Episode 108: Accountability Partners

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Hey, welcome back for another episode of the Fleet Success Show. I'm your host, Josh Turley, running solo today. I know it's been a few weeks since we've been on the air, but man, we've been traveling. We've been all over the map. I think in the last few weeks I've been to Dallas, Boston, Nashville, Baltimore, and I'm forgetting a place in between there. But we had our Spirit Week here at RTA, so I mean, we've been— we've definitely been busy. I And so I just want to apologize to all of our listeners. You know, thank you for waiting for us to get back on the air here and get some episodes in the hopper, so to speak. But here we are back on the air again. And today I wanted to talk about something. I was at GFX and ran into a friend of mine from a city up in Utah, and he was telling me a little bit about some of his journey, some of the things that he's done, and he was talking about certification specifically. What was interesting to me is as we were talking about this particular instance, I was also going through something very similar to the experience he had. And to kind of put it out there, he was going through, he was trying to get a certification, and I don't know if any of you have gone through this process before, but it's grueling, right? And it's tough to do, and it can be tough to kind of stay motivated through it, right? And what I found is in the most cases, when you have something that's really hard to go through and do, it really helps to have like an accountability partner, right? And so as he's telling me this story about, you know, him and Nathan Schaefer, who's somebody that works for me here, they went through this together, right? They both decided at the same time, hey, we're gonna go and we're gonna tackle certification together, right? And I'm sure most of us have been on this path before. Either certifications, maybe it was a weight loss journey, but usually there's some like big hairy goal that we're trying to go out and achieve. And I don't know how many of you have ever tried doing that and you've done it on your own versus trying to do it with a partner that kind of pushes you to get better, right? And so I started thinking about that in my own life, and what was interesting is that right at that moment, I've, you know, I've mentioned on the podcast before about my morning routine, right? And getting into this habit of, you know, waking up early, getting like having almost a morning checklist of, of things that I do. And, you know, since that episode, I've been, I've been doing well, but I'm not going to tell you that I was crushing it, right? It takes a little while to form a habit, but I didn't really have true success with that morning routine until my coach and I sat down And I said, okay, like, this isn't working, right? Whatever I'm doing, you know, most mornings it works and other mornings, like, I just— my routine gets blown up by whatever. So I sat down with him. I said, this is my idea. Every morning when I wake up, I want to— at 5:30, you know, like, I'm going to text you and say, okay, I'm up and here's, here's what I'm working on, right? Like, here's my 5 things or 7 things or whatever the number is. And, you know, he was— he's an awesome coach, so he's like, absolutely, whatever helps you succeed, like, that's what I want to do. And he was already up at 5, so it wasn't really asking a whole lot, you know, wasn't like I was interrupting his sleep or anything. But what I found is that because I knew he was waiting for that text, and it wasn't like, you know, my text was suddenly gonna make his day or something, but I knew that he was waiting on me to report in and share that you know, hey, like, I've got something going on, or I'm, I'm doing what I said I would do, right? And so as I started working on that, I started texting him even when I was on the road, right? Even when we had Spirit Week here a couple of weeks ago, I found it was so much easier for me not necessarily to have motivation, but to— well, maybe it was motivation. I don't know. But, you know, essentially, like, it just gave me a little bit more of an extra edge to, you know, to go out and do the thing I said I was going to do, right? To have integrity about the situation. And it's one thing to, to, you know, you want to do what you say you're going to do. But I think it's too easy when we're the only ones and we're holding ourselves accountable. For some reason, we don't have a problem like disappointing ourselves, right? And we would never do this to a friend, but to ourselves, You know, like, oh, okay, well, you know, yeah, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to eat those, that bag of chips. Or yeah, it's just, you know, it's just one soda. Like, we're masters of self-deceit, right? I've had a few experiences over the last month or so that have just convinced me that we are, we are our own best liars, right? We lie to ourselves more than anybody else. And accountability is a big piece of that. It's hard for us to hold ourselves accountable to just ourselves. And so I was thinking about this as I talked to my friend Ben, and then, you know, talking to my coach, Clay, I was like, why is it that it works so well? Right? Like, there's a definite psychology to it. And I remembered somebody told me something once, and it talked about, you know, there's an old axiom, you know, that what gets measured gets managed. Right? And we know that's true. If we measure it, then, you know, like, there's no way to manage it without measuring it. But the second piece of that usually goes on, you know, kind of gets forgotten in the wayside. And it's that what gets measured, managed, and reported improves, right? And there's almost this like social element that comes into play because, you know, we're social creatures and, you know, we have this innate drive to belong and to be a part of the tribe and not disappoint. Disappoint people in the tribe, disappoint people that we care about, right? We want to hold their, their opinions in high regard. We want to live up to those expectations. And I've found that when we go through and tap into that motivation, you know, that extra little motivation, sometimes that's the only little push we need, right? And any time that I haven't had that in my life where I don't have an accountability partner or don't have somebody that, you know, isn't like necessarily nagging me or, or, you know, riding me like, like your old high school football coach during, you know, practice drills or whatnot. But anytime I've been doing it and I haven't had somebody there that had my best interest at heart, I found that I've struggled, right? And this is for everything. You know, I think about like here at RTA, we have a bounty program to go out and earn the CA-FM. And I'm thinking out loud here, so you guys are going to hear some of my thought pattern. But I'm looking at it and I'm saying, huh, why is it I've got one person who's done 7 of the modules? She just finished number 7. She's on her way to number 8. And it's just like she's doing it right, but she's pretty much doing it on her own. She's self-motivated, like she's going out and getting it. But I had 20 other people sign up for the CAFM, and I think only 1 or 2 others have really made any progress on it. And I think what's been lacking— we have like a little team, internal team chat. But what's really been lacking is kind of like this rhythm, almost like me texting my coach at 5:30 in the morning. Hey, where are we at? Right? Hey, how are we doing on this? And pushing each other to say, okay, like, we're going to work on the same module together and, you know, hey, did you get your flashcards done? Or, you know, let's, let's all try to, like, push each other to get better. I think you see that in sports teams, too. You know, like the best sports teams, they get really good. They have a, you know, a couple superstars that push all the others to get really better. I remember watching the, um, the Phoenix Suns right back in the, uh, the 7 Seconds or Less era, um, and it was phenomenal to watch them. But like, we took this, you know, basically a ragtag group of players that was pretty good, but they didn't get really good until Steve Nash joined. And Steve just had a way of taking anybody that was on the court with him and instantly elevating their game. It wasn't like he was a terrific player, you know, like he didn't have great stats. You know, he had a lot of assists for sure. He was a point guard, right? So he was doing that. But, you know, it wasn't like he was lighting the roof on fire with his points or his shooting, not like Devin Booker does today. But man, he elevated everybody, right? He found the right people at the right time. And he just made them all better. And I look to, you know, like what we have today at the Suns organization. There's, you know, a different culture, but we didn't get good until people were willing to hold each other accountable. That was one of the things that Chris Paul brought in when he brought it in, other than being injured all the time, or at least at key moments in the playoffs. But he really pushed the other players to, you know, take accountability. You missed that defensive assignment. You know, you're not in the right spot for our set pieces. You know, we're doing our offensive plays. There's just a lot of those little things that we look at and we say, huh, right? But the culture changed because they were willing to push each other, right? And not call each other out and beat up on each other like, man, you're just terrible, right? Not like the Michael Jordan type of accountability, but real— like, I'm going to call it like love-inspired, right? Like caring. Accountability, uh, you know, somebody that really, like, they've got no skin in the game other than they just want to see you succeed, right? And I think about this example of, you know, Ben and Nate and watching them together. They just wanted to see each other succeed and both achieve what they wanted to achieve at their fleet organizations, right? Um, and they, they knew that if they were to do it together, their chances of success were that much higher. Than if they were to just try to do it by themselves and not have anybody else to answer to. Because it is— it's just so easy to either lie to yourself or, you know, we, we get into this, this mode where we have essentially what's called cognitive dissonance. And that's where what we're doing and what we think or believe about ourselves are different. And we have to reconcile those two things. Right. And that whole process of reconciliation is called cognitive dissonance. Right. It's the dissonance you feel when, when your actions and behaviors don't line up with your values and beliefs. So when we think about things like accountability, it makes sense. It's easy to lie to ourselves. It's easy to walk away from it. But when we have a partner, when we have somebody in our lives that's willing to just check in, right? Hey, how did it go yesterday? Hey, how are things going? Right. And what I've usually found too is that when I've had that partner in place and I go silent, it's because I don't want to admit that I have stopped doing what I'm supposed to do. Right. And so I think that's it. You know, just again, another testament to why we need accountability partners in our life. I even go, you know, like personally, you know, I think about when, when my wife goes out of town, right? Like, hey, well, while the cat's away, the mouse will play kind of a thing. Frankly, I get bored within about 2 hours and I think about why is that? Well, it's because like I come home and like my, my partner's gone, right? Like my accountability partner is gone. I mean, who's there to make sure that I do what I'm supposed to be doing or to help make sure that I'm focused on what matters most? Instead, now it's just kind of like, all right, well, it's just me, I guess. And I can go watch a movie or I can go, you know, I've got this list of honey-do items. Okay, that's all done. Well, now what? Right? Your partner in crime goes away. And it's, it's kind of interesting to see how we kind of flounder a little bit. And I don't know if any of you with spouses have ever had that experience. I'd love to hear it if you had. You can send it over to podcast@rtafleet.com. But it's just one of those funny things that, you know, like we have this— you almost become reliant on that type of accountability partner. Right. And I've seen it here, you know, whenever, whenever somebody's spouse has to go out of town for travel or a significant other or whatnot, It's really interesting to see how that plays out, that dynamic plays out every time. And I think that's— that there's something there we should learn from, right? And we should learn that, you know, and we'd apply it to our professional lives, to our personal lives, our careers, and really find those kind of people that can help push us, right? And you can look around, you'll find people, you know. If there's a goal that you haven't— that you've been struggling with, maybe you want to quit smoking, maybe you want to lose 50 pounds, Maybe you want to, um, you know, pick up a new habit. You want to go get certified, whatnot. If you look around your organization right now, do you have those people? You know, is there somebody that you could turn to and say, hey, this is something I want to do, do you want to go on this journey with me? Right? Do you want to do it together? Or at the very least, you know, will you help hold me accountable that I can report to you and tell you how I'm doing you know, and give me some advice. This is actually one of the things we really like our, uh, for our life coach. Uh, one of the things that he does is, you know, he's just, he's almost like a check-in partner, right? Somebody we can check in with. We can say, hey, how's it going? And what's fun about that is, is he'll kind of push us and he'll say, well, you know, like, I'll give you an example. Uh, our CTO here was doing a mountain bike race, right? And and he was going in and talking to life coach and Rich says to him, well, you know, I think instead of you, you know, he was aiming for a certain time and Rich says, you know, I think you do actually, you can go probably a little bit better, right? Like, don't aim for that. Why don't you aim for this instead? And what I like about it from an accountability coach perspective, right? Like finding a partner like that, somebody who's going to push you, who's going to say, hey, I actually think you could do more. Than what you're doing, right? Or, you know, at the very least, we'll just say, okay, well, you know, maybe if— let's go to my 5:30 example— maybe I'm still struggling to wake up at 5:30, right? And if that's the case, then, you know, maybe it says, well, let's, let's push you to, you know, like, why don't you try getting up at 5:15 or 5 o'clock, right? And pushes you and gives you those tools or tips to kind of help push along. You know, just somebody who's not going to accept your status quo or your bull, right? They're going to cut through all your crap and say, yeah, no, I know better. And I know you know better. You can do better. Right. And how amazing is that? And how much do we go out and achieve because, you know, we're willing to, to accept that type of feedback, to accept that type of coaching and really open ourselves up to somebody else who's going to push us and has our best interest at heart. So I'd say as you look around the shop, if you don't have somebody that, you know, that you have like that, look around your community, look around your network, right? Do you have somebody that you would consider, you know, either a close friend or at least a close ally who you'd be willing just to do something like a daily check-in or a weekly check-in with that would push you to do better than you are today, right? That would push you to go out and achieve that thing that you've been putting off for far too long. Right. And part of the reason why you've been struggling with it and you've tried and tried and haven't done it is simply because you've been fighting it alone. Right. What gets measured gets managed and what gets reported gets improved. Yeah, I just, as I was thinking about that, as we, we had this conversation at GFX and then as I've been going through this, my experience as well, I'm just like, wow, this is— it's something that's universal. But I know there's a lot of us in fleet and a lot of us who are just, you know, like we're trying to do things different, trying to do better. I mean, hell, even there's, there's those of us who would love to go out and apply for top 100 fleets or, you know, at GFX they have the elite fleets, the leading fleets, right? But we don't even get off the couch. We don't even get into the game, you know, because we're— we don't have somebody pushing us. To improve ourselves, to get better. And that's, you know, it's kind of sad because it's just wasted potential. It's wasted opportunity to do something really cool and incredible, you know, and to really be a better version, to be the best version of you. And if that's not the point of life, I'm not really sure what is, right? If it's not to improve ourselves every day, to, to get better every day, you know, and to take what we've been given and turn it into something else. I think that's, that's fairly sound advice. So that's going to wrap it up for us today. Uh, you know, glad to be back on the air. Glad to be speaking with you guys again. Uh, you're, you know, just incredible listeners. Love you for all the, uh, the feedback you've given us over the years. Uh, we're going to keep this thing going. You'll probably see some adjustments. Um, I think, you know, you'll probably see us adjust a little bit and maybe to go down to like every 2 weeks or something along those lines. Uh, but you know, we're definitely, uh, definitely still around, still publishing, producing, and, uh, really excited, you know, kind of what the future holds. Uh, you're gonna see a lot more guest speakers, guest, uh, you know, podcast attendees. Um, we're gonna have a few of our resident in-house experts. You're gonna hear from Nathan and Mark and Steve, as you know, Steve's almost done with his, uh, his project across the ocean. Uh, I'll be excited to get him back. We're gonna try to figure out how to get the, uh, getting the internet thing working. You know, it's, it's complicated, the internet thingy. So, uh, we're gonna work on that and, uh, just some incredible episodes coming up, uh, that I think you guys as fleet managers in today's environment, uh, are, are really gonna enjoy.

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