Best-selling author, speaker, and leadership coach Marshall Goldsmith explains why our environments are “willpower reduction machines” and why leadership is a contact sport, and chats about avoiding the superstition trap, the "Wheel of Change", active vs passive questions, self discipline vs self control, learning a practice that takes 3 minutes a day, costs nothing, and helps you improve at almost anything, and being neighbors with Lindsay Lohan.

I am honored and excited to introduce to you to literally

a man who has been ranked the number one thinker in the world

by thinker's. 50 is regularly recognized as the number one

executive coach in the world by publications like Inc and Forbes

and Harvard Business Review. And he has best selling books. One,

I'm sure that many of you have probably heard of What Got You

Here Won't Get You There. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Marshall

Goldsmith, Marshall, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for inviting me.

What is a trigger, Marshall? Can you just kind of

give us a background on that?

Yep, a trigger is any stimulus and may

impact our behavior? My general theory is almost all of us have

a great plan of who we want to be in life. Yet, we don't

implement that plan very well, day to day, we're barrage by

triggers from our environment that kind of throw us off target

in many cases. And that's what the book is about how to deal

with these triggers.

You made a statement, our environments are willpower

reduction machines?

That's exactly right. We grossly

overestimate the importance of willpower in our own willpower

capabilities. And we grossly underestimate our need for help.

So as we journey through life, I've go through many, many

reasons of why we don't achieve the goals that we set. Let me

just give you one as an example. years ago, my biggest client was

Johnson and Johnson. And I probably one of the few speakers

you've ever heard. It's gotten research from 10s of 1000s of

people who've been in my courses, and I measure do they

do what I teach? And do they achieve positive change over

time, I published an article about this called leaders at

leadership is a contact sport. So if any of your listeners

would like this, send me an email Marshall, Marshall

goldsmith.com, or go to my website, and I'll send it so you

can see it. 86,000 people and showed if people do the stuff,

they get better. They don't not surprisingly, they don't change.

Well, I interviewed people at Johnson and Johnson 98% said

they would do what I taught a year later 70% have done

something that 30% Zero, not even one minute. Which by the

way, I'm not ashamed of this, and probably this 70% of 2000

people's 1400 People getting evaluated by 10 co workers each.

That's a lot of people getting better. Well, I had some people

that did nothing. Why you did, why didn't you do anything? And

their answer had to do with a dream that sounds like this. I'm

incredibly busy right now, live pictures of work and home and

new technology that follows me everywhere I feel about as busy

as ever have. Sometimes I feel overcommitted. Every now and

again, my life feels just a little bit out of control. But

you know, I'm working on some very unique and special

challenges right now, I think the worst of this is going to be

over in about four or five months. And then I'm going to

take two or three weeks and get organized and spend some time

with the family and begin my new Healthy Life program. And

everything's going to be different, and it will not be

crazy anymore. Right?

One of the dynamics that you bring up, which I thought

was interesting is inertia.

Well, you know, our default reaction life

is not to find happiness. Our default reaction life is not to

find meaning our default reaction like is inertia, we

tend to do have been doing go or have been going say we've been

saying in my book, What Got You Here Won't Get You There. That's

the premise of the book. You know, if you want to change, you

can't just keep doing what you've been doing and expect to

get different outcomes. You have to say, How can I change and we

fall into a trap that I call the superstition trap, I behave this

way I am successful, therefore I must be successful because I

behave this way. No, everyone I coach is ridiculously

successful. They all be the way they behave. And they're all

successful, because they do many things right? In spite of doing

some things that don't make any sense. And if we can't challenge

ourselves, inertia just kicks in and we just keep doing what

we've been doing.

You bring up things like avoidance and and actually, the

wheel of change, I thought was one of the most memorable things

would you mind just kind of given a given an explanation of

the the wheel of change, and maybe we could talk through

different parts of it.

Take the concept of change, we could look

at the two dimensions positive and negative. And then the other

was change or keep. And then we form four quadrants in the wheel

of change in the first quadrant is called positive change,

creating and if you think about your life, it's very important

to say alright, who do I want to become in the future? And what

is the positive change in my life that I do want to create

positive change. And we don't think about that enough. Most of

us spend more time planning our vacation than we do plan in our

lives. The second quadrant is called positive keep preserving.

And it's very important as we look at the new me that I want

to become what is it about the old me that I want to preserve

or keep perhaps relationships or good habits or what is it that

you don't want to change? What is you want to preserve or keep

and you know, I have a home in New York and I see him New York

many people get so busy creating in this case particularly well,

they forget about preserving things, tell their family. And

sometimes what we need to preserve is more important than

what we want to create. So both are important, then the third

part of the wheel of change is called negative change. And

that's a eliminating, hey, what do you want to get rid of? And

it's very important because if we keep trying to create or

preserve, and we never eliminate, we run out of space.

And then we're back into that problem I discussed over

constant over commitment. So we consistently say if I'm going to

be something different, not just what am I going to put on the

plate? What are we going to take off the plate? And then the

final part is negative keep which most people have trouble

understanding, why would I keep something that's negative? Well,

that's called accepting. We're not going to change everything

in life. And it's very important to realize what where am I not

going to make a difference? Where am I not going to make an

investment for change? And Peter Drucker taught me our mission in

life is to make a positive difference not to prove how

smart we are not prove out right we are, before you deal with any

topic ask a question, am I willing at this time to make the

investment required to make a positive difference on this

topic? The answer is yes. Go for it answer's no, take a deep

breath and let it go. So the wheel of change talks about

creating, it talks about preserving it talks about

eliminating and talks about accepting all four are very

important as we plan our journey through life.

You've gone through some research here on the difference

between active and passive questions, and how they affect

our ability to actually catalyze change and overcome

circumstances. So you might walk us through that.

Yeah, I'll start with the daily questions,

then getting into specifics of active versus passive questions.

I'm now going to share something with your listeners. It takes

three minutes today costs absolutely nothing is going to

help them get better at almost anything. There's some people

who probably skeptical now thinking three minutes at a

cost, nothing helped me get better at almost anything.

Sounds too good to be true. Half the people start doing this quit

within two weeks. And they do not quit because it does not

work. They quit because it does work. So I'm going to teach you

though, something that's very easy to understand, in theory,

very difficult to implement in practice, and then I'll share my

own some of my own questions every day. Of here's your

homework assignment, get out an Excel spreadsheet. On one

column, write down a series of questions that represent what's

important in life, friends, family, direct reports,

coworkers, whatever it is health, every question must be

answered with a yes or no or a number. Yes is recorded as one

no is a zero or at number. Seven boxes across one for every day

of the week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,

Saturday and Sunday, every day fill it out. Well, at the end of

the week, the Excel spreadsheet will give you a report card. I

will warn your listeners that advanced report card at the end

of the week will not be quite as beautiful. As corporate values

plaque that they have stuck up on the wall, you quickly learn

life is incredibly easy to talk life is incredibly difficult to

live. Well. I'm going to share some of my questions. And mine

are not intended to be anybody else is one of my daily

questions for example, is I only times yesterday did you try to

prove you were right when it wasn't worth it? I'm almost

never going zero Well, life kind of hearts, that old professor

not to be right all the time. How many angry or destructive

comments did you make about people yesterday? How many

minutes did you walk? How many push ups? How many sit ups? Did

you say or do something nice for your wife, your son, your

daughter? How many minutes did you write? My friend Jim Moore

does this and he would tell you that saved his life. He didn't

kind of save his life or sort of save his life. It did save his

life. One of his daily questions is are you currently updated on

your physical exam? First 90 days he did this? He said no.

Every day, he finally said This is embarrassing. I have to get

the stupid exam record asking the question, get stupid exam,

what the doctor said you have cancer now that was many years

ago is going to be fine. The doctor also said had you waited

seven more months who had been debt. He knew he should have

gotten a physical exam, but he didn't do it. Well, when you

hold a mirror in front of your face every day. It's hard to

hide, you realize source most of my problems would be me. Well,

my daughter and I, my daughter Kelly is a PhD from Yale. She's

a professor of marketing at the Kellogg School. We went over

this together and we were talking about the concept of

employee engagement. And she said everything about employee

engagement is in all passive questions. Do you have clear

goals meaningful work? Or do you have a best friend at work? And

she said there's nothing wrong with passive questions. The

problem is when we ask a passive question, people have a negative

response they blame the environment. She's gave me the

idea of asking active questions that begin with the phrase Did I

do my best to I'm now going to share my first six daily

questions, talk about why they're important and then share

some of the research about this we've done and invite everyone

to participate if they would like to my first six questions

Did I do my best to set clear goals? Not did somebody set

goals for me? Did I do my best to set my own goals? Number two,

did I do my best to make progress toward achieving my

goals? Did I do my best to find meaning rather than did someone

give me money? Did I do my best to be happy? Did I do my best to

build Positive relationships. And finally, did I do my best to

be fully engaged? Six basic questions every day? Well, our

research on this is pretty amazing. We've done research

involving 1000s of people, we fill out these questionnaires

every day for 10 days. And what we've found is about 46% of the

people 10 days later, Sam bettered everything about 75%

said he got better four items out of the six. I think 94% said

he got better at something 6% said no change and less 1% say

overall, you're worse. Well, it's amazing. These questions

get me focused on on what I cannot change. Focus on what I

can change. What's the one question life I can't blame on

somebody else? Did I do my best?

That accountability, that self accountability and having

to reconcile that that's why people stopped doing it because

it's sort of uncomfortable to have to sit there for 90 days

and admit you haven't done the thing?

Exactly right. I pay a woman and Kate

call me on the phone every day, every day. She just listens to

me read the questions I wrote, provide the answers I wrote

every day. Somebody said why do you pay a woman to call you

don't you know that theory about how to change behavior. I wrote

the theory about to change behavior pay woman to call me

because my name is Marshall Goldsmith. I'm the world's

number one ranked executive coach, a paying woman to call me

every day. She listens to me read questions I wrote and write

answers I wrote every day. Why do I do this? Because I'm too

cowardly to do this by myself and too undisciplined to do this

by myself. And you know, it's okay. He once we get over that

macho willpower, I can do it on my own nonsense. We all need

help. It's okay. My book Triggers one thing I'm very

proud of 27 major CEOs endorsed that book, these included CEO of

the year in the United States, Guy was ranked number three

greatest leader in the world winner of the Presidential Medal

of Freedom, CEO Pfizer CEO, Best Buy's CEO, target president, the

World Bank, on and on and on. Why am I so proud of that? 30

years ago, no CEO would admit they have an executive coach,

they would have been ashamed to say I need help. Today. These

are all bunch of great leaders who stand up on a regular basis

and say, I need help. And it's okay.

That is a big shift. I do have one more question for you

right now, Marshall. But before that, where do you want people

to go to connect with you? Where would you point people to?

One, my website, www My name Marshall

goldsmith.com, on LinkedIn on YouTube, I've got you know,

hundreds of videos on YouTube, I give away all my material to

help other people.

So the last thing I wanted to ask you here is the

difference between self discipline and self control?

Well, one is what I do, and the other is kind

of what I don't do. And I think it's very important to look at

both, for example of what I do could be something like I have

the discipline on a regular basis to say something nice to

someone. What I don't do is I don't lose control. When I

speak. My good friend pres hasslein said, you know, why

should I be entrusted to control someone else I can control

myself I, one of my daily questions to avoid speaking when

angry around controls. So I think both are very, very

important. And as we journey through life very important

before speaking in Greek, am I willing to at this time to make

the effort required to make a positive? Or the investment

required to make a positive difference on this topic? If the

answer is yes, do it the answer's no. Let it go. We waste

so much of our lives, dealing with issues that we're not going

to change anyway. I mean, I have a home in New York. One of my

neighbors from my condominium was a young woman named Lindsay

Lohan. How many millions of hours are wasted around the

world people read Lindsay Lohan got drunk Lindsay Lohan got

stoned Lindsay Lohan was in a car wreck. Well, you know when

people talk about Lindsay Lohan, I always say one thing. If you

ever think Lindsay Lohan is a loser, she is not wasting her

life reading about you. Well, you know, learning point live

your own life. In great life. You know, don't live Lindsay

Lohan's life or some movie stars, some celebrity or some

politician. live your own life, live your own life.

Marshall, thank you so much for your work and just for

your incredible clarity and insight into the psyche of what

enables people to really take action and make change in their lives.

Thank you.