Mark Goldsmith Of Getting Out and Staying Out: Second Chapters; How I Reinvented Myself In The Second Chapter Of My Life

An Interview With Pirie Jones Grossman

Don’t be afraid to expand your mission. Once the agency was established, I was worried about taking on women into the program as clients. Today I wish I had been more open to that possibility.

Many successful people reinvented themselves in a later period in their lives. Jeff Bezos worked in Wall Street before he reinvented himself and started Amazon. Sara Blakely sold office supplies before she started Spanx. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was a WWE wrestler before he became a successful actor and filmmaker. Arnold Schwarzenegger went from a bodybuilder, to an actor to a Governor. McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc was a milkshake-device salesman before starting the McDonalds franchise in his 50's.

How does one reinvent themselves? What hurdles have to be overcome to take life in a new direction? How do you overcome those challenges? How do you ignore the naysayers? How do you push through the paralyzing fear?

In this series called “Second Chapters; How I Reinvented Myself In The Second Chapter Of My Life “ we are interviewing successful people who reinvented themselves in a second chapter in life, to share their story and help empower others.

As a part of this interview series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Mark Goldsmith..

Mark Goldsmith (www.marklgoldsmith.com), author of From Madison Avenue to Rikers Island: The Making of a Social Entrepreneur, is founder and CEO emeritus of Getting Out and Staying Out, a nonprofit that provides educational, vocational, job readiness, counseling and other services to young men who have been incarcerated. Prior to his nonprofit work, Goldsmith was an executive in the cosmetics industry for more than 35 years, rising through the ranks at companies like Revlon, Yves St. Laurent, and Almay before starting his own company, Inventory Management Systems, specializing in trading excess inventories of well-known brand names for media time at similar values.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we start, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?

I was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in a low-income neighborhood. The family business was a pushcart in South Philadelphia on South Street (now Society Hill) from which my grandfather sold fruits and vegetables.

We moved to Johnstown, Pennsylvania shortly after I was born and this is where I grew up and went to high school, graduating with 24 other students. I went to Penn State but was asked to leave after two years. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do the work, I just wasn’t interested.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

My favorite “Life Lesson Quote” has to be “when you come to a fork in the road, take it!” I never waste time and when alternatives are presented to me, I make the best possible choice I can and move on. Perhaps this is why I accomplish more than others who don’t make decisions as quickly.

You have been blessed with much success. In your opinion, what are the top three qualities that you possess that have helped you accomplish so much? If you can, please share a story or example for each.

1. I am a man of action.

2. I have a drive for excellence and hold myself and the people around me to a high standard.

3. I believe in second chances.

An example that encapsulates all three qualities is my having created Getting Out and Staying Out (GOSO), which is a nonprofit organization giving young men involved in the criminal justice system a second — and sometimes even a third — chance in spite of their records.

Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about ‘Second Chapters’. Can you tell our readers about your career experience before your Second Chapter?

It was purely by chance that I ended up in the cosmetics industry. I was making $6,000 a year pushing racks around the garment district, attending The Baruch Graduate School of Business. I applied for and got a $12,000-a-year administrative position at a perfume company named Coty that had been bought by Chas Pfizer.

Needless to say, I was a hero when I got home that night!

I successfully managed the launch of a fragrance called Imprevu and my managers said it was their best sales launch ever. This got me promoted to a marketing position where I doubled my salary again.

I worked for a tyrant named Charles Revson. He tutored me and he was merciless. But through him I learned the business down to five decimal points thanks to his tough management style. Most people who worked at Revlon in those days got fired, but I beat them to it by answering a call from Faberge. They wanted me to run their Brut fragrance business and work with Muhammad Ali and Joe Namath.

(This was an exciting time for me because I learned how to deal with celebrities, a trait that I eventually brought to the not-for-profit world.)

From there I took on the management of Arpege on the right bank of Paris and Yves St. Laurent on the left bank. I loved my time running fragrance businesses and even talked with Ralph Lauren about running a men’s line. Instead, I decided it was time for a change and left to run Almay’s hypoallergenic business, transforming it into the largest brand of that type in the world.

I then created my own bartering and trading company and ran that successfully before retiring.

That’s when my wife suggested that I become a principal for a day in the New York City school system since I have always had a great way with kids. I volunteered at the Principal for a Day program and asked for the toughest school in the city. Next thing I knew I was on my way to Rikers Island, which had a GED program.

And how did you “reinvent yourself” in your Second Chapter?

I realized that I could help young men, ages 16 to 24, to get out and stay out of the criminal justice system. That’s when I created a new not-for-profit called Getting Out and Staying Out.

Can you tell us about the specific trigger that made you decide that you were going to “take the plunge” and make your huge transition?

The honest truth was that I never really made a decision to do volunteer work once I retired. I found my calling by being able to relate to the young men on Rikers Island because I remembered what it was like at their age, when education didn’t matter to me and only music and sports captured my interest.

The trigger was when I asked the young men what they would be doing when they got out of Rikers, and they told me “the same old same old.” Meaning of course that they would be coming back to Rikers once they got out. That was the impetus that I needed to create something that would stop the cycle.

I gave them an analogy between a corporation and a drug cartel. I described the sales department of a corporation and asked them if they could sell. They said of course they could since most of them had sold drugs. There was no difference between selling cars and drugs. Then I did the same for finance, personnel, administration and so on. They realized that the skills learned in the drug business were the same skills that they could use in the real world. They could make even more money and not be breaking the law and ending up back in jail.

What did you do to discover that you had a new skill set inside of you that you haven’t been maximizing? How did you find that and how did you ultimately overcome the barriers to help manifest those powers?

Since I had once been incarcerated for drunken driving as a teenager, I knew the helpless feeling of being behind bars. Had I been Black or Latinx, I would have been sent to Rikers Island. I had no choice. I had to help these young men of color overcome the barriers to getting back into society.

From the start I found common ground and was able to relate to them. I knew rap music and I loved basketball. They had never met a white man in a suit and tie who actually talked in terms they could relate to, and who listened to their hopes and dreams. And more importantly, we talked about the three E’s: education, employment, and emotional well-being. They listened to me because I had developed a road map that they felt might work for them.

And for those who followed the plan, it did work. They earned their GEDs, some went to college, they accepted entry-level positions and made their way in the business world.

Furthermore, this experience led me to write a book about becoming a social entrepreneur in order to help other retirees unlock their potential to do good by finding a cause that turns them on and gets them excited.

How are things going with this new initiative? We would love to hear some specific examples or stories.

There are so many success stories from men who have benefited from the consistent support, guidance and encouragement they received from GOSO. These are men who have triumphed and risen above their past experiences. Instead of returning to the old lifestyles that got them incarcerated in the first place, they are seeking education, getting great jobs, having families and living lives filled with hope and promise.

As with any organization, there is no better survival test for than seeing what happens once the founder retires. When I left GOSO, I made the mistake of stepping too far away too quickly. I came back and got involved again and am thrilled to see the organization on track to make meaningful progress in its mission.

Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

There is no question who I am most grateful to for helping me get to where I am today. This story is now 60 years old, as that is how long I have been married to my wife, Dr. Arlene Goldsmith.

When I first met her, I was fresh out of the U.S. Navy, having arrived in New York City from Johnstown, PA. She was the one who suggested that I try a few night classes at NYU to finish my degree.

Then, many years later as I was closing shop on my bartering and trading company, my wife stepped in again and suggested that I volunteer for the program that eventually led me to found GOSO. Without my wife, 10,000 young men would never have had the opportunity to take advantage of Getting Out and Staying Out.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started in this new direction?

I was called to the White House to speak with the president about the results of my program. Even though I disagreed with most of President Trump’s moves while he was president, he promised me in the meeting that, in many ways due to the results of GOSO, he would sign the Criminal Justice Reform Act, enabling thousands of young men to get an early release in their time served. And he did.

This proved to me that you do not have to agree with everything that a person stands for to sit down with them and work out compromises.

Did you ever struggle with believing in yourself? If so, how did you overcome that limiting belief about yourself? Can you share a story or example?

I never really struggled with believing in myself. My problems when I was young stemmed from the fact that I was not interested in things like education and preferred playing basketball and other sports. This is of course why I never did well in high school and was invited to leave Penn State.

In my own work I usually encourage my clients to ask for support before they embark on something new. How did you create your support system before you moved to your new chapter?

What got me over that type of thinking was my wife and her belief in me. Over the years I created my own support system with my wife at my side. She was all the support I have ever really needed.

Starting a new chapter usually means getting out of your comfort zone, how did you do that? Can you share a story or example of that?

I was never big on creating comfort zones for myself. I always just did what I thought was right and let the cards fall as they may. I think that people who spend their time creating comfort zones for themselves run the risk of never doing too much due to their need to be comfortable.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me before I started leading my organization” and why? Please share a story or example for each.

1. Get a lobbyist to help me raise money through city and state governments. The story behind this is that once I finally hired a lobbyist, my funding quadrupled.

2. Think bigger. I was restricted in my thinking regarding the potential for GOSO. I only grew the agency to a $6 million budget instead of a much larger one.

3. Choose a successor. I did not have a successor in place. Well, I did, but he chose to go another route and I didn’t have another successor in mind, which was a mistake and an example of shortsightedness.

4. A board of directors with deep pockets never hurts. Don’t get me wrong, the board was fantastic with the guys and helped grow the program enormously. That said, it would have been nice to have new members in the 6–7 figure donation level.

5. Don’t be afraid to expand your mission. Once the agency was established, I was worried about taking on women into the program as clients. Today I wish I had been more open to that possibility.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

The movement that I would like to see gain momentum is criminal justice reform, starting with Rikers Island. I would scrap the current plans to close it, but would turn it into the finest jail in the country.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them. :-)

President Joe Biden

How can our readers further follow your work online?

My website is marklgoldsmith.com.

Linkedin.com/in/marklgoldsmith/

Facebook.com/marklgoldsmith

Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!

About The Interviewer: Pirie Jones Grossman is a certified Life Coach, TedX Speaker, influencer, best selling author and co-founder and co-host of the podcast, “Own Your Throne”. She has shared the stage with speakers such as Deepak Chopra, Elisabeth Gilbert, Marianne Williamson, Kris Carr, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. She coaches women on focusing on self esteem, and helping women reignite the second chapter of their lives!

She’s a writer for Thrive Global and Huffington Post. She’s a former TV host for E! Entertainment Television, Fox Television, NBC, CBS and ABC. She was Co-Chair for the Special Olympics International World Winter Games in Idaho and spoke at the UN on behalf of Special Olympics. She is the founder of the “Love is Louder” Brain Health Summit with Suicide survivor, Kevin Hines, focusing on teenage depression and suicide. She gave a TedX talk about, “How To Heal A Community from Suicide.”

Pirie has her Masters in Spiritual Psychology from the University of Santa Monica, California. She is a Sun Valley Wellness Institute Board member and lives in Sun Valley, Idaho with her two teenagers where she has a private Life Empowerment coaching practice.