Each time we achieve success, we also envision and hunger for a potential that we never knew existed. It’s amazing, it’s exciting, it’s energizing; it’s wonderful. But it’s also anxiety-provoking, identity-shaking, and exhausting; it’s hell. Based on a two decade career in executive search interviewing thousands of the most successful people in the world, Laura Gassner Otting explains why success doesn’t bring happiness, and how to take advantage of the “wonderhell” that it presents instead.

Laura Gassner Otting has spent 25 years studying leaders and stewarding them through massive moments of career and life shift, whether as a political appointee in Bill Clinton’s White House, the founder and president of an international executive search firm, or in her current role as an author and keynote speaker. Her last book “Limitless: How to Ignore Everybody, Carve Your Own Path, and Live Your Best Life” was a Washington Post bestseller and was named by Robin Roberts as one of Good Morning America’s Favorite Books of the Year. She is a regular contributor to The TODAY Show, Good Morning America, and Harvard Business Review. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx