MM#375--Defining and Developing Accountability

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Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life.

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Now here's your host, David Kaiser Hello.

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I am David and welcome back to another Mojo Minute.

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Now I'm going to make you comfortable today.

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In fact, I'm going to make both of us comfortable uncomfortable today.

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Today, we're going to get our head out of the clouds and we're going to eat some humble pie, and we're going to do so with a great book.

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In fact, let's go to our first pull quote for that.

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The three characteristics of executive toughness are accountability, focus and optimism.

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You will develop your executive toughness through daily practice of these 10 mental toughness fundamentals.

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They are define your win, create your vision of self-image, set product goals and emphasize process goals, prioritize priorities, complete daily performance evaluations, control your arousal state, know your scripts, prepare mentally every day, develop a relentless solution, focus and adopt Gable discipline.

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Now that opening quote comes to us from a fantastic book.

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Now, that opening quote comes to us from a fantastic book Executive Toughness by Jason Selk.

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This book offers us a mental training program designed to increase our leadership performance and help us to achieve our ambitious goals.

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Now the book focuses on developing three key traits that all highly successful people share, and we just heard them.

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They are to gain accountability, focus and optimism.

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Those are the three key traits.

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Now we're only going to focus on the first one today.

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You can check out the book for the other two, but we're going to go to our second pull quote to understand what it means to develop accountability.

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Go on to the book.

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Unfortunately, greatness rarely happens on accident.

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If you want to achieve excellence, you will have to act like you really want it.

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How Quite?

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Simply by dedicating time and energy into constantly and consistently doing what needs to be done.

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Most of us think we're invincible.

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Oftentimes we extraplate our sense of invincibility to convince ourselves that great things can happen without great effort.

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Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the best-selling books Made to Stick and Switch, capture our tendency to exaggerate our greatness with these statistics.

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Check this out Only 2% of high school seniors believe their leadership skills are below average Jeez.

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A full 25% of people believe they're in the top 1% in their ability to get along with others.

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94% of college professors report doing above average work.

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People think they're at lower risk than their peers for heart attacks, cancer and even food-related illnesses such as salmonella.

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Many people clearly have inflated views of themselves and their capabilities.

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Aspiring entrepreneurs want to make millions of dollars every year and simply know their idea will in fact deliver those results.

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But how many are willing to work with purpose and passion required to generate such wealth and simply know their idea will in fact, deliver those results?

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But how many are willing to work with purpose and passion required to generate such wealth?

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Thousands yearn to change the world, but they back down when the going gets tough.

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People want to live to be 100 years old, even though they don't exercise or continue to eat as they please, and they certainly won't stop smoking.

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Everyone wants to be happy, healthy and successful.

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However, very few have taken the time to identify precisely what they need to to achieve those very goals.

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This lack of connection between personal effort and personal outcomes promotes excuse-making and justification for being incredibly average at work and unhealthy and unhappy at home.

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Many of us simply don't hold ourselves to a higher expectation.

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Because of this, much of our work ethic has eroded and our ability and skill levels have indeed suffered.

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Accountability is the acknowledgement and assumption of responsibility for actions and outcomes, simply put, doing what needs to be done on a daily basis.

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Now, this is true of all of us.

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We all fall short almost each and every day, but we have to work at being effective and productive, being a good neighbor and being a good coworker.

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But that gap, that gap that Jason refers to, is what really caught my eye.

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Why and I know he was just spitting some truth, facts and nuggets of wisdom what does he call it?

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Again, this connection between personal or this lack of connection, rather, this lack of connection between personal effort and personal outcomes?

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It promotes excuse making and justification for being incredibly average at work and unhealthy and unhappy at home.

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But that's absolutely true.

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That's right over the target.

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And how does this happen?

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Well, frankly, as Jason puts it, many of us simply don't hold ourselves to a higher expectation.

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Let's be frank Our work ethic sucks and our ability and skill levels are not ideal.

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We have to own that Seriously, don't we?

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We have to own it.

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We have to be accountable for that, don't we?

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I think so.

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Yes, I know, I know you're uncomfortable Me too but let's stay here and be uncomfortable, because when we're uncomfortable, then we're going to look around and figure out how to learn.

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We're going to learn how to get comfortable again, but in the learning is a lot of nuggets of wisdom.

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Let's go back to the book.

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Being accountable in the business world is extremely difficult for two reasons.

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First, we allow our schedules to become overpacked.

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Trying to do too much creates the conditions for increased stress and pressure in our lives.

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Many of us regularly feel overwhelmed by the things that seemingly need to get done, so overwhelmed, in fact, that we reach the point of feeling as though we're unable to do anything at all.

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Cognitive dissidence CD is the second reason.

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Accountability eludes most people at home and work, and accountability eludes most people at home and work.

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Cd is the self-protection mechanism that we humans use to justify our actions or lack thereof.

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Our brains want to experience, or our brains want our experience to line up with our beliefs, our attitudes, our expectations.

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When there is a disconnect or dissidence, we become so uncomfortable that we tend to change what we think to align with what we feel.

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Often, that change involves justifying our mistakes, blaming others and denying responsibility.

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The increasing pressure we feel to get everything done creates a distinct self-preservation need to shield ourselves from feeling badly about our lack of personal competence.

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So we do what almost everyone else does.

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When they underachieve, we make excuses.

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Excuses are the antithesis of accountability.

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And Lord have mercy.

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Don't we see both of these playing out in our worlds, right in front of our eyes?

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First, do we allow our schedules to become overpacked?

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I think we do, don't we?

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We have a hard time, all of us.

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All of us have a hard time saying no to anyone or anything.

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We don't put up clear expectations on our schedule.

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Now I have gotten a little better at this, but I'm still nowhere where I need to be.

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My family and friends know not to contact me before 8.30 am because I'm in deep work.

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I usually start roughly about 5.45 or 6 am and I put that two and a half hour period in the very beginning of my schedule, so I can't get a lot of work done.

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Almost a lot of that work is doing these very podcasts.

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Now I block out almost all of my friends and family, unless there is a medical emergency, then you can call me.

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But other than that, that is the only progress that I've ever made in this scheduling department.

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I suck at it.

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Everywhere else in my life it's hard to say no.

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How about you?

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How's your scheduling going?

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Are you saying yes to anyone and everyone?

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Just like me, do you say yes in increased scheduling to only then have a packed schedule with increased pressure to get done things that you can't get done now that you've packed your schedule?

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So there's then the increased stress.

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I believe Jason is correct when he says many of us regularly feel overwhelmed by all the things that seemingly need to get done, so overwhelmed, in fact, that we reach the point of feeling as though we're unable to get anything done at all.

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So very true.

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That's a nugget of wisdom in and of itself.

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We have to work on our priorities in scheduling, and the number two reason for being accountable in the business world, which is extremely difficult to do, is because of this fact the cognitive dissonance, the CD.

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It eludes most people at home and at work.

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And before we dive further down this rabbit hole, how does Jason define this CD?

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Let's go back to the book.

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This CD let's go back to the book CD is that self-protection mechanism that we humans use to justify our actions.

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Our brains want our experience to line up with our beliefs and our attitudes and our expectations.

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When there is a disconnect or dissidence, we become so uncomfortable that we tend to change what we think to align with what we feel.

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Gosh, is that not prescient?

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That is a nugget of wisdom.

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Going back to the book.

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Often that change involves justifying our mistakes, blaming others and denying responsibility.

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So cognitive dissonance is everywhere.

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It's in our culture, the air we breathe, the water we drink.

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You don't believe me?

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Just look at the last presidential election we went through as a perfect example.

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One side is in complete shock.

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They can't fathom what just happened and we are four weeks removed and their leaders on that side are still not taking responsibility for what had happened.

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They had a $1 billion war chest to use for a mere 107 days of a campaign and they didn't win.

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And they're in debt by 20 million.

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That's beyond astounding.

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And their supporters well, they're still not coming to grips with reality.

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I mean, this is the equivalent of someone coming out in the Ohio weather, where I live, and not accepting the reality that the temperature is in the 20s right now and they just keep complaining that the temperature should be, it should be.

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They demand in the 80s and sunny Because that is where they are comfortable.

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That's not reality.

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That's not accepting the environment that you're in.

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Now we can talk about changing the environment and maybe we need to move to a warmer climate, maybe we need to put on a coat to stay warm and make the other preparations to live in this different climate, this different environment, but to stand out in the middle of the yard and complain about the weather and the cold temperatures is just simply foolish.

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That's borderline, mentally disconnected.

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And that is what cognitive dissonance is.

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Remember our definition tells us it's a self-protection mechanism that we humans use to justify our actions or lack thereof.

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And our brains do this to make ourselves line up with our beliefs, our attitudes and our expectations.

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And where there's that disconnect or that dissonance, we feel uncomfortable.

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So then we tend to change what we think to align with what we feel, boy, and that change involves justifying the mistakes and blaming others and denying responsibility.

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So how do we correct this today?

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How do we correct this today?

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What do we do today?

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Well, the first thing is we take accountability.

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And what is accountability?

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Jason tells us.

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He keeps it very simple, and that's what I like.

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We need to do what needs to be done.

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This is what I love about the book.

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Jason helps us in the doing.

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He helps us to put theory into action.

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And here's our accountability exercise exercise.

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Going back to the book Commit to full accountability for the next 24 hours, no matter what is on your schedule.

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Make sure to follow through with every single thing you said you would do and yes, when you said to yourself or someone else that you would do something.

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You need to find a way to get it done.

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That is true accountability.

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Whether it be a promise you made to your kids or a spouse, or something you said you would do for a client or a co-worker, find a way to get it done in its entirety.

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If you come up short, say the following word for word phrase I'm sorry, there is no excuse, and I will work on making sure this never happens again.

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Practice saying those exact words now, before you need to use them.

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Today may mark the first time you will have ever given a true apology for being unaccountable.

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Remember, an apology with an excuse or a justification isn't a real apology.

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Others don't feel better when they hear your excuses, so, frankly, stop giving them.

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Ah, that is so good, so refreshing, so so refreshing.

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So, in today's Mojo Minute, let us take accountability of our actions and, frankly, our inactions too.

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If we promise to do something, let us do what needs to be done.

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Let us schedule properly and then let us do what needs to be done.

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Let us schedule properly and then let us do what needs to be done, and if we fall short, then let us truly apologize without excuses, saying I'm sorry, there is no excuse and I will work on making sure this never happens again, and then doing the hard work to dig ourselves out of the hole that we put ourselves in.

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That's called taking your medicine and it's also called accepting reality.

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And, yes, there is pain when you have to accept reality.

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We've all fallen short.

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But the more times we can accept reality and have the humility of living an integrated life, the more times we accept reality and we have the humility of living an integrated life, then you and me, we're going to be on the road to a flourishing life, and that's a good thing.

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Let us live that integrated life by accepting accountability, without excuses.

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Thank you for joining us.

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We hope you enjoyed this Theory to Action podcast.

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Be sure to check out our show page at teammojoacademycom, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast, as well as other great resources.

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Until next time, keep getting your mojo on, thank you.

MM#375--Defining and Developing Accountability

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