Accountability.
What does it mean?
Who are you accountable to?
When you make the decision to start your own business you may be filled with excitement, anticipation and visions of freedom and prosperity. You should! Starting your own business, especially an MLM business with the exponential qualities of duplication can and should expand your expectations for wealth and prosperity. None of these visions will come to fruition, of course, unless you are accountable.
First and foremost, you must put the “U” in accountability. You must keep the promise you make to yourself.
Accountability is more complicated than you may think. For the beginning entrepreneur, accountability may simply start with being accountable to his dream or goal. Is that enough? For many of us, it is not. What if you are also accountable to your spouse? How about your kids? Yourself? Is that enough?
For most entrepreneurs it is not.
When we say we are accountable that should mean that failure is not an option. If this were REALLY true, than 85% of all businesses wouldn’t fail in the first year. “But Doug, it was the economy,” you say. So what? Are you accountable to your vision? Did you not promise your spouse increased fortune and freedom? An excuse is our safety valve to relieve us of being accountable. I remember very clearly making the promise to become a millionaire by the time I was 30. Was I accountable? Not really.
Oh sure, I wrote down my goals, assigned milestones to them, and even shared them with my wife. When I missed that goal 3 years in a row, what were the consequences? Did I lose my vision, my dream, or my energy? Nope…that was all still there. When I failed to accomplish my goal in the timeline I committed to, were there any real negative consequences? No.
This is where the problem of accountability really comes to light. If there are no negative consequences, our energy, creativity and fortitude are never maximized. In the movie Apollo 13, there is a famous scene where the mission control specialists were thinking and feeling that the mission and the crew were lost. The spacecraft had suffered substantial damage and was on a trajectory away from the earth. In this famous scene, the character played by Ed Harris states, “Failure is not an option.” Once this option is removed from your thought process, massive amounts of creativity and resources are at your disposal. Certainly when there is a life or death situation, you have MUCH more to lose than your image, humility or a few dollars.
We are certainly taught to place the positive consequences of attaining our goal. Freedom, wealth, happiness are all great things to achieve once our MLM business is up and running. If you don’t attain your goal, however, what negative consequences will occur? Should we outline those, too? Is it “negative thinking” to remind ourselves of what will happen if we quit or delay our success?
Unless you want to hire a hit man to break your legs if you don’t attain your goal, you better focus on different outcomes to insure your goal doesn’t have an escape clause AND doesn’t affect your health.
Try humiliation.
Recently, I began a project that had several timetables and these milestones were going to be difficult to meet. Not impossible, but difficult. By aligning MY timetables with others I was able to create a synergy of accountability that made me responsible not only for my family’s welfare but the families of my vendors, associates, and downline. Imagine the humiliation and financial consequence of telling someone, “I can’t meet the deadline that I set for myself. Sorry…tell your Christmas won’t be that good this year.”
Being accountable isn’t just a word. It is the manifestation of your character, values and commitment. Placing positive consequences to insure your habits are congruent with your thoughts is vital. Just be sure to not give yourself and out if you don’t make it. Failure is an option for most of us and an unpleasant one at that.
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