Blunt Wisdom From the World’s Top Executive Coach (#221)

Western culture is all about achievement and success. What are the most common mistakes that people make as they strive to be successful? And does achievement and success bring fulfillment? Hi, everyone.
I'm Lynn Thoman, and this is Three Takeaways. On Three Takeaways, I talk with some of the world's best thinkers, business leaders, writers, politicians, newsmakers, and scientists.
Each episode ends with three key takeaways to help us understand the world and maybe even ourselves a little better. Today, I'm excited to be with Marshall Goldsmith.
He's an executive coach and founder of the 100 Coaches, as well as a New York Times bestselling author. He is commonly called the number one executive coach in the world.
The people he's coached include the most famous CEOs, such as former World Bank CEO Jim Kim, former Ford CEO Alan Mulally, and Rockefeller Foundation President Raj Shah. Both former Ford CEO Alan Mulally and Rockefeller Foundation President Raj Shah have been guests on three takeaways.
During COVID, as Marshall continued working with very successful people, he increasingly found that even the highest achievers needed help finding fulfillment. So inspired by the lives of his coaching clients and by his own experience, he wrote his most recent book, which is wonderful, The Earned Life, about fulfillment.
I'm excited to find out the

common mistakes that even very successful people make in their careers and in their lives, and how

we can all be more successful in both our careers and in our lives. Welcome, Marshall, and thanks

so much for joining Three Takeaways today. Very happy to be here.
Thank you so much for inviting me. It is my pleasure.
Marshall, let's start by talking about coaching. What can a good coach do? Well, it depends.
This is a very good question because it depends upon the type of coach. My mission is I help successful leaders achieve positive long-term change in their behavior.
I invented a concept called stakeholder-centered coaching. And in stakeholder-centered coaching, you learn from everyone around you.
Other coaches use very different approaches. For example, the traditional ICF coach, International Coaching Federation, uses a more Socratic approach to coaching, which is good too.
That's more of a figure out what's going on inside you. And mine is more learned from everyone around you, or both can be fine.
Some people are more advisors. And again, I don't quibble over the definition of the word coach, like my friend David Allen.
He's a world's expert on personal productivity. Well, if you need advice on, for example, how to get organized, I'm not a good person to help you.
He is. So I think different people do different things.
And the key is, as a client, you might want to have someone help them someday. What do you need? What do you need to really get somebody who's geared at helping you achieve your specific issues? For me, if your issue is behavioral and you want to change and you're going to be supported by your organization for changing, then what I do is great.
If your issue is strategic, it's a waste of time. If you're going in the wrong direction, my coaching will only help you get there faster.
Marshall, what are the qualities of the most successful people? What is the single skill that separates the great from the near great? Well, there are many qualities that I've not an expert on. So I'm going to restrict my answer to areas where I may know a little bit.
For example, I'm not an expert on strategy or larger vision and all that. And those are very important things, but I'm not an expert on those.
My area is really helping people achieve behavioral change. And that is the ability to ask for input, listen, learn, follow up and grow on a regular basis, as opposed to coaching.
My most famous book is called What Got You Here Won't Get You There. And it's that ability, like you said,

the near great to the great. Well, what separates great yesterday from great tomorrow? Well, one of those is great yesterday, I got here.
Great tomorrow is I think it's going to get me to the future. It may not.
Interesting. I thought you were going to say a quality like listening? Listening is definitely one of those qualities.
And it is one of those qualities. It does separate the great from the near great.
They're all related though. It's listening, it's asking, it's being open.
It's the whole idea of I'm not perfect. Marshall, I was fascinated by your insight that the higher you go, the more likely your mistakes are to be behavioral.
Can you talk about that? Yes, because what happens is when you're in a younger position, like a young engineer, young finance person, you do really need to be technically competent. That's what you get paid for.
But every time you get promoted, that technical competence becomes less and less important. You can't rely on technical expertise.
More and more, you have to be a leader. You have to focus on behavior.
You have to focus on people. And it's not about you being the expert.
It's about them being the expert. It's not about you being the winner.
It's about them being the winner. This is a very difficult transition to make.
It's hard to make that transition between I'm smart, I'm wonderful, I'm special, and you're smart, you're wonderful, you're special. It's so interesting to me that when we think about very successful people, we rarely associate their success with technical skills or brain power.
I love your example of who people would rather have as a chief financial officer. The moderately good accountant who is great with people outside the firm and skilled at managing very smart people or the brilliant accountant who's inept with outsiders and alienates all these smart people under him.
Excellent example. The brilliant accountant is not a bad person.
They should just be an accountant. As long as you're an accountant, they're great, but they shouldn't be in a leadership role.
That's not what they're getting paid for. What do you see as the most common mistakes that people make? I was interviewed in the Harvard Business Review and asked a question, what is the number one problem of all success we've ever coached? And my answer was very simple, winning too much.
What's that mean? If it's important, we want to win. If it's meaningful, we want to win.
If it's critical, we want to win. If it's trivial, we want to win.
If it's not worth it, we want to win anyway. Winners love winning.
I'm going to give you an example of winning too much, and I'm going to bet almost all of our listeners have failed. Are you ready? Right.
Listener, you want to go to dinner at restaurant X. Your husband, wife, partner, significant other wants to go to dinner at restaurant Y.
You have a heated argument. You go to restaurant Y.
The food tastes awful, and the service is terrible. Option A, you could critique the food.
Point out our partner was wrong, and this mistake could have been avoided if you listened to me, me, me.

Option B, shut up.

Eat the dumb food.

Try to enjoy it and have a nice night.

What would I do?

What should I do?

Almost all my clients went, what would I do?

Critique the food.

What should I do?

Shut up.

It's hard for winners not to win.

I'll give you another example. You have a hard day at work.
You work you come home your husband wife or partner's there and the other person says i had a hard day today i had such a hard day if we're not careful we reply you had a hard day you had a hard day do you have any idea what i had to put up with today do you think you had a hard day we're so competitive we have to prove we're more miserable than the people we live with. I gave this example to my class at the Dartmouth Tuck School.
A young man raised his hand. He said, I did that last week.
I asked him what happened. He said, my wife looked at me and said, honey, you just think you've had a hard day.
It is not over. that is wonderful marshall, I love the start of your book.
What got you here won't get you there. Imagining that you're 95 years old and about to die.
And just before you take your last breath, you're given a gift. The ability to travel back in time to give advice to yourself when you are younger.
What advice would you now, as the wise and successful you that you are now, have for the young you? Three themes come up when people are interviewed around the world. Old people facing death.
Theme one, be happy now. Not next week, not next month, not next.
The great Western disease, I'll be happy when. When I get the money status, BMW, I'll be happy when.
Well, when is that old person? Learning point from old people. I got so busy chasing what I did not have, I could not see what I did have.
Had almost everything. Learning point two, friends and family, don't get so busy climbing the ladder of success.
We forget the people that love us. And number three, if you have a dream, go for it.
If you don't go for it when you're 50, you probably won't when you're 80. And business advice isn't much different.
Number one, life is short. Have fun.
You don't like what you're doing at work? Do your best. But eventually, if it doesn't work out, get out of there.
Life's too short. Number two, do whatever you can do to help people.
The main reason to help people has nothing to do with money status or getting ahead. The main reason to help people is much deeper.
The 95-year-old you will be proud of you because you did and disappointed if you don't. And the final advice is go for it.
World's changing. Do what you think is right.
You may not win. At least you tried.
Old people, we seldom regret the risks we take and fail. We usually regret the risks we fail to take.
So those are the major themes that come up. Marshall, you sign off every email that you've ever sent me with life is good.
Why? It's a reminder to me. Really, the message isn't to you as much as a reminder to myself.
One of the things I try to do every day is declare victory.

I mean, look, I won.

I have a picture that's in my book, Triggers, at home in my office.

And it's of 1984 and me kneeling on the ground in Africa during the Great Famine campaign.

There's a large line of kids and a woman is measuring their arms.

And if their arms are too big, they don't get any food. They're not hungry enough.
Their arms is too little, they don't get any food. They're going to die anyway.
Their arms in the middle, they got food. In the picture, I'm looking at the camera, and I'm trying to send the me of today a message from that me of the past.
Be grateful for what you have. Really, what are your problems today? What are you complaining about? What are you whining about? Be grateful for what you have.
So, life is good. I try to

remind myself every day is compared to what? Yeah, compared to what? I have so many blessings that

I should be grateful every day. And one of your other sayings is be happy now and let it go.
What does that mean to you? Well, a couple of things. One is the great Western myth, I'll be happy when.
When I get the money status, BMW, when. I'm a Buddhist.
The Buddhist term for this is called the hungry ghost. The hungry ghost is always eating, but never full.
Well, that's the disease of the West. So be happy now means you're not going to find it next week or next year.
It's now, it's here. And then, you know, let it go.
One of the best pieces of advice I ever give people is this, forgive other people for being who they are and forgive yourself for expecting them to be somebody else. Let me give an example.
I want everyone listening. I want you to think of someone who makes you feel bad, guilty, angry, and crazy.
Can you just come up with one? Now, I've got a question. How much sleep is that person losing over you tonight? You know what the answer is almost always? Zero.
Zero. Who is being punished here? You are.
And who is doing the punishing? You are. You don't have to like that person or respect that person or agree with that person.
Don't let them make you miserable. And until you forgive people, you don't forgive people for their needs.
Forgive people for your needs. Marshall, you basically believe that happiness doesn't come from the past or the future.
It comes from now. Is that right? And here.
My favorite movie is, actually people don't know this, a Buddhist movie. Yeah.
Over the Rainbow. It's The Wizard of Oz.
The Wizard of Oz, the author was a Buddhist. And the whole story is a Buddhist metaphor.
Dorothy is looking for this place out there, Oz, this beautiful place, Oz. But she realized at the end, it's not out there.
It's in here. And if you can't find it here, guess what? You're not going to find it.
So interesting. I would not have guessed that The Wizard of Oz was a Buddhist or inspired by Buddhism or that it was your favorite movie.
There are a few stories that you tell in your books that are my favorites. One is about the husband and wife who are just returning from a great weekend.
Can you tell that story? Yeah, it's actually the story. I don't mention the names of people when the books were written, but there was a story that was done by friend friend of mine, Mark Ryder, who's a co-author of my books.
He and his wife, they had a great weekend with the kids, and they're driving home, and she was talking about the great weekend and so happy. And then she said, yeah, it's just too bad you weren't that way for the whole time they were growing up.
And she starts in on him about his past. And he said, look, I'm sorry for what I did then, but that person's not in the car right now.
I worked very hard to become a better person, and I can't change the past. I have apologized for it, but I'm not that person.
And his wife said, you're right, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
You're not that person. You've made a lot of effort to improve, and you don't need me to hammer things you've done wrong in the past.
We've all made mistakes in the past, including me. I really appreciate what you do now.
I love that story. Another story I really like is the one about the golfer and the beer can.
I love that story. Now, that is a very interesting story.
I've also studied Hindu philosophy. And that story comes a lot from the Bhagavad Gita, which is the world's oldest poem.
So, none of the stuff I teach is new. This is all old, thousands of year old stuff, right? But in the story, the golfer is at the little country club and he has a chance to win the club championship.
He's all excited. He's on the last hole.
He hits the drive. It looks perfect.
In front of him, there have been this noisy group of people drinking, very annoying, but he blocks it out of his mind. The shot looks perfect.
All of a sudden, it goes off into the rough. What happened? He walks toward the ball.
What does he see? A beer can. Idiots in front of him have left a beer can on the fairway.

He is angry. What does the golfer need to do? Stop.
Breathe. Forget about the drive.
Forget about the beer can. Forget about winning the club championship.
Forget about all of that stuff. Breathe, come up with a strategy.
Then you've got one goal. Hit the shot in front of you.
That's it. Hit the shot in front of you.
Well, that's a great metaphor for life. Hit the shot in front of you.
You can't change the past. The Bhagavad Gita is a fascinating epic.
In in the story, the protagonist has two choices, bad and worse. And he's going on and on about how awful this is.
Well, what's the message? Make a decision and live with it. Make the best of it.
It is what it is. Just make the best of it.
Well, that's a great way to look at life. It is what it is.
The ball is where it is. Hit the shot.
Hit the shot in front of you. Now, there's another great thing about achievement I like in my book, The Earned Life.
One of my favorite parts of the book is a marshmallow study. I was just going to ask you that.
I love that part. So, hey, it's a really good story about achievement.
You mentioned this because every self-help book, especially the same, here's how you can achieve more. And they all focus on delayed gratification.
And their message, delayed gratification is good. This will help you work out more.
It'll help you go on a diet. Oh, delayed gratification is good.
Delayed gratification helps you achieve more. Good, good, good.
And a lot of this is this idea of the marshmallow research. At Stanford, they did a study with kids.
And give a kid one marshmallow, I tell a kid, you eat one, you get one. You eat it now, you get one.
But if you wait, oh, 15 minutes, you get two. Well, allegedly, they did this longitudinal research that shows the kids that ate one are going up losers, kids that eat two grow up, be successful.
Whether that happened or not, I don't know. But allegedly, that's what happened.
Maybe it's true. Who cares? But in any case, the message is the same.
Delayed gratification is good. But there's one problem with the research.
They didn't take the kid that had two marshmallows say kid wait a little

more three wait some more four five ten a hundred a thousand and where does the story end an old man

waiting to die sitting in a room surrounded by thousands of uneaten marshmallows

sometimes in life you gotta eat the marshmallow now Now, Jack Welch was a famous CEO of GE. And one of my good friends was a friend of his.
And he had triple bypass surgery. Jack Welch had triple bypass surgery, you know, many years ago.
And he thought he might die. Now, Jack Welch loved good wine.
His wine cellar filled with great wine. So my friend says, well, Jack, what'd you learn about life when you had triple bypass surgery? What was that one thing that was really deep? You know what he said? Why am I drinking the damn cheap wine every night? Jack Welch has this great wine cellar.
Oh, he's rich. He's rich.
He's got this great wine cellar, this fancy wine. Every night he's drinking cheap wine, waiting for the wine in the wine cellar to appreciate in value.

He's going, what is wrong with me? I'm waiting for the wine.

Waiting for what? What is wrong with me?

You know what he said? He made one commitment after he almost died.

What was that?

No more cheap wine.

No more cheap wine. I'm not doing that anymore.
The people you work with, the CEOs, the founders, the billionaires, are all amazing successes. What did you learn working with them? What I learned working with them is nobody gets a past in life.
If you read the bios of all those people that I work with, you think they're like the second coming of God. They're just humans like everybody else.
Nobody gets a pass in life. Every day you wake up and start over.
And I don't feel sorry for these people. They're great people and everything, but they're humans.
They have parents with Alzheimer's disease, just like everybody else. They get divorces.
They're humans. You don't stop being a human being just because you're, quote, successful or achieve a lot.
You're still just a human. Marshall, what are the three takeaways you would like to leave the audience with today? Okay, number one is get in the habit of asking a question, how can I be a better? Not just at work at home.
How can I be a better husband, wife, partner? How can I be a better father, better mother? How can I be a better son, a better daughter? Ask some people around you that question. All the great people on coach, they all ask people, how can I be better? They don't pretend to be perfect.
Number two is something I teach called feed forward. Learn to ask for input, shut up, listen, and thank people, and fight the urge to talk.
If people give you ideas to try to help you, treat it like a gift. Don't yell at them, argue with them, put them down, critique the gift.
Just shut up and never promise to do everything. Just do what you can.
And then finally, there's daily questions. I'll give everyone six questions they can ask themselves every day.
If you did nothing but ask these six questions every day, you're going to have a better life. And they all begin with the same phrase, did I do my best to? All you can do is do your best.
Every day, did I do my best to, number one, set clear goals? Number two, did I make progress toward achieving my goals? Instead of waiting for the world to do it for us, did I do it? Number three, very important, did I do my best to be happy? Number four, did I do my best to find meaning? Rather than waiting for the world to give us meaning, Did I find meaning myself? Did I do my best to build positive relationships? Instead of waiting for everyone to love me, how did I do about loving them? And then finally, did I do my best to be fully engaged and present in life? One to 10 scale, evaluate yourself every day. Did you do these things? And guess what? You start having a better life.
You know why? Why? You take responsibility for one person. You know who that person is? Yourself.
Thank you, Marshall. This has been wonderful.
I really enjoyed your books. Well, thank you so much.
I hope you enjoyed our little time together. And as I've grown old, my mission of life is simpler.
I just want to help people have a little bit better life. So maybe if some of the people listening have a little better life based on anything I said, it's a very, very good use of my time.
And thank you for giving me the opportunity to do it. If you're enjoying the podcast, and I really hope you are, please review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
It really helps get the word out.

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on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and Facebook. I'm Lynn Toman, and this is Three Takeaways.

Thanks for listening.