Greg McKeown:
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Welcome to The Greg McKeown Podcast, where we explore principles and practices for living and leading as an essentialist. Today, I’m joined by Dr. Marshall Goldsmith. Marshall is the only two-time Thinkers 50 number one leadership thinker in the world. That is, he’s won that honor twice, which is a remarkable achievement in its own right. For over a decade, he’s been recognized as the number one executive coach in the world. He’s guided over 150 major CEOs and their management teams to new heights. Effectiveness. I so want to get into that. He’s also the #1 New York Times bestselling author. He’s written 56 books, which is really quite a thing, and sold over 3 million copies along the way. What Got You Here Won’t Get You There is one of the most significant books that he’s written. Mojo is another, Trigger is another, The Earned Life is another. But he’s on a different kind of journey right now. He’s very interested in how we can democratize leadership learning through the power of AI, and his latest venture, Marshall Goldsmith AI represents a leap into the future, an investment into the future, and as I understand it, an initiative that began before chat GPT. There was already work that was being done to try to get all of this great insight out to the world.
Marshall, it’s a privilege to have you on the show today.
Marshall Goldsmith: Oh, thank you so much for inviting me. I am a fan of yours.
Greg McKeown:
Give me the Reader’s Digest version of how you got here. How did you end up doing executive coaching and doing it in such a decade-upon-decade way? What’s the story?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Well, I started out I was a very unlikely candidate. I’m from a very small town in Kentucky called Valley Station. I was brought up very poor. My dad had a dumb idea women shouldn’t work. So we got to be very, very poor. He had a little gas station, but my mother’s entire life was devoted to teaching me. I knew how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide before I went to school. You can imagine the first day of school, a teacher goes, one plus one is two. I’m going, “Yeah.”
No one knows it but me. I said, “Life is good. Life is good.”
So then I was always attitudinally challenged, right? I had a bad attitude for most of my young life. I go to college, undergrad school, engineering school, at Rose Holman Institute of Technology, where I was almost thrown out. I made five Ds, barely graduated last year, went back, gave the commencement speech and got an honorary PhD. Then, I got an MBA at Indiana University and a PhD at UCLA. I was a college professor and dean when I was very young.
Then, for the next 47 years, I did three things. One, I’ve traveled all about the world, speaking and teaching. So I’ve been to 102 countries, and on American Airlines alone, I have over 11 million frequent flyer miles, so mega flyer. I like speaking and teaching. That’s fun for me. Then, I coach people. I’ve been the coach of the CO4and Pfizer and Glaxo and the World Bank, the Mayo Clinic, UAE leaders, Saudi Arabia, and all around the world. And what I like about coaching is I learn so much. Although I’m supposed to teach them, I always learn much more than I teach.
And then I write books and articles. I have done 56 books. Most of these are purchased only by my mother, my father and relatives. I’ve done four New York Times bestsellers. A few of them sold 3 million copies. So that was good. I went to a program called Design the Life You Love, and someone said, “Who are your heroes?”
So my heroes are very kind and generous people who never charge me money for anything. She said, “You should be like your heroes.”
I decided to donate all I know to 15 people for free. And the only price is when they got old, they had to do the same thing, pay it forward. So I made a little video and put a LinkedIn. I don’t know what I was thinking. Anyway, I thought 100 people would apply. In ‘15, 18,000 people applied.
I’m sure you know Chester, Elton or Whitney or some of the people. You should join our group, by the way. It’s a wonderful group of people called 100 coaches. Just an amazing group. We just do nice things for people. It’s very good. And now I’m working on my big project, as you described. Marshall Goldsmith AI. I always wanted to give away all my material, but I always failed. I’ve been working on this for years with no progress. I mean, we’re talking zero. I tried everything. Interactive video, computer programs, and all this stuff. Nothing worked until last year. And now it’s amazing what’s happened. It’s just been amazing.
So then I got into leadership development. I met a very famous guy named Dr. Paul Hersey. He got double booked. I was smart enough to. I saw him teach, man, this guy’s good. I want to be him when I grow up. I followed him around and said, I’ll serve the coffee and sit in the back of the room. Just let me watch you.
One day, he got double booked. He said, “Can you do what I do?”
I said, “I don’t know.”
He said, “I’ll pay $1,000 for a day.”
Well, I was making $15,000 a year. I said, “Right. I’ll try it. I’ll try it.”
I did this program for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. They are pissed off when I show up because I’m not him. I ranked first place of all the speakers. I’m funny and having a good time. All the other stuffy, boring finance people, they love me.
So I said, send them again. So that’s how I got into leadership development and coaching. Also by accident, I was working with a CEO, Warner-Lambert, at the time, a big drug company. And the CEO said to me, “I got this kid working for us. Young, smart, dedicated, hardworking, arrogant jerk.” He said, “It’d be worth a fortune. Maybe you could change that kid’s behavior.”
I said, “I like fortunes. My fortune. Good. Maybe I can help you.”
He said, “I doubt it.”
I said, “I’ll work with the kid for a year. He doesn’t have to pay me. Don’t get better. It’s free.”
There was nothing called coaching. Just made it up. Well, I worked with for a year. I got better and I got paid.
Greg McKeown:
So you were part of the, before it was the wild, wild west. The coaching sort of was in the nineties, early two thousands. There’s no certification. There’s no structure. You were before that. You were saying, okay, there is no such thing. Let’s name something because there’s obviously a need, and you have therefore been at the forefront of the development of it since.
Marshall Goldsmith:
I didn’t even come up with the name; I just did what I was doing.
Greg McKeown:
Do you still spend time one on one coaching CEOs and executives, or is that more of a not as…
Marshall Goldsmith:
My goal right now is to do bigger things. I would like to maximize impact in the broader world. When I do everything, I try to ask, is there a legacy? I’m 75. Most of my life is legacy. Is what I’m doing really contributing some legacy as opposed to just work? All my work has been fun. I enjoyed it. But now I’m more sensitive to saying, is there a legacy here?
Most of my coaching I coach with other people. I’m more of a mentor coach and they do most of the work and I’m just coaching with them. I also do teaching. I’m doing another one of my volunteer programs here in Nashville this week with about 140 people. I’m teaching them all I know for free for 100 of them and then 40. I’m teaching them to teach what I know for free. So, basically, I’m going to give back phase of life.
Greg McKeown:
You’ve already named the word legacy. I assume then that the AI project really is an extension of that. How do I operate in the time I have remaining in this life in such a way that the ideas can live on even when I’m not here producing the fuel and energy to take those ideas around?
Marshall Goldsmith:
You got it right. So that’s basically it.
Greg McKeown:
When you think about all of these successful leaders that you’ve worked with, what is the most common barrier that prevents leaders from focusing on what truly matters?
Marshall Goldsmith:
What does this mean? It’s important. We want to win. Meaningful win, critical win, trivial win, and not worth it, win anyway. Winners love winning. My whole coaching is not fixing losers. I’m in the helping winners business. My clients are not losers. They are giant winners. It’s hard for winners not to win. Now, I’m going to give you a case study that almost all of my clients fail, and I will predict you, too, have failed this case study. Are you ready?
You want to go to dinner at restaurant X? Your husband, wife, friend, or partner wants to go to dinner at restaurant Y. There is a heated argument; you go to restaurant Y. It was not your choice. The food tastes awful, and the service is terrible.
Option A: critique the food. Point out our partner was wrong. This mistake could have been avoided if you had only listened to me.
Option B: shut up, eat the stupid food, try to enjoy it, and have a nice night.
What should I do? Shut up. Now, as bad as that is, I’m going to give you another one. It’s even worse. You have a hard day at work. You come home. Your husband, wife, friend, or partner is there. And the other person says, “I had such a hard day. I had such a tough day.”
And we reply, you had a hard day? You had a hard day. Do you have any idea what I had to put up with today? We’re so competitive. We have to prove we’re more miserable than the people we live with.
I gave this example to my class at the Dartmouth Tuck school a young guy raised his hand. He said, “I did that last week.”
I asked him what happened. He said, “My wife looked at me. She said, ‘Honey, you just think you’ve had a hard day. It is not over.’”
Greg McKeown:
Yes, it’s going to get worse. Now. Doubling down, though not just what is the biggest mistake you see these people making, but specifically what gets in the way of them doing what matters most. Is it the same answer? You just think it’s just being too competitive. Go ahead. Yes.
Marshall Goldsmith:
It goes back to what you do. First, the people I coach all want to get better. I’m not in the religious conversion business. People ask me, “How do I convince people to change?”
I don’t convince anybody to change anything. I’ve learned a hard lesson. My name is Marshall Goldsmith, not Jesus Christ. So they need saving; I’m not going to help him. Right? I only work with dedicated people who want to get better.
Now, what do they need to make that happen? Three things. Courage. It takes courage to look in the mirror. Humility. It takes humility to do all this. They have to admit you got a problem. All my clients have to publicly apologize for their mistakes. It takes a little humility. It takes discipline to do this hard work. Now, let’s say I’m working with a person who is highly dedicated. They want to get better and they still don’t do it. Why? They are busy. They get so bombarded with crap, they don’t get to it.
Now I’m going to share a dream that explains why people don’t do what I teach. I bet even you have had this dream.
Greg McKeown:
I’m looking forward to this. I’m so curious.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Here’s what the dream sounds like. I’m incredibly busy right now. Given pressures of work, home, new technology, and new opportunities, I feel about as busy as I ever have. Sometimes I feel over committed. Occasionally, my life feels just a little out of control. I’m working on some very unique and special challenges right now, and I think the worst of this is going to be over in four or five months.
After that, I’m going to take two or three weeks and get organized, spend some time with the family, and begin my new healthy life program. Everything is going to be different, and it will not be crazy anymore.
Greg McKeown:
Now, this is the dream you’re describing for yourself here. Are you describing it on the executive’s behalf for anyone?
Marshall Goldsmith:
I’m describing it for millions of people.
Greg McKeown:
Yes. I understand. And you’re saying that procrastination of creating space to figure out what really is essential, get organized, pursue the things that matter. You’re saying it’s just too easy for high-powered executives and everybody else to believe that if they just muscle their way through what they’re currently dealing with, the future. It’s a place of beauty and simplicity where there’ll be more space and less urgent fires to deal with and so on.
You believe the future will be different than the past?
Marshall Goldsmith:
All right, now I’m going to ask you a personal question.
Greg McKeown:
Ready.
Marshall Goldsmith:
If I have a coach, I’ve had someone call me on the phone almost every day for 27 years to try to help me. Why? My name is Marshall. I’m too cowardly and undisciplined to do any of this crap by myself. I need help, and it’s okay.
Let me ask you a question. All the crap that you teach and stuff, which, by the way, I think is great stuff, I say I’m a fan of you.
Greg McKeown:
It wasn’t super beginning of the question, but I like it anyway. Keep going.
Marshall Goldsmith:
How much help do you need to do the stuff you teach all the time?
Greg McKeown:
I think there are two kinds of people in the world, Marshall. I think there are people who are lost, and I think there are people who know they are lost. And I’m just in the second category. For real. When I was growing up, my father, when we were driving, we would get lost a lot. I remember that my dad would often say, “I just feel it’s down here. I just feel that this is the way.”
That didn’t work out really well. I came to distrust whatever that feeling was. If you know you’re lost, if you admit you’re lost, you know what to do. You get directions. You wait, and you write them all down. You get the details. And you know that you’re not good at this. So you’re going to stop again a mile later because you know your direct challenge. It’s not that hard to solve the problem if you really know it. And I think that’s me every morning. Every morning I wake up full of noise, full of the thoughts of yesterday, the successes, the failures, the unexpected things, the disappointments, the celebrations, all of it. And it equals a lot of noise. Unless I go through a process every morning, which I don’t do every morning, but I do it a lot above 50% of the time.
Currently, I’ll go through a process of getting that noise out of my head, of trying to connect the dots and then make a prioritized plan. But I just know that I need that, and I think I need it perhaps more above average need that. I don’t even think I’m in the middle. I think I’m probably an outlier for noise and for ideation and for all of that disorientation. And so one of the reasons I think I’m attracted to the subjects that I’m attracted to is because I know I need it so much myself.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Let me give you my coaching. Get somebody to call you on the phone every day.
Greg McKeown:
Who do you have call you?
Marshall Goldsmith:
It depends. Different people, different times. Right now I have my friend Mark Thompson does it. My friend Mike does it. But different people, different times. I’ve done it for 27 years.
Greg McKeown:
And what do they do when they come on the phone? What do they say?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Have you done this?
Greg McKeown:
Okay. What are those daily questions?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Well, my daily questions are all the stuff I’m supposed to do every day. And if I bother to fill out the daily questions, I’m good at it. Somebody has to remind me to do it. It’s not like I don’t know the theory. I actually wrote the book, so I kind of understand the theory.
Greg McKeown:
Teach it to the rest of us, though. What are those questions? Are they a specific set of questions? Do you have your five questions and they’re just trying to help you? Did you do it today? Is that the idea?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Well, give me a second. I’ll answer it. Ready?
Greg McKeown:
Yes.
Marshall Goldsmith:
On a broad sense, just make a list of everything that’s important in your life. Friends, families, coworkers, whatever. And every day you got a spreadsheet, you put it on spreadsheet. Seven boxes are across. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And every is answered with our number. Yes, there’s a one, no zero or a number. You fill it out every day. End of the week, you get a report card. Now, I’m going to warn you in advance, the report card at the end of the week is not as beautiful as a corporate values plaque as you start going along.
I’ve been doing this 27 years. You do this every day. It’s not that pretty. You quickly learn life is easy to talk and hard to live. That’s very hard to live. How many times yesterday did you try to prove you were right when it wasn’t worth it? I don’t see so many zeros on my scorecard. Can a professor not be right all the time? Or how many angry or destructive comments did you make about other people? Well, I don’t see enough zeroes there either.
I mean, I don’t want people stabbing me in the back. Why am I stabbing them in the back? How many steps did you take push ups, sit ups, how nice were you to your wife, your kids, your grandkids? Just stuff about life, right? Every day. And it works. It’s just hard to do. The average person quits in two weeks.
Greg McKeown:
Mm hmm. Yes. Right.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Now, you’re an expert on one topic. I’m going to give you six basic questions. If you do nothing but these six questions, you’ll have a better life. The majority of people can’t do this for a month. Here are the six questions. Number one. And they all begin with the phrase, did I do my best, too? Now, here’s why that phrase is important. For example, I ask you, “Were you happy?”
You say, “No.” You’ll blame the environment.
if I say, “Did you do your best to?” You can’t blame anybody but yourself.
Number one, every day, “Did I do my best to set clear goals today?”
Number two. “Did I do my best to make progress toward achieving my goals today?”
Number three. “Did I do my best to be happy?”
“Did I do my best to find meaning every day?”
“Did I do my best to build positive relationships?”
And, “Did I do my best to be fully engaged?”
Six simple questions every day. Ask yourself the six questions, get better at almost everything.
Greg McKeown:
I love those questions. Do you have those in a spreadsheet? Are those the questions in your spreadsheet that you’re filling out each day?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Yeah, those are six of the questions.
Greg McKeown:
What else is on your scorecard?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Now, before we go on, for all the listeners, my advice to you, don’t get overly ambitious. If you just do the six…
Greg McKeown:
It’s plenty.
Marshall Goldsmith:
…for a few months and see how that works. Yeah, that’s pretty hard.
Greg McKeown:
It’s plenty.
Marshall Goldsmith:
But anyway, I have small things like did you floss your teeth? Did I do my exercises? How many steps did I take? Also, questions like, did I avoid making angry or destructive comments about people or the way I act? I try not to act like a jerk, but I successfully achieve the ability to act like a jerk on many occasions.
Greg McKeown:
What percentage of this year, since January, have you filled that out? Is it 100, or 90%, 50%? If we actually pulled it up, what would we be looking at?
Marshall Goldsmith:
I’d say 85.
Greg McKeown:
And you just do it once a day. Do you fill it out once a day? At the end of the day, you do a little check in. Paper. Paper or digital?
Marshall Goldsmith:
I do it usually the beginning of the next day.
Greg McKeown:
Beginning of the next day. Part of your morning process. What is your discovery from having done that for, well, even just this year? So you’ve done it a couple of hundred times this year. Now, that’s the data. What’s the news in the data for you? What have you learned in that process of doing that for months now, just this year. I know you did it before, but what have you learned?
Marshall Goldsmith:
It goes back to getting older. What I’ve learned relates to being older. I thought when I got older, worrying about my health and stuff would be less important. What the hell? You are going to die anyway? Right. But actually it’s sort of more important.
Greg McKeown:
Sure.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Actually. So things like exercise and diet and all that stuff is actually more important than it was. So what’s dawned on me is, number one, that is more important than it used to be. But number two, it’s hard. I’m no better than the people I coach.
Greg McKeown:
Yeah. Particularly the health elements that you’re referring to right now. It’s more important now, but I’m older, too, so that’s a frustrating combination. It feels a bit more tiring to do it. And it’s more important. The gap has grown. The execution gap grows. That’s a little painful. Let me ask you this question. In the work that you’ve done, coaching executives, and coaching teams all through these years, what have you found is the most important thing that they can do to actually work together in a unified, focused way?
What gets in the way of doing that beyond what you’ve already shared? And what can they do to address whatever you see as that primary problem?
Marshall Goldsmith:
Everyone I coach gets confidential feedback. Everyone I coach picks important areas to improve. Everyone I coach apologizes for mistakes. Everyone does a rigorous follow up to get better. What have I learned? You want to have better relationships with people. You want the team to be better. You know everybody in the team who they need to work on, get everybody to fix themselves. We can all spend less time fixing everybody else.
Greg McKeown:
Sure.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Look at a guy in the mirror and say, how about that person getting better here. Let’s fix that guy.
Greg McKeown:
Yeah, I came across this idea. It’s not my quote, but it’s make sure that your own personal life is absolutely perfect before you try to tell the whole world how it has to reorganize itself. And I thought that was an interesting idea.
Marshall Goldsmith:
I don’t believe that at all.
Greg McKeown:
I’m interested in your reaction to it.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Interesting idea, but I have zero interest in that idea. My life is very far from perfect and that doesn’t stop me from giving people advice. How about you? Your life doesn’t seem to be perfect. It doesn’t seem to inhibit you any.
Greg McKeown:
The distinction. I think in their idea, and I may be phrasing it not quite exactly, accurately. But the idea is, don’t presume that you should reorganize the world order. It’s not about being able to give feedback or encourage somebody or to work with somebody, something you’ve learned. I think it was more about this grandiosity that sometimes exists where we say, oh, we have the grand theory of how the world has to be and we should tear it all down.
And it’s like, well, yeah, but is your life in order? Have you figured out. Because that’s. I felt it supported your point of work on yourself first before assuming that you should be in charge of the whole thing. Go ahead.
Marshall Goldsmith:
I think I understood what you were saying. I totally agree with that concept. In one of my books called Triggers. I have a little model. Now, before you deal with any topic, ask yourself, “Am I willing at this time to make the investment required to make a positive difference on this topic?”
If the answer is no, 99% of all that crap people are worrying about, they’re not going to do anything about anyway.
Greg McKeown:
Yeah, I went to a conference recently where I picked up a phrase which is, don’t complain, create. And I thought that was a very nice phrase. When you find yourself complaining, whether it’s small individual situations you’re dealing with or biggest objective in the world at large, it’s like, that’s just a waste of your time. Can you create something better? If you think that’s not being done, well, get on and create something instead.
When you think about legacy and the way you’re thinking about it, when you look back at these years, I have a very specific question, and I don’t mean it to be a leading question, but when I hear the 11 million miles, there are two ways to read that. And on the one hand, of course, what it is, is a life. Spent years traveling, working with leaders, teaching, inspiring, helping. That’s one part of the story.
But it’s also a lot of time away from people, too. And I don’t know at all whether you look at it and say, oh, maybe the ratio, now that I’m looking from a legacy point of view, or now that I’m 75, I would have changed the ratio a bit on the travel, or whether you go, no, I feel very. I really did that intentionally, and I wouldn’t change a thing about it. What’s your reaction?
Marshall Goldsmith:
When my daughter Kelly was eleven and my son Brian was nine, I asked my daughter, “What can I do to be a better father?”
My daughter said, “You travel a lot, but that’s not what bothers me. What bothers me is the way you act when you come home. You’re on the phone; you watch sports shows. I wanted to go to party at my friend’s house, and you didn’t let me go. I had to stay home and spend time with you, but you spent no time with me. That’s not right.”
I decided I was going to track how many days I could spend 4 hours with my family. 1991, 92 days 1992, 110, 1993, 130, 1994, 135. I made more money the year, spent 135 days, 4 hours with my family than the years with 20 days.
Now it’s January 1, 1990. I said, kids, look, 135 days, 4 hours with daddy. What goal this year? Now they’re both teenagers. What goal this year? How about 150. They both go, “No.”
Greg McKeown:
We’ve had enough to travel a bit more. Did you ever take your children with you on these trips?
Marshall Goldsmith:
They found it boring.
Greg McKeown:
Did they? Is that true? They found it boring? I’m surprised by that.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Yeah, well, I’m their father.
Greg McKeown:
Yeah.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Do you have kids?
Greg McKeown:
Yeah, four. I’ve had them travel with me. Somebody gave me this great idea years ago. For the last ten years, about 80% of the time when I travel, I’ll have one of the children or my wife come with me. We’ve built a whole routine about it. I feel bad saying it, but that’s why it surprised me when you said they found it boring. Because that hasn’t been how it’s been for my children, it seems like they just enjoy being in these different places in the world and meeting people, and they come to the events and even answer questions in the room. It’s been quite a fun thing.
But anyway, I was curious about the reaction because it’s a world we both live in, this world of travel and trying to balance these dynamics. But thoughts, reactions to it.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Yeah, I never really thought that much. Looking back on my life, I often ask a question, “What would I change?” I would change nothing. If you get rid of the mistakes you made, you get rid of everything you learned from the mistakes. So, who knows if you’d be better off. The end result here is fine with me. I’m happy with my life. I’ve had a good life. I was brought up in a phenomenally poor, low-income, low-education environment we had an outhouse the first four years I was in school. And I have a great life.
So, what would I change? Nothing. I’ve made tons of mistakes, but I wouldn’t change anything.
Greg McKeown:
When I was 20 years old, 19 or 20, and there was a leader not much older than me, but I was reporting to him, and I asked him that question, what would you change? Nothing. And it really startles me when people say that. I’m even more startled to hear it from you, not in a critical way, but just because of your emphasis on coaching, learning, asking questions, and improving. I understand the idea that you’re saying; look, we learn from mistakes. So, of course, if you remove the mistakes, then you also remove the learning. And I do get that. But the question if you are doing it over again isn’t quite the same as that, because if you’re doing it again, you get to start with the wisdom you have.
Now, let me ask you in that way, not if you were starting from scratch without your current knowledge. That’s a different question. But if you had to start it over now with your current knowledge, with all the growth and development, what would you do differently?
Would you still say the same?
Marshall Goldsmith:
And again, you’re assuming I would have my current knowledge and wisdom without.
Greg McKeown:
That’s what I’m giving to you. I’m choosing the scenario. If you could, with that wisdom, what would you do differently?
Marshall Goldsmith:
I don’t think you could. Because I think really, the pain from the mistakes is what makes you learn, and you can’t wish that away.
Greg McKeown:
Okay, I’m going to take one more shot at this. Let’s say you get to live another life. Right. Like you’re just a second life. Yep. So kind of a Buddhist idea, right? Like you say, I’m going to get to start again, but I’m still me. What’s the learning from all the pain? When you say you learn from the pain, what is it that you would address differently now with that knowledge?
Marshall Goldsmith:
If I had to do it in the way you described it, yes. Which I think…
Greg McKeown:
Is different.
Marshall Goldsmith:
If I had to do it in the way you described it? Hypothetically,
Greg McKeown:
Yes.
Marshall Goldsmith:
Yeah. I would say I wouldn’t be such a dick for most of my life.
Greg McKeown:
Okay. That’s an interesting phrase, and I’m surprised at that answer, too. But I like the self depreciation of it. What do you mean by that? What’s the shift that would take place? Just kinder to people.
Marshall Goldsmith:
I’d be a nicer guy. Kinder.
Greg McKeown:
So, okay, but the version that I see in front of me. Right. And I think the version that appears in your books and so on is nice. Does it mean that there was a phase?
Marshall Goldsmith:
That version was not written when I was under 25 years old.
Greg McKeown:
You’re saying there was a period under 25, and I don’t need to. I’m not trying to pry into things that you’d rather not share. I’m just saying there was a period of your life, you say? Oh, yeah. I have learned by those experiences to be kinder. I want to just be kinder to people based on the painful lessons we learn in life. Suffering teachers. C.S. Lewis talked about this. He said, “We wish we could learn from all the good times and the good things, he says, but pain is the teacher. We wish it wasn’t true, but by God, we learn.”
And I think that’s the spirit of what you’re saying there.
Marshall Goldsmith:
When I was 14, I was the first in my class to be arrested for drunken, disorderly conduct.
Greg McKeown:
Oh, is that right?
Marshall Goldsmith:
I was not a role model as a little boy.
Greg McKeown:
Yes. I see. Yeah, that’s one of those, that’s like an insight. That’s one sentence, but it’s a whole volume. There’s a lot that goes with that.
For everybody listening. What did you hear? What’s the message that you heard today? What were the themes? And second question.
So what? Why does this matter? Does this matter? Does this conversation matter? Does the technology default status of our lives, where smartphones are just default, where every app is just default, where we say yes to all of the technology, and every app that comes along is so what does it matter? And if it does, why does it matter?
And finally, the third question is “Now what?”
What will you do differently as a result of this conversation? Who can you talk to about it? But it’s over to you now, really. Thank you for listening.
