System for Accountability

How are you? Well, come on in here and happy summer. It's hot, hot, hot here at Daytona Beach. I know I've said it before, but it is summertime. I'm going to complain as much as I possibly can because it's hot.

In the wintertime, I'm going to say how beautiful it is here. I'm sorry. It's required by law here in Florida, I think. I need a booze time. It is the Daily Boost from MotivationToMove.com.

How are you? My name is Scott Smith. Life begins when you move. I coined that phrase. I've been saying it now for 25 years. People say sometimes, Scott, that's so common.

That's so obvious. Yeah, I know. I know. It's completely obvious. Everybody's sneaking around at 2 o'clock in the morning on Chatty PT trying to find the thing.

What's going to fix my life, man? How am I going to grow myself personally? How am I going to grow myself? How am I going to grow my business? How do I get a better job?

How do I have more impact, influence? How do I leave a good legacy? Chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat. And the truth is, life begins when you move.

If you stand up and take a step and move in that direction, you're going to find something. You're going to figure it out. Is it going to be easy? No, it's not.

Almost everything I know is going to be difficult to do. It just happens, which is really always wig me out. I'm so sorry. I have never, ever been able to even understand that.

Nobody can explain it to me. I don't get it. I think it's way above the pay grade of all of us. I've never been. Okay, come here real close. May I just kind of go in fantasy land and be the dreamer that I am for you for just a moment.

Many, many years ago, I think I was probably 17 or 18 years old. I looked out in the world and I literally said, why is everything so hard? Even if I go after something I want to do, why do I have to work so hard at it? It should be easy.

And it never is. I mean, some things are. But the stuff you really want, the stuff that you really drive toward, it's going to be hard. And I've never found it not.

I've never found something not getting in the way no matter what I do. Now, that doesn't mean I hate it. I usually really do love what I'm doing. But you get what I mean, right?

It's like, why does it have to be so damn hard all the time no matter – have you felt that way before? I'm just being honest with you. I'm not going to lie to you. And you know it.

I'm speaking the truth here. Hmm. Push a little bit, you get pushback, don't you? That's why I always said, life begins when you move. And right after that, life gets in the way.

It does. Somebody gives you a look, something happens, something doesn't go your way, whatever. It happens all the time. So I got to the point where I still don't understand it.

But eventually what ended up happening was, all right, well, some process I have to put in place here to at least assure that I'm doing things predictably that I want to do, because I'm a pretty spontaneous guy. Are you spontaneous?

I like a lot of creativity. I like a lot of float, but I also have to have really some boundaries put on me. And when I did that, when I put a few guardrails on me, then I'm able to be as spontaneous as I want to be. What happens is then it's more predictable than when I go do things and you don't get that life getting in the way moment constantly, but make no mistake.

Life is going to always get in the way, but it's how you perceive it. Usually I'm like, well, that's so cute. Let's try something else. Or why'd you say that?

Let's do it this way. That's how I see it, but that's how it is. So if you believe that, come on in, lean into me a little bit and just say, hey, man, if it's going to be that way anyway, let's just accept it and let's make the best of it, which ultimately, by the way, I think is exactly what it takes.

I think when you can take life as it is, no matter what it throws at you, and you can just kind of be calm in the storm, you can just see it for what it is and go, okay, and find your own place to be.

I think you're good. Hard though, isn't it? So I was in a coffee shop the other day talking to a buddy of mine, and we were complaining about it. Well, I was fighting him a little bit.

He is so about discipline, so about process, so about you've got to do this. This is my rule. This is the rule that works. I'll die on that mountain. This is how you do it.

I said, well, what if I don't want to do it? He said, well, then you won't be a success. I said, but I am, and I don't do it your way. Well, you've gotten lucky.

I said, no. So you don't want to have this kind of a debate, conversation, argument with me because I'll pick you apart. I'll start paying attention to the words and I'll pick you apart. I cannot reconcile it.

Can you? I mean, if somebody tells me I have to do it a certain way or it will not work. I mean, I'm Scott. The first thing I do is screw you. I'm going to do it and see what happens.

But I have a history. I say that too. But a history of my life of literally going, wow, it worked for me. And I've tried what worked for you and it didn't work.

So don't you dare tell me that stuff. This is the guy that's always telling me motivation doesn't work. Crazy. Can I bring you a little secret here? This is life.

I know we're kind of ranting on a Monday. You might appreciate this. He's telling me it doesn't work. And he's got this big operating system that he's building.

It's an app or something for whatever he's doing. And he's looking at me. And 90% of the app is about keeping people motivated so they'll follow his system.

What? I'm telling you guys, this is a weird world. The best thing you can do is this. Pull inside yourself. Feel joyful. Embrace a natural feeling of inspiration and motivation.

Life begins when you move on. Damn it, I get to do it. Understand that life's going to get in the way. Who cares? Let's go after it. And they get good systems in place that you can do every single day to get what you want predictably.

Wow, that was a heck of a windup, wasn't it? Yeah. Let's get a thing I came here to talk to you about, all right? Because I use this every single day.

There are probably 15 things that I do all the time. I teach thousands of ideas because we have to do that. But, you know, 15, maybe 20 things that I just do consistently. I just do them over and over.

They bore me to death, but I just do them. Just to give me the result I want. They allow me to be spontaneous in a very controlled world. This one is called my map system.

M-A-P-S-S. Two S's on the end because there's two S's in my name. Scott Symmetriac. That's not the truth. I just said that. Call by MAP system. M in the MAP system stands for motivation.

Motivation is the beginning of everything. I have an idea. I feel so good. I want to try it. Boom. You're motivated, right? So just go with me on that.

Now, by the way, later on, it actually becomes more important. It's actually a third or fourth step, but initially everything begins with motivation. You want to do something. You want to get something, right?

So we start there and then a third or fourth step down, you need it to continue with everything. We'll get to that on another show someday. But at the end of the day, if you want to do anything at all, just accept the fact that you got some motivation inside of you driving in that direction. It all begins there.

And if possible, you want to maintain that. Number two is accountability. Now, a twist on accountability right now. Accountability is one of those interesting things.

When I say accountability, a lot of people, maybe even you, will say, I need an accountability partner. I need somebody to hold me accountable. Very common, and I am not against that. In fact, I'm even for that.

When you put it out there publicly or you get somebody who's watching your back and driving you, it holds you accountable. When your feet are to the fire, it gets things done.

Let me give you another twist on this, okay? Once you're motivated and if you want it bad enough, accountability comes down to you. So in my MAP system, I'm not talking about having somebody else to hold me accountable.

I'm talking about myself holding myself accountable for what I said I wanted. I'm the boss of me. I should be able to go after it, right? By the way, in my business, in my coaching business, in my consulting business, I don't hold people accountable.

If they ask me to hold them accountable, I refuse to do it. Well, why, Scott? Hold me accountable. I said, well, I'll hold you accountable for holding yourself accountable, but I'm not going to hold you accountable.

Well, why? Well, the first time I do it, you say, oh, I'm sorry. I'll get to it next week. Next time I do it, you say, yeah, I'm kind of busy. Third time I say, man, I'm going to hold you accountable because you asked me to.

You said, yeah, man, listen, this isn't working out for me. I'm going to try another method. You're going to run and quit and get out of here. So I don't even do it anymore.

Oh, you have that problem too? Yeah. If you want me to hold you accountable, we better be good friends and I better believe you and we promise we should be blood brothers and then maybe I'll do it, okay? So motivation is first and then accountability comes next, but you're counting on yourself to do it.

Why would you not do what you said you're going to do? Because it's going to get hard, going to get difficult. Listen, if you pay attention to the 8 billion people on this planet that are going on around you and expect anybody to hold you accountable to make you do what you say what you want to do, you're going to lose to begin with.

Hold yourself accountable, guys. Want to go on a diet? Just stay on the diet. I know, it seems so easy, and yet it's so incredibly difficult. The P in MAPS is planning.

Plan your work, work your plan. You've heard that a thousand times before, right? But it's true. And I'm not saying get minute in the details. I'm not saying get a spreadsheet out to do it, as some of you all do that.

And that's usually a distraction for me. There is a place in time for a very detailed plan in everything you do. If you pick up a project, absolutely, there's a place for that. But at the end of the day, I just have to know I'm going this way.

What I'm going to do every single day. I'm leaning this direction. And then I'll work out my plan from there. But you have to have some kind of a plan.

So like I'm doing an operation reinvention for myself for the summertime. And I've got a plan. It's a physical plan. It's a researching plan. It's a writing plan.

It's not written down in minute detail. It's just I'm going to do this all summer long consistently. This is how I'm going to do it. I'm motivated. I'm holding myself accountable.

And this is the direction I'm leaning. Next, systemization. Routines and rituals really make life easy. They make your path easy. I talked to my friend yesterday, Croy.

He's getting ready to run across Death Valley, the Badwater Crossing on August 5th. That's the date he mentioned to be yesterday. 146 miles all by himself, towing 200 pounds of stuff, mostly water.

He said to me, I'm working on my workflow right now. Not only the workflow of doing the run or the races he calls. I said, this is a race. You're walking three mile an hour.

It's a race. Okay. He's trying to break a world record. 48 hours. But the workflow is not only that, how is he going to flow through the 48 hours at 120 degree temperatures, but also how is he going to get the press to support everything he needs to be able to do this to run successfully?

Systemization is the workflow. You need that. And finally, the other S in the map system is what I call sustainability. That is it. If you go through all this work to get things set up, why would you have to keep working at it?

And why would you take a chance of even losing it? You have to find a way to make it sustainable. If you're in business, it might be some workplace automation or some AI or something like that. If you're married, it might be a weekly date with your wife to keep it sustainable.

All kinds of ways to do it. The map system, it's motivation, it's accountability, it is planning, it is systemization, it's sustainability. It is so simple, but 90% of people listening to this podcast are not going to use it.

That's okay. I'm not going to hold you accountable to it. I'm going to use it, and come on. It's all right. I hope you do. Listen, get out there and stay cool in the hot summertime.

I'll see you tomorrow right here on another Daily Boost.