Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - The Lost Art of Asking for Help | Executive Coach, Marshall Goldsmith

Episode Date: June 15, 2022

This week’s conversation is with Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, a world-renowned executive coach and New York Times bestselling author of Triggers and What Got You Here Won't Get You There.Throughout Marshall's career, he has worked with CEOs from over 200 companies, has been named one of the Top Ten Business Thinkers in the World, and in 2018 was inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame in recognition of his contributions to the field of business education and leadership coaching. Marshall also has a new book out – The Earned Life: Lose Regret, Choose Fulfillment – where he explores what it means to earn your path and live a fulfilled, purpose-driven life, which is one of the reasons I was so excited to have him on.Although we agree that no one does the extraordinary alone, you’ll hear, toward the end of the conversation, there’s a ton of fire - two people passionately talking about their philosophies, which are very, very different. That’s what it’s all about.We are all uniquely different, working from different approaches. I love that part of the human experience. You’ll hear and feel how he works.I’d love to hear your take on this conversation – related to the concept that sparked the fire– “that everything you need, is already inside you” – versus – “you’ll be better off with strong advice from a coach.”_________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And in this conversation, in this podcast, we learn from people who are challenging the edges and the reaches of the human experience in business, in sport, in science, and in life in general. We pull back the curtain to explore how they have committed to mastering both their craft and their minds in an effort to express their potential. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms,

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not just for strength, but for energy and focus, recovery, for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. Now this week's conversation is with Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, a world-renowned executive coach, a New York Times bestseller author of Triggers and What Got You Here Won't Get You There. Throughout Marshall's career, he's worked with CEOs from over 200 companies. He's been named

one of the top 10 business thinkers in the world. And in 2018, he was inducted into the Thinkers 50 Hall of Fame. That's recognizing his contributions to the field of business education and leadership coaching. As you'll hear towards the end of this conversation, there is a ton of fire. Two people passionately talking about their philosophies, which are very, very different. And at some level, that's what it's all about. We are all uniquely different working from different approaches in life. And I love that part of the human experience. And in this conversation, you'll hear, and more importantly, feel how he works. And I'd love your take on this conversation, especially related to the concept that sparked

the fire. The first philosophy is that everything you need is already inside you versus you'll be better off with strong advice from a coach. I'd love to hear your take on social at Michael Gervais on all of the platforms. So thank you, Marshall, for the passion that you brought. And with that, let's jump right into this week's conversation with Marshall Goldsmith. Marshall, how are you? I'm doing great. Thank you so much for inviting me. Oh, you're a legend. And so we are honored to have you in our community and to have this conversation. So welcome. Oh, thank you so much.

All right. Well, it's obvious that you lead with gratitude. And so is that something that is a natural practice for you? Or is that something that you needed to learn over somewhere in your adult life? I think that's something that I've learned. I had a couple of experiences that helped me with that. One is when I was 27, I broke my neck surfing and I didn't know I'd ever be able to walk again. And I talk about that in my new book. And after that, I just said, if you can ever walk, don't complain. Don't complain. And then another second experience is I went to Africa in the great famine of 1984, and I watched a lot of people starve to death. And I have a picture at home of myself. I was there for nine days with the Red Cross. I have a picture of myself kneeling down next to some woman, and she's measuring the arms of kids.

And if their arms are too big, they don't get any food. They're not hungry enough. Their arms are too small. They're going to die anyway. And they go over there. And if their arms are in the middle, they got food. So I have a picture of me staring into the camera and I'm trying to send that version of myself a message to this version. And the message is be grateful. Just be thankful for all you have, because that could be you. I mean, those people were as good as you and me. Just quit raining. And that could have been us. So, you know, and I would say I experienced temporary sanity on some occasions, every now and again, you know, I have some experience like that where I'll actually become sane for a couple of weeks, but it is amazing how we drift back up into nonsense.

That is a great laugh. And right on the heels of, you know, an experience that like still has me back there with you a little bit, like, holy moly, like, thank you for level setting. Yeah. You know, and it just a couple nights ago I was sharing with my son. He's almost 14 years old. And I was trying to explain that there's about 300 million people in India, the size of America, full size that don't have electricity and heat and, you know, basic amenities that we completely take for granted. So that's part of the, that's part of my, my family's zeitgeist right now. So thank you for, for grokking in the depth there.

I want to hit this note, but not stay here too long, which is you and I have a shared experience with surfing because I wasn't 27. I was a little bit younger, but I had a really bad upper neck injury, C3 and 4. And that could go bad. Yeah. I created a lot of problems and for a long time, like some serious chronic pain. And, um, it kept me out of like being physical. I couldn't even lift my laundry basket for a while. So those things will really tune you up to being present, being grateful, being connected. And there's a struggle that comes with it. So how did you work through that struggle? The struggle of getting better or the

struggle of remaining somewhat sane? The struggle of when you're in a new situation that you didn't plan for, that has got some pain involved and at the same time requires you to think differently about who you are and your well i didn't know i didn't know i'd ever walk again so you know i just kept telling myself one thing if you can ever walk and i lost use of my left arm i didn't even care about that i mean mean, I had a right arm, so losing my other one, things happen, right? That one was irrelevant at this point. I just said, if you can ever walk, don't complain about anything. And again, I'd say this level of what I call temporary sanity lasts for a while, then it

comes and then I drift back into being a petty little shit, just like everybody else. Well, it makes sense. It makes sense. The title of your first book then, which this phrase has been materially important for me for a long time, which is what got you here won't get you there. That was a winner. That's a winner phrase. I can tell you that. Yeah.

Like, I don't know where I first heard it. I don't, it might've been the title of your book or whatever, but I know it was in the industry of Olympic sport that that phrase is used all the time. So maybe you could talk about the origins of that phrase. Well, my book is about helping successful leaders get even better. So I'm a pioneer in helping successful leaders get better. Historically, coaching was not for successful people. Coaching was fix the loser, not help the winner. I'm in the help the winner business. If you do a Google search, helping successful leaders in quotes, the first 500 hits, 450 are me. The entire rest of the world is 50. My brand, my brand, got that brand.

Well, I started working on the issues of successful people. And Peter Drucker said, we spend a lot of time teaching leaders what to do. We don't spend enough time teaching them what to stop. I had the privilege of being on his board for 10 years, which was a good break for me. Not everyone knows who he is. And so he's a legend. And can you just take a moment and share who Peter is to you and or who he was to you? And maybe some of the things you learned from him. Peter Drucker is kind of the father of modern management. And the guy, just a very, very, very brilliant guy.

He was just smart. So again, I got ranked number one leadership thinker in the world. My intellect compared to him, 10 year old, 10 year old child. I mean, this guy was playing with a totally different deck and I feel very fortunate because I just got to hang around with him and kind of some of it hopefully rubbed off. I use the stuff he taught me over and over again today. And so I feel very, very lucky. I got a program called 100 Coaches, which is in honor of my heroes. And he's one of my heroes. So he's, and he never charged me money or asked me for anything. He was just very generous and kind to me. And so, you know, he And so you can look him up, but he is in the modern management called the father of modern management. And I would say unquestionably the

greatest thinker in management history. He was well-known, at least how I knew of him, is that he would pose thought-provoking questions. Yes. And he would develop structures around those. So they were very consistent in the way that he would challenge people to think about who they are as they're managing and leading others. Right. And I know that you have systems like that as well. So can maybe you just talk about maybe some of the questions or the ways that he would influence you? Well, he influenced me. My book, What Got You Here, Won't Get You There, was influenced by

that comment from him. Here's another way he influenced me. And if your listeners get nothing from me, but this point from Peter Drucker, they will number one, be happier and number two, be better at influencing people for the rest of their lives. I have repeated this advice thousands of times. This sounds so simple. I've talked to CEOs with MBAs from Harvard and had to repeat this 30 times so that they get it. Here it is. Point number one, we're here on earth to make a positive difference, not to prove how smart we are, not to prove how right we are. We get so lost in proving how smart we are and right we are, we forget we're not here to prove we're smart. We're here to make some positive difference. Number two, every decision in the world is made by the person who has the power to make the

decision. Make peace with that. Not the smartest person, a fair person, a good person, the right person, or even a sane person. Decision makers make decisions. If I need to influence you and you have the power to make the decision, there's one word to describe you, customer. There's one word to describe me, salesperson. Customers never have to buy. Salespeople have to sell. Sell what you can sell. Change what you can change. And if you can't sell it and you can't change it, take a deep breath and let it go. I've had to repeat that lesson so many times. My friend Fred, he becomes CEO of a company owned by KKR.

You know, KKR, private equity firm, right? KKR, Henry Kravitz. Freddie becomes CEO of a company owned by KKR. You know, KKR, private equity firm, right? Yeah. KKR, Henry Kravitz. Freddie becomes CEO. He's 41 years old, right? This is a small company by their standards. Fred says, you know what he says? They can't tell me, Fred, what to do.

Oh, no. No, of course, Henry Kravitz can't tell you, punk Fred, what to do. So they figure out how much it costs to get rid of Fred. A couple million bucks. They don't even care about the two million bucks. It's just a pain in the butt. So I had me coach Fred. So I told him this Peter Drucker story. He says, they can't tell me what to do. I said, Fred, I'm going to help you. Yes, they can. It's their money, you idiot. How about it? Now I'm going to tell you what to do. I'm going to tell you what to do. If you do what I tell you, I may save your sorry, but, and if not, I got to go back to New York and tell daddy,

I can't help you. You need a better coach, but Fred, there isn't a better coach. Is there? No, you're screwed. So Fred, really good hearted guy. He just got lost in his ego. He just salutes the flag and comes out. He was there 12 years, had a great career. Everything worked out. He just had a years, had a great career. Everything worked out. He just had a little mild ego issue in the beginning. Is this the style that you work with people with? Like lighthearted frameworks that have intensity and seriousness with the kind of big picture belly Buddha laugh? Like, listen, it's all working out just fine the way it's supposed to. Is this the style? Like if someone was to work with you?

Oh yeah. Yeah. You can talk to any of my clients and you know, um, you know, Dave Chang. I don't. Oh, Dave Chang's a famous chef. He's a momofuku. He's got his own TV show. He's hilarious. So, you know, he, he wrote a story of his life and he talks about me in his story. It's just hilarious. He tells stories about me coaching him. Okay. So before we get off Peter Drucker, like there's a couple of questions that I love that he asked, which is it just puts somebody who's ever answering these questions in the seat

of power, right? Their own power, which is what needs to be done. Okay. So that's a question to grok. And then what is also the same time, what is right for the company? So it needs to be done. What's right for the company. And then am I taking responsibility for my decisions, for my actions? Right. And then, and then there's a couple like calibrations which is um about inspiration i think it was like uh do people feel inspired to work with me you know like right like am i am i am i saying that they're working for me or am i working with them like there's some sort of inspiration and then do you use this is one i love that he would introduce um do you use, this is one I love that he would introduce. Do you use we more than you use I?

I think that's part of it. Yeah. Yeah. So very cool. So Peter Drucker must've been awesome to learn from him and support him. So why executive coaching, Marshall? Maybe, maybe what is executive coaching, but maybe that's second. Why executive coaching? Why

did you want to get in the business of helping other people? Largely accidental and not nearly so inspirational as you might think. I met a very famous man named Dr. Paul Hersey, and he invented situational leadership with Ken Blanchard. He was the highest paid consultant in the world in our field at the time. I'm a kid, I'm a young assistant professor. And I met this guy and got to watch him teach. I thought, man, this guy is good. Now I was smart enough to do one thing, carry the bags, serve the coffee, clean the room. I didn't care. He just let me sit in the back of the room and watch. I said, this guy's good. I won't be like him. Sure enough, one day he got double booked. He said, can you do what I do? I said, I don't know. He said, I need help. Can you do this? I said, I don't know. He said, I'll pay you $1,000 for one day if you can do this. I was making $15,000 for one year.

I have a degree in math. I added the numbers. I said, that sounds good to me. I'm going to give it a shot. I did a program for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in New York. They were incredibly pissed off when I showed up because I wasn't him, but I got ranked first place of all the speakers of 10 speakers. So they called him up, said, send Marshall again. He said, you want to do this again? I said, Hey, Paul, you're paying me a thousand bucks a day. I'm making 15,000 bucks a year. Yes, sir. I'll do this all the time. My schedule just cleared. So that's how I got into leadership development, working with him and Ken Blanchard and some other wonderful people. Then I didn't

start at the bottom. So, I mean, my first clients were McKinsey and IBM. I didn't start at the bottom here. Then I'm working with a CEO and he said, I got this kid working for me, young, smart, dedicated, hardworking, driven to achieve, arrogant, stubborn jerk. He said, it would be worth a fortune to me if I could turn that kid around. I said, I like fortunes. Maybe I can help him. He said, I doubt it. Well, I'll try. He said, I doubt it. I came up with an idea. This was my good idea. I'll work with a guy for a year. If he gets better, pay me. If you don't get better, it's all free.

You know what he said? Sold. That's how I got into coaching. There was nothing called coaching. There was no such thing as executive coaching. I just made that up. Well, guess what? I got paid.

He got better. I got paid. Welcome to executive coaching. Is that how you structure most of your deals? Or is it more of a monthly return? For my entire career, I didn't get paid if my clients didn't get better. I got paid. Welcome to executive coaching. Is that how you structure most of your deals? Or is it more of a monthly routine? For my entire career, I didn't get paid if my clients didn't get better. How would you measure getting better? Very simple.

They get confidential feedback from everyone around them. The person identifies a key stakeholder. If they're not the CEO, the CEO has to sign off on it. If they are the CEO, the board signs off on it. And then they get the feedback, the person, and they agree, here's what I want to get better at as judged by whom I develop a scale. They get better, I get paid. They don't, it's free. And then is the client the organization or is the client the executive? Well, it's very interesting who the client is. In many ways, the client is the key stakeholders.

Yeah, that's right. My success or failure is not judged by the person I coach. It's judged by their key stakeholders. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentous. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentous.

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they get better. Pay me this number. If they don't get better, there is no number. Got it. Awesome. So it's like, seriously, it's bet on me. All in. Yeah. And then when you bet on me, what I've learned is that I think one of the unspoken practices that I think I've become good at because I had to do something very similar in sports psychology is that I needed to know if the person was going to do the work. Oh, look. Yeah, right? You identified my life. is that I needed to know if the person was going to do the work. Oh, look. Yeah, right? You identified my life. Yeah.

So of all the people, do you live in Seattle? No, I spent nine seasons with the team, but I'm based out of LA. Okay, well, in Seattle, I was a coach of a man named Alan Mullally. I mean, legend. Yeah. I'm Alan's coach. Alan's the head of Boeing Commercial Aircraft. Alan's young.

So I'm Alan's coach. So of all the people I coach, Alan improved the most. And he was fantastic to start with, by the way. And I spent the least amount of time of him of all the people I coached. So I go to Alan. I said, Alan, I made a chart on one dimension. It's called time spent with the executive coach, Marshall Goldsmith, and the other one's called improvement. And I said, there seems to be a negative correlation between spending time with me and getting better here. I said, now, Alan, the way this chart looks, had you never met me, you'd really been good. So I said, Alan, what should I learn about coaching from you?

Alan taught me a lesson to change my life and change the field of coaching. You know what he said? Number one, he said, you got one job, Marshall, client selection. You pick the right customer. Your coaching process will always work with the right customer. You pick the wrong customer, it's never going to work. Two, never make the coaching process about yourself and your own ego and how smart you think you are. work with the right customer. You pick the wrong customer, it's never going to work too. Never make the coaching process about yourself and your own ego and how smart you think you are. Make it about

the great people you work with, how proud you are of them. Well, look, look at Alan. Alan went on to Ford where what? Stock goes from $1.01 to $18.40. Now he's at Google. I mean, I'm not going to mention the number, but if you look up his net worth, it is a big, big, big number. And he totally turned around Ford. He totally turned around Boeing and he's done a great job at Google. He's just an amazing human being. Well, you know, what did I learn from him? Work with great people. Now I always get ranked number one coach in the world. Why? Nobody knows I'm a good coach. Nobody nobody's watching me coach anybody i can't say i'm the number one coach in the world i'm not that arrogant on the other hand i do think one thing i got the best clients in the world i'll put them up against anybody yeah i may not be the best coach you know what back to athletics

analogy anybody that coaching people i'm coaching is going to look good. I know it, you know, I, I mean, I'm coaching the all-star team here. Right. And you know, I don't, how do you deal with this? Because, um, oftentimes this is, this was me 25 years ago when I first got in the field. And so I'm right. I just wrapped up my PhD. I'm fully licensed. I got a, I got a gig in pro sports and the coach says, Ooh, I got somebody for you, Mike. And I didn't know better at the time. And so, um, I said, great. And, you know, privately I'm like, cool. I got a gig. I'm, I'm included. You know, there's the, I have value. Like, this is awesome. Let's go. I can't wait to kind of roll up my sleeves and get this done. Little did I know that that person had already been tagged

as the quote unquote head case. Right. And, and this, so I'm going back 25 years ago. We don't talk like that or really think like that as much, I should say in pro sport. And, but he really needed help and this this at this athlete was High potential which can cut two ways okay and But couldn't quite get it done when the lights were on yeah, and then when it wasn't working Well, he'd have a bad attitude frustrated and tolerant, you know pointing his finger and all the other directions And so I was like great put me in Well, but everyone everyone else on the team so I was like, great, put me in. Well, everyone, everyone else on the team looked and was like, okay. Well, I guess if you're walking with Gervais, you're the

head case. Yeah. How about that? So how did you figure out, how did you, on your selection, what are the criteria for selecting folks that are going to fit well with your methodology? Well, okay. The first criteria is how much I charge. So that eliminates about 99% of everybody. So that cuts out. Now I'm dealing with a CEO or there could be a CEO because no one else is going to write that check, right?

Now that I've cut that criteria down, a few issues. One, they have to have courage. What I do requires courage. They got to look in the mirror. It's painful. It is painful. Number two, they have to have humility. You know what I've learned? I cannot help a perfect person improve. If they're perfect, they don't need me. Well, they got to have enough humility to admit they can get better and they have to have discipline. I mean, look at Alan. This guy's phenomenally disciplined day to day. He worked day after day after day. I got hard to coach him. 200 people got better just from me coaching him. It wasn't because I'm better, because he's better. It wasn't because I'm great, it's because he's great. So, you know, that's it. And also, my coaching, I only, for years,

only helped successful leaders achieve positive change in behavior. That's all I did. Well, I get ridiculous requests for coaching. A pharmaceutical company calls me. We want you to coach Dr. X. I said, well, what's his problem? They said, he's not updated on recent medical technology. I said, neither am I.

Can't help you there. I only coach behavior. Never coach an integrity problem. Fire an integrity problem. Don't coach an integrity problem. That's a mistake. So I never deal with integrity problems. I don't deal with strategy. I don't know anything about strategy. If somebody's going in the wrong direction, I just help them get there faster. I don't turn the wrong direction into the right direction. So all I focused on for years was helping successful leaders achieve positive long-term change in behavior for years now in my old age i actually do something else along with that i still

do that and i do something else along with it i just try to help people have a better life be happier find peace because as i'm growing older half the people i coach now are billionaires one guy i'm coaching what am I supposed to do? Help you get from 4 billion to 4.1? What does it matter anyway? Who cares? He said, you're right. Who cares?

I just want to be happy. So now a lot of my coaching is trying to help people have a good life. How do you characterize the phase of life that you're in? I'm in the legacy phase. So most of my life is, you know, what am I going to leave here? And my goal is I want to give away as much as I can to as many people as I can and help as many people as I can in the time I have left to do it, which is not an infinite amount of time. When I hear legacy, I get tripped in my head that it is about what they are going, whatever I leave behind, it's really about how they'll remember me. And I have very little interest in that.. I don't really care. I'm not going to be here anyway.

So I don't think after I'm dead, I'm going to worry a whole lot. Somebody plagiarized my material. I'm honored, in fact. What do I care? I just give it all away. I have hundreds of articles, videos, everything. It's online for free. And I have a program.

Do you know about the 100 Coaches Program? I do. One of our mutual friends is in the program, Dr. Mark Golston. I don't know. Of course. Yeah, of course. Yeah, he's in the program. So the 100 Coaches Program, I go to this program called Design the Life You Love. And it's done by this woman, Ayse Bursell, who's a wonderful person and designer from Turkey. So she says, who are your heroes? So my heroes are kind and generous people like Peter Drucker, like Alan Mulally, by the way, is my hero. Peter Drucker is my hero. I'm supposed

to be Alan's coach. Come on. I learned 10 times from him what he learned from me, if I'm being generous to me. So anyway, he's a hero. Frances Hesselbein, she's my hero. So I've got these heroes. She said, you should be like your heroes. So I thought, that's nice. I decided I'm going to adopt 15 people, teach them all I know for free. And the only price is when they get old, they need to do the same thing. Sounds nice. So I put a little thing on LinkedIn, a little very primitive selfie video. I'm thinking 100 people would apply and I'll adopt 15 and that'd be nice. I'm a nice old man stumbling around. They laugh at my jokes and then they get old and do the same thing. I was wrong.

So far, over 18,000 people applied to be adopted. Oh my goodness. Yeah, now over 18,000. Now we have over 300. I think we have about 370 in the group now. It's just wonderful. And the rules are no money, no guilt, no obligation. Ask people for anything. If they can help you, they will. If they can't, they don't. It's okay. And you have no

expectation to give them anything back. If they help you, you help somebody else. Okay. Okay. Because I was going to say, you've done something in that group because I know a couple of the folks and they take care of each other. You know, they're like, hey, I know somebody that might be of interest. And, you know, we're in this group and it's, you know, Marshall kind of put it together. And I've heard it like three or four times. So it's like they are committed to helping each other, that 360 folks or whatever the number is, to help each other which is however

you've done that it's pretty cool it's wonderful i i i it's i had no idea it really struck a chord because a lot existentially people are lonely we don't have a community that we were brought up in in most cases and and the high end is lonely all It all says lonely at the top. It's lonely or at the top today. They're worried about whatever they say. People make fools of them. And so being in a community of people who are just there to help you and they don't have an agenda and they're not trying to get something from you. And we all just try to support each other is very nice.

And there's no fee. It's just that you need to have folks that you trust that are doing high standard work and there's no there's no kind of like i don't know gate to get through like how do you select oh i mean i now people i have adopted grandchildren and great-grandchildren so to me i mean people say am i worried how people use what i do look what i do is going to probably do more good than harm and you know i'm not city i'm not the police here and you know as long as they get good hearts they try to do good is they're probably fine very cool very cool what all right let me wind back really quickly what led you to

africa i want to get some context before i ask you the next question uh i was i did volunteer work for the ceo of the american red cross richard schubert and then they had the famine relief campaign and he very generously thought this would be good for me to get a dose of the real world. So I spent nine days there. And I'm one of the few Americans that's actually seen people starve to death. And it's brutal. It's brutal. It's brutal. It's brutal. And so I spent nine days there just to try to do something. I'm not sure I did much good, but we tried to come up with some ideas and help people as best we could. It was a very big perspective building activity for me because it really put my life in context of what matters and what doesn't and being grateful

and thankful for all we have. Okay. All right. So the reason I was asking about Africa and the way you grew up is because when you, if you're in the winter phase of your life, is that fair to say? Yeah, of course. Yeah, I'm not naive. I mean, people talk about, I'm 73. So people talk about, well, I'm sure you're going to live to blah, but no, you're not. You're not sure how long I'm going to live.

We don't know. Yeah, I appreciate buddha was brought up in a palace his father was a king and he he was brought up to try to get more and more and more and he lived in a bubble he was able to sneak outside three times you know what he learned trip number one you get old trip number two you get sick and trip number three you're gonna die old sick die and that's in the cards and as a Buddhist I am NOT into death denial at all you know he also learned that dad was cleaning up the streets before he went out there to

make sure that like everything was okay and it wasn't until he snuck out broke the rules by the way which I have a healthy respect for that, that he was, did he see the truth? And so I love that fact. I love the idea, like we need to break some rules to get to the truth of things sometimes. Good. Do you break rules? Well, it depends how you define rules. I mean, even the way I do coaching is very different than most people think coaching is. So my coaching is very different than most people who do coaching. Not better or worse, just different. In what ways?

I do not know the coaching world. Well, most of the people who call themselves coaches are using more of a questioning process. And they don't give advice. See, number one, not only do I give advice, I teach them to get advice from everyone around them. The whole thing is about getting advice. And you listen. I teach, again, another Buddhist practice called feed forward. You ask for ideas, you listen, and you say, thank you. You don't judge, critique people. You just say, thank you. If you want to do it, you do it. You don't want to do it, you don't do it. You know, you're, you're in a sports field. I don't know many athletes,

but a couple of them are in my group. And we, we met with, I met with 50 people every weekend during the COVID period. These are amazing people. And we did have a couple of athletes, Curtis Martin. I don't know if you know who Curtis is. National, National Football League Hall of Fame. I love that guy. In my new book, The Earned Life, I talk a lot about Curtis. He is a, I love that guy. He's just a wonderful human being. And the other one is, who I also love is Pau Gasol. Pau is a basketball player for the Lakers,

just, and a lot of teams, just another great human being. So they're both members of my groups. So I had a couple of athletes there. So how do you coach? You said yours is different than others. You give advice. Like how, how is it that you, and listen, I'm not asking for trade secrets, just everything. I, there are no, I get, I get, I totally get that. Yeah, no, I can say I have no trade secrets. Yeah. Neither do I. I've embraced that. Yeah. Yeah. So who cares?

No, the way I coach people, it's called stakeholder centered coaching. Thousands of people have been formally trained in this and tens of thousands have used it informally. It's very simple. I would start out. Let's imagine you're the CEO of a company, but it works with a first line supervisor just as well. You're the CEO.

I say, okay, who are your key stakeholders? These will be your direct reports, your peers, management, family, friends, whoever you say. And then the board would have to agree. Yeah, yeah, we agree. These are important people. Then I ask them all for confidential individual feedback. Simple questions. I do, you know, what's this guy do well? What's he need to do better? What situations bring out the best, the worst, and overall, just any advice at all. And then I write a report. Now, these reports are very painful to read because they're not used to seeing the truth and they're long and, you know, it's hard. And then I go over this report with you and you say, I feel good about this. I want to get better at that. I'll say, fine. So then you go back to board

and say, look, I feel good about this. I want to get better at that. I'll say, fine. So then you go back to board and say, look, I feel good about this. I want to get better at that. I say, yeah, this makes sense. So now we have a contract. You get better at that stuff. It's judged by these people. I get paid. You know, and it's all free. So here's the key. Then you have to then go back and talk to people. You have to say, thank you so much for participating. Thank you so much for this feedback. I have nothing to lose, much to gain. And you talk about the positives. Here's what I feel great about. And you express gratitude. I don't know who said what. I know many people said nice things. I would say I'm grateful I am. Then you don't say but, you say, and here's what I want to improve. For example, I want to be a better listener. Now, if I've not listened to you or the others, I'm sorry. Please accept my apologies. There is absolutely no excuse. No excuses. I can't change the past. I'm not going to ask you for more feedback about the past. I can't change it anyway. I'm going to ask you sit there, shut up, listen, take notes, and say thank you. You don't judge. Then you never promise to do everything. Leadership's not a popularity contest.

You say, I'm going to listen to everybody and do what I can. I can't do everything. I'm going to do what I can. I can't get better at everything. I get better at this. And if you don't mind, I'm going to involve you and follow up with you on a regular basis and ask you to help me get better. And then they do that over and over and over and over and over again. And guess what? They get better. Pretty simple. Oh, 80% or 90% of what my clients learn, they don't learn from me.

They learn from other people. Then I have these meetings with my clients. I did that over COVID with 50 people. So Pau Gasol and Curtis were part of this group. Every week they evaluate their lives. Every week they'd come in and give a report card on their lives. And every week they ask for help. And then people just try to help them. And then they try to help other people over and over and over again. Do you have a set of variables that you suggest they score themselves on? Yes. I'm going to give you six. Okay. Now I'm going to now teach your listeners something that takes three minutes a day, costs nothing, and will help them get better at almost anything. Some people are skeptical. Three minutes a day costs nothing. Help me get better at almost

anything. Too good to be true. Half the people start doing this quit within two weeks. And they don't quit because it does not work. They quit because it does work. This is hard. This is hard. I have paid. I don't always pay. Sometimes it's a friend. I've had someone call me on the phone every day, almost for 25 years. So I do this stuff. Why? My name is Marshall Goldsmith. I'm too cowardly to do any of this stuff I teach by myself. I'm too undisciplined to do any of this stuff I teach by myself. I need help. And it's okay. It's okay. I need help. I don't have that much willpower. I need help. My clients, one thing I'm proud of, 30 years ago, look at my books, who these people are. They're the second covenant of God. They all stand up and say, guess what? I need help publicly. They stand up and they say, I'm not perfect. I need help. Who are we kidding? We all need help. You need help.

I need help. We all need help. That's it. So anyway, that's kind of the process. So what you do, I'm going to give you six questions for everybody. And then the rest of them, they write on their own. Okay, ready for the first six. And I'll begin with the phrase, did I do my best to? There's a reason for that. If I say, did you? And you say, no, you'll blame the environment. No, I didn't do this because they, blah, blah, blah, them. My daughter, Kelly, she has a PhD from Yale. She's at Vanderbilt now. She taught me this. When you ask a person, did I do my best to? They can't blame anybody. Why? Didn't even say you succeeded. Did you even try? Number one, did I do my best to set clear goals

every day? So every day you set goals. Number two, did I do best to make progress toward achieving my goals every day? Number three, did I do my best every day to find meaning, find meaning in life? Did I make this count? Number four, did I do my best every day to be happy? Number five, did I do my best every day to build positive relationships? And number six, did I do my best every day to be fully engaged? Now, six simple questions. Our research is amazing. You do this every day.

34% of the people said I got better at everything. About two-thirds say I got better at four items. And 91% said I got better at everything. About two thirds say I got better at four items and 91% said I got better at something. Almost nobody gets worse. Why? Every day, this gets you to focus on the one variable you have control over. Did I do my best? Very cool framework. I'm interested why, as a Buddhist that you shared, that you would put happiness as one of the variables. And

I think you and I could have a long discussion about happiness and joy. There's a difference in those two words, as you would recognize. But I'm curious why you would put that. I may or may not recognize. You see, one thing I never do is have semantic arguments. Okay. Because my old teacher, Paul Hersey taught me that he said, words have different definitions. Why waste life arguing about the meaning of words when you go to a dictionary, the word has 10 different things. Well, it's not the wrong, there's different. For me, when I talk about happiness, it's very simple. I'm not like Martin Seligman says happiness is a function of seven things. To me, happiness is joy in the process of what you're doing.

You just love what you're doing. That's it. I'm not talking about meaning. That's separate. I'm not talking about achievement. That's something else. I'm just talking about you love the process of what you're doing. So for me, when I say happiness, that's all I mean.

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All right. And the reason I responded to that one, and again, I'll say it for clarity, like I love the process because you are putting people in control of themselves and their own experience is that happiness is for me. I'm just speaking for Mike. It is a, it's not deep enough. It's not big enough. It's one part of the human experience. I want to understand the full range of the experience. And I hear you talking about that in a couple others. It just struck me that you would put happiness in there. Not that there's anything wrong with it. It's great. I agree. It is one part,

but to me, it's not a trivial or insignificant part. It's an important part. Yeah. Okay. I mean, my new research has proven we're all going to be equally dead here and let me help you. You spend the rest of your life and you're not happy. You're going to look back on life. That was a dumb ass. Yeah. Like what was I doing? I know. What were you thinking? By the way, when the blessings of life were passed out, were you at the back of the line? I don't think so. You were standing right at the front of that line. So are you. Me too. I've got, I'm not arguing on that one. I completely agree with that. By the way, some people complain life isn't fair. Thank God life isn't fair. If life were fair, there's no way neither you or I would be in this conversation right now.

Yeah. My son's school, they work from core character strengths. So they work from characters and they hammer it. And I love all six of them. I love that they have six, but one of them, I don't. It's about being fair. I'm like, wait, hold on. It's so different than my worldview. And so it's not fair that I was born here and somebody else was born there and that their experience is completely different. But I understand that we're trying to raise compassionate, kind, global citizens.

So fairness is not one that I jump on. Not my area of expertise. I understand that we're trying to raise compassionate, kind, global citizens. So fairness is not one that I jump on. Not my area of expertise. So I defer on that one. Yeah. Very cool. So you also talk about that leadership is a full context sport. I think that's how you put it.

Yeah. And that's a cool phrase. Yeah. I read that article. It's a cool phrase yeah i read i read that article it's a great phrase well if you look at our research it shows that leaders that get the feedback talk to people follow up on a regular basis get better and people that don't don't and so i i was teaching a class for the northrop company this is my also my new book the earned life i'm teaching a class for a northrop company and the ceo is kent cress great guy, by the way, turned around the company, which was down the drain when

he got there. And Kent says to me, do people really change? Well, I said, well, I think they do. But to be honest, I have a degree in math, have no research to prove it. So I started measuring, do people talk to people? Do they follow up and do they get better? What did I learn? Shockingly, the people that actually did all that stuff I taught got better, not as judged by themselves, but by everybody. They were better leaders, better listeners, whatever. They got better. Amazingly, the people went to my classes but didn't talk to people, did no follow up. They didn't get better.

Now, I have good news. I have good news. They didn't get worse. They might as well have been watching sitcoms. It was a total waste of time. What did I learn back to my friend, Alan? Nobody gets better because of me. Nobody gets better because of me. They get better because of themselves. So then why, okay, so let me go back to a first principle why do you give advice and this is my naivete of the coaching world and my you know i don't listen you're a legend and you've created something amazing and that's why i wanted to learn from you and include you here i just my my hair as a trained professional my hair bristles and my antenna pop up like life coaching.

And I know it's different than executive coaching. But I get really concerned, like advice giving and frameworks that don't deeply understand one of the most complicated human experiences, which is our psychology and our frameworks. Like, I just get nervous. And I'm listening to you going it was good yeah okay yeah this is good number one they don't just get advice from me they get advice from everybody what's the difference between advice and insight well sharing let me describe exactly again i don't want to get into semantic argument but let me describe exactly what they do. Okay. I would go to you and say, you know, Mr. Colleague, I respect you, and I want to be a better listener.

Please give me ideas about, for the future, how I could be even better. And I shut up and listen. Now, to me, when I say advice, you are giving me advice on how to be a better listener. Now, I could teach my client how to be a better listener. Now I could teach my client how to be a better listener, but I don't work with them. The best advice doesn't come from me. It comes from the poor people they work with and never listened to. That's what I do. I do that over and over. And it's the Buddha said, here's a good point. Buddha said, only do what I teach if it works for you. So what I tell my clients is, look,

you're going to, by the way, my clients are not children. You got to realize who these people are. I mean, they are mega, mega, mega 99.999% successful people. They're not children. If they don't want to do something, it's not like, oh my, there's some victim that's going to have to go do something because I tell them. No offense to me, but I'm not that important. Yeah. And the Buddha knew that too, because when he says, you know, if you meet the Buddha, kill him. Yeah.

You know? Yeah. Okay. So I hear that. I hear that differently because the advice giving framework, it feels dismissive to the history of the person from somebody from the high and mighty says, oh, well, you should do this or you should do that. And that word should, you know, is obviously. Well, it's not the high and mighty. They're getting advice from everybody. Yeah. How about it?

They're getting advice from their direct reports. They're getting advice from their spouse. They're getting advice from their kids. When you challenge people to listen- Let me give you a funny story about this. Are you ready? Okay. Yes, please. My class has always said, do you believe customer satisfaction is important? Oh, yes. Should you ask your customers for their ideas? Of course you should. That's just getting advice from your customers, right? Do you disagree with

that? You shouldn't ask your customers for their ideas. Is that a bad idea? It's a good idea. Everyone says it's a great idea. Should you listen to your customers? Yes. Should you get better? Yes. Do you have a husband, wife, or partner at home? Yes. Have you been asking your partner, what can I do to be a better part in this relationship? No. Oh boy. You're like, oh yeah. So me right now, I'm saying, oh yeah, that's a good question over dinner tonight. And then the other thing that happens is, wait, hold on. She's going to tell me the truth. Okay. Hold on. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. Okay. So I, I, I'd love for you to just bounce off this idea is that when you ask your customers what they want, okay, they're going to give you what they want but that's not necessarily ford is kind of legendary for this it's not necessarily where you need to take your business it is a way to serve the um mechanics of the business now it depends the business you're in

yeah say it again it does really customer satisfaction business it's a great idea if you're in a product business, which is not better or worse, it's not a good idea. That's right. Yeah. Okay. If you're in a product business, you don't care about what your customers think. You want to develop great products. They may don't even know what they are. Steve Jobs was in a product business, right? Yeah. Other people, though, are in a customer satisfaction hotel, places like that. They're in a customer satisfaction business. My clients are in a leadership business and they have places like that. They're in a customer satisfaction business. My clients are in a leadership business and they have key stakeholders. By the way,

I don't tell them who the key stakeholders are. They tell me. I don't tell them these people are important. They tell me. You don't want to listen to them. Don't ask. Okay. So when you're listening to people, so this is interesting because I think one of my frameworks, first principles is that, and I think you're going to maybe balk at this, but one of my first principles is that everything you need, Marshall, is already inside you. No, I think that's all bullshit. Total bullshit. Yeah. You want to be a better delegator. You haven't been a better delegator for 20 years. I'm going to ask you a bunch of bullshit questions to help you guess how to delegate. I've coached thousands of people on how to be

better delegators. I can answer the question in five minutes and I'm the world's number one expert in leadership. So rather than me just give you a simple shit answer, I'm playing some bullshit guessing game with you. That's what I just heard that's nonsense it's bullshit total bullshit well okay so you and I are going to wrestle this one down for a minute then because you can wrestle all you want to it's just bullshit it's a dumb answer look you want to be a better delegator I can tell you to be a better delegate you do this you're going to be a better delegator I have to I don't have to do some deep psychological analysis. I'm not doing therapy here. No, you're not doing therapy. But my job is to help others to go within, to find their authentic voice, listen deeply,

and then measure twice, cut once, and do it the way that is right for them. And when we start to listen to everybody around us, we start to get confused by what Susie and Jane and Joey and John think is right. And what my job is, is to go to first principles mapped up against my virtues and then make the decision that is authentically right for me with kindness and compassion and relationship with others involved and holding the strategy of the business in the same way. So we're going to fundamentally disagree, which no problems. There's lots of ways to- Let me ask you a question. Do you coach people and get paid for results? I do. Question, honest answer. Do you ever coach people and say,

get paid nothing unless they get results? Yes or no? And the answer is no. Hell no, you don't, but I do. do no i'll tell you what i do one of them yeah but my game listen my game yeah that's fine like my game is not about saying you don't get results no no that's not my game you never had the balls to sit there and say i'm only gonna work if if you get better not true true. I do. Yeah, that's not true. Yeah. Listen, like that's not the case at all. I've actually, you know, I'm just telling you, I get paid for results. And by the way, the people I coach, you're acting like somehow because they talk to people, they're going to be passive and dependent. Oh, I must do what they tell me. I am coaching phenomenally high achieving, great people. You think they're going to passively agree with bullshit? Of course they won't.

So what tripwire happened in this conversation where you want to tell another person that their first principle in life is bullshit? Whose first principle is bullshit? Mine. I was sharing with you. I wouldn't coach you. That's easy. I wouldn't coach you. What happened in this conversation that you would say, wait, wait, hold on, that you would say to somebody that your first principle is bullshit? I think it's bullshit. Yeah. And I wouldn't coach you. And you wouldn't coach because? Because you wouldn't do what I just told you to do. Yeah.

Okay. I'm not saying you're a bad person. I am not going to follow. I'm going to listen and interpret, and I'm going to map my decisions based on authenticity. Of course. And then what is right for the community of people that I'm serving. That's wonderful. You can do that. I wouldn't coach you because you're not going to

ask people for input and listen, because for some reason you think you're going to come up with the answers by yourself. If you can. No, no, that's not what's being said. I'm not saying that I have all the answers. Wait a minute. Time out, time out, time out. Listen, let me quote you. The answer is within me. The answer is within me. You said that. Did I miss something? I heard it. You said it.

The answer is within you. No, I said, I said, everything you need is already in there. My job is to help illuminate and bring it out. That's what you believe. You know, you want to believe that, knock yourself out. So you think that my answers are within you? No. Okay.

So then where are the answers? I think you can learn from everyone around you. Yeah, I think that we can learn, but I'm saying, yes, I think we're saying the same thing there. Good. You can learn from everyone. You want to be a better listener. You want to do a better job of listening to Mary. Option A, I sit there and talk to you and ask you a bunch of questions and you have some deep insight on listening. Option B, you ask Mary, Mary, what can I do to be a better listener? I'm voting for B. I'm voting for B, not A. You want to argue with that one? What is the best thing you can

do to be a better listener to Mary? Who is the best person in the world to help you listen to Mary? Mary, not you, not me, Mary. Talk to Mary. That's pretty funny because that's actually what I'm saying, is that Mary holds the answers to how to be a great listener. She needs feedback for her. I'm not saying Mary has the answer for her. I'm saying you want to do a better job of listening to Mary, ask Mary for the answer for you. Not for her, for you. Yeah, I also embrace that. I think that that's great. Marshall, I think we're saying the same thing, but there's a tripwire that happened. And I have high respect for you. And so I want to understand what the tripwire was that led us to like, wait, hold on. Your first principle

is bullshit and I won't coach you. And so I'm like, I wouldn't coach you. I wouldn't coach you if you didn't want to ask everyone for their ideas about how you can improve. Period. Oh God. That's amazing that you heard that because I would never submit to the idea that others can't help. We are tribal people trying to figure out how to be okay. So what's your problem? Maybe we have a semantics disagreement. What's your problem with asking for advice, which is to me the same as asking for help? What's wrong with that? So advice for me is like, it feels callous for somebody to say, Hey, you should bet on this, or you should

really shut up and listen, or you should. So advice feels like you're getting a snip of my experience in life and then saying what I should do to be better. And let's say you get advice from 18 people. You're getting lots of stuff. Yeah. And I think that externalizing the right course of action becomes a little confusing. And it becomes dangerous when we're constantly looking outside of ourselves for what is the right course of action. How many clients that I coach have a problem with excessively looking outside of themselves? That would be phenomenally close to zero. I'm not coaching people with poor self-images. I'm not coaching dependent, helpless people that are going to count out what everyone says. I'm coaching the big people. I'm coaching very big people and their problems are usually

the opposite. They try to be right too much. They try to win too much. They try to win every argument. That's who I'm coaching. So I don't know who you're talking about, but I can tell you, they're not the people I coach. Maybe they're the people you work with. That's fine. But they're not the people I work with. That's an interesting assumption. Well, you may work with dependent people who are going to kowtow to everyone around them. I do not. That is the least of my concerns. I hear that you work with highly successful people and that you are the number one coach in the world and that you give advice to people. And I'm suggesting that the people I work with are deeply interested in being better and bringing their community along and they want to know how to get better. I'm just not in a position to say,

this is what you should do and how you ought to live. Well, that's the difference between you and me. Yeah, that's right. But then I wouldn't the difference. But I wouldn't call your- Marshall, listen, we're on a weird tone here, but I wouldn't call your approach bullshit. That feels like- Well, look, I shouldn't have said bullshit. So my apologies on that. Yeah. Well, no, I'm not looking for apologies.

It's a different way of engagement. I just apologized. I just apologized. I shouldn't have done that. You were right. So, will you accept my apologies? Marshall, with all humility, yes. Good.

Yes. I mean that in a spirited way. I love this banter and engagement because I feel alive with it. And I think we have different methodologies, but probably many of our deepest interests are aligned. Right. Yeah. And thank you for modeling for that moment too.

I really appreciate that. My heart rate came up. I was like, holy shit, where are we going? Dave Chang, who wrote the book, has a whole chapter on me coaching him. He said I gave him two words of advice. Eat shit. Golly. Good man.

Yeah. So anyway, look, you're in good company. Yeah. That is fun. Look, I give my clients shit all the time. Yeah. So they will all tell you, oh, my God. And I'm always giving them shit.

And I do it all the time. So again, I don't want to offend anybody. My apologies. I don't want to be offensive. I just give clients shit all the time. Yeah. No, no, no. I feel you.

And then, so let's have a slight pivot because you've taken your- All right. You want some coaching for you? I would love some. Let me give you some advice. Please. All right. In my book, what got you here, when people say something to you, don't start the sentence

with no, no, or no. Now, I said something you agreed with, and you said, no, no. No, no, I agree with you. Okay, hold on. Let me play it back. You said something, and I didn't agree? You did agree with it. I did agree, and then?

You said no. The most common phrase uttered by smart people when people tell us something we agree with is, no, I agree with you. Sometimes we say, no, no, I agree. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. No, it's a great idea. So somewhere in the conversation. No, I think it's fantastic.

Why do you say no? How do you reframe it? Don't say no. And then what do you say? I'm trying to play back what I say. Great idea. Just say great idea. Great idea. I agree with you or something. See, here's the problem. It is incredibly difficult for a smart person to hear anyone tell us something we agree with without

pointing out we already understood and agree with it. So no, I agree with you means no, I already understand that. You don't have to explain it to me. And the reframe is I just drop the no and say, I totally agree with that. Just say great idea. Great idea. You think it's a great idea. Just say great idea. So if you're a leader, this is one of the things I teach people. Some guy comes to you with an idea. You think it's a great idea. Just say great idea. Don't say i already knew that don't say no i already knew that don't say no i think it's a great idea just say great idea yeah cool yeah there is i will say that there is a a part in me that i understand the need to want to be right and i also understand that i the need to

get to the truth is more important at this point. And so that, that creates like this humility, like, yeah, okay. Let's find as many places that we can learn together. So thank you. And I think there's a double entron that's happening, which is like, can I give you advice? Even though 15 minutes ago, we're like, what the fuck about advice are we doing? Which is pretty funny.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good man, Marshall. So like, let's, let's just quickly talk about your book and, you know, what do you hope people do and, and where do you hope to drive people from reading your book? You know, historically, all my coaching has been helping leaders change behavior, successful leaders. And again, you have to put it in context. I don't work with normal people. So the shit I do, I'm not saying it's going to work with everybody. It probably won't. I don't work with everybody. I work with people that tend to have very positive self-image. They

believe in themselves. They're not shy or insecure. I'm not worried about them overreacting to anything. That's one of the least of my concerns. I used to just help these people change their behavior, which by the way, generally was focused on winning too much, being right too much, adding too much value, all kinds of stuff like that in my book, What Got You Here Won't Get You There. That was most of my life. Now that I've become an old man, I just want to help people have a better life. So a lot of my coaching now is just try to help people be happy. And as defined happy, that means join what they're doing and find meaning in life, be happy, find meaning. And in my book, I talk about aspirations. I talk about our ambitions and I talk about our actions.

Historically, most human beings have been focused on actions. That's a day-to-day activity. They do what they're, you know, there, they play the video game. Not bad. They just experience life. Some people are lost in their head. You know, they're academic. They focus on lofty ideas. They don't do anything. The people I coach are achievaholics. They are focused on achievement. And I talk about the dangers of identifying yourself with the results of what you do. It's a fool's game. It is a fool's game. And we have become in the West excessively focused on the results of what we do, and it doesn't bring joy. And if you're too focused on results, there's two problems. One, you don't control the results. And two, what if you achieve the results? What happens next year, or next year, or next year? You mentioned the National Football League, a disaster story. What happens to ex-NFL players? Ugly, ugly, ugly, divorced, bankrupt, depressed.

Why? They are not going to have that glory again. Curtis has done so much to try to help ex-athletes. Pau Gasol is trying to help ex-athletes. They're both very successful guys. Why? They're living now. They're not living in a dream in the past. So the one thing I talk about is don't become addicted to achievement and don't make your value as a human being based on what you achieve. Because if you do, well, you're never going to win. One of my clients that's in the, he endorsed the book is Albert Burl. Albert's a CEO of Pfizer. I said, how's your year last year? Oh, it's pretty good. You know, came up with this vaccine and CEO of the year and company engagement high and stock price high, write book, blah, blah, blah. I said, what's your problem? He said, I have a huge problem.

Next year. If his value as a human being is based on beating last year, he might as well kill himself. It's done. What did Michael Phelps think about after he won his 25th gold medal? Killing himself. It's over. If your value as a person is based on that, you got problems. You're never going to win. The Buddhist term is the hungry ghost. You are the hungry ghost. You're always eating, but you're never full. So a lot of the book is just how you align three things. One, you need to have a higher purpose. What am I here for? Why am I doing this crap at all? What's the point?

Two, you need to have meaningful achievement that is connected to that purpose. And then three, you need to enjoy the process of life. So those are the three key things I talk about. And if you enjoy the process of life, I'll be having a good time. One. Two, I've got a higher purpose and three i'm achieving stuff that's meaningful to me now i'll give you some good feedback you ready for some good feedback here's my feedback now i may be wrong but i'm just

guessing one my guess is you do have a higher purpose i do two that you are achieving things. I am. And three, you probably pretty much enjoy what you're doing. Yeah. Yes. You know, like 9.5 out of 10. You know, like, yes. One. Yeah.

One. You know, I love the last, thank you. I love the last three minutes. I, we are so deeply aligned with what you just talked about, um, in, in multi-directional in a multifaceted way that, uh, purpose and meaning matter. And there's a process to help with that. And at the same time, if you, there's a phrase that I think you'll appreciate that, um, I learned from working. I too work with the half percenters that are in some cases the most, they shift the rhythm of the world based on their industry. And what I've learned that they've taught me is that they thought that they needed to

do more to be more. And they're now flipping that model on its head is that, no, no, no, no. I need to be more and let the doing flow from there. I need to be more present, more grounded, more kind, more authentic, more creative, again, more present. And then all of the doing flow from that orientation. And then therein lies freedom in the unfolding present moment. Good. And so, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I couldn't be, I am deeply aligned with how you just articulated the book that you've just written. And so where can people go find it?

Well, they gave me a million dollar advance. So it should be, it should be available most places, right? If it's not, the publisher just screwed up here. So yeah, I think it'll be almost all the bookstores, Amazon, whatever. It should be readily available. Airports, I spent money on the airports. Should be lots of them in the airports, Amazon, anything. And then I give all my material away, Marshall at MarshallGoldSmith.com.

Send me an email if you want to send me an email or www.MarshallGoldSmith.com. Go to YouTube, LinkedIn. I say everything I give away, it's all free. You make copy, share, download, duplicate, modify, change, put your name on it. I don't care. I've never had an experience in a conversation like this. And the fire you have, the generativity you have, and the commitment to your approach is noted. And I would love to know what your experience in this conversation was like as well. It was fun. You got to realize I'm doing 45 podcasts. So this is one of the more lively ones. I do have some more. I got another suggestion for you though. Are you ready? Yes. I think you should join my happy community, the 100 Coaches.

Join our group. We have a wonderful group. You would love it. The people would love you. And like you said, shit, we don't always have to agree with everything. It's all right. But I think you'd be a wonderful member of our little community. What a tremendous extension, Marshall.

So I don't know enough about it, but I know that somebody that I've respected in it. Talk to all the people that are in it and they'll tell you. And for what it's worth, that model that you have of wanting to give and to create a community, it's so inspiring.

So Marshall, thank you for your time. Thank you for the frameworks that you've built and shared. And I'm honored to have this conversation with you and I've loved the full intensity and full circle of the whole thing. That's good. Yeah. Marshall, keep rolling. Nobody fell asleep. Good man. Thank you. Okay. Marshall, all the best. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of finding mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening.

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