درسنامه اصلی

Accountability Audio

Hello my special VIP member, how are you today? I hope you’re having a great day, a great week and a great month. Guess what? It’s time for your new VIP lesson. The topic this month is a tough topic. This topic is probably the toughest challenge for leaders and in fact the toughest challenge for anybody.

In fact, this is a subject, a topic, that probably I would not share with our general members because I think it’s just a little too tough, it sounds a little hard sometimes, maybe their confidence is a little too low and they may not want to hear what I’m going to say to you.

You’re a VIP. That means that you want to really grow more and more and more confident. I know that. I know you want to speak very confidently in English.

As a VIP I also know that you want personal success in your life, success with English, of course, but also success in your career or job, success in your family, success with your relationships, with your health, with all areas of your life however you define success.

Because you want success that means you want challenges, right? You don’t want life to be easy, easy, easy all the time, sit on the couch and watch TV all day. A lot of people want that, or they think they want that, and you don’t. You want more.

All of these things tell me you’re special. Of course, by joining the VIP program you’re also telling me you’re interested in helping other people also, to be a true leader.

What is the topic? What is this difficult challenge? The difficult challenge is accountability, personal accountability. What does this word mean, accountability or to be accountable?

To be accountable, means to be responsible for your own life, 100% responsible for your own life, for the results you get in your life, for your own emotions and feelings, for your own thoughts, for your own attitudes – for everything.

I know you’ve heard this idea before, but I also know that you’re not completely doing this. How do I know this? Because you’re human and there’s not a human on the planet who is 100% accountable for their own life all the time.

I’m already hot I’m going to take off this jacket. Let’s keep going.

To be accountable, means that you think and feel that you are responsible for your own life. That is a tough challenge. Naturally what we want to do is blame. We want to blame other people we want to blame the situation. We want to blame the world, the economy, the society, our culture, someone else’s culture and blame our teachers – all of these things.

There are bad situations, bad teachers, bad things in our societies, of course, there are.

Right now the world economy is very bad, but the truth is that you and I cannot change that as individuals right now. We’re not going to just suddenly change the economic situation by ourselves.

We can whine and complain about it, but that only makes us weak. What leaders do most of all is that they take accountability. They take total responsibility for themselves, for their lives, for their emotions, their thoughts, their actions, the results they get; everything.

That’s a constant challenge because when things get bad, we just naturally want to complain and whine. I do it too. I’ve done it many times in the past. Let me give you an example, a big example from my own life.

When I was I think 15 or 16 years old I got my first job. It was at a fast food restaurant called Arby’s. I hated it, I hated that job. I hated it, it was terrible. It was boring. It was all dirty and messy and stressful, and even worse, I didn’t get paid much money. It was horrible.

You know what? I realized at that first job, I don’t know how or why but I just realized in my brain I’m not going to like working, I’m going to hate jobs. Of course,, I was right.

The next job I got was as an intern, a student intern at IBM. I hated it. It paid me very well at that time, it seemed like a lot of money, but it was so incredibly boring. Oh my God, that was the most boring job I’ve ever had, and I hated it.

Guess what? This pattern continued. Year after year, I went to college and university, I got more jobs; part time jobs, serious jobs, career jobs – all kinds of jobs, and I really hated them all. Some were worse than others, some felt a little better, but I basically hated working for another person, having a boss, somebody else telling me my schedule, somebody else telling me what to do and how to do it and usually not paying me very well.

I hated the whole idea of jobs, I hated it. A lot of people feel this way. Some people don’t admit it but I know a lot a lot of people feel this way too, or have felt this way in the past, nothing new about that.

Here’s the problem; I continued to work in jobs for decades. My first job was at 15 or 16.

Let’s say at the age of 35, I was still working for other people in jobs and complaining about it. For that whole 20 year period I complained and I whined and I blamed and I pointed my finger. I blamed my bosses for being terrible. Some were terrible. I blamed the whole idea of jobs.

I complained about our society, I complained about our economic system, I complained and I complained and I blamed other people. Oh my God, I was unhappy and I did not take responsibility.

Actually though, eventually, after I blamed everything else and complained and complained about society, the economy, the government – this job, that job, this boss, that boss – complaining and pointing my finger, it’s their fault, they’re the reason I’m so unhappy; eventually I got tired of that and guess what I did next?

I know a lot of people do this, maybe you have – I blamed myself. When I got sick of blaming all these other people and all these other situations I started to point the finger at myself and beat up on myself and feel bad about myself. Something is wrong with me. Why can’t I be happy in a job like a lot of other people?

Maybe I’m too lazy. I should start my own business but I’m too lazy, or I’m not good at business. I’m not a business person, I’m this kind of poet, artist, world traveler – that’s what I want to be. I don’t know business. There’s something wrong with me, I can’t do it.

I spent several more years blaming myself. All of this is the opposite of accountability.

Accountability does not mean you blame yourself and you say bad things – oh what’s wrong with me, there’s something wrong with me, I’m weak, I’m bad, I’m lazy – that’s not accountability, that’s just blaming yourself. Self pity is what that is. That is self pity.

Here’s the problem; when you blame other people, when you blame society, when you blame the economic system, when you blame your spouse or your friends, your family, your past – whatever – are you empowering yourself or disempowering yourself?

To empower means to give power, to increase power. Dis-empower is the opposite.

Obviously when you do these things you are taking away your power. The more you blame other people and you make them responsible for your happiness or your success or your lack of success or your lack of happiness, you become weaker and weaker and weaker and weaker.

It feels good to point the finger at other people. We don’t want to say oh it’s me, and that means I have to do something differently. That’s a hard challenge, and yet that is what accountability is.

In this program I’m teaching you a lot of techniques and methods to speak more confidently, to be more successful, to be a better leader. This one however, is the core.

This is not a technique or a method, this is a core attitude, a core feeling and thought and belief you must have. This is it.

If you don’t have this forget the methods and forget the techniques, people won’t respond to them very well. People won’t respect you. If you get this one, you don’t even need all those techniques so much. They will help you yes; these other methods will help you yes, but this is the thing, this is it. People feel it, they know it.

They know when you are accountable to yourself. Just to yourself. They know when you take responsibility. If you get a bad result you say “that was me, I did something and I got that result. It was bad.”

You don’t cry about it – oh it’s terrible, I’m so depressed, there’s something wrong with me – no. You just say okay, I took this action and I got a result I didn’t want. Fine, I’m responsible for that.

If you need to you try to change it if you can. If you can’t, you just learn from it. You say okay I don’t want that result again. Obviously, I need to learn more and try something different next time. That’s the attitude of a leader. That’s the attitude of success in anything; in English speaking, in life. It’s simple, but as you probably know it is not easy.

It’s one of the most difficult things in the world because when things are great, of course, it’s easy to do that.

You get a new job, a better job or more money, and you say oh I did it, look at me, I’m great. Fantastic! What happens when you get fired? Then we don’t want to say I did it – no, no, no; that’s not very fun to think about.

What we want to do is say oh that job was terrible, the boss was wrong and we complain and we complain. Maybe a lot of those things are true, but there’s also a deeper truth, a deeper responsibility, which is; I did something to get that result, and I should have or could have done something differently.

For example if you get fired – I’ve been fired, well not really – I kind of quit and got fired at the same time. Anyway, I was responsible for that, in many ways. Number one, I got a job and I broke all the rules at the job. I chose to do that.

I didn’t like the rules, I didn’t like the way they wanted me to teach, so I just said I don’t care I’m going to do it my way, the way I feel is the best. I knew that probably eventually my boss and the university would not like it and I might get fired, I knew that but I took responsibility for it and said I don’t care. I’m going to do what’s right not what the rules tell me to do.

Also, I chose to take that job knowing that it was a big bureaucracy, knowing that I probably would not fit in very well there, but I needed some money. Nothing wrong with that, but again that was my choice.

When I got fired from that job or quit, we had a talk my boss and I, we both agreed that it was not a good situation, that I did not like working there and that probably I did not fit in very well for them. We both agreed that I should leave.

You know what? I was a little stressed about the money but I also kind of felt good, I felt relieved because I knew it was not a good situation for me. In that situation I took responsibility, I was accountable, 100%.

I said well that was my choice, I knew it wasn’t a good thing. Actually that was the beginning of Effortless English. Just a couple years later I started Effortless English and built this company and now I’m so happy, now I never complain about my job. I love it, I can’t work enough. I’m working, working, working, all the time.

I love doing it. It’s not work to me, it’s like I’m playing. I can’t believe that I’m getting paid so much money from my company to do this. It’s amazing. That’s what happens when you’re really, totally accountable.

It wasn’t luck. What happened is after 20 plus years of blaming myself, blaming other people, I finally just decided to be accountable. I said, it’s not the economy. It’s not the government, it’s not bad bosses, it’s not the system, it’s not that I’m lazy or bad, it’s not that I can’t learn business – all of that is bullshit that I have been telling myself.

It’s me. I have chosen to work these jobs. I have chosen not to risk starting a business. I have chosen not to learn about business. I have made a lot of choices. My situation now is mostly the result of my own choices.

When I got that, when I changed that attitude, my whole life completely changed. Two years later I was free. After 20 years of suffering it took me – well actually it took me two years to start Effortless English, and in that two years I was reading business books, doing a website and blogging, doing a podcast, learning and learning a lot.

After I started the company, in four months I replaced my job salary. I waited two more months just to be sure before I quit my job. That was the last job I ever had, and the last job I will ever have.

Do you see how fast you can change your life when you change this attitude, when you become totally accountable? When you stop blaming, you stop blaming yourself, you stop blaming others, you say the situation is not what I want but it’s my responsibility 100%.

No one else is going to change it for me. Nothing else is going to suddenly happen. I’m not going to win the lottery. I’m not going to suddenly get some free money from the sky.

My perfect love and relationship is not going to walk through my door someday, I have to do it.

I have to make the change. I have to find the right people I have to become someone different. It’s the hardest thing to do in the world to get that attitude, but when you do it your whole life will completely change in a huge way.

When I did that and started my company, in four months I was totally free and still am today. In fact not only am I totally free, I’m making more money than I know what to do with. I never imagined I could do that.

When I look back, I look back in the past and I find what started it. What started it was me being totally 100% accountable for my life, for my own happiness. I decided other people aren’t responsible for making me happy, that is my 100% responsibility.

I can enjoy them and increase my happiness with other people, but my basic happiness is only my responsibility. My freedom from jobs, my freedom to live as I want and do what I want, that’s only my responsibility it’s not someone else’s, it’s not up to someone else to help me be free, it’s my life and therefore my responsibility.

When I changed that attitude – not just in my head but deep, deep in my heart, in my gut, in my stomach – when I felt it, my whole life totally and completely changed and that’s what created the life I have now where I’m totally free. I live the dream life I always wanted.

I travel the world whenever I want. I work when I want, I don’t work when I don’t want to.

I work only with great wonderful people that I like. I do all kinds of cool adventures like scuba diving and long hikes in Japan. I’m going to be bicycling around Italy next spring.

I have plenty of money and abundance to do anything I want to do. What changed it was just becoming 100% accountable. This is my challenge to you, VIP. It’s not easy, I know, but look at your life. There are some things in your life you’re not happy with, I know.

It might be your career, your job or your finances – maybe you hate jobs in general like I did. It might be your family or relationships, or a lack of relationships. Maybe you’re single and you really want to date somebody.

It could be your money, that you don’t have enough money. Maybe you’re just bored.

Maybe you’re just like, my life is the same every day, I’m sick of it. There’s no adventure, there’s no romance.

I don’t know what it is, but you probably have blamed other people about those things a little bit, maybe a lot. Maybe you’ve blamed yourself and you’ve decided I’m not romantic, I’m not fun, I’m not good with money, blah, blah, blah – but you know deep down its all bullshit.

My challenge to you this month is the hardest thing in the world for someone to do. This is the essence of leadership. Do this and everyone will respect you. You’ll get people following you. Without doing anything else, they will feel it.

People come to me for business advice. I’m like well, I’m in English teaching but okay, I can help you. They just see what I’ve done. It’s not what I say, they can feel the results.

They can feel that I took 100% accountability for this in my life.

I want you to look at the things in your life that you’re unhappy about and I want you to be really honest. It’s going to be painful to think about, but I want you to look at it and see how you are responsible for that situation.

Don’t make yourself feel bad, like I’m terrible; just look at the choices you’ve made, your attitude, your ideas and your beliefs. Look how those things have helped to create your situation that you’re not happy about. Decide from now until you die that you will no longer blame anyone else and you’ll no longer feel bad about it yourself.

Instead you will just say I’m 100% responsible for this, it’s my choice to change it or not.

I can learn new things, I can try new things and change it, or I can choose to continue the same. Either way it’s my choice, my 100% responsibility, I am accountable for this situation. It’s me and only me.

Do that. I’m getting hot because I’m so passionate about this subject. This one thing changed my life. I’m so happy about my life now, and this is what changed it. This is it, the big one, the big thing.

It’s hard and a lot of people don’t want to hear this. They don’t want to think about it but you can do it. You’re a VIP you can do it. Look at your life, all the things you’re not happy about, and say I’m responsible. Write down all the things that you have done to create that situation, all the choices and beliefs.

Decide that from now on no more blaming, you are accountable for it. I’ll talk more about this in the audio commentary.

Have a great day, and I will see you on our VIP site. Bye-bye.