Act like a winner
Four things that people don’t tell you about finding success
By Stephanie Vozza
When Laura Gassner Otting’s first “big idea” book, “Limitless: How to Ignore Everybody, Carve Your Own Path, and Live Your Best Life,” came out in 2019, it debuted at No. 2 on The Washington Post bestseller list, right behind Michelle Obama’s book “Becoming.” The success was greater than she expected, and it led to lots of speaking invitations.
“I had done a keynote where I was an opener for [Nobel Peace Prize laureate] Malala [Yousafzai],” she recalls. “I was on the plane home and thought, ‘This is amazing. It’s exciting. It’s humbling. What else can I do?’ ”
The visions of what could be suddenly gave way to anxiety, stress and impostor syndrome. “All those things that happen when you imagine a version of yourself that you didn’t know was quite possible,” she says. “It was wonderful, but it was also kind of hell. It was ‘wonderhell.’ ”
While promoting her book, Gassner Otting met other people who had achieved high levels of success. Asking them about their experience, she was stunned that feelings of self-doubt were common.
“I had 100 different conversations with glass-ceiling shatterers, Olympic medalists, unicorns, CEOs and everyday people,” she says. “Each time, I expected somebody was going to have the answer. But every single one of these people at every age and at every stage had the same experience. Each one of them had the moment of ‘wonderhell,’ where it’s amazing and exciting — and then they’re not sure what to do next.”
Gassner Otting’s new book, “Wonderhell: Why Success Doesn’t Feel Like It Should ... and What to Do About It,” delves into this phenomenon to address the downside of success. Along the way, she discovered ways to view achievements that can help you avoid landing in wonderhell.
Know that success isn’t an endpoint
One of the things people don’t talk about is that success isn’t an end goal. Instead, it’s a waypoint, Gassner Otting says.
“Maybe your success is big, like selling your first business,” she says. “Or maybe it’s small, like selling your first tube of lipstick. Success is doing something you didn’t know you were capable of doing. It’s a waypoint because it shows you that you can do more.”
Unfortunately, the next waypoint rarely gets easier. In fact, it’s usually harder. “We suddenly have increased goals that we weren’t expecting,” Gassner Otting says. “We can find ourselves trapped in this moment of bigger, better, faster.”
In the moment, you can feel self-doubt, stress and impostor syndrome. “You may think you’ll get a feeling of having arrived,” she says, “but where you really arrive is the realization that yesterday’s ceiling is tomorrow’s floor.”
Know it’s OK to embrace ambition
Instead of being frozen because you’re venturing into uncharted territory, look at moving forward as an adventure and an opportunity for growth and learning. Consider failure as an option when it helps you learn lessons. Gassner Otting says successful people say to themselves, “I want this. I’m not going to apologize for it. I’m going to feel good about it.”
“When you do that, it will allow you space to take care of yourself, buy back your time and use the privilege that you’ve had from your success to date to go forward with more of the comforts you’ll need to sustain this longer,” she says.
Embracing ambition requires renegotiating the relationship you have with your emotions. “[Successful people] didn’t punish themselves with self-doubt,” Gassner Otting says. “They didn’t hide with the imposter syndrome. They didn’t shrink away from opportunity. Instead, they said the emotions that they’re feeling are helpful allies that tell them they’re on the right track.”
Create your own definition of success
At some point, Gassner Otting says you have to say “no” to hustle porn. “There are moments in your life where you could say, ‘In order for me to write the next book and hit another list and to do the next thing, I have to keep going harder and harder,’ ” she says. “And there are moments where that doesn’t make sense.”
For example, Gassner Otting has two kids and is about to be an empty nester. “When my son says to me, ‘Hey, Mom, you want to hang out with me this weekend?’ I’m going to say ‘yes,’ because there’s only so many days that he’s going to be in this house,’ ” she says.
The people who thrive in wonderhell are able to have a definition of success that is intrinsic. Instead of letting other people push you toward a goal, ask yourself, “Is that goal something that I really want for myself or is it somebody else’s idea of success?”
“We can’t be insatiably hungry for someone else’s goals,” Gassner Otting says. “If we’re needing to put in the hard yards in the dark that nobody sees in order to get the big success, it had better be a success that means something to us or else we’re sacrificing a lot of things along the way that might actually mean more.”
Surround yourself with the right people
Gassner Otting says successful people have a community around them with three different types of people. First is an aspirational group — somebody who’s doing something that you think is interesting. “Maybe they’re doing the same thing, but they’re operating at an elevation that is sophisticated and professional at the level of polish to the level that I want to be,” she says. Next, you need peers — people who are at the same place doing similar work. “These are people that I can complain to, that I can learn from, that I can celebrate with,” Gassner Otting says. “These are my peers and the ones who are in the foxhole with me.”
Finally, you need mentees who are coming to you with questions, and you can teach them. “The best way to get rid of impostor syndrome is by teaching something to someone, because those are the moments where you’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, I do know what I’m talking about.’ ”
While Gassner Otting says she was looking for a way out of wonderhell, she quickly learned an exit doesn’t exist.
“Learn how to embrace it, enjoy it, plan for it and thrive in it,” she says. “On the other side of this success is just the next one and the next one — if you’re lucky. Plan for it, expect that it will come, and know when to bear down harder or release the pedal a little to flex in and out of these moments of wonderhell.”