Lack of Confidence? You Might Have an Accountability Problem

0:28So, hey guys, listen, we're all trying to get more productive. $10 ,000 worth of courses that are in there that come with the app. Also, some of the top influencers in the world are all posting content in there on a regular basis, like having the Avengers of personal development and business in one app. And I'm honored that he asked me to be a part of it as well and contribute on a weekly basis, and I do. So go over there and get signed up. You're going to get a free tuition-free voucher to go to an event with Brendan and myself and a bunch of other influencers as well, so you get a free event out of it also.

0:53So go to growthday.com forward slash ed. That's growthday.com forward slash ed.

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1:49This is The Ed Milard Show. All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. So as you know, every single month, we get to spend time with the great Brendan Brouchard. And today is that day of the month for all of you. And it's one of the most downloaded episodes we do all year are the monthly episodes with this man. And this week, I'm so excited. By the way, he is the founder of the greatest personal development app of all time called Growth Day. If you go to growthday.com forward slash ed, you can get all the information you need to change your life right there and do it affordably. and today you get to spend some time with both of us for free which is awesome and so today we're going to talk about by the way welcome to the show first of all my brother it's great to have you back as you spend time with us here every month i'm more and more grateful every time we do it it's an honor and and man this time of year to be together it's so inspiring it fires me up so thank you yeah we were just talking off camera about sincerely how fired up we are about the world, about life, about this being a time in history that could end up being one of the greatest times of all time to change your life.

2:55And what we're going to talk about today is a couple habits and thoughts that can help you do that. So today is all about self-confidence and accountability. And Brendan's written the book, you know, High Performance Habits. And so he's done studies and data and has numerical evidence to kind of back some of the things we're going to talk about today. But if you want to know more about self-confidence, you want to know more about accountability, here we go. I guess in the next 35 minutes with the two of us kind of rifting back and forth on this topic. So let me start with you because you study this really, really deeply.

3:24I want to talk about the accountability part first because the part you and I were actually talking about off camera. Talk about the concept. Why do you think it's so important and why does so many people avoid wanting to be held accountable? I love that. Man, I've really struggled with that. Coaching people for 20 years. because, you know, as coaches, you and I both help find somebody's breakthrough. They discover it. They get clarity on a coaching call. They tell us their plan. They're fired up. They feel champion mode. They're excited. And then next Monday, they don't change. And then they change again, and they don't change again, and they don't change again.

4:06You're like, what is going on? And what I discovered, which is so almost counterintuitive, is that people suck at making commitments or setting goals or making big decisions because to do so requires and invites judgment. Wow. Judgment. People hate judgment. If you had an expectation and you didn't do it when you were a kid, your parents got mad at you. If you were at school and you didn't do what you're supposed to do, the teacher got mad at you. When you feel like you're failing and somebody knows about it, it feels like they're judging you. It feels embarrassing. To judge oneself is terrifying to most people because you put your butt on the line.

4:57You say you're going to do it. You say you're going to be accountable. It's hard to say you're going to be accountable. Most people won't even say they're real commitments. They won't make bold decisions because it invites so much self-judgment. What if I find out I really wasn't ready? What if I find out I wasn't willing? What if I find out I'm not capable? What if I find out I'm not good enough? What if I find out by setting this goal, going after this thing, acting confident, that when I go to hold myself accountable, example, I end up judging myself as inferior. So if that's a risk, why even take it?

5:37I don't want to feel bad about myself. Ed, do you want to feel bad about yourself? Well, you know, of course not. You know, you don't. And I think that all things that seem to be working in people's lives, though, there's some form of accountability. Like you and I were talking about my friend, Andy Frisella, and he's created the 75 hard program. And one of the things that comes with that is hyper accountability. Every single day, there's things you got to do, But every single day, you got to post a pic online. You got to post every day. You're accountable, not just to yourself, but to the public at large, whether that's two people who follow you or 50 million people who follow you, you're accountable.

6:11And I think that accountability for a lot of people, it's like a clock kind of running in the back of their mind, man, I got to get this thing done because I've got a report. And you said something that surprised me. When I think of accountability, I think of someone else holding me accountable, almost me submitting to, I guess you'd call it their judgment or their assessment. So do you think that is it different when someone, I recommend when you make a goal, express it to somebody that holds you accountable, that you've got to say, Hey, I did it or I didn't do it. Do you not agree with that?

6:44And is that why you said holding yourself accountable? Or do you think self accountability is the most important, but it should be backed up and supported by accountability to another person. Yeah. I think accountability is the most important thing for success because we have to stick to our personal commitments and our commitments to other people. And what I'm trying to get to is the reason, because I think everybody listening to you and I right now, they know accountability is important in their life, but they don't know why they don't hold themselves accountable. Got it. The reason people don't hold themselves accountable is because there'll be self-judgment?

7:20What if I don't measure up to what I wanted? And there's social judgment. What if other people who I said I was going to do this thing to, and I don't follow up, what are they going to think of me? So I do think there's both sides. There's self-accountability, often just called personal accountability. And that is holding yourself accountable to a standard that you have set. And then there's the accountability to other people. I promised you this. I said I was going to do it. And now I have that social or peer pressure. They're both really important. But I'm here to tell people, if you don't set up accountability in your life, and if you find yourself over and over, why am I not being accountable to the standards or the goals or the discipline or the habits I said I was going to do?

8:07I promise, if you dig there, I promise you, you will find that you don't like how that judgment feels by other people or by yourself. And what you need to do is go, oh, I'm probably harsh on myself. And I've probably been harsh on myself so many times. I've developed a pattern of not liking myself when I try to do hard things because I judge myself so unfairly, so impossibly, so perfectly. And if instead of self-harsh judgment, I could give myself grace and adopt the learning mindset. So I have this discipline. I have this goal. I have this dream. I'm going to keep myself accountable and I'm going to check in on myself or I'm going to get that daily streak as you referenced with, you know, like 75 hard or growth day.

8:57These are daily streak activities. If I don't do that streak or if I don't do that habit, instead of punishing myself, judging myself or letting other people be mean to me or feel like they're being mean, I'm just going to go, I didn't make it that time. What's the next right action of integrity to get back velocity, to get back momentum, get curious instead of mad at yourself. If you're a person that you just don't hold yourself accountable, you probably get mad at yourself too often. And being mad at yourself doesn't feel good. Give yourself grace and curiosity and get a little momentum towards it.

9:38Momentum feels good. And that's the switch mentally for people. We got to get you mentally feeling good about accountability versus being mad at yourself all the time. If you're mad at yourself all the time, no wonder you're not fulfilling commitments. It feels too bad. You hit the word I was going to cover, which is momentum. I think there's two types of people listening today. There's people that are really struggling with their self-confidence. They're in a static position, meaning they have consistently broken the promises they make to themselves. as you've described, right? Self-confidence at its root, we've talked about this before, is really just the habit of keeping the promises that you make to yourself.

10:15And when you continually make the promises and keep the promises that you make with yourself, you end up building self-integrity. You begin to trust yourself. Self-confidence is self-trust. And so you build this reputation with yourself where when I say I'm going to do something, I do it. And so that's what self-confidence is. So there's that group that's just, they're really struggling with it. And I'm gonna give you some hacks in a second that I've been doing. And then there's the other group. It's like, no, I'm a relatively self-confident person, but I want to take it exponentially higher in your case.

10:45These that are those of you that are in this case where you think you're relatively self-confident, you got to take some big ambitious goals and you do need to be accountable to someone you admire and respect because you're about to go into the unknown. You're about to try to take your body fat from I'm in pretty good shape to you're going to 12 % shredded. You need to be accounting to somebody who you admire, right? Or your net worth's going to go up. So accountability is correlated to confidence in the sense, once you've gotten going outside accountability, what I've done in my life, brother, is if I, if self-confidence really is the process of keeping promises you make to yourself, step one is you have to generate momentum, which is the word that Brendan just used.

11:26You have to generate, you've got to change the vibrational frequency. You've got to generate a little bit of momentum. And so believe it or not, it's keeping small promises that matter initially. So I'm going to give you all an example from my own life. I'm not going to get into the, what the health issues I've had this year, but a lot of, you know, what they are, they've been significant and they've been both, you know, you know, heart related and also back related. We'll just call those two of the five different things I've dealt with. And it has impacted my ability to train, to lift, to work out.

11:59And from someone who's lifted a lot of weights. I'm in a very physical guy to be reduced for a while to not being able to do that harmed my self-confidence. So it became the spiral for me. Not only am I not doing what I'm used to doing, but now I don't look like I used to look and I don't feel like I used to feel. And so the confidence, the lack of confidence and self-worth stuff starts going the other direction. And so when I restarted my journey to fitness again, let me tell you what the two big commitments I made every single day were initially that I had to keep. You're going to think, this is crazy, right?

12:31Mr. Max out, and these are your two things? Yeah, these are the two things because I could keep them, and I could keep myself accountable for them, and it generated mini momentum. I set up two things I knew I would and could do. You're like, that seems artificial. It wasn't. It gave me momentum. So here's what the two of them are. And I've been doing it now for a while, and now it's grown into much more than that. the two things that I started out the year with is I am going to drink a half a liter of water before I get up out of my bed. It sits right next to my bed. It's in the bottle right next to me.

13:08I drink it. I have not had my feet hit the ground. I've kept the first promise to myself. You're going to think I'm crazy. Everyone here's step two. I have to walk into the bathroom and weigh myself and I get on the scale. I weigh myself and my scale has body fat and bone density and all this other stuff. And I take my calibrations and I take them. I have now been awake for approximately a minute and a half. And I have kept two promises I've made to myself and they're fitness related. And now I've got a little bit of juice and a little bit of metal. Then it added the third day because of the way I'm being not able to move right now.

13:44I'm like, plank for a minute because it's flat back, doesn't hurt my back. I get right on the floor after I weigh myself and I do it. Now I've kept three promises. Now here we are many weeks later. I am now actively back doing things in the gym, testing my body, what I can and can't do. And the biggest thing that changed is I'm starting to feel kind of sexy and jacked again. So guess what? Now my nutrition's changing. I don't want to eat bad. I've got my protein drink and my greens and my water and my blah, blah, blah, and my alkaline and stuff. And all of a sudden, I remember this guy. I remember this guy.

14:20This dude's disciplined. This dude's a badass. This dude's strong. This dude keeps promises he makes to himself. And I'm going to tell you everybody something. I'll turn it back over to Brendan. That silliness of a guy who's lifted weights for 35 years, and by the way, I was probably one of the most fit people in the world at 30, 40, and 50 years old to go all the way back to drink your water, weigh yourself, and do a plank, right? I went all the way back to that. It's affected every area. My speaking on stage has been better. My podcasts have been better. My self-confidence is better. My energy level is better.

14:52And now it's like I remember this frequency. And so this stuff can transform everything. Now I'm saying it on the podcast. Why? I'm going to be accountable outside of me now to all of you that you can kind of go on this journey with me this year as you kind of watch show by show. me kind of transform back into the person that I was before. And I think a healthier, fitter version. Are there limitations? My back, my heart? Yeah, but that doesn't mean I can't become the best version with what I've got right now. So I'm shifting now from internal accountability to external accountability. So that's, I believe, part of the process.

15:32And for you, Brendan, what's it look like for you? Like you're worth millions and millions of dollars. You have the best growth app in the world. You're one of the highest paid speakers in the world you're the influencer to all the influencers you got a world-class marriage like are you still fighting for millimeters on your own confidence and do you struggle with it like if you're trying something new or launching a new this or that yeah man i'm from montana as you know yes i'm a really simple guy and i think you just gave people a huge unlock and i'll describe it in a different way. But I think you need two things, basic things for some confidence, like two basic things.

16:17You need a plan. And that's what you had. You have a plan. I'm going to get that water. I'm going to get that weight. I'm going to get that plank. Okay, I got a plan. And then you need honesty. Because confidence is built on not just what you do. Do I follow through on my plan. Like that's the stuff of integrity for following through on a plan, the stuff of self-discipline that gives me confidence, but the guts to have honesty about it, to be, to be honest. I said, I'm going to do it. I'm going to follow through on that promise, as you said. And I just know I'm always going to feel more confident if I'm honest with who is showing up each day and I want it to be my best.

17:04And I know I'm going to be more confident if I have some kind of a plan that I can follow, that I can do. The less structure that I have, the more it's easy for my self-doubt to come in. Sometimes a lot of people to get more confidence and momentum, they really just need that plan. And it can be so simple, which is why I love your example. Like just getting momentum. I'll also say that you shared something that's really important about the concept of power in life. Power, in terms like the second law, power means mass times velocity. Velocity is the key. Like getting those quick wins in the morning, quick velocity of momentum is so important.

17:51So many people wait until it's, you know, two, three, four, five in the afternoon to do anything. And I always teach our ultra group and our ultra members, I teach them this concept called done by one. By 1 p.m. in the afternoon, so by 1 p.m. your local time, we have done the major, most important priorities of the day. If your job is to deliver a presentation, to create something new, to shoot your video, to have that sales meeting, to whatever the most important activities of the day are that are controlled by you, do them by 1 p.m. Just get them out of the way in the morning. That morning momentum will give you uncommon energy and confidence for the rest of the day.

18:40For a lot of people, myself included, confidence is a feeling throughout the day. And if I can get that velocity in the morning of decision-making, of follow-through, of discipline, but most importantly, doing the things that matter most by one, done by one. Very good. If I'm done by one, it doesn't mean I don't work the rest of the afternoon following up on stuff, doing things, taking those meetings, those calls, doing the DMs. I still got to do dumb paperwork and stuff, just like everybody else. But the major needle moving activities of my day are done by one. And so I feel great heading in the afternoon because I follow through on the most important priorities.

19:20A lot of confidence is internally saying, can I do the things that matter most in life? Can I do the things that matter most in life? A lot of people never done that. But as you've coached with people, you realize, well, if they'll do what really matters, they get confidence. I know people who are very busy, but they do dumb stuff and they never find confidence because they've never honestly. I know this might sound too productivity, Brendan here, but if you never got good at prioritization, you'll never feel full confidence. You know, you're right. Most people don't do needle moving things because they're afraid of them.

20:06And I really believe early in the day, you should do feared things first, not just first things first, because those are the things that probably move the needle. It's the call you don't want to make. It's the meeting you don't want to take. It's a thing you don't want to do. One thing that the reason I've been transparent on today's show, everybody, is that, you know, my brand when I started was max out. I mean, it was really centered around, you know, every area of your life being maxed out. And so, you know, you guys just in all truth, you know, one of the things that can really ruin your confidence is comparison.

20:38And this is all an internal game. Your self-confidence is all within you. It's keeping the promises you make to yourself and staying as internal as you can, in my opinion. Meaning, in comparison, can be to another person. That person's smarter than me. That person's better at this activity than me. In a sport, those of you that are young people playing a sport, there's that one player in the league that just, the guys, the ladies, they're just freaks. They're just way better than everybody else. And you compare to them, so that hurts your self-confidence. You know, I could tell you as an athlete, the best players I grew up playing against didn't make it to the pros.

21:14It was actually people that were kind of near the middle that developed the work habits. But if I'm being transparent with all of you, if I compared my strength and fitness to me five years ago, two years ago, 10 years ago, I'd have no self-confidence. I have to start the internal game from where I am. I've had two significant heart events in a year. Right. I have a really bad L3, L4, bone on bone. I was in a wheelchair in an airport six weeks ago, five weeks ago. I couldn't walk. So for me to compare myself to that other guy, no, I got to start from where I am. And so even if I was one of the fittest people on the planet or 30 or 40 years old, the truth is I got to start out getting on the scale.

22:00I kept the promise. I got to drink the water. I got to do the one minute plank. And I have to start where I start. but I'm going to create momentum. I'm not going to compare myself to other people and I'm not going to compare myself to where I was. This is my life. It's my game. It's your life. It's your game. And so start stacking those momentum promises. Do the done by one, do the fear things first, start with personal accountability. When you really want to move your life, those of you that think you have self-confidence, then go get a coach, go get somebody big time, go get a trainer at the gym, go get somebody.

22:35You're like, I'm accountable to you. I admire you.

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23:45one of the things about having someone you're accountable to i want you to talk about this i think it's healthy i don't think it's an unhealthy thing to want to earn someone else's respect or praise. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Meaning I remember wanting to make my dad proud of me, not just me proud of me. And so when you pick someone you're accountable to, there's a part of it that you want to be, make them proud of you. You know, someone who's invested in you or believed in you, you need that incentive. You need that extra thing. So that when you're like, I'm not going to do it.

24:19No, I got to talk to Dave this weekend, or I'm going to talk to Sarah. They're going to see me. I was talking with a very wealthy friend of mine earlier today, and we were both sort of going, you know what, man? You know why I still go? My grandkids are going to thank me for this someday. They're not even born yet, but somehow I've created an artificial granddaughter who doesn't exist that I'm accountable for with the decisions I'm making right now financially, because I want to make her proud of me, even though she doesn't exist yet. So whatever game you got to create part of building self-confidence is related to accountability.

24:54And if you avoid accountability, you are not self-confident. You aren't. If you're, if you don't want to be accountable, you're like, I don't like being accountable. You got a self-confidence issue. That's what you got people. You got any, you got a self-confidence. You already plan on the possibility of this not happening. If you're not willing to be accountable at work, if you don't like accountability or with your spouse, you don't like accountability. I could tell you it's because you already know there's a real possibility of you failing. Cause if you knew you were going to do it, you'd have no problem being accountable.