[00:00:00] Christy: Welcome to Leaders Get Real, inspirational interviews with today's authentic leaders. I'm your host, Christy Tong, bringing you insightful interviews with bestselling authors and with leaders who are purposeful, passionate, and authentic. Gain compelling insights as they share the challenges and rewards of leading with authenticity and impact.

My guest today is Marshall Goldsmith, renowned executive coach to top leaders like the CEO of Ford Motor Company and New York Times bestselling author of What Got You Here Won't Get You There, Triggers and More. He's been awarded America's number one executive coach by Inc magazine and the world's most influential leadership thinker by thinkers 50.

In our chat, we discuss the challenges of making changes in ourselves. And Marshall shares expertise on how to achieve lasting habit change to become the person we aim to be. He's honest. He's optimistic and he's deeply insightful. Enjoy. Marshall, I have been so excited about having you on the show.

Welcome to Leaders Get

[00:01:29] Marshall: Real. So happy to be joining you. Thank you for inviting me.

[00:01:33] Christy: Yes. I've been excited for this chat, but at the same time, Marshall, there's this challenge, how to decide what. to talk about. I mean, since you've written so much, how many books is it so far?

[00:01:47] Marshall: It was 40, but I just did another one, so now 41.

[00:01:51] Christy: 41! Oh my, I was at 39 when I was trying to manually count them. That was then we can't keep up. So that, you know, that's the record on my show. I, um, I interviewed Guy Kawasaki this year and he came out with wise guy and that was number 15 and that seemed like a whole lot of books, but let's

[00:02:12] Marshall: be fair. I have three big New York Times bestsellers.

I have three other bestsellers and the other 35 were purchased by my mother, my father, and relatives. Because I've done 41 books. Doesn't mean anybody bought 41 books. I have six books that sold a ton of copies. Outside of the Outside of those six, eh, mom, dad, cousins, relatives, and not so much.

[00:02:37] Christy: All right.

Well, nonetheless, very hard to narrow it down on what to talk about, because there's so much wisdom across those books and across your career. So, um, I Was thinking about it and how to narrow it down and an obvious choice would be what's often called your most popular book. What got you here won't get you there and I've heard interviews on that, which are fantastic, but when I thought about it, what had really prompted me to reach out to you was your book triggers and the subtitle creating behavior that lasts, becoming the person you want to be man.

That's compelling. I. I coach leaders in the Silicon Valley who are incredibly smart and capable and accomplished, but this area of making a behavior change is so hard, and it's not just hard for them, it's hard for me, and I imagine it's a struggle for all of our listeners. And

[00:03:36] Marshall: me. Yeah, I Have a woman call me on the phone every day.

She's going to call me today. Her name is Jasmine. Every day she calls me and she listens to me. Read questions. I wrote and provide answers. I wrote every day and asked me, why do you do this every day? Don't you know the theory about how to change behavior? I wrote the theory about how to change behavior.

My, my name is Marshall Goldsmith. I got ranked number one leadership thinker in the whole world, number one executive coach in the whole world. And I have one call me every day just to listen to me read questions I wrote and provide answers. Why? See, my name is Marshall Goldsmith. I'm too cowardly to do this stuff by myself.

I'm disciplined and I need help and you know, it's okay.

[00:04:27] Christy: Yeah. Yep. That's why I love your work.

[00:04:31] Marshall: It's okay. Look, I'm not better than everybody else. You think, I wrote the books, I don't mean I live the books.

[00:04:39] Christy: And some hard lessons learned, uh, that brought you to the books, right?

[00:04:43] Marshall: Yeah. And you know, it's, it's hard.

This stuff is so hard to do. Yes.

[00:04:48] Christy: Let's talk about triggers and what the premise is of the book. The

[00:04:52] Marshall: premise of the book is, as we, as we journey through life. As we journey through life, my theory is, if I ask you, who's the you you want to be? You're giving me some beautiful story, this woman that's kind and nice and fantastic and works out in his perfect physical condition and blah blah blah blah blah.

What happens? What happens? You know, I mean, employee engagement around the world, all time low. Depression all time high. The gym is empty by February. What happens? Well, we all make these plans. And then what happens? Well, what happens is, as we journey through life, we're constantly bombarded by triggers.

And what is a trigger? A trigger is any stimulus may impact our behavior. Could be a sight, a sound, a word, a person. In some cases, these triggers push us toward becoming the person that we want to be. In most cases, just the opposite. These triggers push us away from becoming the person that we truly want to be.

[00:05:48] Christy: Yes. Yes. Now, you're talking about, um, some great examples that we can all relate to, you know, about that diet or some of these daily habits are working out and so on, but you say that changing habits like quitting smoking or biting your nails or going on a diet are actually easy compared to changing interpersonal habits.

Talk about that.

[00:06:14] Marshall: Excellent. Well, changing interpersonal behavior is very hard because it doesn't just involve one variable. It involves multiple variables and changing perception is hard. It takes a lot of courage to look in the mirror. Number one, it's, it's painful. The new CEO of one of the biggest companies in the world said My feedback session with Marshall Goldsmith, made a trip to the dentist to get a root canal operation.

I feel like one of the happy moments in my life. Number two, it takes, number one, it takes courage. Number two, it takes humility. You know what I've learned as a coach? I cannot help someone improve who's already perfect. I don't know about it. And then number three, it takes discipline to do the day to day to day work.

required to actually get better. It takes a lot of courage, a lot of humility, a lot of discipline. It's hard for us to do. And we need to understand triggers. If you really understand the concept, then you begin to become aware of the triggers that set you off in the wrong direction. So you can first anticipate, you can anticipate what is likely to put me off in the wrong direction.

Then if possible, avoid. So for example, you want to quit drinking, don't go to bars, right? You want to go on a diet get the food out of your house.

[00:07:32] Christy: Okay, and let's get some work examples What would be some of those you

[00:07:35] Marshall: see, you know, Jim tends to set you off in a negative way in meetings Okay. Yeah, right.

I'm not gonna let Jim make me angry as a reminder You need to just keep that aware. Well, there's three things. One, you can anticipate. Two, after you anticipate, if possible, avoid. Those certain things bring out the worst in you to the degree you can avoid those things, you're better off. Number three is adjust.

If you can't avoid, then back to the Jim case study, you adjust. You say, I know Jim tends to make me angry and I end up looking like a fool, not him. So one thing I'm going to do, no matter what Jim says, I'm not going to let it get to me. That in the past is not Jim's problem. That's my problem. Jim brings out the worst in me.

I've got a very sensitive around Jim. We're in a whole team here and I'm making myself look like an idiot. This is not helping anybody. When becoming aware of that stuff, typically as we journey through life, here's what happens. There is a, um, a trigger. Trigger produces an impulse and the impulse leads to a behavior.

The whole idea of the book is there's still going to be triggers. You're still going to have impulses, but to the degree we can stop and breathe aware, mindful of what's going on, then we realize I have a choice and our behavior becomes a function of the choice, not a function of the impulse. Okay. Yeah.

Case study. Uh, very common. I'm teaching my class at Dartmouth and, and a case study I was, you have a, you have a hard day at work, a hard day. No, you're having a hard day. Your husband, wife, friend, or partner calls you up and they say, you know, I'm having such a hard day. I'm having such a hard day. And you're behind schedule and under stress.

If we're not careful, you know what we say, you're having a hard day. You're having a hard day. Do you have any idea what I had to put up with today? You think you have a hard day? We're competitive. We start trying to prove that we're more miserable than the people we live with. Yeah. You think you had a hard day?

Well, let me tell you, I'm really at me. So I give this example, I got an email. It's in the book triggers and emails, a beautiful example of the value of all this young man sent me an email and said, no, you don't remember me. I was in your class at Dartmouth about five years ago. And he said, I want to send you an email today and say, thank you.

He said, yesterday I was having a hard day at work and then my wife called and she was talking about what a hard day she was having. And he said, I was just getting ready to point out how her problems paled insignificant course. I started breathing. And I thought, this is my wife, this is someone I love, this is not the enemy.

He said, I just stopped and said, thank you for all the nice things you're doing. I love you. He said, I went home, I spent 25, I bought some flowers, I gave her the flowers and said, I love you. And I said, that was the best 25 I've ever spent. Well, that's the whole idea of the book. There's a stimulus, a trigger, an impulse in his case, anger, frustration, typically impulse leads to behavior.

Still going to be triggers and you're still going to get angry. I'm not the emotional policeman here. On the other hand, if you become aware, start thinking. What am I doing? This is my wife, not the enemy. This is someone I love. Yes. Why am I putting this person down? Then your behavior becomes a function of a choice.

Yes. That's the whole idea of the

[00:11:22] Christy: book. Yes. Fantastic. Such a real example. Now, Marshall, your work brings out so many insights. You've got research with tens of thousands of people showing that we're far more successful making changes if we put structures in place, really simple ones even, like you've said, you can't do it alone, just establish some systems.

But as compelling as the evidence is, you see something preventing people again and again from doing that, and that's ego. Tell us about that.

[00:11:59] Marshall: There's a great book called The Checklist Manifesto published by Professor Gawande from Harvard. If you go in for a surgery and the nurse asks the doctor a series of very simple questions from a checklist before the surgery, odds on unneeded infection and death rates cut by two thirds.

Not a theory, a fact. A huge majority of hospitals around the world do not allow the doctor to ask, the nurse to ask the doctor the questions. Why? Ego. According to Dr. Gawande, more people have died because of the egos of surgeons and died in the Vietnam War and war in the Iraqi war put together. Ego. You know, every day we let our egos get ahead of us and we're ashamed, embarrassed.

By the way, 99 percent of all humans would be ashamed to do what I do. To have a woman call you every day just to listen to your answer questions. Cowardly and undisciplined to do it by myself. 99 percent of us would be ashamed to do this. What I'm so proud of in the book Triggers, Transcribed Um, 27 major CEOs endorsed the book, you've read the names.

These are big people. 40 years ago, no CEO would admit to having a coach, they'd be ashamed.

[00:13:08] Christy: Yes. And you know, you talk about structure, structure, structure, and as you were just pointing out, Right. A lot of people would think like, I should be above structure. You know, I'm the CEO or I'm the, you know, I'm a seasoned leader.

And uh, you've talked about how you've got, um, someone who calls you every morning and provides that structure. Yeah.

[00:13:31] Marshall: And you know, it's, it's hard. This stuff is so hard to do. I'm writing a new book now with my friend Alan Mullally. Alan was the CEO of the Ford Motor Company. Maybe we can talk about him a little bit.

Mm hmm. Spectacular guy. He has a management system that is. Unbelievably wonderful. And guess what? As soon as he left Ford,

why it's tough stuff. My, my biggest realization over the years is exactly your point. This stuff is easy to teach and it's hard to do.

[00:14:06] Christy: When you said, when he left Ford, now our listeners will only hear you. They won't see you. So what happened when he left Ford?

[00:14:15] Marshall: Stock went from 1 to 18 when he was there.

Most successful CEO of the century, CEO of the year in the United States. He had a management process that put together, was fantastic. He was CEO for eight years, then he left. And when he left, quit doing this stuff. Why? Having looked at my own self in the mirror for 25 years, I've learned life is easy to talk and hard to live.

It's hard to do. Yes. By the way, I, we're gonna, hopefully we'll do the daily question process in our dialogue.

[00:14:49] Christy: I love the, the pieces you were talking about around the need for structure when you talked about active questions. Right. So you've alluded that somebody calls you and asks questions, but tell us, you know, for our own, uh, for our own insights about active questions versus passive questions and how that structure can help.

I'll first

[00:15:11] Marshall: describe the daily question process, then I'll describe active questions. And if you want an article about it, send me an email, marshall at marshallwilliswood. com. I'll send you the research on this is amazing. By the way, the research is unbelievable. So positive. Well, every day you want to get better at anything, make a checklist.

And you get an Excel spreadsheet on one column, write down a series of questions that represent what's most important in your life, friends, family, health, co workers, etc. Seven boxes across, one for every day of the week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And at the end of the week, and every question is answered with a yes, a no, or a number.

At the end of the week, the spreadsheet gives you a report card. Now, again, I want to warn you, it's not going to be as pretty as those corporate values plaques up on the wall. Every day they report cars off and not real pretty. I've been doing this for years. You left this out of my introduction. An incredible skill I have, I'm surprised you left it out, is the ability to screw something up every day.

Not in my introduction, but I'm amazed at my skill in that level. Well, anyway, I've been doing this for years. It's hard. Most people quit in two weeks. Now the active questions, I'm going over this with my daughter, Kelly. Kelly's a PhD from Yale professor Vanderbilt. She knows a lot about research. So Kelly said, daddy, almost everything in employee engagement is passive questions.

Do you have clear goals? He had a friend at work. She said, experiment with active questions. It began with the phrase, did I do my best to, so now my first six questions every day are these number one, did I do my best to set clear goals? Rather than saying, did someone else set clear goals for me? Did I set my own goals?

Number two, did I do my best to make progress toward achieving my goals? Number three, did I do my best to find meaning? Number four, did I do my best to be happy? Number five, did I do my best to build positive relationships? And finally, number six, did I do my best to be fully engaged? Rather than saying, did the company engage me, did I do my best to engage myself?

The research on it is amazing. When we have people just do this every day, even for a couple of weeks, what do you find? 34 percent of the people said I got better at everything. 67 percent said I got better at four out of six. I think 91 percent said I got better at least one. About 9 percent stayed the same and almost no one gets worse.

Why? Every day, the questions get me to focus on the one thing in life I have total control over that I do my best. Now, here's what's hard about all this. I'm now going to describe the hardest question you can test yourself on every day. The hardest question. Number one, you write the question. Why is it hard?

You can't blame the idiot that wrote the question. Number two, you know the answer. Once it's hard, you can't say you don't know how to do it. Number three, you know it's important. You can't say it's trivial. And number four, all you have to do to make a high score on this test is try. You don't even have to succeed.

You just have to try. It's such a hard question. Nobody to blame. And again, having done this many years, I have found the source of about 99 percent of my problems. I don't have to look real far. All I've got to do is wake up and look in a mirror. Where's the source of almost all my problems is that person looking right.

It's not somebody else's fault. Almost all my problems. This guy right here is the source of almost all my problems. It's hard to face that. Yeah.

[00:18:47] Christy: Yeah. So those are powerful, those daily questions. And it just strikes me right back to that scenario at work where we can be a professional at our area of expertise, but an amateur human being.

And those questions are about growing out of that amateur human being and becoming the human being that we really Want to be, and that's what has the impact in our business with our teams, with our colleagues and so on. That's wonderful. Now, I love it because you go beyond the daily questions, which I think can be impactful, but then you talk about hourly questions.

[00:19:27] Marshall: Well, and this is for those special times when you know you're going to be stressed out. Yep. No, there's a high probability of a problem when you know there's a trigger. And I mentioned the example of a friend who lives in New York. He's got to take these people on a tour. He really doesn't want to do it.

He's kind of in a, going to be in a foul mood. And rather than ruin the day for himself and his family, which he's smart enough to realize doesn't help every hour, he looks at a little card and it reminds him to do what he knows he's supposed to do.

[00:20:01] Christy: What would be some of those questions? In that scenario, he knows there's triggers because he's really resentful that he's stuck with this.

Don't

[00:20:08] Marshall: make sarcastic comments about your guests. Be patient. Yeah. Am I making the best of this or am I acting just like a pain in the butt? And another example I use that was my friend Raj Shah. Raj was head of the United States Agency for International Development, uh, medical doctor, uh, reported Hillary Clinton when he was 37.

She was secretary of state. Now he's head of the Rockefeller Foundation, brilliant guy, but he had a little. He had to get all excited when you make too many assignments, assign somebody to do something and without thinking, you sign another person to do the same thing. And he just made a card before we go to every meeting.

And the card said, before he signed anything, have I signed anyone else to do this? Yep. Well, it's not like he's not a smart guy, but his mind works a million miles an hour. He's busy and he just wouldn't forget. You know, another example I use in the book is three, including him, three medical doctors I coached.

One of them was Jim Kemp. Jim was president of the World Bank, simultaneous MD and PhD from Harvard in anthropology in five years. Uh, Dr. John Nosworthy, head of the Mayo Clinic, and Dr. Ross Shaw, now head of the Rockefeller Foundation. Brilliant medical doctor. I ask him all three a question. Typical day, how would you score an answer to this question, did I do my best to be happy?

And they all had the same answer, independently. It never occurred to me to try to be happy. It never occurred to me to try to be happy. See, they were so busy achieving things, they kind of forgot about that. Now, they're all medical doctors, so I ask another, you know, you went to medical school there, did it occur to you you're going to die?

Did you figure that one out? They'll say, yeah, in medical school, they kind of cover that death thing, you know, I mean, we're all going to die here. I said, now, do you think that's a silly or trivial question? They'll say, no, it's a great question. I forgot to ask. I was too busy. By the way, the average person in the world, 1 to 10 scale, 10 is high, 1 is low.

The question, did I do my best to be happy today? The average score, 5. 5. Wow. That's the average in the world, 5. 5. And these are people, if they went to school and took a test and got a 55 out of 100, they would be ashamed of those scores. Yeah. That test would have meant nothing compared to this test.

[00:22:26] Christy: Okay.

Now, if, uh, if some executives are scanning my show notes and so on, and they see, you know, here are daily questions, ask yourself, did I do my best to be happy? You know, they might just blow that off and go, Oh, this is a bunch of fluff. Why does that have impact to ask that question?

[00:22:43] Marshall: Number one, it's highly correlated with success in life and engagement, everything else.

And number two, I would disagree with your assessment. If any executive is stupid enough to believe that. Them being happy is a trivial, inconsequential issue. They're really an idiot. Ha ha ha ha ha. Let me help you Mr. Music Dickey. You're going to die anyway here. You've lived your life. You say, I was miserable but I made a lot of money.

Nobody's going to care. You're going to be dead and your life sucked. And so you made a lot of money and who cares? Well, to be honest, I've never had a client that considered their own happiness to be trivial and meaningless. Right. Other people trying to be happy is trivial and meaningless, but they never thought about me trying to be happy is trivial and meaningless.

Yes. I haven't met that one

[00:23:31] Christy: yet. Yes. Well said. And yet I think you make this connection to ask those questions in the context of becoming the leader I want to be. And that's fantastic to tie those together.

[00:23:45] Marshall: I've literally asked. Thousands of parents from around the world, this question, I say, complete this sentence with one word.

When my child grows up, I want my child to be, and I say, give me one word. One word comes up from parents. One word more than every other word combined, no matter what country I'm in. What's that word? Happy. Mm hmm. You want your kid to be happy? Mm

[00:24:15] Christy: hmm.

[00:24:15] Marshall: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You want your parents to be happy.

You want the people who love you to be happy. You want your co workers to be happy. You know what I tell people? You go first. Mm hmm. Go first. Yep.

[00:24:28] Christy: You'll be happy. Yes. And it makes me think about the quote by Maya Angelou, you know, people won't remember what you did. Right. They'll remember how you made them feel.

It's exactly right. And you're getting at, you know, the habits to change are the ones that actually are about interpersonal behavior, who affect the people around you. And those are hard. And I, um, as you were talking about some of this stuff, it made me think of a colleague who talks about having. A growth spurt as a grown up and in your book, you ask the question, what's the most memorable change you have made in your adult life?

And you talk about, you get all kinds of answers. Can you share the kinds of answers you get? And that's not what you're looking for. What is it you are looking for when you ask that question?

[00:25:21] Marshall: Really, what you get are, I quit smoking, lost weight, went on a diet, uh, again, more one way. Yep. And, and what I'm, what in my coaching, what I focus on is not that.

It's the change that impacts lots of other people, and that is something that is much harder to do, as we said, much harder, and again, the big realization I've had in my And I mentioned Alan Mulally in the book. Alan has this brilliant system he put together at Ford, same thing. It's all the same stuff, structure, direction.

It works.

[00:25:59] Christy: Mm hmm. Yeah. I love how, you know, you define that, you know, the, the behavior change that you're after is voluntary behavioral change that made other people's lives better because you were

[00:26:12] Marshall: better. That's it. Lead by example.

[00:26:17] Christy: Fabulous. And that is a different kind of growth spurt. And I think when we think about growth spurt, we think that's something that only happens for kids.

And yet, you know, it is, it's not easy to have these kinds of growth spurts that you're talking about when we are used to the way that we do things. And it might've even been successful because some of we do things, but you're talking about a growth spurt. As a grownup, and that takes some real intention and some real mindfulness and some hard

[00:26:50] Marshall: work.

Well, you know, somebody wrote a brilliant book about that. It was called, uh, What Got You Here, What Got You There. That's the whole idea of the book is everyone I coach are mega, mega successful people. The world changes. Yeah. What got you here won't get you there. And if you want to change with the world, you got to change.

Yes. My new book that's coming up is called the earned life. My new book is related to exactly what you said. It's focused on, you never get there. You always have to be reinventing your life. And if you look at, for example, the lottery winners, five years later, no happier, the NFL football championships. Uh, you look at these NFL football, five years later, 90 percent divorce, 60 percent bankrupt.

What happens is in life. Well, there's one type of literature that ends always in the same way, you know what the ending is called? And they lived happily ever after. That book is called a fairy tale. And the reason it's called a fairy tale is because it is. That's not the way the world works. You don't win the Super Bowl and live happily ever after, or get married and live happily ever after, or get rich and live happily ever after.

Uh uh. That's not the way life works. Every day is a new day. Every day is a new day. And you need to look at life and say, what am I doing to grow today? What am I doing today to be happy, to find meaning? And to me, what's really important is two things. Simultaneous happiness and meaning. Now, by happiness, I mean, you need to love the process of what you're doing.

I enjoy it. And then number two, the process of what I'm doing is meaningful for me. So like you, you're doing this podcast right now. You enjoy the process of doing these podcasts and you feel they're meaningful. The outcome of doing them is meaningful for you. No one can define happiness for you, but you.

No one can define meaning for you, but you, those answers have to come from in your heart. And that's why the book is called helping people become the person they want to be. So I'm not in the business of making people be what they don't want to be. Yeah. Who am I to tell you who you want to be? I'm just in business helping people be who they want to be.

[00:29:13] Christy: Yes. And you've got such great pearls of wisdom in the book. You talk about a first principle, that every endeavor has a first principle. So first principles in carpentry, it's measure twice, cut once. In making a change in who you want to be, it's AWOT. AWOT. Tell us about AWOT. I

[00:29:34] Marshall: love that. And I'm going to have to ramble around a little bit, but Peter Drucker taught me a wonderful lesson.

I was very fortunate. I was on the board of Peter Drucker Foundation for 10 years and I got to spend a long time with him. And again, I got ranked number one leadership thinker in the world. My intellect compared to him is that of a five year old child. He was so smart. He taught me so many things. He said, first, our mission in life is to make a positive difference.

That's Perverse Martin right. We get lost, we get so focused on proving how smart we are and right we are, we're not here on earth to do that. Number two, every decision in life is made by the person who has the power to make the decision and make peace with that. Not the best person or the smartest person or the right person, it's made by that person.

The AWOT, which I love, is am I willing at this time 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. We waste so much of our lives in what I call vicarious living, dealing with things we're not going to change anyway.

By the way, it's not a theory, it's a fact. My daughter and I have researched on this. The more hours you spend in vicarious living, the less satisfied you are with your life.

[00:30:49] Christy: Wow. That's so telling when you think about social

[00:30:52] Marshall: media. The Facebook, the more

[00:30:55] Christy: depressed you are. Now say that acronym again, slowly, because it's powerful.

It stands for. Before

[00:31:01] Marshall: you do anything, am I willing at this time to make the investment required to make a positive difference on this topic?

[00:31:14] Christy: Great. And if your answer is yes, then dive in, do the work, find the structure to avoid some of the triggers, uh, directions that we go and be able to see that

[00:31:27] Marshall: change.

We're not just talking about changing behavior. We're talking about change in perception. Yes. Change in perception is much harder than change in behavior. For example, the best research principle in psychology is called cognitive dissonance theory. We all view people in a manner that's consistent with our previous stereotype.

So if I have a stereotype that you're a bad listener, I'm going to look for a bad listener until I see it. Mm hmm.

[00:31:50] Christy: Yes. Yes. Well, I'm coaching somebody currently, and he's got that challenge where there was some damage to trust. People had certain perceptions and so on. And we've been having that conversation of what can he do?

And I see this a lot where I see people genuinely make change. They do the work. They actually, they stop doing that micromanaging or the, you know, the, the comments you mentioned. And there's some that are just so cynical or so skeptical, as you said, you know, they're going to look for it and they're going to find it.

And so I love that description of follow up and any good language you can think of when they're thinking about how do I proactively help shift perception.

[00:32:35] Marshall: I'm a great believer in something called feed forward. And that is, you don't ask for feedback about the past, you ask for ideas for the future. And you say something, it sounds like this, you know, Ms.

coworker in the past, I've gotten some feedback that I've been a micromanager. If I've done that to you or the people around you, I'm sorry. Absolutely no excuses. Um, I want to get better in the future. Now I'm gonna ask you not for feedback about the past. I can't change it anyway. I'm gonna ask you if it is for the future, gimme ideas to be a great delegator.

What ideas might you have for me? Whatever you say, sit there. Shut up. Listen. Take notes and say thank you. Mm-Hmm. . Network. Promise to do everything. People say Leadership's not a popularity contest. So I'd say, miss Coworker, I can't promise to do everything you and everyone suggest. I can promise to listen to everyone to do their, uh, hear their ideas and do what I can.

I can't change the past. I can change the future. And yeah, I can't get better at everything. I can get better at this one thing and I'm going to ask you to help me get better. Well, then you follow up and follow up is also a feed forward. You say, Ms. coworker, it's been two months. I said, I want to be a great delegator.

Okay. Based on the last two months, give me ideas to do a great job for the next two months. And by the way, if your listeners would like to get a research study on this, send me an email Marshall at Marshall Goldsmith. com and Marshall has two L's and write a note. Leadership is a contact sport. This is a study with 86, 000 people.

This works around the world.

[00:34:05] Christy: Mm hmm. Fantastic. Now you also talk about magic moves. In all of your decades of experience, you've found that things boil down to a few magic moves. Um, one of them you say is an apology. Say, say a little something about that.

[00:34:23] Marshall: Well, we all make mistakes. It's okay. We all make mistakes.

And what I teach every one of my clients is to apologize. Every one of them gets feedback. They all talk to their coworkers and I say, You know, my name is I got feedback. I feel good about thank you. Here's the good things. Thank you And here's what I need to improve and I'm sorry if I've made mistakes what mistakes I've made in the class I'm sorry, just stand up and apologize.

We all make Leaders is you want them to take responsibility? Let them watch you take a little responsibility. Yeah, you made a mistake. Okay, so what I make mistake we all make mistake.

[00:35:05] Christy: Absolutely I just saw the power of this, just the power of a simple apology. I'm coaching somebody at eBay and I do, as you do, I'm sure, you know, the interviews with all the folks they work with, uh, to find out strengths, weaknesses in advance.

And there was one interview, it was such a contentious relationship. And I could see that there was probably nothing that this leader I was coaching could do that was going to change her mind about how about how she viewed this individual and she saw her, you know, all kinds of things that I was hearing about in this interview.

Well, during the course of the time we were working, my leader got much more reflective, started thinking about some of her own behaviors, started to become more self aware and in. After an interchange she had with that individual, she just sent her a note and she, she just said, you know, I want to acknowledge that my tone didn't convey my intent in that conversation.

I apologize for that. And it's something I'm going to work on. That's all she said. And then she had a subsequent meeting. They often have to do these status meetings and so on. They're always a bit contentious. And the next meeting was totally different. And as it progressed from there, and at the end of the six months when they do that feedback survey and have you seen progress and so on, I figured that's the one you're the outlier.

You're not going to see any change. We could tell that that individual had completely shifted their view. I can't take much credit. All I can attribute it to, I think is that I made an apology.

[00:36:40] Marshall: That's it. You know what? It goes a long, long way. Yep. And why don't we apologize? A lot of this gets back to ego.

Too proud. Too proud. Proud. Too proud to admit we need help. Too proud to apologize. Too proud to get feedback. You know. Why just get over that stuff. Life is a

[00:37:03] Christy: lot better. Yep. You also talk about as a magic move You talk about Asking for help.

[00:37:12] Marshall: Yeah, same thing. Yeah Again, I mentioned that's what I'm so proud of in the book is these very important people set a role model They stand up.

My name is Francis Hesselbein. I won the Presidential Medal of Freedom I need help. My name is Alan. I was CEO of the year. My name is Jim Kim. I'm president of the World Bank. You know, my name is Hubert Joliot. I was CEO of Best Buy. I'm everybody. Hubert, I was just with him in London and, um, an amazing leader.

And at Best Buy, he's installed a system. Every employee in the company has something to improve. Everyone. Anyone say, okay, what's your name? What do you want to get better at? My name is Jim. I need to be a better listener. Please help me. Mary, please help me. Fabulous. It's such a, and by the way, talking about changing a company, that company was down the drain.

I don't know if you remember five years ago, that's where it broke. Stocks up 330%. Uh, the employee and satisfaction has gone through the roof. It's not rocket science. Hmm.

[00:38:17] Christy: Starts with the leader. I need to grow. I need help. Tell me how I can be better. And it's trickling down throughout the whole organization.

Stock price is up.

[00:38:28] Marshall: If all you do is preach and want them to, you know what you teach everybody else to do? Preach. Yep. You give them a sermon, they give the next level of sermon, and they give the next level of sermon. Everybody is in the business of preaching at everybody else and pointing out everybody else's problems, and nobody is taking responsibility for themselves.

When my friend, and I told the story, my friend Alan goes to Ford, the stock is, the company's losing 17 billion dollars. So he said, okay, each of you give me your top five priorities, red, yellow, green, green on plan, yellow, not on plan, have a strategy, and red, no strategy. The first meeting, 16 leaders, five priorities, red, yellow, green, 80 green, everything's green.

Now they're losing 17 billion. Everybody's on plan. Okay, we're all on plan and we're losing 17 billion. I guess that must be the plan then, to lose 17 billion. Finally, somebody said red. And he stands up and applauds. He says, thank you for having the courage to say that. Yes. Thank you for having the courage to say that.

[00:39:30] Christy: Getting real. Get real. Let's get

[00:39:33] Marshall: real. Yeah, we're losing 17 billion. It's not all green. None of it is green. It's all green. Yeah. Let's get real here. And we all need to do that. We all need to step up and say, look, we're all just humans. Last time I checked, we're all just humans. We're perfect. We're trying to get better and that's

[00:39:54] Christy: okay.

Yes. And so I love it. You're all about, you know, let's get real, which is of course the name of this podcast. Um, and that, and those are the hard conversations. That's the hard stuff. And yet the other thing I love, and I think I'm fascinated with paradox is another of your magic moves is optimism, you know?

So, you know, it's not the kind of optimism that like, Everything's green, everything's rosy. We don't talk about the hard stuff, but that's also one of your magic moves. And what I love about you, one of the things that I, uh, just think is fabulous. You've got a newsletter now as a, as a leadership guru, there's so many things you could have titled that newsletter, but you chose to call it life is good.

[00:40:40] Marshall: I'm, uh, not a religious, but a philosophical Buddhist. And you know, Buddha, the essence of Buddhism is be happy now, find peace now, find meaning now. This is, this is it. You know, this, this interview, where's Nirvana, it's, it's talking on this computer right now. That's it. Make peace here.

[00:41:03] Christy: Yes. So I love it. Uh, make apologies, ask for help, get real and be optimistic.

Now I definitely want to talk about something that I think was so key in your book. Uh, let's talk about one of my favorite chapters, our behavior under depletion, right? Boy, did that resonate technology was supposed to make our lives easier, wasn't it? And instead people are working 24 seven, they're overworked, they're exhausted, they're burnt out.

Right. And actually where

[00:41:36] Marshall: you are,

[00:41:39] Christy: that's true in the Silicon Valley. That's especially true, right? But I think, uh, you know, across the board, whether it's corporate, whether it's nonprofit, I see this trend, you know, of people, um, you know, being exhausted, um, being weary. And when you had talked about triggers and it just clicked, of course, that when there are certain triggers that can set us off into reaction versus thoughtful response, that that goes up phenomenally when we're depleted.

And so what does depletion do? And what do we do about it?

[00:42:16] Marshall: Well, the first thing is, uh, we never plan on depletion. That's part of the problem. When we, that's why we're overcommitted. We plan our lives. We don't plan on, I'm going to be tired. I'm going to be depleted. My mind is now fried. We plan as if we're going to feel just as sane at the end of the day as we did in the beginning of the day.

Well, we don't. And, you know, the thing is in life, depletion is a very important concept. Now, why don't people do what I teach? As I talked about, I do all this research. They went to my class. Do they do this stuff and do they get better? I'm the only person I know who's got research from tens of thousands of people that measure do you do this, does it work?

Guess what? If they do it, it gets better. And if they don't, good news for your listeners. If you do nothing I've talked about, you won't get worse. You stay the same.

[00:43:06] Christy: Which is worst.

[00:43:08] Marshall: You either do the stuff, right? It's all good. It's very much good. Why don't people do what I say? It's exactly back to what you said.

It sounds like this. You know, I'm incredibly busy right now, given pressures of work and home and new technology that follows me everywhere. Emails, voicemails, global competition. I feel about as busy as I ever have. Sometimes I feel Overcommitted. I, I don't tell others this, but every now and again, my life feels just a little bit out of control yet.

You know, I'm working on some very unique and special challenges right now. And I think the worst of this is going to be over in four or five months. And after that, I'm going to take two or three weeks and get organized and spend some time with the family. And I'm going to begin my new healthy life program.

And after that, everything's going to be different. And it. And it won't be crazy. Have you ever had a dream that vaguely resembles that dream?

[00:44:05] Christy: Oh, we've all been saying those things.

[00:44:08] Marshall: Yeah. Well, there's not going to be two or three weeks. And sanity is not going to be prevailing. One of the neighbors of Rodney, he just left the Seattle Singularity University, he's a friend of mine, and he has a great quote.

The pace of change you're experiencing today is the slowest pace of change you will ever experience for the rest of your life. The pace of change you're experiencing today is the slowest pace of change you will ever experience for the rest of your life. It's not going to slow down. So what do we do?

First thing you do is make peace with that statement, but waiting for some dreamland to appear, which is not the second. If you read the book, just realize the challenges that you face and that you probably do need help. And 1 thing I teach people is if you got some crap you 30 years. Why do you think you're going to fix it next week?

Mm hmm. If you haven't fixed it by yourself in 20 or 30 years, do you really believe next week is going to be better and you're really going to fix it next week? No, you're not. Yep. Admit, I can't fix this by myself and I need help. In and of itself is such a breakthrough. Guilt crap. I have to feel guilty.

Another book I wrote recently with Sally House. I mean, for your cycle, how women rise for women. And she's the lead author. I'm a second author. I love the book, by the way, she's doing fantastic. Traveling all around the world. The book is already in multiple languages and she wrote the book. I helped, but she was, you know, she was the lead.

Women, particularly. are too hard on themselves. Mm hmm. And in our research with women, it's women who are too self critical, try to be perfect all the time, too hard on yourself. And the one coaching I have with women even more than men is don't be too hard on yourself. Mm hmm.

[00:46:03] Christy: Now, when it comes to depletion, um, you just mentioned women and some of those trends.

I see Uh, the unique challenges for people of color or people in underrepresented groups. And they're exhausted from things like code switching all day long or facing bias or bearing the burden to educate other people about the underrepresented group they're a part of.

[00:46:28] Marshall: Let's stop for a second. Let's just talk about that one.

Yeah. That is one thing I completely agree with and one thing I tell people not to carry around for women and especially people of color. Is this crap about, you know what, you're a role model for everyone. You got a role model for all women and all African Americans. And if you're not a role model, you have let down everyone who came before you.

And by the way, everyone who might come after you, you let them all down. Shame on you. How many people get that crap dumped on them all the time? Let's look, show up, do your best. Try to have a good life, be the best person you can, but don't feel like you have to be some kind of role model for every woman that ever lived, every minority that ever lived.

How many old white guys are sitting there going, Oh, gee, I've got to be a role model for all the old white men today. Well, not so many, right? So don't, no one should have to carry that around. Yeah.

[00:47:29] Christy: And that. That adds to so much depletion. And then, you know, we're not our best when we respond. And obviously it's a lot more complex than that.

Um, we've got to still change systems and, uh, change bias and so on. But what you're talking about is what, what starts with me, you know, how can I help to eliminate some of this depletion?

[00:47:48] Marshall: As I've grown older, my level of, uh, my level of aspiration has gone down and down and down. My level of impact has gone up and up and up.

Why? I just quit focusing on what I'm not going to change. Yep. Now, I'm old and I'm not recommending this for others, but I'm just speaking for me. My mission in life is real simple. Help you or the people around you have a little better life. That's it. That's it. Like all those people listening to this, if anybody listening, they have a little better life, or the people around them have a little better life, I'm declaring victory here.

I'm not going to do everything in the world. I'm not going to solve all problems. I'm not going to solve all political issues. You know, and when I coach people, I just now tell them, look, I'm, I'm just here to help you have a better life and people around you have a better life. Is that okay? And it was like, you said, okay, you might be surprised to learn a pretty much a hundred percent of people.

I coached, you know, if they said, let's just go with

[00:48:48] Christy: that. Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Wonderful.

[00:48:53] Marshall: Rich anyway, they don't need to prove anything. Let's just go with that. Have a little better life and help the people around you have a little better life. That's good enough. What's podcast

[00:49:05] Christy: again? Leaders Get Real.

[00:49:07] Marshall: Get Real.

That's why I like it. That's real. That is real. It's something you can really do with real humans in the real world. It's not some abstraction. About transforming everything and the world is a different place because of me and blah, blah, blah. No, that's real. One real human. One real human being has a little better life and the people around them have a little better life.

That's it for me. That's

[00:49:38] Christy: ripple effect. That's enough. Yes.

[00:49:42] Marshall: It's still good enough.

[00:49:43] Christy: Yes. Yes. Great point. Great point.

[00:49:46] Marshall: There's no ripple effect. It's still good enough. You know why? To that one real human, they have a better life. And the people around, that's fine. If there's no ripple effect beyond that, I'm still declaring victory.

[00:50:01] Christy: Fabulous. Fabulous. Well, my listeners love as we pull this together. My listeners love when guests offer an idea or a challenge or something they can do immediately. So what are one or two actions listeners can take tomorrow or in the next 48 hours to put these things into practice?

[00:50:22] Marshall: Practice the daily question process.

That's easy. Like those questions are most important in your life. Get a spreadsheet. Um, everyone, yes, no or number. If you need any instructions, send me an email. Marshall at marshallgoldsmith. com Evaluate yourself every day on what you think is most important. Now, here's my caution. This is hard. Anybody that tells me this is easy, you prove something.

You've never done this. Anybody says this is easy. I could know you think it's easy. Try it for a few years. Tell me how easy I've been doing this for years. This is far from easy. It's hard. It works though. It'll help you get better at almost anything. It takes three minutes a day. It's hard. And the other thing is if you can't do it by yourself, which by the way, I'm not preaching at you, I cannot do it by myself, it's someone to help you.

And don't be ashamed to have someone help you. Do not be ashamed to have someone

[00:51:24] Christy: help you. Absolutely. We all need somebody else. In the process, we can't do it alone.

[00:51:30] Marshall: As the Rolling Stones said, and we all need someone we can lean on.

[00:51:37] Christy: Nice. Amen. Well, Marshall, this has been so fantastic. You have such wisdom and experience wrapped up with such optimism and inspiration.

This is. been an honor and an utter delight. so

[00:51:53] Marshall: much. so much.

[00:52:00] Christy: Thanks for tuning in today. Be sure to check out the show notes in the podcast tab at leadersgetreal. com where you'll find a treasure trove of resources from this episode, articles, links, how to connect with Marshall and more. And until next time, go forth and get real.