Accountability vs Responsibility: Robert J. Hunt on True Ownership

Robert J. Hunt, The Accountability Coach and co-author of “Nobody Cares…until you do,” helps CEOs and business owners close the gap between knowing and doing through real accountability. In this ProductiviTree episode with host Santiago Tacoronte, Robert breaks down accountability vs responsibility, victim mindset, debt, faith, leadership, and how ownership transforms your productivity and your life.

Robert shares the story of how he and his wife went from feeling like victims under 90,000 dollars of consumer debt to taking full ownership, selling their house, and rebuilding a life on accountability and margin. He explains the core difference between being responsible for tasks and being accountable for results, and why most leaders think they are accountable when they are only clocking in and reacting.​

You will hear the four victim traps (blame, excuses, “I can’t,” and waiting and hoping) and how they quietly keep high performers stuck in jobs, finances, and relationships they do not actually want. Robert and Santiago dig into how leaders create environments where people want to be accountable, instead of trying to “hold people accountable” with threats, control, or toxic culture.

They explore how faith, vulnerability, and honest data (like Robert’s satisfaction assessment tool) help leaders face their “head trash” and invite real accountability from their teams and peers. Robert also shares his view on work-from-home, why work-life balance is a myth, and how concepts like margin, journaling, and social media boundaries create more freedom, not less.

In a rapid fire round, Robert reveals the most overused CEO excuse, why COVID is still being blamed for everything, his daily journaling habit, and what he tells anyone who thinks accountability sounds boring. If you feel like life is happening to you instead of because of you, this conversation will push you to own your outcomes at work and at home.

Speaker Links:
Robert’s site and CEO peer groups: https://refdallas.com​
Nobody Cares…until you do: https://nobodycaresbook.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roberthuntceo​
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RobertHuntREFDallas​

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Transcript

1:57

Robert J. Hunt. Welcome to Productivitree! Thank you so much for having me on your podcast. Robert, you call yourself the accountability coach. Most people hear that word and they immediately tense up. What made you fall in love with accountability? Well, I lead monthly meetings for business owners and CEOs every month, and I've done this for last 13 years. And I've watched where people get it, where they understand the idea of accountability. And I've seen where people don't. and it's a misconception. People look at accountability as a threat. I'm gonna hold you accountable. The first thing that happens when something goes wrong in the news, we're gonna find out who's accountable for this. It's like a threat. yet there's freedom and power and accountability and people don't understand it. So I'm really trying to help people see if you want a better life, it starts with accountability. Your book is called Nobody Cares Until You Do. I love it. Absolutely love it, Robin. What is the story behind it and what were you personally going through when you had that idea and you wrote the book? Yeah, we've always talked about accountability in our peer groups, because when you meet monthly with someone who runs a business, you're building the opportunity for accountability. We don't hold each other accountable. We create the opportunity for accountability in their own life. And so after enough years of watching this, I realized I wasn't being accountable. And it was very subtle. I felt comfortable living a life as a victim, and I never even knew it. In 2019, my beautiful wife, Kathy, and I, we owed $90,000 in debt that did not include the or the cars. And it was choking us out. But bit by bit, and we just started in 90, was, you 5,000 and then 10 and 20. Bit by bit over the years, we allowed ourselves to live in a lifestyle of debt. And in that area, we thought we were being accountable because we were making payments every month. But we weren't. And all it was doing was choking us out and making us feel like prisoners. And we lived as a victim, feeling helpless. There was nothing we could do about it. But that's not true. We often think that. And in the book, we talk about the four traps that hold you back as a victim. So you can see where you're playing the role as a victim, even though you would never say, I'd like to be a victim. But it happens. And it's very subtle. Well, we fell into that our own selves. And when we decided at the end of 2019, we weren't going to live like this anymore. first time in our lives became truly accountable. Even though it was painful and was a huge change in our lives, we decided we're going to own this and we're going to make the life that we really want. you make a bold distinction between being accountable and being responsible, okay? And you hinted already that many people don't get what means to be accountable. Can we explain in simple terms what means being accountable and what's the difference between being accountable and being responsible? Well, to define the word accountability to start with, the definition of accountability simply is you own it. That's it, you own it. So if we're looking at the situation, let's say that you've got a production schedule that you're trying to get out a certain number of widgets per hour. And if it doesn't work, you're being responsible when you look at the sheet and go, hey, we're not hitting our numbers. Let's go find out what's going on. And then the person who's running the machine says, well, I put all the equipment in. I'm using the machine as I was taught. We're just not getting the numbers that we want. And he would think in his mind, he's being accountable, but he's really just being responsible. something. But if the numbers aren't right, the person who owns it goes, wait, something's not right here. I'm not going to wait till my boss comes in and says, these numbers aren't right. I see the numbers. I work right there with it. I'm looking at the machine, not meeting the numbers it's supposed to meet. So accountable says you own it. I'm owning the outcome, not just owning the effort. I'm owning what it's supposed to end up looking like. And so responsible is doing something. And then, oh, that's all I did my job. I best I can do. But accountable says this isn't right, we need to own it. And there's a proactive nature to accountability. That responsibility is kind of like a knee-jerk reaction. You respond to something that's responsible. But if you're going to be accountable, you say, machines are going to wear down. They're going to have issues. So what are we doing to proactively make sure they stay in tolerances? Checking it, repair schedules, maintenance, having the tools we need to replace things in a timely manner. All the things that you know are going to happen because machines break down. Quality suffers as productivity increases. is the potential for issues increase. So you know these things are going to happen. So if you're going to be accountable to the result you want, you have to proactively create procedures and policies and training and all the things that allow you to get the result you want. That's the difference between accountable and responsible. Robert, you also say, because you say many things about accountability, Robert, nobody can actually hold anyone else accountable. That'll probably shock a lot of people because a lot of management, a lot of managers, thinks that their job or a big part of their job is to hold others, their employees accountable. If this is true, what have been they doing all this time instead of holding people accountable? Well. What you want to do is create an environment where someone wants to be accountable because nobody can hold anyone else accountable. Let's say I tell you, Santiago, I want this much done by Thursday. And when Thursday comes around and you don't do it, what do I do? Fire you? If I fired someone, every time something didn't work out right, I'd have no employees. So what do managers or leaders do when they come in a situation that doesn't work right? They yell and scream, what's going on here? Why isn't this happening? And they get all irate. You guys need to do this. We're going to have problems. And they go back and it doesn't get done again so they come back out and they threaten some more. So they're being responsible, hey there's an issue let's deal with it, but to be truly accountable you have to create a team that wants to care. You have to give it to you have to create a team where they feel like hey this is my company I don't own it but I work here. I'm responsible for the work I do but I'm accountable to the result. And so if you create an environment where your employees care they hold themselves accountable. You can't hold them accountable. You can create expectations. You can tell them what you want. But if you don't see what you're looking for and you don't do anything about it, then it's never going to change. And let's say I decide, Sanchika, this is the third time I've told you to do it you didn't do it. You're fired. Well, now I'm accountable for your bad behavior and you're fired, but you're still not accountable. You leave and take your lack of accountability to the next job. So we're not making you accountable by me firing you. What we really want to do, again, back to the proactive nature of accountability. What am I going to do to create a desire in you to want to make sure the machine stays going at the right rate, that all the things are, the dials and things are at the right rate, the materials coming in right? What am I going to do to create in you a desire to be accountable? That's where we lead as leaders. Sometimes we use the word manage wrong. You don't manage people. You manage a process. but we lead people. And so if you're gonna lead someone, you have to teach them that they own the outcome, and you have to get them to care, increasing the result by the fact that they actually care about the work and what the result is at the end. So what's going on then today with work, Robert, in corporations and across work worldwide, America and the rest of the world. Accountability is going down. Work is becoming more more transactional and companies doesn't seem necessarily to be investing in creating this culture of accountability. Are we going through an accountability crisis? I think if you ask people, you being accountable? They would say yes. I think everyone thinks they're being accountable, but they're really just being responsible. Look, if you show up at the office and you are at your desk from eight to five every day, you would say you're being accountable. But I would say you're just being responsible because I gave you a check and you showed up and put your butt in a chair. Hey, now we're even. But to be really accountable is what results were you supposed to generate when I hired you? I don't think the world is any less accountable than they've been before. They've never been accountable. They've often been responsible. We have a lot of employees who aren't even responsible. They don't show up on time. They don't care. They don't do the work they're supposed to do. They don't care. There's a lot of those people in general. But for those who would say, if you ask them, are you being accountable, they're misunderstanding the idea of the performance that they're supposed to generate. When I interviewed you and you said you were going to be the best employee you ever hired, I'm going to be here early, I'm going to work so hard, I'm going to be loyal, I'm creative, I'm good at this. And you promise all these things when you interview, but when you get the job and you realize your boss is a jerk and your coworkers are petty and your clients are annoying, you all of sudden start to slow back and a little hold, I'm not dealing with that guy, I'm not dealing with that guy, my boss is always on my back. And now you start to change what you deliver. But you were accountable when I hired you to give a performance to deliver on an expectation and just because you don't like the way things are you just decide not to perform the way you promised to do. That's not being accountable. That's being barely responsible and showing up to get my paycheck. But this has been going on forever. What we have to do is help people be aware of the difference between accountable and responsible so they can up their game. You just mentioned something about people that start a job and then they don't find what they expected they will find. And so it happens in many other parts of life. So when you dealing with people that says, well, this is the cars have been dealt with and they kind of give up, right? What do you do to break this cycle and take ownership of your life, of your work, of your family again? Yeah, we have to paint the picture of the value of accountability. Again, it's not a threat, it's power, it's freedom. When you take accountability for everything in your life, you gain the power to change anything in your life. When my beautiful wife and I decided we don't like the way we live under debt, we're gonna sell our house. And that was a very drastic change. We had a beautiful house and we thought, listen, there's equity in this house. We can sell our house. And the answer is I don't want to sell my house. I like my house, but I have equity in there and I'm living a life that I just don't want. And I couldn't think of any other solution. After years of trying to change this, I got so behind the curve that I couldn't make it up. So we made a very drastic change. But in that moment of taking ownership for that, we realized we have the power to change our lives and it sucked to be in debt. and it sucked to sell our house. But I'd rather have the suck move me towards where I want to be. Because there are four traps that hold people back that we find people aren't even aware that they're doing. The four traps are you blame other people or blame other things for your problems. You say that you're not taking accountability by blaming, wow, I lost my thought. You blame, you make excuses for like, well, the economy. m damn Trump, all these tariffs, all these things. People like to make excuses for why stuff going on. I hear a lot of people in the sales world these days saying, well, the market's really bad. Well, you don't own 80 % of the market. You own 1 % of the market. Go get more market share. Don't tell me about how the market's down. That's an excuse. And we feel comfortable with these excuses because we use them forever. We blame this. We make excuses. If those things don't work, we say, I can't do anything about it. I mean, it's just the way it is. That's not true. I can't sell my house wasn't true. I don't want to sell my house. That's different, but to say I can't makes you limited you're done But when you say I don't want to then you'll why not are you happy living a crappy life? Why don't you own it and do the things you really want to do? So you blame make excuses or you say I can't and the last thing is people do is they just wait and hope I'll make minimum payments on my credit cards. Maybe next year I'll just have this huge windfall and win the lottery or something stupid. And you just think it'll just get better on itself, but it doesn't. gets worse. Those four traps are what most people live in at one place or another, playing the role of a victim, but they're not even aware of it. Robert, you coach senior executives. What do you tell them when they come with some of these excuses that you mentioned? Well, the market is down, know, geopolitical situation is not the best. You know, the employees, I hear a lot this thing these days, Robert, the new generations don't want to work. They are lazy. Yeah. What do you tell leaders that have a lot of power when you hear that? my generation was lazy. And so now I'm at this place now where I'm looking at the millennials or even Gen X and go, they're lazy. You we make excuses for all these things, but they are the future. So you can complain as much as you want, but eventually they're taken over. And so you either find a way to work within the things that are there or you just suffer under it. And so one of the things that we do in this book is that at the end of every chapter, we give you a tool to practice being aware. one of the, think it's chapter three is that you change your butt to an and. You'd like say, well, I'd like to work with this new generation, but they're so difficult. So change the butt to an and. I'd like to work with this new generation, and they're so difficult. Okay, well, since they're so difficult, what can you do? Be creative in how you work with them. Understand them. Adjust your communication style. Understand their needs and find a way to meet their needs through the work. They're about things that we didn't care about before. So how do we make that part of our business culture? I help business owners as we talk to these issues to see it from a different perspective. and to realize that, right now you're just blaming. So let's not blame. What's our action? What can we do about this? And the reality is, and a lot of times we say we can't, but we really just don't want to. And I help business leaders look at it from a different perspective. They still make their own decisions. They're still accountable for their own actions. But I help them see it a different way. Robert, many people lives with a victim mindset, but they don't know it. There is a lot of people that are not necessarily blaming very vocally, but they have diminished their lives by becoming a victim, a victim of the system, a victim of the economy, as we said before. What are the warning signs that you perceive as an expert that tells you, this person has made himself a victim? Well, one of the easiest ones is they're angry. Most people who play the role of victim are angry. If you watch protests on television and they're screaming about something, that person has not been heard or recognized or validated, and they're crying out for being respected. This is the way they want to roll in their life, and they feel that they're not justified, that they're not heard. And so first off is anger. We see anger as one of the biggest indications. But everyone's got their own way of handling these things. So in our book, we put a satisfaction assessment. If you remember those two two wheels, little pies in them that are in the book at the end of the first chapter. And we want you to score your satisfaction level. How satisfied are you in your personal life or your professional life? And if you rate your faith, your marriage, your health, your finances, or you rate your sales team, your technology, your customers, and you look at them individually and say, how satisfied are you? When you're honest and you say, I'm not satisfied with this, then the question is why? And when we have the whys, the moment we find out where we play the victim role. Well, I'm not satisfied with this. My technology team is awful. Really? Why are they working there? If you have a bunch of awful employees, why do you let them still work there? Are they really awful? Or are you not doing a good job as a leader to get them clarity of what they're supposed to do and create an expectation of accountability so they can step up to that? That's your job as a leader. You need to own the people that get to work for you. If they're not doing a good job, they shouldn't work there. But if you're not directing and leading them well, if you've not communicated clear and compellingly, in communication as to why we're doing, where we're going, what this is about, why would it matter to you. If you've not done a good job as a leader, you own that. And you need to step up and do a better job as you lead. But when we score, we find a way to be able to recognize where are the problems and what do you want to do about it. Faith. Let's talk a little bit about faith because... And no religion, faith, okay? It clearly plays a big role in your life and work, okay? How does your faith connect to your view of accountability? And do you think it works different for people that doesn't approach it with the faith that you have? Yeah, yeah. Everybody that I have ever met of whatever faith they have believes that they are gonna be accountable to something someday. Whatever your faith is, you believe you will face that higher calling, that higher being someday, and you will stand before them and be accountable for the life you lived. Some religions give you a scoring system that you need to achieve in hopes that you please that person when you face them someday. In my faith, as a follower of Christ, my faith is a big deal to me, but I've already been forgiven. I'm assured of my eternity with God in heaven, but I'm still accountable for the life I live. And that's important to me because he has given me gifts and opportunities and I'm accountable for how I use them, not just for me, but for his glory. So when I serve leaders and I care for them, I'm honoring the God who took care of me and gave me this life. And so all of us should bring our faith into our worlds. It's core of who we are. I don't need to oppress you by my I need to serve you by my faith. I need to listen to you and care for you. That's the model that Christ gave. And so I want everyone, regardless of the faith they have, doesn't have to be mine, I want them to live out their faith as whole as they can be. Because you're a whole person when you include your faith in your work. Come to work. Every religion I've ever met says, be honest, care for other people, work hard. Those are all principles that every religion backs up. So why would we want someone to leave one of the core things about them at home and come to work as less than a whole person. My faith drives my behavior and how I treat people. I want people to live out their faith through the workplace because I think you're a better human that way. was beautiful, Robert. See, you deal with a lot of very smart people, leaders, who might think that they are accountable, but they're not necessarily so accountable at the right thing. What is the gap between knowing and doing? I'm talking about exerting your accountability and why a lot of leaders play a little bit from the barrier and don't really go and own I think again, I'll come back to the earlier thought that every leader I've ever met thinks they're being accountable, but they're not leveling up to the level of what real accountability is. Therefore, they're not getting the value out of real accountability. The reason that business owners join my CEO group is because they want a place of accountability and a real accountability requires vulnerability. So if I'm the owner of a company, and decide I'm going to do this and I tell everyone, go do this. And then a couple of months later, I go, no, I don't want to do it anymore. Let's go here. I can do that because I'm in charge. They may not like it. They might complain, but I can do it. I'm in charge. But if I say to the people that are on my leadership team, here's where we're going. And if I change my mind, I want you guys to call me out because this is why we need to do this. This is important. And then halfway through it, I get cold feet and go, I'm not sure I want to do this. My leadership team should have the authority and freedom because I've been vulnerable and I've invited them into my world to say, told us that if you change your mind, we're supposed to say no. What do you want to do at this moment? It's still your company, but we're reminding you of what you said. Leaders don't invite people into their lives like that. They don't want people messing around with their decisions. They want to do whatever they want to do. And although they may say they're accountable, like I got a bank that expects me to meet certain covenants or I got a board that asks questions. At the end of the day, you still get to make a lot of decisions that may not be the best choice, but you get away with it. you truly want to get the results you want as a leader, you must invite other people into your journey and create vulnerability so you can create a different level of accountability. You also talk about removing obstacles and head trash. What is the most common piece of head trash that you see among leaders? Most common head trash would be that everything's fine. Because after a while you start to believe what your story is that you're telling everybody else. But if you're really gonna be vulnerable and honest about things, you'll let other people look at the numbers. You'll really let people know what you're doing and where you were supposed to be. But I think most leaders have... too much that they have to be responsible for. You have to know about cyber security and AI and you have to know about international trade laws and all the new tax codes and HR laws and you have to know about man-of-fact. You have to know everything as a leader and it's overwhelming. But you don't have to own every bit of it. You just have to know what is your team doing and how do I help them be successful. And so if you're gonna really engage in the responsibilities of the role you have, you've gotta invite people in. You've gotta be able to be honest that you don't everything and that's okay. That's why you hired the other guy. I hired you because you know how to do that and then let that person do their job. The reason we get in and micromanage as we call a lot of times is because we don't know what we want. We don't know what they're doing and I don't know what they should do and that's okay. You're not supposed to know everything. Be honest enough to recognize you don't know everything but that's when you talk with your team. What should we be working on today? I was at a conference for technology leaders this week. And all these CISOs are talking about the things that are on their plate these days. And a lot of times the business owner will say, well, what's my penalty and risk if I don't do this right? And they'll say, oh, $6 million. Well, it's going to cost $10 million to do it. Forget it. So they're really looking at the math. And if you're going to play in the world of a business owner or a CEO, you've got to bring math to the story because math counts. Cash is king. And so we as people who support these leaders have got to understand the burden of a final decision maker and equip them with the tools to make better decisions. But again, that CEO has got to recognize you don't know everything and that's okay. Do you think the rise of work from home and more flexible schedules has made people less accountable? They weren't accountable when they worked at the office. They're in their cubicle watching Facebook. They're standing in the lunch room talking to people about the Cowboys game. They're coming in late. They're going home early. They're talking to their family during the day. Just because they sat in a cubicle doesn't make them more accountable. It does make them responsible, but we've already learned responsible is not what we want. We want accountable. Look, I know what it's like when I work from home. This is my home office. If I'm sitting here doing something and I go to the kitchen to get a Coke and I look at it, you know what? That faucet is still dripping. Maybe I'll just fix it right now. So I get distracted with things that I would not have the opportunity to do if I was at the office. But if I'm at the office and someone sends me a video about a squirrel on water skis, I could spend the same amount of time scrolling through Instagram and be wasting my time and attention at the workplace just as well as I could at home. You're never going to police people into doing the right thing. What you have to do again is create a desire in their hearts to be accountable to the deliverable, the outcome that the company wants. When I hired you, you said you were independent, focused, professional, thinker, caring, all these words. I want you to be that person. Whether you work at home or you're in the office, you should still be that person. But if the people have gone through a bad experience and they hate their coworkers and they hate their job, they justify it in their mind. It's okay to not give a and do a half a job. Your job as the owner of the company is to create an environment where people want to give a damn. That's you, that's your job, you're accountable to that. And whether they're at home or traveling, think salespeople are always on the clock? They're having beers till three in the morning with their clients. How is that productive time? So we can easily point the finger at the people we don't know what they're doing, but we've not set them up to succeed as leaders. Therefore, we don't trust them, and we want them right here at the office so we can watch them all the time. That's not making them more accountable. Robert, some people say that accountability culture can become toxic from the point of view that can be autocratic or too strong. What's the line between healthy ownership and a culture that beats people down? Yeah, beating people down is not accountable because remember, you can't hold them accountable. What you want to do is give them the power and the desire to own it. accountability doesn't build a more autocratic attitude. It builds freedom. Because if I tell you, this is what I need you to do, this is the outcome I expect, I don't care how you get it done. I don't care if you work six hours or two hours. I care that the job is done. And I care that you care about our company enough to help other people. So if it takes you two hours to do it, do it in two hours. Don't do it six hours, because you want to make sure that you don't look like you have nothing to do. When you do it in two hours, then go learn a new technology. Do some research. Dream of a new idea. Go call a customer and remind them we love them. Go find a co-worker and see if you can help them. Clean up the kitchen. I mean, there's a million things you could do to be adding to the overall results of the company. What we don't need to do is put our thumb on people and babysit them all day. Great leaders delegate effectively because they created a vision of where we're going, why it matters to that person, and they give them clear and compelling communication that enables them to go out and be a great leader without you watching them. Robert, I'm going to try to, to throw you a curve ball. Okay. Ooh, all right. Um, so you know the self-help industry, the industry of helping people feel whole and enough and all these things, right? Do you think they're partly to blame for keeping people stuck, but making them feel good instead of challenging them to own their lives? And I don't really know what the self-help industry is telling people. Our book is actually under the category of self-help. So I kind of feel like I should know that. But I think everyone in the world wants to tell you that you're doing fine staying as a victim because that justifies them staying as a victim. When I decided to sell my house, lots of people said, Hey, that's a bit extreme. You know, you could go on a Dave Ramsey's program and in six years you could probably pay all that off. Well, maybe, but in September of 2019, as we were on this journey to think about maybe we should sell the house and start over, I got vertigo for 16 days and I was sick. And I thought, what if this never goes away? I owe $90,000 and I can't work anymore, I'm screwed. And it went away, God took it away after 16 days, just went away. And I was like, okay, this is a warning sign to me, I need to do this now. But I think that we all look at other people's efforts to be better as a threat to our lack of resolve to own our own crap. If you lose weight, I look at how fat I am. If you have a better marriage, I look about my marriage like, I don't have a great marriage. If you're making a bunch of money and people love to compare, that's where the head trash comes from. But the reality is that it's your journey. You should decide what your journey looks like. People aren't going to back up your decision because it's your decision. And again, accountability says you own your decision. Good or bad, it's still your decision. And if people don't buy into the idea, I'm going to live a prudent life. Ever since we got out of debt, we live less. than our income. Most of the world lives above their income, especially in America. Whatever you make, you spend more. That's why we have credit card debt and loans. Most people have a house loan and a car loan and maybe a student loan. That's above your income. So you're willing to live beyond your means and everyone's like, yeah, that's a good call. You got a new car? Good job. Everybody pats you on the back. Nobody says, well, I spent a lot of money on interest. Why are you doing that? So you have to own your own journey and make the decisions that work for you. because you want the life that you want. And when you trade off having a nicer car, but a whole lot of debt, all you're doing is stressing yourself out to try and live up to that debt. Nobody is going to buy into your vision of your life. It's your life, but you need to own it. So Robert, how's social media and attention economy? help people decide the life that they want or is confusing people with things like you just said, the car that you see that that guy has in Instagram or whatever traveling they're doing in business class to Thailand or Bali. Yeah, I think social media is certainly twisting our perspective of the world. Nobody puts on social media, you know, had brand checks for cereal this morning, have a good day. You know, they put a big stravagant place of pancakes and all this food because it's opulence that gets people's attention. I think that it is deceiving. It is pumping us up to feel like we have to be someone we're not. But again, that would be blaming. I'm not blaming social media. You don't want to be influenced by social media? Take it off your phone. Don't go to it. If you have a problem drinking, don't go to a bar. Don't have your house stocked with booze. These are your decisions to own. You're high in debt, chop up your credit card, stop spending money. This is the thing, you own it, you can change it. When you look at everything that's out there, if social media messes with my brain, get rid of it. If you have friends who make you feel stupid because you don't have as cool a house as they are, get better friends. This is the freedom you have to own the life you want by making the decisions that support that. Robert, can we do five rapid fire questions? Number one, one book, besides yours, of course, that changed the way you think about life. Well, as a follower of Christ, the Bible changes my life all the time. I find hope in it and wisdom and great insights for my life. Number two, the worst excuse you have ever heard from a CEO. COVID, COVID, that went on for years. Everything that was bad, old COVID. Yeah, that's just kept going on. I how many years are you gonna blame COVID, man? It's 4 years later, let's move on, bud. Number three, can you have work-life balance or is it a myth? It is a myth. There is no such thing. However, you can create a world where you avoid overload that allows you to pursue the life you really want by creating margin. Margin is a reality that there is a limit to everything you can handle. So you create a load that's below that so there's room for things to happen that you didn't plan for. I have taught all my clients the principles of margin to avoid overload. And what that does is it frees them up to have work-life integration. There is no such thing as work-life balance, but there is work-life integration if you're willing to be one person everywhere and to create margin. margin in your life. oh one daily habit that keeps you accountable. I journal. get up first thing in morning, spend some time with God, read something out of the Bible, and I write all the thoughts on my head trash. I suck. This day's going to be horrible. My wife's, you know, all these things that you think about. And then I look at them and I go, that's not true. There's a lot of power of head trash that spins around in your brain. You want to defeat those lies? Put them in writing. And you really want accountability in your life? Show what you wrote. But we don't want that. So we just let them spin around our head lying to us and making us feel miserable. Take a minute, write it down, be accountable to what's in your head, and then look for truth in that moment. And if you really want accountability, share it with your closest supporter, whether it's your spouse or your best friend, and let them go, dude, you're not that. That's not you. And number five, what will you say to someone who thinks accountability sounds boring? Accountability does sound boring. I get it. But if you are not living the life you really want, you have to look at accountability in a different way. Accountability is power and freedom. I've seen it my life. My clients see it in their companies and their own personal life. When you own your junk, you have the power to do something about it. Accountability is awesome if you really will take the time to understand it. That's why we wrote that book. Robert, let's wrap this up and give back to the audience for someone listening right now who realized they've been living as a victim of their own circumstances, which happens a lot. What is the very first step they should take? You don't have to buy my book, but you can go to our website at NobodyCaresBook.com and there's a satisfaction assessment on there and you can do it for free. I don't take your information at all because it's private to you. Take a minute, score your life. How satisfied are you personally and professionally? And then ask yourself why. And it's in that moment of the why that you have the choice to be accountable or not. You can blame, make excuses, say, can't do anything about it or wait and hope to get better and play the role as a victim. Or you can go, I don't like this and I'm going to own it and change it. And then you have a starting point. You've already declared, I'm not happy with my marriage. I don't like the finances of my company. Great. Why? and then what are you gonna do about it? And then invite someone into your journey. Show them your satisfaction assessment. Tell them what you feel. Get a reality check and find resources and people to support you along the way. But you can change everything, even if it's super hard. Life's gonna suck one way or another. I'd rather have it suck moving to where I want it to be than suck staying as a victim. Now for those that want to buy your book, where can they find it and how can they learn more about your CEO groups and the other work you do? It's very kind to ask. The book is available on Amazon and all book sellers, Target, Walmart, all that stuff. We certainly prefer you go to NobodyCaresBook.com and buy it from us because we make more money, there's honest. But also we want to engage with you. We want to talk to you. I want to hear what your satisfaction assessment looks like and what are you going to do about it? I want to be a part of your journey. We answer every email that comes to us. Regarding the CEO groups that I lead here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, you can go to REF, like REF, REFDallas.com. And you can find all the information about our peer groups and the accountability that they bring to the leaders in the area here. Robert Hunt, thank you so much for all this inspiration that you're giving us today, your energy and your true love for accountability. What I'm taking away today, it's one of your key phrases. Accountability is freedom, is deciding where your life goes. It's getting rid of excuses and grabbing, as we say in Spain, the bull by the horns. Right? Yeah, love it. Robert, thank you so much for inspiring us and just keep like that. Thank you, my friend. It's been wonderful.