Marshall Goldsmith Quotes
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The people I coach are very successful people, so it's very hard for winners to not constantly win. Even if it's trivial and not worth it, we still want to win - because we love winning. It's a very deep habit.
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The Great Western Disease is that we fixate on the future at the expense of enjoying the life we're living now.
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Ten years ago we had a very simple yet powerful idea-call many of the greatest thinkers in the world, ask them each to write a chapter sharing their vision for the future of leadership, and put together an edited book titled The Leader of the Future.
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A leader who is self-aware enough to know that he or she is not adept at everything is one who has taken the first step toward being a great leader.
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One of the most dysfunctional beliefs of successful people is our contempt for simplicity and structure. We believe that we are above needing structure to help us on seemingly simple tasks.
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When you're at the lower levels in the organization, you need to win and be right. But as you move up, you need to let other people win and be right, and become a manager and delegate responsibility.
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If we can stop, listen, and think about what others are seeing in us, we have a great opportunity. We can compare the self that we want to be with the self that we are presenting to the rest of the world. We can then begin to make the real changes that are needed to close the gap between our stated values and our actual behavior.
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If we become aware of what's happening before we act, behaviour becomes a function of choice rather than a result of an impulse or trigger. You begin to control your world more as opposed to the outside world controlling you.
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I do three things: speaking or teaching, which I enjoy the most, coaching is where I learn everything, and writing is where I reach people.
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Lasting goal achievement requires lots of time, hard work, personal sacrifice, ongoing effort, and dedication to a process that is maintained over years.
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The more we are committed to believing that something is true, the less likely we are to believe that its opposite is true, even in the face of clear evidence that shows we are wrong.
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Be happy now. It's a great Western disease that we'll be happy in the future - when we get higher status or that BMW or that promotion or this project finished. Instead, be happy now.
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One of the greatest mistakes of successful people is the assumption, 'I behave this way, and I achieve results. Therefore, I must be achieving results because I behave this way.' This belief is sometimes true, but not across the board.
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If the CEO is not going to give you a fair chance, you're probably not going to win.
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An excuse is the handy explanation we offer when we disappoint other people.
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Put your goals on paper, or an Excel spreadsheet. Measure every day, 'Did I do my best to...?' Your problems won't disappear, but you will exist in a different relation to them, and you will improve.
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I was at UCLA when John Wooden was the basketball coach. The next coach was Gene Bartow, who got fired for winning 90 percent plus of his games. He wasn't John Wooden. It's incredibly difficult to replace someone who has been seen as an icon.
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I don't get paid if my clients don't get better by a certain time period. And sure, I have not been paid before. We all fail sometimes; it's okay.
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If we can sacrifice something comfortable, that we're 'too good at,' that might even be holding us back, we'll have more room to grow into the person we want to be.
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It's not appropriate to pass judgment when we specifically ask people to voice their opinions... even if you ask a question and agree with the answer.
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In our world, we have this huge focus on vicarious living - politicians, movie stars, athletes, coaches, all these people. What our research has shown very clearly is that people who are really happier and have more meaningful lives are people that focus on living their own lives.
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Active questions are the alternative to passive questions. There is a huge difference between, 'Do you have clear goals?' and 'Did you do your best to set clear goals for yourself?' The former is trying to determine the employee's state of mind; the latter challenges the employee to describe or defend a course of action.
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The last thing I say on most phone calls is not, 'Goodbye,' but, 'Thank you.'
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Life is short. Do whatever you can to help people - not for status, but because the 95-year-old you will be proud if you did help people and disappointed if you didn't.