The Revolutionary Man Podcast
The Revolutionary Man Podcast is for high-performing husbands and fathers ready to lead with purpose. Hosted by Alain Dumonceaux, this show equips men with the tools to reclaim their masculine identity, master work-life balance, and strengthen mental health. Featuring expert interviews and raw solo episodes, each week brings insights to help men lead their families, grow their businesses, and build a lasting legacy. It’s time to stop settling and start rising.
Want to be a guest on The Revolutionary Man Podcast? Send Alain Dumonceaux a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/revolutionarymanpodcast
The Revolutionary Man Podcast
Victimhood VS Personal Power Which Mindset REALLY Sets You Free with Robert Hunt
Let me know your thoughts on the show and what topic you would like me to discuss next.
Feeling stretched too thin? Overwhelmed by endless commitments? You're not alone. In this transformative episode, Robert J Hunt (known as "the accountability guy") reveals how creating "margin" in your life can be the difference between constant burnout and sustainable excellence.
Robert shares his powerful personal journey of facing $90,000 in consumer debt and making the radical decision to sell his home and start over. This vulnerability becomes the foundation for a complete life reset that doubled his business while restoring his marriage, faith, and sense of purpose. The catalyst? Accepting that "nobody cares until you do" – taking full ownership of his circumstances rather than blaming, making excuses, or waiting for rescue.
We explore the accountability mountain that we all must climb, with Robert offering practical wisdom on how to move from victim thinking to proactive ownership in every area of life. You'll discover why excellence isn't about perfectionism but about doing your best within sustainable boundaries, and why creating margin in your time, money, health, and emotions prevents the breakdowns that derail your goals.
Business owners and employees alike will benefit from Robert's insights on the five traits of excellent leaders: continuous learning, decision-making, ownership, team development, and results-driven accountability. Most importantly, you'll learn how to recognize when you're operating without margin and practical steps to reclaim the breathing room necessary for both achievement and fulfillment.
Ready to stop living on the edge of burnout? Visit margindfw.com for a free assessment and tools to help you create the space you need to truly thrive in every aspect of life.
Key moments in this episode:
03:32 Robert's Journey to Accountability
06:22 The Power of Vulnerability
17:31 The Mountain of Accountability
22:00 The Importance of Core Values
25:55 Traits of Successful CEOs
30:22 The Best Advice Ever Received
33:34 Creating Margin in Life
How to reach Robert:
Website: https://refdallas.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RobertJHuntTexas
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robertjhunt2010/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertjhunt/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@REFDallas_FtWorth
Book: Nobody Cares...until you do
Thanks for listening to the Revolutionary Man Podcast. If you want more information about our programs, use the links below to check us out. It could be the step that changes your life.
Want to be a guest on The Revolutionary Man Podcast? Send Alain Dumonceaux a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/revolutionarymanpodcast
👉To join our movement:
⛰The Integrity Challenge
Imagine living in a life so overloaded with commitments and expectations that you can't even recognize the person looking in the mirror anymore. You're juggling work, family, health and finances, and you're striving for excellence in every area, yet something feels off. What if the problem isn't that you're not doing enough, but instead you're doing too much? You're not giving yourself any room to breathe. Notice that concept I've called margin. It's a space to recharge and reflect our lives so we can truly thrive, and it's missing in today's life.
Speaker 1:In today's episode, we're gonna explore the power of creating margin in our lives, redefining our excellence and learning how to balance achievement with joy, rest and purpose. Together, we're going to uncover the secrets to become the best version of ourselves, while living with intention and fulfillment. So if this is a topic that resonates with you, why don't you take a moment now and hit like, subscribe and even leave a comment? When you do this and get an opportunity to share it with other people, it helps people find this episode and the many more that we do here at the Revolutionary man. So thank you so much for doing that. Now let's get on with today's episode.
Speaker 2:The average man today is sleepwalking through life, many never reaching their true potential, let alone ever crossing the finish line to living a purposeful life. Never crossing the finish line to living a purposeful life. Yet the hunger still exists, albeit buried amidst his cluttered mind, misguided beliefs and values that no longer serve him. It's time to align yourself for greatness. It's time to become a revolutionary man.
Speaker 1:Stay strong, my brother, I'm the founder of the Awakened man movement and your host, alan DeMonso. Have you ever considered that striving for excellence in one area of your life might be creating a negative ripple effect in another? What would happen if you focused? How often do you pause to assess whether your drive for success is bringing you joy, rest and connection or simply pushing you further into overwhelm? Excellence isn't about sacrificing your well-being or relationships for success. It's about finding that balance that allows us to thrive in every area of our lives, and by adding margin, you can rediscover joy, rest, purpose and while still achieving our goals. Today, we're going to uncover some practical strategies and help you align your values and live with intention. To do that, I'm going to introduce my guest.
Speaker 1:Robert J Hunt is the accountability guy and he's a co-author of the book Nobody Cares Until you Do. He's a business owner in the Dallas-Fort Worth, texas area and he helps leaders remove the things that keep them from being their best. Robert also is an executive coach who runs CEO groups for FDW since 2013, and he brings that experience and wisdom to help people reach their goals. Robert's also been married for 25 years to his beautiful wife, kathy, and has two adult children also living in Texas. It's nice to see the families close together. Kathy and has two adult children also living in Texas. It's nice to see the families close together. He's passionate about faith, purpose, family and his quest to help people be their best. Welcome to the show, robert. How are things, my friend?
Speaker 3:Man, things are great. That's a great introduction, thank you.
Speaker 1:I'm so grateful to have you on today's show, robert. This is a topic that we haven't really dived into this idea of yours of creating margin. But before we get into that, as you know, here at the Revolutionary man podcast we talk about everyone being on their hero's journey or their hero's quest. So I want you to tell us about that time in your life when you knew things had to change. What did you do?
Speaker 3:about that and how that experience shaped you into the man you are today and the work you're doing. Yeah, that really came about and we write about it in our book because we wanted to explain the principles of accountability by telling our own story. In 2019, we found ourselves $90,000 in debt. That did not include the house or the cars, and it was choking us. And year after year, we kept thinking, well, maybe next year it'll get better and maybe next year the business will take off. And I'd been owning my own business since 2012 and doing executive coaching and running peer groups for business owners here in DFW and it grew and grew, baby steps. But I lived like I was making the money I did when I was an employee, with a big fat paycheck and no overhead. And things change when you own your own business. And so, bit by bit, we got more and more into debt. So in 2019, we just we got together. My beautiful wife and I just said I'm not living the life I want and she didn't either. And we really came down to the issue was us, and although we wanted to make excuses or blame or say there was nothing we could do about it, we realized that we were the issue, and if we wanted to change it, we had to own it and do something about it. So we decided to sell our house and start over. So we did. We sold our home and we finally closed in March of 2020.
Speaker 3:And we moved into this house that we rent today, five years ago, and we took all that money from selling the house and we paid off all of our debt and we started over, and the peace that I had was unbelievable. I had, bit by bit, gotten into so much debt and so many problems that I spent every day worried and stressful about how will I survive, how will I make payments, what happens if I lose a client? And I'd gotten used to living like that way for so many years. I didn't know any different, but it was only by changing it and removing that I felt the contrast and I really recognized I had lived as a victim for so many years. But when I truly owned it, I found myself powerful and focused and creative again and hopeful, and so I use that to be a catalyst for change in my marriage, in my faith, in my friendships, in my business, and everything was up for grabs and everything could be changed. It took effort and work to get all those things to where I want them, and I'm still working, always to get better and better, but I own it. And so that year 2020, my business doubled and then it doubled again in 21.
Speaker 3:And I think it's because I was being obedient to God by not blaming God for my circumstances and being angry at him for the bad choices I made that he wouldn't fix for me. And then, when I took all that attitude away, I think God said okay, good, now I think you're ready to grow, and so we did. And I think obedience has blessings attached to it, and so we did. And so we're looking at this whole process of accountability. It's what I do for a living. I run these groups where business owners come together, talk about their challenges and be vulnerable and say these are issues I have, these are problems I'm dealing with, and we help each other. So real accountability requires vulnerability and in our own lives, as we practice vulnerability, we invited people in to help us be better at what we wanted, and that is a whole process of accountability.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I completely agree with you and that's really about it. We, you know, I use a term here compassionate accountability for guides because I think it's true that we do need to understand that being obedient doesn't mean that we're being submissive, although it may feel like that at times. And I think that's the biggest challenge for a lot of men is that we struggle with this idea of I have to be able to do this on my own. I have to be able to thrive and strive all and make this all on my own and carry the world on our shoulder and be like Atlas. And what we fail to recognize is that when we can be, when we can actually submit ourselves to something much greater that allows us to really allow that spirit to work through us, things really change. And your story is really saying that to me. I was just writing on a ton of notes there and what I really liked about how you said is that we just decided to own it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's the definition of accountability At the heart of the word. Accountability simply means you own it. That's why I always refer to it that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that, I love that idea of owning it, and so let's talk a little bit about that. Now. You talked about owning it in all parts of your life, and so how did that look in your personal life, in your marriage and with your family? And then how did owning it look for business?
Speaker 3:This whole thing came about, and this is really where Margin comes in. We, as a quest of a group of own business owners, wanted to figure out how to have a work-life balance, and we really came to the conclusion there is no such thing. But we didn't want to give up on the quest to have our life in addition to a successful business, and part of the reality is we had to say everything is one. Business in life are one. They're the same. I'm living my life while I'm at work. It's not like I stopped living. My wife calls me and I go. Don't call me at work. What are you talking about? I'm still me everywhere I go.
Speaker 3:And so, in order for us to be able to pursue the life we wanted, we first had to get us right and we went to counseling, and that was awkward because over years and years of stressful financial issues, we had built up quite issues between us and things that were hangups, and so we had to have someone to moderate that. That required vulnerability. We didn't know how to do our finances, obviously. So we invited someone who was a financial guide to come and look at our finances and look at our checkbook and look at our credit card statements. And we became vulnerable to him and said and I paid him $250 every time he came to my house to tell me how stupid I am about how I spend my money and I needed to be vulnerable to say what am.
Speaker 1:I doing wrong here.
Speaker 3:I'm making all this money, it just goes out the door. And he was teaching us principles and guides and techniques and how to write a budget. It's ridiculous. I'm a 55-year-old man. I don't have a written budget. This is just insanity. But the world lives like this. People do the same thing. I do so. Everything in our relationships, our health, our faith.
Speaker 3:We invited people in because real accountability requires vulnerability. That's why a lot of business owners don't want to write down what they're supposed to do, because if you write it down, someone's going to go hey, I thought we were doing this, don't worry about it, we're just going to do this instead. And it allows them to be lazy. It allows them to change their mind constantly and not pursue excellence in their business. They're just doing fine, they're making money, everything's great. That's not the measurement. The measurement is that can you scale this and walk away someday? That's what excellence looks like.
Speaker 3:And so we were continuing to look at all these areas in our personal life and then we rolled it into our business life. But I'll tell you me, having me together allowed my business to run better because my head was screwed on. I was creative. What used to take me hours to do I could do in minutes, and this really refers back to the principles of margin that we created.
Speaker 3:After that, from a book, we read about margin and we started applying it to our lives because we wanted to be more productive. I wanted to maintain the life that I had cleaned up and got organized and enjoy more of it, which, honestly, I used to avoid a lot of my life because it sucked. So I'll just go work, and that wasn't much better anyway, but it was more of an escape for me and so, as I was really starting to enjoy my life, I wanted to maintain that life and that personal relationships and time. So we had to look at our business and say how are you going to run this with excellence and keep everything going? And that's where the principles of margin came in.
Speaker 1:A couple of things you said there. One was looking for excellence, and I really liked that concept and that idea is, for me, looking for excellence is the idea of looking at what's working and how can we be better, whereas other times we look at trying to be perfect.
Speaker 1:And when we strive for perfection, then we're looking for all the things that are wrong in our life, and so I like that you've pivoted and used that piece and the other piece that I really appreciated. What you talked about was you invited people in and all these different aspects of your life about? Was you invited people in and all these different aspects of your life when our work here with the awakened man and our group mentorship program, the band of brothers, as we talk about the six pillars in life financial, emotional, spiritual, physical, personal and our relationships, and so how are we showing up in all those aspects of our lives? And you were strong enough, your wife and yourself are strong enough to bring people in, to look at these different aspects of your life and to willing to assess where we're at. And so why do you think people aren't willing to do that and not wanting to be accountable? Do you think is it coming from a fear perspective? Or are they being just the ostrich, just their head in the sand?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's probably the traits that keep us as victims, are the ones that keep us from being vulnerable, because we don't want to admit that we've failed. We don't want to admit that we have issues. So it's pride, it's ego. I don't think it's fear. The fear I had was pretty substantial when I was not controlling my life, but I felt helpless. I didn't think there was really an option. So the four things that hold us back from living the life we really want are blame, excuse, saying that we can't, or waiting and hoping.
Speaker 3:We play a victim in those roles and when you look at the opportunity to be accountable, the first thing you do is blame. I blame the government, I blame my spouse, I blame my boss, and you love to pass out blame. If that the government, I blame my spouse, I blame my boss, and you love to pass out blame. If that doesn't work, you make excuses the economy's down, I don't know how to do good sales, I don't know I don't have the money like those guys have, and all these excuses and blame just make us mad and doesn't do anything to change anything. And then we say we can't. But what we're really saying is I won't, I can't sell my house and start over. Sure, you can. It would suck, but you can. I just didn't want to.
Speaker 3:And then the last thing is you just wait and hope. Maybe next year business will go better, maybe making minimum payments on my credit card will catch me up, and maybe my wife and I'll work out our issues on our own, even though after five years of doing this it hasn't gotten any better. So the waiting and hoping is just that last desperate thing of just. I don't want to deal with it. But at some point you say to yourself wait, nobody cares. Nobody cares if you're fat, broke, unhappy with your marriage, angry at God, miserable at work Nobody cares, because they all got their own crap.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Until you care enough to do something about it. And the beautiful thing is, once you decide to take accountability for everything in your life, you gain the power to change everything in your life. And that's what we looked at is. Once we owned it, it was ours and we could do something about it. We weren't victims. We were in charge of our marriage and our health and our finances and everything. And so what do you do? I don't know. We got help, we asked questions, we worked on it, we had baby steps. Some things changed quickly, some things took forever, some things we're still working on, and the fuel that's fueled by success of you owning it makes you look at another thing you can own and another thing you can own. It's a ripple effect and it just constantly empowers you to pursue excellence in your life empowers you to pursue excellence in your life.
Speaker 1:What I really like I just made a quick note there what I really liked about what you just said there is that this idea of change, and I wonder how many of us get stuck in the idea Things change needs to be immediate. 20, 30 years ago, when I was married to my high school sweetheart and that fell apart I hadn't read a book at that point since high school. So I started reading books and one of them was Tony Robbins, awaken the Giant Within, and he always talked about change being immediate. Right, you can make change immediate, but I think we recognize over time that some change is immediate. And I also like how you also talked about how some took a little longer and guess what.
Speaker 1:We're still working on some things today. I think that's really great perspective to have is that if we think that the changes are going to be immediate and that we'll see rewards in that, right at the moment we may not. That doesn't mean it's not working. This means that timing isn't quite right yet for you, and so I really like that you've how you spread that out so that people understand that not everything is going to be immediate and we live in that kind of a culture now with TikTok and reels and everything is just quick coming at us. But life is a process, yeah.
Speaker 3:And if you're not willing to commit to something, you're going to bail. So that's again why you invite someone into your journey, having this guy come and look at our finances. I remember after a couple of months of doing it, I'm like we're good and Kathy said we're not good. I'm like we're good and Kathy's we're not good. That guy, we need to meet with that guy every month. Let's keep going. And you fall off the wagon because you're like, oh, I've got it under control. And then next thing you know you're back to your old habits. So being vulnerable is a starting point, but letting that continue to go the second half of the book, once you move past the mindset of a victim and you realize nobody cares until you do, the second half of the book walks you through acknowledge reality, embrace the suck, find a solution and make it happen.
Speaker 3:And that stuff takes time. We didn't sell our house the week we decided to do it. We had to find an agent, we had to clean it out, so it looked like it was bigger because it wasn't so full of stuff. And then we had to go through the process and then the season wasn't good to sell it at Christmas, so we took it off the market and then we put it back in spring. So it took us about eight months before we sold the house. In the meantime, we're just like how are we going to keep up?
Speaker 3:And the embarrassment of the for sale sign outside people saying, oh, you guys are moving, where are you going? We're downsizing Cause I own $90,000 in debt and I need to change my life. And they look at you like, oh my gosh. And so having to deal with all that stuff took a long time. And yet if we didn't invite people into our journey, we probably would have bailed.
Speaker 3:We probably just said this is too hard. And there were times where it was too hard. We have a life group from our church where our friends prayed for us and cared about us and encouraged us. I have a couple of buddies who walked with me daily, sometimes to keep me off the ledge, and my wife is a rock, she's just a star and she's like wherever you're going, I'm going with you. And to believe in me the guy who screwed it up and got us to where we were, to believe that I can make it better. It was a second chance in life just to have her say that, but it took time, and I think that's why, again, vulnerability required for accountability.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I completely agree with that. I'm glad we're diving into your book. I like that. I love the title and I also love that you use the concept or the idea of a mountain, that it's accountability pieces, like hiking up a mountain. And so tell us a little bit more about what this whole mountain looks like for us and you've already given us a little idea of what the structure of the book is but explain a little bit more about this mountain of accountability.
Speaker 3:We changed it to a mountain. When I first heard about the principles of accountability, they were in a ladder. Someone had created this visual of a ladder where you are blaming, make excuses, saying you can't wait and hoping, and then there's a gap and then it goes to acknowledge reality and embrace the suck and you keep going up the ladder. But I thought it's not a ladder. You don't climb out of this into accountability. It is a long bust your back and climb up a mountain and sometimes I need to stop and make camp for a while and sometimes I think this is the wrong approach. I'm going to come back down the mountain, I'm going to go another, and you do have these moments where you might fall back down the mountain a little bit and go back into blame or excuses and you need to have a Sherpa there is going to go hey, we're not going that way, come on back. This is where we're at. Nobody can hold anyone accountable.
Speaker 3:Nobody did it for me, but there were lots of people who did it with me and so, if you will, again vulnerability. So this hike up the mountain was a long journey and we've had many mountains we've had to climb. We had the mountain of our marriage and the mountain of our health and our finances and our faith. I got a lot of twisted perspectives about my relationship with God over years of blaming him for stuff, and it wasn't until I really realized, wait, that was all me. That was all me. I made all those choices. God wasn't like buy a car, this was all on me. And so I had to rebuild my respect for God and my appreciation for him and so that my friendships, my relationship with my kids, my whole business, all parts of my business where I was very handy at blaming and making excuses in my business, I had to pull all that stuff out and then, by writing it down for the finances, to our marriage, to our life, to our business and the parts of our business, writing it all down and showing it to someone going hey, here's my deal.
Speaker 3:And they're like here, you do what? No, that's not how that is done. You allow people to come in and clean out your unconscious bias. That to you, sounds like such a great idea. Until you put it in writing and show someone, they go. You're out of your mind. You can't do that and sometimes people give you bad advice. You have to have multiple people, because some people live in fear themselves. And when you say I'm going to sell my house to start over, what are you crazy? No one does that. Don't do that. Get another loan, refinance, merge your, merge your loans into the. No, that's. That is a spiral down further. So you have to choose the people that you invite into your journey. But it is a mountain, it is a process and it does take time but it works.
Speaker 1:yeah, absolutely, you're absolutely right as well that each part of our these different pillars that we've been talking about marriage, business, our personal life, health, any, everything are all mountains for us to climb in. And and I wanted to talk to you and we're going to get dive into now about faith and because it sounds like the research I've been doing faith has always been powerful and part of your life, which is outstanding, but it was your relationship to it that has changed. Is that correct?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I gave my heart to Jesus in 95, 94, but I have had a constant journey of getting out of the way. God has a plan for my life. He loves me, he's a good father, but I constantly screw it up with my own pride and ego and fear and selfishness. So it's just a journey of letting go. It's like I've been married for 26 years. I still say stupid stuff to my wife, I'm still rude to her sometimes and I'll be probably screwing something up till the day I die.
Speaker 3:As long as we're on this broken planet with my broken body, I'm just going to be less than ideal. But excellence is doing the best of your ability while you pursue the life you want, and so the best of my ability is that I can be quiet and listen more, because if I talk I end up saying something stupid. So I just became someone who was more about questions and listening. I like to talk a lot and then I talk and I say something dumb. So I just had to retrain myself to be someone who asked more questions and took time and listened and celebrated the joy of understanding people more than the joy of being heard. So I'm creating myself along the way and I'm creating these relationships, so learning about God and putting it in the right perspective in light of all the choices I made and who he is. It's just a constant growing journey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, for sure it is, and you know what you really. What I also am picking up from you is is you're really starting to touch on looking at and reevaluating your core values, and so I think for many of us, we may not do that work in really understanding how our values are either helping us and propelling us forward or holding us back. And so how, in your work, how are you using core values to pursue excellence and are they helping you with leading men and network?
Speaker 3:I don't know how people would do without it. You wouldn't run a bit Well, okay, a lot of people run a business without core values. I'm sorry, I shouldn't say that I find it incredible because without core values, every decision is equally as valuable. Yes, without purpose and a vision of where you're going the Alice in Wonderland thing with the cat hey, do I go this way or that way? Where do you go? I don't know. Where do you want to go? I don't know. Then either choice is fine.
Speaker 3:And so in my life, if I know who I am and I know whose I am, I belong to the heavenly father and he's got a purpose in my life and I'm married to the most beautiful, wonderful friend and I have these kids and these neighbors. I have all these things in my life. What am I supposed to do with that? It's not just about your job. That's a thing, that's a tool in my toolbox for my life. But if I don't know what I'm about and where I'm going and why I exist, and then how to do it, everything you could decide to do is equally as important and valuable.
Speaker 3:So in my core values, for me as a human, it starts with love. Jesus says, they'll know you by your love and the most important thing is to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. So my core values are show love, serve beyond expectations, pursue excellence, be real and have fun. Those are my personal core values, which, since I have my own business, they are now my business core values. And then when I deal with clients and I run my business, I do it that way. So if a customer cancels at the last minute, the serve beyond expectation means you don't charge them for that meeting. You go okay, let's reschedule. How are you doing? Are you okay? What's going on that you would cancel? You care for them and you create a business that is serving them beyond what they would expect. That is how you make choices, living out your core values.
Speaker 1:Beautiful point. I'm glad to see, happy to hear, that those core values are similar in both your professional life and our personal life and they can be how they show up. It will look differently potentially in those two aspects of life, but they resonate with who you are, so you're not trying to be two different people. And I think people struggle with that when businesses start to talk about core values, and does it really align with who they are? And so I really appreciate that you've made that connection between personal and business.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I can't be two people. I know a lot of people who do. They got to amp up to be a jerk at work, and so then at work they're in this constant stress of I'm not who I am, so I'm being someone else, and that causes an internal stress to them. They're not as good at being that person as they are being themselves, so there's they're not performing as well, and then they go home because they've had a whole day at work being someone they're not. When they get home, they're exhausted and burned out or God forbid, they take that person home with them and they'd be that way at home, which does not work.
Speaker 3:I've had my wife tell me many times I do not work for you. I'm coming in saying what's going on with this? And so we have to learn to be one person everywhere. Why would you want to be someone else? A lot of people think the only way to get things done is to yell at someone or to be a hard ass. That is not what is required. What's required is good communication. What's required is a vision. What's required is hiring people who care All these things. You don't need to scream at people to get things done. You don't need to be a tyrant, and if you've learned to be that way, you can unlearn it. But to be one person everywhere all the time builds peace and continuity in your life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I completely agree. So obviously, in your work, you work with a lot of CEOs, and so there must be some commonalities that you're finding with them to both ends of the spectrum those that are struggling to put margin in their lives and those that have the margin in their lives. So what would you say are, let's say, top five traits of CEOs their lives. So what would you?
Speaker 3:say are, let's say, top five traits of CEOs, regardless of the ability to have margin in their lives, which is a separate issue, there's five things that I've seen great CEOs do. They're always learning, because the world is constantly changing, and that doesn't mean you read a book. That means you constantly learn everything, because what's the new law about cybersecurity? What's the new law about your accounting and finances? There's a new HR law every week, and so if you're not at least aware of what's going on in all the peripheral things that are all around your company not just how to make a widget you have to know everything. That's what a CEO's job is. You don't do everything, but you need to know. So when your employees say we don't have to do that, yeah, you do. That's called the law. So you got to know enough. So you're always learning.
Speaker 3:The second thing is they make decisions. If you're a leader, you make decisions. They're not always the right one, they're not always perfect, but you make them, and not making a decision is making a decision, and so you have to be intentional about the decisions you make. And then the third thing is you own that. That's where accountability comes in. You own your decisions. You don't blame your team, you don't make excuses or say you can't fix anything or just wait and hope. You own them and that's the leadership role that you've taken on when you have your employees and then, in order to be proactively in an accounting mindset, accountable mindset, you have to proactively do things to get the result you want.
Speaker 3:You pour into your team. That's number four. You pour into your team Because for you to be responsible and say someone screwed up, I'll take the blame. That's being responsible. Accountable is saying people screw up. So how do I avoid that? I train them, I talk to them, I reinforce behavior, I teach core values and we model it and we measure against it. That is proactively being accountable. And so you pour into your team.
Speaker 3:And the last one is you drive results. You don't do the work, but you make sure the work gets done and you are driving it. By the way, you mentor and coach and create a culture where everyone is accountable so we can get things done, so we can scale, because someday you're going to die or want to walk away from that company and if you haven't created a team that's ready to robustly step up and run with excellence, it all falls apart and everybody loses their job. And why would you work so hard to have a company that just falls apart the moment you leave? So those are the things I've seen really good CEOs do well.
Speaker 1:That's a great list and I'm going to expand on that list a little bit.
Speaker 1:I'm going to and suggest that those of you that are listening to this episode that you don't need to be a CEO to have these five in place.
Speaker 1:When I was a young guy coming up in the culinary world, unbeknownst to me until listening to you do your five, I was practicing in some way, shape or form these things, learning how to do my job, learning how my boss's job works, the want, the job I wanted, and I had this mentality that you should always be working for the job that you want. If you're not the CEO, then the job that you have, because what that push does you for you is it just pushes you to strive for excellence, to train, to teach, because if you are the single reason that the business is surviving, that's a scary place to be in because something happens to you. Then you're not just affecting yourself but your family and other families around you, and so it doesn't matter, you don't need to be a CEO. My point is on this topic is that, whatever level of business that you're in implementing, these five here that Robert just dropped are profoundly going to change the way you show up in life and at work, so I really appreciate that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's the same thing at your home. If I'm a dad, I got two adult kids. I'm never done learning. I'm reading a book called Living with Adult Children and my son's 22 and he doesn't need me to tell him anything anymore. My daughter's 33. She's now interested a little bit about what things I might know. But you go through this whole cycle where you're the smartest guy in the house and now that you're the dumbest guy in the house and then maybe it comes back around that they're interested in some of the things you know. But you have to learn how to work with your kids, how to work with your spouse. I have a friend whose wife just got got dementia or is diagnosed with dementia. He's going to have to relearn how to love her. Yeah, he's going to have to relearn how to care for his wife. He's been with all these years. So you're always learning. You're always making decisions. You own it. You're going to be accountable to that. If you're a parent, you have the same kind of responsibilities as the CEO.
Speaker 1:Right on, right on. I was going to ask you what books on your nightstand, but we already know that, so I'm glad to see that you're still learning and growing. So that's outstanding. Yeah, always Obviously, you're in a role where you're providing lots of advice, mentorship for folks, and I'm sure in your career and as you've been going along, you've talked about people that have come into your life where you were vulnerable to help you. But really it was the question I want to ask is what had been the best piece of advice that you've been given? How is it still serving you today?
Speaker 3:That whole thing about advices are like buds. I really I tend to not actually give advice. I'm an executive coach and I really don't give advice and I really don't tell people what to do. I ask them what they want to do and I help them get started on that, because people know what to do already. They're just not doing it, and so we help people get clarity, get free and get going. That's what a coach should do. The best advice that I ever got was don't be lazy.
Speaker 3:I think that in my own life I was very lazy. As a kid. I had a TV in my room, even though I made. I had jobs Every kid in America had a job, as grown up in my days, in mowing a yard, paper route, whatever it was, but it all went to candy and just crap, and then I would just be lazy. I didn't try hard. I barely graduated college, barely graduated high school, but doing the very least I had to do was my level, and yet, compared to my friends, I looked like I had it all together because they were really idiots, and so everyone would say you're so grown up. I got married at 20 and I didn't have to. I wanted to get married at 20. And I just seemed like I had it all together. But I knew in my heart I was lazy, and so someone who could discern that in me early on told me that don't be lazy. When you do your job, look around and say, how could this be done? And whether or not anyone ever sees you do it or not, it's for you. It's the pride you have that I get to be here for eight hours. Why don't I just be great? Why would I just be there and just be there? Why don't I just be great at what I do? Just for my own satisfaction? And so that really did inspire me.
Speaker 3:It took a long time to get over the lazy habits. Having kids helped because I had to own that. I did go through a divorce myself when my daughter was two years old and my world fell apart and I hated it. But all those things are parts of my story that God used to create the man that I am today. I'm never bitter about anything. You go to the gym and you push weights and it hurts and you're tearing your muscles Like why am I doing this? Oh, I want to be stronger. It's just making us stronger for more, because at the end of your life. It gets really hard. Your health falls apart, you run out of the capacity to earn money like you used to when you were young. You just don't have the same energy you did. It gets real hard. So God is so kind to gear us up for the strength, for the strong times to get in as some kind of a rhythm so we can handle the harder years. So I'm just practicing that discipline of not being lazy to this day.
Speaker 1:What a great way to practice that discipline of not being lazy. Because, it is true, right, there are. There's opportunities for us to learn and grow, and as long as we continue to look for those and take advantage of it, then we do turn into much stronger, more resilient men. Robert, of everything we've talked about today, maybe there was something we didn't get a chance to touch on. What would be the one takeaway you'd want our listeners to have?
Speaker 3:Well, we didn't talk about margin exactly. And margin is just this principle that there's a certain amount of limit in life and there's a certain load that you carry and the difference between them is margin. So you should look at your life in at least the four categories of time money, health and emotion and you should be. And if you go to margindfwcom, you can see a video, you can take an assessment. It's free. But I really want people to understand when you get an overload, you're not productive and people just think I'll just work harder. Yeah, but you're not working well.
Speaker 3:And a machine if you had a manufacturing machine and it was doing well, you wouldn't crank it up to 60 more decibels to crank out more because you're going to make mistakes, it's going to break down, you're going to have problems, but we do it to our bodies all the time. And so in our time, our money, our health and our emotions, you've got to create room for the unexpected. So here's my limit. I stop here. I create a world that lives like this. So when all of a sudden a problem occurs and I need to put a little more time into the office, and then someone needs my time, and then a thing happens. I still have some room to go before I overload.
Speaker 3:When I overload, I make mistakes, I'm mean to people. I don't like my own life. When I overload, I make mistakes, I'm mean to people, I don't like my own life. And so by creating room in my money, in my health, I protect the emotion. At the end of the day. I can't measure how much my emotion margin is. I know when I don't have any, because I yell at the guy who cuts me off on the freeway like I'm going to ram my car into him. Where did that come from? It's because you're living without any margin in your emotion. So go and learn about how to create room for your life, to have some space in your time, money and health, and fight to protect your emotions so that you can live a life that you can enjoy.
Speaker 1:What a great way to utilize our emotions, and we've talked in other episodes and in our work about how men can help manage their emotions and what a great way to use it as a barometer of have we created enough margin in our life today, for us today, and then these other three areas. What a profound way to shape that together. I want to say, robert, thank you so much for being on the show today and help us really traverse our own accountability mountain in all aspects of our life so that we can create as much margin so we can live fulfilling lives. So if men are interested in getting ahold of you participating in your work, what's the best way for them to do that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, our book is found at nobodycaresbookcom. Of course, it's available on Amazon and Barnes and Nobles and Target and all that stuff, but we like you to buy it from us so we can make more money. My work, what I do for a living, is refdallascom, and on there you can find assessments and tools you can use to help you figure out what's going on in your life and what you want to do about it. I like to give these things away because I created them for my clients and they found value in them, and so I want the world to know about these things. So just go check out those websites. You can take the satisfaction assessment, help you declare where your life is focused and what you want to do about it, and I'm on LinkedIn and all other kinds of stuff If you want to reach out. I'd love to talk to people.
Speaker 1:Outstanding. I'll make sure that all of that information's in there and the direct link to your book, so people can get a you, robert. Once again, thank you so much for being on the show. I really enjoyed our conversation. Thanks, alan.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to the Revolutionary man podcast. Are you ready to own your destiny, To become more the man you are destined to be? Join the brotherhood that is the Awakened man at theawakendmannet and start forging a new destiny today.
