High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 772: What Got You Here Won't Get You There: Leadership, Confidence, and Lasting Change with Dr. Marshall Goldsmith

Episode Date: August 31, 2026

In this episode of The High Performance Mindset, Dr. Cindra Kamphoff sits down with Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, one of the world's most influential leadership thinkers, a renowned executive coach, and #1 New York Times bestselling author, to explore what keeps successful people growing. For more than four decades, Marshall has coached many of the world's most accomplished CEOs and leaders. In this conversation, he shares what those experiences have taught him about leadership, confidence, behavior change, achievement, and creating a life that is meaningful on your own terms. Episode Description Success can create one of the biggest obstacles to continued growth: when a behavior has helped us succeed in the past, we assume it must still be serving us. Marshall explains why high performers can become trapped by "winning too much," adding too much value, and needing to prove they are right. He shares a simple question that can change the way we lead and communicate: "Is it worth it?" Cindra and Marshall also explore the relationship between confidence and courage, why we need to stop putting ourselves into limiting identity boxes, and how becoming more influential can be an act of service when your mission is to positively impact others. Marshall also challenges the belief that achievement will eventually create happiness. Instead, he encourages us to define what "enough" means, find meaning in what we do, invest in the people we love, and focus on the action directly in front of us rather than becoming consumed by the outcome. This conversation is packed with practical wisdom for leaders, coaches, athletes, and high performers who want to continue growing while building a life they are proud to live. You'll Learn: Why the best coaching requires courage, humility, and discipline. How past success can reinforce behaviors that eventually hold you back. Why "winning too much" is one of the most common problems among successful people. How asking "Is it worth it?" can make you a better leader and communicator. Why confidence and courage are so closely connected. How the identity you repeatedly give yourself can prevent lasting behavior change. Why your behavior should be guided by your mission rather than your comfort. How to stop tying your identity and happiness to achievement and outcomes. Why focusing on the "next play" helps high performers stay present. Marshall's advice for living a life your 95-year-old self would be proud of. Episode Resources & Links Marshall's website: https://www.marshallgoldsmith.com/ Mentally Strong Institute: https://mentallystronginstitute.com/ Request a Free Mental Breakthrough Call: https://freementalbreakthroughcall.com/ Download the National Confidence Research Study: https://confidencestudy.com/ Order Cindra's new Book: https://www.confidencetools.com/

Today's guest is one of the most influential leadership thinkers and executive coaches in the world. Here today is Dr. Marshall Goldsmith. For more than 40 years, Marshall has coached over 200 CEOs and senior executives from some of the world's most respected brands and organizations, helping already successful people become even better leaders and better human beings. He is the member of Thinkers 50 Hall of Fame, has twice been named the number one leadership thinker in the world and has been recognized as the world's number one executive coach. Marshall is also the author, an editor or editor of 52 books, including international bestsellers. What got you here won't get you there. Marshall, I assign that to a coaching client who's listening to us today, and that was just

incredible for him. And the book triggers. His books have sold more than four million copies and has been translated into 36 languages. So today we're going to be talking about leadership, confidence, behavior change, and what Marshall has learned from spending decades coaching some of the highest performing people in the world. Marshall, welcome to the high performance mindset podcast. I'm so grateful you're here. I love your new book, and I am so happy to be here, and I'm so proud of you. So again, congratulations on the great work you're doing. Thank you, Marshall.

That's coming from you. That's such an honor. You know, we've been working our butts off. As you know, when you write a book and then publish it and get it out there. So thank you for your endorsement of the confidence habit and everything you've done for people all over the world. Thank you so much. I'm going to start with asking you a question about, you know, you've spent more than 40 years coaching some of the most successful people in the world. 40. Wow. Incredible. Named number one executive coach in the world. What have the best

leaders you've coached taught you. Well, I'll tell you what I learned about coaching and when it works and when it does not work. Okay, the very, very important question. One of my good coaching clients was Alan Malawi. Alan was the CEO Ford. The company was going bankrupt. I don't remember this. So he goes to Ford. The stock is valued at $1.1. He left $18.40. Stock went up. 1,837%, and he was ranked number three greatest leader in the whole world by only the Pope and Angela Merkel, number one business leader in the world, had an but even more impressive 95% approval rating for every employee in a union company. This is unheard of what I got. So I talked to Alan. I said, Alan, now of all the people I coach, actually spent the least amount of time coaching you.

Yeah, Alan and I spent hundreds of hours together having fun and we're writing books and all kinds of stuff. But actually, me coaching him very little time. And I said, you improve the most of all the people I coach. And you're fantastic to begin with. Before you ever met me, you were great, right? Then I said, Alan, I've done a study here, study on one dimension. It's called time spent with the executive coach, Marshall Goldsmith, me. and the other information was improvement.

And there seems to be a negative correlation between spending time with me and improving. I said, I said the way this looks, Alan, had you never met me, you would have been even better. So I said, Alan, now what should I learn about coaching for you? He taught me two lessons that changed my life. Lesson, number one, he said, your biggest job as a coach is customer selection.

If you pick them right close, your coaching process, will always work. If you pick the wrong client, your coaching process will never work. And he said, never make coaching about yourself and your ego and how smart you think you are. Make it about the great people you coach and how proud you are of them. Oh, what a breakthrough for coaching. See, most people think coaching is all about the coach. You get better because I do this or I do this or I use this process. No, you get better because of you. Arnold Schwarzenegger said, nobody got muscles by watching me lift the weights here.

You know, the clients do the work. Now, what do they need to be successful in coaching? Three variables. Courage, humility, and discipline. They need the courage to look in the mirror. It's hard to get honest feedback. It's hard to look in the mirror. Everybody talks about psychological safety, blah, blah, blah.

Easy to talk about. It is hard to do. It is tough. humility. You've got to admit you can get better. I can't make perfect people get better. Somebody's perfect? No, that I want to do it better. And then discipline. You've got to do the day to day, to day, work. And if you do it, you get better. I love it. You know, Marshall, I think that everyone in the world should have a coach because a coach helps you get to your goals faster. a coach like you and I helps you get clarity on where you want to go, what's in your way, and helps you like uncover those roadblocks.

Why do you think people should have a coach? Well, number one, people ask me, especially my clients, I coach five people that were at the time, but somebody considered their number one CEO in America. Why do they need a coach? Their number one CEO in America, why they need a coach for, right? Well, why are that so good? Because they keep trying to get better. Roger Federer.

How about the top 10 tennis players? How many of them have coaches? 10? Why do they have coaches? You're already top 10 in the world. And they're also in the top 10 in the world because they have a coach. People ask me, do I have a coach? I have someone talked to me almost every day.

Incredible. Every day. I teach this thing called daily questions. I have someone talk to me every day to keep me in track. Why? Back to courage, humility, and discipline. My name is Marshall. I am too cowardly and undisciplined to do any of this stuff by myself. I need help, and it's okay. Now, of the courage, humility and discipline, I've got one of those factors, humility. I admit I need help. Discipline, courage, right? Well, I would guess that you have a lot of courage if you've written, you know,

the books that you have, 52 books that you've authored or edited, you know, that takes a lot of courage to get your work out there. Well, you don't. One of the reasons I got so much done, though, is I've always had other people help me and provide structure. I've got four New Yorktown best sellers, right, including my biggest one, what got your hair, won't you there? I didn't write any of those books. I didn't write any of those books. I got a writer. Now, I am an exceptionally good writer, not as good as my friend.

Not as good as more. He is better than me. It's not a secret. He's better than I am. I have the ideas. He writes the books. We're partners. We're partners.

And I'm not ashamed to that. He's a better writer than me. And I'm not putting myself down here. I'm a very good writer. On the other hand, he's better. And that makes me think just the importance of like getting people surrounding you, you know, in the confidence habit, I talk about this dream team of confidence. And you need a cheerleader.

you need a best friend, you need a challenger, you need a mentor, you need a coach. And, you know, sometimes people, they want to do it all by themselves and they don't ask for a writer or somebody who can support them. Where do your ideas come from? And I'm thinking about just, you know, the classic, incredible books that you've written and helped conceive in terms of ideas. Well, you know, that's a very good question. And the answer is kind of, I don't know. Let me It's very interesting you bring this up. I actually took one of these tests about your aptitude tests. I was very skeptical about this test.

I said, when I was a kid, I got an almost perfect score in SAT, math, and verbal test. I don't remember any of that stuff now. Almost perfect score. But the one category scored, the highest generating ideas. There you go. I'm always generating ideas. So I like generating ideas. I have fun.

If you ever go to LinkedIn, and I'm very proud of this, on LinkedIn, I'm number one, social media influencer in the world in my field. And I have 1.6 million followers, right? Not bad. Oh, and by the way, one category where I'm totally kicking butt, are you ready? Yes. 75 years old and above. I am dominant. Amazing. I'm the Beyonce of old men here. I love it.

Amazing. Okay, we got to go check out Marshall and LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a good example. I try stuff out. You know me, LinkedIn Posts are on average day? Amazing. But, you know, what it does, it keeps me thinking. I'm always generating new ideas and everybody, they don't all work, right? Mm-hmm.

It's okay. We're coaching for everybody on this if you want to do better generated ideas. Are you ready out there? Everyone's ready. They're taking their notes out. don't worry so much. Don't worry so much. Have more fun.

You want to be creative, have fun. Don't worry so much. People worry too much. They worry about getting everything perfect, right? You got to get it out the door. Mm-hmm. And I like the idea of LinkedIn because, you know, you can see what fits with people. What do people love?

What do people, you know, connect with? And then it's like, okay, I can take that idea and then I can write a book about it. It makes me think of we just had this. Confident Summit that we organized and Evan Carmichael spoke and he has over like 300 or more. I'm not even sure I'm getting the number right videos on YouTube. And he just kept on putting one out every single day and then all of a sudden it caught on. Right? Exactly.

Yeah. So Marshall, you have a famous phrase. What got you here won't get you there. This is the book that my clients have really resonated most with. what tends to get high performers here, but then becomes the very thing that holds them back from getting there? Very good question. One of the greatest challenge, by the way, your listeners, dedicated, smart, hardworking, driven to achieve, and successful people already. Exactly.

A blessing and a curse. Let me give you the curse. Any human or animal will replicate behavior that is followed by positive reinforcement. Any human or any animal will do this. The more successful we become, the more positive reinforcement we get, and we fall into a trap called the superstition trap. What is the superstition trap? I behave this way. I am successful.

Therefore, I must be successful because I behave this way. and wrong. You behave this way, you are successful. And by the way, a lot of your behavior is probably fantastic, and you're probably doing some things that are phenomenally stupid and you're successful anyway. And another problem with this is, I behave this way I'm successful.

Okay, you're successful yesterday. Yeah. That worked yesterday. Yay for you. That doesn't mean you can be successful tomorrow. and just because you repeat it doesn't mean it's going to work next week. That's true. And I think about how this relates to me,

well, got you here, won't get you there. You know, and I'm just even thinking about this book that's coming out this week. And my first book, I didn't even try to get it on the bestseller list that, you know, that didn't,

I didn't even know what to do. I just launched it, you know. And so whatever I did then is not going to get me where I want to go. and reach my goals now. And so every person needs to continue to grow and learn. And, you know, that's a part of thriving is you have to keep pushing yourself to go after courageous goals. Now, let's take you as a good positive case study. Your first book, you really didn't promote it as much, right? No, I was just happy I had a book out. So the only way I promoted it. Now, when you were younger, did you have some issue with self-promotion?

Um, great question. It's not something that I love to do, and I've had to continue to be courageous around it. Very good. I'm going to help all of our listeners that have had this issue. Now, let's take you as an example. Okay. Now, if you became more powerful and influential, would the world be worse off or better off? Better off, because I have a very important message of confidence. I'm voting the world will be better off. In the past has trying to become more powerful, influential,

made you a little uncomfortable in the past. You said yes. Of course. Of course. Now, what's more important to you? Making the world a better place or being comfortable? Making the world a better place is more important. You know, I'm being comfortable.

Get over it. I love that. That voice is going to be in my head, Marshall. Whenever I'm like, I probably shouldn't post this or share this, I'm going to be like, get over it. Marshall said get over it. Get over it. Now, one thing you did say is you never said something like, I have problems with this. I want you to repeat after me.

I'm going to use free coaching. Ready? All right. Raise your right hand. My right hand is this one. I used to have problems with this. I used to have problems with this. I don't have an incurable genetic defect.

I don't have an incurable genetic defect. I'm not going to have a problem with this anymore. I'm not going to have a problem with this anymore. Thank you, Marshall. I'm going to just put you on repeat when I start getting in my head about that promotion stuff. The key is on a serious note, we stereotype ourselves. Yes. And as long as we say, that is just the way I am.

We're not going to change. We're not going to change. Let's say, I see this all the time in my coaching. I coach an executive. Oh, I'm no good at recognition. That's just the way I am. I'll say, well, do you have a genetic defect? Well, I have to get them to change their identity.

Here's why. Let's say, I'm coaching a CEO who self-identity is, I'm no good at recognition. I work with him for a year. Everybody says he's great at recognition. If I don't help him understand his identity, identity, you know what he feels like on the inside? On the inside, he feels like a phony. He feels like a hypocrite. Someone's the door. It's my door. Don't worry about it. He feels like a

hypocrite or a phony. So even if he does get better, he doesn't feel good. He doesn't feel good. So very important point. Don't put yourself in a box. If you want to change, don't talk about yourself like you have a genetic defect. How do you identify what's holding someone back and then help them level up that identity? Well, what I help them to do is first define your identity, the way you see themselves now. And then I say, is there any reason that you know of that you have to be this way that is somehow genetic or something? It's almost always no. Exactly.

All right. That means you were not born with this. You are programmed to believe this. Not you're a bad person, but this is part of your identity. You are programmed to believe. You're like confidence. You shouldn't do this. You shouldn't do that.

Whatever. All right. Who cares? Let it go. You don't have to continue living that script. Yes. Amen. And you know, when I think about change and all the stuff you've written about change,

you've said one of the biggest challenges for successful people is changing behavior. This is what you just said a minute ago when the behavior has been rewarded in the past, and that's what gets in the way of us getting to where we need to go. So why do you think change is especially difficult for successful people? Well, number one, let me give you a few examples. Another great question. The Harvard Business Review interviewed me. They said, what is the number one problem with the successful people you deal with?

Number one problem. I'll talk about the top two. Number one and then number two. Number one problem, winning too much. Winning too much. What does that mean? Important I want to win. Meaningful.

Win. Critical. Win. Win. Trivial. Win. Win. Win.

Winners love winning. It is very hard for smart, successful people not to win. It's very hard for the people on this podcast, this show, not to win. the win. All right, everyone listening. I'm going to give you a case study out there. Are you ready? We're ready. Test yourself on the answer to this question. Are we ready? Test number one, you want to go to dinner at restaurant X. Your husband, wife, friend, or partner wants to go to his dinner at restaurant Y. You have a heated argument. You go to Y. It was not your choice. The food tastes awful.

The service is terrible. Option A. critique the food. Point out our order was wrong. This mistake could have been avoided had your list of me, me, me, me. Option B, shut up. Eat the stupid food. Try to enjoy it and have a nice night. What would I do?

What should I do? Almost everyone I coach, what would I do? Critique the food. What should I do? Shut up. Let me give you a workspace study. This happens all the time. I'm sure many of our listeners have done this.

You have a hard day at work, a hard day. Oh, oh, such a hard day. You go home, your husband and life are partners there. The other person says, I had such a hard day today. I had such a tough day. If we are not careful, do you know what we say? You had a hard day. You had a hard day.

If any idea what I had to put up with today, you think you had a hard day, We are so competitive, we have to prove we are more miserable than the people we live with. I gave this example to class at the Dartmouth Talk School. A young man raised his hand. He said, I did that last week. I asked him, what happened? He said, my wife said, honey, you just think you've had a hard day. It is not over.

Oh, boy. It's not over now. You see what I mean? We get wrapped up in his nonsense. Let me give you another smart people problem. Adding too much value. Adding too much value. I'm young, smart, enthusiastic, and I report to you, you're my boss.

A company with an idea, you think it's a great idea. Rather than saying, great idea, our tendency is. to say, oh, that's a nice idea. Why don't you add this to it? The problem is the quality of the idea may go up 5%. My commitment to execute may go down 50%. It's no longer my idea, boss. Yeah.

It's your idea very hard. One of my good coaching clients retired a few years ago, J.P. Garniak, he was a CEO of Lax-O. Smith-Kline, very large drug guy. I said, what did you learn about leadership? as a CEO of this huge company. It's had a very hard lesson. And everyone listening, every time you get promoted, this lesson will become more important for you.

He said, my suggestions become orders. When you're the CEO, your suggestions become orders. They do. You know, he said, if they're smart, they're orders. If they're stupid, they're orders. If I want them to be orders, they're orders. And if I do not want them to be orders, to orders anyway.

My suggestions become orders. For nine years, I trained in the Admonds, United States Navy. But it's the first thing I teach the new admirals. You get that little star? Your suggestions become orders.

That admiral makes a suggestion. What's your response? I, I, sir. Mm-hmm. And said, no, admirals don't make suggestions. They get orders. I said to JP, what did you learn from me

when I was your coach that helps you the most? He said, you told me one lesson. You tell me to be a better leader and have a half your life. I'll get everybody listening. I said, what was the lesson? He said, before I speak, breathe, breathe. And ask one question, is it worth it?

Is it worth? And he said, as the CEO, GlaxoSmith client, half the time, he said, I've had the discipline to breathe. Is it worth it? What do I decide? Am I right? Maybe. Is it worth it? So what should we do instead, Marshall, if we know that the number one problem is like winning too much, and then the number second, the second problem is, you know, adding too much value.

What should guide our behavior in the future? Breathing? And quit talking so much. Perfect. Breathe? Yeah. Talk so much. Listen.

listen, write it down, write little cheat notes down. Don't win all the time. Don't add too much value. Breathe. But back to J.P.'s point. His advice is greater point. Is it worth it? Is it worth winning this point?

Is it worth adding value? Not am I right. Is it worth it? Peter Drucker taught me this. Peter Drucker was the world's expert on management. I mean, I get ranked number one leadership in the world. My brain compared to him, 10-year-old. He was a very smart person.

One lesson he taught me, a wonderful lesson, our mission in life is to make a positive difference not to prove we're smart and not to prove we're right. Our mission in life is to make a positive difference, not to prove her smart, not to prove her right. Well, it's hard. Now, Sandra, you have a PhD. Uh-oh.

I do. Well, it is so true. And you spent a lot of your life proven the world you're smart. There's so many more things I can keep learning. And I appreciate what you said about. Like, is this point worth winning? Because sometimes people get in this battle of, you know, they want to be right instead of, let's just listen and see what

the suggestions are. Hi friends, Dr. Sindra here, and I'm so excited to announce that my new book, published by Simon & Schuster, is now available titled The Confidence Habit. Our national research study on confidence showed there is a confidence crisis in America today. One in two Gen Zers and young millennials feel like they are not enough. Women still scored lower on all markers of confidence compared to men. And this book provides the tangible research-backed strategies to grow your confidence, and I can't wait for you to read it.

You can head over to ConfidenceTools.com to purchase your copy where there's over $594 of bonuses over there. Again, check it out at ConfidenceTools.com, and I can't wait to hear what to think about it. You know, Marshall, one of the things I do is I study confidence, and I found that confidence is also a feeling, it's a decision, it's a skill, and ultimately it's a belief. So I'm curious, like, from your work with elite leaders,

what role do you think confidence plays and what, in your opinion, what's confidence? Well, confidence is very important because if you don't have confidence, you don't go for it. True. So, you know, confidence to me, in other words, is courage. And, you know, when confidence gives you courage, I'll give an example. Now, I'm from outside of Louisville, Kentucky. And when I was a boy, I had to watch a TV show called Tomorrow's Champions about young kids who are going to be boxers, right? And they fought on TV.

And one of the young kids was named Cassius Clay, who became Muhammad Ali. Yes. I watched him when he was 16 years old. Wow. He would get up there. The fight was over before it started. He had so much confidence. He would just stroll in around.

He would look at the other guy like, bye-bye. And the fight was over. I mean, the other kid was scared to be on TV. He wasn't scared. I mean, the way he acted as an adult, he acted that way when he's 16. Wow. He had confidence. He believed in himself.

Yeah. And, you know, you got to believe in yourself, right? Absolutely. And I appreciate what you said about courage. And we go back to like, you know, when you were just helping me get over this uncomfortableness about promotion, you know, sometimes our past experiences, our past failures get in the way of us being confident and being courageous. So I'm curious, like, what have you seen in some of the world's best leaders and how do they move through those limiting beliefs or? things they might tell themselves that aren't actually even true. Well, you know, really, the people I have coached are not the biggest examples of this problem in getting through it. Most of them, by that point, have a lot of self-confidence. That's a good point.

I wrote another book called How Women Rise with Sally Hougeson. Yes, I love that book. I love that book. That book talks about the opposite side of the equation. the opposite side. And by the way, more than half of the people don't have that, they have the opposite problem, not enough self-confidence. So what you're talking about is an audience of a lot of people. And so Sally and I wrote the book, because she read what got your here, won't you there? And confidence is one of the things she mentioned. Many of the people I work with have too much confidence. And she said, many of the people she worked with don't have enough, not good or bad, everybody's different, right? everyone's different. So in the book, some people, what I call oversell, too much me, me, me, me, me, winning, be right, sell. Others, though, undersell, they don't promote themselves enough. They lack that confidence. And the important point is not promoting yourself as good or bad.

It's what's your mission? You need to behave in a way that's consistent with the mission. And again, many coaches, I mean, I've had the chance to work with, you can imagine thousands of coaches, right? Absolutely. Many coaches, most coaches have self-confidence problems, not many, most. And what do I have to tell? I say, look, I do what I just did with you. If you became more influential, is the world going to be worse or better? And they all say better.

They're nice people like you. They're a good person. Is it hard for you? And they say, oh, I don't like it. I got to tell them, what do you care about in life? What do you care about? You want to make the world better? You want to be comfortable.

You have to be willing to work through discomfort. And by the way, if your mission in life is to be comfortable, then don't fly because you're not influential. Mike drop. You have chosen to be comfortable rather than influential. Okay, then don't complain. Yeah. And for the coaches, this is very helpful.

You see, these are very good people. And, you know, a lot of them have huge issues with exactly what you're talking about. They have huge issues with it. And realizing, wait a minute, I'm trying to make the world better. As Peter Drucker said, I want to make a positive difference here in the world. Well, this is going to help me make a positive difference. It historically may be uncomfortable. Okay, get over it.

Get over it. The other thing is don't deify this. See, what happens is then they act like this lack of confidence as a badge of honor. It's not an honor. You're not helping anybody here. That's so true. You know, what you just said really helped me because when you said, like, act in ways that are consistent with your mission, And I know my mission in this world, like my purpose is to provide like real tangible ways that

people can be their best and grow their confidence. And so when I think about what you just said, it's like both of my books, Beyond Grit, and then this new book, The Confidence Habit, like that's, that's everything. It's like a toolkit to grow confidence. And so when you just, you just gave me even more permission to be like, is it, yeah, there you go. Is you do? I don't want to, you know, I want to live that purpose and mission. That's why I'm on the, this earth. And so I hope even to sharing that inspires other people. See, I am so proud of you because you are going for a bestselling book. Today, I had experienced today, funny we bring this up, I was talking today. My man came to my house. He's well, I don't really care if my book is a best

seller. I said, first I said, you're a liar. You're a liar. You're kidding here. I don't care my, yes, you do. Why are you writing this book? Do you want people to read it or not. Well, if you want people to read it, you want it to be a bestseller. Who are we getting here? Who are we getting here? Of course you want the book. If you don't want the book to be a bestseller, who you're writing it for yourself?

Now, Cinderra, let's talk about books. Books are a great example. How many titles on Amazon? 32 million. How many have to sell to me? In one year, how many do they have to sell to be in the top half of all books? too. Half of them sold zero to one copy last year. Now, I am not so arrogant to believe my books are better than 16 million other books. Many of those books statistically have to be great books.

Many of them have to be better than anything I ever did. No one's ever going to read it. Do not write a great book that no one reads. Unless you don't care. If you don't care, then it's not the world's problem is your problem. Marshall, I think about just how influential your books have been, which is, you know, the stats are incredible. I'm going to read those to everyone who's listening one more time. More than your books have sold more than four million copies and have been translated in the 36 languages. A few things you've already said about them, like you have a partner who writes them, they're your ideas. So, you know, you're willing to ask for support and get the same. the right people on the bus. And I'm curious about, you know, what we've talked about so far about,

you know, in psychology, it's called FOPO, fear of other people's opinions. And so that, it holds us back because, you know, we don't want to be self-promotional. What will people think? What, what has been your mindset that's allowed you? Let's go back to you said, we don't want to be self-promotional. What would other, who are these other people you're talking about? They're made up in our mind. Who are these other people? Don't they have their own lives?

Don't they have anything better to do than worried about you? And they're not even thinking about you. They don't care about you. They don't care about you. That's so true. What has been your mindset that's allowed, you know, these books to, and I think I've got 4 million copies. What that means is like,

You've had an influence of 4 million people. More to come. More to come. More to come. I'm working on my new book right now called A Little Better Life. And you've got to help me promote my new book. Is that a deal? Absolutely, yes.

I love my new book. It's basically all of the very best social media posts I've done. It's got pictures, text. I love it, a little better life. That's my new book. So I love it. And so for me, I just enjoy it. I mean, why am I doing it?

I'm giving all the money for my book back to charity anyway. I'm donating all the money to charity. I'm not keeping anything. It's all for helping people grow and learn. Amazing. And so what I'm hearing is like it's also like a way, this new book is a way to show your creativity and right. You have all your amazing LinkedIn posts.

and so you are able to showcase it there. What do you think your mindset has been to be able to, like, what are your thoughts about writing? That's kind of what I'm trying to get at to help inspire people to help them think about what do I need to keep believing about myself and how you can Marshall be such a role model for that. What do you believe about yourself and the impact you can make? Well, what I do is I come up with ideas based on I read, I study, but I don't just study management. So I've read 400 books on Buddhism, Hinduism, that kind of Eastern philosophy. So I studied far more of that than I have management. So I've studied all these different things.

How could this wisdom apply here? And how can I apply it? I just come up with ideas. Now, like today, I come up with an idea. I come up with an idea. And so then I talk to my AI. We come up with a little picture, and I put it in line. So today, if you go to my LinkedIn right now, there's a new post.

And it's from Isha Bursale by Good Friend. So she called me up and she's working on this picture. I said, well, that's all like fun. And she has a nice quote. I like that. So I said, let's do a LinkedIn post. She called me up. There's a picture.

She drew the picture. There's a little post. She has a cool quote. I like it. I come up. I'm pretty creative. come with the ideas. I have the ideas edited. Bum. Ten minutes, it's up. Amazing. So you're moving fast with courage. You're not getting in your head. You're not questioning if you're, if your ideas

at value, you're doing it. You're, you know, you're taking action. How many people you think saw one of my posts last year just on LinkedIn, 27 million times, not people. 7 million views last year. Incredible. And by the way, I get almost no negative feedback. Right. And by the way, if I did, you know what I'd do to the post? Delete.

It's pretty easy to do. Delete. That's what the delete button is for. I tried it out. Somebody found it bad, whatever. Delete next. I love it. Marshall, one of the questions I wanted to ask you is, you know, I love your concept of earned life.

And so I want to have you share a little bit about what that means and how can someone know whether they're living according to their own definition of success rather than someone else's because I think that concept directly connects to what we've talked about so far. So again, I would recommend for your listeners, what got you here, won't you there, is a very good book and the Earned Life is a very good book. Of all my books, that's the two I would recommend for your audience. Okay. Because I think both of those are very good for your audience and maybe how women rise too, because I love that book as well.

Amazing. That book is kind of aimed for women, strangely enough, but it's still a great book. So those three, I would say all mega bestsellers, all cool books. Now, the earned life, let's talk about this one, very good for your listeners. Your listeners are smart, dedicated, hardworking, driven to achieve, creative entrepreneurial. Yes. Yeah. Sometimes too hard on themselves.

Absolutely. Sometimes too hard on themselves. Most of the time, Marshall. Now, historically, have you been too hard on yourself? Absolutely. Yesterday I was. I would just put both feet on the ground. Okay, got it.

Smile. breathing. Do your hand like this. Hand. Forgive yourself for being a human. You screwed up yesterday. I screwed up yesterday. I probably screwed up today.

I'm probably screwing up on this podcast. I'm probably screwed up by saying screw it up. Who cares? Oh, I love that. And I can resonate with that so much because it's like, you're right. forgive yourself for being human, and everyone isn't perfect, right? So taking a more easygoing approach. Forgive other people for being who they are.

Forgive yourself for expecting them to be somebody else. Didn't turn out to be somebody else or who they are. And forgive yourself for being human. You're not perfect. You messed up yesterday. Let it go. I like the action you're making, because I feel like when people make an action, it's like you're able to let it go and work. And it's the same action.

Buddhist philosophy, every time I take a breath, it's a new me. Breathe. Ah, new me, new me. Hey, yesterday you screwed up. Now, that was the previous you. The previous you made a mistake yesterday. Let's forgive her. I forgive you.

I forgive you. You're okay. You might have a mistake yesterday. This is new you. You don't have to do that again. Now, what matters in life from their own life? Six, six, six. Okay, one.

Money. How important as well. I'm going to tell everybody in life exactly how much money they need. Are you ready? I'm ready. And the answer is, enough. You need to figure what enough means to you. Yeah.

That's it. Come up with a number, though. because if you don't come up with a number, you will never get you enough. I know many billionaires that don't have enough. You're never going to get there until you say, what's enough?

Assume you have middle class or above wealth. Okay, that's good. After that money, it's not going to make you much happier anyway. Then you need to take care of your health. Don't get so busy that you don't care of yourself. Number three, have great relationships.

people you love. Never get so busy climbing the ladder of success, you would leave behind the people who love you. Big mistake. And assuming you have good relation with people you love, assuming you have enough money, and assuming you're healthy, three things matter. One, you need some sense of higher purpose. Why am I doing this? What is the mission here? What's the higher? And it doesn't have to necessarily be religious. It could be anything. but you need an answer to one question. Why? See, your listeners work very hard.

Why? I need an answer. Why? Why am I working hard? Two, they need to achieve. The people on this call, they're going to stop achieving. Look at me. I know.

Oh, I'm 77. Hey, I'm still achieving. You're still writing and contributing to the world. I do stuff all the time. I haven't, well, I'm slacking off a little. I don't think I've done like six new books in the last 12 months. So I'm kind of falling behind, but I'm still number one social media influences in my field in the world.

So, you know, I'm still doing stuff, right? Incredible. So unique. What am I supposed to do? Play bad golf with old men of the country club and eat chicken sandwiches and discuss gallbladder surgery? No, I do something for them. I enjoy what I'm doing.

And then you need to love what you do. You see, if you love what you do, you're achieving and it's meaningful to you, you won. Now, here's the point. No one can tell you what you love to do. That's got to go. No one can tell you what achievement means for you. And no one can tell you what your mission and your higher purpose is. You've got to figure that out.

Those three things are critical. Now, let me give you one mistake that I would say 60% of your listeners currently are making. Are you ready? We're ready. They have a misguided belief. I'm going to achieve my way to happiness. You're not going to achieve your way to peace. You're not going to achieve your way to happiness.

The Great Western Disease is I'll be happy when. Yes, so true. Happiness and achievement are independent variables. And you repeat that. Happiness and achievement are independent variables. Achieve to achieve. That's good. It's not to make you happy.

Be happy to be happy. That's good. May not help you achieve. Find meaning, by the way, to find meaning. Some people have a lot of meaning, but they don't achieve much. It may or may not be happy. Some people achieve a lot. It's not particularly meaningful.

and they're miserable. And some people are happy and achieve nothing. They're independent variables. The Great Western disease, I'll be happy when. Yes. Isn't that so true? It makes me think about something we talked about before we hit record. And one of the things that you teach people to ask is, like, did I do my best to?

Rather than like kind of simply evaluating outcomes. And it's so easy to get caught up in the outcome, which, doesn't, you know, I think that impacts happiness and maybe you're achieving it, but connects exactly with what you said. So why do you think focusing on our own effort and behavior is so powerful just for creating lasting change within ourselves? Number one, I've read the Bhagavad Gita, which is 6,000 years old, so this is not particularly new advice. The essence of the Bhagavad Gita is you never become attached to outcomes. You never become attached to the outcome. It doesn't mean you don't set.

goals. And it doesn't mean you don't try, but your identity is not this goal for two reasons. One reason is what happens after you achieve? Now, how long is that you're going to find peace and happiness after you achieve something? For how long? A minute, a day, a month? Yeah. Look, one of my great clients, you can probably figure out who it was, but really helped come up with a vaccine for COVID. Company was mega successful. I called him up. I'm talking to him, you know.

I said, what's your problem? You know what he said? Next year. Next year. Do the stockholders care? No, that was last year. Yeah. Next year.

There's always next year. you're not going to let's say let's say you're a small business person to make a lot of money buys what happens next year you think you're going to lower the goals you're not going to lower the goals

you're going to raise the goals so one reason you never become ego identified with achievement is the Buddhist term is the hungry ghost you're always eating but you're never going to get full what advice

the second reason is there's so many variables involved. Yeah. Now, I coach years ago in the CEO of Texaco, and the company's stock price went up 50% at the year, 50% of the year I coached him. There was a war in the Middle East. Right of oil skyrocketed. Yeah.

I can say, my coaching costs the stock. No, my coach is luck, right? Many variables that he doesn't control. I think people who are listening can get easily tied into the outcome, and they can have their identity tied into that. What's one piece of advice would you give Marshall before we close up to help people not identify with the outcome? Because that's hard.

I think about the professional athletes that I work with who their salary is connected to the outcome. I'm not saying they shouldn't try. Let's take athletes. Greatest college basketball coach in history, John Winn at UCLA, never are focused on the outcome. You know what you said? You never focus on winning. you focus on during your best now.

Coach K at Duke. Player, this is a great example, glad you're part of athletics. Player hits a great shot. It goes like that. You know what he goes? Next play. Next play.

Player, it's a bad shot. Sad. Next play. When you're focusing on the outcome, you're not focusing on getting the job done. Yeah. Mike drop. So true.

You're not focused on what you need to get to the outcome. I give a parable. Parable of the golfer. The golfer is in the country club. And he's on the last hole, and he needs to do a good job to win the club championship for the first time. People in front of him drinking, noisy, very angry. But calm down. It's a beautiful drive.

He gets there in the balls in a rough. What happened? A beer can. Idiot's left a beer. He's angry. Beer can. What do is golf will need to do? Stop.

Breathe. Forget the beer kid. Forget the drive. Forget the club championship. Focus on one thing. Hit the shot in front of you. Nice. Hit the shot in front of you.

Roger Federer. He was a pretty good athlete. And he got some pretty good results. You know what he said? Play the point. You know how many points he thought? thought about, hit the shot, just hit this shot. Anything other than just hit this shot is a distraction.

Thinking of winning, you know, he got a good example when he lost Wembleton. You know what he said? He was thinking about winning Wimbledon. Wow. Then he lost. He was distracted. He wasn't hitting the shot. He was thinking of the trophy.

Yeah. Amazing. Thank you. Marshall, wow, what value you gave to us today. Absolutely incredible. I got four pages of notes. They're scribbly and they're hard to read, but I'm going to go back and look at them. Thank you so much for everything you've done to positively impact leaders and the world all over. Tell us how we can find more about your books. Obviously, we're going to all follow you on LinkedIn. I want everybody to go to LinkedIn. I can't be a connection because I'm there's only 50,000 you can have. I want everybody to go to LinkedIn,

and I hate the term, but be a follower. And I only have 1.61 million followers, so I need a couple more. So first, I want everybody to go to LinkedIn and be a follower. One, I give everything away, by the way. It's all free. Two, I want everybody to go to marshalgolesmith.a.i.

Marshall Goldsmith, my name with two else, dot AI. And I want you to start asking questions to my AI bot. My A-Bide is amazing. And don't just ask trivial questions. Ask deep questions. I think it would be fascinated. And it speaks 32 languages. Incredible.

See, it's wonderful. I love it. Go to Marshall Goldsmith AI. Or you can also go to Marshall Goldsmith.com. I give everything away. I have the world's best secret for protecting my intellectual property. Do you know what it is? No one can steal it.

No one can steal it. It's impossible to steal my intellectual property. No matter how hard you're trying, you can't steal it. Why? I give it away. Incredible. Thank you, Marshall. What final advice or thoughts do you have as we wrap up today?

Okay, breathe, I'll tell you, the final case study. Imagine you're 95 years old and you're just getting ready to die. Here comes your last breath. Right before you take it. that breath, you're giving a beautiful gift. The ability to go back in time and talk to the person who's listening to me right now. Helps this person be a better professional, have a better life. What advice would that old person facing death have for the you that's listening to me right now? For you? Whatever you're thinking now, do that. That's the only performance of

praise list going to matter. Nothing else matter. If that old person says you did the right thing you did, the old person says you made a mistake you did. Friends of mine interviewed old people, three major themes. Number one, be happy now. Great Western disease, I'll be happy when. No, you won't be happy now.

Two, people, do order to help people. The main reason to help people. There's nothing to do with money or status or getting ahead. The main reason to help people is that old person will be proud of you because you did. And then finally, if you have a dream, go for it. You don't go for it when you're 30. You may not win you're 80.

Just do it. And bad that you may not win, at least you try. And finally, thank you for inviting me. Congratulations on your new book. I love what you're doing. And I'm very proud to be a supporter of yours. Thank you, Marshall. Thank you so much.

Have an amazing day. And thanks so much for bringing us so much wisdom and thoughts today and ideas. So what an honor to talk to you today. And thanks everyone for listening to the high performance. Mindset Podcast. Way to go for finishing another episode of the high performance mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else?

If you want more, remember to subscribe. And you can head over to Dr. Sindra for show notes and enjoy my exclusive community for high performers, where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can add over to Dr. Cyndra. That's d R-C-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. See you next. week.