048 Darren Gold - Master Your Code

Darren Gold is a managing partner at the Trium Group, where he advises and coaches CEOs and their leadership teams at many of the world's most innovative companies, including Roach, Dropbox, Lululemon, Sephora, Cisco, eBay— oh my God, the list keeps going. As a former CEO and longtime board member, Darren brings deep personal leadership experience to his work with these organizations, and he's the author of a new book, Master Your Code: The art, wisdom, and science of leading an extraordinary life. I think that's a terrific thing to talk about today.

People who inspire, empower, and guide us to our very best. Leaders who are walking the walk. Your host, leadership activist, author, and founder of the Sensei Leader Movement, Jim Bouchard.

Darren, it's an honor to have you on the show today, and I'm looking forward to an engaging conversation.

I am too, Jim, and really appreciate you having me on.

Let's dig right in. And I hope you don't mind. I know your office sent some notes. I like to skip around a little bit. And one of the things that really, really piqued my interest was this idea of the importance of locus of control. And I want to give you a little background to my interest there. So many people today fall into this belief structure that they can control everything around them, right? And as a former drug addict, I can assure you that I learned my lesson the hard way. There are things we can control, there's things we can't control, and the important thing is to accept responsibility, right? I believe you're talking about striking a balance there, but hey, tell me if we're swimming in the same pond or if you can change my mind on something.

No, I think you're right, and the distinction has a lot of nuance to it, one of which you've already alluded to, which is, look, there's going to be some things outside of your control and a lot of things within your control. And the ability to distinguish between the two is key. It's the sort of classic Serenity Prayer. But the basic notion of locus of control, and it's a psychological term that's been around for 50 years, right? It's an orientation to your circumstances. And there's sort of two dominant beliefs, or literally one dominant belief, which is there's very little I can do to affect my circumstances, which is what, you know, the psychologists refer to as an external locus of control, that I'm at the effect of my environment. Their orientation, which I assert is a much more powerful and fulfilling one, one that's going to have a much higher probability of leading, leading to an extraordinary life, is a belief that there's always something I can do to affect my circumstances. And even if things are out of my control, I always have control, however, how— over how I interpret my circumstances. And I think that's the important distinction that sometimes gets lost.

Now, that is critically important. And, you know, particularly with our focus being on helping people develop as leaders. You know, one of the things I'm sure you run into the same thing in your workshops and your sessions as well, right, is when leaders express concern because, you know, you can get some semblance of control over your own life, right? But then you're responsible for a bunch of other people. And I don't know, I mean, I find myself so many times saying, you know, welcome to the club. You can't control the people. Duh. You see what I'm saying? How do you reconcile the two in your work?

Well, there's this tendency, right? And I notice it in even the most accomplished leaders to want to change others, right? To externalize responsibility. That's the default mode that we operate from because it's an easier mode to be in, right? If I, if I point to somebody else as the source of the problem, as the source of my suffering, my frustration, it lets me off the hook for my responsibility. And that's oftentimes where we go first. My team isn't good enough. Uh, the people in my organization aren't, uh, innovative enough. You know, uh, my competition is this, right? It's all external. And the work that I do almost always, uh, invites and encourages CEOs and senior leaders to go inside first and to sort of, and to ask this question, what if I were 100% responsible for the outcome? Not because there's truth in that, but because that's much, a much more powerful stand to take in life. And if I start asking that question, a whole new set of actions appear as available to me where I, instead of going and trying to fix others, which is, as you already said, really the hard thing to do.

I haven't figured it out yet.

I mean, I don't think I ever will and I've given up trying. I'm going to go first inside and figure out how do I get self-mastery because I think from the place of self-mastery, that's where you can begin to— embody a set of principles and values and ways of being in the world that become highly contagious. And that's how I believe you would really effectuate change and really lead effectively.

I think we're, we're sitting in perfect harmony because one of the things that happens to me sometimes when people hear my backstory and hear where I came from, uh, you know, that very often they've had either drugs in their own, uh, experience or people they know have been through it, right? And I often disappoint people because when they're trying to help someone out of that, I say, well, that other person has to go first. I said, there's very little you can do, but that That really goes to this idea, I think, of fault versus responsibility, right? I like that you kept coming back to the word responsibility because while everything might not be a leader's fault, it certainly is our responsibility, isn't it?

Yeah, it is. And I think that's a trap people can fall into really easily if they're not careful, which is self-blame. Right. This notion of 100% responsibility, which is a pretty radical notion, does not mean blame yourself. It just means always be asking the question, where can I do something that will affect the outcome of the situation? Because there's always, even in the most hopeless of circumstances, there's always something I can do and that is an empowering sort of place to be. But it doesn't mean I have to blame myself for things that are completely outside of my control. Oftentimes I like to say we become the victim of our own responsibility and that's not the point of this at all.

Well, you know, and with your background, you have a, I think you have a deeper look into the psychology behind that than I do. I mean, I, you know, spirit of full disclosure, I've learned it in the street. I learned it through my own survival. And that's interesting that you talk about that. We'll get into that in a few minutes. But this, this idea, this self-blame thing, right? How come it's so deeply, because I'll, again, spirit of full disclosure, that's something I've always struggled with. And I don't know if I'm going to live long enough to ever solve it. I mean, it's always fun to work on it, right? Where does that come from? Why do we do that to ourselves so badly? And there's another layer to this. Why are we seeing, if we're seeing this, I believe we are, more and more people who don't want to accept any blame for their own actions like you just identified?

Yeah, it's either or is not a great place to be. And sort of the basic thesis of the book is that what gets in the way of us leading an extraordinary life is our program. And I define it up front as is a set of safety-based subconscious beliefs, values, and rules that automatically drive your behavior and limit your results. And so, as adults, we're operating in a complex world. Maybe we're leading— I would say we're leading something. If it's not a team or an organization or family, we're certainly the CEOs of ourselves.

And if it's not complex, we tend to make it that way, right?

Yeah, we do.

Yeah.

And so we're operating out of a program, I say in the book, was almost 40 years old when I discovered that I was operating— my life was being run by a program written by a 7-year-old boy. So the question of— whenever it's this question of like, why do we do this, whether it's we avoid responsibility or we tend to blame ourselves excessively, I always point to there's some part of this program that's running us that has to be taken— you have to take a look at. And it's that fundamental choice between being the prisoner of our programs, which most of us are, and I was for a long period of time, to powerfully authoring our code. That's the kind of— hence the name of the title. The distinction I offer there is a code is a consciously chosen set of beliefs, values, and rules that is purposefully designed to serve me and produce extraordinary results. This is at the heart of my work and the thesis of the book, which is much of what drives our behavior— I'm going to go so far as to say all of what drives our behavior, although that's a little extreme— is born out of some construction that happened earlier in your life.

If not all, certainly a lot of it.

A lot of it, yeah. I like to say all just because that gives me a feeling that I have as much control over shaping who I am and my life. Again, it's more of the mindset than it is assertion of truth. But that is a powerful place to come from and say, okay, if I'm blaming myself, it comes out of something that happened to me. I made it up and I probably made it up when I was 6 years old or 7 years old, 8-year-old. It may have been actually really designed to protect me at the time.

Yeah, I was gonna say you might have had very good reasons for it, right?

Absolutely. And it may continue to serve you in certain aspects of your life, right? Because a person that really looks at where their own, you know, you know, let's call blame sort of in a lowercase sense, is actually there's some benefit to that, right? I'm not just sweeping things under the rug. I'm not, you know, constantly blaming others. But what I, what I offer is that the belief that you're holding reached the limits of its effectiveness often in adulthood, and it's time for you to take a look at that and rewrite it to make it more expansive. So where I can get the benefits of being, you know, self-scrutiny, which says, hey, where did I I may have messed up here, made a mistake, without the baggage of it. And that is a conscious authoring of how you want to make meaning of the world, not just something that's sort of driving you automatically.

You know, you just made me feel a whole lot better about another area that I wanted to dive into because for years— and every time I say this I know I lose listeners, but so be it at this point— I've been on a crusade against these strict promoters of the law of attraction for years now, and this leads to your power of belief ideas. You know, there's so many people that have divorced themselves from action and are dependent on belief, if that makes sense, right? And like, you know, we run into them all the time. And, you know, I think what you're saying— I think we're on the same page with this, but again, believe me, Chow, I love to debate, so challenge me if I'm missing it. Isn't that what you're really saying, that the belief that is essential, right, to creating the right mindset— you just used that word— rather than the assertion of truth? If I believe in myself more, I'm increasing the probability of success. It's not a guarantee, right?

Totally, and I'll parse it out a little bit more.

Sure.

Belief drives action, right? So I ask this fundamental question: what's at the source of action? Because we take action all the time. They oftentimes don't lead to the results that we want. So I'm really interested in this question of like, okay, what drives action? And I do think a fundamental driver of action is the beliefs that we hold. But it's all about taking action, right? And it's about increasing the probability that the actions we see is even available to take, right? So I come onto the show with you, I can hold a whole set of beliefs that I could show up to the show going, oh gosh, another podcast or— Is this going to be interesting? I get to make it all up or I can show up, and I did, out of a conscious choice and say, "This is going to be an extraordinary conversation. I get to speak with Jim. He's a wonderful individual. We're going to have an incredible conversation." That choice in what I believe about my circumstances will shape my entire actions and hopefully it's showing up to you. Therefore, the probability of having a great conversation, meeting somebody new, and connecting goes way up. No guarantee. But if— but so I get to the source of this, which is saying I get to make up my entire beliefs about myself, others, and my situation. And if I get to make it up, why wouldn't I make it up in a way that really increases the probability that the actions I will naturally take, or even see as available to take, go up?

No, absolutely. And we should probably save this till after the break because I think we're gonna go on a thread here, because doesn't that lead you also to the to your ability to weather the storm when things don't go your way, right? And you talk about survival. And I really want to get into that in detail. So why don't we take a break now? And when we come back, we'll dive into that. Sound good? Great.

All right.

The research is bombproof. People perform at their best when and only when they know their leaders care, when they know their work has meaning, and when they have the chance to learn, grow, and develop. To accomplish this, we need to connect with the people we serve, the people who trust in our leadership. Leaders today need emotional intelligence, strong interpersonal skills, and an accurate sense of self-awareness. I'm Jim Bouchard, leadership activist and founder of the Sensei Leader Movement. The sensei enjoys a very special relationship with students. It's one built on respect, trust, and loyalty, and these are also a leader's most valuable assets. I help you build these relationships. I work with you to help you inspire, empower, and guide your people to their very best. That's what the best leaders do, and that's what the Sensei does. My job is to help you be the Sensei so you can lead your people to their very best and yours.

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We're always grateful to our Walking the Walk guests for sharing their wisdom and experience with us. And as you've been hearing, Darren Gold has a lot to share, and we've got a lot more to get to right after this break. Now, if you're ready to do what you were truly born to do in this world, be sure to get your copy of Darren's book, Master Your Code: The Art, Wisdom, and Science of Leading an Extraordinary Life. For this and more information on his coaching and consulting work with the Trium Group, visit darrenjgold.com. That's all one word, no spaces, darrenjgold.com. You know, Darren, just before the break, we were starting to get into this idea of survival, and I was really intrigued by your perspective on that because I think we're, again, we're singing in harmony. We can believe as much as we want, we can create this self-belief, but geez, Damn, there's days. And you know what? It's funny because there's always this idea of learning more through these tragedies, right? And I remember when I was a boxer, I had this wonderful coach, this trainer. He's kind of a Yoda guy. And he'd always say this when we just got pounded into the ground, right? He'd look, he'd say, hey, Jim, you know what? Don't worry about it. You learn more when you lose. Then you take a deep breath and he'd turn around and say, but some days you just don't freaking feel like learning anything, right? But those days are there. Those days are there. No matter how we believe in ourselves, no matter how much we believe in what we're doing, we're going to run up against some brick walls. So why don't you talk a little bit more about this idea of the survival strategy? Like I said, very interested in these— I don't want to give it away— these different ways that you help people through that.

Yeah, so hopefully this will be on point, and if not, steer me in the right direction.

But it'll be the right direction no matter where we go, right?

Okay, that's exactly— so yeah, I talk about this idea of like mastering your past, not being a prisoner of it. So I'm a big believer the past. It's helpful to be a master of your past, but in no way confined by it. So part of understanding who you are, how you behave, how you show up, is you've got to examine this early part of your childhood where you begin to form some of the most basic rules and beliefs that really drive how you behave. And I, you know, I make this assertion in the book that, you know, at some point in your childhood, you had some form of trauma. Now, it could be serious trauma, or what I call lowercase t trauma. Somebody teased you or bullied you, you felt excluded and psychologically unsafe. And in response to that traumatic event, we form survival strategies. And I say there are these 3 types of survival strategies. There's a belonging strategy, which is, you know, I need to be included, to be liked, to be accepted, which was mine. And I talk about that and I can share it if you'd like in a bit. There are distancing strategies, which is the need to be above it all, like be smart, to be right. That's a really dominant one for a lot of people, myself included, or controlling survival strategy, which is the need to win, the need to be in control, the need to be perfect. And, you know, I was 8 years old when I came to the US from London, England. Having an accent, an English accent, at 8 years old was not cool.

You lost that.

I lost it super quick, and it did it because I got teased and bullied. Mercilessly teased. And so in that moment, I had to declare and construct a survival strategy. Mine was a belonging one, which was I need to be liked at all costs. And so I got really good at being likable. So I had this sort of superpower around likability. It kept me safe. It allowed me to survive psychologically. And it became the dominant part of my program that really served me in many ways. A lot of early success personally and professionally. But as I began to take on leadership responsibilities and more complex responsibilities, I noticed it was massively limiting me. I had a really hard time having direct, honest conversations because it put my likability at risk. I even robbed myself of feedback because people liked me so much they were reluctant to give me honest feedback. So see, these survival strategies, they really do explain a big part of who you are. And I often ask people to, you know, to identify their primary survival strategy. And then there's some ways to how do you sort of reconstruct that.

You know, that makes a lot of sense. And it actually— I don't want to make this too complicated, but there were two streams of thought that I had that were inspired by what you just said. And the first one, of course, is this idea, you know, a lot of the leaders that I work with, they fall into it. I do as well. Those of us who are perfectionists, we fall into this perfection trap. And one of the greatest gifts I learned in my life as a martial artist is that perfection is not a destination. It's a never-ending process. And that's one of the first things that when I identify somebody has that, it's that sometimes that's all we work on is how to escape that perfection trap. And it's linked to that idea of likability a lot of the time, isn't it? That we have to be operating on such a high level that people aren't questioning our, our character, our motive, our intents. We want them to like what we're doing. We want them to like us. And leaders can't always be likable. No.

We have this dominant need to be included in the tribe. Because you think about it, thousands and thousands of years ago, if you were excluded from the tribe, you were literally going to die.

Right.

Right? So we have this socially constructed absolute obsession, you know, to be accepted and loved and feel psychologically safe, particularly when we're children.

That's why I'm so glad you elevate validate it by calling it a survival element. You know what I'm saying? I really appreciate that because I think people just dismiss that too easily sometimes. It is such an important part of who we are. That's why it's so hard to master it.

No, exactly. And it served us so well that it's the more it served you, the more important it was, the harder it is to begin to expand it. And I don't say change or get rid of because there's a part of it that's always going to be with you and a part of it that's really important. It's about how do you expand it and get it into a more you have more choice. And that's really the—

and it's about us working together too, isn't it? I mean, we're, we're going to work better with people that we generally like.

We are. And sometimes we don't get that choice.

So we have to— that's true.

The ability, uh, you know, and I have a, you know, chapter on just how do we, you know, better understand people. Because if we, we better understand our— by, by understanding myself, I become masterful at being much better about understanding other people. When I understand other people, I begin to change my narratives I have about them. Life is a relational sport, right? It doesn't exist in the absence of others. So, you want to lead an extraordinary life, you got to get really extraordinary about how do you build and maintain and nurture relationships even when it's people that are different than us or that maybe we don't like as much as we like other people. It's funny you say that because sometimes people—

I'm I'm a quote junkie and people catch me quoting the ancient Asian masters. That's where most of my focus is. And they always talk about the hermit, right? I say, yeah, but just remember the hermits that are useful to us always came back to the village. They didn't stay up there in the cave, right?

That's right. Yeah.

No, that's interesting. Let's talk a little bit about, because this is a huge, huge item today. And geez, it's interesting. I usually don't do, I usually don't hit all these points. We usually go off on tangents, You're guiding the conversation so well. I love it. The importance of commitment because we're in an age and particularly, I can't remember the last figures I was correct. My dear friend, Dov Baron, I don't know if you run into him yet. We had him on the show recently and we were talking about how long somebody's staying at an organization. And of course, we know one of the big challenges in business is trying to keep good people right now. People are leaving for a lot of reasons we can't control. They just want to be somewhere else, right? They're going to address family issues. They're going to get a promotion that is not available here. There's lots of reasons. The fact that we're being jerks to them is something we can control, right? But the idea that there's this commitment, there's less of a commitment, it seems, generally. Like I said, we just talked about those things we can't control, so I don't want to go off on those. But what can we do? What can we do to really, I guess, create more of a culture of commitment inside of our own organizations and maybe in society? This is a big question.

Yeah, it's big. Let me answer it in two parts. One, with respect to people leaving, my belief is that we need to embrace that reality and actually leverage it. Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, has done a great job in reframing it. He calls it your tour of duty. He sort of said, "Let's just push the fact that people are going to be here for 2 or 3 years and let's give them an extraordinary experience and leverage the fact." I really like that approach because I don't think that's going to change. What I do think we have the potential to do a lot better is this idea of language and commitment. If you observe human beings in organizations or anywhere, we're really sloppy and imprecise with our language and our commitments to each other. Somebody asks you to do something and it's usually, "Sure." There's no commitment there. There's no precision and the probability of high performance goes way down. I devote a big part of my work and a chapter of my book to this idea, this belief that I am my word. That when I give my word to somebody, it has gravity to it, it has weight to it. Like, I don't give it freely. And this concept of honoring my word, which doesn't mean keep my word. So if I, if I say to you, Jim, I'm going to be on your show, I'm going to show up 10 minutes early, right? I've made a commitment to you and I'm going to honor it, which is going to do everything I can. Sometimes things outside of our control are going to intervene and I won't be able to do it. The distinction with honoring your word is immediately I've got to make that right. So if that had happened this morning, I would have jumped all over it and figured out a way to make that right for you. Imagine people doing that practice consistently where they're really precise with their commitments and they're honoring their word. The performance of an organization goes way, way up. I really do think the performance is dependent upon a very different relationship we have with our word and the commitments we make to each other.

Oh, I agree with you. I think one caution there is that And it's funny, this became— I don't want to use his name because it's actually a real person. Let's call him Bobby. But we actually called this behavior a Bobby after a while, that person who is always missing the commitments and always apologizing. And you know they're sincere about the apology, but they don't do a damn thing to correct it. How do you address that?

Yeah, well, I always say—

We say kill them around here, but this is a martial arts background. We can't be doing that all the time.

I think first and foremost it's about establishing a culture around what I call integrity, right? Commitment. So that I am, again, going back to like let's start with me first. If I expect this behavior from people in my organization, on my team, I've got to live and breathe that. So I'm the one, if I'm not showing up to meetings on time or I'm loose with my commitments to clients, right? So somebody, client says, "Hey, can you give us a proposal?" and I say, "Yeah." That's not what I role modeled on my team is I said, yes, I think we can get you something by end of day Tuesday. And by end of day Tuesday, I mean 5:00 PM. Will that work for you? And that is setting a new standard around like, wow, this is a different way of communicating with each other. So oftentimes I was like, if you do that consistently and show up in that way, your team's going to follow. And for those that don't, you know, then you have the right, given that you're practicing it, to say this is an expectation. Be part of this organization. You have to do it. And let me— help me understand why it's difficult for you because I'm really, really curious. Some people, it's going to be hard to do, and then I can work with them.

See, I knew you were a sensei leader because you just hit— I mean, that's why we call the show Walking the Walk. You know what I mean? That whole idea of leading by example. I don't want to lose one point on the commitment thing too because that's an interesting intersection. What I learned, you know, in my life as a martial artist and what we're applying in leadership space, especially in business, the best teacher, and I can't remember who it was, I've had so many wonderful teachers, and one of them shared, it was an ancient story, that said, you know, Jim, the best thing you can do as a teacher is to train that person that doesn't need you anymore, to let that person go. I think some more enlightened organizations are coming around to this, this idea of commitment doesn't necessarily tie to permanence, that the person can be giving you everything they've got while they're there. You see it more in sports organizations these days. People, fans get upset because of players leaving. Players do it. I say, no, no, it doesn't matter. Any team is formed for that year, for that season. And I believe more business people could benefit from that mindset. You've got your team right now. How can we get the best out of them right now? And are you giving them your best right now? Because you don't know what's going to happen a month from now, 5 years from now.

Yeah, I think that's so true and so important. I've practiced this as long as I can remember because I had early training in a company called McKinsey Company. I think it says a lot about an organization the way they treat people that are departing. I've always practiced this, which is I celebrate it. I celebrate it. I'm absolutely 100%— I'm not happy, especially if they're high performers. I want them to stay and I do everything I can to keep them, but when they've decided There's something better for them, right? Then I'm their champion, 100%. I do everything I can to make sure that they get into a great place and that we have a great relationship. Many organizations don't do that. They hold grudges. They think that there's something owed them. I'm like, "That's just not reality." It doesn't lead to the kind of sustained relationship that you want. I genuinely do embrace people that when they're ready to go and they've made that decision, whether I agree with it or not, I'm going to support them and make— because they've made the decision, so why would I hold a grudge or do anything but help them?

No, no, I think that's such a beautiful attitude. Again, like I said, you really do embody the spirit of the sensei, that when that happens, your world expands. When you do it the way you just described, your world expands. If you're holding a grudge or you're proprietary, then your world is shrinking, right? You never know what intersections are down the line with the people that are leaving. So, you know, and if nothing else, you know, you have to be comfortable in the feeling that together you contributed to one another's lives, right? And that you're better for it.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Geez, Darren, this has been— again, we're so blessed with good guests here, but we could keep you on here for a couple hours. Would you come back again?

I'd love to. And there you go, that's a commitment, right? So I didn't give that light. Very good. I mean it. When you— when I'd be delighted to come back whenever it would make sense.

I appreciate that so much. And again, the website is— is this one you want them to go to? DarrenJGold.com?

Yeah, that's a great, great website. That's a bunch of resources on my mailing list, and then the book's available on Amazon in all formats, and would love you to read it, of course.

Very good. Thank you so much, and look forward to having you back again. Daryl Pope. I do too.

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