Meet Laura
Gassner Otting
Bestselling Author, Serial Entrepreneur,
Executive Coach, and Keynote Speaker
Sure, this is a page about me and my achievements. But what I love most about my work isn’t just writing bestselling books or being on stage; it’s looking someone in the eye and daring them to be the greatest version of themselves
...which is what I'm
going to do here.
The time to act is now. I can help.
Laura dares to ask her audiences:
- Why are you letting doubt and indecision keep you stuck?
- Why is discomfort and the fear of failure stopping you from dreaming bigger and seizing those larger-than-life opportunities for you, your team, your organization, and the world around you?
- Why are you avoiding that one thing that, if you tackled it head-on, could lead to significant growth in your career or life?
- Why aren’t you letting go of the beliefs, habits, limitations, and any other thing that’s holding you back from achieving your most audacious goals?
And most importantly, why aren’t you doing anything about it?
From the Corner Office to the
Oval Office.
Laura’s strategic thinking, intuitive wisdom, and visionary perspective have been honed over three decades of navigating the start-up, corporate, nonprofit, political, and philanthropic landscapes.
Her career started when she dropped out of law school to join an unknown southern governor’s presidential campaign and ended up as a Presidential Appointee in Bill Clinton’s White House, where she helped shape AmeriCorps.
She became the youngest vice president ever of a nationally respected search firm, but left soon after when she realized she could fundamentally shift the way executive search was delivered to the nonprofit sector. Implementing an innovative new strategy, she built her own multimillion-dollar search firm and revolutionized the industry.
In 2015, Laura sold that firm to the team that helped her build it, both because she was hungry for the next chapter and because she held an audacious dream of electing our nation’s first female president. (WHOMP WHOMP.)
Since then, Laura has become the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of three books, which have been translated into five languages. She’s a frequently featured guest expert for national news outlets and a TEDx speaker who has garnered over 2 million views. She speaks on stages across the world for universities, companies, conferences, the US Military, and more.
Committed to giving back...
...she has helped build a local Montessori school, co-founded a women’s philanthropic initiative, grown a citizen-leadership development program, and completed seven charity-inspired marathons, projects emblematic of her passion and values. She is a competitive masters rower and for a bright, shining moment was the reigning international lightweight women’s 40-49-year-old 2k champion.
She’s turned on by the audacity of The Big Idea and that larger-than-life goal you just can’t seem to shake.
She’s an instigator, a motivator, and a provocateur, and she’s never met a revolution she didn’t like.
Just ask her enduringly patient husband and two troublesome pups with whom she empty-nests in Boston, all crying themselves to sleep each night as they miss their college-aged sons.
Laura's Values
Laura's
Values
Labels are meant to be destroyed; envelopes are meant to be pushed.
You were meant for more. And so was I. And we can only get there together. Let’s defy the naysayers and those insidious voices in our heads and carve our own paths to success. And when we reach it? We’ll look around, take a deep breath, and lift others as we continue to climb.
Action beats stagnation.
The answer is always yes. There's an adventure around every corner, and possibility lies in every crack of light, so why not just go for it?
Stop giving votes to people in your life who shouldn’t even have a voice. The worriers, the envious, and the fearful hand us limitations, but you are made for invitations. Don’t let your ambition be held back by other people’s lack of imagination.
Be on the beam team.
The price of admission for our one, big, juicy life is giving abundantly, not keeping score, and never praising in silence. Shine your light on everyone around you and freely (maybe even loudly), share your joy for their every breakthrough.
Overdelivering is the only option.
Doing great work is table stakes. Just because the bar is low doesn’t mean we can slither under it and call it a day. Show up, be bold, kick butt… and don’t be a jerk. It’s not that hard.
We can live into everyone else's comfort zone and be loved for complying with their (low) expectations. But how many of us can freely fly our freak flags, actually showing the world who we are so that we are truly seen and still be loved, not in spite of it, but because of it?
The answer: every single one of us, as long as each of us takes the time to stop and truly see each other. I was put on this earth to really see you, and I believe you were put on this earth to really see me. Together, we are better.
