at home mother and then she joined our homeowners association, got super pissed at the way that all the dudes were running things and decided that she'd run for city council. So when I was like 12 years old, I would spend my time outside of Publix, our local grocery chain, handing out flyers to the condo commandos. They'd call them like the old people you put on bus and like send them to go vote in blocks. And it would be like vote for Shelly. She's my mom. So my mom was a city councilwoman for some of my youth. And then later she became an entrepreneur creating like a company that that tool different small business owners to get them better rates on healthcare. So I come from a line of people who made their own way. My father was a surgeon. It sounds glamorous but my father shared a pullout sofa with his brother in a one bedroom apartment in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, until he left to marry my mother who grew up in a similar situation. So I've really come from people who had to make it for themselves. They're so crappy and self starters.
- [02:39]
A
Despite her admiration for her parents, Laura has since reflected on her childhood and found where the insecurities that eventually shaped her journey took root.
- [02:48]
B
I didn't go to therapy until about four, four years ago. Not that I have anything against therapy, I just never felt the need for it until suddenly we're in the middle of the pandemic and like I felt the need for it. And the therapist on the very first appointment asked me a whole bunch of questions like, where did you grow up? Were your parents married? Where'd you go to school? And then he asked, did you feel loved as a child? And I was like, yes. Yeah, I think. And I went home and perseverated on this question for two weeks until I went back and I sat down in the chair. The next appointment, he's like, hi, how are you? And I'm like, you asked me the wrong question. He's like, what are you talking about? And I said yes. I felt loved. Like I felt cared for, I felt protected, I felt provided for. If I was nice to the neighbors and did my chores and got good grade. We love you, you're a good kid. Did I feel seen as a child and I realized there's a million miles between being loved and being seen. Like, could I have flown my full freak flag and still been loved? Maybe, I don't know. I never asked. There wasn't space in my home to ask that kind of question. So the dynamics were very much like, you are a good kid because you do the things you're supposed to do. I don't know that I was curious about anything as a kid because I was so worried about what everybody thought about me because I was so insecure. I am now insatiably curious as a person. I spent 20 years in executive Search interviewing people and getting their stories out. And obviously as a speaker and as an author, I care deeply about what makes people tick. So that's something that is really interesting and important to me. But I gotta say, as a kid, if I'm being totally honest, I was mostly curious about how do I get people to like me because it seems like everyone hates me because I'm an insecure loser. I think we all sit in that space a lot. A good offense is a good defense. So if I could be funny and smart and sarcastic, then nobody's going to hurt Me because I could put push out first.
- [04:44]
A
Laura's self identity and goals were always changeable. While she looked at her insecurities as a weakness, her instincts as a social chameleon eventually became the source of the emotional and mental flexibility that started her on a path to greatness.
- [05:00]
B
Yeah, I thought I was going to be a surgeon like dad until I went to go watch him do surgery and as he stuck his hand in somebody's chest cavity, massaged their heart as he put a pacemaker in, I passed down on the floors. Pretty much ended my thinking about whether or not I'd ever do anything in the medical field. Although I did spend most of high school changing bedpans in a hospital as a job, that was a shitty job. I became in high school righteously indignant about the Iran hostage crisis. We used to watch the 6 o' clock news at night at dinner. Like we didn't talk at the dinner table, we watched the six o' clock news. And I remember like the hostages were taken and every night they'd get on the news and they'd say, how many days it's been, how many days it's been, how many days it's been. And I remember feeling like I grew up hearing that, like America was the best country in the world. And I remember thinking, if we're the best country in the world, why can't we go get our people? Like, what's going on? And I remember as the days went on and went on, I just became so indignant about this. And I decided in that moment that I was going to run for office. I was going to become the first female Democratic senator from the great state of Florida, which, by the way, that job's still available, nobody's done it yet. And I was going to solve all the problems.
- [06:11]
A
As the saying goes, the best laid plans often go awry. Though Laura's path to political office seemed like a landslide victory in the making, she quickly encountered obstacles in college that had her reassessing just where she would plant her proverbial flag.
- [06:27]
B
I was in law school. I had graduated early from college because I went to college with plenty of AP courses, having already skipped kindergarten. I'm starting law school. I am not yet 21 years old and I'm looking around the class of the students who start mid year at University of Florida at the law school there. I was like, I'm not going to get into Harvard and I want to run for office. So, like, University of Florida is the Harvard of Florida. So I guess I'll go There, all of the students are like mid career people coming back. Nobody looks like me, right? Nobody is my age. You've watched those movies about law school. There's a student that gets called on the Socratic method, and they ask question after question after question until they dissolve in a puddle of tears and shame. That was your girl right here. So that happened on the first day. And I remember thinking, I've made a huge mistake. Like, what am I doing here? I don't respect what just happened to me. None of the students were supportive. I just knew in that moment it was like organization failure happening inside of me. And so I did what a lot of young women do in moments when they find themselves in terrible situations. I found myself the world's worst boyfriend and the world's worst boyfriend. I joke around. I tell this bit on stage a lot. I say he had exceptional taste in precisely two things. The first, obviously being girlfriends, and the second being presidential hopefuls from tiny Southern states that nobody had ever heard of. He said to me, one day, I'll give you a ride home from campus. When I'm stopping by this guy's campaign office. He's running for president. And I was like, governor? Who? From where? Arkansas? Like, not a chance in hell. George H.W. bush just won Desert Storm. He has a 91% approval rating. The Democrats put in a sacrificial lamb. And I walk into this campaign office, and there in the corner of the room, in this tiny little black and white tv, is a video of then Governor Bill Clinton, brown hair, right, talking about community service in exchange for college tuition. And in that moment, I went from being like, I'll run for office and solve all the problems to that, if I'm being fully transparent with you, it wasn't that I was like, I'm gonna go do this amazing thing. I was like, I'm gonna flunk out of law school and I'm running away. And this happened to be a thing that made sense. So I think sometimes you have a moment and you know immediately you want to go towards it. And sometimes the moment comes up because you're running so far from the other thing that the options that are available to you look better than the they might have if you were completely in your risk assessment mindset. I get a phone call, like, a couple days later, all four principals, Bill and Hill and Al and Tipper Gore, are coming to Gainesville, Florida, and we're putting on a rally. We need some volunteers. Do you want to help? So I was like, sure, why not? I go back to the campaign office and I start volunteering. And what happens in a presidential campaign is there's this thing called an advance team. The advance team are a group of volunteers who come into a city usually like three to five days before a big event's going to happen. And they're the ones who, they do the walk up the site, they set up the state, they figure out where the risers are going to go for the journalists, they figure out what the security views are going to be for Secret Service. Like they, they do belief letting they get all the crowd together. And so they came in and I started volunteering with them. And we got 36,000 people to show up at this rally. So the national office was like, who are those volunteers? We should hire them. And by hire them, that means we'll pay them all the idealism they can eat. And that was it. And so my options were go back to law school and flunk my midterms or get on a campaign bus and eat cold pizza and travel all over the southeast of the country doing exactly that advanced job. So that's what I did. And I ended up in, in Little Rock on election day. I was like the person setting up the Diet Cokes in the back of the state House. I almost impaled David Brinkley running across the statehouse lawn with the flagpole. I was fully 21 at this point. I was about to turn 22. It was November of 92, and I still didn't know what I was going to do with myself. But what I did know was that every single day I was surrounded by people that I respected, who believed the same things that I believed, who were excited and energized by the same idealism that I held. And. And I didn't know what else was going to happen, but I figured at this point, anything that came out of it could be interesting. I am certain that I made the right decision, but I don't know that I made a decision so much as I just followed momentum of what was happening around me. I get asked a lot to tell my story. How did you get where you are? I could do a huge disservice and say that I did this and that I strategically chose to do that and then I strategically chose to do the next thing. And none of us do that right. Like, I spent 20 years in executive Search and the only interesting people that I interviewed were the ones who had left turns and right turns and U turns. And so was it the right decision? Yeah, obviously I got a great life. Things worked out wonderfully. Do I know what life would have looked like otherwise? Like what, what the sliding door would have been? No, like I. Maybe I'd be president right now if I ran for Senate. I have no idea. Like, we. You don't get a control group.
- [11:26]
A
Laura's go with the flow philosophy was further shaped by her time in Washington and ultimately realized in the serendipitous career of her superior in the Clinton White House.
- [11:37]
B
When I worked in the White House, I met a man by the name of Jack Lew, and Jack became the Treasury Secretary for the United States. He actually came to our little Office of National Service, which is what we did to build the AmeriCorps program, which was this community service in exchange for college tuition, campaign promise. And he came off of a partner track in New York City to come write the legislation. He'd worked for Tip o' Neill before that, and everyone thought he was insane. Like, why would you leave this partner track position to come to this office, this tiny campaign promise that might become a tiny program, maybe, who knows? And he said, I talked to the guy who runs it, and he's an interesting guy. And I think if you do interesting things with interesting people, interesting opportunities arise. Okay, so he writes the legislation. As he writes the legislation, he gets to know Bill and Hillary Clinton. Hillary brings him in to become her Chief of staff when she becomes Secretary of State. He ends up meeting Obama through that. So then he becomes a head of the Office of Management and Budget. Then he becomes Obama's Chief of staff, and then he becomes appointed as the Secretary of the treasury for the United States. He didn't go to college for that. He didn't plan that, but he decided to do interesting things with interesting people and interesting opportunities arose. And when I interviewed him for Limitless and he told me the story, I was like, looking back on, that's been my entire strategy, like, for my entire life, personal, professional, everything. So, yeah. Was it the right decision? Maybe it was an interesting thing with an interesting person and interesting opportunities arose.
- [13:04]
A
Laura Gassner Otting lgo, my dear friend, welcome to Just a moment.
- [13:09]
B
It is so good to be here with you.
- [13:11]
A
Bran, let me just tell you, you're one of my favorite people in the world. You know that?
- [13:14]
B
Ditto. Ditto.
- [13:15]
A
We have come up in the last few years together, speaking and doing all things, figuring out what life looks like when you're building a platform and it goes in eight different directions at the same time. At the same time. That's exactly right. I listen, I love this moment, and I'M so excited that you're here to talk about it. I want to just continue the conversation a little bit and ask you, like, how long did you stay involved in the campaign there and what you were doing?
- [13:43]
B
Yes. So I worked throughout the whole campaign. And then I have a mini moment where the decision was, okay, Bill Clinton was elected president. Do you go back to law school, or do you put your car on the auto train from the middle of Florida and wake up in D.C. and figure it out? And so I decided that door number one seemed horrible. So the only choice left was door number two. So I put my car on the auto train, and I drove into the center of D.C. and I walked into the JCC, actually, and I picked a little piece of paper off of the wall that was, like, roommate needed. I moved in with some random stranger in a English basement apartment, which is. It's the basement, but you have a little teeny window at the ceiling. It was me and her and the bugs. And I think I paid, like, $275 a month for that. So that left some room for ramen soup. And I decided to see if I could get a job on the transition team. Right. The people who helped staff the administration. And so I did that. And I hoped that I could volunteer long enough and save enough money to maybe see if I could stick around. I just kept showing up, and eventually I got put on staff. And so I spent the whole first administration in the Clinton White house helping build AmeriCorps.
- [14:52]
A
That's amazing. First, let me say this. I would serve on your staff if you decided that you want to run for anything. The answer's yes. And I will quit all the shit I'm doing and immediately be whatever cabinet post you would assign me to.
- [15:07]
B
Let's just say that I would be honored to have you. And I'm also never running for president. That's how I did. It was like politics. Presidential politics were a little nicer then. It was, like, just starting to get nasty now. It's a. This is. I would not subject my worst enemy to it.
- [15:22]
A
I agree. I agree. Although I think you'd be amazing. And we'd get shit done around here. Yeah, I don't. I wouldn't wish that on you or your family. So you take this time. You serve in the administration. What shifted you to Executive Search?
- [15:37]
B
Brant? You see, when you graduate after four years of working in the White House with no discernible skills but a Rolodex that could choke a horse, you pretty much go into Executive Search because All you know are people. And if the value of what you're leaving there with is people, then connecting some people to other people is where you make your money. Now, if I'm being completely honest again, I started dating a guy in D.C. who was not the world's worst boyfriend, in fact, was the world's best boyfriend. And I wanted to go back out on the campaign trail, and my boss said to me, laura, you're too old to get back on a campaign bus and eat cold pizza and get paid in all the ramen soup you can stomach. And I said, well, okay, then what do I do? Can I do a bigger job? And he's like, you're too young to be the domestic policy advisor, so, you know, sucks for you. Go talk to my friend Arnie Miller. He runs Isaacson Miller, one of the biggest search firms in the world that does specifically mission driven leadership searches. And I said, great. He's like, he'll find you a job at a nonprofit, and then you'll come back and do something big on the Gore campaign in four years. And I was like, great. Sounds like a plan. So two days later, I sit down at the coffee shop, the Mayflower, and I meet with Arnie. And about five minutes into the interview, I was like, wait a minute. You work out of Boston, and the best boyfriend in the world, who, by the way, I've been married to now for 28 years, is about to move to Boston. I should come work for you. And he's like, great, you should come work for me. And I was like, fabulous, I'll take the job. What do you do? And ladies and gentlemen, that's how I became a headhunter. Yes, I went into Executive Search because I was following a boy to Boston.
- [17:05]
A
I love that. I love that.
- [17:06]
B
And this is why I don't tell the story as like, I had a plan, because I had no plan.
- [17:13]
A
Well, and you are, for those that don't know you, you're everywhere in all things. So I don't know how anyone doesn't know you at this point, but you are the resident badass wherever you go. And so I think it's funny that you went to Boston for a boy.
- [17:28]
B
I went to Boston.
- [17:29]
A
I would have lost a whole bunch of money if I would have put some money down on that bet. But I just. I love that.
- [17:36]
B
How?
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A
How? I'm curious. What do you think you learned from this moment in being on this campaign that you've taken with you through Executive Search? And now as a two time bestselling author, all of the things, what have you taken forward from that time?
- [17:54]
B
The thing about presidential campaigns is that if you do not have the audacity and the moxie and the unbridled delusion to think that you can succeed, you don't do it. It is not for the faint of heart. And so the understanding that momentum is the thing that is often like 95% of success to me, just knowing that, I mean, it's why I love the designing Momentum idea, because we string together these moments in our lives and the things that actually mean something to us. And if you string enough of those together with enough people and enough just excitement and joy and hope that there will be more of them, then there are more of them. And so the this I try to bring to everything I do. I'd like to understand what Plan B is. If we lose, if I fail, if it doesn't work, what's Plan B? And then as soon as I know what Plan B is, and usually plan B is like, go get a boring job in a cubicle, like, figure out how to save enough money, like, do something interesting again. As soon as I know what Plan B is, I stick that plan in the drawer and I never look at it again. And then I only focus on plan A because I don't have to worry about Plan B. Like, I know what I'm going to do. So all I get to do is be excited about plan A. And there's all this science and behind manifestation, which, by the way, I thought was bullshit when I first started writing Wonderhelm, then I learned there's science like your brain picks up 11 million bits of data every single second, but could only take 50 of them. So if you want to go to Japan, but you can't afford to go to Japan, and you write a little swirly font, I want to go to Japan on your vision board. Then a bus passes you the next day with a sign to Japan. Not because you manifested the trip to Japan, but because you just told your brain of all the bajillion things that are coming into it, pick out that thing. So when you focus only on plan A, it allows you to pick out all the things that will help you find those interesting people and those interesting opportunities. So what I learned from that moment is like, just have a little bit of wonder, right? Have a little bit of delight, have a little bit of merry at everything you do, because it allows that momentum to build behind you so that success becomes easier.
- [20:02]
A
Amazing. I love that. What we like to do here, after we talk about this incredible moment is we like to have a quick conversation about. I used to say, a moment you wish you could get back. I found that I get met a lot with I don't have regret, which let me just say, I think is total bullshit for anyone who says that.
- [20:22]
B
Yeah, but I regret that you're not self aware enough to have it with us.
- [20:25]
A
I understand the idea that you don't want to feel regretful. I understand. But we all have things that we regret. My question to you would be, is there a moment that you wish you could get back to, to either relive it or perhaps approach it differently or something that's gnawed at you for a long time, that maybe with what you know now and in the success that you've had, you would approach it different?
- [20:50]
B
Yeah, I actually have a very specific answer for that. When I was bulimic all through college, so much so that I had friends who had an intervention and actually took me to a clinic to get help. And for years I felt a lot of shame around that because I very much rejected it. I rejected the therapy, I rejected the help and the pain and difficulty of that, of losing the friends, of almost losing myself in that moment, gnawed at me for a really long time. And in the middle of the pandemic, after sitting with myself and my demons, because what else are we doing? I decided to look the friend who led that whole effort and I found him. He's a veterinarian in Florida. We're not even friends on Facebook, he's not on social media. And I called his veterinary practice and I was like, hello, may I talk to the doctor? And they were like, who is this? What's your pet's name? And I'm like, I don't, I'm not a patient. But you know, I was friends with him in college and there's something I've really needed to say to him for a really long time. And he got on the phone with me and I was like, I wanted to thank you because you saved my life. And even though in that moment I wasn't the best version of myself, which by the way, is why you had that moment with me. I graduated early and I went on with my life and I'd never came back and thanked you for that. And that, that act of kindness and humanity that you gave to me shaped how I approached other people who were in difficult moments throughout their lives. And I haven't always been the best at it, but just having seen that like open hearted compassion, which I don't Know is something that I had modeled for me growing up, really shaped me as a person. And I think he was just like, okay, thank you. Like, I gotta go see a dog about some compressed anal glands right now. Like, I'll, like, talk to you later. And we said we'd talk again. And he never called me. And I think he thought I was the weirdest person in the world. And to him it was just a Tuesday, but I, I owed him that debt of gratitude for 30 years.
- [22:41]
A
Yeah, that's. Listen, I love that. First of all, I love that he's probably. Who is this?
- [22:47]
B
He was like, it's. He remembered who I was, he knew who I was. But I think like, literally he's not on social media. Like this whole thing went down and then I. He didn't hear from me for 25 years. And. Hello, it's Tuesday. Laura Gassner's on line three.
- [23:01]
A
Hands off the anal glands. Could you go answer line two?
- [23:05]
B
I just like, I was like, should I write him a letter? I was like, I don't really know. But I was like, I, like, this is like sat on my heart for 25 years. And he just needs to know that he saved my life.
- [23:15]
A
So I will say this. I know for as long as I've known you, this makes sense to me now as to why you are the way you are, because you are like that with all of the people in your circle. You are first with the phone call, first with the foot in the ass in the most loving way possible. First to, to put your arm around someone, say, it's going to be okay. And then to, you know, put them in a headlock and say, this is.
- [23:38]
B
The way you need to go, but only if you make it okay.
- [23:41]
A
Yes, for sure. Yes. You have to have that established first. But now, how is this, has this sort of translated now to how you've.
- [23:49]
B
Raised your kids a hundred percent? Absolutely. I, we. I am a full throated, fiercely protective and also impatient expector of potential. Not greatness. I don't say greatness, but like of your potential, whatever your potential is. My kids were in a Montessori school all the way through sixth grade, so they didn't get grades. And when they started a traditional middle school, my son came home like after having a test. He's like, I got a B plus. Is that a good grade? And of course, every part of me wants to be like, no, you should get an A. But I said, let me ask you two questions. Does the B plus reflect your understanding beginning of the material? If yes, okay, does the B reflect the effort that you put into it? And I'm not saying, like, you're smarter than that because, like, maybe he wasn't. I don't know. Like, not every kid's a math kid. Some kids are science kids, some kids are English kids. Like, it just. Everyone's got their thing. In life, we get to specialize, but in school, we have to generalize. So I just, I tended to ask more questions of, is this the best that you can do? Because the best you can do is the best you can do. And so I. When it wasn't, it was a very honest conversation where I didn't need to school them because they knew what they needed to do better. And it was. It was like, great. Awesome. Let's go get ice cream.
- [24:56]
A
That. I love that. Listen. For anyone who wants to continue to follow you on your journey, I am a subscriber to your newsletter. I follow you everywhere. You know that. What's the best way for people to stay in touch with you?
- [25:08]
B
As you know, all my friends call me L G o. So I'm at Hey H e y L G O on all the socials and you can find me there.
- [25:16]
A
Fantastic. Lgo, you know I love you dearly. Thank you so much.
- [25:19]
B
You too.
- [25:19]
A
Thank you so much. And we look forward to the next time you are on Just A Moment.
- [25:25]
B
Sounds amazing.
- [25:26]
A
Thank you for joining us on this episode of Just a Moment. Make sure to subscribe to our podcast and tell a friend or two about it to help spread the word so everyone can find a moment that inspires them. Don't forget to leave us a review and check us out on the web@justamomentpodcast.com Just a Moment is produced by Natalie Von Rose and Brandt Menswear. For more inspiring shows like this, visit surroundpondcasts. Com.