S5 Ep. 02: Build A Stage-Worthy Platform with Laura Gassner Otting

And now how did you, what was the next step for you after the potato hat? After the potato hat, TEDx.

So the potato hat was the first time you got money.

And was that your inspiration to go do the talk? Was the fact that they were going to pay you, like, was that, did that inspire you to get on a plane and go? The excitement of the fact that someone would pay for your knowledge or what else inspired you to do that?

So I am intrigued to be a speaker for two reasons.

I mean, as I mentioned, like I sold my company, I thought I was retired.

So I'm not like driven to maximize every single dollar out of this work.

I'm not I'm not doing it because I have to make a certain nut at the end of the year.

I mean, like I have a I have a need to make number and a want to make number.

the dollars are not the thing that drive me at this moment.

I am, however, intrigued by why some people get paid what they get paid and other people get paid what they get paid.

So I'm intrigued actually by two things.

The first is why they put that guy on stage for $1,500 and that guy on stage for $5,000 and that guy on stage for $50,000 or more.

I'm really interested in that game because it it's not a merit-based business, you know? Like, you will see, like, a Nobel Prize winner being put on a stage for $20,000 and, like, an Instafluencer getting put on stage for $100,000.

Like, it's just that makes no sense in my brain, and I wanted to figure that out.

I wanted to play that game, and insofar as I could, I wanted to win that game for what matter to me, number one.

Number two, it's an asymptotic curve, right? So an asymptotic curve is...

every time you get half the distance to the goal, like you never quite make it to the goal, but you keep getting closer and closer and closer, but you can never be perfect.

And I was really interested in the asymptotic curve of speaking.

So every time I get on stage, I can tell a story a little bit differently.

I can do a callback a little bit more sharply.

I can do a little better crowd work.

I can customize with this story instead of that story.

And so I was really interested in how do you keep getting better and better and better at a thing that you can never perfect? So those are really the two things that drive me.

Like, how do I get put on stage for as much as I can possibly get people to put me on stage for? How do I figure that game out? And how do I keep getting better and better at a game I can never perfect?

Okay, well, other than my flashback to my calculus class, which is giving me agita now, we'll step away from that.