Speaker 1: Our default reaction in life is inertia. Our defallow in
Speaker 1: your life is not to be engaged. It's not to
Speaker 1: be happy, it's not fine, meaning it's inertia. We tend
Speaker 1: to do what we've been doing, go what we've been
Speaker 1: going to say, we've been saying. Welcome to the one
Speaker 1: you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance
Speaker 1: of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out,
Speaker 1: or you are what you think, ring true, and yet
Speaker 1: for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
Speaker 1: good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this
Speaker 1: episode is Marshall Goldsmith. He's the only two time thinkers
Speaker 1: fifty dot com number one leadership thinker in the world.
Speaker 1: He's been ranked as the world's number one executive coach
Speaker 1: and top business thinker for eight years. He was also
Speaker 1: chosen as the inaugural winner of the Lifetime Award for
Speaker 1: Leadership by the Harvard Institute of Coaching. Marshall is the
Speaker 1: author or editor of forty one books which have sold
Speaker 1: over two point five million copies, been translated into thirty
Speaker 1: two languages, and become listed bestsellers in twelve countries. Today,
Speaker 1: Marshall and Eric discussed the book The Earned Life, Lose Regret,
Speaker 1: Choose Fulfillment. Hi Marshall, Welcome to the show. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for inviting me. I am neased to have
Speaker 1: you on. We're going to be discussing your latest book
Speaker 1: called The Earned Life, Lose Regret, Choose Fulfillment. But before
Speaker 1: we do that, we will start in the way that
Speaker 1: we always do, which is with the parable. In the parable,
Speaker 1: there's a grandparent talking with their grandchild and they say,
Speaker 1: in life, there are two wolves inside of us that
Speaker 1: are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
Speaker 1: other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed
Speaker 1: and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and thinks
Speaker 1: about it for a second, looks up at their grandparents, says, well,
Speaker 1: which one wins, and the grandparents says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. Well. You know, I thought
Speaker 1: about that parable, and I thought about one of my clients.
Speaker 1: In my job. Most of what I've learned I've learned
Speaker 1: from the people I'm supposed to be coaching. In theory,
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to teach them, but in practice I always
Speaker 1: learn much more from them than I teach to them.
Speaker 1: One of my great coaching clients named Alan malually Ellen,
Speaker 1: was the CEO of Ford, CEO of the ear in States,
Speaker 1: ranked number three leader in the world, stock went from
Speaker 1: one dollar to eighteen forty and he also had a
Speaker 1: percent approval rating from every employee in a union company.
Speaker 1: An amazing man. So when I read the parable, I
Speaker 1: thought about Alan. It's a great lesson he taught me.
Speaker 1: He went to Ford and the culture was very dysfunctional
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of what you would call
Speaker 1: the negative elements of the wolf. And he basically sat
Speaker 1: down with people and said, how are we going to
Speaker 1: act and they described behavior and then he said option
Speaker 1: A starting today. And by the way, is no looking
Speaker 1: back on the past or blaming others. But he said,
Speaker 1: starting today, this is why we're gonna act. Option A,
Speaker 1: act this way or option B. Leave. It is amazing
Speaker 1: in essence. When you starve that bad wolf, it kind
Speaker 1: of goes away. And you know, he said, for example,
Speaker 1: no destructive comments about people, no putting people down, total transparency,
Speaker 1: no hiding things. He went to you know, and after
Speaker 1: after that, and he had had a couple of people
Speaker 1: he had to fire out of sixteen. Not bed he
Speaker 1: fired two out of sixteen, but fourteen of the sixteen
Speaker 1: people that led the company to bankruptcy turned the company around.
Speaker 1: And a lot of it goes back to that wolf. Parable.
Speaker 1: I love that answer. Let's jump into your new book.
Speaker 1: You call it the Earned Life, Lose regret, choose fulfillment.
Speaker 1: And I was talking with somebody that I do some
Speaker 1: work with recently, and they described themselves as having a
Speaker 1: regret focused personality. Right, so lots of regret. Talk to
Speaker 1: me about at a high level, how do we start
Speaker 1: to lose regret. One of the things they talked about
Speaker 1: in the book is called the every breath paradise. Every
Speaker 1: time I take a deep breath, that's a new me.
Speaker 1: And I think a good way to lose regret is
Speaker 1: to think back to those previous renditions of yourself and
Speaker 1: think about all the gifts they've given you today, think
Speaker 1: about the good things they've done, and think about how
Speaker 1: hard they tried, and then thank them for what they're
Speaker 1: doing well, and you know, whatever mistakes they've made, let
Speaker 1: it go forgive them. The regret we feel is kind
Speaker 1: of an anger at the previous version of ourselves, and
Speaker 1: don't carry around that anger at the previous versions. So
Speaker 1: they were who they were. They were who they were,
Speaker 1: they did who they did. They may not have been perfect,
Speaker 1: but they did who they did. And by the way,
Speaker 1: without the mistakes we made in life, we would never
Speaker 1: have got the learning we got from the mistakes. So,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're pretty good with where you are
Speaker 1: now whatever happened, thank them. Yeah. I think that idea
Speaker 1: of we're not the person we were five years, ten
Speaker 1: years ago. You talk about that with coaching clients, both
Speaker 1: in a positive and a negative sense, right in a
Speaker 1: sense of Okay, you're not the person you were five
Speaker 1: years ago. So you don't need to feel bad about
Speaker 1: yourself like what that person did. And you also can't
Speaker 1: continue to think you're the person who succeeded five years ago,
Speaker 1: or you're the person who was a good person five
Speaker 1: years ago, Like you've got to be that person today,
Speaker 1: right now, this breath. That's exactly right, And that's the
Speaker 1: problem a lot of ex athletes have. One of the
Speaker 1: people who's inspired the book is Curtis Martin National Football
Speaker 1: League Hall of Fame number five rusher ever, and he
Speaker 1: is a guy who has done a great job post career.
Speaker 1: Many former athletes are still living back in that past,
Speaker 1: you know. And the guy sitting there getting drunk at
Speaker 1: the bar is not the same guy that won Super
Speaker 1: Bowl three. They're very different people. And you can't live
Speaker 1: in in the past. It's a kind of vicarious living.
Speaker 1: In the same way you shouldn't live through other people's
Speaker 1: lives like the Kardashians or other athletes or TV stars
Speaker 1: or whatever. When you live in the past, it's a
Speaker 1: form of vicarious living. It's not you. It's not you.
Speaker 1: You're trying to relive somebody that's not there. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's really profound. And you talk about how Buddhism
Speaker 1: really influenced that every breath paradigm. Share a little bit
Speaker 1: more about where that model came to you. Well, I've
Speaker 1: read about four books on Buddhism, and I'm not a
Speaker 1: religious Buddhist. I'm a philosophical Buddhist. I don't have metaphysical
Speaker 1: beliefs about Buddhism. They're more philosophical beliefs. And my my
Speaker 1: philosophical school of Buddhism is Buddha was brought up rich,
Speaker 1: or the parable of Buddha. He was brought up rich,
Speaker 1: and his father started to give you happy if he
Speaker 1: had more, trying to give him more and more and more.
Speaker 1: And he lived in a bubble and he was able
Speaker 1: to sneak outside that bubble three times. The first time
Speaker 1: he learned, you know what, you get sick, people get sick,
Speaker 1: not so good. Second time people get old, and third
Speaker 1: time you die old sick die. Buddha THO, that's not
Speaker 1: so good, old sick and dies that this more thing
Speaker 1: isn't working out for me. Then he went out and
Speaker 1: tried to have less. He starved himself, but you know
Speaker 1: what didn't work either. Finally, one night he realized, I
Speaker 1: can never be happy with more. You can never be
Speaker 1: happy with less. There's only one thing. I can be
Speaker 1: happy with what I have. There's only one time I
Speaker 1: can be happy now, there's only one place I can
Speaker 1: be happy here. Well, to me, that's kind of the
Speaker 1: essence of Buddhism, and it's very non Western philosophy. The
Speaker 1: whole Western etho says, you will be happy when when
Speaker 1: you get the money status BMW, condiment achievement. You will
Speaker 1: be happy when well, you know, there's one book that
Speaker 1: has the same ending and they lived happily ever after. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: that type of book is called a fairy tale, not
Speaker 1: the real world. That's not the real world. In the
Speaker 1: real world, we're restarting over and over and over. And
Speaker 1: the essence of Buddhism is a lot of people feel like,
Speaker 1: well that that's impossible. That says I have to be
Speaker 1: happy forever. No, it doesn't. That's the opposite of what
Speaker 1: it is. I am also a philosophical Buddhist and have
Speaker 1: read a lot of books, and I love your summary there.
Speaker 1: It's really good. I read something the other day. We
Speaker 1: often talk about community. You talk in your book a
Speaker 1: lot about community. We're going to get to that in Buddhism.
Speaker 1: They call it the songa Right. But I heard a
Speaker 1: description I love the other day which says we are
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters in sickness, old, age, and death. Like
Speaker 1: you just said, like, that's the thing that we are
Speaker 1: all going to face, and that is the common denominator
Speaker 1: that every single human we encounter is our brother and
Speaker 1: sister in that. I agree, And we are humans, and
Speaker 1: I think just accepting that's important, you know, not trying
Speaker 1: to be perfect and not trying to be something that
Speaker 1: we're not. Everyone I coach is a human. In fact,
Speaker 1: the book Earned Life was inspired by sixty people. My
Speaker 1: friend Mark Thompson. I spent every weekend with sixty amazing
Speaker 1: people and we had six hours of meetings and they
Speaker 1: rotated who was in what group, and we did it
Speaker 1: for almost two years. And these were incredibly, incredibly impressive people,
Speaker 1: and they talked about their lives, and these conversations are
Speaker 1: kind of what led to the book they Earned Life,
Speaker 1: and they really like that idea of having a little community.
Speaker 1: You know, there's no saying it's lonely at the top.
Speaker 1: It used to be lonely at the top. Today it
Speaker 1: is lonely er at the top. It is way lonelier
Speaker 1: of social media, people making fun of you going out
Speaker 1: and people are afraid to say much of anything today.
Speaker 1: And one guy said, you know, it's really nice one
Speaker 1: hour a week I can get to be a human being. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you said, If I can leave with you only one
Speaker 1: piece of advice to increase your probability of creating in
Speaker 1: an earned life, it is this ask for help. You
Speaker 1: need it more than you know. And you know that's
Speaker 1: a key part of my coach My coaching is all
Speaker 1: about teaching people to ask for help, not just from me,
Speaker 1: but from everyone around them. So you ask, you know,
Speaker 1: you want to be a better husband, you know, ask
Speaker 1: your wife? How can I be a better husband? You
Speaker 1: want to be a better partner? How can I be
Speaker 1: a better partner? You want to be a better wife.
Speaker 1: As your husband, how could be a better wife or
Speaker 1: a better father, a better friend, better managers? So yeah,
Speaker 1: a key to my coaching process is asking for help.
Speaker 1: And we've been brought up to believe that asking for
Speaker 1: help is a sign of weakness, especially when you're the
Speaker 1: leadership role, that if you ask for help, here's a
Speaker 1: sign of weakness. One thing I'm very proud of in
Speaker 1: the book You Earned Life. If you read the first
Speaker 1: six pages, those are people that I'm coaching. And one
Speaker 1: thing I'm proud of is thirty years ago, no executive
Speaker 1: would admit to having a coach. It would have been
Speaker 1: a shame to have had a embarrassed to have had
Speaker 1: a coach. Well, these thirty people are great people, and
Speaker 1: I'll say, you know, I need help. I asked for
Speaker 1: help and it's okay. I mean, how many of the
Speaker 1: top ten teddors players have a coach? Ten? What does
Speaker 1: mean a thing wrong with him? Just trying to get better? Right? Right? Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was also struck by that as I was reading it.
Speaker 1: You know how many people you actually name? And what
Speaker 1: I was struck by was not how impressive they were,
Speaker 1: which they are, but it wasn't that. It was that
Speaker 1: these people who are kind of at the top of
Speaker 1: their fields are all willing to say I was coached.
Speaker 1: And you make a point in the book that I
Speaker 1: thought was really great, which is when we're in a
Speaker 1: leadership position, we say it's okay to ask for help,
Speaker 1: it's okay not to know, but if we never do,
Speaker 1: we're modeling that it's not okay. Even though our words
Speaker 1: say it is okay if we never do it, we're
Speaker 1: not modeling that it's okay to do it. I have
Speaker 1: a funny story in the book, and you can't make
Speaker 1: this up. I was twenty eight years old, I think,
Speaker 1: and IBM was most admired company in the world. And
Speaker 1: they got the survey and the surveys said, you know what,
Speaker 1: the managers aren't doing a great job of coaching people.
Speaker 1: So then they gave us big training program that's a
Speaker 1: millions of dollars in training. And a year later did
Speaker 1: another survey and did absolutely zero impact, zero impact, same
Speaker 1: exact scores. Then I, as the managers, as your boss,
Speaker 1: do a good job of coaching? No, no, no no.
Speaker 1: As a manager, does your employee ever asked for coaching? Nope?
Speaker 1: As employee, do you ever have asked your manager for coaching? No?
Speaker 1: Then I looked at the performance appraisal system. You can't
Speaker 1: make this up. The definition of a top performer was
Speaker 1: performs effectively with no need for coaching. So the manager says,
Speaker 1: you know, do you need any help or go No, boss,
Speaker 1: I perform effectively with no need for coaching. Again, I
Speaker 1: was twenty eight You know what, you know what I
Speaker 1: thought at God Bless America. I said, this is the
Speaker 1: most admired company of the world, and I'm a twenty
Speaker 1: eight year old kid and they're doing something is dumb.
Speaker 1: I got an easy job. Let's talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about barriers that sort of hold us back in our
Speaker 1: choices and actions. You list a number of them, and
Speaker 1: we're not gonna have time to go through all of them.
Speaker 1: But I thought this was really helpful. So if we
Speaker 1: look at we want to do this, we want to
Speaker 1: do that, but there are some things that get in
Speaker 1: our way. And so I thought maybe I would just
Speaker 1: pick a couple and let you just speak to them briefly.
Speaker 1: And the first one is really the first one that
Speaker 1: you list, which is just inertia. Right, talk to me
Speaker 1: about inertia, and you know, our default reaction in life
Speaker 1: is inertia. Our defallow in your life is not to
Speaker 1: be engaged, it's not to be happy, it's not fine,
Speaker 1: meaning it's inertia. We tend to do what we've been doing,
Speaker 1: go what we've been going, and say we've been saying.
Speaker 1: And in many ways, the more successful we become, the
Speaker 1: more inertia is a danger. Why any human or animal
Speaker 1: will replicate behavior that's followed by positive reinforcement. Nobody gets
Speaker 1: more positive reinforcement, and corporate executives right every day, people
Speaker 1: laughing at their jokes, you know, pretending they're smart. And
Speaker 1: what happens is then we just tend to do the
Speaker 1: same things over and over because they get positive reinforcement,
Speaker 1: and we don't stop and ask ourselves. I'm successful because
Speaker 1: of and I'm successful in spite of and everybody at
Speaker 1: work with its including me. We're all successful because we
Speaker 1: do many things right, and it's by doing things that
Speaker 1: are dumb. And I've never met anybody so wonderful. I
Speaker 1: had nothing on the in spite of list, so very
Speaker 1: important not to get lost in inertia. Another thing about
Speaker 1: inertia is it's very hard when you're comfortable. One of
Speaker 1: the biggest challenges in life is comfort. When we get comfort,
Speaker 1: it's very hard to be more. And one of the
Speaker 1: things I talked about in the book is the best
Speaker 1: coaching ever got in my life was people said, you
Speaker 1: can do more, you can be more. And sometimes I
Speaker 1: was doing fine. I was doing fine to what I
Speaker 1: didn't have a problem as such, but I was challenged
Speaker 1: to be more. So inertia is really hard when you're successful,
Speaker 1: and really hard when you're comfortable. Yeah, So talk to
Speaker 1: me about the difference between being comfortable and being fulfilled, right,
Speaker 1: because on one hand, if going back to what we
Speaker 1: said in the beginning, I can only be happy right here,
Speaker 1: right now with what I've got. That's that right, And
Speaker 1: we're also saying, hey, comfort stands in the way of
Speaker 1: a deeper fulfillment. Talk to me about how you think
Speaker 1: about determining like I'm comfortable and I'm fulfilled versus I'm
Speaker 1: sort of comfortable and I can actually do more. This
Speaker 1: is a really good point because sometimes we confuse two terms.
Speaker 1: I think one is happiness and peace and the other
Speaker 1: is achievement. And one of the great guys in the
Speaker 1: group was Sofia Safie wrote a book called Luon Schatz.
Speaker 1: He started four or five businesses, made lots of money,
Speaker 1: he got a PhD in physics from Stanford, and he
Speaker 1: finally realized that basically happiness, peace, and achievement or independent variables.
Speaker 1: So he said, it's great to achieve, but he used
Speaker 1: to think after I achieve, I will be happy. And
Speaker 1: he finally realized happiness and achievement or independent variables He said,
Speaker 1: you can achieve a lot and be happy, and you
Speaker 1: can achieve nothing and be happy. You can achieve a
Speaker 1: lot and be miserable, and you can achieve nothing and
Speaker 1: be miserable. Because he always thought, I will be happy
Speaker 1: when I achieve something. And to me, that's a key
Speaker 1: theme in the book. I would say the key theme
Speaker 1: in the book has never become ego attached to results,
Speaker 1: never become ego attached to outcomes. And what happens is
Speaker 1: for two reasons. One is, we don't control the outcomes.
Speaker 1: I didn't cause COVID, You didn't cause COVID. We don't
Speaker 1: control the outcomes. But number two, what happens after we
Speaker 1: achieve the outcomes? What do you want? The more? More
Speaker 1: and more and more and more and more and more
Speaker 1: and more. So the Buddhist term is the hungry ghost.
Speaker 1: After you achieve the outcome, how long does that make
Speaker 1: you happy? Back to Safie, I said, you know, Safie,
Speaker 1: you already got a PhD in physics from Stanford, You've
Speaker 1: written best selling books, You're worth millions of dollars, blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah. Exactly how much do you have
Speaker 1: to achieve in order to be happy. Right, you're already
Speaker 1: a ninety nine point nine nine nine. Do you really
Speaker 1: think going to a ninety is going to make any difference? No.
Speaker 1: Another guy talks about in the book is Albert Berlow
Speaker 1: Albert ce Fiser. So you know, a few months ago,
Speaker 1: is at Albert, how's it going? Albert said, we look good?
Speaker 1: You know, it came up with this cure for COVID
Speaker 1: very ice, vaccine, very very good. And then we've got
Speaker 1: a new pill and profitable. And see over the year
Speaker 1: and complay, engage, but high, so said Albert. What's your problem?
Speaker 1: He said, have a huge problem next year? Next year? Well,
Speaker 1: if Albert's value as a human is he has to
Speaker 1: do better than last year, he might as well cash
Speaker 1: it in. He's not gonna do better than last year.
Speaker 1: Michael Phelps gold medals. What do you think about doing
Speaker 1: after winning the medal? Killing himself? Killing himself? Why couldn't
Speaker 1: be it last year? Well, very important. Never place our
Speaker 1: value as a human on some outcome. It doesn't mean
Speaker 1: though you don't strive for outcomes. It doesn't mean you
Speaker 1: don't strive to achieve it. It doesn't mean you don't
Speaker 1: strive to be better. Those are good things. Problem is
Speaker 1: when we think those are going to bring his peace
Speaker 1: and happiness, they don't. Yeah, and I think that idea
Speaker 1: of don't get attached to outcomes but commit yourself to
Speaker 1: action is a beautiful idea and deeply difficult, deeply difficult
Speaker 1: actually make that happen. So this might be a time
Speaker 1: to transition to what you call the three a's, because
Speaker 1: I think the three a's address this a little bit.
Speaker 1: And the three a's are action, ambition, and aspiration. Action
Speaker 1: we can leave alone for a second. It's pretty straightforward.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about ambition and aspiration, the difference between
Speaker 1: the two and how that might play into what we're
Speaker 1: just discussing right now. I always try to when I
Speaker 1: use words, is to not make any pretense that my
Speaker 1: definitions are good or bad or better than someone else's.
Speaker 1: So when I use these words, and there's a definition
Speaker 1: for me, so just so we know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: So for me, our aspirations represent the answer to the
Speaker 1: question why there are deeper purpose and they do not
Speaker 1: have a timeline. It's that deeper purpose it doesn't have
Speaker 1: a timeline. It answers that question why ambitions do have
Speaker 1: a timeline that's achieving specific goals, which are usually time mound.
Speaker 1: And then our actions, which it we'll talk about, are
Speaker 1: actually what we're doing now, are day to day activities.
Speaker 1: And assuming that you have a middle class income or above,
Speaker 1: assuming that you have people you love, and assuming you're healthy, well,
Speaker 1: if you can align your aspirations and your ambitions and
Speaker 1: your actions, you pretty much won the game of life.
Speaker 1: Give me some examples of some aspirations, just so we
Speaker 1: can give people some ideas of what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: What aspiration might be helping humanity, which is certainly a
Speaker 1: wonderful thing, but we can go off the tracks on
Speaker 1: any of these. By what I call overwaiting and overweighting
Speaker 1: aspiration is the human service leader who since crely loves
Speaker 1: humanity but can't stand human beings. And by the way
Speaker 1: I've meant many of them, they truly love humanity, they
Speaker 1: just can't stand human beings. They're really good at this
Speaker 1: broad thing. And then some people are very good living
Speaker 1: in their heads, very high level aspiration. They don't really
Speaker 1: achieve much and they often miss joy and day to
Speaker 1: day life. Most people are the opposite, and the history
Speaker 1: of our species, most people were lost in the action phase.
Speaker 1: You know, our incestor didn't have anything. They lived from
Speaker 1: day to day. They didn't have any high levels, so
Speaker 1: much of anything. You were trying to stay alive and
Speaker 1: it was very hard. Most human beings today live in
Speaker 1: the action phase. You know, they play video games, they
Speaker 1: watch TV, they do what's in front of them. People
Speaker 1: listening to this podcast, people like Coach and you. Our
Speaker 1: problem is we get stuck in the ambition phase. We
Speaker 1: get stuck in achievement. Anyone listening to this podcast is
Speaker 1: an achiever. Anyone who buys a book is an achiever.
Speaker 1: A small percentage of people buy books, right, and so
Speaker 1: you know, a person buys a nonfiction book is almost
Speaker 1: by definition, uniquely and achiever. A person listen to your
Speaker 1: podcast is almost by definition uniquely an achiever. People like
Speaker 1: Coach you mentioned this, ayre all achievers. Right. Well, we
Speaker 1: fall into the trap of addiction to achievement, and a
Speaker 1: lot of ways we can go off the tracks. One
Speaker 1: is the classic politician who starts out with high aspirations,
Speaker 1: wants to do what's right to save the world, and
Speaker 1: they get so well, I got to get elected, and
Speaker 1: then pretty soon after they're getting elected, these results corrupt them,
Speaker 1: and the aspirations lost. A very common example is people
Speaker 1: who become so addicted to achievement they forget to enjoy life.
Speaker 1: They just forget to enjoy life. And I like the
Speaker 1: story of the Marshmallows. The marshmallow research Walter Mutual from
Speaker 1: Stanford give the kid a marshmallow and say the kid,
Speaker 1: will kid, you eat one, you get one. But if
Speaker 1: you wait too for you so kid waits at him
Speaker 1: to Allegedly they have this longitudinal research that shows that
Speaker 1: kid it needs one ends up being a loser kid
Speaker 1: that needs to gets a PhD from Stanford something like that.
Speaker 1: But the bottom line is delayed gratification is good. That's
Speaker 1: the whole point of that. Delayed gratification is good. Well
Speaker 1: they didn't do in the research though, is take the
Speaker 1: kid did two marshmallows and say, kid, wait a bit,
Speaker 1: you get three. If you wait a little longer, wait
Speaker 1: some more, four, five, ten, fifteen, a thousand. The story
Speaker 1: ends with an old man waiting to die sit in
Speaker 1: a room surrounded by thousands of uneating marshmallows. Yeah, sometimes
Speaker 1: you gotta eat the marshmallows. Yeah, I think delayed gratification,
Speaker 1: like many things, like we talked about in the beginning,
Speaker 1: the Buddha finding sort of the middle way. Right, if
Speaker 1: you only delay gratification, you just you spend your life
Speaker 1: waiting for something, working for something, and if you only
Speaker 1: do what you want to do in the moment. I've
Speaker 1: been down that road and it turned me into a
Speaker 1: heroin addict, right, So it did not work out, right,
Speaker 1: So it's that middle way. Talk to me about if
Speaker 1: I am able to divorce ambition and I'm able to
Speaker 1: look at ambition and go, Okay, it's not going to
Speaker 1: make me happy, why do you think we still pursue it? Well,
Speaker 1: to me, if our focused on a chief men or
Speaker 1: ambition is connected to a higher aspiration, but it's a
Speaker 1: great idea why it gives meaning and value to our lives.
Speaker 1: And you know, my daughter Kelly and I did some
Speaker 1: research on this and we studied happiness and meaning and
Speaker 1: it's very similar to what you just said. If you
Speaker 1: just focus your life on pursuing happiness. This is where
Speaker 1: addiction comes in. What you're getting a short term gratification,
Speaker 1: there's no meaning, there's no long term benefit. But it's
Speaker 1: not just drug addiction, could be video game addiction, social
Speaker 1: media addiction, any form of addiction, and that's a real danger.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, if you do nothing but do
Speaker 1: things that are meaningful but don't make you happy, well
Speaker 1: you're a martyr. You're a victim. And what we found
Speaker 1: out is people are much more satisfied with life simultaneously
Speaker 1: do things that produce happiness and meaning If you're achieving, yet,
Speaker 1: you're achieving something you enjoy the process of doing. And too,
Speaker 1: you're achieving something that the results are meaningful to you.
Speaker 1: You're winning. So achievement is a great thing if and
Speaker 1: I qualify that, if the results of what you achieve
Speaker 1: are meaningful to you. And again, nobody can find what's
Speaker 1: meaningful for you but you, and too, if you enjoy
Speaker 1: the process of doing it. So okay, like you you're
Speaker 1: doing this podcast. I think you kind of enjoy this podcast,
Speaker 1: and I think it's meaningful. Guess what, Yes, well, you know,
Speaker 1: good job and you try to do a good podcast.
Speaker 1: That's a form of achievement. I don't think that's negative
Speaker 1: at all. It's very positive. On the other hand, if
Speaker 1: you said if I have x num reviews, i'll be happy,
Speaker 1: doesn't work. That's where you go off the roads that
Speaker 1: doesn't work absolutely. You know what, what if you get
Speaker 1: extra reviews, what happens next year? You need X times
Speaker 1: twenty exactly? It never ends that game. You know. It's
Speaker 1: like you said, the hungry ghost game. Okay, I got
Speaker 1: us a little off track because we were talking about
Speaker 1: barriers holding back in choice and actions, and we talked
Speaker 1: about inertia. Let's talk about our programming lox us in place.
Speaker 1: This is one of the most common things I deal
Speaker 1: with in coaching. When we say that's just the way
Speaker 1: I am, that is just the way I am. And
Speaker 1: you know, as long as we say it's just the
Speaker 1: way I am, one of two things are going to happen.
Speaker 1: Both assuming we want to change. Let's say you think
Speaker 1: I should be X, but why is just the way
Speaker 1: I am? Well, number one, you dramatically decreased the odds
Speaker 1: are going to change. Number two, though, even if you
Speaker 1: do change, you won't feel authentic. You're gonna feel like
Speaker 1: a phony. So I coach somebody and let's say they
Speaker 1: get feedback that says they're a bad lister, and I'm
Speaker 1: the guys coach for a year, and he gets feedback
Speaker 1: then and says he's a good list. If I don't
Speaker 1: help him understand his identity and programming. You know, he's
Speaker 1: going to fill the inside like a phoney. He's gonna think, well,
Speaker 1: that's not the real me. See, the real me is
Speaker 1: a bad listener. Well, the real me is This real
Speaker 1: me stuff is kind of a myth. Any there is
Speaker 1: no real me as you go through life. This real
Speaker 1: me is drifting along through life. That me is always changing.
Speaker 1: So I think very important that we look at programming
Speaker 1: because our programming often influences how we are and who
Speaker 1: we are, and then we start saying that's who I am,
Speaker 1: that's the real meat. Well, I always challenge people, I say,
Speaker 1: do you have an incurable genetic defect? If you have
Speaker 1: an incurable genetic defect, there's abolutely nothing I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: about it. That's okay. If you do not have an
Speaker 1: incurable genetic defect, guess what you can change. People say
Speaker 1: I can't listen. I look in their ears. You got
Speaker 1: something stuck in there? Why can't you listen? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you say in the book, I love this question, Whose
Speaker 1: life are we living when decisive parts of it imprinted
Speaker 1: during our formative years by people we love, have already
Speaker 1: been created for us. Right, it's this idea, and I
Speaker 1: think it really is. There is no real meat, as
Speaker 1: you say, it is a completely conditioned thing, and we're
Speaker 1: able to make some decisions about what we allow to
Speaker 1: condition it. You know, I do some coaching work, not
Speaker 1: not on the level you do, but you know, I
Speaker 1: like to think of it as tendencies. Right. You have
Speaker 1: a tendency towards something, And it's good to recognize your
Speaker 1: tendencies because you know we want to change them. But
Speaker 1: that's about as far as we want to identify with
Speaker 1: it right now. And that's why I call this psychological testing.
Speaker 1: These test people take can be useful, but they can
Speaker 1: be dysfunctional. Yes to me, I love your word tendency.
Speaker 1: If you take the tests it says have a tendency
Speaker 1: to be too assertive. Fine, But if you say I
Speaker 1: am too assertive, then it starts doing more harmon and good.
Speaker 1: I agree. I always have such a mixed relationship with
Speaker 1: those things, like, Okay, it's helpful to get some insight,
Speaker 1: but I don't want to start thinking of myself as
Speaker 1: being a certain way. I want a certain way that
Speaker 1: I'm aiming at to be based on aspiration. As you said,
Speaker 1: earlier or values. Would you say that values and aspirations
Speaker 1: are linked or similar? Yeah, I would. And again I
Speaker 1: don't talk too much about some depends on the definition
Speaker 1: way I define it. Yes, the next one. I love
Speaker 1: this one because I think, boy, as an adult, this
Speaker 1: question is such a big one. And you say, one
Speaker 1: of the reasons that we don't do the things that
Speaker 1: we want that holds us back is we are undone
Speaker 1: by obligation. And what I love that you say in
Speaker 1: there is that the beauty of obligation is it directs
Speaker 1: us to keep our promises to others. Implied or explicit.
Speaker 1: We could say that it allows us to uphold our values.
Speaker 1: The misery of obligation is how often those priorities conflicts
Speaker 1: with the ones we've made to ourselves. Boy, is this
Speaker 1: a tricky area. Anybody who's got aging parents or young
Speaker 1: children will say, yes, Boy, this is tough. It is tough.
Speaker 1: And you know I talked about my friend Mark Tsik
Speaker 1: in the book. Mark was the managing partner of Goldman Sex.
Speaker 1: He was every when they did the I p O.
Speaker 1: He made his billion dollars. And then we're walking around
Speaker 1: the late he's talking about life and he has an
Speaker 1: opportunity to be the c of nature Conservancy where he
Speaker 1: gets paid nothing, but who cares? But he's sitting there
Speaker 1: worried about what his partners may think at Goldman sucks
Speaker 1: about number one, they don't care. But number two, why
Speaker 1: do you care? Is it live your own life? You're
Speaker 1: not living their life. Live your life? You know? Yes,
Speaker 1: so many of us were not living our own lives. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think it's so balen. And I love what
Speaker 1: you say in the book, which is that there's just
Speaker 1: no answer to this right. You say, it forces to
Speaker 1: prioritize our responsibilities. It's a gray area with few norms
Speaker 1: to guide us beyond the golden rule and do the
Speaker 1: right thing. My mom is aging and not well, how
Speaker 1: much time should I devote to her? Right? I want
Speaker 1: someone to tell me three hours a week and you're
Speaker 1: a good son. Right. But it doesn't work that way.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't work that way. And so these things
Speaker 1: bring us up against and into really having to look
Speaker 1: at our values, our aspirations. And then you know, the
Speaker 1: thing that I think a lot of us miss is
Speaker 1: that we are living according to our values. I value
Speaker 1: my children, They're the most important thing, but we don't
Speaker 1: connect to that value often enough in our mind, and
Speaker 1: so we get into I have to when really we don't.
Speaker 1: We're choosing to, and we may be choosing to in
Speaker 1: a slightly unconscious way. And so the more conscious we
Speaker 1: can become and say, the reason I'm doing that is
Speaker 1: because X, I think it reconnects something inside us. You know.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I like about I learned
Speaker 1: from Carol Kaufman. I'm gonna see her next week. She
Speaker 1: has one question she taught me. You know, as I said,
Speaker 1: I've read four hundred books on Buddhism. The listeners, skip
Speaker 1: the four hundred books, skip the eight day mindfulness retreat,
Speaker 1: this one question. All you do is get a little card.
Speaker 1: You carry this question around with you everywhere you go.
Speaker 1: And the card says, am I being the person that
Speaker 1: I want to be right now? That one question? That's
Speaker 1: it to me, She's gotta that's Buddhism, that's engagement, mindfulness,
Speaker 1: the whole thing. Am I being the person that I
Speaker 1: want to be right now? And you know what, if
Speaker 1: the answer is yes, you don't need to read the
Speaker 1: four hundred books, skip the four you don't need to
Speaker 1: take a core zone mindfulness, No let's skip that too.
Speaker 1: Just just be that person you want to you know,
Speaker 1: it might be the person I want to be. Now
Speaker 1: when you're at home. Am I being the father? I
Speaker 1: want to be? A mind as a son I want
Speaker 1: to be And nobody can answer that for you but you.
Speaker 1: And then answer is yes, you're head in the right direction.
Speaker 1: I love that question. My version of it is, you know,
Speaker 1: who do I want to be in this situation. So
Speaker 1: we've talked about some of the things that get in
Speaker 1: the way of our choices and actions. We've talked about
Speaker 1: making sure that our aspiration or ambition and the actions
Speaker 1: that we're taking are syncd up. I want to talk
Speaker 1: about daily questions. Daily questions is a practice that you
Speaker 1: have have put in place. I mentioned I was a
Speaker 1: recovering addict and I got a sober and a twelve
Speaker 1: step fellowship, and we have something called a tent step
Speaker 1: where you know, we take daily personal inventory, right and
Speaker 1: it's a similar thing. So talk to me about daily questions. Well,
Speaker 1: the daily question process. I'm gonna teach everyone if they
Speaker 1: don't know it something. It takes three minutes today, caused
Speaker 1: absolutely zero and will help you get better at almost
Speaker 1: anything that's a creat deal. Yeah, well, many people are skeptical.
Speaker 1: Three minutes today, nothing called one marshal. It sounds too
Speaker 1: good to be true. After people that start doing this
Speaker 1: quit in two weeks. And they do not quit because
Speaker 1: it does not work quick because it does work. This
Speaker 1: is hard to do. Get out of spreadsheet right down
Speaker 1: a serious of questions that represent what was most important
Speaker 1: in your life. Seven boxes across, one for every day
Speaker 1: of the week Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Speaker 1: And every question has to be answer yes or no
Speaker 1: or number. Fill it out every day and you get
Speaker 1: a report card at the end of the week. And
Speaker 1: I will tell all your listeners that report card at
Speaker 1: the end of the week might not be quite as
Speaker 1: beautiful as that corporate values plastic stuck up on the wall.
Speaker 1: I've been doing this for twenty five years, and you
Speaker 1: do this every day. You know what you learn very quickly.
Speaker 1: You learn that life is incredibly easy to talk and
Speaker 1: life is incredibly difficult to live. You know, one of
Speaker 1: the things on my little introduction you fail to mention
Speaker 1: an incredible quality. I have the ability to screw something
Speaker 1: up every day. You didn't mention that they're on the intro.
Speaker 1: But I've always impressed myself with my incredible gift of
Speaker 1: screwing something up pretty much here every day. Well, the
Speaker 1: hard thing about this process is you get the look
Speaker 1: at it every day and you know what, it's not
Speaker 1: that pretty. It's not that pretty. And my daughter, Kelly,
Speaker 1: I'm very proud of her. She had a pchief from
Speaker 1: me all and she's now a full professor and chairman
Speaker 1: of the marketing department at Vanderbilt here in Nashville. Kelly
Speaker 1: taught me the value of active questions, which I love,
Speaker 1: especially active questions again with did I do my best too? Now,
Speaker 1: why is that so important? If I ask you, are
Speaker 1: you're happy and you say no, you'll blame the environment. No,
Speaker 1: I'm not happy because I had to work too hard,
Speaker 1: it's too hot, it's too cold, something out there. If
Speaker 1: I ask you, did you do your best to be happy,
Speaker 1: there's nobody to blame. You gotta look in the mirror
Speaker 1: and said I didn't even try. Well, six questions I
Speaker 1: recommend everybody ask every day. Number one, did I do
Speaker 1: my best to set clear goals today? Not did the
Speaker 1: company give me goals? And did I do my best
Speaker 1: to set goals. Well, you've got these, you know, aspirations.
Speaker 1: There are your goals connected to this thing you want
Speaker 1: to be Number two? Did I do my best to
Speaker 1: make progress towards achieving those goals? Achievement? Did I do
Speaker 1: my best to be happy? Now? In one of my books,
Speaker 1: I talked about three medical doctors I coach Jim Kim
Speaker 1: simultaneous PhD in anthropology and m d from Harvard who
Speaker 1: went on to be president World Bank, Ross Shaw ahead
Speaker 1: of the U. S a d. And then Rockefeller Foundation
Speaker 1: John Knows already head of Male Cluding three medical doctors,
Speaker 1: all brilliant. I asked him this question individually, how would
Speaker 1: you do on an average day? Did I do my
Speaker 1: best to be happy? I had the same answer, never,
Speaker 1: don't know me to try to be happy? I never
Speaker 1: thought about it. Now they're all medical doctor, I did it.
Speaker 1: Don't know you're gonna die? Did they cover that in
Speaker 1: medical school? At death? And? Yeah? They covered death? Right?
Speaker 1: I said, you think this silly question, I said, it's
Speaker 1: a great question. I forgot to ask. So did I
Speaker 1: do my best to be happy? Did I do my
Speaker 1: best to find meaning? Did I do my best to
Speaker 1: build positive relationships? And did I do my best to
Speaker 1: be fully engaged every weekend over COVID. By the way,
Speaker 1: all these people had to step up and say, here's
Speaker 1: my scores, here's my scores. And you know what, I
Speaker 1: didn't see anybody getting perfect scores. You said, most people
Speaker 1: will quit within two weeks because this works, meaning it
Speaker 1: makes you take a really hard look at yourself. How
Speaker 1: do we deal with the fact that maybe our scores
Speaker 1: are really low and we start to spiral into despair
Speaker 1: over that versus it being motivating and empowering. What's the
Speaker 1: thing that causes feedback like that on one hand to
Speaker 1: drive us forward and on the other hand to weigh
Speaker 1: us down. One of the questions that I do my
Speaker 1: best to be happy. So if you're driving yourself into despair,
Speaker 1: you d that score a little bit. So the whole
Speaker 1: goal of this process is not to make you miserable, right,
Speaker 1: So I'm very big on be happy. Don't be miserable.
Speaker 1: I'm not I don't deify misery at all. So you
Speaker 1: know this is hard. It's hard to look in the
Speaker 1: mirror every day. Now. I have someone called me every
Speaker 1: day for almost twenty five years to make sure I
Speaker 1: do this. Somebody asked me, why do you have someone
Speaker 1: call you every day? Don't you know the theory about
Speaker 1: how to change behavior? I wrote the theory about how
Speaker 1: to change behavior, as I have someone called me every day.
Speaker 1: My name is Marshall Goldsmith, rank number one executive coach
Speaker 1: and leadership thinker in the whole world. I have to
Speaker 1: have someone called me every day to make sure I
Speaker 1: do this simple stuff I didach Why I am too
Speaker 1: cowardly to do any of this stuff by myself. I
Speaker 1: am too undisciplined to do any of this stuff by myself.
Speaker 1: I need help. I need help, And it's okay, who
Speaker 1: are we getting here? You mentioned it already. Everything that
Speaker 1: book is hard. It's not hard to understand, you ever
Speaker 1: hear me say anything it's hard to understand. I'm a
Speaker 1: simple guy. None of it's hard to understand. It's just
Speaker 1: hard to do. I think what you said there is
Speaker 1: so critical to underline yet again, which is we all
Speaker 1: need help. You know. I look at how many people
Speaker 1: are trying to make real changes in themselves on their own. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a theory, and it's only a theory, right,
Speaker 1: But I look at the difference. I see some people
Speaker 1: who recover I've had people say to me it was
Speaker 1: easier for me to quit heroin and quit smoking cigarettes,
Speaker 1: and I go, oh, that's interesting. Could have something to
Speaker 1: do with the drug, It could have something to do
Speaker 1: with the habit. But here's one thing that I see
Speaker 1: that's a clear difference. When you quit heroin, you went
Speaker 1: to a meeting every single day where you were supported
Speaker 1: by people, and you had people that you called. And
Speaker 1: when you quit cigarettes, you tried to do it all
Speaker 1: by yourself. It's a great example because it's hard to
Speaker 1: do any of this stuff, But why does people hire me?
Speaker 1: They could do it on their own. They would. Twilight
Speaker 1: Thorpe's World's Greatest Choreographer. She had the same personal trainer
Speaker 1: twenty seven years in a row. The trainers on teacher
Speaker 1: or anything new. Trainers not given motivational speeches. Trainers make
Speaker 1: sure she does the stuff. Pal Gasol's in the book
Speaker 1: Pals Are Great, a great basketball player, and you know
Speaker 1: he got hurt and he had to work really hard
Speaker 1: to try to make it back to play basketball to
Speaker 1: go to the Olympics, and he had his personal trainer
Speaker 1: living in his house. Why why do you have personal
Speaker 1: trainer living in his house? Well, he knows he's supposed
Speaker 1: to work out. He's not gonna do it by himself.
Speaker 1: We all need help. And that one thing I think
Speaker 1: we overexaggerated this macho will power crap. Somehow we're supposed
Speaker 1: to have all his willpower. Macho, I don't need others.
Speaker 1: I can do it on my own. All of us
Speaker 1: have got this crap. We've been saying I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: this for the last twenty years. We haven't done it yet. Well,
Speaker 1: if you haven't done the last twenty years, you really
Speaker 1: believe you're gonna do it next week? No, you need help.
Speaker 1: Let's take executives out of the game for a minute.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the average person. They got a middle
Speaker 1: class job, they've got a couple of kids, and they're
Speaker 1: trying to get in shape, and they're trying to develop,
Speaker 1: say a mindfulness practice, right, and they're just having trouble
Speaker 1: doing it. Where does someone like that do you think
Speaker 1: effectively turn for help? You know, it's a very good question,
Speaker 1: and my stuff applies equally well to somebody that's the
Speaker 1: top the middle, at any level, at any age. Almost.
Speaker 1: I mean, hopefully that book is not so complicated that
Speaker 1: a smart ten year old couldn't read it. I have
Speaker 1: no illusion at my stuff applies just to these high
Speaker 1: level people. My stuff applies to anybody. I think the
Speaker 1: key though, is, let's take the daily question process. Look,
Speaker 1: you can pay somebody five bucks an hour to do
Speaker 1: this or fifteen bucks an hour. What are the minimum
Speaker 1: wages and call you every day. You can have a
Speaker 1: friend call you every day, like I've done both. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I've hired people, sometimes I've had a friend. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: You just need somebody to remind you every day. So
Speaker 1: that's a process. You don't have to have a lot
Speaker 1: of money to do that. You don't need some fancy coach,
Speaker 1: you know, just need some human being. I've I've had
Speaker 1: people do that with me. You were not fancy coaches.
Speaker 1: They were basically administrative assistance. But you don't need a
Speaker 1: fancy coach to do that. On the other hand, they're
Speaker 1: providing this equal help as a fancy coach. And the
Speaker 1: other thing is learned from everyone around you. So I
Speaker 1: teach my clients to learn from everyone around you. All right,
Speaker 1: let's say you want to be a better father. Get
Speaker 1: to haven't of asking your kids how gon to be
Speaker 1: a better father? You don't need to be a rocket
Speaker 1: scientist do that. You don't need lots of money to
Speaker 1: do that. I really don't think I teach people much
Speaker 1: of anything that a quote normal person can't do. Agreed.
Speaker 1: I don't think the concepts are challenging at all. I
Speaker 1: think what I find is, I know a lot of
Speaker 1: people listening to the show will say, I don't have
Speaker 1: anybody in my life who really listens to this sort
Speaker 1: of thing, who's in these kind of ideas. I feel
Speaker 1: kind of alone, and I know I need help, but
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure where to go. I'm not surely
Speaker 1: really what to do. You know, I can't hire an
Speaker 1: executive coach like you know that that's not in my budget,
Speaker 1: and so I'm kind of asking for that sort of person.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's just me from my experience in life, I've
Speaker 1: had great mentors, and my mentors have been my heroes. Basically,
Speaker 1: I just want to grow up and be like them.
Speaker 1: And You'll have this program called hundred Coaches where basically
Speaker 1: I adopt people, I teach them all and know for free,
Speaker 1: and the only price is I could only do the
Speaker 1: same thing well, you know, and that is an honor
Speaker 1: of the people who taught me all they knew for
Speaker 1: free and didn't charge me any money. I think you
Speaker 1: just find somebody you admire who's a good person, and
Speaker 1: you just say, look, I really respect and admire you.
Speaker 1: If you don't mind, would you give me some help.
Speaker 1: They might be surprised how many people would help them, agree.
Speaker 1: I think it is asking and being willing to know
Speaker 1: that not everybody is going to say yes, and if
Speaker 1: they don't, it's fine. If you ask a few people,
Speaker 1: somebody's going to say yes. I mean, any salesperson learns
Speaker 1: that early on in their career. I certainly learned it
Speaker 1: getting guests on this podcast, right, Like in the beginning,
Speaker 1: I just asked all kinds of people and most of
Speaker 1: them said no, like who are you you? You just
Speaker 1: started a podcast? What is a podcast? I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff. But enough people said yes, and
Speaker 1: then you know, here we are eight years later. There
Speaker 1: you go. So it is being willing just to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask, and if I get to know, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to take it personal. I'm just gonna go
Speaker 1: all right, that person is not able to let me
Speaker 1: move on to the next talk to me about why
Speaker 1: did I do my best too. Why that's the format
Speaker 1: you alluded to it briefly, And secondly, what's a way
Speaker 1: of being somewhat impartial in that? And what I mean
Speaker 1: by that is some of us tend to overestimate what
Speaker 1: we do things, and others of us tend to weigh underestimate. Right.
Speaker 1: Some people are like, I'm the worst person in the
Speaker 1: world right now. Of course you're not. And other people
Speaker 1: are like, I'm amazing, and it's like, wow, you're all right.
Speaker 1: You know, we're all in the middle somewhere. Again, back
Speaker 1: to the why asked the question, did I do my
Speaker 1: best to? Yeah? I went to a presentation at the
Speaker 1: National Academy of Human Resources and they at the head
Speaker 1: of HR from all these big companies and three of
Speaker 1: more ass have talked about everything you know about employee engagement.
Speaker 1: I'm a member of this so I'm just sitting there listening.
Speaker 1: I'm the next speaker. Random, I'm just randomly there by
Speaker 1: the way, and I talked about employee engagement and said
Speaker 1: they talked about importance of empowerment, training, fairness, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: It's the same lecture her for thirty years in a row,
Speaker 1: same speech. Right, nothing new. Then they said global employee
Speaker 1: engagement is an all time low. I'm thinking, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: if you all know so much wise, global employee engagement
Speaker 1: all time low? Did I realized something? One of the
Speaker 1: dialogue is what can the company do to engage you?
Speaker 1: It's not exaggeration? Zero percent? Was you have any responsibility
Speaker 1: at all for your own life? Well that, Wait a minute,
Speaker 1: you're missing something. I fly all the time American Airlines
Speaker 1: eleven million frequent flyer mouse. One flight attends positively motivated,
Speaker 1: up beat, enthusiastic, one's negative, bit or angry and cynical.
Speaker 1: Same plane, same uniform, same salaries, same employee engagement program.
Speaker 1: What's the difference. It's the inside. I thought these people
Speaker 1: are missing half the equation. I talked to my daughter Kelly,
Speaker 1: and she said, every question of employe engagement is a
Speaker 1: pass your question. If I ask you, are you happy?
Speaker 1: And you say no, you're going to talk about why
Speaker 1: the environment it's hot, it's cold, blah blah blah. If
Speaker 1: I ask you, do you have meaningful work? Well no,
Speaker 1: they make me do trivial. Do you have clear goals? No,
Speaker 1: they don't know what they're doing. When you ask, did
Speaker 1: I do my best to You gotta take responsibility. You
Speaker 1: have to take responsibility and look in the mirror, and
Speaker 1: you can't blame other people. That's why it's hard. By
Speaker 1: the way, let me give you the hardest possible question
Speaker 1: you can ever ask yourself every day. Number one, you
Speaker 1: write the question? Was that hard? You can't blame the
Speaker 1: idiot that wrote the question. Number two, you know it's important.
Speaker 1: I can't say it's trivial. And number three, all you
Speaker 1: have to do to get a high scores try, you
Speaker 1: don't even have to succeed. Did you even try? Why
Speaker 1: is this question so hard? Nobody to blame. I wrote
Speaker 1: the question. I know it's important, and I didn't even try.
Speaker 1: As me, you gotta take responsibility, and so I think
Speaker 1: you know it's it's that what's said? My daughter and
Speaker 1: I discuss said she. Her ideas led to that whole
Speaker 1: concept of active questions. Now you had another question, which
Speaker 1: I now has enjoys me two questions at once. Forgot
Speaker 1: the second one. The question was given that we may
Speaker 1: have a proclivity to either be too hard on ourselves
Speaker 1: are too easy on ourselves. What's a way of thinking
Speaker 1: about did I do my best to to me, it
Speaker 1: works either way. You know why, Basically all you're looking
Speaker 1: at is broad direction number one and number two. Most
Speaker 1: of us won't ask the question at all. It's not
Speaker 1: a matter of subtleties here and there. Most people won't
Speaker 1: do this. The average person quits in two weeks. They
Speaker 1: won't do live at all. If you do anything vaguely
Speaker 1: like this, you're gonna win. Whether you have a low
Speaker 1: self image or a high self image, you're gonna get better.
Speaker 1: And so I wouldn't overanalyze that. Most people don't do
Speaker 1: it at all. And you know, if you just take
Speaker 1: a few seconds and think, I like that question that
Speaker 1: Carol came up with. Am I being the person that
Speaker 1: I want to be right now? Am I being the
Speaker 1: person I want to be right now? Just to ask
Speaker 1: the question? Maybe sometimes you rank too high too low.
Speaker 1: The reality is in life we don't ask a question
Speaker 1: at all. If you just ask the question, you're gonna
Speaker 1: do better, right because just even thinking about it every
Speaker 1: night for a little while orients you in that direction.
Speaker 1: It's the same thing like I've done a practice where
Speaker 1: I try and take like one beautiful picture every day,
Speaker 1: not a great picture, but just find one beautiful thing
Speaker 1: and take a picture of it each day. What that
Speaker 1: does is I'm now looking for beauty. So if I'm
Speaker 1: asking myself, did I do my best today to I
Speaker 1: don't remember engage well in my relationships that you had
Speaker 1: a better phrasing of it than that. Now I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about my relationships and how I'm doing in them right.
Speaker 1: It's it's an orientation question. It's interesting. Of the sixty
Speaker 1: people in our little group every weekend, I'd say more
Speaker 1: than half of the dialogue was not about work. More
Speaker 1: than half the dialogue was about home. This stuff is
Speaker 1: actually harder at home. I think that work in many ways.
Speaker 1: At work, you're structured, your professional you're organized, you plan
Speaker 1: like you you did questions, You've studied this in advance.
Speaker 1: You know you did some homework. At home, we're often
Speaker 1: much less professional, and we screw up more. So let
Speaker 1: me get a table. One of the guys I group
Speaker 1: as a basketball star. One of his areas, did I
Speaker 1: do my best to be present with my wife? Present?
Speaker 1: You know, mindful present with my wife? It was good.
Speaker 1: Every week, you gotta get up. It's like alcoholics in ormers.
Speaker 1: You gotta get up every week. It's years how I
Speaker 1: did right. Oh, no, my wife's very upset with me.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm uh she said, I was checked out.
Speaker 1: But then he said, Marshall, I was tired, very tired.
Speaker 1: I've been working out all the time, very very tired.
Speaker 1: So I said, how tired, Ory, Oh, exhausted, so tired.
Speaker 1: I said, you know, I paid a thousand bucks one night,
Speaker 1: my son paid a thousand bucks to what you pay
Speaker 1: in the National Basketball Association Championship. And you were running
Speaker 1: up now the court like a banshee and a coach
Speaker 1: called time out with two minutes ago. Did you go
Speaker 1: to the coach and say, you know, coach, I'm tired.
Speaker 1: I'm tired. He said. I have never told a coach
Speaker 1: I am tired in my entire career. So I say,
Speaker 1: you think your wife is impressed well, And stuff is
Speaker 1: often harder at home. It's harder at home. I agree,
Speaker 1: it sure is. I mean, and just the way work
Speaker 1: is set up, we're incentivized, and the whole structure supports
Speaker 1: giving more effort than home. And we often think when
Speaker 1: we get home, now it's our turn. It's time to
Speaker 1: turn it off. Right now, I can relax, We'll like,
Speaker 1: right now, you're paying a you ask good questions. Your
Speaker 1: present I mean, you're not sitting there snoring looking out
Speaker 1: the window. Acting board. You know you're being a professional
Speaker 1: at home is harder? It? Sure is it? Sure is?
Speaker 1: Is there anything you would like us to cover that
Speaker 1: we haven't that you feel is important based on the
Speaker 1: things we've been talking about, I'd like to finish with
Speaker 1: the best coaching advice in the world. Are you ready? Yes,
Speaker 1: because you're right and we're bunny at the time. Take
Speaker 1: a deep breath. Everybody listening, take a deep breath. Take
Speaker 1: a deeper breath. Now. Imagine that you're years old and
Speaker 1: you're just getting ready to die. Right before you take
Speaker 1: that last breath, you're getting a beautiful gift. The ability
Speaker 1: to go back in time and talk to persons listening
Speaker 1: to me right now. The ability to help that person
Speaker 1: be a better professional, much more important to have a
Speaker 1: better life. What advice with that wise old person who
Speaker 1: knows what matter in life? What didn't was important? What
Speaker 1: wasn't half of you that's listening to me right now,
Speaker 1: Whatever you're thinking, now, do that in terms of performance appraisal,
Speaker 1: that's the only one it matters. That will person says
Speaker 1: you did the right thing. You did that Percison, you
Speaker 1: made a mistake. You did you know I'd be impressed
Speaker 1: anybody else. Some friends of mine interviewed old folks who
Speaker 1: are dying. Three questions, said personal professional on the personal side.
Speaker 1: Three themes team number one three words, be happy now,
Speaker 1: not next week, not next month. A great Western disease.
Speaker 1: I'll be happy when, be happy now. Number two friends
Speaker 1: and family. Never get so busy climbing the ladder of success,
Speaker 1: you forget the people you love. And number three, you've
Speaker 1: gotta dream. Go for it business side much not much.
Speaker 1: Theyone have fun. Do what we're can do to help people,
Speaker 1: then go for it. You may fail, at least you tried. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if elegant, my why am I talking to you?
Speaker 1: A pretty simple goal. Let's imagine you and I have
Speaker 1: this talk and some people listen, Maybe a few people
Speaker 1: have a little better life, maybe help some other people
Speaker 1: have a little better life. You know what, very very
Speaker 1: good call. Indeed, indeed, that is a wonderful place to end.
Speaker 1: And Marshal, I genuinely appreciate your time. Thank you, thank
Speaker 1: you very much. If what you just heard was helpful
Speaker 1: to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support
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