Marshall Goldsmith Quotes

If you want to improve the organization, you have to improve yourself.

It is not making better people of others that management is about. It's about making a better person of self. Income, power, and titles have nothing to do with that.

One of the most difficult things is not to change society - but to change yourself.

My best investment, as cliched as this sounds, is the money I've spent developing myself, via books, workshops and coaching. Leadership begins within, and to have a better career, start by building a better you.

The distance between number one and number two is always a constant. If you want to improve the organization, you have to improve yourself and the organization gets pulled up with you. That is a big lesson. I cannot just expect the organization to improve if I don't improve myself and lift the organization, because that distance is a constant.

Culture is the process by which a person becomes all that they were created capable of being.

Business coaching and the personal development and self-help industry is considered to be one of the booming industries today.

Every man who rises above the common level has received two educations: the first from his teachers; the second, more personal and important, from himself.

I vividly remember a conversation I had many years ago in 1974, which marked a turning point in my leadership journey. I was sitting at a Holiday Inn with my friend, Kurt Campmeyer, when he asked me if I had a personal growth plan. I didn't. In fact, I didn't even know you were supposed to have one.

I am really focused on how I can improve myself and the world around me.

More than once in the history of Whole Foods Market, the company was unable to collectively evolve until I myself was able to evolve - in other words, I was holding the company back. My personal growth enabled the company to evolve.

I think I've been quite lucky in that I haven't had to make too many changes to myself. Obviously, there have been adaptations and things that I've altered, but I haven't changed completely. I've stayed myself.

Though some choices may slow our journey, every path we take gives us more familiarity with how our actions affect the world around us, giving us more opportunities to learn how to help ourselves and others.

I start with people's growth, my own growth included. I don't start with the company's strategy or products. I start with people's growth because I believe that if the people who are running and participating in a company grow, then the company's growth will in many respects take care of itself.

It's important for a leader to hear about his blind spots on a regular basis so working on them is periodically top of mind.

Education is a work of self-organization by which man adapts himself to the conditions of life.

I love to help people live fully - I guess because I'm always striving towards that myself!

Before you can lead anybody else, you gotta put yourself in the right position to be successful.

If my story can help someone to better themselves in life, then so be it.

Self-management and self-control are the keys to advanced knowledge, and both are difficult to learn without a sense of your own cultural identity.

To help others develop, start with yourself.

I think you're still the only person sharp enough to sharpen someone like me.

No matter where you are in your leadership journey, never forget that what got you to where you are won't get you to the next level.

The best way to improve your team is to improve yourself.

I do the same thing for myself (as an actor) that I do for others.