Season 2 Episode 006
Laura Salerno Owens
"It's about the who, what, and when, right? What am I working on, with whom, and when? And if I can control those three things, my professional satisfaction, my personal satisfaction goes way through the roof."
Alice Tang: I’m Alice Tang with Women’s Million Dollar Conversations. Today I’m sitting down with my gorgeous, capable, intelligent, wonderful friend and partner in the community, Laura Salerno Owens. Welcome, Laura.
Laura Salerno: Thank you, Alice. What a great introduction.
Alice Tang: Well, I could do better, but I will save a little bit for you to just, tell us a little bit about yourself and, your role in the community, your role in your family.
Laura Salerno: Thank you. So I am a trial attorney. I am currently the president of Markowitz Herbold. And uh, I have two children who are ages eight and ten. They definitely keep me on my toes. They are more challenging than any opposing counsel.
Laura Salerno: And I’ve known you for, I was thinking about that, How long have we known each other? I think we’re going on 15 years now, and it’s been really great creating community and, getting to know you.
Alice Tang: That’s awesome. Thank you for joining us today. So, a little bit about Laura. She is my first Woman’s Million Dollar Conversation guest.
Alice Tang: She’s the first one who said yes three and a half years ago. And, curious Laura. Since the first recording, three and a half years lapsed. How has your mindset about money changed?
Laura Salerno: So when we did the recording, I remember this, I actually was at home because this was still COVID times. That’s right.
Laura Salerno: You know, and I think that my attitude about money and other things have shifted from a more traditional form of wealth to a more expansive idea of wealth. And so now I’m really interested in time wealth. For me, that was sort of the unlock that happened from the crisis of COVID. You know, they say never let a good crisis go to waste.
Laura Salerno: And so for me it’s all about understanding that while you can continue to always accumulate more and more money. If you’re doing it at the expense of your time and autonomy, then it’s not worth that much. And I think that’s been the biggest shift, is understanding wealth in a more holistic way.
Alice Tang: What can time and money do for you today?
Laura Salerno: It’s really interesting. Like you have said, you need money in some sense to be able to spend time, right? But time, wealth for me is a lot about autonomy. It’s about the who, what, and when. Right? What am I working on with whom and when? And if I can control those three things, my professional satisfaction, my personal satisfaction goes way through the roof.
Laura Salerno: And that is untethered in some ways from the money. But when you’re doing those things, when you’re controlling the who, the what, the when it helps me get into flow. And then when I’m in flow, the things come, the success, the money, the other things. But it’s getting those other pieces aligned first.
Alice Tang: You reminded me of a book,
Alice Tang: ‘The big leap’.
Laura Salerno: Mm-hmm.
Alice Tang: Have you read that book?
Laura Salerno: Yes.
Alice Tang: When you are flowing
Laura Salerno: Mm-hmm.
Alice Tang: there’s no time.
Laura Salerno: Yes.
Alice Tang: Time just lapse. 16 hours pass. Mm-hmm. You still playing piano?
Laura Salerno: Yeah.
Alice Tang: Do you play?
Laura Salerno: My daughter does, and I pay money for it.
Alice Tang: You are in what the book call a genius zone? In that zone, everything is play.
Laura Salerno: Mm-hmm.
Alice Tang: Everything is play.
Laura Salerno: You know, it’s funny you say that. so few years ago I won this award, this Women of Influence Award from the Portland Business Journal, which I know you have received as well.
Alice Tang: Okay. Check my hair.
Laura Salerno: And I met some other women with that. And we actually formed a little group, which we called ZOG for Zone of Genius, you know, and it was about exactly that, right?
Laura Salerno: Once you get to a certain stage, and this is something that they also talk about in another book that I’m a fan of as, you know, ‘Die With Zero’.
Alice Tang: That’s right.
Laura Salerno: Or as I like to say, I’m living the sequel Live with Zero, but In ‘Die With Zero’ they talk about, just the importance of time and doing what you wanna do, but you have to have for certain financial stability.
Laura Salerno: And so with these women that I met, these other women of Influence award winners, it’s this inflection point. You know, you’re 20 years into your career, you have 20 more years to go. You know what you’re doing. You’ve worked hard, you’ve established yourself, so what’s next?
Alice Tang: Mm-hmm.
Laura Salerno: And I think that’s an interesting conversation around, if it’s not just about accumulating more money, what is it about?
Alice Tang: It is about life, isn’t it?
Laura Salerno: Mm-hmm. For me, it’s life and it’s community. And that’s why I love what you’re doing here, because what’s the point if you’re just doing it for yourself?
Alice Tang: That’s right. What is the most memorable moment I’m gonna take you way back in history, arriving to that million dollars.
Laura Salerno: Yes. So the first time I hit the mark was in 2018 and I was thinking about this and, it was Earning a million dollars one year, you know, bringing in a million dollars of business. And so I was partnered with my legal assistant, Abby,
Alice Tang: We all love Abby.
Laura Salerno: Abby’s amazing. And, you know, every month I’d be on the phone with Abby and I mean, it was almost like we had like an old school, fundraiser thermometer, you know?
Laura Salerno: I was like, how close are we getting? Where are we on this? And it was. So fun. We’re working on it. We set this goal together. It was not a goal I could achieve by myself, we were all on the team pulling it in. And what was so fun is that after we achieved the goal, then the next memorable piece is Abby and her husband and me and my husband at the time, and Dave Markowitz and his wife, and Carrie Tru, our marketing person, her husband, the whole team, we all went on a trip to Las Vegas together.
Laura Salerno: To celebrate. And of course then the following year when it was COVID and we were, you know, shut down for a few years, I was even more grateful that we had done that thing. And at the time, it seemed maybe a little like extravagant or silly, but one thing that Dave has taught me that I really appreciate is you have to celebrate the wins, right?
Laura Salerno: Because we often will wallow in the losses or the hard times, but it’s also okay to celebrate the wins. And it’s one of my most memorable moments was the kind of pulling and clawing and all things to get there. But then once we got there, we celebrated and it was just a wonderful time.
Alice Tang: What I’ve gotten out from what you just shared is, make sure we pause to celebrate, and I am sure that we could do that, not necessarily at the next million, but small things we did for ourself today.
Alice Tang: We honor ourselves today. So what have we done to celebrate it?
Laura Salerno: Absolutely. It’s even little things like I’ve been engaged in this horrible program. I don’t recommend it. It’s called, uh, 75 Hard, and one of the aspects of it is an outdoor walk every day, and just little things like that, like check, I got my outdoor walk-in every day.
Laura Salerno: It’s beautiful. Right? Just those moments of being outside, being in nature. And I really do think that is part of enjoying life. It can be big things like the million dollar mark or small things like I went outside, I moved my body, and I’m able to do that and I feel a lot of gratitude for it.
Alice Tang: Beautiful.
Alice Tang: How you get to your million dollars. Let’s talk about the struggles. Is there any struggles or, you know, hurdles, biases, you name it, to get to your first.
Laura Salerno: I think the biggest struggle for me is, obviously there are logistical things, right? But I think even deeper than that is I was raised and naturally have a scarcity mindset.
Laura Salerno: I was raised by a single mom
Alice Tang: Mm,
Laura Salerno: in LA the youngest of three girls, and we did not have a lot of money. And my mom was very good with money, very disciplined, but we were very aware. That we did not have a lot of money, and having to overcome that scarcity mindset, which is my natural default, has been really challenging.
Laura Salerno: And in some ways that’s where the community building unlocks it for me, because it’s very easy for me to see in the context of relationships that there’s always enough. There’s always more. And then it makes it easier to believe that that’s also true for business. That’s right. But I think that piece, that scarcity mindset is, you know, the thing inside ourselves is the hardest thing.
Alice Tang: Well, I’m gonna take that a little further because now that you are a mom of two beautiful children, what money lessons that you are teaching them or trying to teach them?
Laura Salerno: It’s a great question because. I don’t want them to have the scarcity mindset, but I also want them to know that money exists.
Laura Salerno: Because sometimes I think they think like, oh, things just magically appear. So I try to have conversations with them about the joy of saving up for something.
Alice Tang: Mm-hmm.
Laura Salerno: You know, if they see something they want instead of just saying no. Which was often the answer I heard growing up. I say, not now you can have that, but let’s save up for it.
Laura Salerno: And I also agree with my children that I split the cost of things with them. So like toys, other things. So I pay half, they pay half, and then they have chores around the house. You know, it’s just that idea of if you want it, you can have it just not right now. And I think that’s a huge skill. It’s not always a yes or no.
Laura Salerno: It’s not in this moment. Work for it, save for it, and then you can have it.
Alice Tang: You just reminded me, a long time ago I started writing blogs, Chinese English. So one of the blogs, I title it, I choose not to have it. So I have the money, but I choose not to, ’cause most people say I can’t afford it. Of course you can afford it.
Laura Salerno: Yeah.
Alice Tang: At what expense?
Laura Salerno: Yes.
Alice Tang: At what expense? So it’s not like buying ice cream, right?
Laura Salerno: Yeah.
Alice Tang: So sometimes it’s like five digits, six digits. Of course you can afford it. But at what expense I choose not to. So it’s a different reframing of our mindset.
Laura Salerno: I love that.
Alice Tang: I like to go down to the path, asking about, you know, you are such a community builder, especially for women, as you are thinking about sending the elevator, all the ropes down to them and help them, how does that look like?
Alice Tang: What platform are you using to do so and how do you encourage them?
Laura Salerno: Honestly, I think that when it comes to women, it’s almost like a field of dreams analogy. If you build it, they will come and the magic will happen, right? I feel like my role, the thing I try to contribute is just to create the spaces. Beyond that, I don’t need to be prescriptive about, you know what I say, or who’s invited or anything like that. I think if you just create an opportunity for all of us to step outside of our normal grind, our day to day show up with intentionality. And show up knowing that this is a space where we wanna uplift one another.
Laura Salerno: But then move your hands from there and just let the alchemy happen. Because when women come together, amazing things do happen. And so what I hope is sort of my contribution or my legacy on this is just to create the spaces. And then get outta the way.
Alice Tang: you know, you and I are really, I mean, we say we are not wanting to control, but we do.
Laura Salerno: Well we are August Leos. I mean, there’s only so much one can do.
Alice Tang: Yes.but there’s a lot of, intelligence and wisdom about just create a space.
Laura Salerno: Mm-hmm.
Alice Tang: And those who’s ready to show up, just come. Because one plus one does not equal to two. There is an exponential effect.
Laura Salerno: Absolutely.
Alice Tang: What are you grateful for today, Laura?
Laura Salerno: For a lot, actually. I am first really grateful for my financial stability. I’m grateful that I had set a goal for myself that by the age of 40 I was gonna pay off my student debt, and dammit, I did. I’m grateful for that.
Alice Tang: Good for you.
Laura Salerno: I’m grateful, uh, for my two kids. I never planned on being a mom and now I have these two children and they have completely changed my world.
Laura Salerno: But I’m also glad that they’re not the only thing in my world, and I’m extremely grateful for my friendships. I think that’s one thing, particularly working moms can tend to lose.
Alice Tang: Yes.
Laura Salerno: It’s, there’s so many pressures on our time. We have to perform at work, we have to show up for our kids. But showing up for your community, my mentor Ann Aiken always talked about the three legs of the stool, family, work, and community.
Laura Salerno: And I think a lot of people forget about that third leg of the stool and it doesn’t feel as stable. But when you have all three. I think it feeds different parts of your soul and gives you purpose. And so I’m extremely grateful for my friendships in my community.
Alice Tang: We are truly grateful for you because you are one of the pioneers who invite me to these bigger spaces.
Alice Tang: Where I meet a lot of wonderful women and there is friendship and there is friendship and then business. And we truly live a blended life.
Laura Salerno: Absolutely. I think the term, and I’ve talked about this before, people talk about work life balance and the one that I prefer is work life integration.
Laura Salerno: And so to your point, if you go to a LEAP meeting, some of the people there are gonna be primarily just business referrals. That’s great. Others maybe are more a personal. Friendship. Yes. Or support. That’s great. It all comes together. That integration is what you need to succeed.
Alice Tang: There is a season and a reason for a lot of those things happen.
Alice Tang: So today you’re friends, but doesn’t mean that you can’t do business, right? Today, your business, counterparts doesn’t mean that there is no friendship. So
Laura Salerno: Right.
Alice Tang: That wisdom. Let us sink in that wisdom from Laura. Thank you so much.
Alice Tang: If you are ready to turn your what ifs to a million dollar reality, make sure to hit the subscribe button. Join the community of powerhouse women who are redefining wealth on their own terms.
Meet Laura Salerno Owens, a legal powerhouse, trailblazing executive, and the definition of a high-stakes changemaker. As the Shareholder and Firm President of Markowitz Herbold PC—and the first woman to ever hold this leadership role—Laura serves as the firm’s “Chief Vision Officer,” blending a fierce trial lawyer’s competitive edge with a deeply empathetic approach to leadership.
Laura is the go-to attorney for clients facing complex, multi-million-dollar business and employment disputes. From navigating high-profile executive transitions to fighting corporate espionage, she is equally adept at commanding a courtroom and advising a boardroom.
Laura embodies the exact grit, intentionality, and vision that drive million-dollar conversations.