Some people will tell you that accountability is a solitary journey that is best taken alone. Today host John Laurito proves them wrong. Sharing your journey with a helpful friend, family member, or acquaintance can enrich the experience. But it’s not nearly as good as finding an outsider and having them hold you accountable and help you in various ways. Accountability partners are the perfect companion for your self-exploratory journey toward accountability. An experienced person who will help you work towards achieving your goals and objectives at work, in business, or in life.
[0:00] Intro
[1:12] Everything about riddles
[2:48] Storytime!
[8:09] The importance of having an accountability partner
[11:23] Outro
John Over the last two decades, I’ve been on an insatiable quest to learn everything I can about leadership. What makes the best leaders so good? After running companies small and large over the last 20 years, today I speak on stages all across the world to audiences who are interested in that same question. My name is John Laurito. I’m your host, and I invite you to join me on this journey as we explore this very topic and what makes the best leader so good. Welcome to tomorrow’s leader.
John All right, tomorrow’s leaders. Welcome to the show. It is great to be back with you again. I’m on my way to the mountains today. I am incredibly excited. I’m in a great mood for a couple of reasons, which I’ll tell you in a bit, but. Yeah. There’s something about being in the mountains outside, just away from everything peaceful as can be. I just absolutely love it. So it’s my happy place. Especially with my family. So, in any event, figured I’d share a couple thoughts. Do a couple of episodes before I head out. Um, and last night I was up for a long time. Oh. Before I actually get to that, let me let me recognize our recent winner. Last time last episode, I had shared a riddle with you that went something to the effect of, um, two girls were born on the exact same day to the same mother in the same year, uh, in the same hospital. Yet they are not twins. How is that possible? I got many, many, many guess guesses on this, but I got one correct answer, and that correct answer was given by Emma Horner. Congrats, Emma. Who guessed correctly that they are not twins. They are, in fact, triplets.
John They’re part of a triplets. So two girls born to the same mother, same day, same time. All that kind of jazz, same hospital. They are triplets, not twins. So, Emma Horner, you are the winner. Congratulations. Uh, great guests. For those of you who are craving another riddle, I got another one for you. I’ll keep them coming. I don’t get in the feedback from you. You say you like these things. So here’s another one. All right. Ready for it? Here we go. I’m full of holes, but strong as steel. What am I? I’m full of holes, but strong as steel. What am I the first one to share with me? I will give you props on the air and all kinds of good stuff.
John So. All right, let’s get to topic. So yes, I was up late last night as I was saying, um, I have my son flying in from L.A., which I’m super excited about. He was on a redeye last night, and when I was supposed to take off at midnight L.A. time, and I get a text at about midnight hour time. So this is at 9 p.m. LA time saying that the flight is delayed till 8:00 in the morning, which really screws up the plans because he had a connection in Charlotte, blah blah blah, and it was chain reaction. He was going to miss that. And then he’s going to miss a whole day, at least a day of the mountain trip experience. So we’re about to go on. So I was not happy. I get on the phone with American Airlines. American Airlines. Why is it that I have so many problems with your flights getting delayed? I don’t seem to have it on other airlines, so come on, get your crap together in any event.
John So I was up probably till I’m going to say 1:00, almost 2:00 in the morning trying to get it worked out, finally get them on a flight as we speak. He’s in the air on his way here, very, very excited. So we got it worked out. No major issue. But I was trying to get him on a 1030 flight and it was kind of crazy to have him having a rest there anyways. All worked out. Everything was fine. Bottom line is, I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. Fast forward a few hours to 6 a.m. when my alarm goes off to work out with Jeff, we decided we would do a workout at his home gym today because he’s also gone on the mountain trip and we’re leaving in just a bit. Didn’t have time to go to the gym and we’ve been doing these crazy, super intense workouts with a couple buddies of ours. So the four of us get into my buddy’s garage and just kill each other. I mean, these things are I feel like my heart is pounding through my chest and going to explode. And my I feel like I’m going to pass out and barf at the same time. It’s miserable but at the same point, wow, what a great workout and feel great after it’s done. I hate the drive there. So needless to say I’m thinking, okay, I’m working out in Jeff’s garage this morning. It’s going to be a little bit of a break. I’m thinking, okay, we’re going to do we’ve done these super, super intense workouts with the four of us. I’m super tired. We’re on our way to the mountains this morning. We don’t have a whole lot of time. Let’s just get in and out.
John And I’ll be honest with you, I was really, you know, looking forward to kind of half assed in it. We’ve all had those days. I woke up, I’m exhausted and I’m just cranky from lack of sleep. I’m like, you know, I just was hoping that it would be, you know, like, hey, let’s just lie down on a mat and do a couple of crunches. Uh, take a break for 5 minutes. Do a couple more cross. She’s due break. Another break, a little nap, do a few more crunches and let’s call it a day. I was okay with that. I would have been okay with that. And check the box, the work out. We’ve all had those days. Instead, I walk in and I see this expression on Jeff’s face, this really evil look and almost filled with apology in his face.
John And he’s looking at me like, I’m sorry for what I’m about to do to us. I look at the board and he’s got this freakin ridiculous workout mapped out. I mean, it’s like what we’ve been doing with these. These other guys. Even more intense. It’s nine rounds, 3 minutes, each of nonstop stuff, starting with burpees. I don’t know. For those of you who work out and you know what a burpee is, burpees should be removed from the Webster Dictionary. It is a horrible and I don’t know who invented it. It is a horrible, horrible, horrible exercise. There’s there’s nothing fun about it. There’s nothing. It is just pure evil. It’ll go down. Now, I’m £250 and six three. There’s a lot of stuff. I got to move around. I got to go down to the ground. You’re basically flopping on the ground, flat belly on the ground up, you know, jump up.
John It’s just it sucks. And we start off with this bottom line. It’s nine different exercises, nine different rotations. You’re going back and forth. Jeff and I, this is a workout. And during your quote rest, you’re holding a £45 plate over your head. What? Jeff, I’m like, I, I genuinely honestly, I mean, this I was mad. I was mad at him. Like, why would you do this? Honestly, I mean, we’re leaving on a trip. I don’t have a lot of time. I didn’t sleep well last night. Just why would you do this? I was genuinely mad. But. Needless to say, the happy ending of this is we did this, we did this workout was a great workout. We killed ourselves. It was great. And I got to say, I feel phenomenal having done it. What it just reminded me of, the fact is there is no way in hell I would have done a workout, even a fraction of the intensity of that had it not been for Jeff.
John And it was just a reminder of the importance of having a power partner when you’re doing stuff that really sucks. We’ve all got stuff in our life. You’ve all got stuff in business that just, you know, you got to do. It’s really tough. It’s really hard to motivate yourself to do something, but it’s a critical task and you will do it and more likely to do it when you have somebody who’s your accountability partner. It’s plain and simple. Every time I surround myself with somebody else, when I’m doing a really tough task, it’s a heck of a lot easier. And in this case, Jeff’s energy or enthusiasm, enthusiasm rubbed off on me. I was not in any kind of mood to do that.
John Thank God he was. And he pushed us both to do it. Now, some days there might be days where that reverses, but if you don’t have somebody surrounding yourself when you do it, I don’t care if you’re in sales and you’re doing sales calls, those suck. Those are tough. Take the sucky tasks and surround yourself with somebody. If you’ve got if you’re trying to get in better health, do it with somebody else. If you’re trying to get better at meditating, do it with somebody else. If you’re trying to go for designation or a degree or something, do it with somebody else, somebody who’s going to be your accountability partner because they will tell you your likelihood of doing it will go up significantly.
John And it’s all about consistency, right? You got to have somebody that it’s not on the easy days, some days to bounce out of bed. You ready to take on whatever? It’s the tough days. That’s where failure happens. It’s the days you wake up and you’re just not wanting to do it. You don’t have your A-game. You sometimes even have your B game. You got your C your game. You need somebody else around you who’s got their A-game. And the great thing is, if I’ve got my C game and Jeff has his game, you know what? I’m not even I don’t even get it’s not even a B, I actually end up getting my A-game. He gets anatomy, same thing. Whatever it is, put yourself in a position to win. And part of that is you’ve got to surround yourself with people that can help you do the tough stuff when you don’t want to do the tough stuff. So I’m hoping this is helpful for you. It was just, you know, kind of a meaningful reminder, an aha moment this morning.
John I’m like, my morning would have been totally different had I just been going out, going at it about it on my own. The importance of making sure you surround yourself with people that can help you do the tough stuff. So I hope this is helpful for you today. Again, all about accountability partners. You know what? You know what? That’s leadership leading yourself. It’s kind of a cheat code to help you lead yourself to do things you wouldn’t have otherwise done. That’s the key. That is the key. That’s success, right?
John Success is all about doing the things that other people are willing to do, doing the things that you are not willing to do, figuring out a way to do it, figuring out how you make a tough task easier, a little bit easier, increase the likelihood that you’ll do it. Okay. And this is one way to do it. So hope this is helpful.
John As always, greatly appreciate you listening, greatly appreciate your feedback, greatly appreciate your notes, your text, your emails, all that good stuff like share, subscribe, you know the deal, go down below, give a five star review and we’ll see you next time. Take care. Bye.
John Thanks for joining us on today’s episode of Tomorrow’s Leader. For suggestions or inquiries about having me at your next event or personal coaching, reach me at John@johnlaurito.com. Thank, lead on!
