Do you want to take control of your life? One of the best tools that I can easily say has
changed my life - personally as well as professionally - is the Accountability Ladder.
Hi this is Supreet. I'm an engineer turned leadership trainer. I upload videos about personal
growth, meditation and occasionally parenting. Let me introduce you to the accountability
ladder! It has eight rungs and the goal is to move up on this ladder. The bottom half of the ladder
is "victim behaviors", the top half of the ladder is "accountable behaviors". So we want
to move from victim behaviors to the accountable behaviors. I'm going to use a fun story to explain
this ladder to you. This story is by Bruce Gordon. His son comes home from school one day,
looking all sad. So Bruce asks him, "What's the matter?" The son goes
"i have a project due tomorrow and i haven't even started it!" Bruce says "why not?" the son says
"because i didn't realize until today that it is due tomorrow!"
that is rung one of the ladder - "unaware or unconscious". bruce says "why didn't you realize
it?" the son says "because the teacher didn't make it clear" that is rung two on the ladder - "blame
others". so on this rung, we either blame other people or other things such as the traffic, the
weather, the wi-fi and so on. bruce asked his son "so what are you going to do about it?" the son
says "there's nothing i can do now! it's already six o'clock, the bus comes tomorrow at 8 00 am,
so there's nothing i can do about it now!" that is rung three - "i can't". bruce says
"okay... what kind of grade are you expecting in this subject this year?" the son says
"well, it's the middle of the year, there'll probably be a couple more projects and a couple
more tests, so i'm hoping that i'll get better grades in those..." that is rung four - "wait and
hope". so victims are people who either don't know there's a problem, if they know there's a problem,
then they either blame it on others, or they say there's nothing i can do about it, or they just
sit and hope that maybe the situation will take care of itself somehow. all of that is victim
mindset thinking, it is not accountable mindset thinking. here's how accountable people think:
if bruce's son had had an accountability mindset he may have said something like
this when he came home "i messed up! i have a project due tomorrow, i wasn't paying attention,
it snuck up on me, i should have done it by now, now i have to crunch". this is the first rung
of being accountable "acknowledging reality" - rung five on the ladder. once he acknowledged
the reality he could have said "this is what i'm going to do: it's only six o'clock right now,
i have until 8 a.m the next morning. that's 14 hours plus i have the internet to do my research.
i'm going to make this right". that is rung six "finding a solution". then he could have said
to bruce "dad, you're a pretty smart guy! you can help me with this! but, even if you don't,
i will do it myself". that is rung seven on the ladder - "owning it". and finally,
accountable people "make it happen" - rung eight on the ladder. so if we acknowledge our reality,
acknowledge our problems, and then we find solutions to those problems and then we own
the responsibility of solving those problems - whether anybody helps us or not -and finally we
take action and make things happen, then we are accountable people. then we are powerful people.
please give this video a thumbs up if you got value out of it. if you have any
questions type them in the comments below. take care and keep growing!
do you want to take control one of the best tools that i have ever come across that has
that is rung one of the accountability ladder i'm gonna do it again my energy is low that is rung