All right. So Don, let's talk about accountability. How, how and why after all that experience, how and why did you come to focus on this topic of accountability and how, why is it so essential for our success? Well, you know, and I appreciate, you know, you're in your preamble, talking about my history because years ago when I was at that call center company focus, you know, I found myself in my mid twenties, I was about 65 pounds heavier than I am now.

I was loving Taco Bell, that fine establishment and I never saw my wife and kids. I was, had no concept of work life balance and I was struggling and I didn't understand why I wasn't getting ahead. What I really lacked was, and everybody loves to throw that buzzword around, I lacked clarity.

And what clarity came to me was in this concept of the word accountability. And it wasn't just with me, it was with my employees and my teams and with my business. And accountability is the glue that ties commitment to results.

And in this very selfish way I created my own personal program, which is the four C's of accountability. But as I created it for myself, I decided right then and there, I'm going to be more accountable to what I say I'm going to do. And as I did that amazing thing, things started to happen in my life.

I lost weight. I started to see my wife and Holy cow. She started to like the thinner me, which was so good for me.

Um, but I also started to have better work life, what I call work life harmony because there's no such thing as work life balance for entrepreneurs, right? It's not about that. It's about things working together. My business grew, my employees started to do better, all these things improved.

And so that's what accountability really became. It became the first domino. It became the linchpin towards all future success.

If you can't do what you say you're going to do, then why in the heck are you trying anything else? It starts right there. Okay. So, uh, accountability, the word itself probably scares a lot of people, right? Why should we not be afraid of that? Why should we embrace the fact that we're going to, we're going to hold ourselves to the commitment we made just to ourselves? Why, why should we embrace that versus fear it? Good question.

Because accountability is always positive and this is where it gets this weird kind of perception of, Oh, it's, I'm going to hold you accountable. You have to be accountable for the good things in your life and the negative things, right? When you kick butt, right? When you have a great podcast, right? You should be accountable for that. Great job.

You did great things and be accountable for that. And when you make mistakes, be accountable for that. Being held accountable is for everything that you do.

It's for the deliberate decisions that you make. People for some reason only want to be held accountable when you screw up and you think that it's a manager coming down, holding somebody accountable. That's, that's not accountability.

Accountability is for all the decisions that you make being held accountable for those things. And that's why it's always positive and that's the mindset you want to have for it. All right, Don, take us through the four C's of accountability.

What are the four C's and walk us through step by step how we can use them in our business, in our careers, in our lives. Now I'm about to walk you through these. Now, David's going to change your life and I'm just going to give you a fair warning.

You're going to be. All right, let me brace myself. Hang on.

Yeah, I'm getting it. I'm getting ready here. Let me put my feet firmly on the ground.

I'm sitting up straight. Okay, Don, lay it on me. Hit me with it.

Okay. So the first, the four C's and it starts with two rules, right? So the first rule of the four C's of accountability is accountability always starts with me. I can't walk in and start pointing at other people.

Accountability always starts with myself. The second rule is there are no egos with accountability. Anybody can hold me accountable.

If you take the principle of baseball, right? If somebody throws a pitch and I swing and I miss, that's a strike. And it doesn't matter if the umpire calls it a strike or an opposing player calls it a strike or a fan in the stands calls it a strike. A strike is a strike.

And we spend all this time and energy screaming, Hey, it's not, it's not your job to say I swung and I missed, or it's not your job to say I suck. Why are you spending all that energy complaining about somebody calling you out? You suck. All right.

Be thankful that they called you out. Right? Right. So there's no egos and accountability.

Get over it. You suck. Be thankful that they did it.

Those are the first two rules. Now, the four C's first C is we critique success. When you do something well, no matter how great it is, before you break your wrist, pat yourself on the back, you critique it.

You always try to do better every single time that stops you from resting on your laurels. You always try to stretch, always try to get one inch better. You critique your success.

The second C is we correct failure. You Dave, you spent a lot of time talking to entrepreneurs, right? And they struggle with decision-making. They struggle.

They, the analysis by paralysis or paralysis by analysis, right? They struggle with this. And so you correct failure, learn to get more failure in your life by not punishing it, but by correcting it. When you make these mistakes, find out where you, their decision-making went wrong, correct that, and then move forward.

The third thing is you celebrate growth. The hardest thing in this life to do is to grow and change. When you go to the gym and you work out, the most important rep is the last rep.

The one that ripped the muscles, right? That's the most important one. So when you take that 13th rep or whatever, that's the one you celebrate. That's when you start a business, that's the celebration moment, right? That's the thing that you go out and you party and say, I did something that I've never done, right? We don't celebrate success because I expect the Daves of the world to be successful.

I'm not going to celebrate you meeting expectations. That builds entitlement. I celebrate the hard choices in life.

That's, that's celebrate growth. And then the last thing is we crush mediocrity, right in Florida. That's where I live.

We have really big bugs, huge bugs. And these bugs are, they're just everywhere. I don't care how many bug people come and clean my house.

They're huge bugs. And when we see these bugs, we crush them with everything we have. Cause if I just lightly tap them, they just laugh at me and they call their bug friends and they come and infect my whole house.

So you have to crush them with this just mentality of I can't allow them to live. And that's what you have to do with mediocrity in your life because chances are you already have a lot of mediocrity in a lot of different areas. And when you identify it, you just have to say, no, I'm done with this.

I'm not going to shirk. I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm not going to cheat on my diet or I'm not going to have this vice or I'm not going to do this anymore.

I'm done. Those four C's with those rules kind of over encompassing it. When you live that every day, you're accountable to your decision-making.

Everything's deliberate and you know it and nobody's perfect. I'm not perfect. My wife is, I had to say that cause she's going to listen.

But when you always are accountable to those decisions, you will get better and better and better every single day. So I agree with what you're saying about holding ourselves accountable, but what happens when we're growing and we're learning new things and where we have this trial and error and you mentioned failure in there, how do we, how do we put aside the frustration that comes with stretching ourselves with this new growth and holding ourselves accountable? And we say, look, this is, you know, I'm not, I'm not living up to my potential. I, uh, you know, I'm experiencing some mediocrity here.

I deserve better than this. Um, how do we keep on track while we're holding ourselves accountable and not get derailed by this frustration? Cause it's easier for us to just say, I can't write. I just can't.

How do we keep on track? The best thing I, so you mentioned the company that, uh, uh, my first entrepreneurship journey with launch leads. And so this is fresh after my wife's a cancer survivor. And when she had cancer, I mean it's brutal, right? She goes through two years of radiation and surgeries and you want to talk about can't.

I mean, I felt like, I think I said that word all the time. I just didn't know how to deal with anything. And right after there, you know, we jump into this entrepreneurship journey with launch leads owner, chief operating officer.

We had a negative $10,000 run rate every month, which means every hour we were open, we were losing money. That is not a business model, by the way, for all the listeners, you should try, right? That is, that is failure really quick. And one day I called my wife and I said, this job sucks.

This business model sucks. We are losing all of our money every single day. I should go back to what we were doing before where we had money.

I'm blowing every bit of money we have. And my wife said to me, are you done complaining? And I said, yeah. And she goes, good.

Lucky for you, I didn't marry a loser. You've been complaining about this job for weeks and I'm sick of it. From now on only call me when you're going to talk about the solutions.

Otherwise you are the problem. Only call me when you're going to talk about the four C's and she slammed down the phone. And now I did not call her every single day because I didn't have good things to say every single day.

But I learned at that moment the value of what you're talking about. Yeah. There's going to be plenty of frustrations, but there is value in having what I call now a key accountability partner.

And sometimes that's in the form of a coach, right? A hired coach. Sometimes it's the value of just somebody in your inner circle of somebody that you pushes you when you can't see when you've got blinders on and you're stuck in the frustration of, Hey, I'm trying, but I'm banging my head against the wall. And my wife at that point acted as my coach.

And now I have my own professional coaches named Greg and I spent $25,000 a year on this guy. But everybody needs an accountability partner that pushes them. It's like the spotter in the gym that says, no, no, no, no.

You've got five more reps. I know you're tired, but go, you're going to keep pushing. And that's what holds you accountable when you think you're done.

Okay. So when you're selecting an accountability partner, are you selecting an accountability partner who's an expert in the thing that you're trying to do or an accountability partner who's an expert in you? How do you select an accountability partner? Great question. I actually just spoke about this in another webinar and they asked the exact same question.

And the advice I always give is you should not love your accountability partner. They should not be an extension of you. I do not love Greg.

When I get off the phone with Greg, I am typically very frustrated and angry. He is absolutely different than me. I'm a sales and marketing background and I believe myself to be one of the best salespeople on planet earth.

Greg, his background, he's a former Lieutenant Colonel. He's a disciplinarian. I mean, he's as military and gruff as you can get.

He is my polar opposite and your accountability partner should be your ying to your yang, right? There's no reason for me to work with somebody that marries up really nicely to me and makes me feel really good. They should push me in every uncomfortable way possible. I'm going to quote David Goggins from his book, You Can't Hurt Me.

There is no growth in the comfort zone and your accountability partner should know where you are comfortable and force you there constantly.