Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Marshall Goldsmith - Executive Coach & Author | What Got You Here Won't Get You There
Transcript
- 0:00The difference between a leader and a chiever is, and a chiever, it could be all about me.
- 0:04Leader, it's not all about me, it's all about them. Being an entrepreneur, this is the tough
- 0:08shift. You need discipline to do the day to day to day work required to get better.
- 0:12If you're the founder and it's your idea and it's your baby, it is hard to let go.
- 0:17A lot of entrepreneurs don't have equal background. I will be happy when.
- 0:21When I get the money status, BMW, condominium, but we go public, I will be happy when.
- 0:26There is no wit. Life is short, it goes fast. You need to enjoy the process of life itself.
- 0:32Life is incredibly easy to talk. Life just incredibly difficult to live. Achievement and
- 0:38happiness are independent, variable. Never believe achievements can make you out.
- 0:44Welcome to Success Story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The Success Story podcast is part of
- 0:49the HubSpot podcast network. Now, HubSpot is the resource that you need to tap into if you
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- 1:57Marshall, thank you for coming on. I appreciate you being here. I'm excited for this.
- 2:03I've heard you on other podcasts discuss that you don't love to really define leadership,
- 2:09because everybody has maybe their own definition, and it doesn't really help or benefit anyone
- 2:14to define and one myopic view at leadership is. Let's flip that a little bit. What are the actions
- 2:21or what are the qualities of somebody who's a good leader? Well, I will kind of violate my own code
- 2:27and give you a definition, and came from my old teacher, Dr. Paul Hersey. He said, just use
- 2:33an operational definition, so when I use leadership, this is what I mean. Working with and through
- 2:38others to achieve objectives, and the keyword and the definition is others. The difference between
- 2:43a leader and a chiever is, and a chiever, it could be all about me. The leader, it's not all about me,
- 2:49it's all about them. And you know, you've worked far more entrepreneurs than I have. As you know,
- 2:55being an entrepreneur, this is the toughship. From you to them, from being an achiever, which is
- 3:02all about me. I'm a brilliant guy. I'm hard working. I've got my job done. I love the product,
- 3:07the scaling, where all comes about them. So, you know, looking at the group of people you've
- 3:12worked with, I always say that is a number one challenge. In terms of what I do for developing
- 3:19leaders, three characteristics stand out. One, to get better, leaders need to have courage.
- 3:26It takes courage to do the stuff I teach. I mean, it's easy to understand a theory. It's hard
- 3:30to do and practice. It takes humility. You know, I've learned, I really is an investigative coach.
- 3:35I can't help perfect people. So, it's so much perfect how much I would do about it.
- 3:40You need some humility and you need discipline to do the day to day to day work,
- 3:44required to get better and you don't get better because you read a book or go over a course.
- 3:48You gotta work. So, I'd say it's about it. That's it. That's it. Easy. No, no, no, no complicated
- 3:56formula at all, right? I'm so curious because you came from academia. And then coming from
- 4:03academia, you realize there's theory and then there's real life. So, maybe even just walk me through
- 4:11very briefly a little bit about your background because you pivoted from academia to working hands-on
- 4:17with people building real companies and big companies. But then also maybe where academia doesn't
- 4:25quite get what happens when you're actually building the thing and they miss the mark a little
- 4:30bit because you've seen both worlds. You lived in both worlds. Yes. Well, let me give you my
- 4:35background. I bought a small town called Valley Station, Kentucky. My dad had a two pump gas station.
- 4:40So, I'm quite familiar with guaranteed base salary of zero and being an entrepreneur.
- 4:44So, my dad had a little two pump gas station back at Valley Station. Low income, low education
- 4:50environment, high school came in next to last in Kentucky and academic achievements. So,
- 4:55think about that. That's where I'm from. We were defeated by Appalachia, not good for academic achievement,
- 5:02not real good. So, then I went to school. I got an undergraduate degree at Rose Holman Institute
- 5:08of Technology, a little engineering school. I was almost evicted three times, got five Ds,
- 5:12barely graduated. But last year went back and gave the commencement speech. And first thing I said
- 5:17is, hey, let's hear it for the bottom of the class. Hey, you never know. You never know. Then I got
- 5:23an MBA at Indiana and a PhD at UCLA and I was a college professor and dean of dementia. Then,
- 5:29what happened is for the next, I met a very famous man named Dr. Paul Hersey. And he got double
- 5:35booked. He said, can you do what I do? I was a college president. I don't know. I'll try.
- 5:39So, I'll pay a thousand bucks for a day. I was making fifteen thousand bucks a year. I said,
- 5:43sign me up, coach. So, I do a program for this guy. I now was hugely successful.
- 5:49They were very angry when I showed them study. Yeah, I was a big hit. I said, you want to do it
- 5:54again. I'm making fifteen thousand bucks a year. You're paying me a thousand bucks a day. Yes,
- 5:59sir. I'll do this as much as you want. Let's not go into leadership development and then coaching
- 6:04same thing. I met a guy who's big CEO and he said, young kids kid were young, smart,
- 6:10dedicated, hardworking, jerk. Even worth a fortune. Maybe turn kids' behavior around.
- 6:14Said, I like forges. Maybe I get help him. He said, I doubt it. I said, I'll try. He said,
- 6:20I don't think you can do it. I do. So, I'll work with this kid for a year. If he gets better,
- 6:24pen him, you don't get better. It's free. You know, he said, sold. That's how I got into coaching.
- 6:29There was nothing called coaching. I just made it up. I love it. Did you find that,
- 6:35did you find, but, but just to that point though, when you were teaching students,
- 6:42were you teaching, you were teaching the same material that you were teaching to and coaching
- 6:45entrepreneurs on? Do you ever find that there's a disconnect between what academia thinks versus
- 6:51total disconnect, right? There's a tubeless. You have very few people in the academic world have
- 6:56any idea about business at all anymore. So, there's often just a chronic disconnect because
- 7:02they're not reinforced for that. They reinforce for basically doing research and what they do is
- 7:08good. It's just not practical, real world kind of stuff. So, when people do go back to school,
- 7:15I always tell never, never can choose getting a degree in wisdom. You acquire wisdom to acquire
- 7:22wisdom. You get degrees to get degrees. They're not the same thing. If you get them confused,
- 7:28just get in trouble. So, the real world is quite a different place than academia, especially for
- 7:35entrepreneurs. Look, they're not used to it. I relate to entrepreneurs for two reasons. What did
- 7:41you say? I work with people in the real world every day. My clients are very real world. They're
- 7:45around the same age. Five people is CEO of the United States. That's the real world.
- 7:50That's the real world. And also, you know, my guaranteed base salary has been for 47 years.
- 7:55Zero. Absolutely zero. I can't understand what it's like to wake up in the morning. You know,
- 8:02and you know, in 47 years, I miss four weeks of work. Mom died dead. I had a rupture to
- 8:07Phoenix and got COVID. That was it. Other than that, guess what? How about adding? How about
- 8:15adding? How about my foot hurts? Not so much. Have a cold. You just show up.
- 8:24So, I like entrepreneurs. They have the highest amount of respect for entrepreneurs. You know,
- 8:28why? I know what it feels like. Do you think that? Yeah. I mean, you are. You are one. You
- 8:33gave up that $15,000. $15,000. You're salad. By the way, we're laughing at $15,000. But I mean,
- 8:41when you were, when you're a professor, I'm sure that it was not nothing. So, oh, no, I was eating.
- 8:46Yeah, it was still. It was still. It was $80,000 a day or so. Right. Yeah. So, you still have
- 8:52people that want to make the jump to entrepreneurship and they're making $100K or $150K. Sometimes
- 8:58they're making even more than that. They're making $200, $250, whatever. It doesn't matter. And then
- 9:03they want, everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. I don't know if entrepreneurship was sexy when you
- 9:08were becoming an entrepreneur because you said like coaching wasn't a thing. I mean, I think it
- 9:12seems like everyone on their mother is a coach, but that's besides the point. By the way,
- 9:18one employed people used to all say they were realtors. Now they all say they're life coaches.
- 9:26But I think people don't understand how difficult it actually is to build something from scratch. And
- 9:32I think that's actually, this is nothing to do with, well, maybe there's a little bit to do with
- 9:35leadership, but just on the total aside, I feel like entrepreneurship is maybe overhyped a little
- 9:40bit. And I think that I think that, you know, more real conversations about entrepreneurship have
- 9:45to happen. So people understand like what they're getting into because now you work with, because
- 9:48you work with large, like, you know, Fortune 500. I'm sure you work with very early stage as well.
- 9:54So you see it all. I spent, and I'm actually curious, you know, from somebody who was like a
- 10:01leadership coach, what is the difference when you speak to somebody who was a Fortune 500 CEO or
- 10:08a C suite or executive versus somebody who is just starting out and started their first side hustle?
- 10:15What are the attributes that are the same like leadership attributes entrepreneurship attributes?
- 10:20What are the ones that are different? Well, I think usually when I'm coaching a corporate CEO,
- 10:27they're pretty good at delegating. They're pretty good at scaling. They're running billions of
- 10:32dollars worth of stuff, right? So they may get problems typically, but that's not their problem.
- 10:39When I coach in an entrepreneur, an entrepreneur is quite different, especially a founder.
- 10:44If you're the founder, and it's your idea, and it's your baby, it is hard to let go. It's hard not
- 10:51to be right. It's hard to let others do it, and it's hard to live with, I don't know, 80% is good,
- 10:59but it's getting bigger than everything I want. So for an entrepreneur, I find that as a big,
- 11:06big judge. Also, a lot of entrepreneurs don't have people background. So most of the corporate
- 11:13CEOs, more than more like MBA types, you know, they usually have some business where people
- 11:18oriented educational background or some things. Entrepreneurs are often engineers, scientists,
- 11:23people like that, and it's zero background in terms of leading people.
- 11:28So, you know, working with entrepreneurs at fun is really, you know, it's interesting and
- 11:32challenging to get them to focus on the people dimension. The people I coach need to focus on
- 11:38at the higher levels, yet a little bit different. Very interesting. Then do you feel like you feel
- 11:44like this like leadership skill set? Do you feel like it can be taught to anybody? Because you
- 11:51feel like it can't, because the reason why I ask is because I've heard many times, and this
- 11:55is also something that I believe as well, to a degree, the person to build a business to 10 million
- 12:01dollars may not be the person to build a business to 50 million or 100 million, who may not be the
- 12:06person to build the business to IPO. Now, is that a leadership problem or is that like almost like a
- 12:10technical aptitude experience problem? Because maybe leadership can be taught. It's a little bit,
- 12:15but one number one leaders can get better. I'm often asked is ridiculous question or
- 12:20reportedly made all this stuff. All leaders are born. 100% of every leader I met has been born.
- 12:25So they're all born. The thing is leaders can get better. Yes. Let me question. Can you make this
- 12:31transition? Yes. Is it easy? No. Will everyone do it? No. So obviously it can be done. That does
- 12:41mean it's easy to do. It can be very difficult to do. It's a different challenge. It's a different
- 12:46world. I've got to a lot of companies. It's just going to be ready to get ready for IPO.
- 12:50You know, and these are typically engineers that started the company and right guys created
- 12:56work their butts off. And they've just made it happen over time. It's not an easy transition,
- 13:02though. It's just it is a different job. I like the way you phrase the whole thing. It's not the
- 13:08same job. But this job, now it's this version of this job. It's like you're doing a whole different
- 13:14job. I'm assuming part of your job as a leadership coach executive coach is probably more like
- 13:24psychologists than anything else. I feel like people just get in their own head. Maybe you speak
- 13:30to all some of the some of the more common issues people have, but I'm assuming I'm assuming
- 13:37you're probably reinforcing things that people already know you're holding them accountable.
- 13:41I mean, you're getting them over their imposter syndrome. I don't know. You tell me what's
- 13:45what's your framework with that? I feel like that's a version of it. My whole area of expertise
- 13:50is behavioral change. I'm not an expert on technology. I'm an honorary PhD in engineering,
- 13:57but I'm not a real engineer here. Yeah. I'm a pretend to be engineer. So yeah,
- 14:04my undergraduate degree is in mathematical economics. I got a PhD in organizational behavior.
- 14:09My whole area is behavioral change. So I am not an expert on corporate strategy or anything
- 14:16like that. My area is I help great people to positive change in their behavior. So that's
- 14:22what I do. And that means that you have to change some some some minds that have it that are
- 14:28that are massively blocking them, right? Yeah. Look, and by the way, they're all perfect. They
- 14:33wouldn't need me. What did? So you have you have a feedback and follow up system.
- 14:40And that's that's it. You go to system. And I'm also always curious because I see it can you
- 14:47mentioned back back when you were still a dean. If people were out of a job, they'd say they're
- 14:53realtors. Now they say their coaches. So you have a system. Everyone has a system. Your system
- 15:00is built to you. Obviously an incredible career. And you have 1.5 million on LinkedIn. You have
- 15:05massive following. You've written books on it. You have you have accolades. You have credentials.
- 15:09You have experience. You know, you've you've proven out that you know, you're shit.
- 15:14What makes your system so successful? Also, double park question, which is bad, but whatever,
- 15:19you'll get you have your handle it. What makes your system so successful? But also,
- 15:25how can somebody who's looking to sort of upskill themselves understand
- 15:31out of all the different systems out there that accomplish different things who to look for
- 15:35in a coach and a person like, how do you how do you gauge who's full of it versus who's not?
- 15:40Well, first, let me answer the first question. I may or may not remember after that the second
- 15:44question. I'll get back to it. It's my nori. So the first question is how does my system work?
- 15:52My system is aimed at helping successful leaders achieve positive change in behavior. That's it.
- 15:57So never worry if that's not what you want. They'll use my system. That's what the system is for.
- 16:02The system that I'm very proud of. It's called stakeholder centered coaching.
- 16:07And otherwise, you don't need to be a PhD to do this. He just died a couple of about a year ago.
- 16:15Chris Coffey was the best coach we had. He got better results than me.
- 16:20In terms of a coach, he was amazing getting results. He had zero background in psychology,
- 16:26zero background in business. He was a failed actor who barely graduated from college.
- 16:31You know what he got though? He got results. How did it result because of the system?
- 16:36The system is pretty simple. In my job, I interview everyone around my clients.
- 16:41I developed a confidential profile. Here's what you're doing. Well, here's what you're not doing.
- 16:45Well, they don't know who said what they pick important behavior to improve.
- 16:49Then we have a ongoing follow up system. They talk to people with a learn. They actually apologize
- 16:54for their mistakes. They ask for input about how they can do better. They call it feed forward.
- 16:59I call it gene forward process. Yes, for ideas you listen, you shut up, you take notes,
- 17:04you say, thank you, and you do it over and over again. They follow up with the clients.
- 17:08I've followed with them over and over and over for 47 years. I didn't get paid if my clients
- 17:13didn't get better. Better is not judged by me or them, but judged by wherever around them.
- 17:18I mean, how do you know if some police what they're saying and asking questions you want to bet on it?
- 17:22Let's say I believe it, but I wouldn't bet on it. Guess what? They don't believe it. There's
- 17:25the money they believe it. I bet on this every time pretty much always got paid. Why? It's the system
- 17:31works. So in my basic coaching, it's a very transferable process. So that part of it is quite
- 17:41transferred. On the other hand, it doesn't fit what it doesn't fit. Let me tell you when it doesn't
- 17:45work. When I don't work with people that don't care. So I'm frequently asked, how do I motivate people
- 17:50that don't want to change in the answer is I don't motivate people that don't want to change.
- 17:55If they don't want to change, I don't care. I say, fine, don't change. If they say,
- 17:59prove to me, this is worth it. You know what I say? Probably not worth it. They're a terrible idea.
- 18:03Don't do it. I think it's stupid. You're right. It's stupid. Don't do it. It's okay. So I never
- 18:09try to motivate anyone. Number one, number two, this doesn't solve integrity problems. It doesn't
- 18:15solve strategy problems. Basically, it's helping people achieve positive change in their behavior
- 18:22who want to change. That's what it's good for. So what you're highlighting is actually
- 18:28dovetailing to the next question. There's an answer hidden in that answer. And it's somewhere
- 18:34around making sure that people are understanding your true motives for getting involved with them
- 18:40as opposed to like forcing something down your throat. So that's the hallmark of a reputable coach,
- 18:47I think. Yeah, here's my strategy on this one. Ready? Here's how you find if you got a good coach
- 18:53for you. First, don't tell the coach what your problem is. Don't see that's counterintuitive.
- 19:01Don't tell the coach, here's what I need. There's too many coaches. If you say, here's how I need
- 19:07your most of them, we say, oh, yes, I can do that. Well, eh, maybe not. Maybe they can't do it.
- 19:13They're probably going to say that again. Don't tell them what you need. Say, look, tell me,
- 19:19what are you the very best at? They say, well, here's number one. Now, if they get
- 19:27down to one, two, three, four, and five, be highly suspect. You notice, I don't claim to be a coach
- 19:35of 74 different things. And one thing, what do you get at this? Well, I don't need that. Fine.
- 19:44Get another coach. Well, don't tell the coach what you need. You ask the coach, what do you do best?
- 19:53And then if they get down to the third or fourth topic and they haven't, you know what you need,
- 19:57eh, eh, eliminate. Okay. Then let's assume what they say is roughly what you're good at,
- 20:06what you need. Then ask them, okay, who have your coach? Who have your coach? And is there
- 20:13somebody in writing and references? Real people? You know, there's some coaches that are told
- 20:20well, you can't tell people the names of your clients how you may have heard this before.
- 20:24Yeah, it's nonsense. Look at my book, The End Life. Let's see, uh, as of the world bank,
- 20:31woo, CEO of the year. Oh, another CEO of the year. Another CEO. Gee, they mentioned their names
- 20:38and they say they have a coach and it is sweet. Well, fine. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. What is
- 20:43this nonsense? I can't tell you my clients are, you know what they don't want to tell your
- 20:47clients are? They don't have any. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's, I know, I love it because
- 20:57listen, we both work with a variety of entrepreneurs in different capacities and I've never,
- 21:02I've never enjoyed, um, I've never enjoyed the paid consulting side of it. I find it very
- 21:07hard. So I've actually stayed away from it. I enjoy doing the pro bono or the mentorship stuff more
- 21:12just because I consulting is a tough gig. And I guess the consulting coaching is the world kind
- 21:18of blend. Um, but then I come from like a background building businesses. I don't come from a,
- 21:24a coaching background. Um, but I see a lot of coaches and as somebody who, uh, you know, for example,
- 21:31I work with future printer and they every, you know, every six months will give me like a new entrepreneur
- 21:36to work with for a couple, for a couple of months. And so when you start to work with these early
- 21:41stage entrepreneurs, you see almost like this, this predatory, uh, behavior because these people
- 21:46that are trying to build a latch on to anyone and anything that sort of validates what they're trying
- 21:52to do. And funny enough, I didn't even realize this behavior as somebody who's not even like a
- 21:58formal coach, but I actually say no to more entrepreneurs, if future printer puts in front of me
- 22:04because I know that I can't help them. Then yes, because I'm not like, there's no financial
- 22:08incentive, right? There's no financial. It's it would be a waste of both of our time. I like,
- 22:12I have a background attack. I know a little bit about consumer goods. If somebody puts an agency
- 22:16in front of you, I never built an agency. I have some general ideas, but I mean, there's probably
- 22:20somebody's going to better serve you, right? So I had probably disqualify more than accept some of the
- 22:26people that they put in front of me, but that's it's an interesting point because I think that a lot
- 22:29of people get preyed on and especially early stage entrepreneur, but they don't have the support
- 22:34system to vet and they and they definitely don't have the money to waste, which is the biggest issue.
- 22:38The coach needs the money. Yeah. Yeah. The median income for a coach United States is under $50,000
- 22:45a year. They should be realtors and make no money. They make no money. So it's,
- 22:53coaching is a wonderful profession, a terrible business. It's a hard business. It's a very hard,
- 22:59so the Abelese coaching schools say people go to it right. You don't think they tell them,
- 23:04they're going to grow up and be me when they grow up. No, no, you're not.
- 23:13But but just probable not every single person that goes through this school is going to be
- 23:18Marcia Bullsman. Very unlikely. Look, another point you've got that you're making about your
- 23:24audience on your, I work with a lot of people who work for big companies like Accenture,
- 23:29all these companies and they're lucky. They're going to be entrepreneurs and they get their
- 23:33butts handed to them. Yeah. You know, like they know they've never experienced life without
- 23:39daddy and mommy behind them writing checks. And you got there in the real world, right? You don't
- 23:45have that Accenture name behind you or that IBM name, all of a sudden it's the whole different
- 23:50ballgame out there. Yeah, you have a staff of people writing checks. You don't have a big corporate
- 23:55McKinsey. You don't have a big name. I'm going to coach you now for right now. You read,
- 23:59you ran a country for McKinsey. Well, okay, that's nice. You're not working with McKinsey now.
- 24:05I think that I think entrepreneurs sometimes first time entrepreneurs get their ego checked very
- 24:11quickly when they try and take a product to market. But that's, listen, that's why I think
- 24:16the most successful entrepreneur is somebody who's lived in an industry for, you know, 30 years and
- 24:21realizes the pain point, not just somebody who thinks that they can solve a problem that doesn't
- 24:25even exist yet. If you look at, you know, you speak a lot about achievement and why you should
- 24:34look beyond achievement. I thought that was a very interesting perspective. So, you know, you're
- 24:39looking at achievement, ambition, fulfillment, finding a meaningful life as a leader, as an entrepreneur,
- 24:46as even an employee. So, we're talking about almost like KPIs for success. So, yes, you, you
- 24:52as a coach, you unlock these, you know, you remove these limiting beliefs, you use a behavior
- 24:57modification. But ultimately, when you work with people, where do you want them to end up? Because
- 25:03it's more than just, it's more than just getting, you know, a better survey score from your team.
- 25:10There's more to it than that. Exactly right. As I've grown older, I just try to help people
- 25:16have a great life. To the great I can't. Most of my clubs, I work with many people who are
- 25:22billionaires. They're already rich. I just want to help them have a good life. So, what do you
- 25:28need to have a great life overall? Forget about just the money part of it. One, you need to have
- 25:33some higher purpose. Why? And I'm I doing this. You need an answer to the question. Why?
- 25:39Some kind of higher purpose. Number two, you have to be, you have to achieve those people on
- 25:45this call. They're achievers. And then number three, you need to love the process of what you're
- 25:50doing. All right. Now, if you do that in the game of life, you won. Now, why am I talking to you
- 25:59right now? You know what I could be doing? I'm making a terrible sacrifice talking to you.
- 26:04I could be at this moment playing crappy golf with old men at the country club and eating chicken
- 26:09salad sandwiches while discussing golf letter surgery. You know what? I am sorry that I'm rooting
- 26:16your afternoon. I am sorry that I'm rooting your afternoon. Oh, no, I've been again.
- 26:22I'm just in the old man and then golf letter to you out here. I mean, look, you gotta enjoy
- 26:28what you do. And here's the problem with achievement. The great Western myth is, I will be happy
- 26:34with when I get the money status BMW condominium. We go public. I will be happy with it. There is no
- 26:41win. There is no win. When's an old person waiting to die? There is no win. So I think it's very
- 26:47important to achieve, but achievement and happiness are independent variables. Most people never
- 26:55get this achievement and happiness are independent variable. Achievement is good. Achieve to achieve
- 27:02happiness is good. Be happy to be happy. Don't think you're going to achieve your way to happiness.
- 27:07It's not going to happen. By the way, if achievement would make you happy, how happy would
- 27:13everyone of my coaching clients be? Exceptionally, they would all be jumping up and down with joy
- 27:22every day. And they're not. So when you deal with people that are billionaires, people that are
- 27:30CEOs of again, the biggest companies in the world, what's a lesson for the rest of us that we
- 27:37should learn from that cohort of people when they've achieved all this shit that we wish we could
- 27:43achieve? Well, the first thing is never believe achievement is going to make you happy. You know,
- 27:50it won't. Now, why do we believe this? The great Western art form is there is a person. The person
- 27:56is sad. They spend money. They buy a product and become happy. It's called a commercial.
- 28:00I don't know if you've ever seen one of those before, but you know, it's the few. That's hampered
- 28:05into our brain. It's early in times. Why wouldn't we believe that? That's all we hear in our entire
- 28:12society. The reality is just not true. The person was sad. They bought a product. They were happy for
- 28:19a day or two. They're not happy anymore. Well, again, learning point for especially the young
- 28:26entrepreneurs listening, look, life is short. I'm 75. I know that probably better than you do.
- 28:32Life is short. It goes fast. It goes fast. You need to enjoy the process of life itself.
- 28:41And it's so easy to get in grossed and being an entrepreneur and your business that
- 28:46it just takes on a life and you forget your life. And also, don't forget the people you love.
- 28:51It's so easy to do that. Yeah, you forget the people you love. If you get to enjoy life,
- 28:56you get lost in this stuff. And I'm not saying this stuff isn't important. It isn't important.
- 29:01It's good to have achievement. It's just to realize achievement is good for what it is.
- 29:08But it's not good for what it's not. And by the way, never fall into the it's all going to be
- 29:12okay win trip. There is no win. There is no win. You know, I'm curious because you are 75 and you're
- 29:22still working and you're still building and we'll talk about what you're building now. It's like
- 29:27you don't stop. It's like it's not even like you're just doing the same stuff as you did like
- 29:30five years ago. It's like you're still building new stuff. So it's like you're a living embodiment
- 29:36of this. But but I guess I would ask, you know, you obviously love what you do.
- 29:46How did you set up your life so that you would want to do this to the age of 75 and then some?
- 29:52What was what was the thing that was like, yes, this is it. I'm very lucky. By the way,
- 29:58anyone successful that says that it wasn't largely about luck is just full of it. You know,
- 30:04they're arrogant, right? I am very lucky. I met a very famous man. I like to say Dr.
- 30:09Baller, so you got double book. Give me an opportunity, right? And I've been around really great
- 30:14people in my field and also my clients like I've learned so much from these I'm theory I'm
- 30:20supposed to teach them in practice. I learned way more from them. They learn from me, right? They
- 30:24should I should pay them money. Well, no, I'm lucky. And you know what I've learned being around
- 30:30mega successful people is that you need to find meaning in life. But let me tell you what,
- 30:39I've done nine programs in my house with retiring CEOs. Now these things range from tragic to hilarious.
- 30:47I mean, they have no clue. They quit being a CEO and some of their whole lives fall apart.
- 30:58Their whole lives have been they have this dream life for everyone kisses their ass every five
- 31:02seconds laughing at their dogs telling their wonderful. And then they think the world is that way.
- 31:07Then they retire and it's a complete and total nightmare. They just collapse. Well, you know,
- 31:14what I've learned in these sessions is your life goes on. And you know, you might have money
- 31:19and status and all that stuff. Well, you got to wake up in the next morning like when guy, you know,
- 31:23he said, well, my wife became angry. She said I was in the kitchen, alphabetizing the cans.
- 31:30When I ask her baked beans, should that be B.A. for baked or perhaps B.E. from
- 31:36said get out. My dude was a CEO Walmart using my clients, right? So he said I had his joke,
- 31:45I told him around the CEO Walmart, the funny joke, a very laughing bowl. And the clean joke didn't
- 31:50offend anyone. He said, I retired. I mean, just tell me joke. Nobody lives.
- 31:56Said they must be grumpy. Sounded another group. You know, I joke again. No one laughs. Finally,
- 32:01said my wife came to his wife says, Mike, Mike, you idiot. Did you actually think that stupid joke
- 32:08was funny? See, he was CEO Walmart. That joke, everyone, of course. I had dinner with him one night
- 32:18in the CEO of Gerald Mills, Steve Sanger, I have a dinner with him, right? Mike tells the joke.
- 32:23He's 30% of Gerald Mills revenue. He tells the joke. He thinks Steve said he'll laugh. Whoa,
- 32:29he could have told the joke twice. He left hard to the second time.
- 32:32It's because you have all these people that are just yes people around you all the time and then
- 32:36you lose your purpose. You start believing it's real. You're not stupid. I mean, he's not stupid.
- 32:43He's a good guy, but you tell a joke. Everyone laughs. What do you do? Why that joke must be funny. No,
- 32:49no, it's not funny. I've seen this. I've seen this with people that sell their companies. I don't
- 32:54work with the CEOs like you do, but I deal with a lot of like exited founders and the lack of
- 33:00purpose is just phenomenal with an exited founder. It's the same, probably the exact same.
- 33:05It probably even more so because from like the first hire they were there. You know, a first hire
- 33:12they were there and they had these people that were just basically catering to them every single day
- 33:15and then they sell the company and they get the check and then they don't even have somebody to
- 33:19grab and coffee in the morning. It's like nothing. Well, the other thing is look, how does this
- 33:26happen? You sell the company. I have to tell these people. When you cash the check, it's not your
- 33:33company anymore. Yeah. You don't want to sell the company. Do not cash the check. When you cash
- 33:40the check, it's their company. You get acquired. They give you the same bullshit. All this really
- 33:47isn't an acquisition. It's more like a merger and we really get to learn more from you than
- 33:52you learn from us. Blah blah blah blah blah and as soon as they you cash the check, they do whatever
- 33:58they want to do. You know what? It's like you're a company anymore. Grow up. It's their company
- 34:04and you know, how many times you heard that well, they've really screwed it up and they don't
- 34:07understand that they this and they that well, you know it. Don't sell it. Don't they. And then,
- 34:15you know, they get a board seat but then they get ousted from the board and then they're gone and
- 34:21yeah, I've seen it a lot. I've seen it a lot a lot. But it's about what's your purpose? What's your
- 34:28purpose in life? And I actually think that's a really like great leadership and great entrepreneurship
- 34:34is having a purpose outside of the work you do. And I don't think I think that when you play at
- 34:39that level, it's hard. I think it's very hard. It is very hard. And I was so wrapped up. If you don't
- 34:45have one, go find one. Because if you have one, you don't find one. You drive, you drive
- 34:51everyone around you, including yourself crazy. Yeah. How have you, how have you not let your work
- 34:58fully encompass your identity? Well, I love my work. And now for me, my life is pretty, I mean,
- 35:07why am I working? I love what I do. So what I do is fun. Now if it's not fun, guess what?
- 35:13You don't do it. I'll do it. And when I'm coaching people, will I enjoy this? You want to do this?
- 35:19Are you going to be a good client? All right. Have any slightest problem? Go away, go away, go away.
- 35:24I don't have to do this. So I'm instantly having to stay up fun. And I work as much as I want to
- 35:29have fun. Let's see. Now if I'm not having a good time, whoa, there's only one human in the world
- 35:35I can blame for that. Whose fault is that? I am an idiot. Yeah. So I have a good time. Why?
- 35:41Why wouldn't I have a good time? Let's see. Okay. Money, money, do whatever I want to do. Have a nice
- 35:46home, nice family, you know, healthy. What the hell? I love it. All right. I want to go back to a
- 35:54couple more ideas that you that you have that you sort of ruminated on over the years. So you have
- 35:59a couple different philosophies. You've written several books. There's so this is what's so fun
- 36:04about chatting with you. Like you you've taught so many different things over that we could probably
- 36:08talk all day, but we will not. We'll try and keep this relevant to the audience. You
- 36:15what were you going to say? Nothing. I'm good. Oh yeah. So you speak you speak about a couple
- 36:22different philosophies. You're supposed to talk about the the meanings of success and your mind.
- 36:27You also as part of like your I guess your philosophy on life, you have daily reflections,
- 36:33which are important for what exactly? What are these daily reflections? How do they serve somebody
- 36:39who is like a high performing individual? I'm going to give every number one. There's a process
- 36:45called the daily question process. All right. Now I've been doing this for 25 years. I'm now going
- 36:50to teach everyone listening something that takes three minutes a day cost absolutely zero. It's
- 36:56going to help you get better at almost anything. Oh, many this year old.
- 37:02I'm bringing this day cost nothing. Now let me get ridiculous to good to be true. Half the
- 37:07people that start doing this quit in two weeks. That don't quit because it does not work. It
- 37:12good because it does work. This is hard to do. What I'm going to teach you now. I've had so
- 37:17a call me on the phone almost every day for 25 years to make sure I do this stuff. Why?
- 37:24My name is Marshall. I'm too cowardly and undisciplined to do any of this stuff by myself.
- 37:30This stuff is hard. Don't kid yourself. It's hard for me. It's hard for you. It's hard for anybody.
- 37:34Here's how it works. Get out of the bridge. You don't want to call them right down the list of
- 37:38questions. Represent was most important in your life. Friends, family, coworkers, etc. Every
- 37:44question that's right. Yes, no or number. Yes, as a one knows as there are a number.
- 37:49Fill it out every day. At the end of the week, you see you get a report card. I will warn your
- 37:55listers in advance. A report card at the end of the week. It's thought as pretty as a corporate
- 38:00values plaque. You see stuck up on the wall. Seven noon is 25 years. You do this every day in
- 38:06which you learn life. Life is incredibly easy to talk. Life just incredibly difficult to live.
- 38:14It's not so pretty every day to do this. You look at that little report card every day.
- 38:20Every day we act like it jerks, say stupid things. Don't eat the healthy food we're supposed to
- 38:25eat. Forget the workout. You know, blah blah blah blah. Day after day after day. It's hard.
- 38:32It's very, very hard. Like from one of my questions every day. How many times just, how many times
- 38:38yesterday you tried to prove you were right when it wasn't worth it? I don't see too many zeros
- 38:43on my smart card and a guard federal professor not to be right all the time. How many angrier
- 38:50destructive comments do you make about people yesterday? I don't see so many zeros there. Well,
- 38:54we I don't want other people stabbing me in the back. How come I'm stabbing them in the back?
- 38:59Well, it's tough. It's hard to do. Very one of them are you currently updating on your physical
- 39:04exam. When guy was coaching said no 90 days in a row. He finally got the exam with the doctor
- 39:16told him you get cancer. Yeah, he's fine. The doctor said you waited seven months. You'd be dead.
- 39:24He knew he should have a physical exam. He just didn't do it. I'm going to give you your
- 39:28audience six questions every day. You don't do anything today but these six questions every day.
- 39:33You're going to have a better life. Number one, every day did I do my best to sex lower goals?
- 39:38Now the questions all begin with did I do my best to don't even say you did it. Did you even try to do
- 39:45that's harder. You see if I say did I do my best to can't blame somebody?
- 39:50Did I do my best to set clear goals? Number two, did I do my best to make progress toward
- 39:54achieving the goals they actually set which is much harder than it sounds. Number three,
- 39:59every day did I do my best to be happy? Did I do my best for every day? In my book, one of my books
- 40:06I talk about three people I'm coaching. They're all medical doctors. They're all famous people
- 40:11present in the world. But head of the Rockefeller Foundation, head of the Mayo Clinic. You know,
- 40:16I don't think they're stupid. Every day did I do my best to be happy? I just score average eight.
- 40:22All three of the same answer. Never done them. You tried to be happy. They're all medical doctors.
- 40:28I said, well, did you go on? You're going to die? Did they cover that med school there?
- 40:32Death. They brought that topic up. You see, they used dumb questions. I forgot to ask.
- 40:38My boy. Yeah, he should be happy. Good idea.
- 40:44I'm coaching one guy. We're four million dollars. It wouldn't be happier. He got a lot better.
- 40:49I call him an African coach. He made about three or three years. Like, how's it going?
- 40:52That's so great. What happened? I forgot to be happy. Well, you know,
- 40:55I was looking for a kid to be happy. I had number four. Every day did I do my best to find
- 41:01meaning. A way they're waiting for the world to give you meaning every day trying to create
- 41:06meaning. Number five, did I do my best to build positive relationships? You know,
- 41:12I'm rather waiting for everybody else to be your friend or you're there for. And then finally,
- 41:15number six, did I do my best to be fully engaged? Rather waiting for somebody else to engage.
- 41:20Like the point engagement stuff. I think it's a lot of nonsense. Why you get it engaged?
- 41:24But what's that about? You know, your adult, you do your best to engage yourself.
- 41:29So every day six questions, fill it out every day. You'll get better. Most people quit in two weeks.
- 41:36By the way, fame was article about the assuming email, Marshall Marshall goes with.com. I'll send
- 41:40your article about it. But it's I just want to take a second and thank the Havspot podcast
- 41:44network for supporting success story. The Havspot podcast network has incredible podcasts,
- 41:49like the product boss hosted by Jacqueline Snyder and Mina Kunlo Sithep. If you want to take your
- 41:55physical product sales and strategy to the next level to create your dream life, you need to listen
- 42:02to the product boss. They sit down for an hour. They do a workshop style podcast. They're going to
- 42:08talk about everything that you need to know to up level yourself, social media, marketing. If
- 42:13you're a consumer package goods, if you have any sort of physical widget, you need to tune into
- 42:19the product boss wherever you get your podcasts. You know, it's not it's not it's not it's
- 42:26hard work, but it's not complicated work. Two words we can choose. Simple and easy.
- 42:33Now everything I teach is simple. And I teach brilliant people. Go ask my close how easy it is.
- 42:43Why do you think people have such a hard time with their own accountability when
- 42:48they talk a lot. They say they want to be healthier. They say they want to make more money. They
- 42:53say they want to start a business. They want to get a promotion. But when you look at and the reason
- 42:59why I ask is because sometimes I have a hard time understanding that gap because me as an individual,
- 43:07I'm not by any means perfect, but I am somebody that usually takes a massive amount of action
- 43:12towards the things that I want. Probably more so than most people, which is probably why I've achieved
- 43:17some of the things that I've achieved in my life. I mean, just statistically, I think that most
- 43:21people I would be considered somewhat of an outlier, very similar to you. So if you're an outlier,
- 43:29what is the personality habit or trait that allowed you to be like this one? For example, I look at
- 43:34even my parents successful, but not high risk, not going to the gym six times a week.
- 43:41Parts that like maybe they have not all the time, right? It's very important to me. So what is the
- 43:46what is the thing that allowed me to do this, allowed you to do this religiously where some people
- 43:53they fail after two weeks? Well, I can't do it religiously by myself. That's why I have someone
- 44:00call me every day. You have someone call you every day? For 25 years, almost. Yeah, every day.
- 44:06Yeah, what? I think you may have missed that. I'm cowardly and undisciplined.
- 44:12But yeah, I said you needed three things early. Courage, humility, I just want you to see.
- 44:17Now that was the courage. No, not so much for me. Now humility, good. See, I'm humbled enough to
- 44:25admit I can't do it. Discipline, bad. So I'm saved by the fact that I need help. Look,
- 44:32get help. Yeah. You know, you can't do it on your own fine. Get somewhere to kick your ass
- 44:38every day. Get help. Get help. Well, then build a system like you need a system to scale
- 44:43the business. You need a system to scale your life. Exactly. That's what I do for a living and
- 44:48get over your ego. Yeah. Quit being ashamed to need help. We're ashamed to need help. People
- 44:54are ashamed to need help. Get over that. I'm not that ashamed. I need help. You think I'm
- 44:59better than my clients. I'm not better than my clients. My clients are great people. I don't
- 45:03pretend to be better than them. Health, they need help. You don't think I need help. I need
- 45:07tummy help. This system that you deploy like for high performing people in particular, why does
- 45:13it work so well? Well, well, for anybody, the high performing people are smart enough to do it.
- 45:19You almost answered your own question. Yeah. Performing people higher performing at lower
- 45:24performing people lower performing. Yeah. Is there something that do you think that the case
- 45:29to say somebody does this six question system and they're having trouble, they're having trouble
- 45:34even doing the system that holds them accountable. What's get help, get personal accountability?
- 45:41Yeah, they help. It's the way to get you either do or don't want to do it. It's okay. It's okay
- 45:47to need. We are. Look, there's a great book called the checklist manifesto. If the about
- 45:54the medical checklist, you're going to have a surgery. The nurse asked the doctor for serious
- 45:59questions before the surgery. The odds on uneven inflection, omit and the death rates cut by two-thirds
- 46:04and the huge majority of hospitals in the United States do not let the nurse ask the doctor the
- 46:09questions. Why? Ego. The doctor is ashamed to admit they need help. Ego. According to
- 46:16the doctor, wanting more people have died from the egos of surgeons just in the United States.
- 46:22Then died in the Vietnam War and the Afghan War and the Iraqi War put together.
- 46:27What? They're ashamed. They're ashamed to say I need help. They're ashamed to say I forget
- 46:33to wash my hands. They're humans. You forget the words you're having sometimes. It happens.
- 46:41One of the projects that you're working on right now is sort of focus on the concept of knowledge
- 46:47philanthropy or the democratization of knowledge, which is now happening everywhere. It's happening on
- 46:53it's happening on YouTube, it's happening on podcasts happening right now, but just talking to me about
- 46:58the democratization of knowledge, why you chose, again, keep building stuff which I find is
- 47:04phenomenally still building new shit, but why you chose to take on this new sort of knowledge
- 47:09philanthropy project? Give me some background on this. I've been trying to do this for 20 years.
- 47:13So the idea is not a new idea. I've been doing what? And you know what? I won't say after 20 years
- 47:18of effort, I was a complete and object failure and almost everything I tried. This stuff is hard to
- 47:23do. You're so damn hard on yourself for no reason. I'm hard to do. I mean, I don't know if there was
- 47:29something called interactive video, it costs two or three thousand dollars. These big clunky boxes
- 47:33that I'd carry around. I don't know failure. Recently though, the new technology has really
- 47:42enabled this stuff to work. So I am very lucky. Now, all you got to do is go to Marshall Goldsmith,
- 47:50my name, dot AI. It's all free. Now, with the I'm proud of, there's no trick to this. See,
- 47:56most people give away something. There's a trick. Oh, yeah, this is free. But what you pay extra,
- 48:00you get to a special club, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, there you don't trick. It's
- 48:04actually free. That's what it's called knowledge philanthropy, not knowledge trick. So this is
- 48:10all free. So, so what did you do? You trained an AI on what every single video you've ever recorded?
- 48:17Oh, yeah, everything I ever did. But it's better than that. See, that's where it was two months ago.
- 48:21The last two months has come through the roof. My goal was to teach this thing every,
- 48:26everything I knew. Therefore, anybody they wanted to ask me a question and ask me a question
- 48:31and it'll answer it by 80% as good as I could. That was my goal.
- 48:35It's stupid. Oh, it's so much better than that now. It is mind blowing. Let me just give you
- 48:42a couple of examples. So, my daughter says, my daughter wants to trick the AI. She says,
- 48:49oh, how is your coaching related to utilitarian philosophy? I don't even know what utilitarian
- 48:57philosophy is. Being brilliant answer. I'm coaching the guy who says, co CEO. What's the
- 49:06like to be a co CEO? That's not that common of a job. This thing is amazing. I use it all,
- 49:13I use it right for an album, a lot of you before it described the working together process.
- 49:18He's an engineer. I think it's a perfect. Here's what it does. You say, look, how is,
- 49:24I'm a Buddhist myself so I can understand the answers better. How is Buddhist philosophy related
- 49:30to your coaching? It studies Buddhist philosophy. It studies my coaching and it gives you this,
- 49:39and it studies the way I would answer the question. It gives you this ungodly brilliant answer
- 49:44at about five seconds. Now, this thing started out as text. It is soon going to be audio.
- 49:54Then it's going to video where you're going to see this guy with the green t-shirt and
- 49:58bald guy talking, and then ultimately it's going to be available in multiple languages.
- 50:04This is mind blowing. Yeah, not that I'm shallow or anything, but let's be honest,
- 50:10you're in the high tech business. I'm 75 on the cool low meter spectrum. How cool is this?
- 50:18Let's face it. This is off the beer charts. It is. It's very cool.
- 50:24But I think this is going to be like, this is like, this is what people are going to start doing,
- 50:28though. They're going to start codifying their knowledge. I think this is like, when I saw
- 50:34that you were doing this, I was like, this is so awesome because it shows how you lean in
- 50:40to a new technology. You're not running away from it and you're not, oh, I'm not going to have a
- 50:46job in six months because people can go on chat GPT. It's like you're leaning into it and you
- 50:53augment what you're already doing. It's like a leverage thing. I use it with every one of my
- 51:00clients before this call. The previous call I used it. Yeah. Previous call I was going to use
- 51:05this, right? And so I use this all. I look, I don't care. I can tell you, this is not a coaching
- 51:13bot. It's a knowledge and information bot. I can't compete with this thing. I mean, it knows
- 51:19everything I know a lot more. It has a photographic memory. No offense to me. I do not have a photographic
- 51:24memory. It does. It's better than me. It's not a little bit of reason. Way to help better than me.
- 51:29It's okay. I'm not in a contest with it, right? It wins, right? Well, look, no offense to the other
- 51:35coaches out there. But I get ranked everyone coach for years and it's way smarter than me. So,
- 51:42if you think you're smarter than ifs thing, you are hallucinating. Where does the human component
- 51:47come in? That's where I'm curious. So, so that's so what you just said is scary for somebody who
- 51:53is a knowledge worker who's okay. Listen, if people discover how to use martial goldmith.ai or
- 52:01any of the other LLMs or AI tools, if you can just regurgitate information or even regurgitate
- 52:09it better or with more relevant examples or frameworks or whatnot. I'm like, okay, well,
- 52:15shit, I'm out of a job. So, what is the human component that's still that you still bring to the AI
- 52:23result of the inquiry or the question? Now, let me tell you what it doesn't, it doesn't do. Why,
- 52:29it's not as goofy as me. So, one thing about it, it doesn't really have that much personality. It's
- 52:34hard to teach these things humor, right? It was a little more on the serious side. My clients say,
- 52:39you know what, I really don't like about it, that you have, it never gives me any shit like you do.
- 52:45So, it's actually nicer than me. It doesn't insult my clients, give them hard time, right? It's
- 52:51much more much nicer than me. It's not very funny. It doesn't give them any crap. So, let me tell you
- 52:57what it does. It's an information sharing device. Look, nobody gets better because I learned
- 53:04them information anyway. Look, I did a little thing recently with medical docs. I'm studying compliance
- 53:11of taking the medicine. The average medical doctor does no better than the average intelligent person
- 53:17in taking the medicine that they actually prescribe. The problem is not knowledge, it's execution.
- 53:23The problem is what I teach is not knowledge. My clients, what do I teach? My best client
- 53:30ever worked with Alan Malali. He used CO4 when I went to COBO and went over to Ford's best CO in the
- 53:35world. Alan, that's for an hour. They got Alan said to this all the rest of the coaching thing.
- 53:41I said, it's about it. He said, yeah, I'd built their points. I can do this stuff. Well, you know,
- 53:48that's it. Alan, what's the key to the coaching success? You know, he said, you got one job.
- 53:52Work with smart, dedicated people. You're going to be like a hero. Work with losers,
- 53:56you look like an idiot, right? So thank you, sir, changed my life. Well, back to this stuff,
- 54:02the problem is execution. It's not theory. You cannot fight this thing on knowledge and information.
- 54:09I can tell you, don't even try. I can't, I cannot defeat this thing on knowledge. It is good.
- 54:18On the other hand, knowledge does not mean you're going to get any better.
- 54:25Knowledge doesn't mean you're going to get better.
- 54:31Why do people hire me? I don't say anything that conflicts. By the way, they can read the book.
- 54:39They can read the book. I write books. Read the book. Watch the video. Listen to the podcast.
- 54:47I give it all away. Why do they hire me? They hire me because they're not going to stop by themselves.
- 54:55If they could, they wouldn't hire me. You know, if they're agitated by themselves, it's hard to
- 54:59do by yourself. The other reason they hire me is a little bit different. There's no saying,
- 55:05it's lonely at the top. It used to be lonely at the top. It's lonely or at the top today.
- 55:11I think I know what to talk to. Social media, internet, whatever they say, bloom.
- 55:20I think you cruise five and five seconds. Yeah. Yeah. I can't talk to you.
- 55:25So, you know, it's just nice for him to have somebody talk to. Also, somebody tells them
- 55:29a damn truth. I mean, they're surrounded by this all day. Yeah.
- 55:35It's nice to have somebody just tell you the truth. Try to help you and not trying to get promoted.
- 55:42You know, it's interesting to, with AI and all the bots and the tools out there and all the databases
- 55:50of knowledge. You're one of the first people that I've seen to codify all their knowledge
- 55:56into a bot. I think companies are probably doing it already for a slightly different purpose.
- 56:00They're like taking all their stuff, putting it into these these models. But it doesn't,
- 56:06it doesn't replace lived experience. That's the one thing you can never replace. So, yeah.
- 56:14I mean, it is not human. Now, let me tell you, this is part to do. I put hundreds of hours in this.
- 56:21Yeah. I was listening to some podcasts where we jumped on. I guess you got investment for this.
- 56:25Or there was a whole, there was a whole play to that. We're variables. We're variables.
- 56:32Who's going to make this work? One, you got to have a ton of content. Yeah.
- 56:35Content. If you put a ton of content, this is not going to work. Two, you got to be willing to
- 56:42give it away. Three, as you make, she got a lot of followers. So, let's say, I've got a ton of
- 56:49content and I'm willing to give away. They have no followers. No one cares. They're giving it away.
- 56:54No one does. No one cares. I give it all my stuff away for free. And who cares? No one cares.
- 56:59And then for those, someone's got to write a check. Yeah. I'm working with a group of people
- 57:03called fractal analytics. It's been a probably large sum of money on this thing.
- 57:09Yeah. Why? They're Indian, India, Hindu philosophy, parent god teacher. Teacher is a huge deal.
- 57:17Guru just means teacher in India. I'm a guru. They're doing this a favor to me and give back.
- 57:23It's all free. There's not some secret here. It's all free. And for them, it's a, you know,
- 57:29also learning opportunity, of course, because already we've had 42,000 people, 42,000 questions already.
- 57:35Really? She's good. How old is it? It's relatively new, no? Yeah. Well, I really even haven't done
- 57:41the rollout yet. Yeah, because I was looking on your social. I didn't see, like, I didn't see
- 57:45you pushing it super, super hard on social yet. Okay. So it's like, it's, it's, it's needed.
- 57:51If you have people already doing 42,000 different asks, it's popular. It's very popular.
- 57:57Very good. Well, you know, one of your books, what got you here won't get you there.
- 58:04Very influential book. How does this tie into AI? Because it seems to be like a very similar theme
- 58:09as to what you're doing right now. Yeah. And it's that book, I've sold three million books.
- 58:15That book sold as much as the others all put together. I mean, that book is a mega book. And
- 58:21what I like about the title is a great title. What got you here is a good title. That's the whole
- 58:26thing though. Look, the world changes. That look at me. It's not like I'm not trying to learn
- 58:32new stuff. Hell, I'm 75. I'm not trying to learn new things, do new things, try to learn all the
- 58:38time. Why? Well, what got me where I was was fine. But I will live there anymore. We're
- 58:46in a new world. That's the way life is to be life is like this continuous learning adventure.
- 58:51And you might as well face it. The pace of changes not going to slow down.
- 58:58Pays of change only goes beat up this life. This life. So I think it's really good. Just make
- 59:03peace with that. You know, life is just just ongoing learning thing. And that's the way it is. It's
- 59:09okay. You know, you mentioned that this is just this is a knowledge database. It's easy to inquiry
- 59:16and to search for stuff that the human component is going to one part of it's going to be execution.
- 59:24But another piece of the human component that is always important that I've heard you emphasize
- 59:31is the ability to ask good questions, which has always been important. But I think, like,
- 59:37speak to why it's so important now. Well,
- 59:41and number one, it's very important. But number two, here's why it's hard for a computer bot to do
- 59:47this. And I have to agree on math undergrad. So here's why it's hard. Let's say you come to the
- 59:52computer bot and say, give me a career. Oh, that's ridiculous. And I ask you a good question. Well,
- 59:59how old are you? That's pretty relevant question. Okay. You give me an answer. Well, now you see the
- 1:00:05number of responses has to be huge to cover that answer. What industry you interested in? What's
- 1:00:11your educational background? Think every time you add a new iteration, you're adding a multiplier
- 1:00:17to the number of answers that need to be available and answer your question. It becomes it becomes
- 1:00:23mathematically very difficult in a very short period of time. So it is very hard to program a
- 1:00:29computer to ask questions that provide intelligent responses. Because after a while, it just clicks out.
- 1:00:37You know, you're getting a boom that number grows to infinity faster than you have to make it.
- 1:00:42It's very, very hard. The other thing is the computer is not human. So I was coaching somebody
- 1:00:50today. Well, I'm trying to talk to the guy. When one thing I teach clients, I've never say
- 1:00:56nobody or however, when I talk to you, I find you $20 every time you do it. So we had a good
- 1:01:01conversation. All of a sudden he starts getting, well, no, no, no, no, no, you get defensive and all
- 1:01:05of a sudden I'm up. I'm supposed to talk, you're supposed to say, thank you, not no, no, no, you're
- 1:01:12doing your head like this. And so let me tell you something. You know what I'm saying? Oh, no,
- 1:01:18you're confused about blah, blah, blah. Excuse me. I'm not confused. I've done this 50 years.
- 1:01:23You don't hear what I'm saying. Now, I want you to be quiet and listen to what I'm saying.
- 1:01:27I'm saying, thank you when I get done. Well, computer vibes are going to do that.
- 1:01:34Computer vibes like you don't, computer vibes are going to be quiet now. And computer vibes are
- 1:01:40going to say, you don't want to hear this. Now, you've been everybody doesn't want to do that.
- 1:01:45So I like this guy also said, I said, how can we talk bad about God like you are? That's nice.
- 1:01:52Oh, what do you need to get better at? Well, let me give you yet. Somebody says, what do you need
- 1:01:57to improve? You can't think of something. I got one for you. Pick humility. Let's kill this work
- 1:02:01on your melody. That's all that's usually a good one. Yeah. If you think you have nothing to
- 1:02:10improve, pick humility. Yeah, you're probably thinking that would you need to work on? Let's try
- 1:02:14your melody. Probably it. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's true. Computer vibes are going to do that.
- 1:02:20But I'm assuming like, you know, this is, this is wisdom that you see so relevant now,
- 1:02:25the ability to ask good questions. But I think I have the reason why you're successful at the work
- 1:02:31that you do is because you've been asking, even, you've had the ability to ask good questions
- 1:02:36for the past 50 years, which is I think what really you're just now you're just seeing it's not
- 1:02:40just a nice to have. It's a need to have as a as a skill. Well, also for leaders, Peter Drucker,
- 1:02:46my mentor said the leader of the past room, I'm tell leader, future, most of us.
- 1:02:51Well, we all need to ask questions. Are you single or married? I forgot to ask you this question.
- 1:02:55I'm not married, but I'm not single. So what married soon? We've been together five years.
- 1:02:59Five years. Oh, good. Yeah. Let me ask you some questions. Are you ready? Let's go.
- 1:03:04What do you believe that customer satisfaction is important? Yes or no?
- 1:03:10Customer satisfaction. Yes, of course. Or something. Yeah.
- 1:03:15And should we ask our customer for information and learn from our good customer?
- 1:03:19Should we do this? It's a thousand percent. Thousand percent. I remember in these words a thousand
- 1:03:26percent. I feel like I'm setting myself up for something, but that's okay. Now you have a
- 1:03:31partner. Is that correct? Yes. Yeah. Have you spent a lot of time asking your partner, what can
- 1:03:37I do to be a better partner in our relationship? Probably not as much as I should.
- 1:03:45What happened to that thousand percent? Absolutely. I noticed a dip in that level of enthusiasm.
- 1:03:53Now I have a question. Who is more important? Those customers don't even know your name or that
- 1:03:57partner. You get a marry. It's definitely definitely the partner. Definitely.
- 1:04:04When we get done, you're going to go talk to your partner and say partner, I got a question.
- 1:04:08What can I do to be a better partner here? You know what your partner's good thing? What happened to
- 1:04:12you? Yeah. She's got a she is going to wonder what kind of podcast I was on. I've just turned
- 1:04:18from a business podcast to a relationship podcast. But you're not wrong. Actually, you know what?
- 1:04:25I think that listen, I think that that's a huge blind spot that most people have because
- 1:04:33especially high performing people who are building stuff, you get so focused on, by the way,
- 1:04:38this is why relationships are destroyed all the time because you get focused on, okay, how do I drive
- 1:04:44revenue? How do I scale? How do I grow? How do I reduce churn? How do I reduce acquisition costs?
- 1:04:49How do I increase lifetime value of the customer? I'm going to have customer interviews and I'm
- 1:04:53going to have surveys. I'm going to have, you know, all these groups sitting down at what are they
- 1:04:58called like focus groups, whatever. And you don't do that for 30 years. I hasn't been 30 years.
- 1:05:06You only have a 30 years with the person that you're married to. But a lot of a lot of good
- 1:05:12practice, best practices in business, I think they're probably just universal. It's a little exercise
- 1:05:17or everyone listening right now, everyone listening. Are you ready? I want you to get yourself
- 1:05:22home. You're going to send a text to your husband, wife, friend, or partner and ask one question,
- 1:05:26what can I do to be a better partner in our relationship? You send that text right now. Don't tell
- 1:05:31them, don't explain what it's about. Stand the text. I've done this with thousands of people.
- 1:05:38What are the, what are the, so the people when, when, when, when, when, say, I say, I texted,
- 1:05:43heard that right now. Is it so? Let me give you some of my favorites. Well, I was going to say,
- 1:05:50is it so strange that people feel like, like, is she going to text me back like, Scott, are you okay?
- 1:05:55Are you having like a, a stroke? Like, how many call 911?
- 1:06:00Let me give you some of my favorites. A common one is, this is your wife who is this intended
- 1:06:06work. But not another one who's stolen my husband's cell phone. Oh my goodness. Are you sick?
- 1:06:13Are you drug? Yeah. Who are you sleeping with? Yeah. Oh my goodness. I get hilarious responses,
- 1:06:20right? How bad is that, right? On a serious note, twice. Two people told me later to save the
- 1:06:26marriage. That's, that's enough for me to save marriages here. And you know why? On a serious note,
- 1:06:34you're right. We preach all this stuff and don't even practice it with people we love. Yeah.
- 1:06:41Yeah. Yeah. Because I think that, I think that it's easy to tell if a business is broken because
- 1:06:49you're, you see it in your bank account. I think unless you have a self-awareness or you're looking
- 1:06:56for it, it's not as easy to tell if a relationship is broken because there's no number. It's also hard
- 1:07:02to look for it. Yeah. It's hard. Look, everything I teach is hard. Not, not, it's simple. The concept is
- 1:07:14simple, but it's not easy. It's hard. And by the way, if you want to know the concept of
- 1:07:19anything I teach better than the concept, just go to Marshallgolsmitt.ai. I can tell you. You want
- 1:07:27to learn it. It knows more than me. It'll teach anything I know in a lot more of government.
- 1:07:32Is there anything that, you know, just some insights, some wisdom that you've had over your career,
- 1:07:39anything you're working on now that we didn't go into? Went to a lot. I, I have a quick, please
- 1:07:45choose the Marshallgolsmitt.ai and simply email. I give you remember email address,
- 1:07:50at Marshallgolsmitt.com, use the AI as much as you want to and simply email address it. Let me know,
- 1:07:56you know, I like this. Give me ideas. Because for me, this is hopefully a lifetime project.
- 1:08:03I mean, hopefully I'm going to work on this rest of my life because there's a, what's the
- 1:08:07definition of legacy? It's being there when you're not there. Look, I'm a realist. I'm 75
- 1:08:13and I'm not going to be here forever. And this is my way of, this is my knowledge flat for you,
- 1:08:19giving back, being there when I'm not there. And I love it and hopefully helps others. And
- 1:08:27I, there's no downside. Again, back to what I teach straight forward. Astrid is, listen,
- 1:08:32use what works for you. If it doesn't work for you, let's say give you eight suggestions.
- 1:08:37We'll see you like one of them. Okay. You're one ahead. You're one ahead.
- 1:08:44You don't have to do the other seven. You're grown up. Ignore the other seven.
- 1:08:47Just use the one. You win. And it's free anyway. What do you got to lose?
- 1:08:52I love it. So people want to connect with you, MarshallSmitt, Marshallgolsmitt.ai.
- 1:08:59My, my email is Marshallgolsmitt.com.
- 1:09:07Marshall, Marshallgolsmitt.com. And anybody can go to Marshallgolsmitt.ai anytime,
- 1:09:13your, your biggest social is LinkedIn. So if people want to connect, if you can go on LinkedIn,
- 1:09:18they can catch you there. I don't want to raise expectations. LinkedIn only allows so many
- 1:09:23connections. Okay. Okay. So they can follow what you're doing. Yeah. I know it's way over that.
- 1:09:29But I, but you can always find, I hate the term follower, but I've got one and a half million
- 1:09:34followers. So you can easily do that. But yeah, I can't say I can be a connection because they
- 1:09:39limit the number of connections. Where do you, where do you like to outside of, outside of
- 1:09:45the actual AI tool? Where do you like to, is it YouTube? Is it Twitter? Like, where is the
- 1:09:50thing that people can get new information from you? YouTube. I've got 400 videos online.
- 1:09:58Okay. You're a coaching.com coaching.com. Is that your domain? No, no, but coaching.com,
- 1:10:06I gave them a bunch of training programs. Oh, okay. 30 videos you can watch me teaching coaches
- 1:10:13for free. Okay. Amazing. I'll put, I'll find all this stuff. I want to put it on the show notes.
- 1:10:19Yeah, I'm giving it all away anyway. So yeah, I know you are. I know I'm, that's why I'm trying to
- 1:10:23get it all out of you. I'm trying to get everything so I can just give people like a little, like,
- 1:10:29what is it? Like an amalgamation of all the different things that you've done so they can just go
- 1:10:34learn. Amazing. Yeah, you put a lot of content. You put a lot of good content. I went down the rabbit
- 1:10:39hole this morning. You have a lot of good stuff. I love it. Of course. No, seriously, I don't know
- 1:10:46what happened. Oh, it's fine. It's whatever. If people are still watching at this point, then they're
- 1:10:52bought into the concept. They're bought into this. They're good. They're here. They don't care
- 1:10:55about the light changing color. This is, this is, this is real life podcasting technology works like
- 1:11:01maybe 25% of the time who cares, right? So I'll give it to you. Some last words of wisdom. Maybe
- 1:11:08something that you would tell your younger self or tell the audience something that you just want to
- 1:11:12leave them with. I will. Here's my final advice. The best coaching writer we're going to give in
- 1:11:17this or perhaps any other lifetime. Are we ready? Here it comes. Breathe, breathing, breathe.
- 1:11:22Take a deep breath. Imagine you're 95 years old and you're just getting ready to die. It's all over.
- 1:11:29Here comes that last breath. Right before you take the last breath, you're going to be beautiful
- 1:11:34gift. The ability to go back in time and talk to the person who's listening to me right now.
- 1:11:40The ability of that person to be a better leader, more important, have a better life. What advice
- 1:11:47with the wife is 95-year-old you knows what mattered in life and what did not matter. What was
- 1:11:52really important, always not important. What advice should a wise old person have for you that's
- 1:11:58listening to me right now? Whatever you're thinking now, do that. In terms of performance,
- 1:12:06praise lies the only one who will ever matter. That old person says you did the right thing.
- 1:12:10You did the right thing. That old person says you screwed up. You screwed up. You have to impress
- 1:12:14anybody else. Some friends of mine interviewed all folks who are dying. Got this. This question.
- 1:12:19What advice would you have? On a personal side, three themes. Theme number one, we've just
- 1:12:24got a little bit three or be happy now. Not next month, not next month, not next week,
- 1:12:29not after I get the IPO, not after I get the money. Life is short. Be happy now.
- 1:12:37Don't get so busy chasing what you don't have. You never appreciate what you do.
- 1:12:42Number two, friends and family, never get so busy climbing the ladder of success and you brought
- 1:12:47this up. You forget the people you love. That's a big mistake. When you're 95 years old,
- 1:12:53they're the only ones waving goodbye. And number three, if you got a dream, go for it because
- 1:12:58you don't go for it when you're 30. You may not win your 80. And entrepreneur is a pretty good
- 1:13:01at that one. Business vice doesn't much different. Number one, life is short. Have fun.
- 1:13:07If you don't enjoy what you're doing, you're doing the wrong thing. Number two, do whatever you
- 1:13:11can do to help people. The main reason why people is not going to do with money or status
- 1:13:16for getting ahead. Maybe to help people is much deeper. That old user is going to be proud of
- 1:13:22if you're because you did and disappointed if you don't. You don't believe this is true.
- 1:13:27Any CEO is retired asking, what are you proud of? I've interviewed a bunch of them. Nobody
- 1:13:31told me how big their office was. Final advice, go for it. Life is short. We usually regret the
- 1:13:38risk we fail to take out the risk we take and fail. And finally, as I grow old, what's my
- 1:13:45message, my mission life, my mission life is real simple. What I want to maybe just help you
- 1:13:50have a little better life. If somebody listen to this, this little better life based on some I've
- 1:13:55done or if you have made up or whatever, a little better life, you know what, I'm declaring
- 1:14:01let's say we did this podcast. One person had a little better life. You know what,
- 1:14:06it's a good podcast. It's a good podcast. So thank you so much for inviting me.