A I WAT T

and the Empty Boat

Marshall Goldsmith
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Ive taken the position that

there is no harder task for adults
than changing our behavior.
We are geniuses at coming up with reasons to avoid change. We make excuses. We rationalize.
We harbor beliefs that trigger all manner of denial and resistance. As a result, we continually
fail at becoming the person we want to be.
One of our greatest instances of denial involves our relationship with our environment. We
willfully ignore how profoundly the environment influences our behavior. In fact, the environment
is a relentless triggering mechanism that, in an instant, can change us from saint to sinner,
optimist to pessimist, model citizen to jerkand make us lose sight of who were trying to be.
When we experience road rage on a crowded freeway, its not because were sociopathic
monsters. Its because the temporary condition of being behind the wheel in a car, surrounded by
rude impatient drivers, triggers a change in our otherwise placid demeanor. Weve unwittingly
placed ourselves in an environment of impatience, competitiveness, and hostilityand it alters us.

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When we take highly vocal umbrage at disappointing food in a restaurant by abusing a friendly
waiter and making nasty comments to the matre dneither of whom cooked the foodits
not because we regularly display the noblesse oblige of Louis XIV. Our behavior is an aberration,
triggered by a restaurant environment where we believe that paying handsomely for a meal
entitles us to royal treatment. In an environment of entitlement, we behave accordingly. Outside
the restaurant we resume our lives as model citizenspatient, polite, not entitled.
The good news is that the environment is not conducting a cloak-and-dagger operation. Its out
in the open, providing constant feedback to us. Were often too distracted to hear what the
environment is telling us. But in those moments when were dialed in and paying attention, the
seemingly covert triggers that shape our behavior become apparent.
The not-so-good news is that its hard to stay alert as we move from one environment to another.
Our circumstances change from minute to minute, hour to hourand we cant always summon
the ability or motivation to manage each situation as we would like. We mess up. We take one
step forward, two steps back.

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Moreover, we have a bifurcated response to the environment in which we display two discrete
personas I call planner and doer. The planner who wakes up in the morning with clear plans
for the day is not the same person later in the day who has to execute those plans. None of
us wake up planning to be angry on the road to work or rude to the waiter at dinner, and these
negative emotions and reactions take us away from our better intentions, our best selves, and
our best-laid plans, which makes us less productive in both extremely practical every-day ways,
but also, fundamentally as human beings.
Basic tools such as anticipating, avoiding, and adjusting to risky environments are a good place
to start correcting this conflict between planner and doer in us. But they are Band-Aid solutions
to immediate challenges; they dont alter our behavior permanently. One way to do that is to
ask important, actionable questions continuouslyin our lives in general, or about our immediate
goals more specifically and what were doing to accomplish them.

We are geniuses at coming up with reasons to avoid change.

We make excuses. We rationalize. We harbor beliefs that
trigger all manner of denial and resistance. As a result, we
continually fail at becoming the person we want to be.

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One of the most powerful tools to do this every day, in every moment, to actually be the person
you want to be instead of an environment-induced aberration, is with a simple acronym

AIWATT
Every endeavor comes with beginning principles that dramatically improve our chances of
succeeding at that endeavor. The first principle of carpentry is Measure twice, cut once.
In sailing its Know where the wind is coming from. In womens fashion its Buy a little
black dress.
I have a first principle for becoming the person you want to be. Follow it and it will dramatically
shrink your daily volume of stress, conflict, unpleasant debate, and wasted time. It is phrased
in the form of a question you should be asking yourself in any situation where you must choose
to either engage or let it go.
Am I willing, at this time, to make the investment required to make a positive difference
on this topic?

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Its a question that pops into my head so often each day that Ive turned the first five words into
an acronym, AIWATT (it rhymes with say what). Like the physicians principle, First, do no harm,
it doesnt require you to do anything, merely avoid doing something foolish.
The question is a mash-up of two bits of guidance Ive valued over the years, one part Buddhist
insight, the other part common sense from the late Peter Drucker.

Its Always an Empty Boat

The Buddhist wisdom is contained in the Parable of the Empty Boat:
A young farmer was covered with sweat as he paddled his boat up the river. He
was going upstream to deliver his produce to the village. It was a hot day, and
he wanted to make his delivery and get home before dark. As he looked ahead,
he spied another vessel, heading rapidly downstream toward his boat. He rowed
furiously to get out of the way, but it didnt seem to help.
He shouted, Change direction! You are going to hit me! To no avail. The vessel hit
his boat with a violent thud. He cried out, You idiot! How could you manage to
hit my boat in the middle of this wide river? As he glared into the boat, seeking

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out the individual responsible for the accident, he realized no one was there. He
had been screaming at an empty boat that had broken free of its moorings and
was floating downstream with the current.

We behave one way when we believe that there is another person at the helm. We can blame
that stupid, uncaring person for our misfortune. This blaming permits us to get angry, act out,
assign blame, and play the victim.
We behave more calmly when we learn that its an empty boat. With no available scapegoat,
we cant get upset. We make peace with the fact that our misfortune was the result of fate
or bad luck. We may even laugh at the absurdity of a random unmanned boat finding a way
to collide with us in a vast body of water.
The moral: Theres never anyone in the other boat. We are always screaming at an empty vessel.
An empty boat isnt targeting us. And neither are all the people creating the sour notes in
the soundtrack of our day.
The colleague who always interrupts you in meetings? He thinks hes smarter than everyone,
not just you. Empty boat.

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The aggressive driver who tailgated you for miles on the way to work today? He does that every
day on any road. Thats how he rolls. Empty car.
The bank officer who turned down your small business loan application because of a typo on
the form? He sees a form, not you. Empty suit.
The checkout woman at the supermarket who neglected to pack the small tin of gourmet
anchovies you need for tonights dinner party, so you have to drive back to the market
to pick up what you paid for? Shes been scanning and packing items all day. A three-ounce tin
is easy to miss. She didnt do it intentionally, certainly not to you. Another empty vessel.
I like to make this point in leadership classes with a simple exercise. Ill ask a random audience
member to think of one person who makes him or her feel bad, angry, or crazy. Can you
envision that person? I ask.
A nod, a disgusted face, and then, Yes.
How much sleep is that person losing over you tonight? I ask.
None.
Who is being punished here? Who is doing the punishing? I ask.
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The answer inevitably is Me and me.

I end the exercise with a simple reminder that getting mad at people for being who they are
makes as much sense as getting mad at a chair for being a chair. The chair cannot help but be
a chair, and neither can most of the people we encounter. If theres a person who drives you
crazy, you dont have to like, agree with, or respect him, just accept him for being who he is.
Don Corleone, the Godfather, must have been a closet Buddhist when he said, Its not personal.
Its business. He knew that people disappoint us or disagree with us when its in their best
interest to do so, not because they want to cause us pain. Its the same with all the people who
annoy or enrage us. Theyre doing it because thats who they are, not because of who we are.

We behave one way when we believe that there is another

person at the helm. We can blame that stupid, uncaring
person for our misfortune. This blaming permits us to get angry,
act out, assign blame, and play the victim. We behave more
calmly when we learn that its an empty boat.

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Creating False Positives

The common sense comes from Peter Drucker, who said, Our mission in life should be to make
a positive difference, not to prove how smart or right we are. The advice sounds anodyne and
obvious. Given the choice, who wouldnt opt to make a positive difference?
But Drucker is highlighting two notions that we have trouble holding in our heads simultaneously.
When we have the opportunity to demonstrate our brainpower, were rarely thinking about a
positive result for the other people in the room. Were actually issuing what I like to call false
positivesmaking statements to upgrade ourselves, often at the expense of othersand
they appear in many forms:
Theres pedantry. A subordinate makes a grammatical error in a presentationusing who instead
of whomand you correct him. Smart, perhaps (if the objective is punctilious grammar), but
hardly a contribution that improves the rooms vibe or how the subordinate feels.
Theres I told you so. You tell your wife the two of you need to leave the house at least sixty
minutes in advance to make an eight oclock Broadway show. She delays, you arrive late, and miss
the first scene. You turn petulant, needle her for ruining your night, remind her that you said

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sixty minutes. Youre right, of courseand proceed to ruin her night in proportion to how much
she ruined yours.
Theres the moral superiority you assert when you tell a friend or loved one that she shouldnt
smoke, that he doesnt need another beer, or that you would have taken a faster route
home. How often do these alleged attempts to help elicit a genuine thank-you from the object
of your attention?
Theres complaining about your managers, your colleagues, your rivals, your customers. (The
average American worker spends fifteen hours a month complaining about his or her superiors.)
When you complain, youre disagreeing with what someone else decided, planned, or did.
By definition, youre being disagreeableand adding the implication that you would have done
better. Its rarely a positive contribution, especially so if you do it behind peoples backs rather
than to their faces.
This is profoundly counterproductive behavior that achieves the opposite of its intended effect.
We dont instruct when we correct someone in public for a small error, or heal a sore wound
with I told you so, or cure peoples bad habits by suggesting they should be more like us, or
improve our superiors by complaining about them to others.

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These are just four random examples of what we do all day. From wake-up to bedtime, when
were in contact with another human being, we face the option of being helpful, hurtful, or
neutral. If were not paying attention we often choose hurtful, largely to prove were smarter,
better, more right than the other guy.
Ive come to regard the empty boat parable and Peter Druckers positivity advice as complementary insights. The Buddhism is inward-facing; its about maintaining our sanity in the
presence of others. The Drucker is outward-facing; its about confining our contributions to
the positive.

From wake-up to bedtime, when were in contact

with another human being, we face the option of
being helpful, hurtful, or neutral. If were not paying
attention we often choose hurtful, largely to prove
were smarter, better, more right than the other guy.

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When we lash out or belittle othersthat is, fail to make a positive contribution to a situation
were not aware that were being counterproductive. Nor is it our intention to be cruel, as if
we have chosen to speak our minds and Damn the consequences! Consequences dont enter
the picture. Were only thinking about elevating ourselves. Were trying to prove how smart
we are to an empty boat!
AIWATT is the delaying mechanism we should be deploying in the interval between trigger
and behaviorafter a trigger creates an impulse and before behavior we may regret. AIWATT
creates a split-second delay in our prideful, cynical, judgmental, argumentative, and selfish
responses to our triggering environment. The delay gives us time to consider a more positive
response. The nineteen-word text deserves close parsing:
Am I willing implies that we are exercising volitiontaking responsibilityrather than surfing
along the waves of inertia that otherwise rule our day. We are asking,
Do I really want to do this?
At this time reminds us that were operating in the present. Circumstances will differ later on,
demanding a different response. The only issue is what were facing now.

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To make the investment required reminds us that responding to others is work, an expenditure
of time, energy, and opportunity. And, like any investment, our resources are finite. We are
asking, Is this really the best use of my time?
To make a positive difference places the emphasis on the kinder, gentler side of our nature.
Its a reminder that we can either help create a better us or a better world. If were not accomplishing one or the other, why are we getting involved?
On this topic focuses us on the matter at hand. We cant solve every problem. The time we spend
on topics where we cant make a positive difference is stolen from topics where we can.
The circumstances for deploying AIWATT are not limited to those moments when we must
choose to be nice or not (although I cant overestimate the importance of being nice).
The question matters in the seemingly small moments that can shape our reputation and make
or break our relationships.
They also shape our day-to-day productivity, and that brings us back to our planner and doer
dichotomy. The triggers that distract, disengage, or enrage us in our daily environments,
whether its an impatient driver behind you on the road to work, an unpleasant coworker once
you arrive, or an unexpected request in an email, can derail our day. So we have to ask

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Am I willing, at this time, to make the investment required to make a positive difference
on this topic?
Is it more important, and more positively impactful, than what youre currently doing? Yes, sometimes making a positive difference can be meeting impatience with patience, responding to
hostility with humanity and humility, to let it goeven others errorsfrom the world instead
of perpetuating it. But, sometimes, it can be as simple as finishing the task at hand.
And sometimeshopefully many times in your lifeits making just a small emotional investment,
taking the time to reach out and make a positive difference in someones day.

Am I willing implies that we are exercising volition

taking responsibilityrather than surfing along the waves
of inertia that otherwise rule our day.

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What relationship did you miss by not introducing yourself to a neighbor? Why not thank a
customer for placing the order? What would it cost us to offer a soothing word to an upset child?
When we perpetuate or prolong negative behaviorboth the kind that hurts other people
and the kind that hurts us in some waywe are leading a changeless existence in the
most hazardous manner. We are willfully choosing to be miserable and making others miserable,
too. The time we are miserable is time we can never get back. Even more painful, it was all
our doing. It was our choice.
So, think about one change, one triggering gesture, that you wont regret later on.
Maybe its calling your mother just to tell her you love her. Or thanking a customer for his loyalty.
Or saying nothing instead of something cynical in a meeting.
Then do it.

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Info
BUY THE BOOK | Get more details or buy a copy of Triggers.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR | Marshall Goldsmith has been recognized as

one of the 15 most influential business thinkers in the world by

The Times (London) and Forbes. He is the million-selling author of many
books, including What Got You Here Wont Get You There and Mojo.

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This document was created on June 10, 2015 and is based on the best information available at that time.
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