You may have heard of accountability buddies or accountability groups. Sometimes masterminds include accountability as well. But what does that really mean and why is it important to be self-accountable?
Cory and Gail go into a deep dive about what’s important about keeping commitments and agreements. They also describe a new service in LIFT, their success accelerator for coaches, consultants, and solopreneurs.
Transcription for B&B 15:
Gail: Welcome to the bourbon and business smash podcast with Gail and Cory. This podcast is for consultants, coaches, and solopreneurs to stop thinking and start doing, learn strategies and tactics from business owners who are getting it done from growing their business to living the life they love while we drink our favorite bourbon cocktails.
Gail: So tonight we are talking about accountability, but before that, our drink for tonight,
Cory: All right. Our drink for tonight is the and this is for Valentine’s day because we may not do another show before Valentine’s day. And it’s called the bourbon sweetheart. And it is, of course, bourbon in this case bullet, which they recommended simple syrup in our case, we use the honey simple syrup as usual. Ginger And liquor I was, I did not have ginger liquor. So in this case I used some ginger beer. But you could do ginger liquor and club soda lemon juice, and then strawberries. I added some strawberries which it’s soaked into for a day while kale had it. And then finally some Agnes stir up. So it’s a complicated recipe
Gail: And then are you supposed to add sparkly water or is that an option?
Cory: It didn’t say to add club soda yes. With sparkling water. Or you could use a sparkling ginger beer instead of ginger liquor, which is, how many of us keep the gingerly core in our
Gail: I don’t know. I liked ginger drinks, so we might have to have it more often. So I don’t have plain sparkling water on me. I have. Mixed Berry. This looks like an orange. Yes. Orange. Oh, I have two oranges. I thought I got lemon but I have two oranges.
Cory: do mixed Berry.
Gail: very, since you have strawberry in here and would you,
Cory: Yeah.
Gail: how much water would you put in the glass like this? Would you fill it all the way or like equal?
Cory: I would just do maybe half of what’s in
Gail: Okay. So quarter.
Cory: Yeah.
Gail: Or I guess two parts to one, one water.
Cory: Yeah. I just tasted it and it’s actually mixed really nicely overnight, so it probably doesn’t need
Gail: Okay.
Cory: but it is a little syrupy.
Gail: Okay. My ICRA melted, but I did have a couple of small ice cubes in here.
Cory: The strawberry is settled in very
Gail: Oh, that is
Cory: normally you would just garnish with us. Yeah, Normally you would garnish with the strawberry, but I actually soaked strawberry unit overnight because Gail had to take it with her, to her parents. And I think it came out really good. That way you can just taste that strawberry right off the top and it’s just
Gail: Yeah, this is really good.
Cory: So mix the cocktail a day before Valentine’s day, add the strawberry and then add some club soda, fizz it up
Gail: No, it makes a cocktail the day before with the strawberries.
Cory: What? The strawberry, but put the strawberry in it. Yeah.
Gail: And then the day of that you’re serving at. Water. And when the mixed berries sparkling water, it’s really good. It w I did try it without the water and it was too strong for me. It was too strong, like a biting sharp attack, too. Sharp of a, yeah. Too sharp of a taste for me, but this is perfect. It’s so good. I might have two of these. Okay. So tonight we’re talking accountable. And something that we’re doing and lift that Corey just launched this month is an accountability group. And you’ve probably have heard of accountability buddies, maybe you even heard of accountability groups, but Corey is doing something very specific. So I would love to talk more about it first off what is accountability? You come up with this process and what we’re doing now and how’s it working. So let’s start with accountability. What is accountability?
Cory: Accountability is being held or holding yourself to the agreements that you make to yourself or to. And you make a promise, you make an agreement, you say you’re going to do something and it’s actually doing it. And accountability? Usually comes from, I wouldn’t say, just saying you’re going to do something and doing it, but actually having either conversation with another person or maybe that kind of internal dialogue to say, I, I don’t know why I’m not doing this thing, but I’m going to do this thing. So it’s. Keeping to the promise being kept to the promise by yourself or by others? Yeah. Yeah.
Gail: Sparked us to want to start this accountability group. Was it? I don’t remember. I know in the past in Lyft I was posting the mountain Monday accountability. So what are you going to work on this week? And then posting the weekly wins. And I found that not everyone was participating in that well, not everyone participates in the weekly wins. Either fewer people were posting in the accountability posts. I stopped doing it. So what sparked this to want to do this again?
Cory: I did that Gail was doing that, but I even, I wasn’t necessarily keeping up with it and, I would, occasionally I did an and it’s on my list to do it, but was I doing it right? And I, for me, that really sparked me. There’s just a lot of things to get done. Sometimes I like to get distracted and do something else. I don’t necessarily hold to all of my agreements. I don’t know if anybody else is like that, but I’m like that. And from what I have seen, a lot of people, I like that. And I saw something last year, Ivan Meisner posted, I just had a conversation with Jack Canfield and talked about his accountability partner. Gail follows these authors a lot more than I do, but I always listen for the, those little tips and advice. And one of the things that he said is this is, Jack Canfield has attributed his success. Okay. So this is an enormously successful author to having a daily accountability partner, and then I said, okay that’s interesting. What does that mean? What do you have to do that? And why does somebody who’s presumably? At least at some point in their career have been very busy spending that time every day with one other person. To have a conversation, right? That’s all, that’s a commitment, right? That’s a big commitment to do that on a very daily basis. To have somebody else there, right? Because now you got to coordinate the time and everything else. It’s a lot. So I looked that up and yesterday I Can feel said that and listed some of the things he does. And he said, it just takes five minutes. It’s like a five-minute process for each person. It’s 10 minutes a day. And it. It was life-changing for him. And then I was looking at other coaches and you, can see that a lot of these other, successful people do something similar, right? So I’m engaged in a mastermind. So I get coaches and me, and we bill Gale, and I truly do believe in having coaches and having masterminds and other environments for that kind of accountability, but they don’t normally give daily consistently. Accountability. And a lot of times those kinds of organizations where you’re a bunch of people who want to fix things. And so I started thinking I just want to just say, I’m going to do something, tell people why I didn’t do it, have them be able to do the same and not get into the weeds with them on what’s going on. Unless there’s a specific request for that.
Gail: Can you go a little bit deeper about what you mean about why you didn’t do something versus going into the weeds with it? What do you mean by that? Tell me more about that.
Cory: Yeah. Yeah, if you’re the other side of it too is I was looking for that consistency, but. When you’re working with a coach and you’re you tell your coach, okay, I’m going to do these things this month or this week, however often you can afford to hire them to listen to you. You would talk to your coach about, okay, why I didn’t do this thing. And then they would step you through the process of, getting to the feelings behind that. So there’s a solution. The situation there when you’re in a mastermind, tends to really focus on solutions. You explain to the group, this is what I intended to do and I didn’t get it done and everybody starts giving their advice. And sometimes I think that could feel really. I’m not looking for advice. I just want to talk it out. And it’ll make you less comfortable about sharing. What’s really on your mind versus maybe glossing over it. So I believe what I wanted to do is create a sense that you could just say, this is what I didn’t do. This is why I didn’t do it. And if nobody else has anything to say about that, then you know, whether it’s true. And only you can really hold yourself accountable to the truth. So I thought that would be a cool piece. And that’s really what Jack Canfield was suggesting too. Is that the conversation with your partner isn’t a coaching conversation. It is. I did this, I didn’t do this. This is what went through my mind. The other person could ask for some clarity, but they’re not going to try to fix it. They’re not trying to coach on it. And. It’s only just as we’re just feeding back the only, that self-dialogue that we have around our, our breaking our agreements.
Gail: Actually, I found that process. We only did it for this first week. I thought I could keep up with it daily and I couldn’t, or I chose not to. So I ended up just doing it for the week. What I really liked about saying here’s what I didn’t do and what happened. How you worded it. You didn’t say why you said what happened. So w cause Y can feel attacking I, I might feel defensive or why didn’t you do it? I was so busy. What do you think I was doing? Because it’s just a conversation between me, myself and I, and whoever’s reading it. It was what happened. What happened? I didn’t process my email inbox to get it to inbox zero. I tried, it didn’t work. So it gave me a moment to think about why it didn’t work. And it wasn’t because I did try and there are times that I just didn’t even put any time towards it, but in this case I tried, I couldn’t get it done. And I’m really. Oh, it’s impossible. If they get to inbox zero to make that a goal, because email is always coming in, unless you pause your inbox, which Gmail does have that option emails always coming in. So it, I actually came up with a better goal and a better process to make it happen. It was more of, okay, I’m going to. Specific I’m going to process my email one hour before my, the end of my Workday. So I didn’t say it had to be zero. I just had to go through the email and, oh, I also came up with another tip for myself, was having. Maybe on the post-it note, put the leap defer delegate. So if it’s less than two minutes, which is a process taught by David Allen who wrote gate, getting things done is to when you’re processing your inboxes, have these four options to you available to you. So if it takes less than two minutes, just go ahead and do it. But otherwise, I have another way to deal with it. So if I have those reminders, on my laptop, maybe I put a post-it note and just stick it on my laptop. And as I go through the email an hour before the end of the Workday, I have time to do something if I’m supposed to do it right. I was supposed to delegate it. So it gave me a chance to think that process out and be more efficient. And I also realized. That I don’t have to be down on myself that, oh, you suck, you didn’t get this done. We’re actually, no, there was just a problem. The goal itself and the process itself had nothing to do with me. Cause I did try it just didn’t work out the way I thought it would be. And that’s how life is, it doesn’t always work out the way you thought it should go. So you just figure out another way. That process I did this week, again, set out accountability for the whole week. I am. However, I do create to-do lists for the day, but on paper. And I did find it to type too time-consuming. That’s silly to say, but I felt like it was too time-consuming to type it out into a chatbox, but I’m not, I know you’re. Digital list-maker than I am. I’m more of a paper list maker. So it felt like I was writing it twice if I were to do it daily, but I don’t know. I might give it a shot to do it daily, just so that I can focus again on here’s my, my, my three top projects for this week. Here’s what I’m going to do today. And I can evaluate what worked and what didn’t work for them before. And be able to type that out. So I don’t know, I will give it a shot to see if daily digital accountability will work for me. Not quite sure, but at least weekly countability is already working in the. It’s out of the seven top tasks I wanted to complete for last week. I did five of them.
Cory: Great. Yeah. And that’s oh, so congratulations. He did five of them and that’s all we do in this particular environment is give kudos for what’s done. Now, if somebody, if Gail said, Hey, I would love some of your ideas on this. Then that would be an open invitation for people to share their ideas on, zero inboxes or whatever has been successful. There’s them, though I would actually suggest that you take it to a different forum within Lyft because then everybody
Gail: Yeah. Yeah. We made that agreement when we were creating the accountability group, which was that discussions or feedback weren’t going to happen in this group and this discussion group, think of a private Facebook group or private LinkedIn group. It’s a subgroup within our membership platform. So it’s just for this. Type of posts. So like you mentioned to Corey that if you need feedback or if you want the discussion, you take it into the main room and that’s it, or the main forum, the main newsfeed. And that’s where you discuss questions, feedback, and things like that. And that way we keep our accountability
Cory: a little coaching and the group calls
Gail: Yes. Yeah.
Cory: Yeah. And yeah, my, my idea behind it is to see how well I hold agreements in a group and how other people do right. That’s by telling other people we’re going to do something it’s harder to disappoint them. And so I do hope to see more people come in and join us over time. I see Randy starting to do it, but now I’ve got a small group. And so what do you tell that small group I am going to do this. It goes through your mind all week long. I said I was going to do this thing, and when you don’t do it and you just give the reason why sometimes it’s very technical. Like I just discovered I can’t do that. That’s just not possible the way I expressed it, which is a good discovery. And then sometimes it’s a more personal or deep issue might where it’s good. If you say what happened. I just call it. I don’t know. I don’t really want to swear on this, but it’s your own bull stuff. And so you can tell the group
Gail: We’re already drinking. I think it’s okay to swear.
Cory: okay. Okay. But anyway, so you can tell the group, whatever you want to tell them, whether or not it’s true and it’s, so there’s a couple of things that I haven’t done as I don’t want everybody to know what’s going through my head when I don’t do these things, but the fact is. And they’re not whether they read it or not. I’m the one who has to explain it. And I’m the one who has to believe
Gail: Yeah.
Cory: So I might as well just tell it as I feel it and recognize, maybe I need some more coaching on this subject. Around doing these phone calls or. Doing some of these other things. And then sometimes, it could be, sometimes people have a long list and they’re just trying to do too much in
Gail: Yes. That’s a huge thing too.
Cory: Yeah.
Gail: Accountability group is working for both of us. And I think it’s important to know why we do this in the first place. It’s not just to get things done. It’s a way, to live your life. It’s a way, to be honest with yourself and with others. And if you believe in things like the law of attraction or any kind of metaphysical philosophy there, what you say that you want. That you truly believe you will see opportunities to make that happen, which is somewhat simplifying that the idea of the law of attraction. But if you say you want something and then you don’t do it, or you don’t go forward or you don’t accept it, it’s almost as if where you’re definitely lying to yourself, but it Chucky down to so many opportunities that are out there in the world. And I think it’s a challenging place to live. It’s challenging to maintain healthy relationships when we can’t honor our word, it’s challenging to build a business when you can’t honor your own word with yourself, is that what you’re doing with their clients too? If you’re a coach or consultant, are you letting your clients get away with things because of broken agreements? So many possibilities here of how this affects our lives. I compare it to something like the idea in the productivity world. A lot of gurus say to make your bed for saying in the morning now I’m not that person, Corey knows that very well. I do not make my bed. And the first thing you worry about, because
Cory: About that person either.
Gail: I, cause I feel like you’re going to go to the bed anyway. So why don’t you just leave it the way it is unless you have company coming over, which no one we don’t in a way drink COVID so our beds were always messy. However, what pro productivity guru suggests is the fact that you do complete this one thing. It’s these visual reminders that you can have order in your life if you choose to have order in your life. And while I’m actually staying with my parents, We can record this podcast without interruption from a two-year-old. I do make the bed. The bed is made by me because it looks better. If you were able to see it, you can’t see it from this angle. If you’re watching on YouTube, you can’t see in this angle, but the bed is in pain. And it’s that one, one bit of success that you have, if you do this first thing in the morning is that one bit of success that you have, and it just sets up your day for unlimited success or unlimited rewards that you receive in your life. So I compare this accountability, these agreements that you make with yourself to something as simple as. It’s not simple to me. It is for some people is making your bed in the morning. So for you who’s listening or watching, it might be going to the gym. That can be a simple thing for you, whereas for other people, it’s a huge accomplishment. So saying what doing, what you say you’re going to do is both a simple and extremely important accomplishment. And I think. Something that we can all recognize with ourselves and for others is to have more accountability for ourselves as well as for the people in our lives if they’re open to it. That’s the other thing is they’ve got to be
Cory: Yeah.
Gail: to wanting that. And that’s part of the coaching process to ask for permission for that accountability. So our accountability group is in the lift it is. First of all, you have to be with a member. And if you’re interested in that, I will put a link in the description wherever you’re watching this on how to apply and sign up for Lyft and you. So you first have to be a member of Lyft and it’s open to coaches, consultants, solopreneurs, small business owners, and then you have to opt in to this particular accountability group. So it’s like a second step. And it’s something that you do want for yourself. Provide accountability and in different formats, like for our private clients, it’s done through our private coaching calls, but this gives an easy way for our lift members where private coaching is not necessarily the best fit for them to still get accountability. And if they want coaching, they can get coaching on our weekly coaching calls.
Cory: Yeah, And also part of the, one of the things that we do in the accountability group, or I will do as soon as anybody actually falls short a little bit is one nudge them to keep up. So they say, I want this and they start on this, that I will nudge them and keep up with it because that is actually one of the other things that I felt. I did judge Gail. Cause she was taking her time answering some and the point being, and I did that well, we walked the talk and the point being is one of the things that I’ve seen over the years is Gail has been a part of the mastermind. groups. I’ve been a part of mastermind groups before them, these little accountability circles. And I know other people had to do them. It’s sometimes they are successful and they go for a certain amount of time. But eventually. People disappear. They fall off or they’re like, I got enough of this. And so what I wanted to do for us, especially because we have the platform for it was to create something that is going to be daily and pretty much forever. And so it’s consistent day after day, whether you participate daily or weekly, or monthly, you set the tone that you want. And then we help hold you to that are, it’s all Gail to her weekly and. But it will be there weekly. It won’t be like, in a couple of weeks, everybody’s forgotten and moved on and now Gail’s not getting that accountability that was so benefiting her, which we see with so many groups, except the really well-paid masterminds that cost a lot of money. And most of us don’t have access to that nor do we necessarily want to sit in a room full of people, trying to solve all our problems for us.
Gail: Yeah, mastermind.
Cory: I have talked to.
Gail: group. Yeah. Some masterminds do
Cory: there is some accountability.
Gail: Yeah. But I’m not necessarily. And yeah. Mastermind groups are a whole nother thing. We could do a whole nother episode on that, but I do want to focus just on the accountability. So any last words that you want to share regarding accountability, Corey?
Cory: Yeah. I thought it was really interesting as I was talking to somebody about this and I said, I really want to keep more agreements and it would be pretty amazing to keep a lot of agreements. And she was like could you imagine somebody who keeps all of their agreements? And I said I have known people like that. And they’re the ones who I really admire and look up to. And. The way they do that is, by being aware of when they’re breaking the agreement so that they can go back and make them either correct or learn from it. And that’s what we do through this accountability group is to become better people and business owners.
Gail: It’s a powerful statement to Landa and thank you, everyone, for listening or watching our podcast episode for tonight with 2022 here, it looks like this might be more of a monthly thing. We’re not quite sure. We’ll see how the year lays out because I do want to be accountable and be. And be upfront that maybe this isn’t a weekly podcast. And I think it’s important for all of us to consider as content creators is what is the most important action in our business and making the podcast as much as we love it is not necessarily a weekly action that we can hold to. So I am going to be accountable to all of them. Cory will as well through me is that we are being accountable for having this be a monthly podcast. However, I do post daily on my social media, particularly on Instagram. So if you want to stay connected and get daily tips on your business for your coaching as a healthy solopreneur business, with a focus on sales, marketing, and productivity, follow me. At Gail, not Corey is very active on LinkedIn, and there’s a reason why he’s very active on LinkedIn, which we can go on. We can dive into more detail in a future episode, but LinkedIn would be the best place to connect with Corey. And you can find Corey on LinkedIn
Cory: there’s only one. Cory, not in this world to I’m in luck.
Gail: there’s not there’s got it.
Cory: As long as you spell my name correctly. C O R Y. Oh, there is one other, but he’s in Canada and he’s half my age, so I’m not worried about it.
Gail: So there is more than one. Cory, not in the world. There is more than one Gail, not in the world. However, those platforms are the best ways to reach us and you will see us. You will see our smiling faces on our avatars, but thank you for joining with us on this episode, monthly episode of the burden business. Cheers to your success.
Cory: Cheers everyone.
Do you have suggestions, feedback, or request for topics? Email Gail at gail (at) gailnott.com
Connect with us Online
Website: www.takewingcoaching.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/takewingcoaching
Instagram: www.instagram.com/takewingcoaching
Twitter: www.twitter.com/takewingcoaching