Marshall Goldsmith

Guy Kawasaki:
I'm Guy Kawasaki. This is the Remarkable People Podcast.
I am on a mission to make you remarkable.
Helping me today is Marshall Goldsmith.
He is, perhaps, the most famous executive coach in the world. He has worked with some of the highest profile leaders, including the CEOs of Pfizer, Ford, Best Buy and the World Bank.
Marshall is the only two-time winner of the Thinkers50 Award for Number One Leadership Thinker in the World.
Marshall is the author of What Got You Here Won't Get You There and Triggers.
Amazon named both books to its Top 100 Leadership and Success Books ever written list.
Marshall's new book is The Earned Life: Lose Regret, Choose Fulfillment, it explains no less than what you should do with your life before you reach the end of it.
In short, you are about to hear the advice that the most powerful executives in the world pay tens of thousands of dollars for.
And last but not least, Marshall and I negotiated my adoption in this episode.
I hope he's aware of how many surfboards I need every year.
I'm Guy Kawasaki. This is Remarkable People. And now, here's the one and only, remarkable Marshall Goldsmith.
He was dressed, by the way, in his signature tan pants and green polo shirt even for interview.
Last week, I interviewed Neil deGrasse Tyson, and I don't know how we got on the subject, but somehow we got to the dichotomy of is a glass half empty or half full? And in your Aspiration section where you list all those variables and you say completely cross out or redact the ones that are not pertinent to you, but the ones that are pertinent, pick one of the two, so one of the variables in there is half empty or half full.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Right.
Guy Kawasaki:
So I happen to ask Neil, is the glass half or half full? This is why Neil deGrasse Tyson is Neil deGrasse Tyson and I'm a mere mortal.
And he said, "Guy, the way you figure out if a glass is half full or half empty is, if you're pouring water into it, it's half full, if you're taking water out of it, it's half empty."
Marshall Goldsmith:
I like that.
Guy Kawasaki:
Drop the mic.
Marshall Goldsmith:
I like it.
Guy Kawasaki:
Huh? That is utterly fantastic. Maybe you can use that one day in your presentation.
Marshall Goldsmith:
I like it. I'm writing that down.
Guy Kawasaki:
All right. Good. Be sure you attribute it to Neil deGrasse Tyson, not me. I don't want to get credit for something that wasn't my brilliance.
Marshall Goldsmith:
You probably didn't think of it.
Guy Kawasaki:
It doesn't matter. One of the things I learned in my career is you got to know what to steal. Indiscriminate stealing, it's not sufficient.
Let me start off with a relatively hard one, which is Marshall Goldsmith, world's greatest executive coach, leader, et cetera, et cetera, how do you explain Elon Musk and Steve Jobs because they are hardly in the paradigm of ask and listen and following your techniques to be a great leader?
Marshall Goldsmith:
One thing Steve jobs did which was very, very interesting, with Tim Cook, is Steve jobs originally just trashed people who were not innovators. "We need this company filled with innovators." And Tim Cook is what you'd call a soldier, he's the guy that makes the train to run.
And Steve Jobs realized that just incredible focus on innovators and forget people who have execute didn't work. So I think to his credit, he actually, in his later years, started practicing a lot more of that than he did in his earlier years. Point one.
Point two, we're all successful in spite of and because of. I'm sure that you're successful because you do many things right and in spite of doing a few things that are idiotic, as am I.
Guy Kawasaki:
Absolutely.
Marshall Goldsmith:
And so, sometimes we pick people who are successful in terms of they get results and we don't really ask in spite of and because of questions. I don't know enough about Elon Musk to express an opinion one way or the other, but Steve Jobs was an interesting case study. And before he died, he would say he would've made some changes in the way he treated people.
Guy Kawasaki:
Thank you for clearing up that mystery for me.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
So let's just dive into it.
First, let's start off with the basis, just please explain earned success and earned life. What do you mean?
Marshall Goldsmith:
By the earned life, it's when our levels of effort and the focus we're putting into a project and our risks are aligned with our higher aspiration in life, regardless of the results or outcomes.
So really, are we achieving alignment between three things? One is our aspirations, second, our ambitions, and third, our day-to-day actions. Are they aligned?
And the interesting thing in the definition is regardless of outcomes, because one of the problems that we have in the West is what I'd call result addiction and achievement addiction.
And everyone that I work with is just ridiculously high achievers, they're all ridiculously high achievers. They don't need me to help them achieve something, they just need to look at, why am I doing this?
Guy Kawasaki:
And is this earned success, is it about avoiding regret or obtaining success?
Marshall Goldsmith:
I call it fulfillment. It's more about, choose fulfillment over regret. And I'd say it's both.
One, you want to achieve fulfillment in life, but two, you do want to avoid regret. You don't want to sit back and look at your life and say, "I wish I would've."
Guy Kawasaki:
And does it matter if the success is earned or not?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Yes and no. I'd say, largely, more yes than no.
For example, people that are trust fund kids don't tend to do very well in life and especially in our society. I think there's a lot more respect when you feel like I did earn what I got, as opposed to what I got was just given to me.
And the point about earning is it's not something you can rest on your morals. You could probably retire and play crappy golf with old people at the country club and eat chicken sandwiches if you felt like it, but what's the point?
So at a certain level, the idea of the earned life is, it's not a place you get to, it's a process and the process is an ever-changing, always reincarnating process of life.
Guy Kawasaki:
And from the outside, looking in, can you tell if someone has earned it or hasn't? Are all trust fund babies... Or is it possible? Take the worst case, can you have a trust fund baby who's actually earned it?
Marshall Goldsmith:
You can have trust fund baby who's constantly earning life and you can have a trust fund baby who's doing nothing. So there's nothing good or bad about being a trust fund baby, the good or bad thing is what are you doing today? What are you doing today?
And to have a good life, you need to have, I think, a few things.
One is you need to have a middle class or above middle-class level of income, but you don't need to be rich. If you look at studies on happiness, once you get to a certain point, more money doesn't make you happier, more money doesn't make you less happy.
You need to have some level of money to be happy. Then you need to have good relationship with people you love and you need to be healthy.
Now, if you're healthy, you got good relationship with people you love, then what matters in life? One, you have some higher aspiration, "Why am I doing this?" You got to be doing this for some reason. What is that higher level of aspiration which doesn't have a goal or a finish line?
Then you need to achieve something day-to-day so that it's, hopefully, connected to that higher aspiration. And then, finally, you need to engage in day-to-day action, which provides joy in your life and connection to your life. So if those three are aligned you win in the game of life.
The people I coach tend to be stuck on phase two. They're so focused on achievement that if they're not careful, forget why am I doing this, number one, and then, number two, forget to enjoy the process of doing this. And do you know the study of the marshmallows?
Guy Kawasaki:
Yes.
Marshall Goldsmith:
That's one of my favorite parts of the book. We had the marshmallow studies. I love the marshmallow study.
So you give the kid a marshmallow. So you tell the kid, "Eat the marshmallow, you get one. But if you wait, you get two." Now, according to their research, which I'm little dubious about, the kids that eats one marshmallow all become drug addicts and the kids that wait all get PhDs at Harvard.
Guy Kawasaki:
It's that simple?
Marshall Goldsmith:
So I think it's a little bit exaggerated.
But anyway, the essence of this is that delayed gratification is good. What they didn't do in the research is they didn't take the kid that got two marshmallows and say, "Kid, wait a little bit more, three. Wait some more, four. Wait a little more, five, ten, a hundred."
And where do you end up? An old man waiting to death in a room surrounded by uneaten marshmallows.
And I talk about the book, Jack Welch almost died. So he had a triple bypass surgery. Right. He almost died. And my friend Mark Ryder, who's his agent, and he says, "What'd you learn about life?" And Jack Welch said, "Why am I drinking the cheap wine every night?"
Jack Welch, he has his wine cellar surrounded with spectacular wine, every night he is drinking cheap wine. Why? He was waiting for the other wine to appreciate in value. He said, "I am Jack Welch. I am rich. This wine appreciation is not going to matter and I'm bringing cheap wine every night. I'm insane." He made a commitment, "No more cheap wine."
Guy Kawasaki:
Speaking of wine, I love the story about how the guy who became the wine expert started turning down wine because he figured out that he's going to be dead before they reach peak.
Marshall Goldsmith:
That's it. The runway is over.
Guy Kawasaki:
That is a great story. I figured out that maybe there's no sense doing any more venture capital investment because I may die before those things become public.
What difference does it make?
Marshall Goldsmith:
You'll be dead anyway. Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
Don't you believe that most successful people believe they earn their success?
Marshall Goldsmith:
They do, to a degree. And again, most of us grossly overwrite our contribution to everything. 82 percent of all of us think we're in the top 20 percent of our peer group, and 70 percent think we're in the top ten and 98.5 percent think we're in the top half.
So we're all basically delusional. And look, you've been phenomenally successful. And let me give you one word that pops into mind, luck. I'm sure you must have had a zillion. Look at me, luck, luck, luck. Let's get real here, a lot of this stuff is luck.
And I think one thing we do in the West, and even your question kind of alluded to that, is kind like there is this place you can get to that you quote, "Get there," that there is a there.
Well, one of the points in the book, there is no there, there's no there. If there were a there, you'd already be there, I'd be there. There is no there.
Guy Kawasaki:
How much more there can you be?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Yeah. There's only here, there's no there.
And the great Western myth is "Everything will be fine when..." That's the great Western story. Now the great Western art form is this, you may have seen this before, there is a person, the person is sad, they spend money, they buy a product and they become happy.
This is called a commercial. Have you ever seen one of those? How many thousand times has that been hammered into your brain? You will be happy when... There is no when. In reality, you spend money, you buy a product, you have a product and less money, that's it.
And so, the whole idea of the Earned Life is every time I take a breath, it's a new me.
And I'm a Buddhist, so the book is largely a Buddhist philosophy book. And I called Buddha, I said, "Buddha, can I use your stuff? Do I need to send you commissions?" Do you know what he said? "It's for free. All free."
So basically, the Buddhas philosophy is every time I take a breath, it's a new me, it's a new me. Start over. And we're always starting over in life.
There isn't some there you get to and then once you get there, everything kind of floats along for eternity. That's a myth. There's one book that always has the same ending, "And they lived happily ever after." What type of book is that?
Guy Kawasaki:
Fairytale. Yep.
Marshall Goldsmith:
That's a fairytale. And they lived happily ever... That's not the way it works, it's always starting over, it's always starting over.
Why are you doing what you're doing? Why am I doing what I'm doing? God, because what are we going to do? You got to do something.
Guy Kawasaki:
Is there any acceptable duration of basking in glory and savoring success or is it like Phil Jackson, you've got to win the NBA the next year?
Marshall Goldsmith:
That's it. There's very little basking in glory. The reality is what happens after you cross the finish line? I looked at the studies on this, NFL, the NFL's statistics are abysmal. They should be ashamed. We're talking 80 percent bankrupt, depression, anxiety.
Michael Phelps won twenty-five gold medals. What did he think about doing? Killing himself. I mean, the victory, finish line, gold medal stuff that's good to a point.
I've done nine programs at my house, nine programs with retiring CEOs. The topic is what are you going to do now? Now what? A lot of them don't think about this till it happens.
What are you going to do now? I mean, these things range from hilarious to tragic. Mike Duke was the CEO of Walmart. He was in my class. So he said, "I used to tell this joke and everybody laugh, hoh-hoh-hoh. And it didn't offend anyone. I loved my joke." And then, he said, "I retired as the CEO of Walmart and I told my little joke in his group" and he said, "nobody laughed."
Then he said, I'm in another group, I said, "Maybe they were grumpy, tell joke again," nobody laughed. He said, finally, his wife goes, "Mike, you idiot, did you actually think that joke was funny?"
You see, being CEO of Walmart, it was really funny, hoh-hoh-hoh-hoh. He's not the CEO of Walmart, it's not funny anymore, they're not laughing. So you can't get addicted to that stuff because that's not real.
Guy Kawasaki:
Why is it so difficult for people, especially successful people, to ask for help?
Marshall Goldsmith:
That's a great question.
And let me tell you one thing I'm proud of in my life, years ago, and you're a little bit older so you might remember this, coaching was seen as something for fixing losers, and one thing I'm proud of, and I think I've really helped pioneer this, I don't coach losers.
My clients are not losers, they're big winners. So I've really worked on... Coaching is important for fixing winners, helping winners, not fixing losers. And how many of the top ten tennis players have a coach? Ten. They all have coaches, right? Why do they have a coach? Well, that's why they get better, so everybody can get better.
I'll use myself as an example. I have someone call me on the phone every day, almost every day, for twenty-five years. Someone said, "Why do you have somebody call you on the phone every day for twenty-five years? Don't you know the theory about how to change?"
I wrote the theory about how to change. That’s why I go on the phone every day, "My name is Marshall Goldsmith. I'm too cowardly and undisciplined to do any of this stuff by myself and I need help."
It's okay. I need help, it's okay. You need a little help. We all need help.
Guy Kawasaki:
I love the story in your book where you say the golf pro says that 15 percent or 20 percent of the people who are members ever ask for coaching, all the others are, I don't know. Yeah.
Marshall Goldsmith:
I know. They just go out there and screw up every day and wonder why they don't get better.
Guy Kawasaki:
I took up surfing late in my life and I figured out, it doesn't matter why you caught the wave. There's nothing pure about you self-taught, all that matters is you caught the wave and you had fun and whether that's because of coaching, or YouTubes, or whatever.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Well, in my book, I have a little surfing story. It was the boogie board. Dumbest thing I ever did. I talk about stupid risks I took. Right. I broke my neck when I was twenty-seven years old surfing, broke my neck. Why didn't I do that? Because I was an idiot. I'm trying to be macho. Right. Here comes some giant wave, boom, breaks my neck. That was the end of that.
Guy Kawasaki:
Well, would you say that ambition overtook your aspiration?
Marshall Goldsmith:
You know what happened there? I use that as example of the action phase, you get so locked into the short-term gratification, that I was like... Everybody's egging me on and I'm all macho and yeah, you get a thrill, you get a thrill.
So right there, I'm twenty-seven years old. I got a wife, a little baby. I'm sitting here breaking my neck. I'm very lucky I can walk. I broke my neck in two places.
Guy Kawasaki:
Back to the question about asking for help, so now we know why it's so difficult to ask for help, but how can people fix this?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Let me give you some good case studies, one of them is my friend, Hubert Joly. You met Hubert? He wrote a book called The Heart of Business. You ought to have him on your show. He's a great guy.
Hubert wrote this book, The Heart of Business, I'm a Hubert's coach. He turned Best Buy around. He stands up in front of everybody says, "My name is Hubert Joly. I got a coach. I'm getting feedback. I need to get better, please help me."
Alan Mulally, CEO of Ford, best CEO in the world, probably the last twenty, thirty years, same thing. He stands up in front of everybody, "I need help." To me, the best leaders stand up and they say they need help and they get better.
Here's why, I wrote an article about this, to help others develop, start with yourself. You want other people try to improve? Let them watch you try to improve. Don't preach at them, let them watch you try to improve.
And to me, the good news is this has changed. In the old days, leaders never did ask for help, today they do. It's a new world.
My friend, Mark Thompson, and I talk to every weekend, and these were like Pau Gasol, the basketball star, and Curtis Martin, the football player and Telly Leung, Broadway star and president of world bank, the head of the Olympic Committee, all these godlike people and every weekend they talked about their lives.
And every weekend they'd step up and say, "Here's my name. Here's what I did. Here's what I screwed up." And they all ask for help every week. Yeah. How many of them every week said, "I had no problems?"
None. They are just as human as everybody else, just human like everybody else. Everybody's got parents who've got Alzheimer's, kids with drug problems. Yeah, they get the same stuff as everybody else.
The only thing is, in my coaching, I only work with people that care.
So I'm not really in the motivation business. People ask me, how do I motivate people? I don't. If somebody doesn't want to do what I do, I don't care. I just don't do it. Fine, just don't waste my time.
So I only work with people that care.
So I'm not really in the business of getting people that don't care to care. I've learned a hard lesson in my role as a coach, you know what that lesson is? "My name is Marshall Goldsmith, not Jesus Christ."
So I'm not the savior business, no, let somebody else do that. I only work with people who care.
Guy Kawasaki:
Well, I'm glad you clarified that.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Yeah. You were confused there for a little bit.
Guy Kawasaki:
I was. Okay. Now, many of us are parents and what's your recommendation for how to teach your kids to earn their success?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Oh, start with yourself. You have kids?
Guy Kawasaki:
Four of them.
Marshall Goldsmith:
How old?
Guy Kawasaki:
Twenty-nine, twenty-seven, twenty, and sixteen, approximately.
Marshall Goldsmith:
All right. Now, have you been asking them, what can I do to be a better dad?
Guy Kawasaki:
Not lately.
Marshall Goldsmith:
That's what do you want to do. You want them to get better? Let them watch you try to get better. You're going to call them up and say, "What can I do to be a better dad?"
Guy Kawasaki:
When I end this podcast, I'm going to go see my sixteen-year-old and ask him that.
Marshall Goldsmith:
That's good. Yeah. They may all say, "Dad, you have no room for improvement." That's possible. Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Are you married?
Guy Kawasaki:
Yes.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Have you been asking your wife, what can I do to be a better husband?
Guy Kawasaki:
No.
Marshall Goldsmith:
You got your cell phone there?
Guy Kawasaki:
Yes.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Okay. I will just send a text to your wife right now and ask one question, what can I do to be a better partner in our relationship? Send a text message.
Guy Kawasaki:
Are you going to wait while I do that?
Marshall Goldsmith:
I've done this with thousands of people, I get some hilarious responses, usually from the wife. Here's some of my favorites. One wife says, "Who's stolen my husband's cell phone." Another one is, "Are you sick? Are you drunk? Who have you been sleeping with?" I get so many funny-
Guy Kawasaki:
I'm going to try both of these things, but not in real-time.
So speaking of kids, what does one do if you're rich, what do you do with your estate?
Marshall Goldsmith:
I'll tell you, half my clients are billionaires so I have to deal with this all the time. You have to be very careful not to screw up your kids or even more dangerous, your grandkids, because sometimes it's not so bad with the kids as it is with the grandkids.
One time I had breakfast with Rob Walton, Sam Walton was his dad. And he said, "I saw my father make the money so at least I knew what was involved." He said, "My kids didn't, my kids were just handed things."
So I wrote a story in the book about what didn't work, so this is what not to do. One guy in my 'What Are You Going To Do Now? class was a CEO and he said, "I worked eighty hours a week for forty years with goal, so my kid would never have to do that, my kids would never have to do that."
He said, "It was the worst thing I could have ever done for myself or for my children." So what he gave his kids was a gift, but not an investment. So if you're going to give kids money, I would say, "Look, I would like to give you money, here's what I expect back. I expect you to do something meaningful with your life. I expect you to be grateful."
And he just gave the kids money, and you know what he got back for it? Nothing, ungrateful, didn't like him, bum, zero.
So I don't think it's inherently bad to give the kid money, but I would look at it more as an investment than a gift.
Because a gift, by definition, is a gift. What they're going to do with the money, whatever they want.
You can't really complain. You give somebody a gift, it's theirs.
So I would look at it more as an investment than a gift and say, "Kid, I'm going to try to help you. Here's what I expect back." And I'm sure you have expectations for your kids. "I'm not giving you money so you can be a bum, no."
Look, my good friend has three friends who all are on trust funds and they're all bums. They're nice kids. They're not bad. They're in their twenties. They're just bums. They don't do anything. They're rich bums, but they're bums.
Guy Kawasaki:
And when this episode ends and I go see my son, he'll be like, "Dad, what happened to you today? You're asking me how to be a better father.
You're telling me that you're making an investment in me. You expect a return." My wife's going to say, "What happened, honey? Did you get hit on the head surfing?"
Marshall Goldsmith:
"Who is this guy? What happened to him?" Yeah. Here's the key to what I do, the key to what I do is follow-up because nobody gets better because they have a coach, nobody gets better because they read a book or listen to a podcast.
You have to work. And with my clients, it's the day after day after day work, then they get better. And you talk to your kid once, it won't make a difference. But you call out your kid every two months for a year, it starts a matter, then the kid realizes, "Dad's serious. He actually is trying to get better." "My husband, the guy is serious. He actually gives a shit." You have to do it though, you can't just do it once.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'll integrate this podcast, I interviewed a guy named BJ Fogg and he talked about Tiny Habits, how you create Tiny Habits, so if I combine Goldsmith and Fogg, man, I got it made. Would you explain the very awesome concept of the paradigm of every breath?
Marshall Goldsmith:
It's a very hard concept for Western people to understand. And again, this is a Buddhist concept. Every time I take a breath, it's a new me. Now, the you that is at the end of this podcast is not the same as the you that's at the beginning of this podcast. You're a different person.
I'm a different person. We're all different. So the every breath idea is every time I take a breath, it's a new me. Some people ask, "Is Buddhism about reincarnation?" It's about nothing but reincarnation. That's all there is, constant reincarnation. There is no fixed you that stays the same over time, the you is always changing.
So this is, to me, an incredibly healthy concept in two ways, one is looking at your past, getting people to forgive themselves for what they did in the past. We all made mistakes. Well, the way you look at it, that's a previous rendition of me.
They did some things right and they did some things wrong. It's done. It is done. We're not going to change the past.
And then the other thing is looking to the future. And I have an exercise where you write a letter to that you in the future, you write a letter and say, "I'm willing to make a sacrifice for you now, here's what I expect back from you, future me."
So it's a really fun way to look at life is the previous renditions of you and the future renditions of you.
And this is one I find, a lot of people have trouble with self-forgiveness. I, by the way, I'm not one of those people. I'm very gifted at forgiving myself for all sins. I have committed-
Guy Kawasaki:
And you had a lot of practice.
Marshall Goldsmith:
I've got a lot of practice. I'm good at forgiveness, for me, I forgive, go and go and go and go.
A lot of people have trouble with that and what I tell them is, "Take a breath and think of all the previous yous. Think of all the previous yous and think about all the gifts they've given you. And think about how hard they tried. And think about the nice things they did." And then you say, "If any group of people did that stuff, what would you say to those people?" and they say, "Thank you."
Now, did they make mistakes? Sure they did. Let it go. Let it go. Why carry this stuff around? Let it go. That was them. That was the previous renditions of you. You can't change them, they're over. And the future you, well, that's a future you.
Now, on the happiness quotient, there's only one second you can be happy. The great Western disease, "I'll be happy when I get the money, status, BMW." No, you won't. There's only one second in time you're going to be happy, now, that's it.
And there's only one place you can ever be happy, here.
Now, where is Nirvana for you? Nirvana is talking to some bald guy on a podcast. This is it. Here it is. This is heaven, this is hell, this is the whole show.
Guy Kawasaki:
This is it.
Marshall Goldsmith:
This is it.
Guy Kawasaki:
I loved in the book where you said this about "I'll be happy when I get this," and you say, "Yeah, when you get your Tesla with higher mileage." That's just hilarious.
This is not a pushback, but I just want to be sure that people interpret this right.
I understand the every breath paradigm about forgive and every breath you're a different person. But what about when you watch some politician or some business leader and he says, "Yes, I cheated on my wife. I cheated on my taxes. I violated this law, but I asked God forgiveness and he gave it to me so now I'm a new man."
It's like, what? Why is the slate whipped clean instantly?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Now, number one, although I am a wonderful coach, no doubt, living up to my esteemed reputation, I am not going to help you change some politician that you watch on TV.
So the amount of utility you're going to get from trying to change TV politicians is phenomenally close to zero, zero.
So what? I learned a great lesson from Peter Drucker that's really helped in my life. His lesson is we're here on earth to make a positive difference, not to prove we're smart, not to prove we're right.
And before you do anything, you ask a question, "Am I willing to make the investment required to make a positive difference on this topic?" If the answer is yes, go for it, if the answer is no, let it go. Trying to change up politician, why you waste your time even thinking about it. You can't do anything about that. By the way, did that politician ask you for your opinion?
I don't think so. No. Let it go. Let it go.
Now if you're going to do something to try to change it, knock yourself out. The reality is 95 percent of the time, you're going to do absolutely nothing. You're just talking.
Guy Kawasaki:
But what if-
Marshall Goldsmith:
Now, now, you wait one second. I teach my clients, you never start sentences with 'but'. Now that's the third time you've done that. I charge them twenty dollars every time they do that. That's a terrible habit, but, but, but. Now, say it again, but leave out the but.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay.
What happens if someone listens to this and starts forgiving himself or herself too easily, that they just say that, "Oh, I breathe another breath. It's okay. I don't have to think about what I did"?
Marshall Goldsmith:
I think people should have a good life and they try to be the best person you can. Bum wrapping yourself for the past doesn't help. That does not help. What good does torturing yourself do? Let me give you another example.
In the book, I talk about empathy. I used to think empathy was good. It sounds good, "Empathy," good. This is a great example of what you're talking about. Empathy, good. Caring, good. In the book, caring can be good. Caring could be a disaster. Let me give you an example.
Caring. One of my coaching guys is in charge of St. Jude Children's Hospital. He used to watch little kids die of cancer every day. Now, he can't take that home, that's not fair to his wife, that's not fair to his kids and that doesn't even make him a good doctor. It's good to care to a point.
You need to learn to let it go. You need to learn to let it go. Because if you can't let it go, you don't help anybody. And one of the big problems we have in the healthcare system was burnout after COVID. You got to let it go. You can't carry it home, you got to let it go. And empathy is who do I need to be now for the person I'm talking to now, not, I feel bad about something that happened last week or some kid that just died.
I gave a funny story in the book that's a really counterintuitive story. A guy who's venture capitalist, and some hedge fund guy. You think anybody doesn't care, it's hedge fund guy. Biggest problem they have is caring, you think that's not going to happen.
One hedge fund guy is worth a billion dollars, he's interviewing another worth three billion. And he says, "Why won't you have a fund?" And the three billion guy says, "I'm not as good as I used to be. I started caring."
He said, "Before, in the old days, I did make billions of dollars, but I lost billions. I made fifty-two, lost forty-eight. Hey, I'm rich."
He said, "I got older, I started thinking this retirement fund and people's money, it became much more conservative”, and he said, "much less effective. Now I only invest my own money." But that's why doctors don't operate on their kids. See, caring is useful only to the degree caring is useful.
And when you're caring about something that doesn't involve the people you're around or your life, it's not useful at all. It could do more harm than good.
So the people I work with, by the way, are good people. I'm not worrying about them taking advantage. I'm not worrying about them not caring.
On the guilt-o-meter scale, is there a problem that they have too little guilt? No, I don't work with too many people that I worry because their guilt is not going to be too low. They have too much guilt.
Guy Kawasaki:
I love the part about you can be more. So how do you optimally give, you can be more advice?
Marshall Goldsmith:
To me, that's very positive advice because it's a compliment to someone. And the times I mentioned in my life when people have given me that advice, I wasn't doing bad. They were not putting me down.
Like Paul Hersey, my old mentor said, "When you're making too much money, your customers are too happy. If you're not careful, it's going to run around like a chicken with your head cut off and you're going to be doing the same thing day after day. And you'll make money, and your customers are happy, but you could be something bigger."
And to me, that's an ultimate compliment to give someone, you can be more. And if I look at my own life, in my own life, my heroes were all people who were people like Peter Drucker and Paul Hersey and Frances Hesselbein, Alan Mulally, these great teachers and my mission in life was to be like them. That was my goal. And more or less, guess what? I am.
Guy Kawasaki:
Let's just say, Marshall, that not everybody's hanging around Peter Drucker and Frances Hesselbein.
Marshall Goldsmith:
That's true. He'd have to be a little smart to hang around Peter Drucker. Frances Hesselbein, it's nice. Peter Drucker, the old saying, does not bear fools gladly. He was a poster boy of that, I could tell you. If he thought you were stupid, you had about two minutes of his time. "Bye. Next, next, next." Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
Really?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wow.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Nice Guy if he thought you were smart and interesting, but if he thought you were dull and boring, out.
Guy Kawasaki:
I read the Effective Executive and his book Management and they were big influences in my life when I was young, huge influence, effective executive especially.
Marshall Goldsmith:
You meet that guy in person, I got ranked Number One Leadership Thinker in the world twice, my intellect compared to him, ten-year-old child. No offense to me, but I was not playing with the same deck he was. That guy was smart and he taught me a lot. I got this program I do. I should have you join my club.
So I went to a program called Design the Life You Love and the woman said, who are your heroes? Well, they're all these great people like Peter Drucker and Frances and these people. She said, "You should be like them." I decided to adopt fifteen people teach them all I know for free, but the only price is, when they get old, they do the same thing. I thought adopting twelve disciples sounded a little tacky, so I go for fifteen.
Guy Kawasaki:
It's been done before.
Marshall Goldsmith:
It's been done. Somebody else did that.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah.
Marshall Goldsmith:
So I made a little video and put it on LinkedIn. I'm thinking, a hundred people would apply for adoption, I'd adopt fifteen, 18,000 people applied for adoption.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wow.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Now I've adopted about 370 people. And the rules are give everything away for free and people's thank you. You don't critique anybody. Nobody has to do anything. And there's no expectation of a payback, the only expectation is you help somebody else.
So it's a wonderful idea. I should adopt you. So I think you should come-
Guy Kawasaki:
I'm available.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Oh good. I'll be your honorary father. I'd be proud to have you as an honorary son. The age range is from about thirty to 106, so I have a wide range of adopted children. Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wow. 106?
Marshall Goldsmith:
That's Frances, she's 106.
Guy Kawasaki:
She's 106?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Yeah, she is.
Guy Kawasaki:
Wow. I had no idea.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
I know why she lives so long, it's the Girl Scout cookies. I'm telling you, it's the Samoas. I-
Marshall Goldsmith:
I got a hilarious story about Frances, are you ready? I said to my wife, "Well, let's just donate $25,000 a year to Frances' foundation thing." You know what I said to my wife? "She's seventy years old, how long can this last?" Bye-bye 900,000 bucks.
Guy Kawasaki:
That is a great story. I'm going to call up Neil deGrasse Tyson and tell him that story since... Okay, back to some topics that people will gain perspective on. All right?
So, how do you break out of inertia?
Marshall Goldsmith:
I think the way you break out of inertia is you keep challenging yourself. And rather than waiting for somebody else to say, "You could be more," you look in the mirror and say, "You can be more." And inertia is very hard to break out of, it's very hard. And you've got to consistently say, "Starting over. Starting over. Starting over. Starting over. That was then."
And back to looking at the past, the good news about looking at the past versions of you as a previous person is you're more likely to forgive them. The other good news, though, is you're less likely to coast because all that stuff that happened in the past, "I didn't do it. Those previous renditions to me did that."
Jim Kim is one of the greatest people I've ever met, he saved twenty million lives, he was president of World Bank. He said, "I develop my legacy every day." I think it's a healthy way to look at life.
Every day we start over. Every day we're developing legacy. Every day we're trying to make some positive difference.
And Bob Dylan has a good quote, "He who is not busy being born is busy dying." I think that's a good quote. Yeah. Why are you doing what you're doing? You don't have to do this. I don't have to do this. Why you do it? You try to make a positive difference and you enjoy it, that's it.
Guy Kawasaki:
I think this podcast is the best work I've ever done in my career.
This thing about forgiving your past, but it also means forgetting the past accomplishments.
It's not just, get rid of the negative, it's also, get rid of the positive. You got to look forward.
Marshall Goldsmith:
You're not coasting on those accomplishments, because if you do, you're like the football player.
Now, I mentioned Curtis Martin in the book. I love Curtis Martin. You ought to have him on your show if you ever get a chance.
Curtis Martin is a formal NFL all-star, number five rusher in history, but really, is happy, is fulfilled in life, he's always out trying to do good.
He's in the book. And he doesn't live on, "Gee..." He's not the guy saying, "I won Super Bowl III" and sitting there getting drunk while telling stories of winning the Super Bowl thirty years ago, that's over.
And by the way, the person won the Super Bowl thirty years ago wasn't you, it wasn't you, that was some kid. That wasn't you, that was somebody else. You didn't win the Super Bowl, this kid did. That's over.
And Curtis is a great role model of that because he's always trying to be better and different and he's also happy, he's also happy. He's a happy person and very successful, good business guy, helping people. And why? It's he's not coasting.
Guy Kawasaki:
How do you deprogram yourself?
Marshall Goldsmith:
It is amazing how we stereotype ourselves. And we say things like this, "I'm no good at..." I'm coaching someone, "I can't listen. I can't listen. I've never been able to listen. I can't listen." So I say, "If I put a gun to your head, could you listen?" "Yes." "I guess you can listen then." We program ourselves constantly, "I can't do this. I can't do this. I'm not this."
And I always tell my clients, "Do you have an incurable genetic defect?"
Now, if you have an incurable genetic defect, you're right, you can't change. Assuming you do not have an incurable genetic defect, you can change."
The people I coach can change. Hey, for years, I didn't get paid one cent if they didn't get better. Guess what? If they couldn't change, I wouldn't get paid. Anybody can change. The point is, though, you're not going to change if you tell yourself, "I can't change. I can't change. I can't change. This is who I am."
Guy Kawasaki:
In your section about aspiration, you talk about capitalizing on your ability, looking for areas of adjacency, but can't those practices conflict with aspiration, because it'll mean that you'll stick to what you can do well and what's related to what you do well? Don't you need to get out of the comfort zone?
Marshall Goldsmith:
That's a very important point. Now, I talk about the value of getting out of the comfort zone. And in fact, comfort can be detrimental to your future aspirations.
The idea of agency, though, is a very interesting point. The idea of agency is how can you go someplace else? And in your case, what you're doing as a podcast might not be what you're doing as a writer, yet it's adjacent.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yes.
Marshall Goldsmith:
You are a speaker, it's adjacent. You're a coach, it's adjacent. I'm talking to you, it's adjacent.
I'm not going to be a football star. So the idea of adjacency is not that you can't do something different, it's that the highest probability is doing something that is at least connected to your previous lives.
You spent all those years building something. You're probably going to build something that is connected to those previous years. So, that's where the concept came from.
Guy Kawasaki:
What happens if I decide that I'm going to become a classic cello player at sixty-seven? It's not adjacent, I have no natural ability.
Marshall Goldsmith:
It's not going to happen.
Guy Kawasaki:
So I don't understand. So what's the rule of natural ability.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Let me take it back, You can become a cello player, you're just not going to be a great cello player. So if your goal is I'm going to be a cello player for fun, that's fine.
If your goal is I'm going to become a great cello player, it's not going to happen.
Guy Kawasaki:
Now, when is it time to quit an aspiration?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Well, back to this, am I willing to make the investment required to make a positive difference on this topic? If that answer is yes, you shouldn't quit. If the answer is no, you should quit.
Back to Peter Drucker point, we're here to make a positive difference, not to be smart, not to be right, not to prove a point. Just keep focused on that. Is it worth it? Am I willing to try to do something good? Is it going to matter? Or am I just complaining, or am I just spending time spinning my wheels, or I'm just doing it because I always did it?
Guy Kawasaki:
So much of your book requires a lot of introspection and honesty. Your book is not an easy book.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Yeah, it's very interesting. That's some of those common feedback. It's a very dense book.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yes.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Yeah. One good thing about the book, you can't say it's one chapter repeated fifteen times.
Guy Kawasaki:
That's for damn sure. Yes. Yes.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Yeah. There's lot in there.
Guy Kawasaki:
How long did it take you to write that thing?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Depends, either a year or seventy-four years. Depends how you want to look at it.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah, I absolutely understand that answer. Yes.
So perhaps for my last question is, because I found this one of the most fascinating topics in a wholly fascinating book is, what is your advice to high school seniors or college freshman about the purpose of college?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Purpose of college? Very interesting question. Three things, is this going to help you achieve some higher aspiration? Is there something other than getting a degree you're doing?
Two, is it going to help you be an achiever so that it's connected to that?
Or three, are you going to enjoy it?
And if the answer is, "I really don't enjoy this and I'm not sure it's going to help me have a better life," then just to do it to do it is probably a waste of time.
Yeah. I think too many kids go to college.
Guy Kawasaki:
Too many kids go to college?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
Why?
Marshall Goldsmith:
They'd be better off in trade school or learning some practical tools or something other than studying stuff they don't remember and just wasting time.
Guy Kawasaki:
And how do you feel when you read that Harvard and Stanford get 15,000 applicants for, whatever, 400 positions or it's some tiny amount, I think it's 3 percent or 4 percent get admitted. And if you took the athletes out of that 3 percent or 4 percent and the legacy kids, who gets in anymore?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Well, let me give you an example. I have a PhD from UCLA.
How many people applied to the freshman class at UCLA last year? 165,000. There's no way I could get into the freshman class at UCLA now.
How do I feel about that? Fine. Raise the standards. I've graduated. What do I care?
Let me tell you, though, on a serious note, I do a lot of counseling with kids about this, and we know a lot of sad stories of kids who work very hard and just had their hearts broken because they couldn't get into these schools. You've got to tell kids today, "Don't take it personally."
The chancellor of UCSD is one of my adopted children and he said that, basically, you take the class that gets in, equal number, equal number, and equal number, the fourth level down, you couldn't tell the difference. His word, "It's a lottery." Getting into these schools is a lottery.
Back to what I said, do not put your soul on any result. Never measure your value as a human being on the result of something. Why? Number one, you do not control the results.
And there's no better example than college admissions. I tell these kids, "Look, you don't control the results, a lot of random variables. You can be the best student in the whole world, you still might not get in. Don't put your soul there."
And then, number two, this is what you've talked about, after you achieve the results, how much happiness does that bring you anyway? You just said a week, two weeks. How much happiness does it bring you anyway? It doesn't.
One of the guys in my group... Did you ever meet Safi Bahcall? He wrote a book called Loonshots. Great guy. Anyways, really smart guy.
So Safi said the one thing you learned in our groups is he used to think that happiness was a dependent variable upon achievement. He learned no. Happiness and achievement are independent variables. You can achieve and be happy. You can achieve and be miserable. You can achieve nothing and be happy and you achieve nothing and be miserable.
He said, "I've finally realized, happiness and achievement are independent variables." That's very good point. You're not going to achieve enough to be happy.
By the way, if achievement would make you happy, everyone I coach would be dancing off the ceiling every day. Everyone I coach is ridiculously high achievers.
And one other thing I like about the book as opposed to the typical self-help book that says achieve more, delayed gratification is good, here's how you achieve more, more, more, more, more, this book says, don't put your soul there.
Don't put your soul on those results, because when you do, it's a fool’s game. You're never going to win that game.
Now, you've sold books, you sell a million books of one book, two million books, whatever, the next book you got to sell five, ten, at a certain point, how much money you need to make? Certainly, I got more and more, more.
Why you need to make more and more, more? For what?
And by the way, if you do, how much satisfaction does that bring in and of itself? Not much. Not much.
Guy Kawasaki:
So, I think that you have conflicted with, defied or maybe even destroyed many, many commonly held beliefs about management and progression and career and all that kind of stuff.
So maybe in this last minute or two, to just give us clear direction, summarize, this is what you should do.
Marshall Goldsmith:
I'm going to answer all your questions. Here's the best advice you're ever going to get, anybody's going to get. All right. Is everybody listening? Here it comes.
Take a breath. Imagine you're ninety-five years old, you're getting ready to die. And that person looking at death is given a great gift, the ability to go back and talk to the person listening to me and you right now, the ability to help that person be a better professional, more important, to have a better life.
What advice would that old person facing death who knows what mattered and didn't have for the you that's listening to us? Whatever that is, do that. In terms of performance appraisal, that's the only one that matters.
Three things come up from people facing death, one, be happy now, not next week, not next month, not, "I'll be happy when..." We all get the same when.
That old person looking at death, that's called when.
Number two is friends, family, relationship, the people you love. Don't be so busy climbing a ladder you forget the people you love.
And then, number three, just go for it. You've got some aspiration in life, just go for it.
Business advice is much different, number one, life is short, have fun.
Now, this is not in this book but in a future book so I hope nobody quotes me on this, but my new research has found something very profound. You know what it is?
To the best of my knowledge, we're all going to be equally dead. Last time I checked, I think we're all equally dead here so let's have some fun, let's have some fun.
And then, do whatever you can do to help people.
And then, just go for it in life.
Old people, we don't regret the risk we took and fail, we regret the risk we fail to take.
And finally, as I've grown older in life, my level of aspiration has going down, down, down, and down, my level of impact, up and up and up. Why? Quit worrying about what I'm going to change?
Let me give you my goal on our wonderful podcast here. You ready? If one person who listens to this podcast has a little better life, good podcast. I'm declaring victory here. Good... And you know what? If they don't, let's say nobody has a better life, I still had a good time anyway. How about you?
Guy Kawasaki:
Marshall, you are truly a mensch. This has been just delightful so thank you very much.
And I'm going to end this podcast and I'm going to go see my son and ask him how I can be a better dad. I kid you not. I'm going to do that right now.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Thank you.
You look up 100 Coaches. And I would love to adopt you, I'd be honored. You're a good guy, good sense of humor. You would love the people in our group.
So if you're in need of an honorary father here, I would be... Now, we have rules though, no money, no guilt and no expectations. You got to remember the rules.
Guy Kawasaki:
And no buts.
Marshall Goldsmith:
That one you've got to work on. Thank you.
Guy Kawasaki:
That's my new aspiration.
Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." Marshall Goldsmith said, "The unearned life is not worth living."
May you go out there and earn the life you're living.
I'm Guy Kawasaki. This is Remarkable People. I'm on a mission to make you remarkable and achieve that earned life.
My thanks to Peg Fitzpatrick, Jeff Sieh., Shannon Hernandez, Alexis Nishimura, Luis Magana, and the drop-in queen of Santa Cruz, Madisun Nuismer, they are all living an earned life.
Until next time, Mahalo and Aloha.