Hold Yourself ACCOUNTABLE and Take ACTION By Following These TIPS

Everybody, welcome to another episode of Impact Theory. Today, my friends, we are going to be talking all about accountability. And this is a critically important thing, no matter what you're trying to do in your life. Um holding yourself responsible, holding yourself to a standard, making sure that if you say you're going to do something that you're going to do it. And honestly, there's no more important person to impress with your accountability than yourself. And I will remind myself very frequently that I am very careful about what I promise myself I'm going to do. But once I promise myself I'm going to do something, then I'm going to do it. I am going to see it through. And there's nothing that I'm going to let get in my way, slow me down, stop me. And when you come into something with that attitude, as Jocko Willink says, there's freedom in that. There's freedom in that discipline of knowing I will see this through. And the power that that to your life is really it's intoxicating and it's liberating to believe in yourself, to know that if you say you're going to do something that you're going to follow it through. It's one of the key elements to build into your personality. And we're going to be talking all about that today. So, without further ado, my friends, let's jump right in. So, number one, what exactly is accountability? What does it lead to? So, as I basically stated in the intro there, accountability I'm going to do this thing and then actually doing that thing. So, if you tell somebody you're going to show up for them, make sure that you show up. If you say that you're going to do something to the best of your ability, make sure make sure that you do it to the best of your ability. And knowing that you are going to be held account, I mean that's literally what it means, that there's going to be a record, that there In fact, that is the right way to think about it. Even if you can fool the world, there will be an account of your actions in your own mind. Now, to me, that's the far more interesting part about accountability is your own subconscious is going to hold you accountable for the things you do or don't do, the way that you show up, how hard you play. So, for instance, I tell people all the time that, you know, I get out of bed in 10 minutes or less. But how do you really know? But I know. And I know that if I want to feel good about myself when I tell other people that I get out of bed in 10 minutes or less, then I actually have to show up and do that because my mind is going to hold me accountable to what I said. Then, as you start to build trust with people that you care about, people that are around you, then it really is they're holding you account to your actions. They hold you accountable for not only the things that you say that you're going to do, but just the way that you show up for them, whether you are holding whether you're living up to the social contract that we all have either implicitly or explicitly. So, you may actually say, especially to a significant other, this is what I expect of you. And then whether or not that person is able to deliver on that, they're going to be held accountable for that. So, this is a game of internal accountability, the way that you judge yourself for how you show up and do something, and then external accountability, the way that people hold you accountable. Now, what do you get out of that? What you get out of it is self-respect in the case of holding yourself accountable, saying, "This is how I think someone should be." Okay? Explicit or implicit. So, you may have never outlined how you believe that you should show up for yourself and for other people, but it's there. You have a value system, and when you act in accordance with that value system stated or unstated, you're going to feel good or badly about yourself depending on whether you meet those requirements that you have in your own mind. Okay, so when I talk about the only thing that really matters is how you feel about yourself when you're by yourself, that's what I'm talking about. Do you have that self-respect which is one of the outcomes of holding yourself accountable to the things you said you were going to do, to the things you said were important to you, to the things that matter to you in your life. Do you show up and meet those challenges? Do you show courage, right? It's a value. Do you show courage? Do you react poorly, act fearfully in ways that you don't respect, okay? So that's the the element of what you get from the internal side. Then the external side, how you are with other people, whether you can be counted on, whether you show up for people in the way that they want you to show up in the way that you think you should show up, then that's how you establish and build real relationships where people know that they can trust you, where people know that they can rely on you. And that is ultimately how you build a strong social network and as a social animal, that's an incredibly important thing to do. So this is basically you're going to be held account held to account, excuse me, for your behaviors and for those ways that people think you should be and the way that you yourself think that you should be. And the consequences are emotional in nature but are incredibly, incredibly important. All right, with that now establishing that baseline of exactly what accountability is, let's move on to the next one. What is the relationship between accountability and authority and how does that relate to credibility, trust, and reliability? Okay, so accountability and authority, I will say they have very little to do with each other depending on which definition of authority you have. So, if you're trying to be an authority in something, so let's say for instance, I'm trying to be an authority in lifestyle advice. Okay, well, if I'm not holding myself accountable and I'm interacting with people poorly, then I'm not going to have much authority so in that area cuz people are going to say, "Well, this guy doesn't even do what he preaches." So, you would have some of that, but I don't naturally think of those two things as being related, but certainly that is um the connection that I would see between those two now that you have prompted me, but that's definitely not something I've thought about before. Now, how does that relate to credibility? So, going with that definition of an authority where if you're trying to present yourself as being good at something, then you better be living up to the things that you say. And this is the same idea as leading from the front. If you're going to ask other people to do things a certain way, like I'm really hardcore about the culture here at Impact Theory. Now, for me to say, "Hey, the culture matters and all of that." Well, then I better be living up to that culture. I better be leading from the front. If I'm saying, "Hey, I look only for hardcore [ __ ] I want people that really believe in the mission and show up every day fighting to make sure that that comes to fruition." If I don't come and fight harder than anybody else, then of course, I'm not going to have that credibility in the eyes of my team. They need to see that I'm living it if they're going to follow me in something. So, that's a really important example of how you earn credibility with other people. But now, let's talk about the more important part, which is earning credibility with yourself. This was one of the big breakthroughs in my life was realizing that if I said I was going to do something and I wanted to give up on it, I would think about, well, if I position it this way, if I move this way, if I kind of hide this from that person and sweep this under the rug over here, then I can still manage other people's beliefs about who I am. And as long as other people think that I'm cool, I'm good, I'm talented, I'm smart, whatever, then I'm good. And what I realized is A, that only works 50% of the time. So, 50% of the moves that you make to try to um manage your persona, 50% of the time it works. The other 50% of the time though, people see through it and then you begin to earn the reputation of being a [ __ ] artist. So, what I realized was, okay, not only does it not work as well externally as I think, but it doesn't matter what the outside world thinks if I don't think positively of myself. So, that became my obsession is understanding credibility is most important when you're talking about self-credibility. And how we earn credibility with ourselves is by saying, I'm going to do this thing and then doing it. And then you just keep inching that out farther and farther and farther until you get to the point where you show up for yourself in the most extreme and difficult of circumstances. So, I'll tell you guys a story. Um at my old house, I used to have this painting of the Michael Jordan flu game hanging above my fireplace. And that was so inspiring to me. And I always said, I put that up there to remind myself of what I'm capable of and how I would react if I were put in the championship game situation. And then lo and behold, flash forward probably a year later and I actually get the flu and I have a double episode the next day. And I remember I had a fever. I was rocked. I could barely stand up. I It was really miserable. And I had to do all the prep the day before for the episodes. And I was like, I actually don't know if I'm going to be able to make it through this. Like it it That's how sick I was. It's one of the sickest I've ever been. How do you make it stick? Your biggest enemy is you. Hey everybody. Today's episode is brought to you by Impact Theory University's own business decision-making workshop. If you're a business owner looking to scale your company, I can help. I've created a four-week intensive workshop that's going to give you the decision-making strategies that you need to scale your company. It's the exact things that I used to take Quest to a billion-dollar exit, and it's exactly what I'm using today on Impact Theory that's allowed us to grow by 400% in just the last 2 years. This sounds like something that would be beneficial to you and your business, I want you to go right now to decision.impacttheory.com to apply. Once again, that's decision.impacttheory.com. You can apply today. All right, I'll see you on the inside. And in that moment I remembered one, lead from the front. So, show people that I've always told my team, I will show up for you. If we have something important planned, I'm always going to show up, and you never have to worry about whether I'm going to put in the work and be there for you. So, I was like, all right, I'm going to hold myself accountable to that. And my team, even if they understood some part of them would know, well then if I say the next time, "Hey guys, don't worry, I'll always show up for you." they'll be like, "Hey, I get it, man. But look, if you get sick, you get sick." That isn't what I wanted. What I wanted is for them to know I'm the hardest core [ __ ] on the planet Earth, and I'm going to show up, and I'm going to play to the best of my abilities, no matter what. I will not back down. And so, I did that prep work. I gut-checked. I spent whatever, 12 hours researching that day and preparing for the two episodes the next day. And then the next day, still sick as a [ __ ] dog, we let the guests know and we said, "Tom is sick. Uh so, it's up to you. We completely understand if you don't want to come." And both of them said, "Nope, we still want to come." And we filmed the episodes. And it was hard and if you know which episodes they are, you will certainly be able to tell that I was sick cuz I could barely speak. But, showing up and still giving a good interview meant the world to me. It was so gratifying to say, "I said I would show up in a moment like this." I have that painting hanging up above my fireplace and I showed up. Fever, no fever, healthy, sick, rain, sleet, snow, it doesn't matter. I'm going to show up. Now, the amount of credibility that I earned with myself in that moment was extraordinary. And I had earned it in a thousand little ways leading up to that moment, which of course was why I felt confident in saying, "I will show up for you." Saying it to the team, I knew it wasn't rhetoric. I knew I would be there for them because I had been earning credibility with myself for years and years and years, constantly pushing out what I was capable of doing. Right? Another one, I told the 10-minute rule, everybody knows that one. But, another one was I told myself leading up to uh or just after, I think, the interview that I did with Wim Hof. I said, "I'm going to do 30 days of cold showers." And not only did I do 30 days of cold showers, I ended up doing uh a year and 3 months. And so, over-delivering on something like that, which I hated, by the way. I hated every single cold shower that I took. But, it was so powerful to say, "I'm going to do this." And then showing up for myself day after day after day after day, even though I didn't want to do it, that credibility, respecting yourself, believing in yourself, knowing you will show up for yourself, is one of the most extraordinary gifts anybody can ever give themselves. Ever in your life, there is nothing that will feel better than having credibility with yourself. Now, trust and reliability, same things, but those are more outward focusing. They're certainly, whether you trust yourself or not, but I'll lump that very similar to credibility. But other people being able to trust, that is a big deal, and trust really is probably the foundational layer to any healthy relationship is whether you can trust that person. Now, trust comes in a lot of forms. So, going back to this idea of there's like a social contract between people. And in fact, this is a really an an idea that may be too sort of nuanced for this conversation, but this idea of a collision of values between people. And this is I think the most dangerous thing in a romantic relationship is when you have a collision of values that you don't recognize as a collision of values. You just each think the other person is wrong. It's a fascinating idea, and I go into this in great detail on relationship theory, which if you're not already subscribed to relationship so I talk about that in the context of relationships. For now, I just want to say that when you get into trust and what builds trust, understanding that we have these social contracts with each other. There are things that we expect of each other. We have these invisible values. And being able to understand what the other person expects of you, what you expect of them, and then being able to communicate that, because when somebody has an expectation of you or you have an expectation of somebody else, you're holding them accountable to that value system, whether you articulated or not. And so, it becomes this thing when friendships break apart, it's very possible that one of the parties is just egregious, drugs, alcohol, whatever. But normally, when you get that breakdown, it's because you have two different value systems at work, and one person thinks that their way of acting is completely acceptable. And the other person thinks that that Oh my god, that's egregious. So, take being on time for instance. One person may think that being on time is critically important, and they may never have even said that. To them, it's just self-evident. They grew up in a household, you're on time. Being on time is a sign of respect, right? So, that's all happening invisibly. You show up a few minutes late. You grew up in a household where it was like, "Ah, it's no big deal. You show up with love and affection, and you know, whether you get there on time, an hour late, whatever, it doesn't really matter, right? Just being there for that person, that's what really matters." And so, now you've got these two people, boom, they've got a collision of values. They've never articulated that. You're being held accountable for something that you weren't aware of. And that's how a lot of friendships end up eroding because people run into this tendency of not even recognizing that these values are not objective truth. They are something that either you decided on or were indoctrinated in you essentially by the way that you grew up. So, be very thoughtful about the languages of the other person, the values, the love language, how they like to communicate so that you are actually understood in the way that you want to be understood. Because you are being held accountable to that person's values, not just your own. It's a really interesting thing to think about as you're building trust, because that person wants to know, can they trust you to act in accordance with their values? Now, the other element of trust, of course, is just saying, "I'm going to do this," and then actually doing it. Uh but there are many unwritten rules in say take relationships for example, it's very easy. You'll never cheat on me, okay? So, but at what point did we start being exclusive? For some people that's first date, for some people that's first kiss, for other people it may not be until the first time you've had sex. So, that can one person's action may feel like a gross violation of trust uh to the other person and seem completely normal to you. So, you have to be very thoughtful about understanding that dance. So, that can get very very complicated. Now, reliability gets into something much simpler, which is somebody asks, will you do this? You say yes, and then you actually do it. They can count on you to do the things you say that you're going to do. And the idea of your word being your bond is, I think, very powerful. I think it's something that's very underrated for people. Um and it's something to be it's something that you can leverage in your life. If there's a a really great quote that says, you don't divorce the same person that you marry. Now, what they mean by that is some people's word shifts given the circumstances. And so, let's say you said to somebody, I would never be mean to you. Just by way of example. And then something happens in the relationship and you feel that the other person has been mean to you. And so, for many people that's a reason now that they can be mean back, even though they've said, I'll never be mean to you. And so, all of this stuff begins to play into this high-level reliability in terms of can I trust we're back at that word. Can I trust you to be the person that you say you are in all circumstances? Now, to me, being that kind of reliable, being the kind of person that is who they say they are, no matter how the situation changes, I find that utterly fascinating. That the person somebody projects in their, you know, public life is the same as what they're living internally, is the same as they're living in their relationships, and that's a person that you can trust to do what they say they're going to do in the way that they say they're going to do it. And that to me is reliability. Now, imagine when you have somebody that is trustworthy, reliable, and they're reliable to themselves, and other people can rely on them to show up when they need them. As a social creature, having that kind of connection with other people is very powerful. When you think about we're able to do so much more as a part of a group than we are by ourselves, that's how you build a really strong foundation, whether it's in your family, your friend group, or at work. So, those are incredibly important words and attributes to understand as there are few things people respect more than the ability to trust you and knowing that you're reliable. You can fail. You can make mistakes, but if you do the things you say you're going to do, if you try your best, if you give it your all, if you really honor the statements that you make and the promises that you make, people will hold you in high esteem, even if something like, you know, you have a business and it collapses, you get into debt and you lose your house, whatever. You might think that people are going to think less of you, but if you have that kind of credibility, trust, reliability, I think you'll be surprised at how many people rally to your aid. I hope you guys are enjoying this episode, which is brought to you by Impact Theory University's business decision-making workshop. With nine full-length classes and weekly live case studies with me, the business decision-making workshop is a hands-on approach to honing your abilities to scale your business. I'm going to be in there with you working through your hardest problems so that you'll be able to master how to overcome any impediment by getting the most foundational way to think through novel problems. And that, my friends, is exactly what you need to do if you want to scale your company and have the kind of crazy success you've always dreamed. I promise it is possible. This is teachable. This is something that you can learn. It is a process that you can deploy against your business and be able to move confidently forward. Just go right now to decision.impacttheory.com to apply. Do not delay, my friends. Spots are limited. Again, go to decision.impacttheory.com and apply today. I'll see you guys on the inside. How do I get to the point where I no longer blame others and just be accountable all the time and not just sometimes? I think the reality is you just have to realize that there's more advantage to holding yourself accountable all the time than to hiding from it, not living up to your own standards. It seems like the right answer to, you know, let yourself off the hook or to make promises that you're not actually prepared to keep because it's cool or whatever. It seems to make sense in the moment. But going back to that idea of having credibility with yourself is one of the most powerful emotions you will ever feel to respect yourself um is it's one of the the pillars of self-worth. And if you don't have self-worth, that is a really gnarly place to be. And so, it's very okay to only make yourself very small promises in the beginning. And then we'll widen that out slowly over time. But that was how I earned credibility with myself in the beginning when I didn't have any. When I would say I was going to do things and then not do them. When I would say, "I'm going to get out of bed tomorrow, you know, really early." And then I would lay in bed for 5 hours, which used to happen all the time. So, I didn't start by saying, "Oh, I'm going to get shredded or I'm going to build a big business." It started with I'm going to go to the gym. Not even I'm going to work out hard. I'm going to go to the gym. And so then, I would go to the gym. If I felt like walking out, I would walk out. Then, as I found, "Okay, hey, look at that. I'm being consistent. I'm going to the gym every time that I say I'm going to go to the gym." Now, it's about, "Okay, well, can I push it a little harder than I did last time?" And then you start doing that. And then it's like, "Well, can I set a goal for myself to be able to lift a certain amount of weight, to look a certain way, to lose a certain amount of fat?" Whatever it is that you want to do, if you start building on that, making slightly bigger demands over time, you know, maybe you increment the demand weekly. And so, it's like, "This is what I'm going to do this week." And then the next week it's a little more. All of a sudden, a year later, it's pretty extraordinary. You've had 52 increments of improvement, which is huge. So, realizing that you get this tremendous benefit from two things. One, making what you promise yourself smaller so that you know you can trust yourself to do it. And then two, constantly like bumping that out a little bit, that you actually get a huge reward. So, in in that you have gotten better at something. You have moved towards a goal. You have actually obtained your goals. That you can set over time, you can set these bigger and bigger, more audacious goals and you can actually reach them. Now, when you know that about yourself, you have that credibility with yourself, you know that you're going to stick to it. Now, when you set a goal, it's like, "Yo, this goal is exciting. I'm amped up because I know that I'm going to follow through." And as long as you've built up that muscle, right, the resilience, the ability to push through pain, boredom, when you have that and you've built that resilience, that tenacity, now all of a sudden, you don't want to not be accountable to yourself cuz you want to feel good about yourself and you actually want to achieve those goals. Man, that's like, if I could snap my fingers and give people a gift, it would be to say, "Hey, the craziest dream that you have, you can actually make that come true." The craziest dream that you have, you can actually make come true. That's why accountability is so joyful. Because now it's like, "Whoa, how I spend my time becomes a spiritual consideration." Because I can do anything that doesn't violate the laws of physics and that I set my mind to and I'm willing to work towards. Now, you may end up failing. There may be some things, goals you set that are out of your reach, but I promise, by the time you get there, you will be so enamored with just showing up for yourself and leaving it all out on the field, it won't be traumatic to fail to achieve a goal. Because you'll realize that becoming capable of a championship performance is far more emotionally gratifying than actually winning the championship. It's the journey. Because imagine if you cheated and won a championship. That emotion will forever be tainted. It will forever be fragile. It will be all too easy for somebody to come and just scratch, reveal that you cheated, and it all comes crumbling down. All of the emotional scaffolding that you've built within yourself it just comes down. But showing up for yourself time after time, playing to the best of your ability, being optimistic, continuing to push, that really will be its own reward. All right. Is there beneficial accountability and harmful accountability? How does an individual differentiate between the two and use accountability to better their life? All right. So, you could sort of force this and say anything has pathology on both sides. Now, I will say in general, accountability feels very good to me, but you can get pathology on never holding yourself accountable, and then you can get pathology by I said I was going to do this thing by this date, and even though I finally achieved it, I missed my date, and therefore none of this really matters. So, there's no question that beating yourself up like that of, you know, let's say that you set a goal and hey, I'm going to work towards this, I'm going to accomplish it by this date. If you lose the forest for the trees, as they say, or lose the spirit of the law to the letter of the law, like most of the goals that I've set for myself, I have achieved, but almost never by the date that I set for myself. It just there's always some additional complication that you don't see, something that takes longer than you wanted. And so, I've got two choices. I can either beat the [ __ ] out of myself and say, "Hey, you missed this date." Or I can be proud of myself that I set a date that was so aggressive, it gave me something to chase, it got me out there, got me moving fast, thinking big, figuring out how the hell am I going to pull this off in this amount of time. But then, going back to accountability, inside my own head, I know whether I've left it all out on the field. Now, if I know that I've left it all out on the field, I really did everything that I could, but I've missed that date, now it's pathology if I'm just beating the [ __ ] out of myself. But I would say that doesn't make any sense. And so, looking at being honest with yourself. And this is really what it comes down to. Can you be honest with yourself about whether you left it all out on the field? And if you did, and you really are playing to the best of your abilities, but you failed in that moment, then, yes, continuing to thrash yourself because some piece of that goal was missed, I think is unwise. So, that's really, honestly, when I think about accountability with the self, I think about it more, did you really give it your all? Were you sincere in that pursuit? And if you guys have followed my content for a while, you've heard me say that. I, right now I'm trying to build the next Disney. Okay. Now, I hold myself accountable to showing up every day and sincerely trying to achieve that goal. But I do not hold myself accountable to whether I actually achieve that goal because that to me is somewhat irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. It is the pursuit of the goal that's all the juice. It's becoming the person capable of doing that, that's the juice. It's showing up every day and playing to win. It's showing up every day and sincerely, not not for rhetoric, not to be able to say to somebody that, oh, I'm trying to do this, but to know in my heart of hearts that I have really done everything that I could to make this a reality. Now, the reason that I divorce myself from the ultimate outcome is because you don't want to live for some future time. This is where people chasing money get themselves into trouble. They think that if they amass a certain amount of wealth that they'll feel good about themselves, but the reality is the external goal is never going to make you feel some kind of way about yourself. It's always super temporary. You're always, if you're driven, are going to be looking at what's that next mountain to climb anyway. So, if you know that, then you know it's about the climb. It's not about actually getting the thing. So, avoiding that pathology becomes critically important. And this is everything, not just accountability. Just understanding that there is pathology on both sides. So, be very careful not to underperform. And be careful not to think that the end goal is the only thing that matters. It's really showing up and playing well. It's not whether you're going to lose. It's how you play the game. Uh as cheesy as that is, I will say that that is Is that absolutely true? Sort of. If you don't have a love for winning, then you'll never show up and actually play to win. And so, you'll never quite have that sincere pursuit. So, there is a very nuanced subtlety that I find infinitely fascinating. Because I really am trying to build the next Disney. I really want that [ __ ] I am [ __ ] focused on it. I believe in it. I really obsess over it. But I also know that I can't guarantee the outcome. And I need to enjoy today. I need to enjoy today. Hold yourself accountable to that [ __ ] All right. I usually create rules and stick with them for a while. However, in days when I'm real sad, tired, or pessimistic, I usually use excuses to break my rules, and it is a real struggle to get back to them after that. How How do I create accountability even in the times when your mind is weaker? All right, this is what accountability is all about. So, this is about showing up for yourself when you're tired, when you're fatigued, when you're feeling pessimistic. Literally, accountability is there to save you in that moment so that you know, regardless of the fact that I feel sad, tired, pessimistic, hopeless, whatever, I'm going to show up and play right now today. These are the moments. This is where you get to show yourself who you are. Now, if you let yourself down in that moment, we're going to feel that sting. We're going to take that L. We're not going to pretend that it wasn't an L. We're not going to pretend that we didn't [ __ ] up. We're not going to pretend that we didn't let ourselves down. We did. We let ourselves down. That's real. But now, we know that doesn't make sense to sit there, wallow in that, beat myself to death. I need to focus and start moving forward. That is really the key to get yourself back up, to get back in the game, and to get moving forward. So, in those moments, we're going to set that aside. We do not have we are not willing to tolerate from ourselves that being tired, sad, hurt, pessimistic, whatever. That's not an excuse. [ __ ] that noise. Why? Because it doesn't move us towards our goals. It's not about the outside world. I don't give a [ __ ] what they think. I want my goal. I want to actually achieve that thing, and I actually believe that I can pull it off. So, I'm showing up every day sincerely playing for that. When I [ __ ] up, I own it, I take my L, I dust myself off, and I get moving again. And I'm not going I'm going to hold myself accountable to not kicking the [ __ ] out of myself, to getting refocused and moving forward. This is why I guys, beliefs, rules, values, they are important. I have a rule in my life. I only do and believe that which moves me towards my goals about myself, right? Not going to make up fake [ __ ] about the world. I'm not opposed to that in certain circumstances. If it's not objective truth. I don't lie to myself about physics. But there are certain things that even if I might be wrong, it's far better to believe something that is hopeful, optimistic, empowering. But anyway, back to my point. I don't do or believe anything about myself if it moves me away from my goals. So the only things that I do and believe propel me forward. Because I have that rule that when I go to beat the [ __ ] of myself out of myself for a prolonged period of time, I just don't allow it. I do what's called a pattern interrupt. Say, "Don't say that about yourself. Stop. Don't think that. Don't waste any time with that because it's not going to help." And because I'm so obsessed with what works, it's very easy for me to let myself off the hook for past failings, to get back on the horse, refocus on earning that credibility with myself, holding myself accountable now to the next movement. And don't use failure as a way to get out of accountability. I failed, therefore I am a failure, right? That's known as a cognitive distortion. It's labeling. Failing doesn't make you a failure. Failing to show up for yourself does not mean that you're unaccountable. You weren't accountable in that moment. Refocus, get back on the horse, move forward. Do you think setting unrealistic goals or maybe too many goals make accountability counterproductive? I find I sometimes set the bar too high and I'm disappointed when the goal isn't achieved. So yeah, I think that that can be a problem. Now, at the same time, I believe in the quote which I'm going to paraphrase, which is the reasonable man conforms to the world, the unreasonable man forces the world to conform to him, Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. So, I think all of us should be unreasonable. I think that we should set goals that are like maybe a little too aggressive. They shouldn't be so ridiculous that you just write them off in your own mind, you know, I'm never going to get to that. It's you know, it's too aggressive. You don't want to do that. That's a waste of time. You have to believe that it's actually possible. But, you want to set a very aggressive goal that other people think is crazy that is going to force you to think outside the box on how you can do that thing, that big, that fast. Trust me. But, we don't start there. We start with the little things. We earn that credibility. We show up. We're accountable over and over and over, but we keep pushing out how big that goal is because we're getting stronger. We're getting better. We've showed up for ourselves. We're putting all these skills into our arsenal. So, now when I say, "Hey, I'm going to do this BHAG, as they call it, a big hairy audacious goal." I know that I'm going to see that thing through. I know I just need to stay excited about it. I need to stay in the game long enough. I need to have tenacity. I need to have grit in order to see this thing through. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. So, I'm all for setting a gigantic goal, but you have to be very careful with how you treat yourself if you fail to hit part of that. Do you beat yourself up and therefore just give up on the whole thing and use those failings as a sign that you should just throw your hands up and quit? Because if you do, then that's pointless. Goes back to that rule. We only do and believe that which moves us towards our goals. Period. So, if you're setting goals that are so unrealistic that you can't believe in them and then you end up self-flagellating because you think you're a loser because you didn't do that thing, then yeah, dial back the goal. Get it to where you feel good. Like I said, my goals in the beginning were very small. And then I just stacked and pushed and pushed and pushed until I got to the point where I was like, "Yo, I know if I set the goal to build the next Disney that I will go all out for that every day." And again, not judge myself on whether I achieve it, but judge myself daily on how hard I played. And that's the juice. Know that you have goals that make sense, they're exciting and honorable. Know that you have rules in your life that lead you towards fulfillment and joy. So that you don't end up in some accountability death spiral of kicking the [ __ ] out of yourself and setting these absurd goals that aren't even exciting to you anymore and you're just beating yourself up because you're not achieving it. Okay, that's that's not what we're after. We want fulfillment, we want joy, we want to love our lives on a day-to-day basis in the grind. Don't just think that "I'll love my life once I have accomplished X, Y, and Z." I promise you, when you accomplish X, Y, and Z, you will just look for what's the next A, B, C. You'll loop back around, you'll be looking for the next big thing to chase. Only the chase matters. It's the only thing that there really ever is, right? Eckhart Tolle's idea of there is only the now. There is only the chase. That's it. Everything else is transient. Everything else is momentary. You could sell a company, I know, I've done it. And it was rad. And for a while it really sticks with you. And then like anything, it just starts to fade and you're living your day-to-day life. Only the pursuit is real. Focus on that. Hold yourself accountable to that. If you do that, then then you will feel good about yourself, which ultimately is the only thing that matters. All right, guys. Accountability, it's a beast. Show it for yourself. Show it for other people. It is an extraordinarily good feeling when you know that you can count on yourself. It builds incredibly strong relationships when people know that they can count on you. All right, that's it. Go forth. Use it wisely. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Thank you for watching this episode, which again was brought to you by Impact Theory's very own business decision-making workshop. If you guys are ready to take your business to the next level by investing in yourself and learning the first principles of business, then I want you to take action right now and go to decision.impacttheory.com to apply. I promise you I am giving you every piece of information that you will need to overcome any obstacle that your company is facing, to stare down problems that will arise a year, 5 years after you take the course. This is the strategies of business decision-making that every successful entrepreneur has to learn to deploy against their company if they want to grow. All right, guys. I promise it will deliver 10x the value of what you pay for it. And if it doesn't, I'll give you your money back, no questions asked. You know me. I live in the public eye. There's nowhere for me to hide. This is me trying to give as much value as humanly possible. I really think this class would be transformative, and I hope you will sign up. And I will see you in the next live class. All right, guys. Take care and be legendary. Mhm.