Damian Goldvarg, Ph.D., MCC, is an Executive Coach, leadership authority, keynote speaker, and learning facilitator. He is the author and co-author of eight books, including his just released Lead With a Coaching Mindset, How the Best Leaders Unlock Potential. published by Berrett-Koehler.

Damian is a luminary in the international coaching world and a leading proponent of the emerging field of Coaching Supervision. He is the Past Global Chair of the International Coach Federation (2013-2014) and was inducted into the ICF Circle of Distinction in 2018.

I didn't feel that I was more intelligent. I felt that I was a very hard worker, and I think that I worked very hard at giving my life very, very hard, and I have a lot of discipline confidence, but I am not sure if I was that smart.

Welcome to the MY FOURTH ACT PODCAST. I'm your host, Achim Nowak, and I have conversations with exceptional humans who have created bold and unexpected lives. If you like what you hear, please subscribe on any major podcast platform so you won't miss a single one of my inspiring guests, and please consider posting an appreciative review. Let's get started. I am especially happy to welcome Damian Goldvarg to the MY FOURTH ACT PODCAST. Damien is an executive coach, a leadership authority, a keynote speaker and an exceptional learning facilitator. He is the author and co author, and when I read this, I went, Oh my gosh, because I know Damien, but it was eight books, I went, Wow, including his just published lead with a coaching mindset, how the best leaders unlock potential. I love this title, published by the wonderful Barrett Kohler. Naming Damien is the past global Chair of the international coaching Federation that was from 2013 to 2014 and he was inducted into the ICF circle of distinction in 2018 and he has been a champion and advocate for coaching, supervision, and I'd want to just add you are a personal friend. Sometimes it's hard to record a conversation with a personal friend because it's hard to stay on track, but damn it, I'm going to try. Hi, hi, Damien,

thank you for inviting me. It's an honor to be part of your podcast,

as already indicated. I as somebody who's written amazing books about coaching, the impact of coaching and supervision, I love the focus of your new book, so that's what prompted me to to make sure we recorded a conversation. But you have an interesting journey in life that got you to just outside of Los Angeles, where you live now, even though you are a global presence. So when you grew up in Argentina as a young boy and young man, and mom and dad asked you, Damian, like, what do you want to do with your life? What did you think about

it's interesting, because I really like to read when I was a child, and they were not pretty common, like for my other friends, they didn't read as much like, I think part of that was the influence of my parents, who are like intellectuals and and I remember when I was 10 years old, I was asked, What would you like to do? And some and I answered, I would like to be a writer. They were the parents of a friend of mine that were having the conversation in the car. And I remember they put like faces, like they were surprised. And why? Why they are so surprised? Because it was not very common for a 10 years old to say, one of your writer, yeah, but I also like, I remember as a child acting like we had that in common Achim that that I really like acting and dancing. And for some reason, my life took me to different places. But that was in my mind when I was a kid, and something that happened to me interesting Achim was that was a very good student, but I didn't like to go to school. I get poor and I didn't have elementary school. I have a really nice group of friends, but in high school, I didn't so I find out that there was a way to save one year in high school. Like to do two years in one and I decided to do that, and my parents didn't support me because they thought, What, you don't need to do that. Why would you do that? And I thought, okay, because I want to be out of here. It's like when I left Argentina and I came to the United States. So that's again, when I was 16, I did that, and I realized that if I work hard and if I have discipline, I can accomplish things in life. So I think that I got that experience and that confidence, and then with that mindset, I went to study psychology, because I follow my parents. I really admire my parents. They were both psychologists, so when I be like them, I went to study psychology and I became a licensed clinical psychologist in Argentina when I was 21 wow. That's something that I don't think many people know, but I think that really impacted my life in terms of thinking, Okay, if I work hard, I can make it happen.

Well, two thoughts I have. I there's so much to dig in already. I had the privilege of once, when you. Visiting the coaching Federation Miami, I witnessed you doing your coaching demo, and it's always interesting. And one thought I had, you really had the attentive presence of somebody who was trained as a psychologist. You know that not everybody Coach. There was a stillness to you and attentiveness that was really impressive. But when you talk about being the smart kid, and I was the smart kid in my family, and I coach a lot of successful adults who were the smart kids, but that can be a dark side to being the smartest person in the room, and some of my clients actually really have a hard time of it. So would you, since you opened this door for us, what do smart people have to watch out for so they don't become almost like ostracized or the outsider in a in a bad way.

I am not sure. Like I have a discussion with my partner, we fight with more intelligent. I think it depends also, how do you define intelligence? Like in my case, I didn't feel it. I was more intelligent. I said that I was a very hard worker, yeah, and I think that I work very hard at giving my life very, very hard, and I have a lot of discipline and confidence. I am not sure if I was that smart, like, if I do a IQ test, maybe we'll be not as high. This is the discussion that I had with my partner, who's really fast at solving problems. But I believe that if we are overconfident in our abilities, and we may not be as successful like if we like. I remember once something that happened to me High School is I like to have the system was getting number from one to 10. So 10 is the model you can get there. So I wanted to get 10 all the time, but sometimes I didn't study it enough, and I still wanted to get the 10. You know, that's not possible.

I appreciate the connection of even if we are innately gifted, study and hard work are really, really helpful. I'm going to bounce around a little bit before we get to your book, but I know you came to the Los Angeles area to study. You stayed in Los Angeles and Southern California. You live in a stunning house. You know that I would immediately want to steal from you if I could, so, isn't it? But the deeper question behind this is, for me, as somebody you know, I I'm from Germany, I live in the United States. I just last year returned to live to Europe. Were you always clear when you came to study in the United States that you would stay in the States, or was there a tug to take you back to Argentina with your wonderful family and your brilliant parents. How did you reconcile your life in Los Angeles and you know, the place where you're from,

that was very challenging for me, because I was very close to my parents. We're a very close family, and immigration was very hard for me and for them, yeah, and my God, when I came here is I have my mother's sister and her husband helped me to come to the United States. So I came here because they supported me, and I was lucky. Without their support, I don't know if I would have been able to do it. So they support me for again, for you to get an idea, they bought me the ticket for me to come. I stay with them in their place. My uncle, he had a factory of clothing, and he want me to be the manager. So he wanted to delegate on me, and I started working with him. So I had to cut material, and I was so bad that what he came and he said, that's enough. That's another thing that I think that you should go to study English and and you're a psychologist, and you need to go that way. So that was when I came and came to study and to help and support my uncle in his factory. I didn't work out that way. But immigration is challenging. Every time that you move, if you are close to your family. It was very difficult for me, and I was a little bit depressed the first year and my parents too, but then we accommodated. But it's interesting Achim, because even though we are 35 years later, even though we are not physically close, we are emotionally close. So I feel that I connect with them and talk to them almost every other day. And pretty close. We are close in our lives, yeah? What is really nice, and it requires work, so I'm very I feel very good about that. I had my brothers in Buenos Aires too. Sometimes I feel that I am closer to them than my brothers were physically there with them. Yeah, and because they have kids, they have their family. Family, they have their lives, so I can spend a little more time with them. But I do believe that I didn't have answering your question when I came to the United States, I didn't have it was not a dream for me to come to the United States, like for other people. I came here because it was an opportunity, and I'm so glad that I did it because I developed a career that they will have not been able to develop in Argentina,

let's talk a little bit about your really impressive career, and that we could spend hours about it. So I'm going to cherry pick a little bit, but a question that it always interests me and hopefully is introduced to our listeners, whether they're coaches, or want to be coaches, or care about coaching or not, is, you know, many of us have those moments in our lives where we're doing something and we're going, Yeah, this is why I do what I do, those moments where you go. This is moments that affirm our purpose. So let me set up this way to you, if either from your experience as a coach, if there's a moment when you that epitomizes, yeah, that's why I'm coach, or as somebody who's also doing mostly coaching supervision. Now where you go? This is why I love coaching supervision. Just give us a story so we understand why. You love doing what you do.

When you ask that question, two stories came up for me, so please tell both. The first one, I will say that one of the jobs in my life that I feel the most proud, you know when you think, Oh, I'm very proud that I had this job that I'm doing this work was when I was working 30 years ago, before coaching, when I was transitioning, and before getting my coaching career. I have a PhD in organizational psychology, and I was doing international management consulting, traveling worldwide before doing that, when I was going to school, working full time and going to school full time, I got a job at Los Angeles family aids network, and I ran a program with families with children living with HIV and AIDS. And my job was to provide emotional support through activities, recreational and social and supportive so parents can, let's say, navigate their challenges for living with HIV and AIDS, in their case of their kids. So that was really meaningful work, and made me feel proud. And I said, Okay, this is contributing. I'm contributing to their life to have a quality of life. And I think this is one of the most the job that I had. I felt the proudest when so when you were saying that that was meaningful, because it's thinking, Okay, I'm making a difference and contributed to these people's lives.

Man, just just want to go a little further with that. I appreciate you mentioning that work, and I also know that with every I've worked a lot with HIV AIDS populations, as you probably know, so your reference is meaningful to me, and I have my own sense of why I think that was meaningful for you. If I want to play devil's advocate, I could say with every coaching person, we have an impact on their lives. We feel the impact. And yet, this context in which you worked clearly had some a deep resonance for you. Do you know why that was especially meaningful? Do you have a sense of what the why behind the meaningfulness is?

I think, well, first I felt that that opportunity for me was a gift in my life, because that gave me sense of purpose, yeah, because there was sense of urgency. Yeah, I think this is the difference. When you're working with people who have sense of urgency. You don't know how long you're going to live, there is an urgency to do the best of your life, to enjoy to do meaningful work, not to waste your time. So I think that that sense of urgency. My clients create some sense of urgency for me to support them. And we're talking about 35 years ago, Achim was very different than what is today, you know, the whole picture, but that was a key difference. And also we see that with our clients in coaching or in supervision, the people who have that sense of urgency, of paying attention to what is important in life, these are my favorite clients, the one who really want to look at things sometimes even though it's painful, but they are willing to go to these uncomfortable places that would allow them to have a more meaningful life. Yeah, so it counts.

And I totally, totally get everything you just said, everything you're now talking about, in it by itself, could be the gateway to a rich conversation. And I want to do the impossible and touch on some other things as well. You were the global chair for the Inter. National coaching Federation for a year. That is for people who are not coaches. That is governing body for most international coaches. It sets the standard for credentialing. It's an honor and privilege to be that person. You represent a whole industry globally. You're very visible when you do that. You're an ambassador of sorts. I know you travel to different countries to engage coaching chapters and conversations, but you also observed a lot, as I'm curious that year, where you were in that role. You were really the luminary in the coaching world, and we all knew who Damien Goldberg was, and what was that like? I'm asking you very open ended. What was it like to be the ambassador for an entire profession?

It was a lot of responsibility. Yeah, responsibility. I have a big, brief story that reminded me when you were saying that what came up for me was an image meeting in China and doing a presentation to like 200 people. After that, people came to greet me, and it was a big line, and they wanted to greet me and take a picture with me. Yeah, for the first 15 minutes, I feel like a rock star,

and then you became a tired rock star.

And then after 1520 minutes, they start being like a nightmare. Okay to keep smiling, people waiting. So that's kind of funny, but, you know, that's a good summary, good image, that they had a positive side, something from the ego, you know, like you have visibility, and people want a piece of you, but the shadow is that it can be tiring, not tiring, exhausting. You know, it was like a volunteer, full time job. Now, at the same time that give me visibility. So that was good, personally for my career, and the negative side, like I had to be careful because I got in trouble because I said I went through at that time was 2013, I went through supervision training, yeah, and I said all coaches should receive supervision, because I think that we all have blind spots. And I got into travel for that, because I was a president and I was representing the organization that that was my personal perspective. We were not the organizational perspective. So a lot of people complain about why I was saying that. So I was reminded that I couldn't share my opinions freely whenever I was talking, even though I may formally or not representing the organization. I always were representing the organization for the year that I was the president or two years

like, like most politicians, there are probably things they would love to say, but feel like they can't, right. I definitely am curious about coaching, supervision, but this was a personal perfect lead into, again, for our listeners who don't know or don't care about the coaching industry, I hope you realize that that Damien is eminently qualified to write the book that he just published, which I, as a fellow coach, just love the title of it. Let me mention it again, lead with a coaching mindset. How the best leaders unlock potential? I think the desire to unlock potential for others, but within ourselves is really, I would say, universal. So would you do just published by Barrett Kohler, would you connect the dots between coaching and Unlocking Potential?

Well, when I was hired in two Southern and 2000 by the personal decisions International, they hired me to do international management consulting to train leaders worldwide. And I love teaching. That was the job to do training to leaders. And I travel in more than 50 countries. They send me all over the world to do these programs. And one of the programs was around coaching. So I started teaching this program in 2000 so it's more 25 years that they have been and then when I left the company, I developed my own program, and recently, I have been using the ICF core competency model to do that training. So the idea is I train leaders how to be coaches of their colleagues. So here, this coaching mindset means, instead of telling them what to do is leading with questions rather than with answers. I think I like the summary. And so when you lead with questions and when you create thinking spaces, people get more engaged. They want to collaborate. They need more well being. So when the leaders are more coach like they are more. Opportunity for people to be more interested in committee than engage.

You know, I'm a pretty opinionated coach, so I wanted to say even more, like, it's really not cool anymore to be a leader in any organization and not know how to coach your people. If you don't know how to coach your people, you are leading from the past, from 20 years ago. And then the question is, how do I coach them well? And how do I coach different people, different personalities, and how to adapt my coaching style? And that's where it gets juicy, right? But the basic fundamentals, which you as a true expert are addressing are like, in my mind, that's non negotiable. Don't even think of being a leader who doesn't coach people I know, and maybe saying what's wrong, then you're allowed to say it as the author of the book. Can you play with that a little bit?

Oh, definitely. Because that's a challenge. I hope that people who believe that get the book and the book help them maybe to look at reality from a different angle. Yeah, because if you have a blind spot, if you're not seeing something, it's difficult to go to pay attention and go there. But my goal is for people who do not realize the value of coaching, and they see how many times I hear, Oh, I don't have time. It's true that it requires some time, but what is the cost if we don't do it? So this is my question. As a coach, I support people and provides, to some extent, the space so they can come up with their own answers. So the idea that when leaders do that, when they're more coach like when they pay attention and they value their people's growth and learning and development. They are also a talent. People want to work with them. They are more effective, and also they create better work environments. And it's interesting because there is any study from Gallup in the study from this year 2025 they find out that the level of engagement at work worldwide decreased, and over the years, it decreased only two times, one during covid. And now, so you went from 23 to 21% so again, from the whole workforce worldwide, they went from 23 to 21% engaged. Engaged means, okay, I love my work. I am committed. I am going to do my best. I want to come to work. And then you have the people who are quiet quitting, who are there they do the job, and quiet quitting because they are not 100% Yeah. And then you have the people who are actively disengaged. These are the one who are working other people's job. They're complaining all the time, they're upset, they're frustrated. But I do believe that leaders can do something about that.

Yeah, I fully believe I'm blessed to work in companies that have really coaching cultures and HR leaders really understand that sometimes I'm offered as a coach and executive because it's a way of showing we value you you're not doing a horrible job. It's called developmental coaching, and it's a way on the show like we value you enough to give you a coach so you can continuously sharpen and examine what you do. And that's a wonderful mindset around continual learning and continual growing, isn't it,

definitely, and I think that the goal of the book is doing exactly that. It's just to bring awareness to leaders about the importance of coaching, but also to provide a framework to do it so it has different skills. I follow the skills when I train professional coaches, I have a model where we go over the framework of eight competencies and skills that people need to develop. So each chapter of the book is one of the competencies. So the idea is not only about the importance of coaching, but how do you do it? How you have an ethical behavior, how you're an ethical leader, how you contract for success, how you clarify an expectation, how you're present, how you build tracks, how you listen, how you create awareness. All of the competencies are covered in each chapter well.

And thank you for giving us a little glimpse by mentioning some of them right now. That's great. Now, one of the things that I find so wonderfully interesting about you and your family is that your family you mentioned you're you're the son of psychologists, but your entire family are coaches. Now that's pretty freaking wild. How did that happen? Damien, and what is it like to be a son with parents who are also now identify themselves as coaches and siblings who coach.

I feel very lucky, very, very lucky, because I follow my parents to become a psychologist like them, yeah, and they follow me to become a coach. And I think part of that was that. I are my brother, who is also a coach, we insisted in them to do it. Now, I think you're familiar with landmark, correct landmark forum, of course. So I invited my brother and his wife to do the landmark forum with me here in Los Angeles. I said, I have done it for a while, and that really impacted them. And my brother said, Okay, I want to be a coach. And I was already coaching as part of my job. So he went to be trained as a coach in Argentina. And then together, we convinced my mother and his ex wife to go together, and they went together and went through coaching, training together. And then eventually, my father and my younger brother didn't want to stay outside the conversations we were having, so I told both of them, okay, I will pay for you. You can go. They went to a school at a trust in Argentina, and we all got trained. And then I trained my youngest brother, wife and my brother's new partner, both of them came to my coaching training, so they also train as coaches. And my nephew, and let's say, four of my closest friends, also went through coaching training, and I got even my physical trainer, coaching training, I believe. And when you go through coaching training, you get skills for life. Life Skills is how you're effective, about listening, about connecting, about being present, about being curious. We all benefit from everybody or even don't know. You know Achim that we have a podcast with my family. Do you know that that we have? Would you please talk? I think I mentioned, yeah, that's fine. So we meet once a week, and we have a conversation about different topics. And for people who speak Spanish, they may be interested in in listening to it. And what's the name of the podcast? Damien, the name of the podcast is weas. Means like a fingerprint, like what you live and the and it's called familia de coaches, family of coaches. And my last name, Goldberg family, like Goldberg,

as you were describing the beautiful expansion of the coaching culture in your family and other people, it made me think about how we all really are role models for each other, and how we show up in the world. And I remember I love hanging out with other coaches, because coaches have been highly trained on how to show up well and engage well with others. So when I hang out with other coaches, it's a pleasure for me and our skills that are for life, not just for work. And so everything you said make makes complete sense to me, just very briefly, in a minute, because then I want to get to your future. To me, it's a no brainer that coaching supervision is a great idea, but I know the world is full of coaches who think they don't need it, right? So if you had to make a pitch to somebody saying, This is why I believe coaching supervision is a good idea, even though you may think you don't need it. What would be the pitch?

I would say that we all have blind spots. Doesn't matter how much experience we have. Like I have been doing coaching for many years. I'm a master coach for many years, and I still have blind spots. Yeah, and Isabel being humble enough to know that we need to keep growing, learning, developing, and the way we do that is by having conversations with people that help us to keep growing and learning and developing. Can be a coaching conversation, a supervision conversation we don't know what we don't know. Yeah, so we are not willing and humble to go to these places. We may keep doing the same mistakes, or we keep missing opportunities to do things differently. So this is my pitch. Is what I say. Like I have my own supervisor, and I think I always will work with one. And if you don't think you need any help that if you need, if you think you need, you know everything that's not a good role model for a coach to start with, and even for a leader. And I think that leaders doesn't matter how much experience you have, there are blind spots. So a coach for the leader. We're talking about the question you asked me before, the leader may be effective, but still a coach can support them to see to be even more effective, or to learn from that experience, or to leverage that strength. So I think that that's what a coach or a supervisor offers an opportunity to continue your growth and development,

makes complete sense to me, yeah, now, because this is a podcast where people think about trying new things to the future, possibly pursuing things that always wanted to do but haven't done, and it's perfectly. Find, in my opinion, to have no ideas, dreams, aspirations for the future whatsoever. But in that spirit, if you, if you think about, oh, some things that possibly you might want to explore that you haven't done before, or if you think about how your current life is organized. I know you well enough to know that you're a really busy person. Like, what are some things you would like to do more of, perhaps, and some things you would might like to do less of as you look to the future?

Well, I really like teaching, so anything that it's about challenging people to stretch themselves and learn and grow is what I love to do. So anything around that, and I like also thinking about the future, as you're asking me. And I went to study foresight as a practice so to become a foresight practitioner, somebody who is looking at the future and working on that. So I got two trainings on that, and I'm not doing enough. So I think I would like to do more in the terrain, but I had to negotiate with Barrett Collier because I had a chapter in my book about it, and they didn't wanted me to have it there, because I was not one of the competencies. And I said, we need to have that. Because I think if leaders are not looking at the future, they can be great coaches, but if they are not paying attention to the future and having conversation with the people about the future, they cannot be good leaders anyway. So so I had to negotiate that they wanted to take that chapter out of the book of the movie, saying this is not about coaching. Yeah, in something around foresight, the study of the future and supporting leaders and coaches too, to look at the future, and particularly think that with AI and technology, these are topics that are of my interest to keep exploring that I'm bringing awareness to people above it

a question that I ask every guest, just based on what you Damian know about life right now and what you've learned, if you were to whisper some words of wisdom until the younger Damien's ear, not to change what's happened in your life? It's not about changing anything, nothing. But what would you want him or other young Damiens to know about life that you only know now that you couldn't have known when you were a teenager?

I will say, don't give up. Don't give up in your dreams. Just remember what you want and keep going like I remember when I was around 20 years old in Argentina, I went to a job interview to do leadership training in the company, but I didn't have the corporate background, and I was pretty young. I was only 20, yeah, but I didn't feel so young at that time. And they said, Okay, you need to come back in 10 years, something like that. They say, what, I cannot wait 10 years to do this. So I thought I may not be able to do that. And eventually, 10 years later, I got this job as a working for personal reasons, international, doing international but I didn't even know when I was 20 that I will be coming to the United States, and I ended doing the job that I wanted when I was 20, globally, it took me 10 years. So I would say, don't forget your dreams. Be patient. Work hard,

beautiful guidance as I say goodbye, I'm sure that listeners who want to learn about you, more about you, your book and your other books and just what you do, where would you like to direct them to?

But I think my website is a good place, because there I have the information about my book coming up in on September 2. I also have a podcast on leadership that goes with the book. That is, we cover the different chapters of the book. You can find the book there too, and all of my activities, if anybody eventually is interested also in becoming a coach or learning more about coaching so probably and share that so people can follow the link. Go by consulting.com wonderful and LinkedIn too. I love to be connected with people LinkedIn, so at Damian Kohlberg, it will be great to connect with people.

Yeah, all of you are listening. Damien, is easy to find and Damian, thank you so much for first of all being a friend and for the gift of this conversation.

Thank you. It was great being with you today. Bye for now.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The my fourth act podcast. If you like what you have heard, please like us and leave a review on your preferred podcast platform. And if you would like to engage more deeply in fourth act conversations. Check out the mastermind page at Achim novak.com it's where fourth actors like you engage in riveting conversation with other fourth actors. See you there and bye for now. You. Achim.