In Remembrance of Dr. Mark

By Deb Boelkes

A few weeks ago, a call rang into my office with a caller ID from the West Los Angeles area. Since my beloved business partner, Dr. Mark Goulston, resides in that area code, I immediately answered the call with a friendly, “Hello, this is Deb…”  

The caller cheerfully responded, “You don’t know me, but I just finished reading your book, The WOW Factor Workplace, and I just loved it! It was such a wonderful book, I just had to call to let you know. Thank you so much for writing it. Reading this book has been life changing for me.”

Instantly intrigued, I wanted to know what this gentleman did for a living. He surprised me when he said he was Dr. Mark’s barber for many years.

I had never received accolades about any of my leadership books from a barber before, so I asked the exuberant gentleman how he came to read The WOW Factor Workplace. The barber responded, “Mark’s wife offered it to me as a gift when she was sorting through Mark’s office.”

Baffled, I responded, “Sorting through Mark’s office?”

“I’m sorry. Have you not heard that Mark died suddenly about six months ago?”     

Hearing that was like a gut punch.

After I moved from southern California to Florida, Dr. Mark and I communicated by phone quite frequently while we were collaborating on The Wow Factor Workplace and its follow-on book, Heartfelt Leadership.  But after these two books were published, we spoke less frequently, perhaps a couple times a year. You know how time flies when you’re busy juggling multiple business and family priorities.

Struggling to recall the last time we spoke; I was stunned to realize that it had been a couple years. Yet, it was comforting to know that when we did talk, he would always confirm that he was still trying to gracefully retire and spend more time with his grandchildren.

“That’s the way life should be at your age,” I would encourage him. But now he was gone.

For someone who tries very hard to live a life without regrets, I couldn’t help but chastise myself for not deliberately calling him more often.  How I wished I could tell him, just once more, how much I loved him and cherished his friendship, and how he had always amazed me by telling me what I was thinking before I even realized myself what I was thinking.

What a rare and unique talent he had– articulating another’s thoughts and feelings, even better than they could, and before they could. I’ve never known anyone else with such a precious gift.

Perhaps that is what captivated me when I read his international best-selling book, Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone. Actually, now that I think about it, it’s what fascinated me when I read his first two best-selling books, Get Out of Your Own Way (co-authored with Philp Goldberg and published in 1996) and Get out of Your Own Way at Work…And Help Others Do the Same (published in 2005). But when I read Just Listen, I was uncharacteristically compelled to meet this incredibly insightful human being. I just had to get to know the real man behind the stories.

Upon hearing that he was to be the keynote speaker at a women’s leadership conference I was planning to attend in West Los Angeles, I was thrilled at the prospect of meeting him. It must have been karma that I ran into him on the lobby stairway as I headed to sign in at the conference registration desk. I instantly recognized him and eagerly extended my right hand to introduce myself and elaborate on how I believed that Just Listen was the best leadership book I had ever read.

Mark’s response was a bashful, “WOW. You make me want to be a better man.”

I will never forget that reply–it so typified how down-to-earth he was. When the conference concluded, he came looking for me, inviting me to schedule a lunch appointment with him so we could get to know each other.

I never would have expected we would become co-authors and Heartfelt Leadership business partners—a term he coined–but I’m so glad we did. Mark added a totally different dimension to my life, and to my husband’s life as well. For the duration that my husband and I continued to live in southern CA, we both loved every chance we had to get together with Mark over dinner. My, how we both miss those fascinating evenings with Dr. Mark.  

Looking back, it puts a smile on my face to recall all his quirky “Dr. Mark-isms.” He somehow always knew just what to say to break the ice or brighten your day. One of my favorite Dr. Mark-isms was his ever-endearing question: “What made you smile today?”

He used that one a lot, and in many different situations. I’ll share just one example here of how he used it when speaking to an audience:

One of the things I’ve been doing is, I’ve noticed these name-tagged, faceless people—the cashiers at Costco, McDonalds, the TSA agents. They have name tags because they are supposed to be friendly, but they’re warn down. They don’t know my name.

So, what I’ve been doing every day since then is, I will go up to them, and if it’s not crowded—I want to make sure they aren’t stressed—and I say the same thing.

So, this happened with Carmen—actually, a couple of weeks ago—at McDonalds. She served me, and I said, “Carmen, my name is Mark.”

So, I leveled the playing field, person-to-person. She has a name. I have a name.

“Thank you, Carmen!”

Just a Thank You made her pull back.

So, I said, “Carmen, I have a question for you.”    

She went like this [putting up both hands and stepping back].

So, I said, “No, you didn’t do anything wrong. Carmen, what made you smile today?”

And Carmen told me one of my favorites: She looked right at me—and she had this huge smile—and she said, “Seeing you, Sweetie!”

This sweet story is just one stellar example of Dr. Mark’s incredible empathy, his unpretentiousness, and his love of humanity.

It’s almost as though the Good Lord put Dr. Mark on this planet especially to uplift the depressed, the broken, and the downtrodden. He was like a firefighter, driven to run into every blazing inferno, determined to save the most desperate of lives.

Dr. Mark will be sorely missed by everyone who knew him. Yet we can all rest assured that his spirit and legacy will live on forever in our hearts.

May God bless you, Dr. Mark. I look forward to the time when we will meet once again in that glorious kingdom where you most certainly now reside. And I know just what my answer will be the next time you ask me, “What made you smile today?”

It will be, “Seeing you, Sweetie!”