Marshall Goldsmith: Empowering Remarkable Lives Through AI

0:00:12 I’m Guy Kawasaki and this is Remarkable People.
0:00:16 We are on a mission to make you remarkable.
0:00:23 And for his second appearance on this podcast, we have today Marshall Goldsmith.
0:00:31 Marshall is basically the top dog, numeral uno, Carrie Walsh Jennings, LeBron James, Michael Jordan,
0:00:36 Muhammad Ali, God, these are all sports analogies, I gotta come up with us.
0:00:44 Stephen Wolfram, Carol Dweck, Angela Duckworth, all those great goats, Kelly Slater, all goats.
0:00:47 He’s the goat of executive coaching.
0:00:54 This time, he focused on his book, The Earned Life, Lose Regret, Choose Fulfillment,
0:00:57 as well as his revolutionary leadership advice.
0:01:02 In today’s conversation, we’re going to discuss Marshall’s aim to democratize leadership
0:01:06 and enable people to learn through artificial intelligence.
0:01:12 In other words, Marshall is going to explain how he has achieved immortality.
0:01:19 And I would bet that this is going to be one of the more humorous and hard to describe what you’re about to hear.
0:01:27 This is a conversation between two friends and we’re both in love with artificial intelligence
0:01:31 and it’s going to go all over the map.
0:01:40 So his new venture is called MarshallGoldsmith.ai and it lets anyone access his wisdom and expertise
0:01:42 through a chat bot.
0:01:48 There’s MarshallGoldsmith.ai and there’s KawasakiGPT.com.
0:01:55 Marshall is all about what he calls knowledge philanthropy and basically he’s using his technology
0:02:02 to spread out his expertise so that anybody, anybody, you don’t have to be a $400,000 client.
0:02:05 You’ll learn about that in this podcast too.
0:02:09 You don’t have to be a $400,000 client to get to Marshall’s brain.
0:02:15 So join me now with Marshall Goldsmith and also with some cameo appearances,
0:02:19 brief as they may be, with MarshallGoldsmith.ai.
0:02:21 I’m Guy Kawasaki.
0:02:25 This is Remarkable People and here we go.
0:02:36 Why do you wear a green polo shirt?
0:02:43 Important question people might require, minds don’t want to know that.
0:02:46 Why do you wear a green polo shirt?
0:02:47 I’m asking my friend.
0:02:51 You’re asking Goldsmith GPT.
0:02:55 The New Yorker magazine years ago wrote a wonderful profile about my life,
0:02:58 authored by Larissa McFarquhar.
0:03:01 In the profile, Larissa noted that I always wore a green polo shirt.
0:03:06 While I didn’t actually always wear a green polo shirt, that’s what she remembered.
0:03:10 So in other words, we don’t need you.
0:03:15 We can just ask Goldsmith GPT and record the answer.
0:03:17 You didn’t ask my friend here.
0:03:21 My hearing is not good enough to tell.
0:03:27 So is that your actual simulation of your voice or is just a computer voice?
0:03:29 No, it’s a simulation of my voice.
0:03:32 So how do you feel being immortal now?
0:03:33 Oh, I like it.
0:03:33 I like it.
0:03:36 It’s been a journey.
0:03:42 I am being somewhat facetious here, but conceptually we could go to Goldsmith GPT
0:03:48 and have the audio play back to us and record it and we will have interviewed you.
0:03:53 Yeah, and smarter, nicer and more articulate, but I’m funnier.
0:04:02 I have Kawasaki GPT and I am also convinced that Kawasaki GPT is better at being me than me.
0:04:04 Mine is a better version of me.
0:04:07 I won’t say it’s better than me.
0:04:09 It’s just, well, it’s better in some ways.
0:04:15 If I can combine Kawasaki GPT and Madison GPT, I truly am immortal.
0:04:16 I’m immortal and improved.
0:04:18 I love this topic.
0:04:22 We might go off the rails a few times in this particular episode.
0:04:23 Look, I loved our last session.
0:04:25 Okay.
0:04:28 I loved our last podcast we did.
0:04:32 And as I said, I was going to do my own podcast until after I did yours.
0:04:35 And I said, I’ll never do that because you’re too good at it.
0:04:36 So I said, I’m not going to work that much.
0:04:42 No, I don’t know if I agree with the reason for your decision,
0:04:45 but I think your decision is good nonetheless.
0:04:50 Marshall, the hardest part of a podcast is not the podcast.
0:04:53 The podcast is hard, but it’s getting the audience.
0:04:59 Now, maybe you can magically send out an email and get a million people to subscribe,
0:05:00 but I certainly can’t do that.
0:05:03 Are we getting ready to roll now?
0:05:05 No, we’ve been rolling already.
0:05:06 We’re already rolling.
0:05:14 So listen, one of your books, I love this, what got you here won’t get you there.
0:05:21 So if you were to use that test, like how does someone who believes that what got them there
0:05:24 won’t get them to the next level?
0:05:28 How does that person optimally approach AI?
0:05:33 Well, I think AI is a great case study of what got you here won’t get you there.
0:05:37 Neither you nor I a year ago would have had a clue what we’re doing right now with AI.
0:05:40 So this is a total surprise to me.
0:05:44 On the other hand, this train has left the station.
0:05:48 Option A, we consider and go, well, when I was a little boy,
0:05:52 we didn’t have them things or we can actually make some good out of it.
0:05:54 My vote is let’s do something good here.
0:06:00 And aren’t you worried about the paranoid people who spend hours and they say to the
0:06:06 Washington Post, well, I spent a few hours on chat APT and it convinced me to leave my spouse
0:06:08 and go live in Bali.
0:06:11 And then it said, I’m going to launch a nuclear war.
0:06:13 And what about those horror stories that you hear?
0:06:17 Really, I am not an expert on those horror stories.
0:06:21 And in my elderly years, I’ve decided basically, if I’m not going to change it,
0:06:23 I’m not going to worry about it.
0:06:24 What am I going to do by the Washington Post?
0:06:25 Absolutely nothing.
0:06:27 What am I going to do about these horror stories?
0:06:28 Absolutely nothing.
0:06:29 How much worried am I?
0:06:31 Don’t really care.
0:06:35 Okay, that works for me too.
0:06:39 But let’s say, okay, your kids or your grandkids or something,
0:06:44 they’re copywriters and they see their peers being replaced by AI.
0:06:45 What’s your advice to them?
0:06:48 Hey, my advice to them is get with the plant.
0:06:50 Look, the new world is a new world.
0:06:55 That’s saying I had a photographing memory for math and now they have calculators grow up.
0:06:59 Hey, it’s a new world.
0:07:00 It’s a new world.
0:07:01 Just make peace.
0:07:02 It is what it is.
0:07:05 And you can sit there and say, back to the old days, well, back in the old days,
0:07:06 we didn’t have computers.
0:07:07 We didn’t have the internet.
0:07:08 We didn’t have a lot of things.
0:07:09 So that’s just the way it was.
0:07:13 So I think to me, look, it’s going to happen.
0:07:15 Now, how old are you?
0:07:16 I am 70.
0:07:19 Yeah, hell, I’m 75.
0:07:22 So let’s face it, for two old guys like you and me, this is cool.
0:07:25 I think it’s the biggest deal since the Industrial Revolution,
0:07:28 maybe bigger than the Industrial Revolution.
0:07:29 Look, I love it.
0:07:32 I am a total fan of this stuff.
0:07:35 I have been trying to figure out how to give away everything I know
0:07:42 for 20 years with total and abject failure up until now.
0:07:47 I tried interactive video, which is clunky $3,000 machines, which didn’t work.
0:07:53 I tried computer programs that had branching and all kinds of nonsense.
0:07:56 We’re talking complete and abject failure here for 20 years.
0:07:59 This thing has just gone through the roof in the last year.
0:08:05 What’s in the data set of Goldsmith GPT?
0:08:06 Let me give you a little history.
0:08:10 My original goal, which by the way, my original goal was far too small.
0:08:15 My original goal was that Marshall Bot, that’s what his name is,
0:08:19 Marshall Bot could answer about 80% of the questions you would
0:08:21 ask me about as well as me are close.
0:08:22 That was my goal.
0:08:24 That is long gone.
0:08:29 Now, what I have fed Marshall Bot is I’ve fed Marshall Bot about a million and a half words.
0:08:36 So what I do is it’s everything I’ve ever written, videos, all kinds of stuff have been transcribed
0:08:38 to put in this thing, but knows me very well.
0:08:46 Then if you ask it a question and it can’t answer it, then I use the other bots to train it.
0:08:48 So what I do is this.
0:08:53 Let’s say, how is your work related to something that Marshall Bot doesn’t know?
0:09:00 I will go to say Chat GPT or Claude or one of the other ones and they’ll answer it.
0:09:04 I will then review their answer, the parts I like.
0:09:07 I put it into Marshall Bot and the parts I don’t like, I leave out.
0:09:11 And when you say you will review, you mean manually?
0:09:13 Yeah, manually.
0:09:17 But couldn’t people come and ask infinite questions like,
0:09:20 explain to me astrophysics, Marshall Goldsmith?
0:09:21 Well, a very good point.
0:09:24 Marshall Bot doesn’t answer questions like that.
0:09:26 It doesn’t do politics.
0:09:28 If you say, who is Donald Trump?
0:09:29 You know what it says?
0:09:29 I don’t know.
0:09:31 It doesn’t do politics.
0:09:33 It doesn’t do medicine.
0:09:38 It doesn’t do therapy and it doesn’t do financial advice.
0:09:44 So any question about what I do, philosophy, life, that kind of stuff, it’ll answer.
0:09:47 But outside of that, it’s pretty good about having guardrails.
0:09:52 I asked it a question and it said, this is not in my area of expertise,
0:09:58 which is the same answer that Kawasaki GPT would give if it’s not a subject I cover.
0:10:04 So are you therefore very confident that it’s not going to make shut up?
0:10:05 Ungodly good.
0:10:10 The history of this is it started out with what I knew, but it’s gone way beyond that.
0:10:15 So what it does now is if you ask Marshall Bot, I’ll ask you a question.
0:10:18 For example, I just came back from India.
0:10:23 How is your coaching philosophy?
0:10:27 My coaching philosophy is deeply related to the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita,
0:10:33 particularly in the areas of duty, action, detachment, and self-improvement.
0:10:38 The Gita emphasizes the importance of performing one’s duty without attachment to the results,
0:10:42 which aligns with my approach to leadership and personal development.
0:10:46 I encourage leaders to focus on what they can control, their efforts and behaviors,
0:10:53 rather than becoming overly fixated on outcomes, which are often beyond their direct control.
0:10:59 The concept of nishkamakarma or selfless action from the Gita is a principle I integrate into my
0:11:04 coaching. It’s about doing the right thing for its own sake, not for the rewards it might bring.
0:11:11 This goes on and on and on. So basically, I just came back from India.
0:11:18 And so again, in India, this is Hindu philosophy, the Bhagavad Gita is a big deal.
0:11:22 So somebody asked me, how’s your coaching philosophy related to the Gita?
0:11:29 Boom, there’s the answer. But the answer isn’t trivial. The answer isn’t trivial. The answer is
0:11:33 good. My daughter got me thinking about this. She said, she wanted to trick it. How’s your
0:11:37 coaching philosophy related to utilitarian philosophy? I don’t even know what utilitarian
0:11:44 philosophy is, right? I have no clue what that is. All of a sudden, it studies utilitarian philosophy.
0:11:52 It studies my coaching. It knows me and it says, gee, how would Marshall answer that question?
0:12:08 And it answers it as if it were me in my voice in five seconds.
0:12:15 So at this point, do you believe that it’s sentient?
0:12:20 Just depends how you define it. That’s just a definitional argument. I think the answer is,
0:12:26 depends how you define it. I know one thing. It’s smarter than I am. And it’s smarter than I am.
0:12:32 Look, if you go to Marshall, I’d start asking you questions and you actually thought I knew that
0:12:41 much. I would be smarter than damn Albert Einstein. Marshall, you and I, we agree so much because
0:12:49 Kawasaki GPT has all my writing, all my videos, all that stuff. Plus, it has the transcript of
0:12:58 every interview I’ve done for my podcast. So in a sense, Kawasaki GPT is not just my brain,
0:13:04 but it’s 250 other brains because of the transcript. So if I were to ask, how do you
0:13:10 embrace the grit mindset, it would have what my thoughts are plus Angela Duckworth’s because
0:13:16 I interviewed Angela Duckworth. Sure. You interviewed me. So you could probably ask it,
0:13:21 what’s the relationship between achievement and happiness? He would answer it.
0:13:26 And it would cite you. I got to tell you, Marshall, every day, once a day, I say to myself,
0:13:35 how the hell did I do this before? Like when people ask me to write blurbs and forwards and
0:13:42 contribute to journals, I go to Kawasaki GPT to get the first draft. Of course. You think that’s
0:13:51 cheating? According to who? Washington Post. I don’t know. The thing is a lot of life,
0:13:55 my old mentor, Dr. Paul Hersey said, look, never argue about the definitions of words
0:14:01 because people define words in different ways. Now, maybe the Washington Post would define it
0:14:05 as cheating and you wouldn’t. I don’t think it’s cheating. If you had to write a report and you
0:14:09 went to the encyclopedia, is that cheating? I don’t think so. This to me is the same thing,
0:14:15 it’s just a new world. And my daughter has to deal with this. My daughter’s a professor at Vanderbilt
0:14:20 and existential question, do you quote, allow students to do this or not? She basically said,
0:14:26 grow up. Students can do it anyway. So option A, just get with the plan or option B, sit back
0:14:30 and stick your head in the ground and pretend and just turn them all into liars. I don’t know.
0:14:37 They’re going to do it anyway. Who cares? Now, at some level, and when I ask you this question,
0:14:43 you’ll know what my answer is. But at some level, does it just boggle your mind when you’re told
0:14:50 all it is is a large language model and it’s just using math to predict the next syllable and the
0:14:55 next syllable and the next syllable. And you hear that explanation, you say, how the hell does it
0:15:01 seem so sentient? That totally blows my mind. Yeah. Yeah. Now, again, I love this stuff,
0:15:06 but I’ve got to say that part just blows my mind. And as a coach, by the way,
0:15:13 I use every client now, every client I use in front of them, I’m not ashamed. I’m not ashamed
0:15:18 to use this. Look, one of my clients is Patrick Friis. Dr. Friis, he’s the Seal Ready Children’s
0:15:23 Hospital. They’re merging with another children’s hospital. He’s going to be a co-CEO. He asked
0:15:29 me, what’s it like to be a co-CEO? There aren’t that many co-CEOs in the world. KKR has co-CEOs,
0:15:34 but not too many. And by a lot of them don’t work. So I asked Marshall, but what’s it like to be a
0:15:40 co-CEO? What’s good? What’s bad? What are your ideas? It was brilliant. Then he said, I’d like to
0:15:46 know more about this boundary-setting idea. How about that? Brilliant again. Then he said, Marshall,
0:15:52 do you have any ideas yourself on top of that? I may have some really weak crap or any kind of
0:15:56 patent. Oh, your idea is good too, Marshall. I’m sure he’s thinking, what a moron. I’ll just ask.
0:16:02 I’ll just ask Marshall about, look, who am I kidding here? My idea is around half as good as
0:16:12 Marshall’s ideas. I mean, Marshall, seriously, in a sense, it is immortality. Right? Yeah.
0:16:19 Only I’d say probably a little better, because again, I’m not putting myself down here, but
0:16:25 this thing is way smarter than I am. I truly do believe that too. And so with my podcast,
0:16:32 because I interview somebody every week, I add to the data set in Kawasaki GPT.
0:16:38 So that’s 52 more pieces of data a year. And then if I ever stop being the interview and
0:16:43 Madison picks it up, then Madison is good for another 50 years. We could go for a long time.
0:16:48 That’s right. And you know, why not? Now, does yours have audio yet?
0:16:55 No. And in fact, this is a good question. When I saw audio on yours, I sent a screenshot
0:17:00 to the person who’s doing Kawasaki GPT. And I said, how come I don’t have audio?
0:17:04 What’s the story here? By the way, all right, get ready to get more jealous.
0:17:08 What’s coming down the road for me? First, we had text.
0:17:13 We’re going to have the battle of the bots. Oh, well, what’s coming up next is video.
0:17:19 Yeah. You can see this green shirt guy that looks and sounds like me on video, but we’re not done
0:17:27 yet. What’s coming up after that? Video in multiple languages. Yeah. And I don’t know about you,
0:17:34 but actually you’re 75. I’m 70. That could help in our lifetimes easily happen in our lifetimes.
0:17:39 Sure. Well, I think that will happen in my lifetime. It’ll happen next year.
0:17:45 The rate of progress on this stuff is astronomical. I got lucky. So what happens to me is I’m
0:17:50 coaching these guys that are founders of come and call Fractal Analytics. And I’ve got eight
0:17:55 engineers in India working on this thing. They have donated the money behind this thing. This
0:18:02 is expensive. And this thing is great. So it’s very fast. Mine goes well beyond me, though.
0:18:10 Mine goes way beyond what I know. And anything related to what I know, what’s eerie about it is,
0:18:20 it knows me. And it can study any question. It then says, how would Marshall, had he read all this
0:18:26 stuff and knew as much as I do, which of course he doesn’t, how would he answer this question? And
0:18:35 with almost 98% accuracy, it gets it right. Wow. And you know what? It’s never sick. It’s never
0:18:43 cranky. It’s never hungry. It’s never sleepy. It doesn’t swear as much as me. I asked a couple
0:18:49 of my clients, “This thing is smarter than me. Is there anything I do different or better than
0:18:53 it?” You know what they said? It doesn’t give me shit as much as you do.
0:19:00 So Marshall, are you still a guest for a lot of people’s podcasts?
0:19:03 Oh yeah. I still do podcasts every now and again.
0:19:08 Okay. So it seems to me, I don’t know if you do this, but it just occurred to me that you should
0:19:15 ask the podcaster for the transcript so that you can get the transcript back and put it into
0:19:22 your bot. That’s a good idea. I never thought of it. I’d say, it’s a very good idea. Thank you.
0:19:26 Hey, that’s – I’m a value add podcaster. What can I say?
0:19:33 This thing is great. There’s a guy named Stephen Balobot. You know, this guy, he
0:19:42 was an AI company. So he was going to trick it. So he said, I was going to hire an executive coach,
0:19:47 but I’m doing this series C thing and I’m a founder and he got really busy and I didn’t even
0:19:51 return his phone calls. I feel embarrassed. What should I do? And he put it in Marshall
0:19:56 Bot as a joke. Marshall Bot said, oh, well, I can understand that this series C thing is very
0:20:00 important. I see why your founder is so busy. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It gives him some perfect
0:20:05 answer of what to do. He’s an AI person. He goes, I don’t even believe this. He didn’t believe it
0:20:11 himself. He didn’t even believe this thing. He just did what he told him to. Wow. See, I think
0:20:17 every medical doctor is going to have one of these. Come on, let’s get real. Every medical
0:20:22 doctor has got to have an AI bot. If they don’t, they should be fired. Come in, look, I’m taking
0:20:26 this medicine. What about that medicine? Is there a drug in it? They answer this stuff off the top
0:20:30 of their head. They don’t know what they’re talking about. Let’s get real here. Blah, blah, blah, blah.
0:20:35 How do you know that there are studies? There are computers. People have numbers.
0:20:40 You know, why are you sitting here guessing? Also, if some brain specialist in Croatia
0:20:48 wrote a medical journal article in Croatian, what’s the odds of even a brain surgeon at
0:20:53 Stanford Medical Center knowing that someone in Croatia just put this in a medical journal,
0:21:01 right? Not in English. They can’t know that stuff. Now, I think this is exciting.
0:21:07 I think this is the new world and I feel just very happy to be able to be on the positive
0:21:14 edge of this stuff. Now, I still have one question about this because if someone asks a question
0:21:22 that you have not specifically talked about and you said that it knows what you would probably say,
0:21:29 how do you draw the boundaries? If someone went to your bot and said, what do you think of the
0:21:33 leadership qualities of Donald Trump? Are you saying that it would say nothing?
0:21:39 Here’s Donald Trump. It says I don’t know, but it doesn’t answer anything related to politics.
0:21:44 But Marshall, I could make the case that politics is in great need of leadership. So why are you
0:21:52 avoiding that? You know what? Because I don’t want to deal with it. Yeah, there are 2,700 million
0:21:58 problems in my older years. I’ve decided I’m not going to fix them. I’m going to delegate that to
0:22:09 you. I hope you don’t mean me. Let me give you my mission of life as an old man. My mission is
0:22:14 trying to help people have a little better life. That’s it. If I can help anybody have a little
0:22:19 better life today, you know what I’m doing? I’m declaring victory here. And you know those people
0:22:25 I coach? I always say now, when I coach people, I say, look, I hope I help you be a better leader.
0:22:29 End of the day, I just want to have a little better life for you. Then I always ask them a
0:22:36 question, is that okay? Is that all right? You might be shocked to learn that 100% of everyone
0:22:40 I’ve ever coached about how famous and wonderful they are, you know what they said? That’s a good
0:22:49 idea. That’s a good idea. Let’s do that, right? In a sense, you are exemplifying the principle of
0:22:55 underpromise and overdeliver, right? Yeah. I’m serious. I’m not going to do everything.
0:22:58 Peter Drucker said our mission life is to make a positive difference, not to prove we’re smart,
0:23:03 not to prove we’re right. A lot of this arguing about stuff is let’s prove I’m smart and let’s
0:23:07 prove I’m right. If it’s not going to help make a positive difference, why are you even wasting
0:23:20 your time doing it? This is the gospel according to Marshall.
0:23:39 Do you just no longer care that the bot can cannibalize you and maybe you’re not going to get
0:23:43 some coaching gigs or something? You just don’t give a shit and you just want to help the world?
0:23:52 Wait a minute. Do you know what my coaching fees are? I have no idea. Well, I’d say I’m starting
0:23:58 at about 400,000 bucks a pop. So do you really think anybody’s going to pay me 400,000 dollars
0:24:06 a pop? Is it going to sit there and talk to a computer? No. I’m not really threatened by this.
0:24:11 Wait, wait, wait. So you’re telling me that the entry point for getting coached by you is 400,000.
0:24:17 That would be it. Madison, take note of this, Madison. We’re going to up our prices. Jesus.
0:24:23 I just asked people to buy 25 copies of my book and you’re asking for 400,000. What the hell?
0:24:28 That’s why you’re Marshall Goldsmith and I’m Guy Kawasaki. Hey, whatever. You’ve been under
0:24:34 charging. Yeah, I do a lot of work for free. So for example, I’m working right now with the nice
0:24:39 woman who’s head of the DEA. I don’t charge her money. I don’t charge money to the children’s
0:24:44 hospital people or all those people. I do that for nothing. I have two fees, either nothing or a lot.
0:24:55 It sounds to me like nothing or infinite. What does it matter?
0:25:01 If you’re a multi-billionaire, the amount of money is irrelevant anyway.
0:25:03 I don’t have that problem. So yeah.
0:25:11 So basically, I’m not threatened that I’m going to be replaced by my computer bot.
0:25:17 And the other thing is my computer bot has already answered 60,000 questions.
0:25:24 And how did you get the word out such that – I’m just starting to get the word out and basically
0:25:30 it’s already answered 60,000 questions. I can’t answer 60,000 questions.
0:25:34 How long has it been out? It’s been out for a little bit but it’s just getting better and better.
0:25:40 We’re just starting to release it right now to the world. The problem is I have so much demand
0:25:46 that if I’m not careful, I can crash the system. You’re going to be worse than crypto.
0:25:49 Your bot is going to affect climate change.
0:25:55 Now, the nice thing about me though, it’s all free. I’m not charging any money for mine.
0:25:58 Now are you charging money for a guy bot?
0:25:59 No, not at all.
0:26:04 You’re a nice guy. You’re like me. We’re nice old men. Just giving things away here.
0:26:10 I don’t know if I’m a nice guy or I just can’t get away with it because I’m not charging anybody
0:26:16 400 grand either. But you know what? We talked about this our last one. I would tell you something.
0:26:20 There’s no amount of money in the world that make you any happier than you are now.
0:26:26 That’s probably true. I can give you 25 million bucks tomorrow. You would not be one Iota happier
0:26:31 a week later. I don’t know about that Marshall. Why don’t we try that experiment?
0:26:36 I’m betting on it. You seem to be like a very happy guy. I’m a happy guy but I think you’re a very
0:26:42 happy guy and common illusion is that somehow I’ll be happier when I get money or this achievement
0:26:48 or that achievement. No, you won’t. Look at you. You seem like you’ve got a very happy life to me.
0:26:53 You’re a nice life. You meet interesting people. You do interesting stuff. You’ve done good for
0:26:59 the world. What the heck man? You got it all. All that matters in life is three things. One,
0:27:03 do I have a higher purpose? Well, you have a higher purpose. Two, am I achieving something?
0:27:07 You’re achieving something. And three, is it fun for me? You seem to be enjoying yourself.
0:27:11 My life is complete. There you go. What are you going to do with a few more bucks?
0:27:15 You’re going to buy a bigger house or a car or something? Who am I going to do it anyway?
0:27:21 I would buy a green Ralph Lauren Polo shirt. There you go. Now that’s a worthwhile ambition.
0:27:31 Okay, I have one last tactical question because we’ve covered it already but why doesn’t your
0:27:39 answers put citations? Why doesn’t it say, this is where Marshall discussed this. So if people
0:27:43 want to read more about a particular topic, your bot could point them to something.
0:27:54 I don’t know. I’m just curious. My bot does that better than yours. There you go. Oh my god.
0:28:01 This is like, you know, the odd couple 2024. We’re like, Walter Matthow and arguing about bots.
0:28:08 This is all good. And look, this is the future. Now, have you seen the Apple Provision yet? That
0:28:14 thing? No, I refuse to look like a dope with that thing on. Now, here’s what’s coming. Ultimately,
0:28:19 you’re going to walk into a room and I’m there and you can’t tell the difference. And you’re going
0:28:22 to be able to just there and have a conversation with me and talk to me. And it’s going to seem
0:28:28 just like the real me. It’s coming. It is coming. I believe that. I look forward to that day.
0:28:35 Whatever. It’s going to happen anyway. Option A, have some fun with it. Option B, sit back and
0:28:41 complain. So I’m going with the plan A on this one. I think, look, you’re doing good. I’m doing
0:28:45 good. We’re trying to help people. What the heck? Also, we don’t have total control of everybody
0:28:50 else in the world. I’m not naive. Look, I wrote an article 25 years ago in a book called Community
0:28:55 of the Future. I said, within 25 years, media addiction will surpass drug addiction. Alcohol
0:29:01 addiction combined is a social problem because of TV quality. Now, we’re there. Media addiction is
0:29:06 an unmitigated disaster in our society. I’m not naive. I know that. I know the downside on all
0:29:11 this stuff. The reality is, what am I going to do about it? Answer? Nada. I’m not going to change
0:29:16 any of that stuff. So my attitude is, look, I can sit there and whine about all the bad things that
0:29:21 might happen. So what? I’m not going to change them. Let’s do something good. Yeah, but Marshall,
0:29:25 what if everybody has that attitude about everything? What can I do about the modern
0:29:30 thing? What can I do about the solution? Nothing. My clients, my clients, if I talk and I start
0:29:36 sensitive to a butt, I charge them $20. So you see, you would have lost $20 right there when you
0:29:42 said butt Marshall. So I find them $20. Anytime I talk, they say, no butt or however, $20. So
0:29:45 one guy, he’s stubborn. So I’ve talked to him and he says, but Marshall said 20.
0:29:54 And I said, no, no, it’s 40, 60. He lost $420 an hour and a half. What’s your favorite charity?
0:30:00 What’s my favorite charity? Yeah, yeah. There’s a charity in Watsonville, California called Digital
0:30:10 Nest. And what it does is it provides training in like digital skills to basically kids of Hispanic
0:30:16 descent so that they have an alternate career path from agriculture to technology and other
0:30:21 kind of knowledge work. I love it. Well, you owe them $20 for the same thing.
0:30:29 If you give me the $25 million, I’ll give it to them.
0:30:37 So what is your thinking about this? Look, you and I are on the same path here.
0:30:42 My view is I’m going with this thing. To me, this is the most exciting project of my life.
0:30:47 For me, this is a lifetime. As long as they’re willing to support this, I’m going to put my time
0:30:54 and effort into this. I’m feeding this thing daily. I’m editing it all the time. I love it.
0:30:58 What’s the definition of legacy? Legacy is being there when you’re not there.
0:31:06 This is it. This is it. This is it. The only thing about this is, again, no offense to me,
0:31:12 it’s better than me. I’m not putting myself down here. If the reality is, it’s smarter than I am.
0:31:17 That’s not even a contest. It’s another planet ahead of me. Well, it’s okay.
0:31:24 I would make the case that when someone like you admits that something like this is better than
0:31:33 you, not only is it a sign of grace and humility, it’s also a sign of just how much class you have.
0:31:37 There’s a lot of people who would never want to admit that a machine is smarter than them.
0:31:47 To me, how can you deny it? I don’t know. How can you deny it? The thing is just smart, right?
0:31:54 And it can answer questions I can’t answer. And it can answer questions I can’t answer quicker,
0:32:00 better. And the other thing is, I don’t have a photographing memory. I’ve read and edited 55 books,
0:32:04 but I can’t remember all those books I wrote and edited. I can’t remember all that stuff.
0:32:09 My memory, by the way, is not getting better. This guy’s memory is getting better.
0:32:15 And I don’t say that to be modest. It’s ridiculous to pretend. Otherwise,
0:32:22 this thing is much more sophisticated than me. It answers in a much more thorough way than I do.
0:32:28 It’s okay. I’m not in a contest. I’m not trying to be smarter than a computer here. Come on, man.
0:32:33 But I think it’s hard for people just to grow up and face this, though.
0:32:37 Let me ask you a question. Why do you think it’s so hard for people just to say what I said?
0:32:45 Because they fundamentally lack self-confidence. That’s why. I don’t know what else to ask you.
0:32:50 And I know if I think of something to ask you later,
0:32:55 Madison and I are just going to go to your bot and ask and get an oral response,
0:33:00 and then we won’t have to call you back. What’s fun about all this is, look,
0:33:06 I think for both you and me, it’s fun. Look, it’s fun to do things that kids are doing
0:33:12 and young people are doing. What are you sitting around? What are you or I going to be doing anyway?
0:33:17 Playing bad golf with old men at the country club and eating chicken sandwiches and discussing
0:33:28 gallbladder surgery all day. I would be watching Fox. Here you go. Okay. 20 years from now, people
0:33:34 are going to find this episode of this podcast. I’m going to say, look at these guys back in 2024.
0:33:39 These two old geezers, they figured it all out. And we’re going to say these people were so smart.
0:33:48 Marshall Goldsmith and Guy Kawasaki leading the way at 870. I love it. I love it. I had an experience
0:33:53 here that was totally positive. Some young guy says to me, you know about this artificial
0:34:00 intelligence. They call it AI. Do you know anything about it? I said, no, I don’t know much about it,
0:34:09 but let me ask my friend. I don’t know much about it. Let me ask my little friend here.
0:34:18 That is reminiscent of an old film with Tony Montana. And he’s like saying, say hello to
0:34:27 my little friend, except it’s a computer. It’s not a machine gun. So the one thing I’m working on
0:34:35 right now with Marshall Bot is I want it to be more human. What I’m working on is I ask it some
0:34:40 questions. I insert some. If you ask it, how many languages do you speak? You know what it says?
0:34:45 I can barely speak the American version of English. So I’m trying to insert a little bit
0:34:50 of humor into the thing. So it doesn’t just spit back all of these smart sounding answers.
0:34:57 So I’m going back through it now and I’m answering questions verbally and I’m editing the content.
0:35:01 Look, the content, forget it. The content is great. The amount of proven I’m going to make on
0:35:06 the content is about that much. On the other hand, what I want to do is make it have more of a sense
0:35:12 of humor, a little more fun, a little more easy going, that kind of stuff. For Madison, she’s
0:35:18 probably sitting there shaking her head like, what are these two old geezers going off about AI? Oh
0:35:26 my God. I think we better end it now. Marshall Goldsmith and Marshall Bot. Thank you very much.
0:35:32 This has been a very entertaining episode and 20 years from now, I’m telling you people are going
0:35:37 to listen to this and say, my God, those two people were so smart back then. Hey look, it is
0:35:41 what it is. Thank you for inviting me. I always love talking to you. Madison, what did you think
0:35:47 of all that? I thought it was amazing. You guys are better at using AI than me, honestly.
0:35:55 That’s not saying that much, FYI Marshall. It’s all good. Hey, God, you ever come to Nashville?
0:35:59 No, I’m afraid. I’m a liberal. Nashville is a liberal town, we didn’t know.
0:36:07 Nashville is like Austin. Austin is in a conservative state, but it’s a liberal town.
0:36:11 Nashville is the same thing. If I ever get there, you’ll be the first to know.
0:36:16 Oh yeah, come to Nashville. I’ll take you out. We’ll go out. Do you like to sing?
0:36:28 No. Madison, left a good job in the city. I was working for the man. Yeah, there you go. Yeah,
0:36:34 we could go. I like to sing the karaoke songs. When I sing, I always get a standing ovation.
0:36:39 You know what? I’m 40 years older than the next singer. So I get a standing ovation when I make
0:36:56 it to the top of the stage. Oh my God, he finished the song. I hope you enjoyed this episode with
0:37:03 Marshall Goldsmith and I. We’re two friends and we both love AI. I hope you’re already on the AI
0:37:09 bandwagon. I hope you’re not standing in front of the bandwagon or under the bandwagon or behind
0:37:15 the bandwagon. You need to get on this bandwagon because it’s going to change the world. If you
0:37:23 want to see some attempts at harnessing this power, look at KawasakiGPT.com and MarshallGoldsmith.ai.
0:37:31 Behind the Remarkable People podcast is a remarkable team of good old humans. And these
0:37:37 humans are Jeff C. and Shannon Hernandez on sound design, Tessa Nizmer in research,
0:37:43 Madness and Nizmer, producer and co-author, and then there’s Fallon Yates, Alexis Nishimura,
0:37:51 and Luis Magana. We are all trying to help you be remarkable. Until next time, mahalo and aloha.
0:37:56 This is Remarkable People.