ISI Brotherhood Podcast

143. The Man in the Mirror.

• Aaron Walker • Season 2 • Episode 143

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We’re resharing this powerful conversation from last year because its message is just as relevant today.

The Man in the Mirror is a timely reminder that personal growth doesn’t eliminate struggle—it deepens self-awareness.

In this episode, Aaron Walker and co-host Seth Buechley speak candidly about a truth many leaders quietly face: regardless of success, the most difficult challenges are often internal. Rather than offering polished soundbites, they unpack the real disciplines and decisions that have helped them navigate decades of business pressure, personal responsibility, and faith-driven leadership.

The discussion centers on three foundational pillars of resilience: intentional morning routines, a faith-based perspective, and authentic accountability. Aaron reflects on how his journey from extreme poverty to business success shaped both his drive and the inner battles that followed. Seth offers a grounding counterpoint through his concept of “the gift of limits,” challenging listeners to examine when ambition begins to cost more than it gives.

What makes this episode worth revisiting is its honest take on accountability—not as obligation, but as chosen vulnerability. Masks come off. Perfection is set aside. And real growth begins with ownership. As Aaron shares, “None of us have it all together—and until you come clean and own it, you’re not going to be able to build on a solid foundation.”

Whether this is your first time listening or a return to a familiar conversation, The Man in the Mirror offers practical wisdom, spiritual encouragement, and an invitation to become the kind of man you respect when you look inward.


Key Takeaways:

•Welcome to Season 2

•Meet Co-Host Seth Buechley

•How to build personal resilience amid daily challenges

•The power of intentional morning routines

•Emotional resilience: why it matters and how to strengthen it

•Accountability as the missing link to sustainable growth


Episode Resources:

•Dr. Andy Garrett’s 7-Day Resilience Course


Connect:

•ISI Brotherhood: https://www.isibrotherhood.com/

•Join the ISI Community: https://www.isibrotherhood.com/isi-community

•ISI Newsletter: https://www.isibrotherhood.com/newsletter

•Big A on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronwalkerviewfromthetop/

•Seth on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-buechley/

SPEAKER_01:

Hey guys, let me ask you a question. Are you struggling with the man in the mirror? Well, I know I do each and every day. And in this episode, we're going to be talking about the power of routine, what gets us going each and every day, developing emotional resilience, how I have accomplished that over the course of my life, and I still deal with it every day. But what holds me together is the role of accountability. And that's what we're going to talk about in this episode. Hey guys, welcome to the ISI Brotherhood podcast. I couldn't be more excited than I am for season two. You know, we've got new branding, we've got a new producer, and we've got a brand new co-host this year, Mr. Seth Bueckley. Seth, it is so good to see you, man. How's it going?

SPEAKER_00:

You know, it's going great, and this is a this is a thrill to be able to do this with you, big A.

SPEAKER_01:

Man, I don't know who's got the biggest thrill because you and I met each other at a Brendan Bouchard conference about eight years ago now, I think it was. And so little did we know, you know, we were going to cross paths at that point. I think you've got kind of an interesting story about how that transpired. I'll leave that up to you, but I just wanted to tell the audience kind of where you and I met initially.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that was a that was a great event. I remember you have a gift, as you know, of standing up in a big room and and asking a question, but doing it in a way that just kind of makes it interesting. You're like, man, I'd kind of like to get to know that guy. And I happen to have my daughter with me at that event. And I said, you know what? I'm going to connect with him. And then one of the other gentlemen I was with met you, and we had breakfast. And the thing that I'll always remember about our breakfast big A is I was kind of sharing a little bit of my story just at a high level. And you leaned over and you said something like, Well, now you're living your life for somebody else. And you were quoting Galatians 220, which happened to be my life verse. And I looked at you and I thought, okay, there's a guy that I'd like to get to know even better. And, you know, I was going through a time at that, uh at that time I had lost several mentors in my life. My father and the founder of the company I now run, I had lost. And uh, and frankly, I was kind of looking, who's out there that would be a great mentor that I can get to know a little bit better?

SPEAKER_01:

You know what's funny is that I even teach guys in our ISI Brotherhood mastermind today to do what I did at the Brendan Bouchard. Uh, and it was a kind of a marketing ploy, uh, quite honestly, because when you have hundreds and even thousands of people in a room and the host, like Brendan Bouchard, gives you an opportunity to ask a question. Well, you always started out with, hey, this is Aaron Walker from, you know, Iron Sharpens Iron Brotherhood. And I'd like to ask you a question. It gives you an opportunity to get your name out there. And it was a selfish motivation, but look what God was working in the background. He was putting together a relationship. So, my selfishness in the marketing aspect of it, God worked in spite of that and brought me to an amazing new friend and today an amazing new co-host for this season. So, man, I'm just so thrilled that you're here. I know that you add immeasurable value in all of the meetings uh in my life now for seven years, and I'm excited to bring you on the show that you can share your knowledge and wisdom. Tell everybody a little bit more about you, your family, uh, what you do professionally, and then we'll dive into today's topic.

SPEAKER_00:

Sure. Well, I'm I'm uh a person of faith. I'm a I'm a Christian, uh got saved when I was uh, I think 18, and I married my high school sweetheart and have been uh, you know, a follower of Jesus for a long time. Uh, but that doesn't mean my life has has always been easy. You know, I am hardwired as an entrepreneur, and uh I've been on the entrepreneurial journey. You know, some days I'd like to think that I'm a brilliant investor and I do big business, but at the end of the day, I really have a soft spot and have a lot of, frankly, experience working with uh smaller businesses that go from small to mid-size and then occasionally exit, which has been my journey. And so I have um, like I said, a wife that I met in um high school. We've been married 34 years now. I have four kids and three grandkids. In September, my daughter will give us her her third child. And um, very involved in the telecommunications industry. And I really have a heart for peer groups. And the ISI Brotherhood is really that. It's it's places where men can come together and help each other win. And it's a huge part of what makes me um, you know, what makes me happy. And frankly, it adds purpose to the work that I do. I I can lose interest um just chasing my own ambitions, but when I can turn those to helping others, it really gives me joy and purpose in the work.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And you do such a remarkable job in your group as well. And you're one of my go-to guys and have been for, you know, eight years now uh that you've been in the mastermind. And so you've just done a phenomenal job in your space. Uh, you're a remarkable husband and dad. Uh, it's very evident in your lifestyle, it's very evident in the things that are important to you. So it's an honor for me to you uh to be the host here today. So thank you for joining us on the ISI Brotherhood podcast. Hey, let's jump in today. Um, we've titled this The Man in the Mirror: Building Personal Resilience. And I'll be honest with you, Seth. I don't really like the man in the mirror oftentimes. I don't know about you what you feel about that, but sometimes I'm like disenchanted or disgruntled, or, you know, it's like, man, you could level up, you could do better. There's other things that I know that you could do better, but you get lazy sometimes. And I think that greatest battle that will ever fight out there is talking to that guy in the mirror. And I think if you want to lead well in business, you want to lead well with your family, you want to lead well in your faith. I think it starts by leading yourself. And I really overlooked that a lot in the earlier years of my career, honestly. I was like, I don't have time for that. I don't have time for personal professional development. Uh, I just got to get out there and make some money and make it work. And so I've really come to learn over the past 46 years of my career how important it is with starting to lead with yourself. And today I wanted to really dive in to the power of self-discipline. And that's related to faith and accountability, because those are two things that are paramount in this. And these are the three pillars that really separate strong men uh from those who crumble under pressure. So, what is your situation with dealing with the man in the mirror?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, um, I see every mistake I've ever made, right? I still have an awareness of that. And I actually think it takes a fair amount of discipline to set those things aside and kind of reframe the conversation we have with ourselves, which is, is this my world or is this God's world? Yeah. And if I say, well, it's God's world, what does he say about me? And you start to kind of reframe from performance. And frankly, in my case, it's often it's measuring. I'm measuring myself against something that's external, right? Maybe how other people do it or the best I've ever seen. And when I Do you struggle with that today?

SPEAKER_01:

Is that something you've just recently learned as you mature or as a young guy? Did you know this? The ones that are listening to us out there today that are in their 20s or 30s, uh, this is probably a new concept for them. Yeah. Have you always been self-aware, or is it something that over time you've learned?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, you know, you'll learn my story. I grew up in a commune in the woods. And so I they where it was encouraged to be self-aware. So maybe I practiced a little bit more than others. I'm not certain, but I definitely feel self-aware. And, you know, my belief is that if we're aligned with what we know to be true, we feel good about ourselves. We feel like we're doing the thing that we value the most. It's in my view, it's when we feel or know that we're not in alignment with something that is true and that we know it's true. Or, which is often what happens to me, I start comparing myself to other people, right? That's when things get weird and that man in the mirror isn't a isn't a fun experience because I just don't feel good about myself.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, that that's how I you know when you say that though, to be honest, I'm sitting here thinking about because obviously knew we were going to talk about this subject today. So I've given it a little bit of thought, but I don't really do that much comparison for me. I'm so hard on myself. The expectations that I apply to myself, that's tiring as well, right? Even if I compared, that would even be worse. And I can't say that I haven't compared over time. Obviously, we all have compared at some level, but it's not a real uh stranglehold in my life in the comparison. It's I apply so much pressure alone just to myself to excel. And I'll tell you what I attribute some of that to. I was broker than a convict when I was a kid, right? And I grew up in a household with nothing, like we didn't have anything. We lost our house, you know, when I was seven years old in bankruptcy. And I live with my cousin, then we lived in a$60 a month rental house. You can imagine what that looked like. My dad was trying, he was trying to do his you know best, and my mom was working exceptionally hard. Uh, but I put that pressure on myself because I didn't want to go through that as an adult. Yeah. I'm like, I don't want to do that. And so there's two different personas here, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And you know, I had a coach one time, and and I'm a huge fan of having coach and coaches and people that can speak into your life. And one coach looked at me and he looked at the amount of work I was doing and the things that I had my hands in. He said, Seth, you need to discover the gift of limits. And it actually caught me off guard. I'd never heard that phrase before. Like limits are a gift. And so when I hear you talking, big A, what I would say is sometimes you got to know, listen, I've done everything I should. Not everything I can, not everything I want to do, not everything I'm capable of. Right. Sometimes you have to put a limit on it and say, yeah, I could keep grinding here, but at what cost? Because when we take a half step back, we say it's costing us somewhere. Maybe we're so busy focused on the work and the outcome, and that's where we're spending our energy that we're ignoring our health or we're ignoring the people in our life. You know, that happens to me. Get so busy that I'm like, man, I'm not investing in these people that are in my life for a reason because I'm overwhelmed, maybe chasing the thing that I'm chasing.

SPEAKER_01:

So putting all these limits has been beneficial. We think it's constraining, but it's off oftentimes helpful, right? It's like, no, I don't need to focus on that. Brooke, it's funny you said that. Brooke's my daughter. She's the chief directing officer of you know, Iron Sharp and Zion Brotherhood. She's been with us about 11 years now. She sent me a text yesterday. It's in perfect alignment with what we're talking about. She said she saw this meme, and it says, Your best is what you can do without harming your physical or mental health, not what you can accomplish when you disregard it.

SPEAKER_00:

Mm-hmm. There you go.

SPEAKER_01:

And so that goes back to the limits that you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I I was going through a really challenging season towards the end of last year and not through it. There were some business things that happened with the economy that that caught us. And um, you know, I went for a walk walk with my wife, and she's good about that. Like if it's sunny here in Oregon, which ain't that often in the end of the year. Uh three days a year, I heard. Exactly. She's like, let's go for a walk. And as I was walking, I said, you know, I've done everything I can, the rest is up to the Lord. You know, and I it was kind of funny when I said it because I thought, you know, I should, I should reverse this, right? You know, I should put it all on the Lord and do my piece. But the point was, you can only do so much, right? And then you have to let let it go. And and you were talking about the man in the mirror is often judging you based on this standard and this expectation that, you know, it's kind of performance-based, right?

SPEAKER_01:

I always say work like it depends on you and trust like it depends on the Lord. I want to get better at being able to depend on him sooner rather than later. You know, it's like, hey, it's that total dependence each and every day. Some of the things that I know help us gain this sense of order in our life, first of all, is the power of routine. And let's talk about routines. When I first think about routine, first think about that question. I think about my morning routine. Yeah. Let's talk about yours, your morning routine just a little bit. What is what does that look like? And is it helpful and beneficial?

SPEAKER_00:

It's it's very helpful and beneficial. Um, it's coffee. I've got a great coffee maker. Make a little cappuccino.

SPEAKER_01:

Are you a cream guy and sugar guy? Are you?

SPEAKER_00:

Cappuccino. That that's that's yeah, that's that's steamed. You know, it's the whole thing. It's as hot as you can drink it in. I believe you.

SPEAKER_01:

None of the fru fru stuff.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm West Coast, you know. You got to give us a little bit of coffee, and then it's some some prayer and stretching on a good morning. Uh, it's almost always Bible, and then some sort of a note. Lately, I uh I just I had a friend uh out of the country, and we went through the book of John, and we would read a section of John and we would just share what we're observing in John. And then about then, I pretty much start to get to uh towards work. Uh I'll almost always exercise um in the the first part of the day. You went a whole year and did exercise every day, didn't you? I did. I went 369 days and then I had double hernia surgery. So, you know, you you pay for those kind of things. But um, yeah, so to me, that's a good morning. It's it's it's coffee, it's Bible, um, it's exercise. Uh, I'm not as disciplined around prayer as as I could be, but um I love it when I can just take some time and just just process thoughts by myself in the morning.

SPEAKER_01:

And then so what gets in when you say you when you can, like you own the company, you're in charge of your time. What is the distractions? Because I'm gonna be honest with you, I'm I'm very similar to yours. Mine is get up early. I actually quit drinking coffee November the 18th of last year. And the caffeine was bothering me. It was accelerating my heart rate, so I quit drinking coffee. It was funny because I drank coffee for 45 years and I quit in one day. No headache, no withdrawals. It's amazing. I don't know, maybe God spared me all that, but I drink hot tea now, decaffeinated hot tea. And uh I'll spend the first 15, 20 minutes uh just in silence. I don't do anything. Like I just kind of gather myself, drink my hot tea. Uh we're reading through the Bible right now. Our whole church is doing the same reading every day in every group. I will say this like, I'm not an everyday guy though. I was for a period of time. I kind of got a little bit lazy on it. And I went three or four days, you know, and do it. Then I'll go a couple of days. You know, I don't want to be legalistic, but I'll be honest with you, when I don't do that, I feel out of sorts. Yeah. Like I really feel good about starting my day in meditation, then, you know, through scripture. And then I pray, I have a hot tub. So I go outside regardless of the time of year, get in the hot tub, and I can pray there. But I don't always do that either. So I don't want to mislead our audience, and you're like, oh, big A, you do this seven days a week, every day. It's just not the case because things get in the way. You get stressed, or things are bothering you, or appointments, or grandkids or kids have issues you have to deal with. But I will say, when I do do that routine, it really helps start my day.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think I think it's good, it's foundational. It it orients us to truth. Uh, I think uh positionally, it positions us as, all right, this isn't my world, this is somebody else's world. And I get to I get to tap into that and get some perspective. To be honest, I my brain is going in the mornings, uh, even though I'm kind of a slow roll, but immediately I think I'm probably most productive in the work in the morning. And it it actually takes a bit for me to not want to just go into my projects in the morning to say, no, you're not doing that till after you work out, after you shower, then you go to your office and then get after it.

SPEAKER_01:

So yeah. I don't exercise every day either. I do that three days a week. I have a trainer and I'll go Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'll usually walk an hour before I train, then I'll train, come home, get a shower, get to work. And so what are some massive changes that you've seen as a result of that level of consistency?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I think um having the ability to draw from scripture because you you spend time in it, right? You know, you can always, you're filtering what you're seeing in the in the natural environment against things that are that are that are true, right? It gives you a deep well for uh being available for people to talk about, ask questions, you know, it's it's amazing uh how people keep track of who they perceive as being a person of faith and and not. And when they perceive you as being a person of faith, they're gonna come to you with with issues. So so there's that. Um, you know, and I think just having uh you know truth to draw from when the business crisis of the day hits you, and you know, you have to stand back and say, okay, I wasn't expecting this. This is very disappointing. How do I process this from what I know is true kind of eternally? I end up kind of using that to regulate my emotions, right? Um, which um can be all over the place. You know, business is wild.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Well, what do you say to young guys out there? You know, you're in your 50s, you know, I'll be 64 here in a few days. Uh, what do you say to the young guy, though, out there that's listening to this? It's like, hey, I got three kids, I've got a demanding job, I hit the ground running, I've got to get up. I don't have time to pray and meditate and read scripture and stretch and get in the hot tub. Like that's not where I'm at. What do you tell those guys today about starting the day?

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know that I'd tell them much, other than I might ask them a question, you know, how much time do you spend listening to Joe Rogan? Right? How much what do you do on social? Right. Because I think for all of us in today's world, we have way more time than we let on. Now, doesn't mean we always want to optimize every second because that doesn't feel fun either. But we have we have time for what's important. And particularly for people that are of faith and that want to build something that's enduring. I mean, there's just no other choice. It's like, you know, the things that you're spending your energy on that you tell yourself are are maybe uh more pressing than your spiritual development actually require your spiritual development to be successful, right? Your spiritual development impacts your marriage, impacts your business, impacts your finances, impacts all sorts of things, right? So we tell ourselves that we're solving the problem, you know, and we're too busy, but actually, you know, we need to double back and do the the first thing first, in my view.

SPEAKER_01:

Seth, you know what helps me a lot? It seems like God's always watching because it seems like when I'm reading, I get so convicted oftentimes in my reading because it's applicable to the situation I'm currently going through. And that's why it's the living word, right? It's the things. And I've read passages, it didn't mean anything to me currently, and I read them again at a different phase in my life, and it's like very impactful. And so I think that's the reason that we should do that. The other thing it really helps me do is when I'm up against the wall in a tough situation, it gives me the biblical perspective that I can overlay on it and say, okay, how how should I handle this properly? And when you're in the carnal being, you operate differently than when you're in the spiritual.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. The spiritual realm just gives you so much more clarity for long term than the uh initial blast of, you know, I want this to happen or I want that to happen. It just seems like it broadens your horizon to a level that you can see the whole picture better.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And it's amazing to me. You mentioned how sometimes scripture is just like real time, like I need this today, or it's applicable today. Sometimes it's also in advance, like uh about two or three years ago, uh, a handful of us were memorizing James one, which says consider it joy. My brothers, when you face trials of any kind. And we memorized uh the best we could that entire first chapter, and it hit the fan for several of us the following year. And many times we look at each other with a little, you know, a little smirk or a little high five. We're like, holy cow, have we any idea? You know, one gentleman had a business turned down that he'd never had his business turn down, and it turned down he had his father passed of cancer, these kind of things all within that period of time. And so we we experienced that as grace. It was getting ahead of what was coming down the pike.

SPEAKER_01:

Seth, next point I wanted to ask is kind of developing emotional resilience. Dr. Andy Garrett in ISI has put together an amazing course on resilience. And uh, we can put in the show notes below how to contact Dr. Andy for that. It's an incredible experience that he's put together. But in it, we uh really develop a sense of how to deal with this emotional resilience. And how how does faith shape your response to adversity? Like when you're not in the word, you're really not on your knees, you're not in prayer, and you come up against something that's very adversarily. Yeah, this is being in the word. And how do you do that?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, uh you just feel unequipped, you know, and and panic, you know, I, you know, when uh like it's up to me. Those are the kind of feelings that I would say if I'm not approaching it right. Like, and then and as I was sharing earlier, um, you know, when when I have something really bad happen, it's easy for me to take the lens out and say, Well, look at all the other screw-ups you've had in life. You messed up here, you messed up here, you messed up here. And by the time you process the bad thing that's happening now, against all of that, um, you know, you have a very negative view. All right, I'm gonna tell a quick story. We love stories. So I have a uh a lending business and we have uh a loan that went into a fault. And I hate it. I hate it because uh I hate losing, I have some other people's money in this deal, et cetera. It's just a lot of emotions and uh it's something I can't just fix quickly. And so I'm having to work through it. And I had a meeting with somebody I never would have met. Uh, and I had a chance to ask him if he was a person of faith. He said, No. Later on, he shared with me that members of his family, including his daughter, were members, were, were people of faith. And so I asked him over the meal, said, Do you mind if I pray? Because we're talking about doing some business here. It's a great time to start something with prayer. And he said, Oh, no, of course. We had a great conversation. And um a couple weeks later, we were talking about our project together. And he says, Hey, I want to let you know, I let my daughter know that you prayed over our lunch, and she started crying. And so it was one of those moments, and I went in and I met with my wife, and I said, Holy cow, here I am complaining like a stuck pig that I'm in this situation that I can't get out of. Yet the Lord is at work in this guy's life because his daughter's been trying to reach him for years, and now he's in a relationship with me. And so it just kind of reframed, yeah, it's a tough situation. I don't like it. But that doesn't mean God's not working through it, working on my character, you know, creating opportunities for things that I would never would have done if he hadn't disrupted me and made me do it. And so it it that's how I work through these things.

SPEAKER_01:

Seth, how many of those opportunities do you think we have and don't take full advantage of? A lot. Yeah. I think we're I feel so guilty too, because I know when I miss opportunities to be able to do things like that. And uh a similar story, uh not exactly two years, but similar, is that, you know, I totally abstained from alcohol. I've never drank in my entire life. It's alcohol's devastated our family. You know, just I can't even begin to tell you the devastation we've had as a result of alcohol. One of my daughters almost lost her life as a result of it, you know, and recently had a liver transplant. So I could go on for hours talking about that. So I've taken a real firm stance on alcohol. And I was in another country and I met with a guy that is very instrumental and very helpful in my business. And uh I met him for lunch with our wives, and we're sitting there eating lunch, and I said, Hey, it's my treat, you know. So I'm not saying alcohol is wrong. I'm saying it's wrong for me. I'm saying that my position on it, and I think I've got to go with my conscience on that. And so I've never bought a drink for anybody ever, but he ordered alcohol at our lunch. And when the waiter came around, I was nervous. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I was nervous about this because I was thinking, this guy's really important to me. He's a huge, huge guy, and he's really promoted me heavily. And I'm like, man, what in the world? Do I just it ain't that big a deal? I'm rationalizing in my mind. And then I finally tell the waiter, hey, bring two bills, one for the food, one for the alcohol, and give my buddy the one for the alcohol. So when the waiter left, I was nervous about that. I was like, I don't know what he's gonna think. I don't know what he's gonna say. He's gonna be offended. And so uh he doesn't really practice faith either. And so I leaned over to him, you know, where our wives couldn't hear, and I said, Hey, you know my position on alcohol. I've never bought alcohol. The waiter's gonna bring you a tab for the alcohol, and I'm picking up our meal. And he sat there and looked at me and he acted like he didn't know what he was gonna say. And then all of a sudden, he leaned over and he goes, Big A, this is why I respect you and promote you so much. And I was like, Thank you, Lord. I'm so glad that he accepted it that way. But my point is that we've got to be that person regardless of wherever we're at. We can't be double-minded, we can't straddle the fence. God gives us this emotional stability and ability to be resilient in difficult times. And that guy wasn't even a believer and you prayed with him. That shows your desire for people to know who you are and know who the Lord is. And who knows what the Lord's gonna do in that situation. Same with me. With this guy, is like, I don't know what that's gonna see, it's gonna plant. I don't know what that's gonna do. But there's great rewards on the other side of those adversities if we'll just stand up and be the person that God called us to be.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, the one thing I was gonna say is that uh I have found when I get hit with those things that are kind of overwhelming and I have that emotional response. Because when I think about resiliency, that's pretty much where my mind goes. It's not like, am you know, am I gonna live? Am I gonna keep going? It's like, of course you are, but but it's like, are you gonna melt under the pressure and the weight of the moment? And uh one of the things I found is I force myself to tell somebody what I'm feeling and going through. I don't want to, right? But I just get it out of me. And so many times, I mean, C.S. Lewis has famously said the you know, true mark of a friendship is you, you know, you tell something like that and they they say, You too? You know, like I and you you get that connection. Um and uh it helps me to process it, to say, look, they know the truth now. They know that your world isn't perfect and they still love you. Who'd have thought that? Right. And it just kind of helps me move past it and realize everybody's got their stuff.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, the last pillar in dealing with the man in the mirror for me is the role of accountability. And that's a really hard word. That's a really tough thing to deal with because I've dealt with so many men over the years in Iron Sharpens Iron Brotherhood who just flat out say, I don't really want accountability. And I'm like, let's dive into that and talk through that. Then other guys are like, man, that's the reason I need to be there. And it's the reason I pay a trainer. I know what to do at the gym. But if I'm paying money and he's gonna hold me accountable for being there, I show up month after month, year after year, because I need that level of accountability. I've got three accountability partners: Hugh Morris, Chris Freeman, Randy Butler. We meet every week, 6:30 a.m. and we have now for 20 years. And without those guys, I'd probably be divorced. I'd probably be out of business because they asked me the tough questions. What has accountability meant for Seth over the years and how pivotal is it in your success?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, it's an interesting question. I for the longest time, my attitude was nobody can hold me accountable, but I will be accountable.

SPEAKER_01:

You can show yourself accountable.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think that's the way I've I've approached it. Um, as I've gotten older, what I've come to conclude is no, I need to share what's really going on. I need to reveal more of myself so that people have enough perspective they can hold me accountable.

SPEAKER_01:

How close do you get of doing that with a limited people? Like, like truly vulnerable and transparent, like really knowing what's going on in your life, like how close to 100% do you get at doing that?

SPEAKER_00:

Um, I would say, in terms of things I don't want to share that might be shameful, I'm pretty close to 100% with my ISI brotherhood. Yeah. Meaning, here's the here's the thing.

SPEAKER_01:

They've earned that trust. That's why you do.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. And uh, and even if they haven't, I feel like they're the fact that they're part of ISI means they've already been vetted. And I would I would feel that level because again, these are these are men, and all men generally have the same kind of you know issues and struggles. Um, but they can't really hold me accountable if I don't share with them what's really going on. Um where I feel like I have a lack. And I'll give you an example. I wrote a book years ago, and you were like, Where's your audio book? And I'm like, Yeah, you know, I really haven't got to it. And you just looked at me and you said, Hey, I want that done by such and such date, or you know, we're gonna have a little hundred dollar bet here. You're gonna have to give it to the political opponent. Like that level of coaching towards an outcome, I don't have enough of that. And I don't know whether that's because people I think I have it all together or what. But that level of accountability is interesting to me. And to be honest, I haven't solved for it yet. You know, I've solved for the part where, you know, I don't have any major sin in my life, I don't have any major secrets into my life, and I'm willing to totally be accountable on that kind of stuff. But the how do I improve performance and make commitments and really push myself at that level of accountability, I'm still working on it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think accountability is what you said. I think it's a play on words. I think it's the same thing. It's just your perspective on how you look at accountability. And I agree with you. No one can force you to do something that you don't want to do. There's fun things that you can do, like I did with you with the audiobook. It's like, dude, you're sending$100 to this opponent politically if you don't have that audiobook. And you did, and you did it. I don't know if you would or wouldn't have done it uh outside of that, but it becomes a little bit like a contest. You know, guys want to win, they don't want to show up and be a loser, and they want to. So I think you can do fun things with that. Uh, but I think it's paramount in our life. And let me dive a little deeper into it. A lot of guys that are listening to this right now are like, I don't want everybody to know everything that's going on in my life. Like, I don't want them to know that they're secret sin or that they don't have it all together. Let me just be the first to say none of us have it all together. None of us.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

There's seasons in our life where we're failing miserably, personally or professionally, or relationally, or financially. Uh, there's some area of our life that is always a bit of a struggle. And until you come clean to that and own it, you're not going to be able to build on the solid foundation. And so you've got to admit where you're at. It's like, this is the spot I'm at. I want to be better. I hate it that I'm not better in this situation, but this is reality. This is where I'm at. Now we got a baseline, and now we know where to go from there. The other thing is, is when there is secret sin in your life, it will be exposed. It will be found out. It will cause you immense trials and troubles. The best thing to do is with the appropriate people, say, hey, I didn't plan this, but it happened. This is where I'm at. It teaches us in scripture to confess it to a brother so he can pray for you. And it's like, be careful who you confess these things to. I think you got to be really mindful of that. But when you do, say, hey, I want you to help me work through this. And so a lot of guys struggle with different things in their life. But for me, it's gotten me to a place to where I face the reality of my shortcomings. And now it's like, I want to get better. Whatever I've got to do to get better, that's what I want to do. It comes slow sometimes in some areas and it really comes fast in others. But here's the main reason people can't help us in our lives if they don't have context to where you're at. You can ask a question and they can give you an answer. But if they don't have context around your personal circumstances, your superpower, your kryptonite, your blind spots, your financial wherewithal, your vision, if they don't know those things, they may be giving you good advice for somebody else, but it's not applicable to you. And so that's why accountability is so important to be around other guys that have context to where they can help you make solid decisions. For over five years, we were giving advice to one guy before we started exposing our finances to one another. And he was a click away from bankruptcy. And he positioned himself in a way everyone thought he was worth a fortune. And I went to him and I said, I apologize to you because the advice I've been giving you is wrong advice because I didn't have the contextual piece related to your finances.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, think up, think about the uh posturing he felt. He was, you know, probably posing in some levels. He was posing 100%.

SPEAKER_01:

He was never divulging where he was at. And guys do that every day. They go up to people every day. Guys that are listening to me right now, you're asking advice to people that you really shouldn't be asking advice from unless they have context to where you're at and what you're trying to accomplish. So that accountability piece, I think, is huge. Anything else on accountability you'd like to throw in?

SPEAKER_00:

You know, I think getting clear on uh structure around it, you know, I think one of the reasons accountability doesn't happen, it's a little bit like words like mentoring and discipleship is they're kind of lost arts. And you don't nobody knows, like, well, how do you do that? Do you sign up for that? You know, you so being real, very clear on what kind of accountability would be helpful for you, right? Because uh nobody likes somebody coming in over the top trying to put some constraints on them that's not that's uninvited. So just being really clear. This is what I need from you to help me do better, to help me win, to help me achieve something I've already committed that I want to do. I just need a little bit of nudge, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no question about it. So it's been fun today. Listen, guys, strong habits build a resilient foundation. And if you want to have emotional resilience, that grows through faith and through perspective. And that often involves perspective from other people that have contextual information around your personal situation. And then for me, accountability keeps me on track when nothing else will. I want to thank you guys for coming today. Remember, go to the isibrotherhood.com and you can get connected more with our community. And I'm excited to see you next week.