Episode 161: Accountability Breeds Responsibility

Welcome to the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. This podcast will give independent insurance agents all of the tools to grow your business and live life on your terms. Wherever you are today, if you're starting with nothing or well on your way to the success you desire, with the right people, processes and promotions in place, you will be unstoppable. And now I'd like to introduce your host, Mike Stromsol.

Greetings everybody. Welcome to the next episode of the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. And I want to share with you today something that is absolutely at the core, at the very core of my productive inner being. Not only in business, but in life. And once I learned this strategy, once I learned this self discipline, it changed the game forever. And when I built other people into this strategy and it further changed the game forever. And at the core, it is the thing that fuels me, one of the things that fuels me. But from an activity, task and operations standpoint, it is the fuel behind the getting shiitake done, making things happen, making sure that I knock things off. Behind the three times five times 50 equals 750. What is that? Three small things every single day, times five days a week, times 50 weeks a year, giving yourself time to rest and rejuvenate and refresh equals 750 items accomplished, done, knocked off, crossed out in a single year. Small choices plus consistency plus time equals massive results. And it is those daily habits, those things that you do every, every single day, the highest impact items that you do every single day. What's the fuel you might be thinking or ask? Accountability. Accountability breeds responsibility. Let me say that again. Accountability breeds responsibility. And when you build accountability into your world and into your life, into your daily habits, it will change everything for you forever. I'm going to share with you some strategies that I've learned over the years, but let me help you think about it like this as well. In the unstoppable Profit Producer program we teach a philosophy called the three Ps excellent people, world class processes and systems and promote the heck out of it. It will help you grow your business, create wealth so you too can have more freedom to live life on your own terms. That's all we want for you is that achievement. However, it is within the people and in the people. We teach recruiting, interviewing, hiring, onboarding, training, motivation. And the last segment of that is accountability. Because accountability breeds responsibility. So it is a team accountability, it is an organizational accountability and it is an individual personal accountability. What I am going to share with you today is primarily personal accountability. But you can take These thoughts, strategies, processes and build them into team accountability, build them into organizational accountability. I will drop for you one thought process in the team and organizational accountability and it is called the PX3 program. It is a program that we developed a number of years ago. It has grown, evolved, flourished over the last number of years. It gives my heart such great joy to when I am working with members of our programs and they say I have got PX3 coming up and it is making all the difference. It is helping our team stay on track. It is helping them become accountable to the organization, to the team. Nothing gives my heart greater joy when I see development year over year over year within agency businesses because of the PX3. There is nothing that gives my heart greater joy because they're growing creative, creating wealth and having more freedom through accountability. So what has that done for my life?

Simply put, if you want to talk about it from a monetary standpoint, it's giving me complete financial freedom from a business standpoint and getting stuff done. It's gotten stuff done, more done that I could shake a stick at over the last 20 plus years. When I started on my own from scratch, after a period of time I learned about accountability and I started performing accountability. One of the things thinking back was the SWOT process. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. So I learned that I needed to be accountable through all of those things. And then fast forward a number of years. About nine years ago I learned about the ultimate accountability tool and it's a book called Living youg Best Year Ever. And it's published by Darren Hardy and it's available. And anybody that sends me an email to mikepplife.com mikepplife.com, the first three people that send me an email that say in the subject line, send me Living youg Best Year Ever. I will send it to you. I need your shipping address in the body of the email. Happy to share it with you. However, it's not for everybody. I've provided this book to many, many people over the years and I will check in with them in the middle of the year and they will say, I will say, how's it going with you living your best year ever? And they said it was too much. I stopped a couple of months ago and honestly that hurts my heart because the only reason I share this information is because I want people's success. I want people's success and higher achievement and in whatever it is they want to accomplish, there are no limits. The only limitations that we have are those that we make for ourselves in Our minds. And this self accountability helps us. So a number of years ago, I started the Living youg Best Year Ever program. And that is where it fueled everything for me going forward. So I started with an accountability partner. And I have learned, you know, setting, goal setting, and everything else way back when, prior to that. And I had goals. I had individual goals, I had personal goals. I mean, thinking back even further than that, I had goals of growing agencies to certain levels, of buying buildings, of accomplishing things in life and helping our kids get through college and so many other things. And the amazing thing is we set the goals and we accomplish them. And beyond, beyond our wildest dreams. And in a long story, I could share with you everything that happened because of those early goals and then building the goals into an accountability platform. So it really starts with individual goals and agency goals and how you are going to be accountable for those because accountability breeds responsibility.

So in the days of having an accountability partner, it starts with you setting your goals, the things that you want to achieve and accomplish. And if you don't get there, it's okay. It's okay. There are two types of goals, as you know. There's bhags, big, hairy, audacious goals. And they're not for everybody. I got no problem with Bhags. If I say I'm going to make a million dollars this year and I only get to 800,000, I'm good with that. Why? Because I'm 800,000 to the positive. Some people can't handle that. They can't fall. They can't end up falling short. And that's okay. They're smart goal people, specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and on a timeline. Whatever works for you, just do it. Just take action. So I learned how to get deeper and more specific on the goals, on the things that I wanted to accomplish, and then I learned about the top goals for a specific week, for a specific month, for a specific quarter. It's all laid out in my accountability guide and I get super crystal clear every single week. Part of the accompanying documents that I use is my Planning My Plan sheet, which I use every single day. I plan my plan the night before. I plan my plan the night before, getting clear on up to six items that I want to accomplish on any given day, and the people that I need to reach out to and the people that I'm waiting to hear from and any other notes. And it warns me at the bottom to steer clear of my inbox, because that's only an operating platform for the agenda of other People, your agenda is the highest impact opportunity that you've got. So make sure you are accountable to it and that you are focused on it. Follow one course until success every single day. Stay focused on being accountable to what you set out to do and what you said you were going to do. Okay? Because remember, commitment is the thing you said you were going to do long after the mood that you set it in has passed. So back to accountability. So I plan my plan every single day, the night before, and then I have my daily plan in front of me. And in addition to that, over the prior weekend, I've filled out my weekly accountability and goal sheet for the entire week. And I'm looking at that every day. In my personal world. I also have a third item in play, a third tool in play called a vision organizer. Vision is the art of seeing things that other people can't see. I'm responsible as the visionary of a business organization to have the vision for the organization, the future planning, the forethoughts of what we're going to become. So what I do is I've got a vision organizer that lays out our plan, the things that we need to accomplish, the issues, the quarterly goals, the one year plan, the three year picture and then the ten year target. Those are all laid out in the vision organizer. In addition to that, it's got our marketing plan, our core values, our core focus, who our ideal client is and what they look like. And it doesn't mean we are not going to help other people, but all of that is clear. So I am planning my plan the night before. I have got my vision organizer that I look at four times a week. Why? Because I tell myself self accountability in the weekly rhythm register that that is one of the eight core things that I am going to do, the eight core daily habits. Every single day it is what I am going to do. Because I made a commitment to myself and to my family and to my teammates and everybody else that I am privileged to influence that I am going to become more. Those weekly rhythm register items are personal and professional, they are health related, they are exercise related, they are spiritual related, they are operational related, all of that. And I commit to these things with a goal every single week. Ok then on the opposite side, I have got three top goals and I have got goals for the top three top goals for the week and then I have got at the top left three top goals for the month and then three top goals for the quarter and they are all interrelated. And the things that I am doing on the other side in the weekly rhythm register bounce off of those goals. And they are all contributory to making impact, achievement, and progress on what we are trying to accomplish. So I work on that every week. And then there is a vortex. I rename my vortex, my callous mindset, because our mindset is our skillset. And one of the things that is so vitally important is to never let external influence penetrate my mindset. Vitally important. So that callous mindset keeps me focused on the things that I need to be doing, the things that I need to be focused on to become more, to influence people, to help people more, to serve people more. It prevents anything else from getting in the way of that happening. Then it talks about the things that I'm studying every single week. Normally, in my world, I've got four things that I'm studying every single week to become more. It's my early morning regimen to become more. And it's got one skill that I'm focusing on for the week. Often that skill is things like consistency, focus. It might be marketing, it might be personal development. It could be personal relief. My exercise regimen, as an example, or my diet. It changes all of the time because life is changing, business is changing all the time. So that's what the entire picture looks like as far as my personal accountability. And keep in mind, we've converted all this to team accountability and organizational accountability as well. Vitally and vitally important that it's spread across the spectrum if you're a leader in business in today's world. So how does the accountability partner fit into all of this? In my humble opinion, it is the secret sauce or the hot fudge topping on top of the villain ice cream and the cherry on top with whipped cream. And including nuts. Fresh cracked nuts with fresh whipped cream on top of the hot fudge sundae with banana on the side. Yes, now I'm going into my dessert habits. But anyway, by the way, I give myself one day a week out of seven days. I give myself one day to eat anything I want to eat. The rest of the six I got to eat. Well, I've made that commitment. Back to the matter at hand. So how does an accountability partner work into this? Simple. I've engaged four different accountability partners in my evolution with accountability partners over roughly nine years. Okay, so way back when, when I learned this strategy, I didn't know any better. I had met somebody as part of a personal development group, and this particular entrepreneur is from Poland. It was awesome. Got great guy, and he was my accountability partner for almost two years and we just kind of got disconnected a little bit because he was on the other side of the world and the time change and all this kind of stuff, it really didn't work out for us. So we mutually agreed to part ways and we remain friends today. So that was my original accountability partner. Next, I engaged with another local person in business who I thought was a good fit and we kind of agreed to give it a go. But it didn't work out. And part of the reason that didn't work out. And here's two things that you need to look for in an accountability partner. Two things. And they're both.

Non optional behavior, so to speak. Okay. One, they have to be just as committed as you are. They have to be 100% committed and they have to be 100% willing to do the work. 100% committed, 100% willing to do the work. However, back in the day, I used to also think there was a third thing. And I don't think this anymore. I used to think I need to engage with somebody who's at a higher level than I am from an achievement standpoint, maybe a success standpoint. I don't think that anymore. Two things. They have to be just as committed as you are and 100% willing to do the work. That's it. And well, there is a third thing. The trust has to be there. They have to be 100% trustworthy. Why? Because the more you are able to put it all on the table, the better it gets. So you have to have somebody that you 100% trust to share everything, to completely rip your chest open and reveal your heart and soul. Vitally important. Because when you can do that, it gets even better. So back to the weekly accountability. So I had an accountability partner. It didn't work out. Just a lot of things for the reasons that didn't work out. So I went and searched for another one. And so my next accountability partner was awesome. It's one of my personal people in my life that I've done business with for a lot of years. Very high achieving lady and she was my accountability partner for two or three years maybe. Awesome. It was an awesome run. But because of her high achievement mentality and skills and everything else, it just got to the point where it was one more thing that she didn't really have time for. And so she respectfully bowed out and that was fine. We parted friends. We are still great friends today. And she is an awesome, incredible entrepreneur, very high achieving and successful in her own right. So it got to the point where I had learned a ton of over the last number of years, about six years for all three of those. And so because I had learned a ton, I now knew what my ideal accountability partner looked like. And so I had in mind who this is and I began to look for them and I began, kept looking for them and I kept looking for them. I went through probably almost a year without an accountability partner. Doing my living your best year ever on my own self discipline. And I got a lot done. I achieved a ton. But that outside bounce off knowing that it was coming every Friday morning is I didn't, I didn't have the impact in my own discipline that I always had with an accountability partner. Super, super important. So with that being said, I was looking for the person, looking for the person, Boom. I identified the person. I said, if I can encourage this person and help this person understand this is a good thing and bring them in, it would be game changing. So what did I do? I simply gave without an expectation of anything in return and I sent one of the living your best year ever guides to this individual and it was received. Nothing happened for a period of a few months. And then we were coming towards the end of the year, boom. That person reached out to me and said, hey, I want to talk to you about this guide. I said, happy to have a conversation. Long story short, we agreed to become accountability partners. It is my accountability partner today. Absolutely off the charts, both ways. We meet every Friday morning, 6am online. No miss, no miss. Last year, 51 out of 52 weeks we met regardless of what was happening. Yes, sometimes we can't meet at that particular time on that particular day because of travel commitments and other things, but we make sure that we get it done before the end of the weekend. We got to shift to another time on the day, shift to Saturday, shift to Sunday, whatever it is, we shift and get it done. No excuses, period. And it doesn't get any better. And the good thing is it is a quick 30 minute session. We go over our week and there's four quadrants to our week. 30 minute session, 15 minutes each way, we're done. No drama, no BS, no discussion other than our wins, our losses, our fixes and our ahas and what we're grateful for that particular week. And it's different every week and we trade 15 minutes each way on both segments and, and we're pretty much done. And we're done. No drama, no bs, we're getting stuff done and we both know what's coming throughout the week. So there's something in the back of our mind that is thinking, I've got my session coming up this week. I've got my session coming up this week. Oh, I've got my session coming up this week. I better get this done like yesterday. I mean, one of the things on my weekly rhythm register was fasting. It's become part of who I am. And every single week I had about three and a half hours of leadership meetings, team meetings and recording sessions. This morning before this.

And I was absolutely on fire. I was ready to explode out of my skin. Why? Because yesterday was my fasting day and I am always on fire the day after that. So that is another reason that I wanted to do this today for you, for this next production of the podcast, because I am on fire. I don't know if you can feel the energy, man, I am on fire. But it is part of my weekly rhythm register. And it was all developed because of accountability, because accountability breeds responsibility. So that is the whole encompassing of my personal accountability.

The Living youg Best Year Ever. The Vision Organizer, the Daily Planning. It all works together every single day in every single way I've built into my life. It started years ago with goal setting. Goal setting. Knowing your, Knowing your. Knowing your destination is all you need to get there. Knowing your destination is all you need to get there. You cannot hit unidentified targets. So goal setting years ago leading to the Living youg Best Year Ever. The Vision Organizer, the Planning youg Plan Sheet, all of that is built into my daily habits that creates this. Not only self discipline, now I build in somebody else that I'm accountable to. I'm accountable to my team, I'm accountable to my family and I'm accountable to an organization and organizations that I work with. It's all part of accountability breeds responsibility. And when you build that in and you build it into commit with commitment, commitment is the thing you said you are going to do long after the mood you set in has passed. It gets really special. It gets really sweet. And you will lay your head on the pillow every single night and you will be fulfilled. Why? Because you are making a difference for yourself, for your family, for your team, for your organization, for your friends and everybody else that you are privileged and honored to influence. I hope this has helped you. I hope this creates a pathway for you to greater achievement and success in your world. If you have any questions, please comment here. Shoot me an email. I gave my email earlier today. If you didn't catch it, go back and watch this again because this is something you definitely want to review multiple times to build that accountability into your life. Because all we want is your higher achievement and success. If this is your first time on the podcast, welcome. My name is Mike Stromsel. I'm recognized as a leading author, speaker and coach for the independent insurance agency industry. You're a. You can find me@unstoppableprofitproducer.com if you're interested in attending one of our virtual or live events. Our virtual events are at uppfaststart.com and our live events are at beunstoppablebootcamp.com both events are designed to share with you some of our greatest money making strategies developed over 35 years of research in your industry in the trenches to help you grow your business, create wealth so you too can have more freedom to live life on your own terms. And please make sure to go to unstoppable profit podcast.com and subscribe so you don't miss one episode of our podcast that we produce every single week from the trenches from our hearts to help you grow. Thank you for joining us and you can also find us on all the channels out there. We are on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, our YouTube channel. I recently learned we're on Amazon so just find us. But it starts with Unstoppable Profit podcast.com thank you for joining us today. I will see you on the next episode and until then, get out there, make a difference, be unstoppable and leave no regrets. And don't forget, accountability breeds responsibility.

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