00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on episode 639 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm Gina Johnson from synergy mindset coaching. I encourage you to find your own journey from surviving to thriving. And one way to be inspired to do that is by listening to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader, Then you become the person that others are frustrated with,
00:00:34 and they're going to call you out. And you're either going to leave the group and go back to your old ways. Are you going to step up and begin to perform in a way that you've never performed before? But the truth is accountability is the tool that allows you to do that. Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast.
00:01:00 If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world. In today's episode about investing in yourself through stewarding your talent.
00:01:30 I talk with you about why accountability requires regularity, how you can surround yourself with accountability and why this is so important to achieve your goals. You've heard me talk about developing your talent and what are the best ways to do that is through books. But if you're like most people today, it's hard to find the time to read. And that's why today's podcast is brought to you by audible.
00:01:57 Go to inspired stewardship.com/audible to sign up and you can get a 30 day free trial. There's over 180,000 titles to choose from. And you can pick one and listen your way to developing your talents via audible. That's inspired stewardship.com/audible to get your free trial and listen to great books the same way you're listening to this podcast. One of those interesting things that we often don't want,
00:02:31 but really need is this idea of accountability. Accountability is when you've taken on responsibility for something, or you've decided that you're going to do something, and then you allow others to actually hold you to that agreement. It's a way of almost making a contract with other people around you. And by the way, accountability and responsibility belong together. One, the most disruptive things you can have is when you're accountable for something but not responsible.
00:03:04 Other people are responsible or when you're responsible for something, but not held accountable. That separation of responsibility and accountability creates problems. But I wanted to talk today about how you can actually find accountability in your life. What does it take to have people hold you accountable? And one of the key ideas that I've found for true accountability is consistency. Regularity. It's about having,
00:03:35 not just someone to hold you accountable, but having a specific group or set of people hold you accountable in a regular way. This is one of the reasons that mastermind groups or accountability groups can be so effective because by having that set time and place, you have a set group of people. They hold you accountable to those actions. Same thing happens, you know,
00:04:03 in like a networking group, if it's done well like a BNI or chamber by having a set group of people who all hold you to a certain set of expectations in a regular pattern Toastmasters, all of these are examples of groups that why part of the reason, at least that they work is because of having that consistency of holding you to a certain set of standards from a certain set of people with consistency across time,
00:04:32 that regular pattern helps you become more accountable. So if you want to increase the accountability that you have around a goal, that's why you need to invest in some sort of regular pattern of accountability that could be joining a mastermind group that could be hiring a coach that could be forming your own accountability group. That could be joining an organization that will hold you accountable to certain set of goals.
00:05:03 How you do it really depends on what kind of goals you have, where you live. What do you have available to you? But there's literally dozens and dozens of ways that you can find accountable groups that will hold you to specific goals. This is one of the reasons sometimes hiring someone like, you know, hiring a marketing guru. If you want to work on marketing in your business,
00:05:27 hiring somebody to help you do something in LinkedIn. If that's what you want to change, hiring someone to be a health coach. If you're working on your health goals, it's one of the reasons this works is because that adds a different layer of accountability. And because you're paying money, you generally have a tendency to take it more seriously as well. That's one of the values of coaching as well.
00:05:51 Why is this so important to you to find accountability? Because the truth is, as we talked about yesterday, we have a tendency to underestimate our own ability to be blind, to certain weaknesses of ourselves. By having someone come in from outside and hold us accountable to things that we've said are important to us, our own goals, our own drives our own priorities,
00:06:17 our own values, but allowing someone to call you out when you're out of alignment with those things, gives you the ability to see it because the truth is we often see things in others, much easier than we see them in ourselves. We all have our own blind spots, but by inviting accountability in, from a group or from others, it porpoises you,
00:06:41 it forces you to open your eyes and examine your blind spots. And when you do that, you begin to grow. You begin to push further. You begin to move out of your comfort zone and allow yourself to really begin to learn and develop a new set of skills. It's one of the fastest ways to make change. Now, some people don't like accountability because it feels bad.
00:07:08 It can hurt subtitles for someone to call you out when you're not doing the things that you're supposed to do, it can frustrate you. But the truth is without that level of accountability, it's harder to make as fast a progress. The truth is we can all make more progress when we go together than when we go alone. And accountability is about inviting other people on the journey.
00:07:32 And one of the most powerful things is when there's mutual accountability. So if you're working with a group of people and they're holding you accountable, and you're also holding them accountable, then it really works. Otherwise if different people have, some people are performing and others are not, then you begin to resent those people who are not and holding the group back,
00:07:54 that creates frustration. If you've agreed to do a certain thing and you don't step forward and do it, then you become the person that others are frustrated with. And they're going to call you out. And you're either going to leave the group and go back to your old ways. Are you going to step up and begin to perform in a way that you've never performed before?
00:08:17 But the truth is accountability is the tool that allows you to do that. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively, listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you like this episode on the stewardship of talent,
00:08:51 you can go over to inspired stewardship.com/talent and sign up for our five week series on the stewardship of talent. Or if you're in the U S you can text four, four, two, two, two talent tips, that's talent tips to four four, two, two, two, and get those tips until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures,
00:09:19 develop your influence and impact the world.