Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Marshall Goldsmith: Live The Earned Life | E171

Episode Date: May 23, 2022

Are you a goal-oriented overachiever? Do you believe that once you accomplish X, Y, and Z goals you will be happy? Or perhaps you feel like you’re drowning in regret for opportunities you’ve missed. Today’s guest, leading executive coach, and best-selling author, Marshall Goldsmith reminds us about the importance of living in the present. In this episode, Marshall joins Hala to discuss his new book, The Earned Life: Loose Regret, Choose Fulfillment.  Topics Include:  - Marshall’s childhood and early years  - Hitchhiking and why Buddhism is Marshall’s life philosophy  - Marshall’s interpretation of Buddhism - How Buddhism philosophies play into Marshall’s favorite sayings  - How he uses his Buddhist philosophies in coaching  - His book, The Earned Life: Loose Regret, Choose Fulfillment - The marshmallow research and the benefit and drawback of delayed gratification  - Coaching moment and the power of “I am” - Impermanence and the every breath paradigm  - Letting go of past successes - Two exercises to earn your life every day - Definition of an earned life  - Why not worry about the outcome - The parable of the golfer and the beer can  - How regret and fulfillment are opposites  - The three demands when it comes to living an earned life - Demand #1: Live your own life, not someone else’s version of it  - How vicarious living prevents us from living our own life - Demand #2: commit yourself to earn every day, make it a habit  - Demand #3: attach your earning moments to something greater than mere personal ambition - What is the agency of no choice and why is their freedom in limiting choices - Marshall’s actionable advice  - Marshall’s secret to profiting in life   - And other topics…  Dr. Marshall Goldsmith is recognized as the leading expert on leadership and coaching for behavioral change. He has been named one of the Top Ten Business Thinkers in the World and the top-rated executive coach at the Thinkers50 ceremony in London since 2011.  Marshall is the author of several Wall Street Journal and New York Times #1 bestsellers including Triggers and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, which is also the winner of the Harold Longman Award as Best Business Book of the Year. His newest book, The Earned Life: Lose Regret, Choose Fulfillment was released in May 2022.  Sponsored By: Jordan Harbinger - Check out jordanharbinger.com/start for some episode recommendations Credit Karma Personal Loans - Go to creditkarma.com/loanoffers to find the loan for you Shopify - Go to shopify.com/profiting, for a FREE fourteen-day trial and get full access to Shopify’s entire suite of features Thrive Market - Go to thrivemarket.com/yap to get 40% off your first order and a FREE gift worth over $50! Resources Mentioned: The Earned Life by Marshall Goldsmith: https://marshallgoldsmith.com/book-page-the-earned-life/  YAP Episode #42: Become a Better Leader with Dr. Marshall Goldsmith https://youngandprofiting.com/42-become-a-better-leader-with-dr-marshall-goldsmith/  “The Better Boss” Marshall’s New Yorker Profile: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/04/22/the-better-boss  Marshall’s Email: [e-mail] Marshall’s Website: https://marshallgoldsmith.com/ Marshall’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marshallgoldsmith/ Marshall’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coachgoldsmith/ Marshall’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/coachgoldsmith Marshall’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Marshall.Goldsmith.Library Marshall’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtvlM6xRUC_ErV_q1FgUgiA Connect with Young and Profiting: YAP’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/youngandprofiting/     Hala’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/     Hala’s Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/yapwithhala/     Hala’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/yapwithhala  Clubhouse: https://www.clubhouse.com/@halataha   Website: https://www.youngandprofiting.com/  Text Hala: https://youngandprofiting.co/TextHala or text “YAP” to 28046 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode of YAP is sponsored in part by Shopify. Shopify simplifies selling online and in-person so you can focus on successfully growing your business. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash profiting. This episode is brought to you by RedboxRx. Get extension like lashes without the work with RedboxRx. They'll help provide a prescription for Bometaprost, a medically proven eyelash serum with the same FDA-approved active ingredient as Lateez.

You could see longer, thicker, darker eyelashes in just 8 weeks, and at Redbox RX, it's only $11.40 a week. You won't find a cheaper price online. Take a free assessment today and use the code Spotify for 10% off at redboxRx.com. You're listening to YAP, Young and Profiting Podcast, a place where you can listen, learn, and profit. Welcome to the show. I'm your host, Halla Taha, and on Young and Profiting Podcast,

we investigate a new topic each week and interview some of the brightest minds in the world. My goal is to turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your everyday life, no matter your age, profession or industry. There's no fluff on this podcast, and that's on purpose. I'm here to uncover value from my guests by doing the proper research and asking the right questions. If you're new to the show, we've chatted with the likes of XFBI agents, real estate moguls,

self-made billionaires, CEOs, and bestselling authors. Our subject matter ranges from enhancing productivity, had to gain influence, the art of entrepreneurship, and more. If you're smart and like to continually improve yourself, hit the subscribe button, because you'll love it here at Young and Profiting Podcast. Yeah, fam, do you want my digits? All you got to do is text YAPT28046 to join our awesome text community powered by slick text.

If you have a question for me about social media or podcasting or if you have a question for one of our guests, all you gotta do is join the community and you can text me anytime. I check my text messages every single night. Just text YAPYAPE to 28046 or find the link in the show notes. This week on YAP, we're chatting with world-renowned business coach, Dr. Marshall Goldsmith. Marshall has over four decades of experience

and is the number one leadership coach and highest paid executive coach in the world. He's the author of The New York Times and Wall Street Journal number one bestselling books, triggers, and what got you here won't get you there. Marshall's newest book, The Earned Life, Lose Regret, Choose fulfillment, was just released this month. Now if you're're a regular yap listener, you probably know who Marshall is. He joined us back on episode number 42, and we've replayed that episode a bunch of times because it was just that good.

In this episode, we discussed Marshall's key to living what he calls the earned life, where your achievements are based on a higher aspiration. You're unbound by regret, and you've detached yourself from the isolated achievements of careerism. We'll learn about the every breath paradigm. We'll discover why regret and fulfillment are polar opposites.

And lastly, we'll get into Marshall's actionable advice on how to let go of the past and truly live in the present. If you're an overachiever like many of our young and profiting listeners are, who over values accomplishment, or if you find yourself troubled by regret and you're seeking a higher purpose, I think you've come to the right place. Now here's my episode with the living legend himself, Dr. Marshall Goldsmith. Welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast, Marshall. Hello, so happy to be here. Yes, I'm super excited for you joining us today. You've been recognized as one of the top 10

business thinkers in the world, and you are the number one executive coach in the world, and the number one leadership thinker in the world. And on top of all that, you've penned the super famous leadership books, what got you here won't get you there, as well as triggers. And this is actually the second time you've been on my show. You first joined us back in October 2019

for episode number 42. In that episode, we talked about the habits that hold people back from the top, how to change bad behavior, as well as the power of using your magic moves. So everybody loved that episode so much for anyone tuning in right now. If those topics resonated with you,

be sure to go back and check out my first conversation with Marshall, that was episode number 42. And so, Marshall, this time around, you're coming back and we are much closer friends. My team at Yapp Media is running your social media and we're also gearing up for the launch of your podcast. So, see for happy to have you here, Marshall. Oh, you guys do a wonderful job

and I am happy to be here. Yeah, it's been a pleasure working with you because I personally see that you truly practice what you preach and everything that you do. Last time, like I said, we focused on leadership more generally and today I want to focus on the concept of the earned life and get a deeper understanding of how Buddhism plays into your leadership approach. But before we get into your newest book, let's rewind to your early childhood. You were born in Valley Station, Kentucky.

You grew up in a low income and low educated area, and your mom was actually a huge influence on your educational upbringing. Can you tell us about your early years, Marshall? Well, again, brought up in Valley Station. We had an outhouse the first four years I was in school, so I wasn't brought up in Yuppie Land. And my mother went to college two years, which is very unusual for her neighborhood, and was a first grade school teacher, but then got married and my father had this idiot idea

of women shouldn't work. So we got to be poor, but the good news is all of my mother's first grade school teacher energy was devoted to one student. That would be me. I knew how to add subtract, multiply, and divide before I went to school. So I go to the first grade and the teacher goes, one plus one is two, I go, yeah.

I look around, no one knows it but me. So I told my mother, I must be the smartest person that ever lived. That's so funny. And I know that another pivotal point in your life was when you went hitchhiking, I think you were about 19 years old or in your early 20s. You spent three months on the road and there you found Buddhism. Tell us about that and why you chose Buddhism as your philosophy of life.

Well, that was 1969, lovingly referred to as the summer of love. I did spend three entire months living on the road. I told my parents I was going to college for the weekend and was gone three months. And it was just an amazing experience and those era of that time. And I learned a lot about life because when you travel, you have time to reflect. And I didn't, I'd wake up, I wouldn't know where I was.

Your life is really random. You don't know who's gonna pick you up. I mean, I could write a whole book about my adventures as a hitchhiker. And so, yeah, I had all kinds of wonderful adventures, but I think it gave me a good appreciation of life. And Buddhism also in terms of the impermanence of life, how everything gets constantly changing.

And one funny story about that, I was just doing a program, all in two or three weeks ago. And a woman in the class was from Rifle, Colorado. So I said, I've been to Rifle Colorado before. I spent the night there. She said, where'd you stay? I said, the laundry mat. She thought I was getting. I described the laundry mat. She said, oh my god, he did stay in the laundry mat. I spent the night there. And then a couple of nice people brought me a sandwich too. They were so nice. But I was, they can't stay in

the laundry mat of rifle Colorado. That's so funny. And I guess I'm just curious of how Buddhism is something that you discovered on that trip or how did you first get inspired to learn more about it? I like to read. So I read a book called Sidharth that which got me started thinking about Buddhism. Now there are many schools of Buddhism. So I'm a philosophical, not a religious Buddhist. So let me just share my school. It's just a short version of it. And by the way, Buddhists only do what I teach if it works for you.

So there's so many different schools of Buddhism that are almost the opposite of each other. It doesn't mean they're wrong. They just have different interpretations. My interpretation is pretty simple. Buddha was brought up very rich. His father was a king. And he was protected from life and he was able to sneak out of his little bubble three times. So the first time you already learn, people get old.

Second time you learn, you get sick, the third time you learn, you die. He said, old sick and die, that's not so good. And he really believed this, I'll be happy after I get more things not going to work. So then he went out in the woods, starved himself and he tried to really find peace by having less. You already found out, I didn't then he went out in the woods, starved himself, and he tried to really find peace by having less. You know, he found out I didn't work either. And in one night, he finally realized something. I can never be happy with more. I can never be happy with less. There's only one thing I can never find peace with what I have. There's

only one place I can never find peace here. There's only one time I can never find peace. Now, be happy now. So my school of Buddhism, what is Nirvana? Nirvana is talking to some old bald guy, you know, podcast. This is it. This is heaven, this is hell, here we are. That's so interesting. I can't wait to kind of dig deeper

on some of those philosophies with you in a bit. But before we do that, as I've been getting to know you better, I always notice that you say a lot of the same sayings over and over. You sign off all your emails and even your text messages to me with life is good, right? And doing some more digging, I found that you have two other favorite sayings. Be happy and let it go. So what are these sayings? Life is good. Be happy now and let it go mean to you. And how does Buddhism philosophies underlie all these sayings? happy now and let it go mean to you. And how does Buddhism philosophies underlie all these things? Well, to me, their great Western disease

is I'll be happy when. When I get the money status B&W, the condominium, I will be happy when. One of the most powerful parts of the book, as I talk about the fallacy of confusing achievement and happiness, achievement and wellbeing, achievement and peace. Everyone I work with is a ridiculously high achiever, ridiculously high achiever.

And one of the guys in my group was Safi Bakal. And Safi said, you know, I've learned something. He's a scientist. Now, Safi has a PhD from physics, in physics from Stanford. He's worth tens of millions of dollars. He started companies. He wrote a book called Loon Chas. He's consulted the president.

You know, blah, blah, blah. Sophie said, I finally realized something. I used to think that happiness was dependent upon achievement. And he said, no, happiness and achievement are independent variables. You can achieve all kinds of stuff and be happy. You can achieve nothing and be happy. You can achieve all kinds of stuff and be miserable. And you can achieve nothing and be miserable.

He said, happiness and achievement are independent variables. Well, the great Western disease is, I'll be happy when you might have seen the great art form of the West before. I don't know if you've seen it. It sounds like this. There's a person, person sad, boom, they spend money, they buy a product and they become happy. This is called a commercial. So I don't want you to ever see one of those, but we are bombarded with this message thousands of times over and over. And the message is happiness is out there somewhere else. Well, you know, be happy now. That's now.

Life is good. It's be grateful for everything you have. And you know, let it go. It's quick carrying around all that garbage that we all tend to carry around. You know, learn to forgive yourself, forgive other people, and let go of the past and be willing to start over. And how do you use those sort of alofts to be, is life is good, be happy now, let it go, in your coaching with your coaching clients. Well, actually, my coaching has changed in a way.

The last time you interviewed me, my whole focus was helping successful leaders achieve positive long-term change in their behavior. I still do that and help people become more effective leaders. Only now I also try to help them have better lives. Why? Have the people like coach or billionaires? I mean, when I'm coach, there's worth $4 billion. Is what am I supposed to do?

Gage up to $4.1 billion? Well, it doesn't matter anyway. Most of the people like coach have achieved so much. They don't need me to help them achieve more And one of the things I help them do is make peace with life be happy and just try to have a good life And so I've kind of changed I didn't used to do that But now I do because a lot of people like coach or family people they're running family businesses They've got a lot of money. They've got a lot of status and success

So I say look I'm going to make you successful. You're already ridiculously successful. I'm not going to make you rich. You're already ridiculously rich. I just want you to have a little better life. I love that. So speaking of a better life, you wrote this new book called The Earned Life, LuzerGret, Chewce Filmment.

It comes out May 3rd. We're going to stick all the links in the show notes so everybody can go find it after they're done with this interview And you've written and edited over 30 books and you wrote this book during COVID and based on my research I know that you believe that any good book solves a universal challenge So I'd love to understand what inspired you to put out one more book and what universal challenge are you trying to solve with the earned life? Well, this one is basically choosing fulfillment and losing regret with the earned life. Well, this one is basically choosing fulfillment and losing regret. That's the challenge I'm thinking about. And this is a much more, it's a bunch more book about life than just changing leadership behavior. Yeah. And I personally loved this book. I read like a book a week, Marshall,

and I was just like, there's so much meat and potatoes in this book. A lot, some books are very fluffy. Yours was not. This was really meaningful and had a lot of unique insight that I haven't heard before. So I highly recommend everybody go check out the Aaron Life. I loved it. But you wrote it during COVID, right? And I'm wondering, like, did something trigger you personally to write this book?

Yes, during COVID, a lot of this book is what I learned during COVID. Now, during COVID, I had no idea what the world would end up being like. And my friend Mark Thompson and I, we spent, oh, I think four, five hundred hours every weekend, we spent six hours with these phenomenally successful people. And every weekend, they would talk about their lives. What went well, what could have done better, their challenges. I mean, week after week, hour after hour, we did this. And you know, I learned so much about life. And I can

mention the names of the people. They're incredible. People, Paul Gisalle, the famous basketball star was in our group. And you know, Curtis Martin, the NFL Hall of Fame. And then we had a teleling Broadway star. And we had, had a Olympic committee, had a Rockefeller Foundation, President of the World Bank, you know, on and on, just a phenomenal, very diverse group of people from all around the world. We have people from India, from Indonesia, from Paris, all different places. And they all talked about their lives and they just loved it. And, you know, why? Well, one, there's no saying it's lonely

at the top, used to be lonely at the top. It is lonely, or at the top today. It's lonely at the top. It used to be lonely at the top. It is lonely or at the top today. It's lonely. They have no one to talk to. They're sort, you know about social media. They can get killed in an instant in social media. They have to be very careful. And they just like the idea of they're accountable talking about their lives. Yet nobody's being judged.

Nobody's putting you down. Nobody's evaluating you. One person said, you know, it's nice one hour a week. I just get that like a human. This is basically what I learned from all of that. 99% of humans, you know what they're trying to be? They're trying to be them. They're trying to be like those people I was with. I mean, these people, if you look at their bios, they look like gods, but you know what you learn? They got kids with drug problems, parents with Alzheimer's,

they get sick, they're just humans like her, by else. Hey, young and profitors. As you guys know, we've got some amazing sponsors of the show. And if you guys want to get all the deals of the month directly to your phone, just text deals, D-E-A-L-S, to 28046 and we'll text you all the deals directly to your phone. Young and profitors, do you have a brilliant business idea to 2846 and will text you all the deals directly to your phone. Young and profitors, do you have a brilliant business idea

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The second is you're achieving something meaningful and the third is your day-to-day actions. When the actions are aligned with those things, that's how you define the earned life. And it's interesting because most humans in the history of the world were lost in the action phase. They just show up, they go from day to day, they're not bad people, but they just do whatever's in front of them and they kind of just live. Some people are really lost in aspiration,

higher purpose, they don't achieve much, but they kind of live in their heads. The people that I work with pretty much, if they're not careful, are lost in achievement. They achieve so much that they're almost achievement junkies. And sometimes if we're not careful, we get so lost in achievement, we forget to ask the question, why am I working 90 hours a week? Or number two, we forget to enjoy the process of life itself, the day-to-day actions of life.

So with these people really getting them to focus on, don't become an achievable hallic. Oh, and the other thing I think is very important in this is never make your identity or your values a human being based on achievement or the results of achievement. For two reasons. One, you don't control the results. The results are impacted by many things you don't control. And number two, even if you achieve the results, how long does that bring any kind of peace or happiness?

Yeah. A week, not much. Then you have what you have to do. More, more, more. One of my favorite parts of the book is the story about the marshmallow research. I love that story. So in the marshmallow research, you take this kids

and you give them a marshmallow. So say the kid, well, kid, if you eat the marshmallow, you get one. If you wait, oh, two. Then the kid that waits, he eats two. Now, allegedly, they have this research to show the kid that eats one marshmallow. It becomes a drug addict.

The ones that eat two go to Harvard and get PhDs or something. It seems a little overblown. But the point of the research is very clear. Delayed gratification is good. Delayed gratification, almost every self-help book. Delayed gratification is good. Here's how you can work out more. Here's how you can go in a better diet. Delayed gratification is good.

Here's the problem with the research. They didn't take the kid that ate two marshmallows and said, you know, kid, wait a bit, three. Oh, don't eat those, wait a little bit more. Four, five, 10, a thousand, where do you end up? An old man sitting in a room waiting to die, surrounded with uneaten marshmallows. It's so true. Sometimes you have to eat the marshmallows.

I feel like this is why the book resonated with me so much because I feel like I'm like one of those overachievers who can't stop achieving. And it's sometimes it's okay to slow down and think about like what is my ultimate goal here and just be happy with what you have, right? And not always be thinking about what's next, what's next. Okay, breathing, you're ready for some free coaching for you.

It's a coaching moment. Are you ready? Yes. Raise your right hand. Okay. I used to be one of those compulsive overachievers. I used to be one of those compulsive overachievers. I do not have an incurable genetic defect. I do not have an incurable genetic defect.

I can change if I want to. I can change if I want to. Now see what you've said before. You said, I want to. I can change if I want to. Now see what you've said before you said, I am this. As long as you say I am, guess what? Your program and yourself, that's where you're going to be. Nothing wrong with that if you don't want to change. If you don't want to change, don't talk that way. Here's the problem.

If you say I am anything, then you try to do something else. Even if you succeed, you'll feel like a phony Why if this is me and I'm doing this This must not be me and the real me is a compulsive overtriever Anything other than that is not the real me that would be a phony so be careful Don't program yourself if you want to change that's really good advice Let's talk about regret in the book. You say that regret is a feeling that you wouldn't wish on any human being. Why do you believe that regret is one of the most empty and desolate feelings that a human can have?

Well, the point about regret is going back to letting go. It can be something we carry around for years or even decades. And a big part of the book is just learning to let go of that. And one thing I love is the idea of every time I take a breath, it's a new me. New me, new me, new me, everything that was done before is done by an infinite set of people. Those names, those people call the previous means. And learning to say, they did what they did. And learning to forgive the previous versions of you for being humans. And then the future versions of you, well, they're going to be who they are.

So a couple of exercises. I love what is writing a letter to the past versions of yourself, just thanking them for thanking him or her for something good they did. And as write a letter to the future version or self saying, here's the investment I'm making in you and who's what I expect back. So the concept is a really useful concept. You don't think of yourself breathe. Think of all those previous versions of you. They worked hard. They gave the youth that's talking to me a lot of stuff. Nice people. Did they make some mistakes? How are those previous years? A few mistakes. Let it go. Let it go. If any group of women did that many nice things, what should you say to those nice women? Thank you. Yeah. Just say thank you. Yeah. Forgive yourself. Yeah. I think I'd like to really dig deep on this because I think this is really, really important what you're saying. So Buddha once said, with every

breath is a new me. And he meant that literally, and a core pillar of Buddhism is something called impermanence. And that's the notion that the emotions, thoughts, and material possessions we hold do not last. They're fleeting, right? So can you help us understand the concept of impermanence and this every breath paradigm? I really want you to go deep on this Marshall.

Well, this is very hard for Western people to understand because it's so different. The Western paradox is I will get there and it's going to be okay. That there is this place I'm going to go. And therefore, everything is going to be different after I do X. And that will be permanent. Now, there's a book that exemplifies this. You've probably read several of these.

They have the same ending. It's called, and they lived happily ever after. Now, that type of book is a fairy tale. It's not life. Life is not a place you get to and then stop. Life is a place that keeps changing all the time. The you I'm talking to now is not going to be the you that was there before we started talking.

We're always changing. And we're all impermanent. Life itself doesn't last. So as you go through life, looking at it as a series of infinite change and always starting over, every time I take a breath, it's a new me. Well, what that means is let's take a concept like happiness. That doesn't come from the past or the future. It comes from now taking a breath and saying, it's I'm a new me and really looking at our life and creating meaning, creating happiness and always starting over. Bob Dylan had a good quote,

he who is not busy being born as busy dying. Well, it's kind of the essence of the book is we're constantly being reborn. We're constantly being reborn. We're different people. And the idea is looking at that as an opportunity to start over, we get lots of restarts here. Restart, restart. We get a lot of chances to start over. And it's to me a very healthy way to look at life.

Yeah, it's a very unique approach of looking at life because oftentimes even when it comes to our relationships or our own self development, we think like, oh, my significant other did this. And so I'm going to hold this resentment against them for a long time when in reality, what your significant other did 10 years ago has nothing to do with who they are today. And same thing with yourself, if you bomb to test 10 years ago, doesn't mean that you're going to do it again. And so you get to start over with other people same thing with yourself. If you bomb the test 10 years ago, it doesn't mean that you're gonna do it again. And so you get to start over with other people and even with yourself.

I love it. There's a story in the book about that, which I love and it's a story of a friend of mine. And basically, his wife starts in on it. They had a really great weekend. Then his wife starts in on, well, you could have been a better father. And the guy said, basically, you're right.

That was 10 years ago. And you're right. I did a lot wrong 10 years ago. I'm not the same person. I was 10 years ago. And you're criticizing a 10 year ago person. He's not here right now. It was very good because she instantly said, you're right.

You're not the same person. I said, what am I gaining by bashing somebody who's not here? Yeah, I feel like it's a super mature way to think of things when it comes to your relationships and when it comes to yourself. I think this is one of the most important and kind of impactful things that I read in your book was this concept of the every breath paradigm. A lot of us can't seem to let go of past rejections, past failures, but then some people also have the problem of not being able to let go of their past successes.

And they obsess over that. Can you talk to us about that? Oh, I certainly can. I've done nine programs at my house with retiring CEOs. This is a huge issue. It is so hard to let go of their past success and realize that's no longer you.

One of my good coaching clients was Mike Duke. Mike was the CEO of Walmart. coaching clients was Mike Duke. Mike was the seal Walmart. He had a great story. He said, when I was a seal Walmart, I had told this joke. And obviously Walmart, very sensitive, is a clean joke. It'd not offend anyone. People love the joke. Always laughing. I love my little joke. Then he said, I've retired. And I was in his group of people and I had told the joke. And he said, no one left. Then he said, well, I thought they must be grumpy. Another group tells the joke. No one left. He said finally my wife came to me and said Mike you idiot. You actually thought that joke was funny? Oh gosh.

When he was a CEO Walmart that joke was real funny. Ho ho ho. How about when he's not the CEO? Not funny anymore. It is hard to let go. One of the people that endorsed my book is Pagasol. Pals 41 years old and he's just retiring as a basketball star. It's hard to let go. One of the people that endorsed my book is Paul Gasol, Pals 41 years old, and he's just retiring as a basketball star. It's hard. The former CEO, it's tough. The Olympic champ Michael Phelps has said story after winning that final medal, thought about killing himself. Why? If your measure of value is I have to achieve more than last year, you're never going to get there and you do get older and you may not do what you did last year. And it's hard. Tell me the Broadway star. He's he's 40 now. He's not going to play Aladdin anymore that rolls over. It's a constant reinvention of life, but not comparing yourself to what you used to be and not living not being the ex-assulate who's

sitting there getting drunk talking about Super Bowl. You know, that was 40 years ago. That's not you. That was some other person did that 40 years ago. You know, move on. Yeah. Live your own life now. By the way, in the book,

we have a great case study Curtis Martin. I don't know if you've met Curtis yet. I love Curtis. Not yet. Curtis, a national football league hall of fame. Just a wonderful person brought up in a terrible environment. So a lot of Fame, just a wonderful person brought up in a terrible environment.

So a lot of murder and death when he was growing up as a kid and so happy. And he's one of these people. He's helping others. He's happy. He's very successful. He's making money. And one of the reasons he didn't get stuck in the past as opposed to a lot of unfortunately NFL stars, bankrupt, divorced, sad.

Why? They're living in that other era. They're living in the past. A lot of them Curtis taught me this. You know, they lose their money. A lot of them, they give it away. They literally give their money away because they're trying to buy love. Doesn't work. There's a good song about that. Money, you got a lot of friends hanging around your door. When it's gone and spending ends, they don't come around no more. Well, you know, that doesn't work. Yeah. So it's very difficult to do this, you know, it's easy to kind of talk of it, talk about it at a high level, but when it comes to putting it into practice, how can we make this more like muscle memory and make this more like in any situation we can just realize, okay, like it's time to be fresh. I'm a new person. I'm not my past. How memory and make this more like, in any situation, we can just realize,

okay, like, it's time to be fresh. I'm a new person. I'm not my past. How can we make this muscle memory? Well, there's two suggestions. I'm going to give you one involving some questions and one involving one question. The first thing I do is called the daily question process. So every day I write down a series of questions that represent what's most important in my

life. And many of them begin with the phrase, did you do your best too? For example, did I do my best to be happy every day? Did I do my best to find meaning every day? Did I do my best to build positive relationships? Did you do your best to every day? And then there's a little scale, you know,

on your yes, no, or a number. And then at the end of the week, you get a little report card. Well, I've been doing this for about 25 years and I have to have someone call me every day for almost 25 years, almost every day. Someone calls me on the phone to make sure I do this. Why? My name is Marshall Gospeth. I got ranked number one leadership thinker and coach in a whole world.

Have someone call me on the phone every day to make sure I do this stuff. Why? I'm too cowardly to do this stuff by myself. I'm too indiscipline to do this stuff by myself. I'm too indisciplined to do this stuff by myself. I need help. It's okay. And one thing I'm proud of in this book, I mean, you saw the people endorse the book, just amazing people.

And for the people endorse the book, we'll rank the best leader in America for at least one year. I said, it's a pretty impressive group. And one thing I'm so proud of is they'll stand up and admit they need help. Yeah. 30 years ago, none of these people would have said they had a coach. None of them would have said they needed help. They would have been ashamed to have had a coach.

They would have been ashamed to need help. One thing I'm very proud of is, hey, these are big people. Let's see, President of the World Bank, CEO of the United States, CEO of Pfizer, winner of the presidential medal of freedom, Harvard Business Review, Best CEO in the world, head of St. Jude's Children's High on and on and on. These are big people, wonderful people. I'm so proud that they have the courage to stand up and say,

look, hey, I might be a big deal. Guess what? I'm a human. Yeah. I need help. I'm not above everything. I need help. We all do. Yeah. And you mentioned there was a second exercise. Yeah. The second exercise is that when you write that letter to the future, and an interesting thing about that exercise is, and I'm going to give you a not so happy story,

one of the guys that my group said retiring to CEO and he said, I worked 80 hours a week for the last 40 years with one goal, so my children would never have to do this. Then he said, that's the worst thing I could have ever done for myself, for my wife or for my children. His kids are trust fund babies, spoiled, ungrateful, doesn't have a close relationship with them.

What he did is he gave his children a gift. When you give somebody a gift, there's no strings attached. Guess what? They do what they want. Well, basically they're bumps. They're rich bumps. They're just trust fund bumps. What he should have made as an investment. What he should have said is, look, I'm willing to work very hard to help you. Here's what I expect back. I expect you to try to have a meaningful life. I expect to use this as an opportunity to do something special. I expect you to learn. I expect you to be grateful, not expect you to be a bum who just sits there and smokes pot and watches TV all day. Yeah. Let's talk about that a little bit more. Why is it so much more powerful to earn something rather than be handed it? Well, when we earn something, we feel a sense of worthwhile.

I got this because I did something and I feel I deserve it. When somebody's giving us something, what does that mean? About you, nothing. It means someone else earns something. It doesn't mean you earned anything. You just stood there and your hand happened to be out and you got a break. Someone else did something of value that was given to you.

As opposed to you did something of value that was given to yourself. And again, the reality is it's pretty hard to be proud of the fact that someone gave you a handout. We'll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors. Hear that sound, young and profitors. You should know that sound by now, but in case you don't, that's the sound of another sale on Shopify.

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Hey, yaap fam! As you may know, I've been a full-time entrepreneur for three years now. Yet media blew up so fast, it was really hard to keep everything under control, but things have settled a bit, and I'm really focused on revamping and improving our company culture. I have 16 employees, so it's a lot of people to try to rally and motivate. I recently had best selling author Kim Scott on the show. After previewing her content in our conversation, I just knew I had to take her class on masterclass, tackle the hard conversations with Radical Cander to really absorb all she has to offer.

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you can get 15% off when you go to masterclass.com slash profiting. That's masterclass.com slash profiting for 15% off an annual membership. Masterclass.com slash profiting. So this reminds me of something that you said in your book was actually the definition of an earned life. You said, we are living an earned life when the choices, risks, and effort that we make in each moment align with an overarching purpose in our lives, regardless of the eventual outcome. And this really stuck out to me because like we were saying before, I'm a goal-oriented person. And so for me, that seems counterintuitive that you don't need to worry about the outcome and you need to let go of the outcome or the earned rewards so i'm just curious in your opinion why is it that we don't need to worry about the outcome with all of this.

Let me give you an example the parable of the golfer and the beer can. Okay, the golf for in the beer can there is a golfer and is a chance to win the club championship is a big a big chance and he never had a chance before last hole and he's getting there to him. And people in front of him are forced to drink beer, noisy, very distracting, but he think he's hurting. Pfft! Hits the shot. Pfft! Looks perfect.

All of a sudden something happens that bounces into a terrible position. He's walking towards the ball. What happens? He sees a beer can. The idiots in front of him have left a beer can on the fairway. Now his ball is in a bad straits. He's angry. Oh, those idiots. What does this call from need to do? Stop. Breathe. Forget about the drive. Forget about the people. Forget about the beer can. Forget about winning the championship. You come up with a strategy You walk to that ball and you hit the shot in front of you. See in life all you can ever do is hit the shot in front of you You hit the shot in front of you and when you're thinking about the results you're living in the past

You're dreaming of the future. You're not focusing on hitting the shot Well, the key is hit the shot. And the thing about achievement is the greatest college basketball coach in history is John Wooden. I was at UCLA when he was there and he said, look, do your best. That's it. Be proud. You do your best and lose. Fine. You do your best and win. Fine. It doesn't matter. Yeah. That's all you could do. Harry Kramer's CEO of Backster was an I'm my 100 coach group. And Harry, somebody said, how do you sleep at night? You've had to fire people, lay people off.

You had to do very hard things to people. He said, I only asked two questions. One, did I do what I thought was right? And did I do my best? What the answer is I did what I thought was right. And I did my best. He said, I can sleep. That's all any of us can ever do.

He just do what he's right to do your best and make peace. Well, to me, that's it. You don't get lost in the past, and you don't get lost in the future. And you never place your values of human being based on results. The most famous poem in history is called the Bavagita. And this is the essence of the Bavagita. You have a person with two choices and the poem, the Bavagita. One choice is very bad. The other choice is worse. And he's going on and on about how bad these choices are. And the message is very simple from Krishna. And the message is do what to think is right. Do your best and make peace. And sometimes in life we do have two choices, bad and worse. Okay. I think the one that's the least bad, make the best of it. Yeah, I love that. I think that's super powerful.

So I'd love to talk about regret and fulfillment in terms of the fact that it's a spectrum, right? So I also thought this was pretty enlightening in your book. You know, you say that regret and fulfillment are like opposite sides of the spectrum, polar opposites, right? And everybody kind of slands on one part of the spectrum, no matter how successful

they are. So you could be super successful and still have a lot of regret because you may have focused on your career, not your family or something like that. So I'd love for you to kind of walk us through how regret and fulfillment are total opposites. And maybe some examples of people that you've met where they surprised you in terms of the regret that they felt. Yeah, very surprised because the people I deal with are all on paper amazingly successful. Yet some of them like the one I mentioned, if you look at a CEO, huge company, multi-multi-multi-millionaire, highly educated smart,

well, you'd think, well, fulfillment, the guy's off the charts, not really. Not really. And his own mind, not really too happy with life, and basically said, I blew it. I blew it here. And the problem with that regret and fulfillment thing is other people don't fill out the scorecard you do. And you may fool somebody else, but at the end of the day, you get a little of yourself.

And you've got to look at that and say, well, what do I feel? Am I proud of this? Am I ashamed of this? Don't have regret. Am I sitting there saying, I wish I would have. And we, the book begins with a story of a guy, you know, the interesting story. A guy filled with regret because he wanted to go out with some woman and he basically checking it out. He got afraid and then he's carried it around. This sense of existential regret. If I would have things could have turned out better for me, Maybe, maybe not. He still carried it around.

It's very hard to forgive ourselves and forgive others and just let go and say, all right, that was then. This is now. That was then. This is now. And I mean, I coach people that haven't forgiven mom and dad for being who they were. Yeah. I mean, 30, 40 years are carrying around this anger. And the problem with all that is you're not hurting the other person as much as you're hurting yourself. Yeah. And I feel like the other kind of lesson and all of this and just an insight that I had from your book or what you're trying to solve is there's no one size fits all when it comes

to regret, right? There's small regrets that don't really matter. And then there's these big existential regrets you call them, like not having children or not taking a big job. And this is the purpose of your book is to make sure that you know what you want in life so that you don't make these big regrets that are super hard to let go. Is that right? And it's interesting because we seldom regret the risk we take and fail. We often regret the risk we failed to take.

So it's a question of, I talk about risk and opportunity. When do I take the risk? When do I not take the risk? And I point out examples of when risk taking is very important. And when it's not, and I give some example in my own life of stupid risk, and I was like 27. And we're going out and writing boogie board, I don't know, if not that much of an athlete anyway.

And then I get macho and I start writing a few ways. Well, you can do it. And I go out there like an idiot and try to write a nine foot wave and flip over and break my neck in two places. I'm like, I'm even here. And I talk about that from like this. Is that part of my aspiration life to be a surfer? No. Am I any good at it? No. I'm ever going to achieve anything. No. Why am I doing that? Well,

I got lost in this macho ridiculous show off thing. That's an example. Just not really thinking. On the other hand, when you take a chance on something, maybe you don't succeed, but you tried. Well, then you can look back on life and say, hey, I gave it a shot. I look, my home now is here in Nashville. I mean, you know, God bless the lot of these kids, they're all waiting on tables, but hey, they're giving it a shot. They're going to try to be the music star and reality is most of them aren't. Yeah. Yeah, still, I respect them. They're trying. They're giving it a shot and at the end of the day they'll probably be okay, just do something else.

Yeah, and so true. And I love the connection that you made with taking the appropriate risks and not making mistakes, like taking a big risk on something you don't even really want, right? So I want to close this out with some three demands that you talk about when it comes to living an earned life. I thought this was a great way to kind of just summarize some of the key points in your book. And I'll tee you up for each demand and maybe ask some follow-up questions.

Sure. So the first demand was live your own life, not someone else's version of it. Can you tell us your two cents on that one? Yeah, and I mentioned, I can't make sure his name is my friend Mark Terce, who is a, you know, he's a managing partner of Goldman Sachs. They did the IPO. He makes a ton of money. And he's thinking about being the CEO of the Nature Conservancy, and we're walking around like, I don't know what will they think of me. I'm thinking, what do you care? It's not their life. It's your life. Well, part of this, that first thing is live your own life.

I mean, it's pretty hard to live a fulfilling life if you're not living your own life. And you got to say, what does real life mean to me? Not somebody else. And get over that. I have to impress so and so because so and so doesn't care anyway, really. And just not trying to waste your life on that and being willing to take or not take a risk to live your own life, which sounds pretty simple, but an amazing number of people don't. And they end up dying thinking, you know, I wish I would have. I wish I'd have gone for this, gone for that, gone for something. Well, it's not somebody else's life. This is your life. Yeah, it's a part of it. And it's not as simple as it sounds, because we were so focused on it,

and not in a negative way as human beings. We've been brought, if you have to impress people, you have to gain approval. That's just part of our history. It's hard not to do that all the time. Yeah, I think a lot of people have this problem where they let other things and people stop them from going for their dreams.

And so in your book, you actually list off a couple of reasons why people don't live their own life. Two of them that really stuck out to me was inertia and obligations. Can you tell us your perspective on inertia and obligations? Well, inertia is the greatest predictor of anything we're going to do. The biggest predictor of winning in two five minutes from now is what are you doing now? And so we all tend to be where we've been, go where we've gone. And in my other book I talk about this too, it's hard for successful people to change. Why? Any human or animal will replicate behavior that's followed by positive reinforcement. Now the more successful we become, the more positive reinforcement

we get, and we fall into a trap, I do this, I am successful. Therefore, this makes me successful. I'll just keep doing this over and over and over again. As it comes to saying, maybe I can do something different, or maybe this doesn't always work all the time. So that's kind of a inertia. And then obligation is what we talked about though, the feeling that somehow I'm supposed to do this. And Mark's case, he's a managing partner of Goldman Sachs. It's like, it's not like they're all going to sit there and go through it. Oh, my God. He left us. I'm going to die. No, they'll do fine without. Well, Jim Kim, greatest story. Jim Kim was president of Dartmouth College. And Jim Kim's a great guy. He was a partner in health. Literally saved tens of millions of lives.

He's president of Dartmouth College. He's a great guy. Not necessarily the best job for him. You know, this food in the student cafeteria and raising money all the time. So he gets offered the job as president world bank. Well, I don't know. I've only been at Dartmouth College, two and a half years. Should I take the job? Is it take the job? So then I,

obligation, he ended up taking the job. I called him three months after he had the job. I said, Jim, I'm at Dartmouth College. Guess what? It's still here. And now they're all complaining about the new president. Life goes on. It's so funny.

We all make these decisions as if people care that much about us. And at the end of the day, people only care about themselves, you know, nobody cares. Primarily, right? And I also, if you ask him most of them, and probably say, he's doing it if you feel like. It's so true. Okay. So let's, oh, another one that's really interesting in terms of why we don't live our own life.

Vicarious living, and I think this is super interesting given everybody's addiction to social media. How does vicarious living really prevent us from living our own life? Well, I mean, vicarious living is huge. I don't have to tell you, you know more about this than I do, but the average kid that's flunking out of school is spending I forget 55 hours a week on some sort of media TV movies social media. It's an addiction and we have to be very careful because when

you're living vicariously, you're living through someone. It's not your life. You're not one of the Kardashians. You're not the movie star. That's not you. And you're reading this drama of them. Well, what happens is, vicariously, we start living through them or the football team or whatever. And my son brought up a great example. I use video games as pretending to be in a battle. It's really not. It's a pretence. On my son said, no, no, you missed the point. People spend thousands of hours, millions of hours watching other people play video games. PewDiePie, how many hours, billions of people watching this guy play video games making sarcastic comments. Hour after hour, they're watching this nonsense.

He's some Swedish guy. I'm not blaming him, by the way, he's making millions of dollars. He's doing okay. He's living, not everybody else isn't. He's living his life. But why are you watching this Swedish guy making sarcastic comments playing video games for hours? Well, you're living someone else's life. You're not living your own life. And you can never find happiness

living somebody else's life. The other thing is they don't care about you. Yeah. They don't care about you. They're living their life. And you're never gonna find satisfaction living someone else's life. Yeah. By the way, physiologically,

my friend Martin Lindstrom is studying the brain. When the football player scores a touchdown, the fan experiences almost the same reaction as a football player in the brain. It's like they scored the touchdown. They're jumping up and down. They're screaming. They didn't score the touchdown.

They watched someone else score the touchdown. This is so interesting. I feel like part of the reason why I've been very successful, especially in the last like five years is because I literally don't watch TV. I don't even know how to turn on my TV in my apartment. I don't ever watch, I don't do that. And even on social media, I'm focused on my content and my clients and what, and my friends make fun of me.

They call it holiday TV. They're like, oh, she's on holiday TV again, because all she cares about is her stuff because I'm not worried about what everybody else is doing. Because like you said, I feel like that's wasting your own life when you're trying to live, when you're paying attention to somebody else's life, just live your own life. Yeah, live your own life. Because like you live your own life at least is your life.

Yeah. It's your life. And you know, I had a funny experience with a New Yorker magazine. Many, and this changed my life. Many years ago, the New Yorker magazine, I think it was 2012, worth the story of my life. It's called The Better Boss. Wonderful story, written by a woman named Alarissa McFarquare. And in this story, I'm, she is going to, in New Yorker profiles, a big deal. They spent hours on this thing, right? They spend an average of $60,000 per profile just doing the research. A lot. This is serious thing. She followed

me around for two months. Now half of the New Yorker stories are just rip. I just, you know, rip into people and almost all of them have at least three paragraphs of Andy's a jerk. But I talked to my wife and I thought about it and I thought Peter Drucker taught me who's the customer. I thought, well, first I thought it's the people that send me money. But then I said, no, the customer is by unborn great grandchildren. And this brilliant woman is going to write a story about me. And if I don't act like me, they won't know me.

They're just going to know some fictitious character. They won't know me. So I tell my wife, I'm going to act like me. Now, I said we're probably going to lose about $150,000 or $200,000. So I'm sure I'm going to annoy people, but I'm just going to act like myself. Let's turn to out as the best thing I could have possibly done.

Number one, she's got an IQ of a zillion anyway. She went to Harvard. One of the odds I'm gonna fool her for two months, zero. If I did try to fool her, she'd probably just justifiably crucify me for acting like an ass. So I just, I just be yourself. Well, be yourself. You may lose, but at least it's you that loses.

I love this conversation. Let's move on to demand number two. It's commit yourself to earning every day. I love this conversation. Let's move on to demand number two. It's commit yourself to earning every day, make it a habit. Why do we need to do this? Well, that goes back to also my daily questions. It needs to be something you restart every day, because if we don't, we just get lost. And it is so easy to get lost on little things. One of the guys in our group is Paul Gassal, the basketball star. One of his areas was he group was Paul Gasol, the basketball star. One of his areas was he wanted

to be better at being present around his wife, his, you know, present. Not just sitting there, but actually being in the room in his mind. So he tells the story, he comes home, and he says, you know, I had to do, he's in our little garage, oh, and I'm so good, my wife's very upset with me.

I see, he said, I wasn't really present too much, and he's checked out, he said, but I was tired. I was like, how tired were you? Oh, so tired. I was working out all day, very tired, training for the Olympics. I was like, you know, it's interesting.

I paid a thousand bucks for a seat. My son, Brian paid a thousand bucks and we went to watch you play the Boston Celtics in the world championship bear. And you know, you guys won that game. It's probably the biggest game of your life and you're running up and down the court like a banshee. Now, toad-sare Phil Jackson called time out with two minutes to go. Did

you say, you know, Phil, I'm tired. I'm tired, Phil. And I say, no, I never in my career told a coach I was tired. Never. So I said, you think your wife is impressed? Well, it's often harder at home because when you work your own, very on your professional, you know, when we're not on, and we're not in that professional mode, it's actually easier to lose it and realize, you know, those people at home are important. And every day you need to re-earn Jim Kim, another guy, my friend, the World Bank guy said, every day I re-earned my legacy. That's the way life is. The person that did that stuff yesterday was that person from yesterday. They're not here today.

And the thing we don't think about is the fact that we need to really focus on earning all kinds of happiness, meaning, purpose. And if we don't, inertia kicks in, you watch the game, you go to the TV, you know, like you said, you you're like a zombie and your life's over Yeah, and it's because the things that make us fulfilled like happiness like you were saying those things are fleeting, right? They come and they go super quickly and so to your point we need to learn how to earn them over and over again Because they can be gone just as fast as we get them Which again is the great Western disease. I will be happy when Once this happens everything is gonna be okay. It's all great Western disease. I will be happy when. Once this happens, everything is going to be okay.

It's all going to be okay once I get money status BMW car date something. No, once you get that, it's nice. Yeah. That is the last free love. Totally agree. Okay. So demand number three, attach your earning moments to something greater than mere personal ambition.

Right. And I think that's why you need to answer that question of your attribution in life, your aspiration in life. Why am I doing this? Why? Because the people I know work their butts off. They are all phenomenally hardworking, achievement, or they don't need me to teach them about delayed gratification. They live delayed gratification.

They're highly educated. They're successful. They work their butts off. Well, you've got to have an answer to this question. Why am I doing this? And if there's not some higher purpose as to why, then why are you sitting there killing yourself to achieve all this stuff,

unless there's some higher reason to do it, and it doesn't have to be religious reason, just some reason. There needs to be something. It could be, I want to have great kids that have good lives or I want to, I don't know, I want to help as many people as I can or I want to help the people I'm with have a little better life. It needs to be something though that's not just a goal line because the problem with the finish line is after you cross the finish line, you are finished by definition.

And there's part of the book, it's a good phrase my wife came up with after the victory lap. And what happens, the old people cheering, yay, yay, what happens after the victory lap? If that's it, you're finished. This is super inspirational. So there's one more question I want to ask before we start to really wrap this up. And it's sort of related. We'll figure out how it's related.

And it's the fact that you wear the same outfit all the time. You wear a green polo shirt and khakis. I meet with you once a week. I see you every week. And it's true. You are the same thing every time. No matter if you're on a podcast interview with me to 50,000 people or if it's me, you are the same thing every time, no matter like if you're on a podcast interview with me to 50,000 people or if you know it's me us and four people, you're wearing the same thing.

Talk to us about this freedom in limiting your choices and how that relates to an earn life. Well, there's a chapter in the book called the agency of no choice, which talks about the value of not having to make choices. I'm back to the New Yorker story, ironically, this connects. In the New Yorker story, the woman said, I always wore a green t-shirt and khaki pants. I actually didn't, but she said I did. So after that, people kind of expected it, and I thought, what the heck? This went to my life, you know, I don't have to think anymore.

So literally every day, I wear the same clothes, green t-shirt, khaki pants. It makes life easier. One more decision, enough to make decisions are tiring. And the more we can eliminate decisions, the better. I mean Barack Obama, he basically said he has a gray suit and a blue suit and a white shirt and a blue shirt and his wife picks out the ties and that's it. And you just kind of stumbles around. Why? You just want to think about that? Well, it's nice. I don't have to think about what I wear. And the more we can look at choices that are not that critical to us,

makes our life simpler, makes it easy to pack. And you know, the nice thing is people expect me to wear a green shirt and cake, you pay us. So I can go work in city corp with everybody else has a coat and tie and they're all dressed up. I don't have the work on tie. Why? People don't expect me to.

Yeah, you've just made it iconic. You're just an icon style icon. Awesome. This was such a great conversation. So I always wrap up the interview with two of the same questions to all of my guests, and then we do something fun at the end of the year with them. So the first question is,

what is one actionable thing my young and profitors can do today to become more profiting tomorrow. Well, I'm going to find profiting in a different way. I'm going to find profiting as profiting as achieving a meaningful and successful life for you Which is not necessarily money and that is breath and imagine you're 95 years old and you're skin-ready to die Before you take the last breath you're given a beautiful gift the ability to go back in time and talk to a person who's listening to me now. What advice would that old person facing death have for you that's listening to me right now? Well, whatever that advice is, do that. Oh.

That is the definition of a profitable life. This might tie into the next question, but we'll see. What is your secret to profiting in life? Secret of profiting in life is kind of what we talked about breathe and start over and say profiting in life is not accumulating something. Profiting life is living now. Living now a life that's meaningful for you,

not coasting on what I did last week or what my net worth is. It's living now, making the biggest difference you can make now. And you know, let's finish by, why do I do this? Well, basically, as I've grown older, and some ways my level of aspiration is going down and down and down, my level of impact is going up and up and up. Why? We're worried about what I'm not going to change. What's my goal on this podcast is very, very simple. I hope someone listening has a little better life. If one person listening to his podcast has a little better life, just one.

This is good. I love that. Thank you so much, Marshall. Before we go, where can everybody find the earned life? Well, number one, they gave me a million dollar advance. So it's probably going to be almost everywhere. So it'll be in Barnes and Noble, and it'll be in all kinds of bookstores and Amazon wherever you can find books and it's available in the audio version which I recorded myself. The auto version is available and the Kindle version and they're all and if you're in New York City Fifth Avenue. Fifth Avenue is basically going to be papered with this book.

So you're going to do a year and you know the window the the fifth avenue burns a novel. It's going to be nothing but this book. Oh, amazing. Yeah. So yeah, it's going to be pretty easy to find or send me an email, marshal at marshalbillsbid.com. If you send me an email, I'll make you a deal. I trust everybody. So if you say I pre-order the book, I'm going to order the book. It doesn't matter. You don't have to prove it.

Send me an email. I'm going to send you a copy of the earned life documentary. It's basically a movie about my life, and you get to see my closet and see actually how many green t-shirts are in that closet. I love them. This is awesome. The Earned Life is wherever you guys buy your books,

it's gonna be everywhere. You can find it on Amazon. I'll stick the link in the show notes. Again, thank you so much, Dr. Marshall, for coming on this show. This conversation was amazing. Thank you so much, Dr. Marshall, for coming on this show. This conversation was amazing. Thank you so much, you're wonderful. What an incredible conversation.

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith is one of my favorite people. He's one of my favorite clients. He's such a nice guy, like a genuinely nice guy. What you just heard on the podcast is exactly what he's like in real life and in day to day. And he's just such a great person man. He has the best energy. You can see why CEOs and athletes are attracted to working with him. He's a genius in this space. And I'm so thankful he took the time to talk to us.

As we're wrapping up, there's one topic from this episode that I really want to highlight before we go. And that's especially because most of the people who listen to this podcast are overachievers and I really think you guys need to hear this more than once. And that's the fact that happiness and achievement are two independent variables, meaning you can achieve every single one of your goals. And that doesn't mean you're ever going to be happy. And on the other end, you can have happiness without achieving any of your goals. This is such a key point that we don't talk about enough on this podcast. And like I said, I think a lot of you guys like me are goal-oriented and overachievers.

And that means that we generally think that once we accomplish our goals, we'll finally have everything we want it. And until then, we tend to delay gratification. Now self-discipline is a great trait to have, especially if you're an entrepreneur. And I have to say I do find value in the temporary grind. So for example, for four straight years, I worked a corporate job and I had this podcast as a side hustle and then eventually I launched my business as a side hustle. And for four straight years, I worked really hard and I delayed gratification. I worked every morning, every night, pretty much every single weekend for four years.

And it was tough, you know. I probably shouldn't have done that, but I wouldn't change that looking back. Even after this conversation with Marshall, I think everything he said is a super solid point. But I wouldn't change what I did, because I feel like I literally accelerated my life like 10 years by doing that. And now, I'm an entrepreneur, and I literally do whatever I want.

Like, I work super hard, but I can go get a facial in the middle of the day if I want to, and I can just like relax and take a bath in the middle of the day if I want to, and I do. And it's great. And I love it.

But it's only because I was in that grind mode. And I always knew it was going to be temporary. So that's a key. You just can't do that forever. If you're always waiting for the next year or postponing your vacations until you've achieved X-Go, you're going to be as Marshall puts it in old man in a room with a thousand marshmallows. It's okay to eat one or two marshmallows every once in a while and you've got to appreciate the journey. And like I said, there's value in grinding. There really is. Like we can't deny

that. But you can get burnt out really easily. And if you feel yourself getting burnt out or feeling uninspired or lacking creativity, chances are you need a break. So make sure you take little breaks throughout the day, make sure you go on vacation, make sure you take time to do the things that you love. Life is fleeting and the present is all you truly have. You've got to enjoy the day to day. And to that point, Marshall talks about the every breath paradigm. With each new breath, you become a new you. Now, this is actually something I never heard before before this book. And the earn life is an excellent book. I have to say, what a great book. A lot

of these self-improvement books kind of say the same thing. Now, I don't really bring on guests on, yeah, who say the same thing. But I read a lot of books and they often have the same stuff, just like said in a slightly different way. And Marshall's book was nothing like that. He is a real solid author. This guy has a lot of wisdom to share. And he put it all in this book. And I loved every bit of it. I ate this book up. So I highly recommend you guys go get the earned life and I'm not just saying this because he's my client. I promise it's a really freaking good book. And the every breath paradigm is pretty interesting because basically what it means is that with each new breath you become a new you. You're not who you were 10 years ago and you're not who you were five seconds

ago. So there's no use in dwelling in the past or procrastinating for the future. If you're struggling with past regrets, Marshall's actionable advice is to write yourself a letter where you forgive the previous versions of yourself and you thank them for what they've done to help you get to this point. Then move on and let bygones be bygones. I think this is so powerful.

It's so true. It's like with every breath, you're a new person. And I feel like self-compassion and self-love is so important. And I feel like with this kind of mindset, you're always going to be in a positive mindset because you've forgiven yourself for all your past flaws and failures. And you can just move on knowing that in this moment, you're the best you that you can be. And if you find yourself always waiting for the future, remember the only time your guaranteed

is right now. So take action. Please, for all of you guys who are addicted to social media and TV and movies, please I beg of you, try not to live vicariously through others and don't let obligation or inertia become the driving forces in your life's journey? So please, if you're obsessed with celebrities, take a step back. Celebrities don't move your life forward. Live the life you want and get started today.

Younger profitors as Dr. Marshall Goldsmith says, even in real life, when I'm with him all the time, he always says life is good. Be happy and let it go. Let's take heed to that. And if you have a moment, please drop us a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify Cast Box, or wherever you listen to the show. We actually got like almost a hundred reviews in the last month, which is a lot. It's very difficult to get reviews and reviews, especially especially on Apple podcasts mean a ton to us.

So if you listen all the way to the end of this episode, chances are you love YAP and you want to support YAP in any way that you can. And even if you listen on CastBox, I have over 200,000 subscribers on CastBox, I have 60,000 subscribers on PlayRFM. I've got thousands of subscribers on Overcast and Podcast Republic. And those apps are great. But sponsors look at Apple podcasts and they don't realize that I've got this, you know, really unique following across all these apps. So if you guys love the show and you want to support me, the best way to do it is to subscribe and drop us a review on Apple podcasts. And by the way, be careful because some of you guys are dropping us great reviews and accidentally clicking one star.

Somebody did that recently. I was like, Jesus, that doesn't help. So make sure you're clicking five star and then giving us a review. And let me know your favorite takeaways from this episode. You guys can find me on Twitter or Instagram, a Yapathala or LinkedIn by searching my name. It's Halataha. Thanks so much for listening and thanks to my amazing app team for all their support. This is your host, Halataha, signing off.

Are you looking for ways to be happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative? I'm Gretchen Rubin, the number one best-selling author of the Happiness Project. And every week, we share ideas and practical solutions on the Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast. My co-host and Happiness Guinea Pig is my sister Elizabeth Kraft. That's me, Elizabeth Kraft, a TV writer and producer in Hollywood.

Join us as we explore fresh insights from cutting-edge science, ancient wisdom, pop culture, and our own experiences about cultivating happiness and good habits. Every week we offer a try this at home tip you can use to boost your happiness without spending a lot of time energy or money Suggestions such as follow the one minute rule choose a one word theme for the year or design your summer We also feature segments like know yourself better where we discuss questions like are you an over buyer or an under buyer

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