Why don't we do what we know we want to do? Well, you know,

if I ask you to give me a profile of the 'you' you want to create in the future,

my guess, you'd give me a wonderful list of adjectives.

You'd describe a person who's in shape, who's a nice person...

Good with our family, happy, gets things done, productive,

rich... Why don't we become this person? Well, if you look at the statistics,

at least in the Western world, depression is kind of an all time high.

Employee engagement is near an all-time low. Many people are bitter, disaffected,

alienated, obese, depressed... Why don't we become the person,

that we want to be? Why don't we do what we know we should be doing? Well,

I'm going to make a little prediction. I'm the only teacher you've ever met that's

collected input from tens of thousands of people that have been to my classes, and

I measure do they do what I say and do they get better. Well, you know what?

I've got good news. The people that do this stuff, they get better.

I've got even better news. People that do nothing?

Well, they don't get worse. Years ago, my biggest client was Johnson & Johnson,

a wonderful company. I had the privilege of working with their top 2,000 leaders.

I helped them develop their Johnson & Johnson standards of leadership.

Every leader that went to our program got feedback, and I ask them all to

pick something important to work on, to talk to people, to follow up, and

we'll measure, did they do it and did they get better? Well, at the end of my class

about 98% of the people said, I'm going to do what Marshall just told me.

About 98%. A year later, about 70% had done something, and 30%

had done absolutely zero, not one minute. Now, I'm not ashamed of these numbers.

I'm proud of these numbers. 70% of 2,000 people is 1,400 people getting

evaluated by ten coworkers each...14,000 people have a little bit better life.

I'm not ashamed of that. I'm proud of that... And

I got to interview the people that didn't do anything. I said, Why'd you do nothing?

Their answer had nothing to do with ethics, values, integrity.

Johnson & Johnson was rated as the most ethical company in the world that year.

They are good people. You're good people. Answer had nothing

to do with intelligence. They're smart people. You're smart people. The reason

people did nothing had to do with a dream. Yes, this is a dream I've had for years,

and I'm going to make a prediction. You may have had this same dream...

Yes, you may have had this same dream on a recurring basis for years... And this

dream is going to describe why in life we all don't do what we know we should.

What does that dream sound like? Sounds like this...

You know, I'm incredibly busy right now. Given pressures of work, and home, and

new technology that follows me everywhere, and emails, and voicemails, and

global competition, I feel about as busy as I ever have.

Sometimes I feel over committed. I don't tell others this, but every now and

again my life feels just a little bit out of control. But, you know,

I'm working on some very unique and special challenges right now. And

I think the worst of this is going to be over in about four or five months. And

after that, I'm going to take two or

three weeks, and get organized and spend some time with the family.

And I'm going to begin my new, healthy life program. And after that,

everything is going to be different. And it will not be crazy anymore.

Have you ever had a dream that vaguely resembles this dream?

How many years have you been having this dream? Well, I've learned something.

There's not going to be any two or three weeks. Sanity is not going to kick in.

Why, there's an outside chance, tomorrow's going to be even crazier than today.

Let's imagine you're in a job where you've got to

make those numbers every quarter. Got to make those numbers.

Let's imagine you scored 20% above every target this year, 20% above all targets...

Why, what are the odds the big boss is going to come back next year and say,

Take a little break... Why, you're working too hard. Let's lower those goals for next

year. Is that going to be happening? No. What's going to happen to the next goal?

[WHISTLE SOUND] Those goals are going up, and up, and up... Well, it is always going

to be crazy out there, and we are always going to be under pressure.

The first reason that we don't do what we plan to do,

is that we have some dream that tomorrow is going to be different from today.

The second reason we don't do what we need to do is called the Planner Bias.

The Planner Bias...now what does that mean? The person that's doing the planning

is not the same as the person that's doing the executing. See, that person making

plans for your life is typically not sleepy, and they're sitting in a room, and

they're not working. And they're planning for all these doers to do these good

things. Well, they're planning for that doer, don't eat too much, and don't

drink too much. And you go work out... They're making all these good plans for

the doer. They're not doing the work, they're making the plans. Well,

the person doing the work is not the same as that person making the plan.

That person doing the work may be tired, hungry, bored...

There's a term called depleted. The person doing that work is just out of gas.

Well, the planner doesn't count on that,

because the planner's not the person doing the work.

The person planning the work is very, very different than that person doing the work.

That's called the Planner Bias, one of the reasons we don't do what we know we should

do. Couple of other reasons. One, it takes longer than we think.

We almost always underestimate how much time it takes to get anything done.

Two, it's harder than we think.

We almost always underestimate the degree of differences. And then finally,

this is what I call the High Probability of Low Probability Events... When

we make plans for our future, we never plan on a low probability event occurring.

You don't plan on having a car wreck, and you don't plan on somebody dying, or

you don't plan on somebody getting sick. Why, these are low probability events.

You think, Well, it's very unlikely any of those events would occur, and

if they do, you think, Well, what are the odds that would have happened?

Although the odds on any one low probability event occurring are slim,

the odds on some low probability event occurring are incredibly high. Why?

There are a million things that could happen. When I coach people,

I typically coach them for a year and

a half, and I tell them one thing... I can't tell you what crisis you're going

to have. I can guarantee you will have a crisis. I've never coached anyone for

18 months that didn't have a crisis, and I don't mean a fake crisis.

I mean a real one. Somebody died, somebody got sick. The company got bought,

the company got sold. Something always happens. So,

in summary, when you're making those plans, realize a few things. One,

tomorrow's probably going to be just as crazy as today. And

when you make that plan, don't assume that tomorrow's going

to be this different world,

where everything's going to be easier than today. And number two, realize that you

that's making the plan, is not the same as the you that's executing the plan. And

realize those people doing the work--they're not living in the same world

you're living in right now. It's going to be harder than you think.

It's going to take more time than you think. And then finally,

realize that no matter how much you want to think about the advance... And how much

you think we can control the future... There's always a high probability

that some low probability event is going to occur.

[MUSIC]