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Accountability to oneself is crucial for success. You need to hold yourself accountable and set goals to stay focused. Plan your daily tasks the night before to increase productivity. Ask yourself tough questions about what actions will lead to your goals. Challenge negative beliefs and biases that may be holding you back. Focus on the benefits for others when asking for appointments or business opportunities. Evaluate your prospecting activity and the health of your pipeline. Regularly fill your pipeline to ensure a steady flow of appointments and opportunities. The success of your business depends on your accountability and proactive approach. Hey, good morning, everybody. I just wanted to talk to you a little bit about accountability to yourself. This is such an important thing. I'm going to talk about next week about accountability as a sales leader or a sales manager or a leader, but this week, let's talk about accountability to yourself. The one main thing that's important is that if you need somebody to hold you accountable for producing results, and that someone needs to be on your back, night and day, asking you the questions that drive you to reach your goals and to do the best work you're capable of doing, then that someone needs to be a relentless taskmaster, reminding you to stay focused on what's really important, right? And that someone that should be holding you accountable is you. You're the one that should be holding yourself accountable. In the end, your ability or inability to hold yourself accountable is going to determine what you end up doing, where you end up. It's you, because there's nobody that can stay on top of you to the extent that someone needs to stay on top of you in order for you to get your job done, because that someone also needs to be holding themselves accountable. If they have a business, they have other people holding them accountable. So really, in the end, it's got to be you that holds yourself accountable. In order to do that, what you've got to do is you've got to, one of the things that I've always done that's held me accountable is before I went to bed at night, I wrote down in my planner, right, if you do this in your smartphone or whatever, but I wrote down in my planner every night before I went to bed, everything I was going to do the following day from the time I got up, say it's 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. I had everything penciled out, everything written down, who I was going to call, who I was going to prospect, what I was going to do. Every minute of every day was planned out the night before I went to bed. And you need to get in this habit, because this habit will make you super productive. It'll set you apart from all your peers. It'll allow you to do things and create momentum and situations that will blow your mind. The fact is very few people really manage themselves or are accountable to themselves. So in accountability, you've got to ask yourself and answer some tough questions. You know, there's a lot of power in great questions. The tough questions focus your attention on what's really important. The toughest questions make you consider what's important and what needs to be traded off. For example, one of the things that I would do if I were you is I'd ask myself all the time, every hour, what's the most productive thing I could be doing right now? In other words, what would lead to the results I want, which is more appointments, more sales, more recruits? What could you be doing right now that would lead to that? You should be asking yourself that question every hour on the hour. What could I do or what did I do in the last hour to move my business forward, to move my goals and move myself closer to reaching my goals? What did I do? This is really the issue. You know, one of the things that happened to Rick, Susie and I, we worked for a company, a guy named, I won't give you his name, but the bottom line, we worked in the same jewelry company and we had the owner of that company would call us every hour to see where we were at, what did we do the hour before, where were we at in relation to our goal for the day and then what we were going to do in the following hours to make sure we hit those goals. I mean, every hour I get a phone call. I worked there for five years. Rick worked there for 12 years. And every hour we get a phone call. Where are you at? What are you doing? What are your numbers? What are you doing to make sure you hit those numbers? Are you calling the layaways? Are you calling, you know, old customers? Are you talking to people that are walking in the mall or what are you doing? So it was like this incredibly high level of accountability that we had. So when we got to Primerica, we were just in such a habit of making sure every hour we were doing something that that led to us having, you know, pretty amazing careers. And it's really that level of accountability. And so when we left that, we didn't have that individual to call us anymore, but we were so, it was so ingrained in us, this accountability, hour by hour accountability that both of us ended up having, you know, making millions and millions of dollars in Primerica. And all of you need to have that kind of mentality. So what are the questions? If you answer them, I just gave you some of those questions. What am I doing right now that's going to move me in the direction of my goals that I have right now? What did I do in the last hour? How can I change that? Who do I need to call? What do I need to be doing? What's the most productive thing I could be doing that would lead to, you know, better results? So the questions you need to ask to ensure that you're getting the outcomes you want are what you need. These are the questions. So what are the things that are going to lead to where you want to go? So one of the things you have to really question is what beliefs and biases do you have that no longer serve you? You know, like one of the things that when people come into business, a lot of people have negative opinions about being in sales or talking to people or asking for appointments or asking for money or asking for a check or asking people to come to meetings or asking people for their time. Lots of people have beliefs and biases related to that, that, oh, if I ask them for anything, they're going to think I'm pushy. They're going to think I'm a salesperson. They're going to think I'm trying to take advantage of them. So those beliefs that you have are holding you back from being successful in the business. The way you have to look at it, you need to switch that around. You need to say, okay, if I get an appointment with somebody, if I ask for an appointment and get an appointment, are those people going to be better off or worse off after I do an F&A for them, after I show them how I can help them get rid of their debt, save more money, save it in a place that can offer them a better rate of return, offer them an income opportunity that can allow them to make more money so they can get out of debt and save money and possibly make a career change where they can make, you know, two or three or four or ten times what they're making right now. So what you've got to do is you've got to really start thinking about what do you believe about prospecting? What do you believe about asking for appointments? What do you believe about, you know, asking people to come to meetings? What do you believe about asking people to join you in your company? What do you believe about asking for a check and asking somebody to do business with you? What do you believe about that? Well, what you need to do is you need to see what's the benefit in the person I'm asking. What do they get out of it? If they meet with me and they allow me to do an F&A and they actually follow that F&A, what's in it for them? That's what you should be focusing on because that's really what's going to happen. If somebody comes to a meeting and I ask them to come to a meeting, I ask them to take a look at the business and they join the business and they end up making extra income or possibly even doing so well that they leave their job and they become an RVP and they make $100 or $200 or $500 or a million dollars a year, what's in it for them? Well, what's in it for them is pretty significant, folks. And if they don't meet with you, they don't try the business, what's in it for them if they don't? They lose out on an opportunity that could radically change your life. That's the way you need to start looking at this situation, right? So what actions do you need to improve to improve your results in these areas, right? So you need to ask, what can I do? What can I do better to improve my situation, to get better at this thing? Another question, how about your prospecting results? How about the health of your pipeline? Because everybody has a pipeline, which is like how many people are in line or in a queue to meet with. What's your pipeline look like? If you have a list of 20 prospects, 50 prospects, 100 prospects, one prospect, how many, how healthy is your pipeline? You better be growing that pipeline. How you do that is by prospecting. You prospect everywhere you go. You're always prospecting. When you meet somebody, you talk to them, they're not interested, who do you know that might be interested in getting debt free, in saving and making more money, and maybe a career change if the money were right, or in making additional income because maybe they just had a new child, or maybe they got their hours cut back at work, or maybe they just got laid off. I don't know, whatever it is. How's your pipeline? What are you doing to fill that pipeline? In other words, what's your prospecting activity like on a daily basis? One of the main things you should be doing every day is allowing hours to prospecting, which means contacting people that you can talk to, that you can potentially involve in having an appointment with them, make them a client, and possibly make them a recruit. That pipeline is critical to your business. If you have a Bay Shop, the pipeline for you and your Bay Shop is how many appointments do you and your teammates have this week coming up, because you should be having, by Saturday or Sunday night of each week, for the following week, you should have a pretty good clue of how many appointments are taking place, not only you personally, but in your business. How many people have appointments? You should be finding out how many appointments are for the following week, because that's what's going to determine the outcomes that you really need to produce and be successful, and ultimately to be happy, okay? You can come up with lots of other questions, but think about the questions that are going to move you in the direction of the goals and the dreams that you have, all right? Accountability for taking disciplined actions. Now, asking the tough questions isn't ever enough, folks. It's helpful to think through what's important, and you absolutely must hold yourself accountable for doing the thinking, right? Because the thinking, your thinking is guiding whether you're prospecting or not. Your thinking is guiding whether you're following up with people or not. Your thinking is guiding whether you see those people and you say, I should talk to those people, or I got a phone number and I should call these people. However you think about it is going to determine your actions. So how you're thinking about everything, all right? How you're thinking about what it's like or what, if it's okay or not, regarding talking to people about your business opportunity or talking to people about, you know, meeting with you, it's your thinking that's going to guide your action and your actions are going to determine your results. So always comes back to what you're thinking about, folks. So great ideas and effective plans are the results of having done that thinking. Better results are found through a combination of two things, disciplined thinking and disciplined action. So what is your thinking like and what is your action like? Those two things need, the discipline that you have relative to those two things has to grow, folks. It has to get better. But no one else should ever have to hold you accountable for doing what you need to do, right? If somebody has to hold you accountable for doing what you need to do, to me it means you're not clear about what it is you want in your life, what it is you need and what it is you're willing to go after and do to accomplish that. Anytime you really need somebody to hold you accountable, to me it's a lack of clarity of what you really, really want in your life. You're not clear about that. You don't know what you want, right? So like for example, the Olympics just passed not too long ago, but Olympic athletes, you know what they're clear about? Number one, the first thing, they want to get in a position where they are in a position to win a medal, right? So you have to go through a lot of qualifying just to get to the place where you can actually compete for a medal. You've got to make that a goal initially, right? And then you have to have a goal once you get to the competitive rounds where you can actually win a medal, right? Then you have to have a goal. Are you going to win a silver? Are you going to win a bronze? Are you going to win a gold medal, right? I don't know. It depends, right? It depends what you're focused on. But if somebody has to hold you accountable, it means you don't want that thing enough. It means you're not clear about what you're after. That's what it really means. Anytime someone needs to hold you accountable, it means you don't want whatever it is, right? It's not important enough for you to do it. Like a lot of people say to me, one of the things, well, I don't worry about motivating people because I say to myself, you know, I say this to people often. I say, look, if I have to motivate you, if your family, if your spouse, if your children, if your mom and dad or whatever, right, doesn't motivate you enough, there's nothing I can do to motivate you, right? There's nothing I can do. So this is one of the reasons for me, one of the reasons I started really taking off after about three years, my business exploded after that. The reason is, is I stopped trying to motivate people and I started focusing on finding motivated people that wanted something more from their life, that were really directed in what they were trying to do with their life and wanted to accomplish certain, you know, specific things for them and their family. When you find motivated people, it's very easy to train and develop motivated people. It's impossible to train and develop unmotivated, non-focused people that don't know what they want out of life, right? You can't do it. So what I then started doing is I really started asking questions of people, what motivates you? Where do you want to go? What do you want to happen with your life? If you got in Primerica and you could make $100,000 or $200,000 or $300,000 a year, why do you want to do that? What is it that you want to do with that money if you start making considerable income? What do you want from that? You know, what does that mean to you? What is that going to mean for you and your family? How important is that to you to make that a reality for you and your family? And I wanted to know what they wanted because if they weren't clear about what they wanted, if they couldn't tell me what, you know, what they were going to do with the money when they made it and why they were trying to do this or why they're willing to start coming to meetings and learn about the seven fundamentals and learn how products work and learn all the things you have to learn, if people aren't clear about why they're doing it, they're not going to do it. They're not going to stay involved. They're going to get tired. They're going to get, you know, dejected. They're going to, any little thing is going to throw them off track, right? One of the reasons that I never got, you know, off track or I never got tired is because I knew exactly what I was trying to do and every day I got up, I had a mission and I had it written down and I knew what I was doing. So day after day, I did this. Was every day a great day? No, but every day I was moving forward and then what happened, you know, you have, you know, five or six, seven, eight days in a week where you're really focused, you know what you're doing, you're on track, you're prospecting, you're doing all the right things. Every week something good is going to happen and you add those up, those months, weeks turn into months and all of a sudden now you start having good months and then good months turn into good years and all of a sudden you look back five years later and you have a great career and you have a great business built and things are going. But it all starts with holding yourself accountable on a daily basis. That's what it starts with, holding yourself accountable. No one else should ever have to hold you accountable for doing what you know you need to do, folks. Ultimately, the person that you are going to answer to when it comes to your success or your failures and your life is you. You are it. You're the beginning and the end. The buck starts and stops with you, folks. You have to decide what's important to you and act on it or not act on it, you know. In the end, you're going to have to be happy with the decisions you made and the actions that you took around those decisions. Every decision you make has a consequence, folks. Every choice you make has a consequence. If you don't prosper today, that has a consequence. If you don't make those calls today, that has a consequence. If you miss the meeting this week, that has a consequence. If you don't follow up with people, that has a consequence. If you don't master those seven fundamentals, that has a consequence. If you don't master how the products works and all that sort of thing, that has a consequence. If you can't – if you don't manage your daily activity and sit down at night before you go to bed and pencil out what you're going to do the following day, that has a consequence. Everything has a consequence. There's no thing that does it. When you don't make a choice, you're still making a choice. Every choice has a consequence. The trick is to hold yourself accountable now instead of living with or later facing regrets. Look, we're all getting older a lot very fast, folks. When I started Prime America in 1984, January of 84, that was almost 30 years ago, 1984. Folks, that time between 84 and 2012 went by like a flash. It went by so fast, it makes my head spin. Folks, you're going to – I'm living with a position now that I'm very happy with the choices I made. I'm so glad I chose the things I've just talked to you about in this call. I'm glad I held myself accountable. I'm glad I didn't need somebody holding me accountable. I'm glad that I've managed myself every day and before I went to bed, I had every hour already penciled out what I was going to do. I'm glad that I did that. I was disciplined and I had great work ethic for an extended period of time that allowed me to build a significant business which allowed me to get debt-free and completely financially independent and provide an income, a massive income that allows me to do what I want, when I want, where I want, with whom I want. I'm so glad that I did that. You're going to have a decision. You're going to have a consequence that 20, 30 years from now, you're either going to have regrets or you're going to have just fond memories of what you do and total gratitude that you did those things, right? Look, it's no one else's job to hold you accountable in the end, right? No one else is responsible for your results or for the results of your life but you. Don't wait for someone else to tell you what they want you to be accountable for or hold yourself accountable to deciding what actions you can take in order to succeed for taking those. Don't wait for somebody to do that for you. Don't wait. Take control of your life. Take control of your time. The only thing standing between you and massive success is you, your thinking and your actions. There's nothing else standing in the way. Stop looking outside yourself, okay? There's nothing outside yourself causing your situation. You are the sole cause, period, end of story. And until you get that, folks, until you figure that out, you're going to struggle. Accept that, act on that and great things are going to happen. Talk to you next week.
