Marshall Goldsmith Library

Marshall Goldsmith Library: "Successful people consistently over-rate themselves relative to their peers. I have asked over 50,000 participants in my training programs to rate themselves in terms of their performance relative to their professional peers - 80-85% rank themselves in the top 20% of their peer group - and about 70% rank themselves in the top 10%. The numbers get even more ridiculous among professionals with higher perceived social status, such as physicians, pilots and investment bankers.

MDs may be the most delusional. I once told a group of Doctors that my extensive research had conclusively proven that half of all MDs had graduated in the bottom half of their medical school class. Two of doctors insisted that this was impossible!

We all tend to accept feedback from others that is consistent with the way we see ourselves. We all tend to reject or deny feedback from others that is inconsistent with the way we see ourselves. Successful people feel great about their previous performance! The �good news' is that these positive memories build our self-confidence and inspire us to try to succeed even more. The �bad news' is our delusional self-image can make is very hard to hear negative feedback and admit that we need to change."