Mojo

How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back if You Lose It

By: Marshall Goldsmith

Narrated by: Marshall Goldsmith

Mojo is the moment when we do something that's purposeful, powerful, and positive and the rest of the world recognizes it. This book is about that moment -- and how we can create it in our lives, maintain it, and recapture it when we need it.

In his follow-up to the New York Times bestseller What Got You Here Won't Get You There, #1 executive coach Marshall Goldsmith shares the ways in which to get -- and keep -- our Mojo. Our professional and personal Mojo is impacted by four key factors: identity (who do you think you are), achievement (what have you done lately?), reputation (who do other people think you are -- and what have you've done lately?), and acceptance (what can you change -- and when do you need to just "let it go"?). Goldsmith outlines the positive actions leaders must take, with their teams or themselves, to initiate winning streaks and keep them coming.

Mojo is: that positive spirit -- towards what we are doing -- now -- that starts from the inside -- and radiates to the outside. Mojo is at its peak when we are experiencing both happiness and meaning in what we are doing and communicating this experience to the world around us. The Mojo Toolkit provides fourteen practical tools to help you achieve both happiness and meaning -- not only in business, but in life.

Lots of People, Lots of Stories

With stories of the lifetime of people who have asked Marshall Goldsmith into their lives

Reframing my career

Read during travel times as I reframe my career moving from New York USA to Auckland New Zealand. A useful tool when certifying as an ICF professional development coach. Thank you

Succinct, practical and well narrated.

This is one of the best self help books i read/listened to. I wish i listened to it few years earlier, it would have changed my professional trajectory.

7 hours of what should be 1 hour

Is there anything you would change about this book?

I'm sure the author means well, and he does make some good points. I probably would have enjoyed this content in a journal article or business magazine, or a one hour speaking presentation. But I could not endure seven hours of what should have taken one hour to cover. I gave up shortly after he spent 20 minutes describing how he sat next to 'Bono' of the rock band U2 at a dinner, and how great a guy Bono is. I probably could have stuck with it if he didn't speak so slowly and simplistically, as if he was talking to a 10 year old illiterate kid who has a hard time grasping new concepts. This may be an example of when it doesn't work out well for an author of a book to be the narrator of the audiobook version, and it may be an example of a 500 page book that would have made a better 5 page article.

Some Good, Some Bad, Some In Between

Mojo is defined by the author as “…that positive spirit toward what we are doing now that starts from the inside and radiates to the outside.” Another word for it would be flow – when we are at our peak performance. The book discusses both forms of Mojo – personal and professional – and the four ingredients that give us our Mojo: identity, achievement, reputation, and acceptance. It also offers a variety of ways to measure your Mojo and gives a link to a free Mojo scorecard on the book’s website. As a systems thinker, I love the idea that you track behavior over time and look for patterns, but to be honest, the process sounds tedious to me, and I am unconvinced of the return on investment. I also like the emphasis in the book on being present, but overall, the approach strikes me as being just a tad too simplistic.