Welcome

Todd 0:00

This is the cluttered path, a compass for midlife.

Introduction

Todd 0:12

If you're like most people, you think there are reasons why you are the way you are, why you can't get what you want, no matter how hard you try. But here's the thing: most of those explanations are really just BS, and they keep you a victim and hold you back from being the best version of yourself. Be a victor, not a victim. Now, this is a description I read from a book entitled Nobody Cares Until You Do by Robert J. Hunt and Salem Thine. Now I just read this book and I found it to be very beneficial. And today I've got the privilege of talking to the co-author of the book. Robert, welcome to the show. Thank you so much.

Robert’s Bio

Todd 0:50

So can we start off by just giving us a brief bio, a background on yourself?

Robert 0:54

I've been married to the most beautiful woman uh in the world, Kathy, and I have been married 27 years. We got two adult children. Lauren is married to Dylan, they live in Austin, and James is still at home with us, finishing up his last year at UT Dallas. We've been living in the North Texas area since 2010. I grew up in Southern California, but we got out of there in 2010, thankfully, and we love being in Texas. So what I do for a day job is I run CEO peer groups, which means I spend all my time bringing together business owners to help them have an environment for accountability, which is what a peer group does. No one tells each other what to do. We just get together and say, here's my struggles, here's my issues, here's what I want to do. And then we learn from each other and we create the opportunity for real accountability, which is something that people tend to lose the bigger the company gets and the more employees they have and things they get away with, but you're really not getting away with anything. You're stuck with it at the end and you're not happy with the results. So that's what I do for a living, and that's my fun.

Todd 1:56

Excellent. Yeah, and and from the book, uh, just for the listeners, it's not just for business owners, uh, the accountability stuff. It it's something that you can put into practice for yourself. So yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So that's one thing I noticed. You've got the CEO peer group, but then you also, and the book is for anyone. If you have a business or just regular folks, well, accountability's for everyone, right? Excellent. Yes. So I like to start with the early years. So can you tell us? You said you were born in California,

An Abusive Father

Todd 2:25

but uh, can you tell us a little bit more about that? Where were you born and what was family life growing up?

Robert 2:29

I was in Southern California. I had a uh very angry father who is pretty messed up. And so I grew up in fear of him. And I watched him beat my mom and beat us kids uh throughout my junior high years and my freshman year. My father, my mom finally got rid of them and asked them to get lost, and they got divorced. And so that was a that was a break that uh that we really all wanted and needed. And you know, the downside of that is I didn't have a dad who was involved in my life in a good way. I mean, I had a dad, but you know, I didn't ever do anything with him and just tried not to piss him off. That was the goal. Don't piss him off. And so it was kind of a a hole in my life. And I had some great youth leaders who stood up and and invested in my life and cared for me uh that I've been very blessed to have in my life. Uh, but that was really the foundation of uh my youth was just some pretty dysfunctional family times.

Finding Faith in the Darkness

Todd 3:22

Yeah. Sounds like uh you're a man of faith. Can you talk about how that came about? Sounds like when you were a child.

Robert 3:29

Yeah, you know, I gave my heart to Jesus when I was a little kid, just in Sunday school reading a little book. You don't want to go to hell, right? No, I don't want to go to hell. That makes sense to me. Um, but it wasn't until I was 31 when I went to a Promise Keepers Conference in Anaheim Stadium and I surrendered my heart to Jesus for the first time. And it was pretty awesome. I I had played church all my life, and uh, you know, pretty very different lifestyles at work versus at in church, taking my clients to nudie bars and then leading a Sunday school class on the weekends. And uh, it was just a broken version of what God has redeemed us for. So at that moment at the Promise Keepers Conference, I finally surrendered my will to the Lord. And that was the start of really understanding what it was like to walk with Jesus, to give, to be 100% in and to see the blessings of that. I hate using the church words, the great reward of being that. You know, I've learned the hard way, but obedience brings blessings. And so if I'm doing what God's called me to, he can give me the things he wants to give me. But when I'm rebelling and ignoring him, he's like, Well, you're not ready for it, and so I don't get the things that he wants to give me. So I I have found my life is much richer when I surrendered to him and enjoy the relationship that he came and died for me for.

Todd 4:43

Excellent. Good to hear. Well, now I can call you brother as well. So yeah. Now your mom was a huge positive influence in this area of accountability. Can you talk

His Mother’s Example

Todd 4:55

about that?

Robert 4:55

Yeah, my mom modeled accountability. You know, my mom didn't graduate college, barely graduated high school, and they ran off to get married together. And she had four kids when she found out that that vasectomy my dad told her he got was not actually a vasectomy. And there's a fifth kid coming. And she had to think, you know, what do I do with this baby that's on the way? Excuse me. And uh, mom was accountable to God for the human life that he put inside of her. And um she decided not to abort me and let me live. Although having an angry husband who beats her and the kids all the time would make you think maybe we don't want to add another one to the puzzle here. But I'm thankful that she let me live. And I watched her walk in obedience to God despite poverty and fear and hard times. My mom worked two jobs as as long as I could remember. She worked all day. She was a narc at my high school. She catch people smoking in the bathroom and bust them. And uh then she'd go home at night and retouch photos and do odd jobs, sell Mary Kay, sew. I mean, throughout her life, she took in people's laundry. I mean, it was just whatever it took to take care of the family. And my mom owned it. And that's the definition of accountability is you own it. And my mom could have blamed everybody, could have blamed God, could have blamed her husband, could have blamed the parents, could I mean anything. Uh, certainly she could blame us kids. We were a nightmare uh to take care of. But um, she decided that she was gonna own it and she was gonna be responsible for the kids that she had, but she's gonna even more have accountability for what God has called her to do with the journey she was on.

Todd 6:34

So your mom was uh Christian as well? Yeah, excellent. Yeah, great mom's she's a great lady, man. I yeah, sounds like a great lady.

Robert 6:44

Yeah, she taught me to love Jesus. She was a very faithful, godly woman. She passed away last year, and I think she was 94, 93. And uh, you know, none of us thought she'd live that long. She didn't think she'd always say, I can't believe I'm still alive. And she was not the pillar of health, and uh, and yet God had a plan for her. So yeah, I all the things I knew about God came from my mom early on. She was the foundation of my faith.

Todd 7:12

Wow, that's good to hear, man. Thanks for sharing that.

Robert 7:14

Yeah.

First Experience With Accountability

Todd 7:15

So moving moving a little bit further along. So you had a memorable first experience with accountability when you started college. Can you tell that story?

Robert 7:22

Yeah. Well, you know, I I did not grow up as an accountable person at all. Um, I just avoided getting in trouble as best I could. I still got in trouble, but I avoided it the getting caught at least. And when I graduated high school, I didn't really take much seriously. Um, I got to my first uh semester of college, and I noticed that a lot of the guys that were in my group were still from my high school group classes together. I guess they put all the knuckleheads in the same uh classes all the time. So I'm in remedial English. I had to take English over basic English just to get into college, had to do it again. And uh and then like the first day of school, we're goofing off and messing around. The teacher goes, Hey, you guys out of my class. And so we're like, Yeah, kicked out, you know, like that was like that was cool. That was very high school mentality. So that was a Tuesday, Thursday class. I came back on Thursday and I sat down. He's like, What are you doing here? And I'm like, Hey, I'm in your class. He's I kicked you out. And I said, Yeah, but that was Tuesday, man. No, no, boy, this is college. This is college. I don't care if you go to college, no one else cares if you go to college. And if you're gonna be in my class, you're gonna behave. And so I kicked you out, you're out. Goodbye. And I walked out like, wow, he's taking this guy's making such a big deal. And I came back and talked to him afterwards, and he's like, dude, you got to grow up. No one's gonna care if you go to college or not. You gotta, you gotta own your junk. And he was right, and it was a turning point for me as a young man. I was moving out on my own. I didn't know anything about money or or running my life. I just kind of existed, and you had to grow up really fast. And so that dude was great for me. I needed that kick in the butt. I went back and took his class the next semester and got an A in it. And uh, I didn't get a lot of A's in high school. So that was my my focus had really changed at that point, and I began to really own the journey.

Todd 9:08

Yeah, wake up call. Yeah. Same similar thing with myself starting college. I mean, I didn't I didn't get in trouble, but it was like I started going to college. I thought it was gonna be like high school, you know, just coast my way through my first test. I got a 40 on it. So I ended up passing that class, but oh my word, that first that first exam was brutal. So yeah.

Robert 9:31

It's hard to make up when you have 40.

Todd 9:33

Well, luckily, the professor, he we were all freshmen, and he's just like, welcome to college. And he said, Hey, I'm gonna drop the lowest test score. So I was like, Oh, oh thank God.

Robert 9:43

Thank you. Yeah.

Todd 9:45

Turns out he was the dean of he was the dean of the college, and he also ran the math department. Uh, the he had some kind of competition that he took students to every year. And so he used that first shakedown test to see who the really good students were. So he was recruited. I guess you didn't go to that conference. No, I was not invited. So well, good stuff, man. Yeah. So that's the background. And one thing I took away from your book is accountability is intensely personal. It's something that we have to take ownership

Nobody Cares (Until You Do)

Todd 10:19

of. And the title of your book is interesting. So, what do you mean by the the phrase nobody cares?

Robert 10:25

Yeah, well, we purposely called it that because we wanted to shock people when they walk by a book. Of course, uh, it's not in the bookstores yet, it's all on online and through Amazon and such. But in my mind, I envisioned someday it'd be on a shelf and somebody go, What's that? Um, but the whole point of the matter is in accountability is is that look, nobody cares if you're miserable with your life. It's your life. Everyone's got their own junk to deal with. They don't have the bandwidth to worry about your stuff. And I learned it the hard way in my own life through the times where I just figured I'd get by or it'd work out. But accountability means you own it. You own it. And that means that you have to do whatever it takes to get the result that you're looking for in living the life that you really want. And when you don't, and you play a victim in different areas, you are you have no joy in your life. There's no fun. And it's no, there's no power. You're a victim. Instead of doing something about it, you're just stuck. And so we just wanted people to wake up and realize that at the end of the day, your your actions or lack thereof have consequences. And the truth is that really nobody does care until you do. And then when you care to do something about it, you own it, then there's great opportunity. And that's what we talk about in the book.

Todd 11:40

I've experienced that. When you're you're out getting after it and you need help, there are people around that are willing to pitch in with you. It's good, share their knowledge.

Robert 11:49

So once you own it, once you're the one, once you've said, okay, this I'm gonna fix this, I want to do something about it. But what happens is most people they blame or make excuses or say they can't do anything about it, and they just hope that someone's gonna fix it for them. And then no one does because no one can deal with your stuff, no one can fix it. Even the government who gives us free money, remember COVID, we're all getting money for not working and stuff. You know, that didn't last forever. And at the end of the day, we still had to figure out a plan. And so there's too many people who are still sitting around waiting for someone else to fix their problems, but it's yours, it's your problem, you got to own it.

Todd 12:24

Yeah, I think there was a comedian, Chris Rock, I believe it was, who said this. He said, Look, if your car's broke down on the side of the road, people generally won't pull over to help you. But if people see you pushing the car, people will pull over and help you. So that's a good point. Yeah, exactly. That's true. You see someone that needs help, it's oh yeah, cool. But yeah, that's good, man. I appreciate the background there. But now, can you can you give us a brief description? When reading the book, you go through the stages of accountability, and it's a really good picture of you're starting at the bottom of a mountain and you're climbing to the pinnacle of accountability.

The Stages of Accountability

Todd 13:00

Can you give us a brief description of each of the stages of accountability from your book? Sure.

Robert 13:05

Yeah, we there's a halfway point uh where you get to nobody cares at the beginning, but at the beginning, you're really unaware of what accountability looks like. And me as a young man, I just figured you could just go to school and you pass, like I did through high school. But in college, it was a different situation. So all of a sudden I became aware, wait, this is different than high school, huh? And I had to figure out, okay, now I gotta do something different to own that. So the first thing you do when you figure out you have accountability for something is you blame. And if blame doesn't work, you make excuses. And they're kind of the same thing, the way we position them, they go hand in hand. And if that doesn't work, a lot of times we just say, well, I can't do anything about it. And you just stop because you can't. There's just nothing you can do. But in reality, you're really saying, I won't. I won't do anything about it. And the last thing you do is wait and hope. And that's how my beautiful wife, Kathy, and I got into $90,000 in debt, and it was killing us. And the reality is that uh nobody cared that we were swimming in debt. It was our problem. But we kept thinking next year where the business will grow, next year we'll figure this out, next year that it was always next year. And making minimum payments on your credit card is waiting and hoping until all of a sudden you lose a job and now you don't have enough money to make minimum payments on your credit card. And so we're buying time, but we're really holding ourselves as victims. And it's at that point where you realize you look around and go like, wait, nobody cares. Nobody cares about my problems unless I care enough to do something about it. Then at that point, when you say, okay, I'm gonna own this, now you acknowledge the reality of where you're at. You embrace the suck, which it did suck. Our solution was to sell our house and start over. And we didn't want to do that. Selling our house sucked. We liked our house, but we had equity and we could start over. And so we did. We uh we sold the house and used that to pay off our debt. So you acknowledge the reality, you embrace the suck, you find you find a solution, and then you make it happen. So on the other side of realizing nobody cares, there is a very methodical process. The reality check it takes to look in the mirror and say, well, this is the truth of where I'm at without any kind of lies or confusion. This is where I'm at. And then it's gonna suck to change, but I can do something about this, I can own this. And then you make a plan. And there the plan usually material uh materializes pretty easily because you're past all the lies and confusion that have held you back, and you realize, oh, I all I got to do is this. It's not that hard. Most of the solutions for things really aren't that hard. Like if you have a crappy marriage, it could take a long time, but you can go get counseling. You could pray together, you could go to your your pastor and get help, you can invite friends to walk the journey with you, you could have candid conversations with your spouse. All these things you can do. There's stuff you can do. It'll take some time, but you can do something about it. And that's the stages of owning it.

Todd 15:52

Yeah, I appreciate that. And what I like was the fact that you and Salem, the book was written out of the hard trials that you both faced in life. I mean, you're not sitting in Ivory Towers just, hey, you should do this. I mean, it's this is legit something you followed, and uh you've put together a nice manual for people to follow to help them take accountability.

Robert 16:13

So Well, and at the end of every chapter, there's at the end of every chapter, there's something to do. There's an exercise to apply it because we want it to be like a workbook. And uh the first thing you do is take the satisfaction assessment where you be honest with yourself and say, Well, here's where I'm at, and that's becoming aware. And as you move through every chapter, there's something you can do, change your but to an and when you say, Oh, there's nothing I can do about it, and you say, I'd like to do this, but well, change that to an and. And then that tells you where you need to go next. So we put these work, these little worksheets inside each chapter so it can help you own it and move forward towards accountability. Excellent.

Todd 16:50

I appreciated

Eliminate Excuses!

Todd 16:51

that. Now, what were the excuses that kept you from being accountable? What did you use?

Robert 16:57

Um, I had always blamed that I couldn't be, I wasn't a good salesperson. That was one of my excuses. Uh, the reality was I am a great salesperson. I just never made sales calls because I was uncomfortable with the idea of selling and I didn't want to call a CEO. So you want to be in a peer group? And they'd go, no, and I'd go, oh, I'm sad. And so I just wouldn't make any sales calls. And so the reality was that I had never been sales trained. So I went and got sales training. And through learning the principles of good sales processes, I realized all I have to do is just take the first step. I'm really good at everything. It was just the first step that I never took, which is make a phone call. Go talk to somebody, go do something about it. And so going off and getting sales training was the solution for that. That was certainly one. Uh I used to also make an excuse that, hey, everyone's got debt. You know, that's just that's a fact reality. You got a house, that's debt. You got a car that's dead, that's dead. Got credit cards, that's America. You know, everyone's got debt. Well, you know, that that started off okay until it got to be 30,000, then it got to be 40,000, 50,000. You know, when you get to $90,000, you go, I don't think everyone has $90,000 in debt. That did not include the house or the cars, by the way. That was just cash, credit cards, government debt. So it was pretty bad. But I I use the excuses, everyone has debt, and and all they did was keep me trapped as a victim a little bit longer, thinking that next year, next year we're gonna get it worked out.

Todd 18:20

Right. So you're speaking from experience here. You're not just saying, hey, be accountable, stop making excuses.

Robert 18:28

Yeah, and we we share some pretty vulnerable stories because people don't like someone else telling them what to do with their life. And a book like this could come across like, hey, you're not accountable, get your act together and get out there. And and it it would make you feel like I'm ignorant to the realities of the world you live in. And I'm not. I I told you earlier my own stories of being victimized as a child, but it doesn't make me a victim. It just means I had a really bad person in my life who was really horrible to me. Move on. And I'm not saying that in a cavalier way, it was not easy to move on. Things happened to us. I got divorced after 10 years of marriage, came home and the house was empty, and my wife and my two-year-old daughter were gone. And that's a choice that she made. And so I had to live with that. So, you know, you you have to look at these things and go, well, did I get screwed over by God? Are you gonna be angry at God because of the journey you've gone through? God loves me. God died for me, He has a plan for my life. But other people's bad choices don't mean that God doesn't love me anymore. So if you want to blame and be angry and just sit there, you can. But that's being a victim. And so I just had to make the hard choices because I wanted something better. And it's a whole lot better to go through all the things you got to do to change than it is to stay a victim.

Todd 19:41

Yep.

Radical Transparency is Uncomfortable

Todd 19:42

Yep. Now you talk about radical transparency in the book. How did you put that into practice with your financial recovery?

Robert 19:50

Yeah, you know, we uh we obviously weren't good at money, and so neither one of us could help each other create a world of accountability. So we invited a financial expert. He's a wealth manager guy, uh, and he teaches financial stewardship. And we paid him $250 a month to come and look at our spending habits and go, whoa, is this how you spend money? So it was a little embarrassing. It was a lot embarrassing, actually. Um, but we needed to create the kind of transparency that would help us change. Because obviously, we did some things that were probably going to come back and be doing it again if we didn't make some changes. Getting out of debt is not the end of the game. You got to not go back into debt again. And so if you really want accountability, if you really want change in your life, you must be vulnerable with other people. Radical transparency lets people know I got an issue. I got a problem. That's why Alcoholics Anonymous, they make you stand up in front of the room and say, hey, I'm an alcoholic, because they want you to practice owning it. And so we don't have those kind of places anymore. You know, it used to be the church was a place that people went to to be honest about their challenges. Now we show up late, the music's already playing, we we listen for a while and then we leave before the the first couple cars get out of the parking lot. And we're not actually connecting to people. No one knows. You could have a really horrible marriage, nobody would know. You can be stuck in your financial woes, nobody would know. And so we've just created this fake world where people just look good on Facebook and Twitter and stuff, and and uh nobody's being real. But if you want real change, you got to be transparent.

Todd 21:24

Yeah, and connecting with others, getting someone that's an expert that can just look in and go, hey, this is what I'm seeing. That's that's so valuable, man. Yeah, that's one of the things I'm I'm thankful for with the military. Um, I was I was in the Marines, did six years active duty, and uh we did fitness reports. Oh no, I got way more out than I put in. So I'm thankful to America for being able to do that. So I was a pre-9-11 guy, so I was in during peacetime.

Robert 21:51

So but nonetheless, I appreciate it.

Todd 21:54

Yeah, uh I appreciate that, man. Thank you. Um, but one of the good things that I took away from that was that they looked into what you were doing, your your superiors, and they took notice and they they put that in your fitness reports and they were like, hey, here's areas where you can improve. And and one of the times um I had a captain one time tell me, he was like, Yeah, you're very emotional. I'm like, what? What are you talking about? I was infantry, marines, and all this. Yeah. And uh I I thought emotional like crying, yeah. But then he was just like, no, I mean, when you're happy, you're really happy, but when you're not happy, you're really not happy. And so that you know, I yelled a lot at people and stuff. And that was a good way to confront me, just to confront me with that, because I had it made me start thinking about it. And I appreciate him doing that. And uh, I mean, with finances, with all of these things, you need someone that can just come alongside and sit down and go, you know, this is where you're messing up. I don't think you don't really have to do that, but just say, hey, this is what I suggest, and you know, here's here's what I'm noticing.

Robert 23:00

So we don't have a world anymore where people can just talk with each other. You're always on show. Everything's um you take a certain picture of it and you write a little note and you go, This is how great my life is, and and nobody really knows what's really going on in people's world anymore. It's just what you promote, and so it's hard to be able to get the kind of support you need to be the best version of yourself. And we've we've created this fake world these days, and I think that's where real friendships are so valuable because they can ask real questions and they can really care for you.

Todd 23:32

Yeah, we need that. It's uh that's so true. And I've said it before in previous episodes, but uh the times that we spent deployed overseas, those were that's where I really learned that we need that human connection with one another. Because if you didn't connect with your platoon mates and whatnot, you didn't do well mentally. And I saw guys have mental breakdowns and stuff. So uh that connection, we need it. So get off, get off Facebook. I mean, you know, obviously enjoy the good parts of social media, but get away from those things is my suggestion to folks and get out and really interact with real people. So yeah, I agreed. But um now

Taking the Satisfaction Assessment

Todd 24:12

accountability is very practical in your book. You don't just say, hey, here's what we recommend. Like you said, you've got those exercises, and you start with you've got those personable stories, they're relatable, but the book is not just informational. And this is really the difference between education and training. So, education, we go get information and we regurgitate it for a test. Training is where you're like, okay, now let's put it into practice. And you've got some really practical exercises to help the reader implement your ideas. Now, can you describe the satisfaction wheel that you use to coach people?

Robert 24:48

Yeah, I'm I'm glad you took this satisfaction assessment yourself. I think that's very vulnerable on your part. Basically, what we're doing is in at the beginning, you have to create a level of awareness to be able to realize whether or not you're being accountable. So at the beginning, you're unaware. And so when you take a satisfaction assessment, you declare, I'm not satisfied with this, this, and this. And then the question is, well, why? Why? And it's at that moment that you go, well, because my wife, well, because the government, well, because my kids, and you know, you you start to come up with all these excuses or these reasons, as we call them reasons if they're good, and yours are excuses and mine are reasons. But there's still the the non-ownership version of the story. You can blame someone. You can't you can sit around and say I can't do anything about it, but it you're in a victim trap. And so by declaring that awareness of where you're not satisfied, these satisfaction wheels are designed to help you see where you're playing the role of a victim and then give you the opportunity to go through the stages of of acknowledging it and doing something about it and moving off and and owning it.

Todd 25:54

Yeah.

unknown 25:55

Yeah.

Todd 25:55

So I took that assessment from your website and it's really cool. And we'll be sharing information in the uh in the description here. But I took the assessment, it was really quite easy, only took a few minutes, and you can just download it really quick and have a PDF copy of that. And so I shared my assessment with what's that?

Robert 26:13

And of course it's in the book too, but uh we wanted to give people a digital version in case you didn't want to score on in the book that you're not happy with your marriage. You don't want to maybe have that one on the coffee table yet? Maybe you want to stagger that discussion. So we gave people a digital version to do that, but I cut you off, please.

Todd 26:29

No, no, yeah, you made it real easy. And uh so for people on video, I'll be showing a graphic with personal satisfaction results. Now, there's also an another aspect that's business satisfaction results. Um, I think you can apply that.

Robert 26:43

It well, it is for business owners, but uh no, it's for an employee too, because let's say you you think that our customer service at our company is horrible, and and part of what you do for a living is let's say you're in the warehouse and then we've got horrible customer service. So people show up angry at the warehouse. I mean, those things can affect you too. So it's usually probably more powerful for the the senior leadership of a company, but every employee can say whether or not they think the tech is horrible. Like my computer constantly crashes, so it's hard for me to get work done in the workplace, or that I don't make enough money because the company's really struggling financially. And there's a lot that we can know, even if you're not the owner.

Todd’s Assessment Results

Todd 27:21

I like it. Yeah, so I did it from the aspect of podcast. And uh, so that's that's the business side. But I also did my personal satisfaction results. And how do you want to do this? How do you want to go through these?

Robert 27:34

Tell me you scored your fun and recreation low. Why is your fun and recreation low?

Todd 27:40

I'm working too hard. I'm I'm I'm not spending enough time out just doing fun things with my wife. So um, I'm just putting too much time at work. It's um why why am I doing that? Because of fear. I have a fear of losing my job, I have a fear of not doing well, and I have a fear of uh not performing well, and uh even getting ready for a podcast episode. I fear not doing a good job and disappointing someone. But um this is me.

unknown 28:13

Go ahead.

Robert 28:13

Just to take the example further, to in this case, your your excuse is that because of your fear, you're working more hours. And so in in light of that, what's the truth that we use to combat that? Because a lot of times we let excuses hold us back, but the Bible says don't fear, don't be anxious.

Todd 28:35

That's true.

Robert 28:36

Isn't the truth that if God wanted this thing to be a rockin podcast, he'd have it's probably gonna go up from this video, probably take you to the next level just from this video. But you know, you know, God could make it grow at the pace he wants to have it grow. So we we become comfortable with using the excuse that, well, I've got to work really hard to get this podcast going, therefore I'm not spending time with my friends. The reality is you could do one episode that's so epic that it goes viral and a million people follow you tomorrow, if that's what God wanted to have happen. But in exchange for that, you're gonna say, I don't get to have any fun because of this podcast. And that's an excuse that you're making out of fear, but whatever the reason is. So then just go deal with the the truth of the what's driving that. So go back and acknowledge the reality, God's in control. The reality is podcasts come and go. The reality is they'll get hot because they get hot. I mean, who knows what's gonna take something take off? You can work and have the most high efficiency. The notes you sent me to get ready for this podcast, you're a very professional, organized person doing a podcast. I've been on some podcasts where they're in their living room, it's on their laptop, their laptop's on their lap, and they're just kind of talking to me like, oh, this is gonna be awesome. So you're very professional. So it's not for the lack of hard work, but if you're gonna say, Lord, I want to do this podcast and I want you to make it grow and reach people and then put it in his hands, leave it alone. Do the best you can. I equate it to that idea of a farmer plants corn and doesn't stand over the corn and watch it grow. He doesn't put more hours standing there watching the corn grow because that doesn't make the corn grow any faster. He does have to water it. He does have to get the critters away from it. He does have to take care of the bugs that get on it. But at the end of the day, God's going to decide the results of that corn. And he's got to do what he can and then walk away and go do something else, like be with the kids or milk a cow. I don't know what a farmer does. But you know, you at this point have the choice to be able to say, I'm going to give it this kind of effort and let the results be what God decides, and stop giving up fun and recreation, which helps you become more creative and more powerful in these podcasts, because your head is on screwed on right, and you have energy and joy, and you had a great day, and now you're coming here to do this out of joy versus man, I'm tired today.

Todd 30:52

Yeah, that's true. And the way I'm taking accountability is I'm working with a counselor on these things, someone who knows how to dig around and go, here's why you're doing that. And just looking at my personality, uh, the past and things like that, and just saying, well, here's why you're doing that, and here are the steps you need to take to fix that. And so I'm right in the middle of that. And so what you're seeing is where I am right now today. And um, yeah, so I am, I am I have a history of pointing outside and saying, if this person would do this, or if my company were this, or if my job were better, then yes, then like, but yeah, I totally agree with the book and what you're saying. It's those are excuses. Yeah. So I need to take accountability for that.

Robert 31:37

Most of the time we know why we're not doing something, we're just not doing it. Again, this comes back to vulnerability. If I tell my buddy, hey, I don't like the way that I seem to talk to my wife a lot of times, uh, he's not gonna sit there and babysit me and wait till I say something, go, hey, don't talk to your wife that way. That would be horrible. But what he could do is spend time with me and we could read the Bible together, we could pray together, we could talk about some of the emotions that are going on in my heart so that I can get a dump on him instead of coming home and talking to my wife and be angry about how my day went. I can go call him up and go, dude, I'm so mad at this customer. And he could be the guy that I process it with so I don't bring this home to my beautiful wife. So we can make decisions to do the things we know we should do if we want to. We we know what we're not supposed to do. We know what we're supposed to do in most cases, but having someone who will walk the journey with you doesn't hold you accountable, but they create the opportunity for you to hold yourself accountable if that's what you really want.

Todd 32:34

Right. Yeah, I like I like that you said that. It's like, and that's one of the things that we tend to do as people is look for the other party to do something for us. And like so, people find out I was in the military, and uh parents oftentimes will come up, or maybe their nephew or niece or someone, they'll say, Oh, so-and-so needs to join the military to straighten them out. And I'm like, Nope, don't don't send them to the military. It'll make them worse.

Robert 33:02

So it could. That's right.

Todd 33:04

Because if you're looking for something external to make that change, then you're gonna see some external changes with the military, but uh after a while it kind of wears off if you don't have that foundation. And uh yeah, so I'll I'll get off the soapbox there. What area did you want to uh discuss next?

Robert 33:22

Well, one of the things that's come up that was really not emphasized in the book

Responsibility vs. Accountability

Robert 33:26

as much as as we it's come to life after the book was published is the difference between responsibility and accountability. And I think that we often use the word accountable when we're actually just being responsible. So the IRS says that 60% of Americans will get to the last days of their life and need someone else to pay their way to survive. And yet we have like 50 years to plan for our retirement. And yet 60% of America is gonna be wanting and someone's gonna have to take care of them. It's it's it just proves that we're not actually being accountable. Because all these years we've been responsible. We went to work, we got a paycheck. But what do we do with that money in light of the fact that at some point you won't earn as much money or any money because you can't. So to be really accountable, it's proactive in nature. If I eat donuts every morning and I'm getting fatter and fatter until I all of a sudden become a diabetic, well, then I can be responsible and take my insulin shots, but I could have stopped eating the donuts and been accountable to better health practices so I don't become diabetic. Accountable is proactive. Responsible is reacting. So if you have a company with a bunch of goofy employees and you get them in line and you tell them how to behave, that's being responsible. But accountable would say, look, if we've got all these people with challenges at home and financial issues and marriage problems, they're going to show up at work in a bad shape. Why don't we make a plan proactively to care for them? Why don't we have a quarterly event where we teach our employees life skills, like how to have a budget so that they don't have too much debt and they have to work a second job at night and show up exhausted at work and in a bad mood just to get by? Or why don't we have a seminar on how to have a good marriage? It's not my business. You're not asking how their marriage is, you're just teaching the principles of good marriage. Like you don't need to know that someone has no idea how to have time management to do a session on time management. You're teaching it ahead of time. So the point about accountability is it's proactive. And I think far too often we think we're being accountable or we're really just being barely responsible.

Todd 35:31

Yep. That's I've done that. That's me. So raising my hand here.

Robert 35:36

Everybody has. I didn't want to throw you out in front of everybody to talk about any topic you may not want to talk about. Here's another thing about these wheels. Let's say you scored your spouse and romance, you know, whatever score that's lower than something. Your evaluation of your score could be different than mine and still be the same problem. You know, I might have problems with my wife, but I've just given up and gone, well, that's as good as it's going to be, so I'm just going to give it an eight. But but I've given up on what my dream was really like to have a spouse. And so, because in light of what you've given up for, you score it higher. So the numbers don't necessarily reflect if you got a two and I got a seven, oh, look, I got it together. No, I may have just given up on some area like finances. I would tell you in year two, three, four, five, and six, when I was building my debt, I'd say I'm doing fine financially. Why? Because there's some money in the bank and I was able to pay my bill every month. And so your version of what is okay and how you score it is different than someone else's. So you don't have to worry about someone else looking at your will and judging you. You should you shouldn't worry about that. But I would say that if there's a if there's an area in your life that you say, okay, I'm not really happy with, you already admitted that your uh fund wasn't as high. You know, if you've got another area of your life that you think I don't spend enough time with my family, okay, then then look at the excuse, look at the blame you give it, look at the saying what you can't. Well, I can't slow down. I remember when I was in debt, I got offered to go on a vacation with my brother and his wife. He was going to take Kathy and I on a really nice vacation trip, and I said, Man, I I can't go. They were gonna pay for the whole thing, everything. I said, I can't go, I need to work. I was so fearful that if I just didn't keep cranking out the work, I would just never survive. And so I lived in this deficit mindset that I created.

Faith Demands Accountability

Robert 37:40

And so I think we get to a place where we're looking at something in so much fear and worry and anxiety that we can't live the life we really want. And that's not what Christ came to give us. You know, he says, uh I should know this verse, it's in John. He came to give us a rich and satisfying life, a life of abundant life.

Todd 38:00

Abundant life, yeah.

Robert 38:01

Yeah, but it's rich and satisfying. And so if you've got a satisfaction assessment and you're not satisfied, that's not because of Jesus. That's because of your choices. That's because of the life you're living. Because he came to give us a rich and satisfying life. And if I'm not satisfied, that's on me. I mean, I have my eternal salvation, I have my eternity set set up for me for the rest of my future. It's all covered. But right now, today, he's also giving me the Spirit of God that's there to walk with me through whatever challenges I face. If I truly turn to him and let him lead, I have peace that's beyond understanding. I have the ability of God to guide me in different areas. But if I don't tap into God, that's my thing. That's my choice that I've made. Then we shake our fists at God like He's not doing enough. And He's like, dude, I'm right here. Yeah, I'm right here. You could talk to me once in a while. I could give you peace and help you figure out what to do, but we're not doing our part.

Todd 38:57

Right. Yeah. This is true. That's uh that's me. And by the way, for spouse and romance, I'll go ahead and tell the listeners here. I am uh working on me. I I've spent a lot of time in my uh life thinking of other parties, and maybe if they did this and maybe if they did that. And I've just started evaluating myself. And uh, my wife has been very gracious and kind, and she's a super nice lady. And I've just been evaluating myself in recent years, and I've just found a lot of areas where I need to grow. And so I'm working through that, and I've got folks holding me accountable. So, and one of those is my wife herself. So it's uh I've been I'm enjoying the road and uh just looking back on, wow, I wish I'd known this when I was a lot younger.

Robert 39:40

So

Hold Yourself Accountable!

Robert 39:41

you said a phrase that we use a lot in our lives, hold someone accountable. You said your wife's holding you accountable, but let me encourage you that that phrase doesn't work. Nobody can hold anyone accountable. We can do things that we hope they'll want to rise up and be accountable for it. But at the end of the day, let's say you have an employee and you say, I want these reports every Friday. Friday comes along, they don't do it. And you know, Monday you're like, Where's that report? I didn't get a chance to do it. I wanted it every Friday. I'm serious, Joe. And now you're raising your voices, and now you're getting all mad and you're threatening them. I want you to do this. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, you gotta hold that. And the next week it doesn't come again. They're still not doing it, they're still not being accountable. And you're not being accountable either because you're not figuring out, well, what Joe, why isn't the report getting done? Well, I don't have the documents. I can't my computer doesn't work. And I was told not to do that report by finance, so they won't let me get in to do it. And so you're not even proactively going far enough to know what's going on. You would love that they would do that, but since they're not, how you as a leader move them to a point of getting things done? That's you being truly accountable in that moment. So let's say you're done with it, just sick of it, fire. You fire Joe. Well, now you're the one being accountable. Joe leaves his takes his lack of accountability somewhere else and goes to work for another company. He's still not anymore accountable. So the reality is you can't make anyone be accountable, but you can create a place where people want to be accountable, where you want to be accountable to your wife, and you say, Hey, here's what I'm doing. And she's like, Okay. And you say, I'm gonna check with you every Thursday, I'm gonna give you this information, I'm gonna tell you this, whatever. And then you do it. And she's not gonna have to go, Well, did you do it? Well, that's not her job. That's you're expecting her to babysit you, and we're not babies anymore.

Todd 41:29

Doesn't work that way, right?

Robert 41:31

When you truly own it, and it is yours, that's the definition of accountability. You're the one who sets a reminder in your phone Thursdays at two o'clock, do this. Every week, do that. Whatever the thing is that you're gonna own, you really truly need to own it because nobody can hold you accountable.

Todd 41:46

Right. And it's it's my responsibility to ask her things, ask her questions. You know, what do you like? What things, you know, just getting feedback from her. And then it's up to me to take that on. And oh, okay, well, you like it when I buy you flowers, just giving an example and uh take ownership of that and do it and listening.

Robert 42:07

Proactive nature of that, you're asking the question proactively rather than when she's mad. Well, okay, she's mad, I'll go get her some flowers. No, it's too late. I'm already mad, right? So if I'm proactive and I understand there are things that Kathy wants more than anything, she wants this is ridiculous. She wants time with me. I mean, that why would she want to hang out with me? I got nothing. She just she loves me so much, she just values time with me. Isn't that awesome to have a wife who just wants to be with me? But I think I got to do a chore. I got to fix something. I got to work hard to provide for the family. You know, dudes do that a lot of times. I'm working hard for the family. The family doesn't care that you're working hard. The family wants you home for dinner. The family wants to know that you're at the baseball game. The family wants you to come home and not be a jerk because you're so stressed out because of work that they can't even turn the channel without you losing your mind. You know, these are the things that your family truly cares about. But we make excuses for why we're doing something that we shouldn't be doing or not doing the things we should be doing. And then we throw it under the guise of, well, I'm being responsible for my family's future. Well, be accountable for the life that you are gonna live. You created children, be a dad. You got married, be a husband. These are the things that you're supposed to do proactively, because this is the life that you own. Stop trying to optimize a crappy life. Step back and create the one you really want, and then proactively do the things to get that.

Todd 43:28

Right. Yeah, my wife uh pointed out one time, uh, not at me or just in general. She's like, Yeah, we're we tend to want to do the big things, like I would die for my wife and stuff like that, but just be there every day in the mundane. It's easier to die.

Robert 43:45

Yeah, I die, it's over. I gotta be there and listen to you every day. Geez, come on, let me just die.

Todd 43:52

Yeah, yeah, just living with my wife in an understanding manner. That's what I need to be doing. And uh part of that is just listening and not trying to solve problems, just listening and and uh yeah, that's part of being a good husband. But um, I'll just read off the areas of the personal satisfaction results. There, there are a few areas here. It's first, it starts with health. That's primo because we've got to be healthy to be able to do the other things, to be able to work, to be able to spend the time out having fun with friends and family. That's you got to take care of your health. I scored myself kind of low on that because I need to step it up on the nutrition side. I get exercise and stuff, but when I'm at home, I like uh sucking down the snacks. So I got to change that.

Robert 44:37

I've got a proactive nature for accountability for your health. If you know that you eat crappy food at home, what is something you can do proactively?

Todd 44:46

Not bring that food in the house.

Robert 44:48

You could not bring the food home. Yeah. That's something that Kathy and I agreed on because I said, look, if you put chips in the cupboard, I'm gonna eat them. There's no question about it. Don't buy me chips. And if I'm Jonesing and I need a bag of chips, I'll get in my car, I'll drive to the 7-Eleven, I'll come home with a small bag of chips, and it'll all be fine. But if you buy the kind of bags of chips that they sell at the store, I'm gonna eat the whole bag. So we just proactively don't buy the things we shouldn't have at home. And then we just sit at home dreaming of bacon-wrapped ho-hos. So then go get a bacon-wrapped hoho and enjoy it, but you're not gonna sit and mow through a case of them.

Todd 45:26

Right. So, yeah. So there's health, there's spouse and romance. I brought that one up. Friends and family, how are how satisfied are you personally with uh friends and family, those interactions, spiritual, career, money, fun and recreation. And that's what uh that's what Robert called out here, uh, graciously, not digging into the other areas, but uh and then there's just the area of personal growth. So there's some areas I'm pretty satisfied with, and then others not so. And so this was a good exercise for me to just sit and analyze my own self and go, oh, I need to work on these things. And so I need to take accountability and just start with health and relationships and start working on those.

Robert 46:08

They tend to feed each other. You know, there's two things about that wheel. You wouldn't want to drive a car with a wheel like that, right? It would be better to have a tiny wheel that was round than a big wheel that's all chopped up like that because the ride would be horrible. So, in in looking at that, saying, Well, look, I'm gonna take down the notch on my personal growth. I might reduce some of that money and pay someone to do some work. I might, I might job out some of these things that I do. I might, you know, take the career and go, it's going pretty good. Let's just take a chill. Um, and maybe the spiritual thing is so good because of the relationship we have with Christ, but maybe it's because you're involved in some studies or some things that even a good thing in the wrong time could be not good. I've got a men's study on Tuesday, I've got this study here, I've got the parking lot I work on Wednesdays, and then you know, all these things you might be doing that are spiritual could be actually eating up the bandwidth that you need to invest in the relationships that are going to make you more balanced. But this is your choice to look at every aspect of your life and say, I want to raise up the fun and recreation, I want to raise up my health, and I want to raise up my friends and family so that the other wheels maybe come down a little bit. Um, it's not like, okay, so I'll make my spouse and romance worse. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that by taking a uh a chill on the amount of money that you pocket every month and invest it in a service that does something for you, you free yourself up to have more time for fun and recreation. And all you're trying to do is balance out the wheel so that you have all these areas getting the kind of life that you want them to have, but it does mean to it does indicate that you need to make some changes.

Todd 47:46

Yep. Man, this has been uh edifying. I appreciate it, Robert. So it's a good place to wrap it up here. So,

Where to Connect With Robert

Todd 47:54

how do how do people connect with you? Where do they find you?

Robert 47:56

We've got a website for our book, nobodycaresbook.com. The book is available on Amazon. We just released an audio book where Salem and I read the book, which is that's a daunting task recording a book, but it is available on Audible, and you can buy it on Amazon too, but we prefer you buy it from us at nobodycaresbook.com. And then, of course, if if there's something I can do to help a business owner who's struggling to get their accountability and their culture, their company, I'd love to come out and take their team through a workshop on the principles of accountability, like I've done with my clients over these years, teach these principles and help them be aware of it. Then go to REF Ref, refdallas.com. And that's where you'll find out about the work I do working with business owners and CEOs. And I take workshops all across the country. I was in Des Moines, Iowa last week, and the week before that, it was uh South Bend, Indiana. So I I go wherever people want to bring me in to do the workshops on accountability. Excellent.

Todd 48:54

I like that. And we'll put links in the description. I'll also put an affiliate link for the book on Amazon. If you want to support the channel, we would appreciate that. And uh yeah,

Closing Thoughts

Todd 49:05

just my takeaways here. Accountability, you've given us some practical steps here, and this is a very personal journey, but it's rewarding if we take that journey. So you got to choose to do that, right? So pick up a copy of Robert's book. The links in the description here. Also, if you need coaching, business owners, reach out through his website there. We'll put links there. But uh really appreciate your time, Robert, and uh looking forward to getting this out there and for our listeners. So thanks so much, man. Thank you. Now, thanks for listening. And if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review and share it with your friends. We'll see you next time.