Challenges of the C-Suite with guru Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, Episode 38

Hello everybody! Guess what? It's CB Bowman Live, but today is Friday, so don't get confused. We are having a special edition with a very special person, so I am so glad you joined us. Hey, I just want to tell you a secret. You know how I always tell you a secret? I bet you don't know that Dr. Marshall Goldsmith is my dad. So I'm gonna let you figure that one out. I am his adopted daughter, and I am so pleased. When he told me that, I was like, yes, yes, all my dreams have come true. So I'm not going to take up any more time. I'm so glad you're joining us. I want to introduce the guru of our time in leadership, management, and in life, Dr. Marshall Goldsmith. Marshall, welcome.

Thank you. Thank you. So happy to be here. Very happy to have you as my honorary daughter. Very, very happy.

Well, thank you. Hey, Marshall, for the 1 or 2 people in the world who don't know who you are, Tell us a little bit about who you were as a young guy, who you are, who you were as a mid-aged guy, and who you are now as a younger guy.

There you go. Well, my name is Marshall. I'm from a small town called Valley Station, Kentucky. I, I just looked up— I was studying education here in Nashville. I just looked up the high school, and the lowest possible ranking is a 1. And so they had 2 different categories. One is the educational achievement test scores, and the other is do you get better or worse. And my high school and elementary school both managed to get 1 and 1. My high school came in next to last in Kentucky in academic achievement. So, you know, I was not brought up in yuppie land. My dad had a little gas station back in Valley Station, Kentucky, And my mom went to college for 2 years, but my dad had some idiot idea that women shouldn't work, right? So guess what? She didn't work. So guess what we got to be?

Poor. Poor.

We were poor. That was smart. Let's just be poor here. Why not? Let's go for that, right? So the first— again, I didn't go to the Harvard prep. The first 4 years in school, do you know what an outhouse is?

Yes.

Yeah, we had an outhouse the first 4 years of school. So I was not brought— I wasn't brought up in yuppie land. No.

Wow.

So yeah, it was pretty primitive. So then after that, I, uh, but my mom, she was a teacher, but she didn't have anyone to teach except me. So I knew how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide before I went to school. So into first grade, the teacher goes, 1 plus 1 is 2. So I'm going, yeah. I look around, no one knows this but me. I went home, you know, I told my mother, I'm the smartest person that ever lived. I'm 6 years old, you know, life is good, man. You can't get success on this planet. You're a loser. I mean, this is easy, man. So anyway, I grew up there in Valley Station. Then I went to a little engineering school, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. I got an MBA at Indiana. Then I got a PhD at UCLA and was a college professor. I met a famous man, Dr. Paul Hersey. And Ken Blanchard and I both worked for Paul Hersey, and we had a little place there. And he was like the highest paid guy in the world in our field. And I followed him around. One day he got double booked. He said, can you do what I do? I said, I don't know. He said, I'll pay $1,000 for a day. Now you gotta realize that was 44 years ago. I was 28 years old. I'm from a small town in Kentucky pumping gas, $1,000 a day. You know what I said? I'm making $15,000 a year at the time as a professor. He's paying me $1,000 for a day. Sign me up, coach. So I go to this program for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. They are totally pissed off when I show up because I'm not him, right? He got ranked first place of all the speakers. So then they're happy. So he calls back and he says, you know, look, they were very upset, but you were first. You want to do this again? So I used a phrase from Kentucky. You know what it was? Does a bear shit in the woods? I'll do this again. Yeah, that's fine. In fact, anytime you want me to do this, you just tell me. I'm, I'm, I'm your man. So that's how I got into this leadership development. And then, you know, I just started working with him and then Eventually we did 360-degree feedback, customized feedback, and then got one CEO I'm talking to. He said, I got this kid working for us, young, smart, dedicated, hardworking, but he's a jerk. I said, it'd be worth a fortune to me if I could turn that kid around. Fortune. I said, I like fortunes. Maybe I can help him. He said, I doubt it. That's when I came up with the idea. I said, I'll work with this kid for a year. If he gets better, pay me. If he don't get better, it's free. You know what he said? Sold. That's how I got into coaching. There was nothing called coaching. Where did this come from? I made it up.

But how did you have the guts to say, because it wasn't your field at the time per se, how did you have the guts to say, if it doesn't work, they don't have to pay me?

You know, CB, you've known me for a while, and I think you will admit I have many problems. How about lack of nerve? Is that one of my problems? No.

No, but there's one or two people in the world that don't know you, so ask the question.

I got a lot of problems, but lack of nerve? I don't think anyone's ever accused me of having that problem. No, I'm always willing to try things.

I love it. I love it. Okay, Anna writes in and she just says— Anna Malikian, who I think you know— she writes in, wonderful to be here. So that's great. Hey, Marshall, you have written— is it 32 or 35 books?

I've written or edited 46 books. 46.

Now you have to update your bio.

46. I've got 6 bestsellers, 3 New York Times bestsellers, 1 big bestseller. But CB, the other 40 were purchased only by my mother, my father, and my agent. I've written a lot of books, but nobody bought most of them. On the other hand, the 6, they sold 3 million copies, so that was good. So I've done a few books that a lot of people bought. Then there are a lot of books that nobody bought. Now, CB, my other books though are very valuable if, if you need to go to sleep at night and you can't go to sleep, they would be perfect.

You know, audience, this is why we love this man. He just, he'll, he'll make fun of himself before we have a chance to. And, and Holly Teska is here. She says, happy to see you, Marshall. And Holly is saying hi to Anna. So we've got a full circle going on here, which is wonderful. Marshall, how do you come up with the ideas for your books?

You know, I did one thing. I just come up with ideas all the time. And the answer is, I don't know. I mean, I took a test on this and I scored very mixed things. Some things I scored very low on. My administrative scores— this woman named— a new member of our group is called Betsy Wills. There's this test, this test about what you're good at.

whatnot.

So I take this test and she said, well, it's not evaluative or judgmental. Lie, lie, lie. Totally evaluative, totally judgmental. So my administrative scores were so bad, you know what the recommendations were? Uh, in this area they said, now if you have a manager, feel free to ask questions. And by the way, when you get instructions, perhaps one at a time would be a very good idea. On the other hand, another one of the tests was called like coming up with ideas. I get the highest score ever on that. So I'm always coming up with ideas. I don't know where they come from.

Well, this is true because those of us that have worked with Marshall know the secret is hold on tight because you're in for a ride. You never know which way he's gonna go, and which— but we do know that whichever way he goes is We're there. We're following because it's going to be fun and it's going to be a great learning experience. Marshall, I have never had so many people write in that they're so happy to be here to listen to you. So you have to say something very profound.

Are you ready?

Yeah.

Very profound.

Yes. You know, you got me at that one. Hey, I want to talk about your book Triggers, because that's one of the 6 bestsellers.

Yeah.

And the other one is What Got You Here Won't Get You There.

Yeah, both of those 2 were on Amazon as 2 of the 100 books ever written in the field.

Wow.

Yeah, those are good.

For those of us— for those people who have not read Triggers, Which, by the way, now I refer to as my escape for describing behavior. Oh, your trigger is working. So what is triggers about?

Well, triggers is really about the environment and how that we oftentimes, without knowing it, our behavior is a function of things around us that we are sometimes aware of and sometimes not even aware of. And that as we journey through life, we need to become aware of why we're doing what we're doing, and then be aware and able to look forward and try to adjust or to avoid things or to plan for things so that we don't be controlled by the outside world. I mean, there's, there's 4 schools of thought on this. One is life is chaos, low internal control, low external control. One is it's like the book The Secret. You know, I control everything, you know, and if I believe it, it will happen, which is nonsense. But, you know, I mean, they studied all these people, right? And they said Jimmy did this. Jimmy was successful. Mary had cancer and she dreamed it would go away and it did. And then blah, blah, blah. Joe wanted to be a movie star. Now he is. And they said, well, they did that and they wished it would happen and it did. Therefore, if you wish it would happen— no. In math, this is called a survivor bias. They didn't interview the dead people. who had the same wish. They didn't interview the 1,000 waitresses in Hollywood who envisioned being movie stars. They didn't envision— they didn't interview all the basketball players that lost. So that whole philosophy is, I am in control. Well, I think it's partly true, but partly not true. You're sort of in control. Then the other variant is the opposite, which you're not in control at all. B.F. Skinner from Harvard, he wrote a book, Beyond Freedom of Dignity. He basically said we're like a stimulus-response machine. We are totally controlled by the environment. In the book Triggers, what I say is we're sort of in control and sort of not in control. And basically we control it and it controls us. And the whole idea of the book is just a little bit more of your life is in your control and a little bit less is controlled by the external world. And, you know, one thing I've learned in life, I'd say even since I wrote that book, that's related to the book, is I was always confused why brilliant people did irrational things.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, I know a lot of brilliant people that do crazy things. And then I finally realized that there's only a small correlation between intelligence and rationality, that many brilliant people do completely wacky things. And most of our decisions are not based on logic. They're just based on emotion. And then we just use logic and rationality to defend them. Our friend at 100 Coaches, Martin Lindstrom, who I love— Martin is the world's expert on branding. And he talks about like commercials, like you watch a Budweiser commercial with the horse, the horse and the dog like each other, little dog and the horse, and they love each other. People go out and they buy beer. Well, they don't think they're buying beer because this dog and horse, but obviously they are. Well, they're not spending hundreds of millions of dollars on this ad for no reason. The ad produces this emotional reaction.

Yeah.

And then that leads to this behavior. And I'm sure they have a justification. Well, I like Budweiser beer. It's really good or good value, whatever. No, they're not buying that. You know why they're buying a beer? Oh, the little horse and the deer, the horse and the dog, and they love each other.

And so— Yes. And the dog teaches the horse how to be strong.

We don't even make the connection. And as we journey through life, we're being totally manipulated by the world around us. And most of the time it's outside of our consciousness.

So, Marcia, what, what about the theory? And I know what you're going to say, so I'm laughing ahead of time. What about the theory that it's your parents' fault?

Oh, yeah. To me, that's very impressive until you're about 15 years old. After that, I mean, what do I tell people? People I coach are almost all about 50. You're 50 years old. Quit blaming mommy and daddy. It's not impressive. You're 50. Come on, get a life.

But so, so you're thinking that your parents, the time that you spent with your parents, are not triggers?

Oh, I didn't say that at all. I, um, my parents— my mother is the only reason I ended up getting out of there, obviously, because she spent so much time training me as a kid. So our parents are very important. The reality is, so Our parents are gone. And, you know, blaming them for your problems is totally useless. I don't do anything related to therapy. I don't get paid if my clients don't get better. There's no proof that going through some therapy for 5 years is going to change anything, right? So I don't get paid. I get paid if I get results in a year. I've got to do something a little bit speedier than that. So I spend zero time talking about the past, zero time talking about therapy. Not that it's not important. I just don't do it.

So, Marcia, in terms of raising kids, you have, I know of, 2 extraordinary, extraordinary outcomes with your children, your daughter and your son. Can you attribute that to anything that you learned and that you're sharing?

Minimal, minimal. I'd say, you know, I have 2 kids that are totally the opposite. I never judge parents, number one. I never judge parents by their kids. My wife's a psychologist. She's counseled kids who completely screwed up and useless and had wonderful parents. She's counseled kids that had disaster parents who were abusive and they ended up somehow with great kids. I never judge a parent based on the kids. The kids are subject to so many variables out there that are beyond our control. So number one, I make no judgments, take no credits. I think, you know, as a parent, you just show up and you do your best. But I certainly don't judge people. And by the way, I've got two kids. They're both fine now. I mean, my son didn't do anything until he's 28.

And what did you do about it?

Nothing. He decided to grow up. Now he's a very successful business guy. Who would have guessed, right?

Wow.

And the only problem I have with my kids is my daughter. Now, my daughter, you, you know, my daughter's very Very impressive. My daughter, she graduated from Duke. She was on Survivor. Then she went back to Yale. She got 2 master's degrees, a PhD from Yale. She was at Northwestern. Now she's already a full professor at Vanderbilt, where she was in the business school Teacher of the Year and Researcher of the Year both. And she's already a full professor at 42. Very impressive. My son does nothing until he's 28 at all. But he did go to not a great school, but he did flunk out after 8 years. But then after that, he goes to Austin, comes up with some great ideas, becomes a businessman. The only— he's doing great. The only problem with the story is my daughter. My daughter's going, wait a minute, I was good, he was bad. I worked hard, he was lazy. Uh, I went to college 8 years and got a degree from Duke, 2 master's degrees, and a PhD from Yale. He flunked out. He lives in the mansion.

I love that story. Go figure, right?

And I didn't become a better parent when he got older. He just grew up.

Wow. Incredible. So I want to talk about— so we're getting in people. I love the books. I was just saying this to my mentee. That's from Dr. Mongezi in South Africa. Uh, Pilar in Spain is saying brilliant. My God, you've got a following for everybody in the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches.

Um, I was just in Spain. I was just in Madrid. Wow.

Well, I just— I was a keynote speaker in Madrid and Spain.

By the way, we've got some— you've got some great honorary brothers from Spain. 3. Uh, Pau Gasol, the basketball player from You know, played for the Lakers. He's from Spain. Antonio Nieto Rodriguez, number one project management guy in the world, is from Spain. And also Juan Martín, who's the CEO of Kindbars, is from Spain. So you've got 3 wonderful honorary brothers from Spain.

Well, this is good to know because of the research I'm doing, right? But we'll talk about that later. Now I want to talk about what got you here won't get you there. Because you have some amazing stories of people who rose to the top and then slid down the ladder because they felt like what they did before should keep them moving at the same level and at minimum, and then move up higher.

Right.

And you wrote this amazing book that said basically, get over yourself.

Right. Right?

Yes.

Yeah, we fall into something called the superstition trap. That's what you're describing. I behave this way, I am successful, therefore I must be successful because I behave this way. Wrong. Everybody behaves the way we behave. I work with very successful people, and they're all successful because they do many things right, and they're all successful in spite of doing some things that are stupid. And I've never met anyone who's so wonderful they had nothing on the in spite of list. We all got stuff on the in spite of list. So we just need to be humble enough to realize that.

How do we get beyond that?

And also the world changes. I mean, the skills that led to you being a success here may or may not translate for tomorrow.

How do we get beyond the in spite of?

Well, what I do is I give people confidential feedback. You know, they find out what everybody thinks of them, and then they have a choice. They look in the mirror and say, okay, is that what you want to see? If it is, don't— no one's hiring me, you're fine. If it isn't, I can help you get better.

Hey, Marshall, you know, one of the things about you is you're a no-bullshit kind of coach. Were you always that way? I mean, did you always just say it like it is?

No, I've had a complete lack of tact for years.

I was being so tactful about that, and you blew it. You just boom. Oh my gosh, you're so funny. But what what people are gonna ask: What gives you the ability to be like you are? And I know it sounds like a stupid question, but. It's not because there are a lot of coaches out there that say that don't speak their true north, which I hate that expression, by the way, because they're afraid of losing business. They're afraid of their reputation. Whereas you have the reputation of, you know, like, if you don't want to deal with it, I'm not your person to talk to.

Yeah. Well, the first thing is I only get paid if they get better. So why would I waste time? I have zero interest. The second thing is you've met Alan Mulally, who's one of your honorary brothers. I mean, he's the greatest leader probably in this generation. I was Alan's coach. He improved more than anyone I've ever coached before. I spent the least amount of time coaching him. I did a study, time spent with Marshall Goldsmith and improvement. There was a negative correlation between spending time with me and getting better. Well, I thought, that's bothersome. So I go talk to my friend Alan. I said, Alan, You're the greatest leader I've ever coached. You were great to start with. You got tons better. And I spent the least amount of time with you. I showed him my chart. I said, Alan, the way this chart looks, had you never met me, you'd really be good. So what should I learn about coaching from you? Well, he taught me 2 lessons that changed my life. He said, your number one job as a coach is called customer selection. You pick the right customer, you win. You pick the wrong customer, you lose. I said, number 2, don't make coaching about yourself and your own ego and how smart you think you are. Make it about them. You work with great people who are dedicated, humble, they're going to get better. You work the wrong people, nobody's going to help them get better. So by the way, why do I always get ranked number 1 coach? Nobody knows if I'm a good coach. Why? I got great clients and they talk about me and they say I'm good. That's it. Look, any idiot could look like a good coach if you had my clients.

Yeah, okay, Marshall, reality check here.

It's all about great clients.

Yeah, okay, all right, Marshall, we're not going to go down that road because then we're going to go down, well, how do you get these great clients, right? And really, I want to focus on talking about your new book. Oh, um, Papa CJ writes in, how do you measure improvement for Oh, very good.

I can explain that. So they all get confidential feedback. They pick important things to improve, typically from 20 people. Then this is called stakeholder-centered coaching. They get feedback before and after from their key stakeholders. When key stakeholders all say they improved, I get paid. They don't, I don't. Very straightforward.

Bob says, this is a funny one. Bob says, Marshall, you're wearing a different color shirt, black.

Compared to your screen, your screen isn't working. I only have green shirts. Please.

Yes, please.

No, I do not have on a black shirt. I have on a green shirt. It only looks black on your screen. It's really green. Take my word for it.

Um, Javita says great conversation. Thanks from— I can't pronounce it— wherever. Thank you.

So that's one of my favorite vacation spots.

Yeah, okay, good.

Wherever. I like that place.

Marshall, I, I have to— these are two— well, one is an inside thing. So Marshall has the MG 100, which is now about 350, right, the last count.

Yeah.

And you have a thing that when we're speaking as disciples bullshit, you go, eh. You're like this, and and you know. So can you explain to the audience what at means and what this?

What happens is, I'm sure you've done this. Have you ever said to me? I'm sure you've said in front of me something said, "Well, you know I'm no good at." And as soon as you say that, what do I do? And what I say is. Do you have an incurable genetic defect that is prohibiting you from doing this? Well, if you don't, then quit saying that. And you say, I have not in the past been good at it, but that doesn't mean you can't get better in the future. So when people stereotype themselves, I always go, just quit doing that because you really, you're inhibiting your own chance to get better. Now, this means this is let it go. And, you know, for example, the probably the most popular quote I ever had on LinkedIn is this: forgive other people for being who they are. Forgive other people for being who they are and forgive yourself for believing they were someone else.

I love it.

Forgive yourself for— and, you know, we go through life, we don't forgive people for being who they are. Then we don't forgive ourselves for misjudging them. You know, forgive them and forgive yourself.

And one of the great things that I learned, and I can't remember if this was a discussion that you had with Alan or not, you interviewed him and you said, what is the greatest— whoever this was, what was the greatest thing you learned? And the response is, and I'm going to word it a little differently, was, I learned to shut up in meetings.

Yeah.

And that was so powerful, Marcia, because it really helped me In leading a better organization. And when I did that, I learned so much.

Well, you know, back to Alan. This is another thing I learned from him. He has a great saying. If I'm not the expert on this topic, why am I speaking? If I am not the expert on this topic, why am I speaking? I will probably do more harm than good. So, you know, one of the things I talk about in my book, What Got You Here Won't Get You There, is don't add too much value. So one of my, you know, and one of my coaching clients was JP Dornier, CEO of Glaxo. I said, JP, what'd you learn about leadership as the CEO? He said, I learned a hard lesson. He said, my suggestions become orders. My suggestions become orders. And I said, if they're smart, they're orders. And if they're stupid, they're orders. If I want them to be orders, they're orders. If I don't, my suggestions are orders. And then I taught for 9 years. I trained the admirals in the Navy. What's the first thing I teach them? You get that star? Your suggestions are orders. Animals don't make suggestions. They make a suggestion. Sir, yes, sir. That's an order. So I asked JP, what'd you learn from me when I was your coach? He said, you taught me one lesson, helped me be a better leader and have a happier life. I said, what was it? Before I speak, breathe, breathing, breathing, and ask myself, is it worth it? He said, half the time, what do I decide? Am I right? Maybe. Is it worth it? No. Yeah. And, you know, we just get lost in proving. Peter Drucker said, we're here on earth to make a positive difference, not to prove how smart we are, not to prove how right we are. We get so lost in proving how smart and right we are, we forget what— why are we doing this?

You know, it's a good point because I remember you introduced me to Brigadier General Dr. Bernard Banks.

Yeah, great guy.

Oh my God, he is amazing. And I looked at his LinkedIn profile after you said to me you should have a conversation with him, and I thought, this is a pretty light profile. So when I interviewed him for my show CB Bowman Live, I said, Bernie, your profile is very light. And he said, on purpose. Because if people know that I was a brigadier general, then the minute I speak, they think it's an order.

Right.

And I thought, yeah, that's Marshall. Marshall, I love it. So I've learned a lot to shut up. That's the bottom line. Now, Marshall, I want to ask you about your new book, The Earned Life. You're known for writing about management and leadership and guiding us to be better in those spaces. What's The Earned Life about?

Well, The Earned Life— I'm a Buddhist, so most of my books are sort of Buddhist books. And, you know, one of my heroes was Buddhism. You know, he's a very generous person. And I said my heroes were generous people who didn't charge me anything. So you see, CB, I'm ripping off Buddha stuff all the time. So I called him up. I said, you know, Buddha, I'm using your material constantly. Do I need to send you any commissions? He always said, it's fine. Just use all you want. So, you know, I'm a Buddhist. I'm always teaching Buddhist stuff. He never even charged me any bit for a commission. Very generous fellow. So The Earned Life is basically a Buddhist book. And the essence of Buddhism is every time I take a deep breath, it's a new me. New me. Take a deep breath. Ah, new me. Everything that happened before this second was done by an infinite set of people called the previous me's. And as we go through life, we're constantly reinventing ourselves. And the great Western disease is everything's going to be fine when— when I get the money, status, BMW, condominium, it will all be okay when— we all have the same when. When is an old person looking to die? That's when. So the essence of the book is we are constantly reinventing ourselves in life. And the focus of the Earned Life book is not to focus on results, but to focus on the day-to-day process of life and how we're constantly reinventing ourselves and constantly re-earning our life. I mean, I've had the privilege of working with lots of CEOs and they retire. So I've done 8 sessions in my house with retiring CEOs, and these range from Hilarious to tragic. Some of them manage it well, and a lot of them don't. I mean, Curtis Martin. Have you met Curtis Martin? He's in our group. I love Curtis Martin. What he's in our book by the Curtis is a great guy. Curtis, he talks about athletes. National Football League—it's a disaster. Those people retire and suicidal, depressed, lose money, divorced. You know, a lot of ex-Olympic gold medalists, athletes. They just tank. They just tank. Because what happens is their whole life is focused on achieving this one thing. Then they achieve it. Okay, now what? Okay, now what? You just won the gold. You won the gold medal. Michael Phelps won 25 gold medals. What happened after he quit swimming? He wanted to kill himself.

But why don't these people have the creativity To set a new goal?

Easier said than done. Because you see, if we— I talk about 3 things in the book: aspiration, okay, ambition, and action. Our aspiration is the higher mission. Why am I here? And it doesn't have a target. Our aspiration does not have a finish line. Our ambition is the achievement of goals, which does have a distinct target and a finish line. And our action is the day-to-day activity. So I'll talk a little bit about each of these because that's key to the book.

Most of the people in the third one, you have the aspiration, ambition, action.

Action is the third one, our day-to-day alternatives, actions. Most people in life are focused on phase 3, action. They just go through life and do what's in front of them and watch video games. And, you know, they just do what's in front of them. Not bad or good. That's just what they do.

Yeah.

The people I coach are not like that. People I coach are focused on ambition and they want to achieve goals. Well, there's 2 things that can go wrong when you try to achieve goals. One is you lose the larger purpose of why am I here? You're so busy achieving goals, you forget that. Or 2, you forget to enjoy day-to-day life. And the other problem with achieving a goal is a goal has a finish line. Well, guess what? The problem with the finish line is, There's a finish line. And if your value in life is achievement of a goal, what happens if you achieve the biggest goal you've ever achieved? What happens after you win the gold medal? What happens after you're a professional football player? You know—

Why not just set a new goal or new—

Yeah, but you know what? It won't be as big as the last one. It won't be as big as the last one. Michael Phelps is not going to have millions of people screaming and yelling, and the pro football player is not going to win another Super Bowl. No. And if your goal— and the problem with setting goals is we think the next one has to be bigger than the last one.

Ah, okay.

Then what happens is it's called hedonic adaptation, which means once you achieve something, you think it's going to make you happy. Maybe it does for a little bit, but after that, no, not much. Not much. So we get fixated on this achievement of goals. And when we do that, we can really sacrifice either the higher purpose of what am I here for? Or the day-to-day joy of life. Curtis Martin is a great example. He was an incredible football player, number 5 rusher in the history of the National Football League. Yet he never had his identity tied up in being a football player. His broader goal, his aspiration was to help people. And football player was only a step in a path for him. It wasn't the end of the road. When he retired, he's very happy. He's happy. He's finding meaning. He's just a great guy. Why? He wasn't fixated on achievement. He wasn't fixated on that achievement. Another guy in our group is Safi Bakal. He said he finally realized that he always thought that achievement and happiness— happiness was dependent upon achievement. He found otherwise. It's not. You can achieve a lot and be happy. You can achieve a lot and be miserable. You can achieve nothing and be happy. You can achieve nothing and be miserable. Happiness and achievement are not the same thing. So in our society, we deify achievement. Well, we don't think about the price of excessive weighting of achievement. And when you focus just on achievement, you're headed for typically lots of problems. Let me give you one. There's a great research study called the marshmallow study. I don't know if you've studied with little kids. I give these kids a marshmallow. So I say to the kid, if you eat the marshmallow now, you get one. If you wait though, oh, 2, 2. So obviously some kids wait and they get 2. And all now this research kind of indicates the kids that ate 1 become junkies and, and the kids that wait become PhDs from Harvard. You know, it seems a little exaggerated, but still the point is delayed gratification is good. Here's what they did not do in the study. They didn't say to the kid that ate 2, hey kid, wait a little bit more. 3. Wait some more. 4. Wait a little bit more. 5. Where does this show end? An old man waiting to die in a room surrounded by thousands of uneaten marshmallows. Sometimes you need to eat the damn marshmallow.

Is this something you can coach people to do?

Yeah. Oh yeah. Let me give you a great study. Jack Welch was CEO of GE. My friend Mark Reiter is his friend. He was his book agent. Jack Welch almost died. He had triple bypass. You know what Mark said? Jack, what did you learn about life when you almost died? What did you learn, Jack? You know what Jack said? Why am I drinking the damn cheap wine every night? I'm Jack Welch. I've got this wine cellar filled with spectacular wine, and every night I'm drinking cheap wine because I'm waiting For the nice wine to increase in value. He said, I'm Jack Welch, what do I care if it increases in value? I'm rich. I'm sitting there waiting to drink this— I'm drinking this cheap wine every night. I'm not drinking that stuff. He said, no more cheap wine for me. That was— what did Jack Welch learn when he almost died? No more cheap wine.

No more cheap wine.

I'm drinking a good wine now. Well, that's a good point for all of us. Sometimes you need to eat the marshmallows, have some fun here.

Marshall, have you learned to eat the marshmallows? I'm always eating the marshmallows.

I mean, what am I doing now? Well, one of us may have a problem being too serious. That's not me.

Well, I have to explain to the audience. I had the nerve to say to Marshall, so Marshall, the way that this show runs, CB Bowman Live, is that we like to have a lot of fun because people are listening for an hour and it can be boring if you're serious for an hour. So people like to be voyeurs, as though we're sitting in the living room having a glass of wine.

Right.

And so Marshall, you have to bring your fun on. And Marcia looked at me like, does she not know me? So, but Marcia, you haven't broken into song yet. So, Marcia, what else in this book is important for us to take away?

Well, I think the first thing is that new me thing is very good. And, and again, The idea of focusing on all 3 things. We need a larger aspiration in life, something bigger to motivate us, because if we don't, we're just lost in goal achievement. We do need to achieve goals though, so that aspiration becomes reality. And then number 3, we do need to enjoy the process. So as you go through life, there's a simultaneous alignment. Am I doing something that's aligned with my larger vision? Number 1. Number 2, am I achieving things that help me get there? Because that way it's not just in your head. And then number 3, am I enjoying the process? So if you look at the book, those 3 things are 3 that I'd say are critically important. I talk about one other thing in the book that you've seen me do before. I talk about credibility and the importance of achieving credibility and when it's important and when it's not. So you've seen me do this many times. And this is true more with women than men. It's in the book, How Women Rise. I may have even done this with you. I said, if you became more famous and influential, would the world be better off or worse off? What's your answer?

Yes, you have. And I hate it when you ask me that question.

What did you say? We're going to go through this. I asked you this.

I said, if you became more— Oh, you're going to embarrass me. Marshall, you love embarrassing your adopted children. What the heck?

No, I'm doing it all for your own good. If you became more influential and famous, would the world be worse off or better off?

Tell the truth. Better off. Yay!

Have you sometimes been uncomfortable trying to become more influential and famous? You said yes, as I recall. And then I said, what's more important, you try to help the world be better or be comfortable? Remember that?

I don't remember what my answer was because I probably have changed it now.

Well, you'd say it's more important to help the world be better. So I said, get over yourself.

That's what you did. And I think there were about 70 people in the room when you did that.

Like, you know, by the way, CB, you've seen me do this in front of large audiences before. So if somebody wrote a book about things not to do as a coach, I'm sure I would be the poster boy of everything not to do. Don't humiliate people in front of large groups.

I know that you did that recently at the Tasha 10 meeting.

Oh yeah.

Oh my God, I was sitting there. First of all, I was— I got into trouble with Marshall on that one. And—

You had an advantage, you knew me.

Yes, I did. And I text— I text, um, Tasha when you were doing that to me, and I said, you know, I don't know about this being a daughter business because boy, And she just started laughing. Um, but so, so the story is that somebody said something and Marshall normally would say, eh, do this. And I said, Marshall, you didn't go like this. And Marshall corrected me and said, but he said this, CB. And then Marshall just went, just Obliterated me. And I— all I could do was laugh because I knew he was right. I deserved it. Like, okay, learn to shut up when Marshall is around. And then the other thing that you did is that— I'm sorry, this is so funny, I'm sniffling. Uh, the other thing that you did was that you asked each of us what our goals were, because to be part of the Task Force 10 you're supposed to have a goal to make a difference in the world. 2 people got on and talked about why their goals weren't working, and they were blaming the people that they were trying to help. Marshall sat there and said, get over yourself.

Yeah, it really is.

You're about making them wrong.

Yeah, this is not impressive. I said, yeah, this self-righteous nonsense. So basically what I've just learned is they're all screwed up and you're a saint, right? So why don't you just get over yourself here?

And, and Marcia, they were trying to impress you.

Oh well. Now, where did I learn that? I'll tell the story. You've heard me tell the story before.

Which one is it?

This story though changed my life, and that's impressing people. I was at UCLA getting my PhD, and the guru is old Dr. Tannenbaum. And he's the most loved, respected professor, famous, right? And I'm in all these encounter groups, and we're encouraged to talk about whatever we want to talk about. So I talked about people in Los Angeles. They're so screwed up. They drive around these you know gold colors Bentleys. They wear eighty-five dollar sequin blue jeans, and they're plastic, materialistic. All they care about is impressing others. So finally, he scratches beard. He says, "Who are you talking to?" Who are you talking to? I said, I guess I'm talking to everybody. He said, well, who in the group are you talking to? I said, I guess everybody. He said, every time you spoke and you looked at only one person and seemed interested in the opinion of one person, who's that? I thought about it. I said, you. He said, that's right, me. What about the other 10 people? I said, I don't know. I guess I, I think you would understand the depth of what I'm saying, a person with your great background, the depth and significance of my comments. So he scratched his He says, is there any chance for the last 3 weeks all you've been doing is trying to impress me? I said, no. I said, I'm so disappointed. I think you've misunderstood everything I've said. So he looks and scratches his beard, goes, I think I understand. I see these 10 heads. I hated his guts for 6 months. I hated this guy. 6 months later, what'd I say? Thank you, sir. Let me get— let me get the sun out of my eyes just a second.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah. So anyway, yeah, he taught me a great lesson, and that lesson is one that's done me well throughout life, is, you know, a lot of times we can see things in others they can't see in themselves. And, you know, that's, that's it. And, and so—

Wait, Marsha, do you think that that happens more with men or women?

What's that?

Do you think that happens more with men or women, that they can't see what's hap— really?

Yeah, it tends to be different things though, like the book How Women Rise.

Yes, you know, our dear friend Sally.

Yeah, men are so egotistical they can't see how arrogant they are, right? And you know, many women are too hard on themselves, and you know, men usually are not too hard on themselves. Now look, there's even research to support this. The average 360-degree feedback from others for a woman and a man, the average woman scores higher than the average man. Yet the average woman is harder on herself than the average man is on hisself. So, you know, what do I tell women oftentimes? Please don't be too hard on yourself. You've seen me do this. Quit being so hard on yourself. But what do I tell men, CB? I said, men, for us, there's bad news, men. There's bad news, yet there's good news. The bad news for us men is, according to the stupid research involving unfortunately thousands of people from around the world, the bad news is we must face it as leaders. We're not as good yet, men. There's good news. The good news is we don't care. Yeah, not as good, but don't care.

Okay, Marcia, we have to answer some questions here or statements. Let's go back. Drug addiction to goals. Okay, I get it. That's Dr. Mungase, how we are addicted to goals. Ken Walker, for athletes, they set those goals when they are 10, and they become intertwined with their identities.

Right. Very important point. Never make your identity a function of goal achievement. Never. I'll give you an extreme example, a positive. Albert Burla is a friend of mine. He's CEO of Pfizer. So I called Albert up. How's it going? Well, we got a cure for the vaccine for this pandemic. That's good. New pill. Good. Corporate profits. Good. Employee engagement, all-time high. Pride in the company, best ever. CEO of the year. I said, Albert, what's your challenge? He said 2 words: next year.

Oh, how sad.

That's reality. You think those investors give a crap about, uh, you know, what he did last year? No, they bought that stock this year. They bought it at this price. They don't care what happened here. They care about what's going to happen moving forward. If you get tied up in goal achievement, you never get off that treadmill.

Okay.

You'll never get off the treadmill.

Cheryl writes, Marshall, you are so right. I was married to a Super Bowl winner who had difficulty focusing on what to do next after he retired.

Yep.

Cheryl Fells.

Yeah, and it's so hard because they have so much glamour, so much adulation, fame. Unfortunately, many of them don't do well at all. It's just terrible. And I mean, like the CEOs I work with, they have a hard time. It's not that they're bad people. Like one of them was Mike Duke, was the CEO of Walmart, right? Big company, Walmart. So Mike's talking about after he retired, he said, you know, I had this joke I told when I was the CEO of Walmart. Joke, clean joke, never offended anyone. They liked it. They were laughing. They loved my little joke. Then he said, "I retired. I'm in this group, and I tell my little joke." You know what he said? Nobody laughed. Then he said, "Well, they must be grumpy." Goes another group, tells a joke. Nobody laughed. You know what his wife said? Mike, you idiot! You idiot! You actually thought that joke was funny?

Leave it to the woman.

When he was in C.O. Walmart, that joke was. Hilarious. When he's not the CEO of Walmart, nobody laughs.

It's actually kind of scary, the perceptions that we have of ourselves versus the reality.

It is. Yeah, it's life. We all do this. And so it's very hard to see ourselves like other people see us.

Is there a way that we could do that without a coach?

I don't know. I am a coach. I think we all need coaching. I have somebody call me up every day to try to help me. As you know, my friend Mark calls me up every day. Every day I practice my little daily question process. He called me up today. He calls me up every day. Somebody asked me, why do you have someone call you every day? Don't you know the theory about how to change behavior? I wrote the theory. I wrote the theory. That's why I have somebody call me every day. My name is Marshall Goldsmith. I have someone call me and help me every day. Why? I am too cowardly and too undisciplined to do any of this crap by myself. I need help. And you know what? It's okay.

Tell the audience about daily questions, please. Because that's such a big thing.

I'm now going to teach everybody something takes three minutes a day, costs nothing, and help you get better at anything. Some people are skeptical. Three minutes a day costs nothing. Help me get better at anything? Ridiculous! Sounds too good to be true. Half the people quit in two weeks. They don't quit because it doesn't work; they quit because it does work. It's hard. Get out a spreadsheet on one column and write down a series of questions to represent what's most important in your life: friends, family, coworkers, health. Then seven boxes across, one for every day of the week: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Every question has to be answered with a yes, a no, or a number. Yes is recorded as a one, no as a zero, or some number. And then at the end of the week, you get a report card. The report card at the end of the week is not as pretty as the corporate values crap that you see stuck up on the wall. No, it's it's not so pretty. I've been doing this for 25 years. You know what I learned? You I screw up something every day. Every day I screw something. You left that out in my introduction. I have this incredible skill of screwing something up every day. You left that out when you introduced me. But I have this amazing skill of screwing something up daily. We get to look at it every day. It's hard. It's very hard to do this. Like, one of my questions is, how many times did you try to prove you were right yesterday when it wasn't worth it? I don't see too many zeros there. Now, CB, have you ever tried to prove you were right to your husband when it wasn't worth it?

Never, Marshall. Hey, Marshall, you know I'm a— I'm married to an Italian guy, right? So, you know, that answer was full of crap.

Well, like, when my friend Jim Moore would tell you this saved his life, one of his questions was, are you currently updated on your physical exam? He said no the first 30 days he did this. No, 90 days. He said no. 90 days. After 90 days, this is embarrassing. I got to get the exam or quit asking. He got the exam. Doctor said, you have cancer many years ago. He's going to be fine. The doctor said, had you waited 7 more months, you You've been dead. Well, have you ever put off a physical exam before and told yourself, I'm going to get the exam after I go on the healthy food diet and begin my exercise program?

Yeah.

Who are you kidding, the doctor? How about trip to the dentist? Have you noticed the flurry of dental floss activity the 2 days before you walk into the dentist? Look at you flossing away, blood running all out of your mouth. You sit down there, have you been flossing? Oh yeah, yeah, I was flossing. Sure you were. Yeah, we really tricked the dentist with that one.

So true. So, okay, so it's what you, you write down your questions and you give them a number. Yeah, yeah. And you add it up at the end of the day.

That's it. Now I'm going to give you 6 questions that my daughter Kelly taught me, the, the, the professor daughter. And they all begin with, did I do my best to? And the reason they do is because they really get you focused on not what you can't control, what you can control. Question number 1, did I do my best to set clear goals? Did I do my best to set clear goals every day? Did I do my best to make progress toward achieving my goals? Did I do my best to find meaning? Did I do my best to be happy? Did I do my best to build positive relationships? And finally, did I do my best to be fully engaged every day? So over COVID, Mark Thompson and I spent 60 people over and over. They would review these these questions every week, and these were like amazing people. You know, Jim Kim, president of World Bank, and we had head of the Rockefeller Foundation, and we had the Broadway star athletes—all kinds of great people every week. And yeah, I'll tell you, it's sobering. Nobody's perfect. Everybody screws up every week something or other.

And you know, what do you do when you screw up, Marshall?

Forgive yourself.

Start over. Important message. Another day.

Yeah, let it go.

Marshall, you also have something. Jim Moore, I can confirm the story about me is Okay. Bert Burrell, the last thing a fish discovers is water. Marshall, you have another process that you use with us, or you presented to us that we can use, called the LPR process.

Now, that's a process I did with these 60 people. So every week, what we do is we meet. And in the week, we review the week. You review, here are my questions, here's how I did. And then they ask for what's called feedforward. Ask people to help them. And I'm doing this tomorrow and I'm doing it the day after tomorrow. Mark Thompson and I are going to have 60 people again. We're doing this and we've done this for months. People love this. Why? One, they have a support group. Two, they're accountable, but they're not being judged. See, there's a difference. They're held accountable every week. No one's judging them. In fact, you know what they find out? The more I screw up, the more people love me. You know what? They don't feel so damn guilty themselves. Yeah, it's okay. Every week, you know, here's what I did this week. They tell the stories and they ask for ideas and try to get better over and over.

It's really Marsha, sorry to interrupt you, but we don't have a lot of time and I have so many questions to ask you, so you have to come back. Come back. Marsha, you work with the top of the top and Fortune 100 companies. Do you find— 2 questions— one, that they have trouble being honest 2, that they have difficulty talking about what's really important in their life. I'm not talking about business.

Well, a couple of things. One, there's a difference between honesty and disclosure. So I think everyone I coach is pretty honest. I don't want to work with liars or people who have no integrity. So the people I coach, I think, have very high integrity. That doesn't mean they can disclose things. One of the people in our LPR group is a corporate CEO, said it's nice to be a human being 1 hour a week. Look, let's face reality, CB. You can't get up and blabble crap if you're the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company. There's something called social media. You can get crucified. And, you know, they have to be incredibly careful about everything they say. That's the new world. It's— it is what it is. It's not bad or good. It just is. It is. So yeah, do they disclose everything? Of course not. They can't. And by the way, they're humans like everybody else. Someday they feel bad. But you know what I teach people? It's showtime. You get up there, you're the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company, ask them, do you ever go to a Broadway play? Did you ever see the kids say, my foot hurts, my aunt died last week, I have a headache? Nope. It's showtime. Kids getting paid 1,000th what you're getting paid. Shut up.

Suck it up.

Showtime. Did you ever see Alan Mulally act sad, depressed? Frances Hesselbein? Nope. Showtime. They— I mean, I've known those people 30, 40 years.

When can you, when can you act sad? When can you?

Well, you can act sad anytime. The question is, what role are you in? And the point is, whose needs are you taking care of?

Talk to us some more about that.

Well, what does empathy mean? People think empathy means one thing. Well, empathy is often, what impact am I having on those people? I work in St. Jude's Children's Hospital. It's hard for me not to start crying seeing all these kids bald running around. That's the worst thing I can do. Why? It's not good for them. It makes them feel bad. Whose needs am I taking care of if I start crying? Yours. Yeah, not theirs. So, you know, you've got to think, you know, whose needs am I taking care of here? Yeah, well, is it okay for me to take care of my needs? Sometimes, but not when your job is to take care of somebody else's needs.

Okay, well, wow, we have only 3 minutes left, Marshall. Is there something you would like to say to us Uh, your disciples.

Final voice, final message. Take a breath. Imagine you're 95 and you're just getting ready to die, but right before you take that breath, you're given a beautiful gift: the ability to go back in time and talk to the person who's listening to me now. What advice would that old person facing death, who knows what mattered and didn't, have for you? Whatever you're thinking now, do that. In terms of performance appraisal, that's the only one that will ever matter. That old person says you did the right thing, you did. That old person says you made a mistake, you did. Friends of mine interviewed people who were dying, said, what advice would you have? 3 themes. Number 1, be happy now. Not next week, not next month. Enjoy life. Don't get so wrapped up looking at what you don't have, you cannot see what you do have. Number 2 is, you know, take care of people, and especially friends and family. Don't get so busy climbing that ladder you forget the people you love. And then finally, if you have a dream, go for it. Because you don't go for it when you're 30, you may not when you're 80. Doesn't have to be a big one, maybe a little one. Old people, we don't regret the risks we took and failed. We regret the risk we failed to take. And finally, it's my honor to work with you. I am proud to have you as my honorary daughter. My theory is you help so many people. If I can help you even a little bit, indirectly I'm helping everyone you help.

Marshall, you know I'm a tough-ass woman, and you're making me get ready to tear up. So we are going to end this show. My friend, my colleague, my dad, thank you so much. Thank you so much. I so appreciate it, and I know that everybody on this call. And people who will watch it long after the call, they're gonna feel the same way I do.

Thank you.

You're an amazing man.

Thank you so much.

Amazing sharing and amazing caring. Thank you. Bye.