Accountability is a word that sends shivers down our spines from when it's been used in a manipulative manner. For many men, it's been tied to blame, punishment or shame. But what if accountability could be the key to unlocking the life you've always dreamed of? Robert J. Hunt, author of "Nobody Cares Until You Do," shares how accountability can change our lives from the inside out. Hear how Robert's personal journey has gone from debt-ridden and stressed to confident and purposeful, through the power of taking ownership of our choices and actions.

Robert challenges our preconceptions about accountability, revealing how it's not about punishment, but about freedom. He explains the difference between responsibility and accountability, how vulnerability plays a crucial role in personal growth and that accountability increases our confidence and self trust. This conversation with Robert will challenge you to look at your life through a new set of lens, encouraging you to take control of your future and create the life you truly desire. 

In this episode, you will be able to:

• Discover the benefits of holding yourself accountable for personal growth and success.
• Overcome fear and stress to reach your goals and live life on your own terms.
• Embrace vulnerability as a powerful tool for creating meaningful and lasting change in your life.
• Learn effective strategies for setting and achieving personal goals that align with your values and aspirations.
• Explore the impact of financial freedom on your overall well-being and happiness.

The key moments in this episode are:

00:01:50 - The Definition of Accountability

00:11:01 - Embracing Ownership

00:14:23 - The Need for Vulnerability

00:17:58 - Responsibility vs. Accountability

00:27:46 - Choosing Men You Can Trust

00:39:21 - Regular Goal Review

00:42:08 - Accountability and Vulnerability

00:43:55 - Overcoming Discomfort

Connect with Robert J Hunt

Website

https://nobodycaresbook.com

LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/roberthuntceo/

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/nobodycaresbook/

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/NobodyCares2022

Connect with Mike Forrester

Podcast Website

https://LivingFearlessTodayPodcast.com

Coaching Website

https://www.hicoachmike.com/

LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hicoachmike/

Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/@hicoachmike

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/hicoachmike

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/hicoachmike

Well, hello and welcome back, my friend, and this week we're gonna jump into

something where it's like, at one point in my life, and I know this is the case

for other men, the a word that we're gonna talk with, uh, Robert J. Hunt here

was considered almost like a swear word.

It was just something you didn't wanna be associated with.

You wanna shirk it off.

You don't wanna step into it because of preconceived ideas.

The truth is accountability.

Yes, that a word is the one thing that can really bring about transformation in

our life and the people around us because it's like, Hey, you're stepping up.

You're holding yourself accountable.

To make the changes and your word becomes good, people can now trust you and you

most importantly can trust yourself.

So we're gonna get into a lot here with Robert.

Really excited.

Robert's the author of the book, nobody Cares Until You Do.

And man, that is so foundational, so core, because if we don't care who is

going to, nobody's gonna care about your life and your actions and the

decisions you're making as much as you do.

So Robert, how are you doing today, my friend?

I am awesome.

Thank you so much for having me on the show today.

Absolutely.

Super grateful for you.

Wanting to jump in, share the message and set kind of like our expectation

and understanding of what accountability is, because it's gotten such a bad rap.

It does.

Um, you know, it, it's, it's one of those of like, keep it away with a 10 foot pole.

You know?

It, it just, there's a lot of.

Preconceived ideas about what it is, but when it's actually

used in a healthy manner.

And, uh, dude, it just, it is such a game changer.

There's the power in it that we just don't realize.

So.

It tends to be pretty punitive.

And when people talk about it, I'm gonna hold you accountable like it's a threat.

Um, but in reality, accountability is the freedom to live the life you really want.

I watch this by running.

I run CEO groups here in the DFW area, done it for 12 years, and I've watched

those people who are truly accountable, they rock, they're doing it, they're

living the life they want, they're running the company the way they wanna run it,

and they're having amazing success.

They're still going through hard times, but when things go wrong or

they have problems, they own it.

That's the definition of accountability is you own it.

But so many times we're quick to play the victim role and we don't even,

we don't even recognize it anymore.

Nobody says I'd like to be a victim, but they be that way,

that by the way, they do stuff.

When something comes up that you're accountable for, you

blame, you make excuses.

You say you can't do anything about it, and you wait and hope.

And we did all those things in our lives and in my business and we recognized

that that was ruin in our lives.

And it wasn't until we got to a place where we realized that, wait.

Nobody cares until we care enough to do something about it, that

we gain the power to change it.

And that's what accountability is all about.

It's the power and freedom that you have when you're truly accountable.

Yeah, shirking like those responsibilities and that accountability and, and

just what you say, I mean, that is like a slip slippery slope.

And I don't think we really look at the true impact or how it.

Impacts us personally or the things we're doing, um, until like you talked

about, you know, until you care and you stop and you, you, you take action.

That's right.

And, um, dude, it's so powerful.

Well, let's, let's start off, Robert.

What does today look like for you on the professional side of life?

My business is phenomenal.

Uh, we are, have been enjoying actually creating a business.

For the longest time it was a job.

I barely paid myself.

I was the hardest working, underpaid employee in the company.

And, uh, I, I finally got to a place where I took ownership for

what it would take to run a real business, to create a real company.

You know, most of the small businesses in America have less than 10 employees.

I. 80% of all the companies in America have less than 10 employees.

And, and the reality is that we we're not really held to a,

a, a standard of excellence.

When we run our own stuff, we can get away with murder.

And so I did for the longest time, I just made a buck.

Uh, but it was never scalable.

It was never consistent.

It was always frustrating.

But I, I've got to this place of living intentionally where I'm looking at my

life and my business and say, well, what should a business look like?

We know what a business should look like.

If we're not gonna be accountable, we don't do those things and then

we blame and make excuses and complain about it and say how bad

business, how bad the economy is.

All these excuses we love to throw out there, but it's really you

not running a healthy business.

So I've learned what it takes to run a healthy business, and I'm

being accountable to that, and I'm being intentional with my life.

So my business is awesome.

That's, that's amazing man.

I think it's interesting, like we can deflect responsibility and, and the

ownership and, and who's at fault.

Uh, so well,

yeah.

You know, it's not until like you're talking about, hey, yes, there is

the economy, there are other factors.

Sure.

But what can I do within this situation?

What actions do I have?

And I think that power is almost.

Like intimidating in some way.

Um, it calls us to a certain level that I think many of us wanna shirk

from, uh, especially when we're.

Know, having a victim mindset, so

nobody wants to shirk from it on purpose.

Like, oh, I, I don't want to be respon.

You would never say to someone, I don't wanna be responsible for my life.

You would never say that, but, but you act like that and it's become so commonplace.

We kind of praise each other for, for the victimization that we jump into.

When you're sitting around with your buddies having a beer at

the end of the day and you're talking how bad your boss is.

Yeah.

Your boss is a jerk.

Or, um, how, how horrible your spouse is.

Oh, she's horrible.

Yeah.

We all love to chime in and encourage each other to complain and.

Our lives, but nobody goes, wait, wait, wait.

Didn't you marry her?

Didn't you take that job?

Isn't that the job you took?

Why are you complaining about that?

Are you a slave there or could you leave?

You know, we, we don't jump on each other 'cause we don't want

to be having people do it to us.

We're like, yeah, it's horrible.

And it's become this society of, of whiners and babies.

And yet we're at the richest point in the history of our nation with the most

technology, health, and freedom in life.

And all we do is complain.

And it's because we don't own it.

You have the power to make the life you really want if you want to,

but it requires that you own it.

That's what the power of accountability is.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, on the personal side of things, what does life look like for you today, Robert?

In my world, they're really not separated because, uh, I take me to work every day

and I've learned just to be one person.

And so a long time ago I thought I had to be a different person in

order to be successful at work.

And it built this kind of.

Tension inside of me, where at work I was one guy and then I'd come home and I'd

somehow bring that guy home sometimes.

And my wife didn't like that guy or, um, I would, I would stay in that mode

and I was disconnected from my family.

And so I just learned I gotta be one person everywhere.

And so I'm me at work, I'm me at home.

It's the same guy.

And so that, that allows me to have my personal life is

just wound up into my work.

If my wife calls me at work, Hey, what are you doing?

How's it going?

I'm not like, what do you work?

I, I get to connect with her and, and enjoy her.

Uh, and then the same thing is if I'm at home and I get a client call from

a client at the end of the night, I give them, I pick up the phone.

Sure.

What's the, what's going on?

You okay?

And so for me it is, I'm living out my purpose in life.

I'm enjoying every day.

Every day is intentional of what I want.

I don't always get the results I want, but I'm being intentional as to

what I contribute to the day, and I prioritize what matters to me most.

So that always gets done.

And then the rest of the day I get done when I get done

and, and I'm enjoying myself.

So personally, I'm having a great time with my wife.

My kids are all adults and, and it's almost an empty nest now.

He's holding on with a claw if you get there as he finish up his

last couple semesters of college.

Uh, and I'm, I'm loved by the Lord and I have a great life.

So personally, things are going great.

That's fantastic, man.

Well, let's kind of step back a bit, Robert, like, you're

living an amazing life.

You're being intentional.

It wasn't always that way though.

No.

You at some point decided, Hey, I'm done and you know,

I need to worry about things.

I need to take care of things.

Yeah.

What was it, you know, what was like the straw that broke the camel's back that

Yeah.

Caused that shift, you know, both action wise and perspective wise

to get you to make that change.

It was 2019 at the beginning of the year, which we did every year we have

our, uh, getaway retreat, uh, where we'd spend a couple days talking about what

was last year, what was this year gonna be like, what do you wanna work on?

And, and in the last day of that time together, we whiteboarded

everything we wanted and we realized we weren't living the life we wanted.

We really realized it was us.

It was our fault, it was our problem.

It was 'cause of what we were doing.

So we resolved in December or January of that year, 2019, if for some

reason the Lord doesn't fix our problems and drop a big giant bag

of money in the backyard, that we're gonna sell our house and start over.

'cause we owed $90,000 in debt, not including the house or the

cars, and it was choking me.

My wife really had no idea how much stress I was living under.

But every day I'd get up and I'd think if I work my butt off all

day, I'll never get out of debt.

And it was haunting me.

And so we agreed, okay, this is the year.

If we just can't do this, we're gonna, we're gonna sell the house.

So by September it's, it's all in the book we wrote, but by September we realized

this ist gonna work, we gotta do it.

And uh, we sold the house.

We, uh, finally.

Uh, got it closed by March of 2020.

Took a little while to get it through the market, but we did.

We sold it, and we had enough money to pay off everything we owed.

We moved into this house that we live in today that we're renting,

and we started over and we paid off everything, and it was so amazing,

the peace that I had, I'd forgotten what it feels like to be in peace.

It's like that frog in the water, that you slowly turn the temperature

up and it cooks itself to death.

I bit by bit got used to living in a life of stress and I didn't.

I just didn't recognize it anymore.

It was just normal.

But when it was gone, it was huge, the difference.

And now at that point, we took ownership for it and decided we're

gonna look at all the areas of our life.

How about our marriage?

That's been under stress for the last few years.

How about our faith?

How about my health?

I was fatter than I'd ever been in my life.

And all these things were just, I wasn't happy with the life I was living, and

we decided we're gonna own it all.

Did you.

Did you have to change like your, your mindset and perspective to

be able to say that stuff and look at it that way, Robert?

Or was that something that was already in place?

I think I got to the place where I gave up, um, trying to postpone

and kick it down the road.

We talk about waiting and hoping as a strategy for when your life isn't what you

want it to be, which is a victim mindset.

And in September of 2019, I got vertigo for 16 days.

And I was like, well, geez, what if I might have vertigo the rest of my life?

How am I gonna work?

How am I gonna ever get outta debt?

And it, it panicked me and I thought, I'm screwed the rest of my life.

I'm gonna have vertigo.

It wouldn't go away.

We went to doctors.

Everything we tried, couldn't get rid of it.

And then finally it just went away.

Lord took it away.

But it was a wake up call.

And we always say that when where you are is worse than where

you have to go, you'll change.

And where we were sucked.

I did not like anything.

I. I was disappointed in myself.

One of the things that accountability requires is vulnerability.

And so we had to invite some people into our story to get this done,

and it wasn't until I was willing to tell a couple very specific people,

here's my thing, I owe $90,000 in debt, and my wife and I had talked

about it, but you know, it's just us.

We can bury it between us.

We invited in a financial counselor who came and looked at

our money and said, oh my gosh.

Or is this really how you wanna live?

And we told a couple other buddies that I really trust and said, I've

screwed this up and I gotta own it, but it's gonna be a long journey and

I want you to know what I'm doing.

Nobody can hold anyone accountable, but you can create a world where

you hold yourself accountable and that requires vulnerability.

So I invited a couple of my dear friends and said, here's

the journey I'm gonna take.

You don't have to do anything other than pray for me and ask me how it's going.

You're not babysitting me, you're not doing it for me.

I. You don't have to push me to do anything.

I just want you to know I'm declaring it to you that this is where I'm

going so there's no turning back.

And that kind of vulnerability created this peer pressure that we

need sometimes to get things done.

And uh, that's why people, when they go to AA meetings, they stand up and

say, I'm Robert, I'm an alcoholic.

'cause you're declaring it to people so you own it.

It's that kind of, uh, audible action.

So inviting people in was what helped us to get going and, and we were ready

by then, we were ready for a change.

Yeah.

I, I think it's one of those of the crisis.

It has to hit almost like a crisis point for many of us.

Yeah.

To where it's like, okay, I can't do this anymore.

To really put you in a position to take that painful, what we perceive as painful.

Yeah.

Action and, and change direction.

Sadly, when you have to hit the bottom to get that motivation.

That's why in the book we put an assessment and we ask people to take

a satisfaction assessment and score their personal and professional

life and be super, super honest.

How is your marriage compared to what you thought it would be when you got married?

How is your faith?

How's your health?

How's your finances?

Really, really honest, and if.

Then when you score it honestly, you go, okay, well why is it that way?

And what do you wanna do about it?

It's at that moment that you get to decide, do I want a better life?

Do I want a better marriage?

Do I want a better company?

And if the answer is yes, what are you willing to do about it?

Yeah.

I think the, the big one is how do I want my relationship

with myself, because it's like.

Too often we bury the stuff and we're not even honest with ourselves, and it's

like, okay, you know, or we become numb.

Like, you know, you had talked about like the stress level of what was going on.

We've just become like, like the frog in that pot where things have been

turned up and, and we've let things go on so long, it's just normal.

But it's not what we want.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Um, and

if you, if you had to tell somebody, if you had to let someone into

your world and really know your junk, they'd go, dude, really?

Is that how you live?

And you'd be embarrassed.

So what do you do?

You don't tell anyone.

You hide it.

It's like a secret addiction.

And it's not all bad stuff.

It's just dumb stuff.

Ev the whole world owes money.

People have a house, they have a mortgage.

It's normal, right?

We have cars, car payments.

It's a pretty normal thing in society.

I. But if you can't afford it, it's not a good thing.

So if you invite somebody in and you say, here's my world,

they'd go, oh my gosh, really?

You live like this?

But we don't want that.

So we hide it, and then you keep that cancer and it just stays with

you and it just breaks you apart.

That's why you gotta be vulnerable.

You gotta invite people into your journey.

So we've, we've used the word vulnerable and vulnerability a

couple times here, Robert, and that.

Often has like the misnomer, kind of the perception of I've gotta become weak.

Um, you know, really wimpy, I've gotta just lay things

out in a way that's not manly.

Um, what is vulnerability and how is it, you know.

What's the true identity of it, not the, the misconception we have.

Yeah.

One of the ways you can help be feel better with asking for help and, and being

vulnerable is change the phrase from, I need help to, I want help, because when

I say I want help, I'm, I'm acknowledging that I'm this smart to invite you

in because you're so good at doing this and, and I know you could do it.

I'm gonna let you help me.

And it really takes the power to me.

I am making this choice.

I'm not weak and, and, and so desperate for help.

I am smart.

I'm so smart.

I'm gonna invite you into my problem because you're gonna help me do it better.

And it, I think that's one of those things that is subtle.

I. But when I say I want your help, I feel like I'm in charge and I'm doing

this and you are, I'm, you are helping me.

When I say I need your help, I feel weak and insecure.

So vulnerability really is just being honest about

what's going on in your world.

I. For the benefit of getting better, I, I run a peer group, a monthly meeting

for business owners and CEOs who are very successful people who don't need

me to tell them, Jack, about how to run their business, but they do need to be

in a group with other people where they can be honest and say, I'm burned out.

I'm, I'm mad at my employees.

I'm not sure I'm gonna make payroll this quarter.

And we could be real, and we can get help.

We can do something about it.

But if you just wanna look cool and smart, and successful and perfect, then you never

tell someone, you never invite anyone in.

Nothing ever gets better.

You just still own the problem, but it doesn't get any better.

Yeah, it's almost like living a lie.

The facade and the masquerade.

Um, nobody knows but you, which is all the more intense because like if I'm

inviting you into my life or you're around me, Robert, I have to worry about

you seeing that my house of cars is, uh, not stable the way it should be.

Right,

right.

Um.

So we've talked about accountability.

Is that the same as responsibility or are those two just kind of.

Tied together kind of cousins in, in the whole way.

Yeah.

We use 'em interchangeably a lot of times when we're talking about stuff.

But in my way of, of sharing this idea that is responsibility is how you respond.

And accountability is where you take account for what you have and you

do something proactively with it.

So if you're an owner of a business, I, I talk about that a lot 'cause

that's the world I live in.

When you have problems with your employees, you take the

blame, you're being responsible.

But what accountable would be.

To recognize that people are gonna make mistakes, so we have to

have training to know that people get burned out and get tired.

So we have to set timelines so we don't overwork our employees.

It set margins so they don't get an overload.

Knowing that the world constantly changes, we have to train them.

So you are become accountable to what you want at the end by the

proactive nature of what you do.

Pouring into that situation, it's easy to say, yeah, I'm the blame.

But it's harder to say, well, here's, I'm gonna create a journey that avoids

the blame, that avoids the problem that where I have to take the blame.

And so in my own life, when I looked at, okay, I'm, I'm debt.

I owe $90,000.

What's the responsible thing to do?

Make payments till I die?

That's responsible.

You're not ignoring your responsibilities.

What would be accountable is say, this is untenable.

You must change something, and you must create an opportunity.

And so you proactively make the changes to the things you want.

You own it.

You don't wait for it to get so bad, you have no choice but to then respond to it.

It's just a proactive nature versus a responding nature.

Mm-hmm.

So.

Ties back, it sounds like, to the intentional decisions and

being intentional with your actions as far as accountability.

Is that accurate?

Yeah, proactively versus just responding.

We talk about this in the book where Salem, who's my co-author and my friend

who helped me write the book, he tells about a story when he was working in

a nuclear, uh, nuclear power plant.

They were having this problem with a motor and the purchasing

guy bought a replacement motor, but it was gonna be 21 days out.

And he goes, well, we lose $70,000 a day.

Are you really gonna wait 21 days to get this part?

And he had bought the part.

He thought he was being responsible.

That's my job.

I'm the purchasing guy.

I did it, but doing something is not doing the thing.

Me making minimum payments on my credit card was doing something.

What I needed to do was to figure out a way to get the whole thing gone.

'cause if Vertigo came back, I wouldn't be able to work and I would be broke.

And so I've gotta do something proactively.

That's the difference.

So if a guy is at that point, Robert, where he is like, I'm done.

I'm, I'm just exhausted, I need something different.

What would you say are like.

What's the first step, obviously, but what's a couple of steps beyond that

that puts them on the path to being accountable and actually changing

their situation to get them on that path towards, Hey, this is the life

I do wanna live that we talked about.

Well, the first thing is just practice the art of not being a victim.

And one of the ways you do that is just by being aware of the times that you do.

So go to our website, take the satisfaction assessment.

Even if you never bought the book, you can take the assessment for free.

You don't have to give us your information.

Write out all these things in your personal, professional life and

declare how satisfied you are or not.

And then when you look at the reasons why you're not, if the

reason is you make excuse, you blame.

You say you can't or you're gonna wait and hope it gets better.

You're playing the role of a victim.

So the first thing really is just to identify those trends that

we've become used to for so long.

We just gotta start by being aware, and then once you're aware, you

can invite people into the journey.

That's where the vulnerability comes.

And a little bit of peer pressure goes a long way to have us do

what we know we should be doing.

When you, you make a plan, just take one thing and just practice

the awareness of not being a victim.

Having someone to walk the journey with you and just make a plan.

We, we talk about in the book that you get to this place where your journey sucks

so much that you just stop and go, look, nobody cares until I do and I don't wanna

be here anymore, so I'm gonna change.

And so the second half of the book.

Talks about acknowledge the reality, embrace the suck, find

a solution and make it happen.

So we teach you to be aware of the role that you play as a

victim and how to stop doing that.

And then we have a teach you how to have a plan to move forward

to the life you really want.

We don't.

Tell you how to live your life or what to do step by step.

But we give you the tools that will help you own every area of your

life that you're ready to tackle.

And I wasn't ready to tackle every area of my life that first day we got outta debt.

I still had quite a, a lot of bad habits that I need to address.

That one thing of owning it.

Truly owning it gave me so much power and, and hope and encouragement to go

look at the other areas of my life.

So just take one area, maybe a simple one.

Maybe it's just your finance.

Well, maybe finances are hard.

Maybe it's just your time, you know, or your company.

Whatever you wanna do.

Pick a category and just practice being aware that you're playing a victim.

Stop it and make a plan to to own it and change it.

And when you learn those tools and how it works, you can apply

it to every area of your life.

So as part of like this activity, this assessment is part of it looking

at, like you talked about, you know, being aware of the suck is part

of that being aware to say, Hey, yeah, I'm going to sell my house.

Hey, this is gonna be the cost to get from where I'm at, that.

You know, really stinks to where I want to get to and it's gonna

take some time and effort and again be, you know, potentially rough.

Is that something that's part of that as well?

Yeah, the process is acknowledge reality.

I mean, really, really be honest with yourself.

We talk about standing in a, in front of a 360 mirror naked,

there's nothing to hide, baby.

You know what you look like when you're in a 360 mirror.

It's that kind of vulnerability to the truth of the moment that

you're at that we want you to take.

What are you really, really dealing with here?

And then when you look at that and you say, okay, this is where I'm at.

Embrace the idea that it's gonna be hard to get that done.

That's embrace the suck.

But once you've got your head past the pain and you're looking at, I'm in a

bad spot, it's gonna suck to change the solution usually just manifests itself.

We didn't have a plan at the beginning of the year.

Before 2019 to sell our house.

'cause nobody sells their house to fix their bills.

That's insane.

Cut off your nose, spite your face.

Right.

I'm just gonna have to go pay rent somewhere else.

What's a man?

There was so much emotion attached to the idea of selling our house, that

that was not on the radar at all.

But when we got to a place where we realized I don't like my life, and

we embraced that the change was gonna suck, that then became an option.

That thing, which would be ridiculous before now became well maybe so.

So when you get to the place where you say, I'm done, I'm changing

it now, everything's an option.

Things you would never consider before and you just gear up

to go, okay, it's gonna suck.

Let's look around.

What are my choices?

And I'm telling you, the solutions will appear.

And if you're really struggling, invite, that's, that's vulnerability again.

Invite someone into your journey and let them know what you've got and

they, and seek counsel from other people who you respect and let them

help you make the best decision.

So we're talking about inviting other people to hold us accountable, like to

share where we're at and what's going on.

What are some characteristics or um, uh.

You know, habits, like what are we looking for in somebody that's right

to be trusted, um, for that kind of.

Activity.

Yeah.

Not to over, not to beat this phrase up a lot, but we've gotta stop using

the phrase, hold me accountable.

'cause nobody can hold me accountable.

I can lie to you and tell you anything I want you to hear, and

I'm not accountable at that moment.

But if you're gonna truly invite someone in.

To walk the journey with you.

They've gotta be someone that you respect and and will listen to, but also they

have to be the kind of person that will stand up for a healthy version of you.

Usually the people that allowed you and cheered you on to ruin

your life will not be the ones to help you clean it up usually.

Um, I, I, we had to, we had to share our journey with certain people that

we knew would say, good for you.

What do you want to do?

Because they had a lot of people saying, that's insane.

You don't sell your house.

You gotta figure out, go to Dave Ramsey's, you know, get on an

eight year plan to get outta debt.

Dude, if I got vertigo again next six month, I don't have eight years.

I, I can't wait for this thing to come around.

And, and I needed people who would buy into my future vision of being

the best version of myself and taking accountability for this.

But there's an awful lot of people who have guilt for their own journey

and they don't want you getting better 'cause it makes them look bad.

They don't, they don't have their own junk organized anyway, and

you're just a zealot, settle down little boy, and those are the people

that are gonna wanna hold you back.

So, you know, find those people that will encourage you to be the

best version of yourself and, and bring those people around you.

And don't stop being friends to the other people, but just

don't go to them for counsel.

You need someone who's gonna help you be that best version of you.

I think one of the hardest lessons on that, Robert, that I learned was that

sometimes family, as much as you want to trust them, are not in the place

themselves to be trusted in that way.

Yeah.

Um, it's not that they're bad, it's just that's their belief and they're on path.

It's different than the one you're setting out on, like you talked about,

you know, Hey, this is super extreme, you know, it's like, what's the logic

in selling our house to pay our bills?

It's, it's a tall order and very radical for some people, and it's like, but if

you succeed and that becomes the way out, then it puts the, you know, the people

that are like going, well wait a minute.

Then they have to kind of look at and go, do I want to take

those kind of actions as well?

Yeah.

So, um.

And they're not ready.

Most people are not.

Yeah.

We're really good at looking at everyone else's life and figuring

out how screwed up they are, but we don't like looking at our own junk.

Yeah, that's so true.

Yeah.

I think there's, there's.

Patience and time that you need to take to really choose those, to walk

through the journey and the process with you, rather than just going,

you know, Hey, I've got three people.

Cool.

They may not be the right ones, and they, they may be the anchor

that pulls you in the wrong direction and kind of sabotage you.

Yeah, we actually paid some guy to come to our house and look at our money with us

and paid him $250 every time he showed up.

Here we are trying to get outta debt.

We're paying some guy two $50 to come sit at our house, but

we wanted real accountability.

We wanted someone who wouldn't.

Deal with the emotional side.

Well, you deserve cable.

Well, you deserve to be a member at that gym.

We wanted someone who said, tell me your goal.

I'll help you make sure you stay on your goal.

There was no emotion in his world attached to our decisions.

He would just say, that's a lot of money.

What else can you do?

And we needed someone who didn't, uh, keep us from being the person we wanted to be.

Yeah, as, as good as the intentions of, of family and friends can be.

Sometimes they're cautious of offending us with the answer and they'll couch

it, which doesn't give us like that nitrous, nitrous oxide to, uh, to make

the progress that we're looking for.

That's why we have a coach.

Right?

You know?

Yeah.

A coach is not emotionally attached to your problems.

And when you meet with someone and they say something, you go, well, that's

opposite of what you told me last time.

Why are you saying that now?

We don't have any reason to pull punches.

We're not, we're not emotionally attached to your journey, but family is.

Yeah.

So you may, you and your wife made this radical decision.

You sold your house.

What were some of the things you expected to change, and then what

were some of the unexpected benefits now that you're able to look at in

hindsight from taking that action?

Well, we just wanted to get outta debt.

I mean, that was the heartbeat.

It, we, it, it just trying to live under debt was, was too burdensome.

Uh, so we wanted to fix that.

I had no idea how much of a weenie I'd become while I was suffering under debt.

I looked, I lived in fear.

If I lost a client, I, I could go bankrupt 'cause I, I don't have enough money.

So I became so fearful of everything and so much worry and anxiety.

I had no idea how much I had.

I lost that drive and confidence.

But when I got out of debt, I had total confidence I could call up

any CEO in the, in the area, go, Hey, I know you don't know me, but

I do this and you don't talk to me.

Okay, have a good day.

Move on.

It wasn't crushing my ego 'cause I felt so good about myself that I'd owned my.

My life and made the right change.

It was so much power and so much clarity.

You know, when you're overwhelmed, you don't have creativity.

Overwhelmed.

We can have another call in the, in the future and talk about overload and

the effects of overload in our lives.

But overload, ru ruins creativity.

You live in fear and panic, and if, if you hinge your identity on something you

can lose, you're gonna always work in fear and, and thinking you're gonna lose this.

You're gonna have fear and worry.

And so that's how I lived.

So my confidence, my boldness, my joy, uh, was just over, out, out the roof.

It was awesome.

It's, it's often you can see some of the benefits, but it's.

Like, I think the personal, um, internal changes that, you know, come as the

unexpected benefits where you're like, like you talked about, I'm not tied to

somebody's reaction to what I'm doing.

I now feel more confident and I. I don't know about you, Robert, but it's like

I could always use more confidence, especially when I was playing that victim

role and looking for it and going like, okay, I have this insatiable appetite

that's never feeding, you know, or filling this bottomless pit where it's like, I.

Now what?

You know, I need to be validated.

I need to be approved.

And it's like when that, that stuff is gone, dude, you've talked about

just like this amazing freedom and also this elevation in how

you see yourself and step out.

Mm-hmm.

Which.

I'm assuming then created more opportunities for you because you're

not playing from like a weaker position.

Is that accurate?

Yeah, everything was an option.

You know, Kathy and I went to marriage counseling.

Um, I realized that during Covid I drank an awful lot of bourbon and, and that

with chips and snacks and not going to the gym, I just gained so much weight

and so I started looking at my health and realizing the bad habits I had picked up.

During that time, I looked at my friendships that were weak.

At best, I looked at my faith.

I looked at all the things that we were involved in and how we just were

kind of going with whatever we got.

We weren't actually creating a vision of what we wanted and going chasing it,

but with the power and the confidence of the first thing done, it fueled

the bill to go do something else.

And then when I did that and I did that, I realized I can

change everything We always say.

When you take accountability for everything in your life, you gain the

power to change anything in your life.

Whether it's horribly awkward or incredibly difficult, it doesn't matter.

You can change 'em all and it's still gonna take time.

We equate in the story, these journeys, like climbing a mountain, it takes

a long time to climb a mountain, a lot of prep, a lot of hard work.

So all these things that we tackled in the last few years have been really hard work.

But I tackled them.

I'm owning it.

I'm on a progress towards it.

I'm still in that rental house.

Five years later, I'm still here.

'cause I'm not gonna buy a house.

I gotta rebuild my retirement.

Someday I won't be able to work anymore and I don't have any

retirement money set up, not enough.

And so I've gotta start doing that.

So to throw money in a house doesn't make sense.

'cause we're living intentionally about what do I want my life to

look like and my life does not look like the kind of house I live in.

It looks like the wife I have who every night when I go to bed has, I

have my arm around her and my life is good 'cause she's there and I have a,

I have calm and peace in my life and friendships and rich moments of enjoying

these these days without fear and worry.

That's what I want.

That's what I got.

There's other stuff we're gonna work on, but we'll be doing that till we're dead.

Yeah.

I think that's the difference is being willing to work on things to

continue to improve and not expecting, Hey, I should have arrived by now.

You know, I'm whatever age there's this false expectation that, you know, we

have and may have come from somebody else, but it's like, okay, how can I

continue to go, uh, the distance and, and continue to growing and developing myself?

Um.

As far as like you've talked about, hey, this is gonna be a long

journey, you know, it's, you're gonna have to go some distance.

How do you see guys be able to stay in like that charge mode to be stay engaged?

Is it the accountability or is it a mindset or what keeps you

going the distance, even when it's like, you know, you talked

about five years now in the house.

What keeps you going?

Um.

The distance to finish things out.

Yeah, it's vulnerability and we've talked about that a lot.

I have a couple dear friends that know my life very personally besides my wife and

I invite them into my journey every year.

This is what I'm working on this year.

This is what I'm due.

And then we walk together.

I. Sometimes they're sharing the journey.

Sometimes they've got their own thing they're working on,

but they'll check in with me.

I think, uh, having friends who will ask you and care for you

while you do that keeps it alive.

But I put it in writing and I declare it.

And so when I have my clients at the beginning of the year, we say,

what are we gonna do for the year?

And I share my goals too.

And so, you know, one of the reasons l leaders don't write

down their goals is 'cause they don't wanna be accountable to 'em.

'cause you write it down, now you gotta do it right.

So you just don't tell your employees anything.

Just, you know, make up your mind as you go.

I declare it to my clients, this is where we're going this year and

you guys are with me, and here's what life's gonna look like.

The more you regularly expose what you want to other people who

can walk in the journey with you, the more fuel it keeps going.

'cause peer pressure's huge.

I. It's all the things that we did bad as kids were for peer pressure.

Well, it's a good peer pressure now.

Now it's the kind of peer pressure that cheers you on or, or brings a

resource when you need it the most.

So I think continually re-looking at your life and evaluating where you want

to be and where you're satisfied or not, and then making an intentional plan

each year and inviting people to know what you're working on has what has kept

it alive and and flourishing for us.

Hmm.

So you're looking at your goals, your objectives as you're going

along throughout the year.

Yeah.

Is there any, if I find out Robert's seven months down the road, Hey, I

thought I really wanted this, but that's gonna put me off target.

I actually need to do this.

Do we have the freedom to change things?

Yeah.

In, in.

In process.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's your life.

You get to do whatever you wanna do.

What you don't wanna do is weasel out of it because it got hard.

This is where you set goals and and timelines and you share with people.

And as it's getting really hard, you say it's getting really hard.

And let people encourage you as you walk that and you might find out that you

don't want to do anything about this.

After all, I wanna chase something else instead.

It's really not about getting to the top of the mountain, it's

about learning to climb the.

'cause if I have a tool that teaches me how to deal with everything in my

life, there's nothing that's off limits.

And I could intentionally chase the life I want, whatever category I want.

But if I'm doing something to really be healthy and something

to really manage my finances and something to work in my marriage,

and I just go, you know, right now.

I'll be fat for a little while longer.

I'll just kinda let that one roll and I'll buy a bigger shirt.

But right now I'm working on doing this as long as you own it.

If you could tell someone, I've decided I'm gonna stay fat a little

longer, and I'm okay with it.

I don't like it, but I'm okay with it compared to where I'm going here, and you

own that and don't be a weasel about it.

Then, yeah, you could change your mind and adjust as you go.

You move your focus.

We do that in companies.

We say, here's our plan.

This is our strategy, what we wanna do, this is the plan.

We're gonna go to do that.

And then we might find out the economy's bad or, or market's not doing this,

so let's pivot and let's go do this.

That's very normal.

Why can't we do that in our own personal lives?

Yeah, the, uh, oftentimes we don't give ourselves that freedom to course correct.

It's, I'm stuck on the objective and, and I can't change it.

So I just wanted to, to touch base on that.

I, I do want to ask like, how often are you looking at your goals to

keep it fresh and top of mind?

And then how often are you checking in with, um.

The, the guys that you've asked to be on the journey with you and you know,

are there specific questions that you're having them ask you so that you know

they're not couching it and you are not, uh, avoiding it or lying to them?

There's a lot of questions there.

I, I look at, sorry, Robert, I look at it weekly.

Uh, I have something called the water line.

And, uh, when a boat sits in the water, anything that happens above

the waterline is no big deal.

Anything below is a big deal.

And so for my life and my business, I created a waterline where when

it comes to these decisions, Kathy and I have to make 'em together.

And we really have to spend time praying about these and make decisions based in

the light of our purpose and our goals.

Everything else, who cares?

Anyone can make that decision.

But weekly I look at my, my Waterline, which includes my core

values and my goals for the year.

And so I'm weekly.

What I wanna achieve and I, my calendar that calendar.

Quarterly, no.

Monthly I meet with the peer groups that I lead.

One of 'em is called the Trusted Advisor Group, and I share with

them my progress against my goals.

It's on a name placard that I sit at when we have our meetings.

Everyone has their own name placard with their goals on the name placard.

And we review, Hey, this month, how did you get chasing your goals?

And then we work on solving those issues if we're not getting it done.

And then quarterly, Kathy and I justify a vacation somewhere and

go and review our quarterly goals.

And so we quarterly take that sheet and we say, here's the number of sales

calls, here's the revenue we generate.

Here's these things.

Here's how much time we spent doing this.

Here's what our weight is.

Here's the fund we had as a married couple.

All the stuff we care about and wanna measure.

We do that quarterly and we get a little vacation out of it at the same time.

So you're celebrating as well in the midst of it.

It's not just Chase, chase, chase.

You're acknowledging and celebrating the progress you've made.

Um, you know, to get you.

Keep you going, I'm assuming.

Is that right?

Right.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's a 13 week race.

Every quarter is a 13 week race.

I can do anything for 13 weeks and after 13 weeks you go, this isn't working.

We're we're not.

We're not getting the results we want.

We're not gonna wait till the end of the year to figure out we didn't do what we

wanna do in our marriage, our health.

Anything.

Nothing.

So 13 weeks is all you get, and after 13 weeks you go, that's

not, it's not hitting the number.

All right.

What do you wanna do next?

Well, let's pivot.

I hate using the word pivot that was used so much in the last five

years, but we could pivot a little bit and we could try this and let's

just, let's spend more time here.

But we're looking at it every 13 weeks in the light of, are we living the life

we want, which includes our business?

Are we living the life we want?

If not, what do we wanna do for the next 13 weeks?

Hmm.

Yeah, and I think being on the same page is so powerful because you're

not just in your head in a vacuum, but you're also making sure that your wife

is understanding where things are at.

And I'm assuming you're asking, I. Her like, Hey, how do you see things?

Mm-hmm.

Because I don't know about you, Robert, but my wife does not

always see things as I see it.

Correct.

And that's good because there's a lot of times she'll ask me questions

that I don't really wanna deal with.

I think I'm, I kinda make excuses for why this is okay and she'll go, but I

thought you were gonna have 'em do this.

Well, yeah, I guess I did.

And she's very smart and very discerning.

And, and again, I learned accountability is only as accountable as you want to be.

So if I wanna lie to her, I never get my goals done.

And she's my best friend, so why would I lie to my best friend?

And so when she asked me a question, I go, no, I decided not to do that.

How come?

Well, I guess, I guess I just haven't been doing it.

Well, what would it take for you to get back on track?

She knows the questions to ask.

She's not, you know, you said you were gonna do this.

We don't need that from each other as spouses, but we do.

We learned to ask questions and not accuse, ask the questions

and Well, why don't you tell me?

How do you feel when you didn't hit that goal?

What else could you have done?

What would you like to do?

Going forward?

And by asking questions is disarming.

We're not accusing.

Yeah.

And this is where that vulnerability comes in.

And I'll be, I'll be transparent on this, Robert.

I remember taking my wife on like a weekend trip, right?

Like.

Kind of what you're talking about on a quarterly basis, but I took her out

and I asked her some questions from a podcast I'd listened to, and I was

like, dude, I'm, I'm gonna crush this.

I'll tell you, Robert, I was not in a place to receive how

she was talking about things.

And so I was then providing excuses to what she was saying,

you know, kind of invalidating her perspective so that I felt worthy.

And I think it's, it's one of those of, you know, it's, it's going to

push us outside of our comfort.

Sure.

But the rewards from it, dude, they are huge.

Um, when we get to the other side,

if you want accountability, you gotta be vulnerable.

And you gotta listen long enough to know that they're right.

So many times we listen to our spouses so we can argue they're, they're wrong

and we're just waiting for them to finish, to go, no, no, no, no, this

is, instead I just soak it in, go.

You think what?

I'm really listening.

Why does she say that?

What does she see in me that I'm not willing to see?

My wife is so insightful and so discerned, and she loves me, so if she's calling

me out, instead of being guarded and uptight and defensive, I just gotta go.

What does she see that I'm not seeing and really seek to understand it?

I think God uses her to speak to me.

'cause she's discerning and if I shut it down, I'm missing the voice of God.

So I'm very intentional to listen and go, all right, help me understand

more about that in a really caring, genuine way, not dismissive.

Yeah.

And if it's not at that place like you're talking about with your wife,

I think that's something else we need to really honestly look at.

You know what?

What is there about my wife that's got her in this place and what is there about me?

Yeah.

That I'm not in the place to participate in that way, and it's an

opportunity not, um, you know, like something you have to do instead.

It's an opportunity to grow and strengthen that marriage in a

way that maybe you've never.

Experienced before or even thought it could get to.

Um, and I will say at the beginning when, when we started this whole

transition and she would ask questions, she was not aware of how much

stress and worry and problems I had.

So when she started ask questions, I got very uncomfortable.

'cause I had to tear the bandaid off.

And it was really hard.

There were times where I felt attacked by her.

She was not attacking, she was trying to understand.

But because of my insecurities and vulnerability of being

completely transparent about this, it was really hard.

So I had to, I had to coach her to say, you have to know

how weak I feel right now.

I feel humiliated.

I feel like such a failure.

I, I've made us sell our house and start over.

I look like a loser to the world.

So please, as you ask these questions.

Do it like a mommy talking to a child who's afraid of a lightning storm and

is trying to understand and not tell him, stop being worried about the

lightning and said, you know, talk to me in this very kind, tender way.

I need an extra dose of that as you ask your questions.

Yeah, dude, that's so powerful there, Robert.

Well man, Robert, there has been.

No shortage of things that you have provided, insights on guidance and

just, hey, what's on the other side of doing these hard, uncomfortable

things, the huge benefits.

Absolutely.

Um.

Outside of this podcast, if guys are like, Robert, this really is

something I want to jump into.

I wanna understand more, how can they connect with you outside of

the podcast and get more information to, to move along further?

Yeah.

You can go to our book website, which is NobodyCaresBook.com and

my contact information is in there.

Send me an email, tell me.

Go take the assessment, look at it, decide what you think is your

issues, and then tell me your journey.

Send me a copy of your assessment and say, be vulnerable.

Practice it with me.

I read every single email that comes through that website and we want

to invite people into a community.

We actually have a community page, so we we're accessible and we

wanna walk your journey with you.

We'd be happy to do that.

Fantastic.

Well, man, all that will be inside of the show notes so that, uh, you

know, guys can catch this but not have to, uh, try and go searching the

internet, get to the website while they're driving or doing anything else.

It's all there and available and, you know, the, the next step is them

taking action so it's there for you.

Um, you know, if you've heard from from Robertson my discussion

that it's like, Hey man, I'm at that point where I'm just tired.

I don't know what to do and I do want something better than

what I'm experiencing right now.

Connect with Robert, take the assessment, what he's talked about

here, and, uh, start on that path.

So Robert, I appreciate you joining me today.

Thank you so much, my friend.

Well, I enjoyed it.

Thank you for having me, Mike.

My pleasure.

I.