Marshall Goldsmith Books
Marshall Goldsmith is an American executive coach, leadership thinker, and author known for his work on helping successful leaders achieve positive, lasting change in behavior. He has been recognized by major business publications as one of the top leadership thinkers and coaches in the world.
Known for: Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts—Becoming the Person You Want to Be, How Women Rise: Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back from Your Next Raise, Promotion, or Job, The Earned Life: Lose Regret, Choose Fulfillment, What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful
Books by Marshall Goldsmith
Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts—Becoming the Person You Want to Be
Why do smart, successful people keep repeating the same unhelpful behaviors, even when they know better? In Triggers, executive coach Marshall Goldsmith argues that change fails not because we lack in...
How Women Rise: Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back from Your Next Raise, Promotion, or Job
This book explores twelve common habits that often hold women back in their careers and offers practical strategies to overcome them. Drawing on decades of leadership coaching experience, the authors ...
The Earned Life: Lose Regret, Choose Fulfillment
In The Earned Life, leadership coach Marshall Goldsmith explores how to live a life free of regret by committing to continuous growth and purposeful action. Drawing on Buddhist principles and decades ...
What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful
This book by executive coach Marshall Goldsmith explores how the very habits and behaviors that help people achieve success can later become obstacles to further growth. Through practical advice and r...
Key Insights from Marshall Goldsmith
Your environment shapes your behavior
We like to believe we are fully in charge of our actions, but much of what we do is a response to what surrounds us. Goldsmith’s central insight is that behavior does not happen in a vacuum. It is triggered by external conditions such as coworkers, family dynamics, smartphone notifications, deadline...
From Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts—Becoming the Person You Want to Be
Awareness must become active, not passive
Knowing your weaknesses is not the same as managing them. Goldsmith makes a crucial distinction between passive awareness and active awareness. Passive awareness is what most of us have: we know we should be more patient, focused, disciplined, grateful, or present. We have read the books, heard the ...
From Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts—Becoming the Person You Want to Be
Structure beats willpower in lasting change
People often treat self-improvement as a test of personal strength, but Goldsmith argues that behavior change is more reliably driven by structure than by motivation. Willpower is unstable. It rises when we are inspired and disappears when we are tired, stressed, bored, rushed, or emotionally floode...
From Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts—Becoming the Person You Want to Be
Daily questions create honest accountability
Most people evaluate change with vague, flattering questions such as “Did I have a good day?” or “Am I trying my best?” Goldsmith proposes a far more effective tool: daily active questions. These questions focus not on results we cannot fully control, but on effort we can control. Instead of asking,...
From Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts—Becoming the Person You Want to Be
Ambition often sabotages personal change
One of the book’s more surprising insights is that the qualities that drive external success can interfere with internal growth. Ambition, confidence, competitiveness, and a desire to win often help people rise in their careers. Yet those same traits can make them resistant to feedback, impatient wi...
From Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts—Becoming the Person You Want to Be
The future self requires present effort
We often imagine change as something that will begin once conditions improve: when work slows down, when stress decreases, when we have more energy, when life becomes simpler. Goldsmith challenges this fantasy directly. The person you want to become will not appear in a less chaotic future; that per...
From Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts—Becoming the Person You Want to Be
About Marshall Goldsmith
Marshall Goldsmith is an American executive coach, leadership thinker, and author known for his work on helping successful leaders achieve positive, lasting change in behavior. He has been recognized by major business publications as one of the top leadership thinkers and coaches in the world.
Frequently Asked Questions
Marshall Goldsmith is an American executive coach, leadership thinker, and author known for his work on helping successful leaders achieve positive, lasting change in behavior. He has been recognized by major business publications as one of the top leadership thinkers and coaches in the world.
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