Quotes from Marshall Goldsmith

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.

Stop Asking for Feedback and Then Expressing Your Opinion

a wise person learns from their mistakes—a much wiser person learns from someone else's mistakes.

Feedback—both the act of giving it and taking it—is our first step in becoming smarter, more mindful about the connection between our environment and our behavior. Feedback teaches us to see our environment as a triggering mechanism. In some cases, the feedback itself is the trigger. Consider

If you press people to identify the motives behind their self-interest it usually boils down to four items: money, power, status, and popularity.

A lowly clerk expressing an opinion doesn't get people's notice at a company. But when the CEO expresses that opinion, everyone jumps to attention. The higher up you go, the more your suggestions become orders.

What's going on here? Why do our discipline and decisiveness fade at the end of the day, to the point where we opt to do nothing instead of doing something enjoyable or useful? It's not because we're inherently weak. It's because we're weakened. The

If you walk into the examining room with a broken leg, the doctor doesn't pass judgment on how you broke your leg. He doesn't care if you broke your leg committing a crime or kicking the dog or tripping down the stairs or getting hit by a car. He only cares about fixing your leg.

There is never anyone in the other boat. When we are angry, we are screaming at an empty vessel.

the higher you go, the more your problems are behavioral.

even when the individual and societal benefits of changing a specific behavior are indisputable, we are geniuses at inventing reasons to avoid change. It is much easier, and more fun, to attack the strategy of the person who's trying to help than to try to solve the problem.

One recurring theme was to "reflect upon life, to find happiness and meaning now," not next month or next year.

Apologizing is a magic move. Only the hardest of hearts will fail to forgive a person who admits they were wrong. Apology is where behavioral change begins.

Fate is the hand of cards we've been dealt. Choice is how we play the hand.

getting mad at people for being who they are makes as much sense as getting mad at a chair for being a chair.

Successful people become great leaders when they learn to shift the focus from themselves to others.

Mojo" is, "That positive spirit toward what we are doing now, that starts from the inside and radiates to the outside

People who believe they can succeed see opportunities where others see threats.

If we do not create and control our environment, our environment creates and controls us.

A leader who cannot shoulder the blame is not someone we will follow blindly into battle. We instinctively question that individual's character, dependability, and loyalty to us. And so we hold back on our loyalty to him or her.

Never wrestle with a pig—because you both get dirty but the pig loves it

Peter Drucker, who said, "Our mission in life should be to make a positive difference, not to prove how smart or right we are.

People will do something—including changing their behavior—only if it can be demonstrated that doing so is in their own best interests as defined by their own values.

Just because people understand what to do doesn't ensure that they will actually do it.