Make the Most of Your Life: Learn to ‘Earn It’
Wise counsel from Marshall Goldsmith, America's #1 executive coach
By Rodger Dean Duncan
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.”
That sage advice on life management is from Dr. Seuss, who brought us The Cat in the Hat, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Green Eggs and Ham and other children’s classics.
We grown-ups have some sages of our own, and one of the very best is Dr. Marshall Goldsmith.
“Thought leaders” is a phrase that’s thrown around a lot these days. Marshall Goldsmith is actually worthy of the appellation. He’s author of multiple bestselling books like What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, MOJO: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back If You Lose It, and Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts, Becoming the Person You Want to Be. He’s been personal coach to hundreds of the world’s top executives. Thought leader? Goldsmith is the real deal.
His latest offering is The Earned Life: Lose Regret, Choose Fulfillment. It’s a New York Times and USA Today bestseller, and for good reason.
What’s the thesis of this book? Here it is in the author’s own words: “We are living an earned life when the choices, risks, and effort we make in each moment align with an overarching purpose in our lives, regardless of the eventual outcome.”
For many people, that pesky final phrase is a stumbling block: “regardless of the eventual outcome.” That seems contrary to much of what we hear nowadays about achievement and fulfillment.
Our options are endless, but the process of earning remains the same: (1) make choices, (2) accept risks, and (3) expend all the necessary effort.
In The Earned Life, you’ll learn:
How to accept the present with the Every Breath Paradigm.
The internal and external factors that determine success and fulfillment.
The Action, Ambition, and Aspiration model.
How to discover your One-Trick Genius.
The lost art of asking for help.
How to close the gap between what you plan and what you actually do.
How to remove the delay from delayed gratification.
Trust me, this is not one of those breathless rah-rah, dare-to-be-great books. The Earned Life is chock full of wise—and immediately actionable—advice on how to make the very most of your time on earth. Yes, that’s a lot to ask of a book. But this one actually delivers.
Today you have 100% of your life left. Go out and earn it.
Rodger Dean Duncan: You say “motivation” is one of the more misunderstood—and therefore misused—words in the lexicon of goal achievement. Please tell us more.
Marshall Goldsmith: Everyone is “motivated” to do something. For example, many people might say that they are motivated to look good. The question is, are they motivated to pay the price and work out? Many people might say they are motivated to own a home. Are they motived to do the hard work required to make the money to buy the home?
Duncan: In what ways can inertia sneak up on people who are not living the lives of fulfillment that could be available to them?
Goldsmith: One of our greatest challenges in life is comfort. When we are making money and have a successful career, it can be very hard to change. Inertia sets in. We start reliving the same day over and over again.
The best career advice I ever received always started with “You can be more.” This helped break my inertia and get me restarted.
Duncan: What role does having a strong support system play in a person’s success in setting and achieving worthy goals?
Goldsmith: A strong support system can have a huge impact on anyone’s success. I have been blessed to be supported by iconic teachers such as Peter Drucker, Frances Hesselbein, Paul Hersey and Warren Bennis. They not only taught me, they inspired me.
It’s lonelier than ever at the top. During the Covid pandemic, my friend Mark Thompson and I spent every weekend with 60 amazing leaders who all supported each other. This type of support is more important today than ever before.
Duncan: What’s your advice to someone who wants to make a midlife conversion from one occupation to another?
Goldsmith: One suggestion is to look for adjacency. Make the switch to a field where your previous knowledge will be very helpful in your new work. This can be much more practical than completely starting over.
Duncan: You say that—wherever possible—you avoid making choices. That seems like an odd claim from a man who’s devoted his life to helping other people make wise choices. Tell us about that.
Goldsmith: I try to help great people make important choices on meaningful topics. I encourage them to consider the “agency of no choice” on unimportant topics. For example, President Obama had basically two suits that he wore every day and two shirt colors. Why waste his time on trivia?
Duncan: What have you seen as a best practice in a leader who inspires performance accountability in team members?
Goldsmith: I have never met a leader who was greater at ensuring accountability that Alan Mulally, the former CEO of Ford. His success was amazing. Alan used a process called the “Business Plan Review” to make sure that every leader stayed on focus that that the team practiced “working together” to get things done.
Duncan: In the quest to find purpose and meaning in life, what questions should people ask themselves?
Goldsmith: My wonderful friend Dr. Carol Kauffman, founder of the Institute for Coaching, has the most useful question for me: “Am I being the person that I want to be, right now?”
Duncan: You wisely say that deciding what you do each day is not the same as who you want to be right now is not the same as who you want to become. How can clarity on the distinction in those three things help a person live an earned life?
Goldsmith: Our aspirations are who we want to become. They do not have a set target and fixed end date. They answer the great question, “Why?”
Our ambitions are what we want to achieve. They have clear targets and are time-bound.
Our actions are what we are doing now. They are immediate.
The more that our achievements are connected to our higher goals and connected to our day-to-day engagement in life, the more satisfied we will be with our lives—both at work and at home.
Duncan: In your coaching, you’ve found that many successful businesspeople can easily identify specific actions that help them achieve a defined ambition, but they often draw a blank when asked to define an aspiration. Why?
Goldsmith: We can easily become so busy and pre-occupied with achieving our goals that we forget the deeper question, “Why am I doing this?”
I recently worked with young students from one of the world’s most highly selective schools. They were unbelievably driven to achieve. As I spoke about life, several started crying. They had no idea why they were working so hard.
Duncan: At its core, you say, aspiration “is an act of privileging your future over your present.” What might that look like in terms of observable behaviors?
Goldsmith: Any form of delayed gratification is “privileging our future over our past.” We are sacrificing today, so that the future versions of ourselves will have a better life tomorrow. Examples could be saving money instead of spending it, going on a healthful diet instead of eating the tasty food, or working out instead of going to the movies.
Duncan: You encourage people to discover their “one-trick genius.” What exactly is that, and how does it differ from the pejorative “one-trick pony?”
Goldsmith: Our “one-trick genius” is the unique quality that can distinguish us from the pack. Our “one-trick pony” is a repetitive skill that can be over-used.
Duncan: Most people acknowledge that discipline plays an important role in personal development. What do you see as the building blocks of discipline?
Goldsmith: Compliance to a set of rules or processes that help us succeed.
Accountability to the standards that we have set for ourselves.
Follow up, which is the differentiator between a real, long-term change and a short-term “religious conversion” experience.
Measurement, which lets us know exactly how much progress we are making.
Community, which gives us the support and inspiration we need to keep going.
Duncan: “Feedforward” is a term you use in your coaching. How does that differ from “feedback,” and what benefits can a team derive from practicing it?
Goldsmith: Feedforward involves asking for ideas for the future, not feedback about the past. The next part of the process involves listening to the ideas and saying “thank you” without judging. I wrote an award-winning article called “Leadership Is a Contact Sport.” It documents the value of practicing feedback on a regular basis in order to facilitate positive, long-term change.
Duncan: How can leaders create cultures where people are comfortable asking for help?
Goldsmith: Lead by example! Let them watch you ask for help, listen and respond in a positive way.
Hubert Joly, led an astounding turnaround at Best Buy. He was an amazing role model as a leader. He asked for—and received—the help of so many people who ultimately changed the company.
Duncan: What have you learned about life from your friends who worked with old people who were facing death?
Goldsmith: Be happy now. Do whatever you can to help people. If you have a dream, go for it!
In your own life, what could be the tell-tale signs of inertia? What can (will) you do to set and achieve worthy goals?
When you deeply consider how you invest your time, attention and energy, how do you answer the “Why” question?
What is your “one-trick genius” and how can you maximize its effect?
