The Habits That Held Me Back: How Cheikh Diop Applied Marshall Goldsmith's Lessons and Rose Without Losing Himself

Cheikh Diop sat in the boardroom on the thirty-fourth floor and watched the slow death of the man he had once idolized. Ibrahima Ndiaye, the director who used to command rooms with indigo suits, sharp facts, and unapologetic gestures, now spoke in the muted corporate murmur Cheikh had come to recognize as surrender. The compliance breach data glowed on the screen: years of deliberate concealment, signatures from Étienne Moreau and the legacy board members, exposures large enough to crater the firm in one bad quarter. The evidence was clean and merciless. Yet Ibrahima wrapped it in cotton: "proactive engagement," "collaborative remediation," "well within board-approved risk appetite." No names were named. No accountability was assigned. The room exhaled in relief and smiled. Étienne gave the smallest nod of approval.

Cheikh felt the betrayal settle deep in his chest like a stone. He looked down at his own hands resting on the polished table: still, folded, no movement. Neutral. Safe. The exact posture he had started adopting in recent months under Ibrahima's quiet guidance. When the meeting adjourned he did not speak. He gathered his tablet, stood, and walked out without looking back.

That night he sat alone at the kitchen table in his Brooklyn apartment. The refrigerator hummed softly. Mariama slept in the next room. Their four-year-old son Amadou lay sprawled under a blanket with one foot dangling free. Cheikh opened his laptop and typed the resignation letter in a single, unbroken paragraph. The subject line read: Notice of Resignation – Effective Immediately. The body contained one sentence: "I will not become the man I just watched." He attached the file, stared at the screen for three long seconds, then pressed send.

The next morning he arrived early to pack his desk before the floor woke up. He placed the empty thieboudienne container from the Fulton spot into a paper bag alongside his small Bluetooth speaker and the playlist of Youssou N'Dour tracks he had rarely dared play at full volume in the office. He peeled the Post-it note from his partition that read "I still believe the numbers should speak first" and slipped it into his wallet. As he passed Ibrahima's corner office the lights were off. The glass reflected nothing but shadows.

When he stepped onto the street the air carried the smell of impending rain, hot asphalt, and something new: freedom. For the first time in months the city felt wide open.

Two days later a former classmate from Howard sent him a text with a simple recommendation: "Read this. It changed how I lead." The book was What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith. Cheikh downloaded the audiobook and listened while walking the Brooklyn Bridge at dawn. The East River shimmered below like liquid silver. He bought the paperback the same afternoon so he could mark it up.

He read it in one sleepless night. The highlighter bled yellow across every page. The twenty-one habits stared back at him like old enemies he had never named.

Winning Too Much.

Adding Too Much Value.

Passing Judgment.

Starting with "No, But...".

Not Listening.

Making Excuses.

Clinging to the Past.

Claiming Credit.

Goal Obsession.

He recognized himself in each one. The way he interrupted to "improve" ideas that were already solid. The reflexive "Yes, but..." that killed momentum. The pride that turned every discussion into a contest he had to dominate. Even Goal Obsession: the tunnel vision that made him exceptional at risk modeling but blind to the human damage his sharpness caused.

He used his grandmother's silver bracelet as a bookmark. The bracelet she had fastened on his wrist the day he left Dakar. A reminder that royalty lived inside his DNA. He would not trade it for any title.

The following Sunday he prepared thieboudienne for Mariama and Amadou. Youssou N'Dour played softly from the speaker on the counter while the rice simmered with fish, cassava, and generous scotch bonnet. At the table Cheikh read the habits aloud. Mariama listened with her chin resting in her hand. When he finished she said, "You have always won too much. Even with me. Even when we argue about nothing important."

The truth stung because it was accurate. Cheikh reached across the table and took her hand. "I make a vow tonight. I will not carry those habits into the next room. Whatever room it is."

They created a family ritual on the spot. A glass jar appeared on the kitchen counter labeled "Feedforward." Every Friday they would each write one thing the other did well that week and one small, forward-looking suggestion for improvement. No criticism of the past. Only help for tomorrow. Amadou drew crayon lions with big smiles. Mariama wrote in her neat script. Cheikh wrote honestly, always starting with his own behavior.

Three weeks later he walked into Apex Capital for his first day. The Midtown building felt alive: glass walls that invited light, diverse faces at every level, an energy that did not feel performative. He wore deep indigo again. Tangerine pocket square. Silver bracelet catching the sun through the lobby windows. No gray. No apology.

In his first cross-functional meeting a senior quant presented a volatility model riddled with questionable tail assumptions. The old Cheikh would have leaped in, corrected every line, won the argument, and lost the goodwill of the room. The urge rose like a familiar tide: Winning Too Much roaring in his chest. He clenched his jaw and waited until the presentation ended. Then he asked questions. "Help me understand how you selected that tail assumption." "What data would shift your confidence in this range?" The quant relaxed, explained further, even thanked him afterward. The room turned toward Cheikh with curiosity instead of defensiveness.

He committed to Goldsmith's feedforward technique after every major discussion. He would approach one colleague and say, "I appreciated how you framed the counterparty exposure today. One suggestion that might make your next presentation even stronger..." No judgment. No dwelling on mistakes. Only forward motion. Within weeks people began seeking him out. Not because he was the loudest voice anymore, but because he made others feel heard and capable.

He maintained a private leadership journal using Goldsmith's self-assessment questions. Every month he asked himself:

Do I make it easy for people to speak truth to me?

Do I express genuine gratitude often enough?

Do I apologize cleanly when I am wrong, or do I rationalize?

He realized he almost never thanked people in a way that truly landed. Habit number ten: Failing to Express Gratitude. So he started a new practice: three handwritten thank-you notes every Friday. One to his manager, one to a peer, one to someone junior. In each note he included a Senegalese proverb. "However long the night, the dawn will break." He delivered them in person. His boss, Lauren, a white woman who valued real authenticity over polished performance, pinned every note above her desk.

Eighteen months into his tenure Apex asked him to review a junior analyst's pitch deck for a high-stakes client presentation. The old reflex surged: rewrite sections, add value everywhere, make it unmistakably his. He recognized the impulse as Adding Too Much Value and stopped himself. He read the deck twice, limited his feedback to three precise suggestions, and returned it with these words: "This is already strong work. These adjustments could make it unstoppable. The final version belongs to you." The deck closed the deal. The junior analyst, a young Black woman named Nia who carried the same bright hunger Cheikh once had, looked at him with quiet surprise. "You didn't take it over," she said. "You let me own it."

Cheikh smiled. "That's the whole point."

At a two-day strategy offsite he caught every "Yes, but..." before it left his mouth. He replaced them with "Yes, and..." or genuine questions. The team's ideas flowed faster and bolder than in any session he could remember. Creativity surged. He began mentoring Nia through the same habits, teaching her gently without the subtle poison he had once absorbed from Ibrahima. "Listen first. Let them finish their thought completely. Then build on it. Never bulldoze."

When a due-diligence issue from his previous firm surfaced during a merger review, the instinct to deflect blame toward the old company rose sharply. Habit number fourteen: Making Excuses. He swallowed the impulse. In the board update he said clearly, "That exposure originated on my watch at the prior firm. Here is what I learned from it, and here is how we have closed the gap in our current framework." No excuses. No finger-pointing. The board's respect deepened rather than diminished.

A severe market crash struck twenty months after his arrival. Volatility exploded. Positions bled value overnight. The old Cheikh would have gone negative in every meeting, loudly claimed credit for early warnings, turned every discussion into a proving ground for his foresight. The new Cheikh remained steady. He publicly credited the quant team that first spotted the cracks. He listened intently to every voice in the war room. He deployed feedforward in real time: "We are all in this together. What is one adjustment we can make right now to protect us tomorrow?" The firm emerged from the storm stronger than most peers. The board took formal notice.

Two years and four months after he walked away from the old building, Cheikh Diop was named Chief Risk Officer, the youngest in Apex Capital's history. The internal announcement emphasized his "exceptional ability to elevate those around him while maintaining uncompromising risk discipline."

He moved into the corner office on a Tuesday morning. Indigo suit. Tangerine pocket square. Silver bracelet gleaming on his wrist. Youssou N'Dour played quietly in one ear through a single AirPod. He stood at the floor-to-ceiling window and studied his reflection. The same man looked back: dark skin, the same determined eyes, the same natural rhythm in his shoulders. But calmer. More present. Fully himself.

He opened the feedforward jar Mariama had insisted he keep on the credenza. Inside were notes from every Friday for more than two years. He pulled out the most recent one from Amadou: a crayon drawing of a lion wearing reading glasses, with the words "Papa, you listen now" written below in Mariama's careful handwriting.

Cheikh smiled deeply and pressed his forehead against the cool glass. The city sprawled below, vast and indifferent. This time he did not feel diminished by its scale.

He had not shrunk to fit any room.

He had outgrown the need to prove himself inside one.

And he had done it by confronting the very habits that once propelled him forward, replacing them with listening, gratitude, ownership, and relentless forward focus.

The bracelet on his wrist caught the light again. Royalty inside his DNA. Still there. Stronger than ever.