The Research Behind Limitless
Work That Matters
The research on engagement, consonance, and what it takes to bring everything you are to everything you do.
The Problem
Most people are running someone else’s race
Most of us were handed a scorecard of success before we can even remember getting it — by a parent, a teacher, a culture. We spend years trying to fill it in, only to reach the top and discover the win feels strangely hollow.
You can’t be insatiably hungry for someone else’s goals.
For two decades, Laura led executive searches, guiding thousands of people through the most vulnerable moments of career change. The most successful and fulfilled people weren’t the ones who hustled hardest — they were the ones who connected their work to what genuinely mattered to them. That observation became a three-year global study spanning 74 countries and more than 5,600 responses.
Only 23%
of people say they feel truly engaged in their work. The other 77% are, in some way, running someone else’s race.
The Big Idea
Consonance — and its four levers
Engagement rarely stalls for lack of ambition. It stalls when there’s a gap between who you are and what you do. Limitless calls the opposite of that gap consonance. It is built on four levers — when one is missing, you feel it.
Calling
Work that connects to something that genuinely matters to you.
Connection
The people you get to do the work alongside.
Contribution
The impact and value you get to create.
Control
The autonomy to do the work your way.
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Key Findings
The counterintuitive truths in the data
The numbers don’t say what most leaders expect. A few of the findings that surprised people most:
Only 23% are engaged
Disengagement isn’t a motivation problem — it’s an alignment problem between who people are and what they do.
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Resources
Find your own Limitless
Start with the assessment to see which lever is missing — then go deeper with the free guide for each of the four elements of consonance.
Take the Assessment
A short quiz to discover which of the four elements is missing in your life and work — with a free guide to help you get unstuck.
Four Ways to Find Your Limitless
Free guides — one for each lever:
The Limitless Course
What if you did the work you wanted, crushed the problems that mattered to you, and got paid to live the life you desired? What if all it took was one course? Join hundreds of others who took the leap.
Solutions
Put the research to work
Three ways to bring Limitless into your life, your stage, or your organization:
The Book
Limitless
The Washington Post bestseller that maps the four elements of consonance and how to redefine success on your own terms.
The Keynote
Limitless Keynote
Bring the research to your stage. Laura’s signature keynote helps audiences bring everything they are to everything they do.
Advisory
Executive Coaching
Go deeper with one-on-one and team advisory to turn these insights into lasting change.
About
Meet Laura Gassner Otting
Laura Gassner Otting is a Wall Street Journal and Washington Post bestselling author, researcher, and keynote speaker who helps individuals, leaders, and organizations become limitless. A former White House appointee who helped build AmeriCorps, she spent two decades leading executive searches before turning to the research behind engagement, ambition, and potential. Her TEDx talk has more than 3 million views, she is an ABC News contributor, and her work has been featured by Good Morning America, the TODAY show, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and more.