Speaker Contrasts

In September, I had the pleasure of hearing two national renowned speakers.

• Marshall Goldsmith, a prominent executive coach to Fortune 100 CEOs. Sponsored by the Lake Forest Grad School.

• Doug Hall, a former P & G product development guy who went on to fame and entrepreneurial success by creating a fast track product development and ideation company, the Eureka Mansion.

Both presentations were rewarding. I was able to meet and converse with both. After the fact, I can sight one significant difference in approach. Marshall Goldsmith is all about sharing and helping. To paraphrase, he said that it’s impossible for you to steal anything from me. That’s because I give it all away. So by definition, it can’t be stolen.  In fact, he has a resource site where he walks the talk.In contrast, Mr. Hall’s sponsors (I’ll protect the guilty) promised before and after the presentation to share his PowerPoint upon request. It’s been three weeks and somehow they haven’t gotten around to fulfilling this promise to me or three other attendees I know. The sponsor had a different agenda.A great example of abundance thinking vs. scarcity thinking.In the words of Keith Ferrazzi, former CEO and author of the networking book Never Eat Alone:

“Power today comes from sharing information. Not withholding it.”

In the interest of enhancing the power of Mr. Goldsmith, a new hero of mine, I have ordered this and hereby plug his latest book:  What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.It’s a challenge for me to take the high road and not expose that promise breaking sponsor. They offered to pay me for referrals. But how do you refer an organization that doesn’t deliver on their first promise?To stay “on-purpose” with this post: Build your power through abundance thinking and avoid a scarcity mindset.