Nobody Cares Until You Do: Robert Hunt’s Guide to Accountability

Sponsored by Harford County Living

In this episode of Conversations with Rich Bennett, Rich sits down with Robert Hunt, also known as The Accountability Guy and co-author of Nobody Cares Until You Do. Robert shares his journey of overcoming $90,000 in debt, the life-changing power of accountability, and the importance of owning your circumstances to unlock freedom and peace. He explains how his book serves as a practical guide for personal and professional growth, offering tools like the Satisfaction Assessment to help readers identify areas for improvement. Packed with inspiring stories, practical advice, and heartfelt honesty, this episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking to transform their life or business.

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This episode of Conversations with Rich Bennett is brought to you by Harford County Living, your go-to source for positive news, local events, and business highlights in Harford County. Whether you're looking to discover the best local businesses, support community-driven initiatives, or stay updated on what's happening in the area, Harford County Living has you covered. Visit HarfordCountyLiving.com for more information and remember to support local!

Transcript

Rich Bennett 0:00
Thanks for joining the conversation, where we explore the stories and experiences that shape our world. I'm your host, Rich Bennett. Today, we have Robert Hunt, known as the Account Liability Guy. Robert is the co-author of Nobody Cares Until You Do. Powerful, powerful title right there. 

Robert Hunt 0:22
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 0:22
Nobody cares until you do. I love that because you write until you care about yourself, nobody else is going to do so. But it's a powerful book on finding freedom and strength through personal accountability. With over 20 years of experience as a business owner and executive coach, he leads CEO peer groups in Dallas, Fort Worth, Texas, guiding leaders toward their goals. And this is going to be a great conversation. I'm going to tell everybody right now before I even start getting into the conversation, go to either was it Nobody cares Bukom. Or Amazon. Or you can even go to our ETF Dallas dot com purchase the book because when you do and you read it I know you're going to leave a review because you're going to love it. However, there is something in the book and I guess this is in all books, right, Robert? 

Robert Hunt 1:21
Yeah. It's only the ones who come from RS from us when they order it on our website. We had that. 

Rich Bennett 1:25
All right. To go to the website, not Amazon. 

Robert Hunt 1:27
I agree with that. 

Rich Bennett 1:29
But there's I've never seen and I talk to authors all the time. I've seen bookmarks in the books, but I've never seen a bookmark like this. And do you have one handy? 

Robert Hunt 1:42
Yeah, it's in every book I have. 

Rich Bennett 1:44
Okay. Explain to everybody this bookmark, because this is a great I know. I mean, it's good marketing, but it's 

Robert Hunt 1:54
Well. 

Rich Bennett 1:54
keeping the conversation going. 

Robert Hunt 1:56
It was more than marketing. It really was a a deep desire to get people to actually apply this book to their lives. 

Rich Bennett 2:03
Yeah. 

Robert Hunt 2:03
We'd listen. If we sell 50,000 copies, we'll break even. So we're never going to make 

Rich Bennett 2:08
Wow. 

Robert Hunt 2:08
any money on this book. But what we don't want is we don't need a lot of book sales. We just want to live a lot of lives that are changed. 

Rich Bennett 2:15
Yes. 

Robert Hunt 2:15
And people would say, I read your book, It's great. I go, Oh, great. Tell me about the satisfaction assessment. What did you learn? I didn't do that. How can you not take the satisfaction assessment? The whole book pivots on the result of your assessment, because if you don't stop at some point and look at your life and go, Wait, I'm not happy with my life. Where? What part? I don't like my marriage. I don't like my health, my finances. Okay, great. Let's declare it. And then now let's do something about it. And that's where the book kicks in. So I was frustrated that people would say how great that book was, but they hadn't taken the assessment. So we came up with this cheesy book, Mark, which thank you for saying such nice things about it. 

Rich Bennett 2:53
Oh, it's not cheesy. It's awesome, 

Robert Hunt 2:55
Well, I make it on my printer at home and I cut it into thirds. My wife and I are there with a glass of wine, watching a movie and cutting these things into 30 seconds, into every single copy that goes out, because we don't want people to just blow by it, which is 

Rich Bennett 3:09
right? 

Robert Hunt 3:09
all the reasons why we've hesitated to do an audio book. Because if you do, you're just going to listen to it on your two hour to three hour drive somewhere and you're not going to take the assessment. And at the end of every chapter, it's a workbook. Go back and look at your assessment. What did you learn? What excuses do you make? And we want you to apply it as you go. And we think an audio book kind of dilutes that. 

Rich Bennett 3:28
Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Not all books would work right in audio and off because I love listening to audiobooks, but there are some where they'll tell you all go to this page. And Phil had you know it's like. 

Robert Hunt 3:43
Not the same. You're not going to do it. 

Rich Bennett 3:45
Yeah. But no, I love this. And of course, the sticker. 

Robert Hunt 3:48
Yeah. You put the sticker somewhere. 

Rich Bennett 3:50
No, not yet. 

Robert Hunt 3:52
It tag like a tag, like a post office box or something when you're out somewhere. 

Rich Bennett 3:56
Oh, no. I'm thinking, you know, it might look good, like, Right. 

Robert Hunt 4:02
Yeah, right there on the mike. That'd be perfect for. 

Rich Bennett 4:04
See if that'll fit, actually. 

Robert Hunt 4:06
Probably a little big for it. 

Rich Bennett 4:08
Well. Hey, how. 

Robert Hunt 4:11
I take everything. I've got it on coolers. I've got it on coffee mugs. Oh, look at that. That's wicked 

Rich Bennett 4:17
I think I might have to. Well, yeah. I'm going to figure out a way to put that on there. 

Robert Hunt 4:21
awesome. 

Rich Bennett 4:21
Actually, I. I can stick it to a magnet 

Robert Hunt 4:24
Or just a piece 

Rich Bennett 4:24
that. 

Robert Hunt 4:24
of tape? Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 4:25
Yeah, that'll work. So those of you listening, you can't see. But Roberts sent me his book also has a sticker in there called and it says Nobody Cares. But now I'm about to yell at Robert because I went to the website and I don't see something on there. Robert's wearing a shirt that says Nobody cares. How come the shirts aren't available for sale, Robert? 

Robert Hunt 4:50
Nobody's been kicking down our door to buy shirts off of us yet. We. 

Rich Bennett 4:54
I would I would buy that in a heartbeat. 

Robert Hunt 4:56
Million. One, brother. Million one. 

Rich Bennett 4:59
I mean, because it just 

that, like I said, the title alone says enough. 

Robert Hunt 5:07
Here's the problem with propaganda that and I really we did really struggle with this. We have had we have. 

Rich Bennett 5:12
Right. 

Robert Hunt 5:12
Coffee mugs and things like that that we've we've started to do things with. The problem is, I'm not saying nobody cares to make people mad or hurt people's feelings. Nobody cares. Is the sentence you say to yourself and not to anyone else. And I'll be out somewhere. I'll be wearing the Nobody Cares shirt and someone goes, Yeah, nobody cares. And they go, Well, dude, I'm not trying to be a jerk. I'm. This is what you're supposed to say to yourself the next time you go, I got a boss I don't like. My spouse is rude to me. My kids are jerks. I don't make enough money. The government's this whatever your thing that you want to be mad about. Nobody cares. But if you don't like something in your life and you want to change it, you can do something about it. If you own it, that's what accountability means. It's just simply said, you own it. It's not complicated. And a lot of people look at accountability like it's a punitive thing, like, Hey, you, you need to own this. You know, we're not punishing people with accountability. We're setting them free. Accountability is freedom and power. When you're a victim, your life is miserable. Everything happens to you. But when you own it, you take the power to do something about every single thing of your life. And that's what the book is about. See the traps that hold you back as a victim? Come to a place in your life. When you finally say, Wait, nobody cares until I do. And then start the journey to have a life of accountability and freedom that comes with that. And that's the second half of the book. So that's the whole reason we named it Nobody Cares was to get your attention, shake you to the core and go, okay, now what do you want to do? 

Rich Bennett 6:44
Right. So with what you do. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're you train CEOs or. 

Robert Hunt 6:53
Don't ever tell them that. 

Yeah. You know, so I run peer groups for CEOs, and that means they come to meet with their peers, other CEOs, business owners every month 

Rich Bennett 7:07
Uh 

Robert Hunt 7:07
in 

Rich Bennett 7:07
huh. 

Robert Hunt 7:07
a private meeting. And I don't tell anybody what to do. I'm an executive coach. A coach only listens to you and helps you see where your own issues could be and highlights things. But you make the decision. I mean, Michael Jordan had a coach, but 

Rich Bennett 7:20
Right. 

Robert Hunt 7:20
the guy wasn't clearly telling him how to throw the ball. So these peer groups are a place of accountability and as a business owner, you can pretty much make any gut, any dumb decision you want to make. And who's going to know? I mean, because nobody knows what's going on. Your brain and most leaders don't write anything down, so they just make it up as they go. And the problem with that is that you're never pursuing excellence because you give yourself an out and you go, well, I want to do this. And then if it doesn't work, I'll do this instead. And there's a lack of accountability and your team suffers for it, you suffer for it because you're not getting the results you want. You're not having the life that you want. So when you join a peer group like ours, you're coming into a meeting with a bunch of other people and saying, This is what I'm going to do with my life and my business, and you're declaring it in front of everybody. And then we walk the journey with you so that you can get it done. 

Rich Bennett 8:08
Do you find that a lot of business owners have a problem finding themselves accountable? 

Robert Hunt 8:13
I think they think they already are. The problem is they're responsible, not accountable. 

Rich Bennett 8:19
Are. 

Robert Hunt 8:20
Responsible is doing something accountable is doing the thing. So if I show up to work, I'm responsible. And this is what a lot of people do. You think I'm responsible or I'm accountable? I showed up today, but you being in the office and not trying hard and not paying attention and not having a good attitude. And let's take it back a couple of steps. How about going to bed at a decent hour so you're not exhausted all day and not on top of your game? You're in a bad mood. You know, you're not taking care of your body. You've got financial issues that you don't deal with. So that haunts you. And creditors are calling you at the office. All these things that are going on, you're still there. So you think, look, I'm accountable. You're not. You're just responsible. You showed up. If you were truly accountable, you'd keep the personal life squared away so you could show up at work and do your best at work. You'd be at the office having those awkward conversations with people on the team that piss you off. But you need to work with them because you've got to work together as a team. And this is accountable where you own the result of you own the effort until it's done. 

Rich Bennett 9:21
Yeah. So but your book is it's not just for business owners. 

Robert Hunt 9:27
No, no. The publisher was really irritated by it. He kept saying, Well, who do I write the book for? Well, I'm write it for me because I have this story that has to come out. Salem THYNE and I wrote the book together because we just felt like everyone misunderstands the idea of accountability. But we are business owners, so we write it from a business owner mindset. But all the stories are personal stories. I mean, in the book we tell about how my beautiful wife, Kathy and I, we owed $90,000 in debt, not including the house or the cars. And 

Rich Bennett 9:59
Whoa. 

Robert Hunt 10:00
it didn't happen overnight. That took years of making excuses and blaming things and saying I can't change or just waiting and hoping to get better. And all I did was get worse. And so finally in 2019, we said, we're not living the life we want and we're miserable, but we're not owning it either. We're just blaming and making excuses. And also, we got to own it now. 

Rich Bennett 10:20
Right. 

Robert Hunt 10:20
We decided in September of 2019 to sell our house and take all the money from the equity of it and pay off all of our debt and start over. So in eight in March of 2020, we had sold the house. We moved into this rental that we live today and we took all that money, paid off everything we owned and started over. 

Rich Bennett 10:38
Wow. 

Robert Hunt 10:39
So that we outline that in the book, not to pat ourselves in the back, but to say, look, if we can do it and we're nothing special. But it can do it. You've got a bad marriage. Go get counseling. Go do this separate for a while and figure out how to calm down and come up with a plan. You got bad kids, you got bad relationship, you got bad health. You need to quit drinking. You need to spend less money, whatever your thing is, own it. And don't be a victim of where you're at. Make a plan. Everything's possible when you're accountable. 

Rich Bennett 11:09
The other thing, just to add to that, and correct me if I'm wrong, because you have a lot of people that are stubborn, they would not have done what you've done. You selling the house and moving into a rental because I don't know if they if they would feel like it's a little bit of shame or. 

Robert Hunt 11:27
Oh, yeah. 

Rich Bennett 11:28
Other than that or whatever. But that's not the case, is it? 

Robert Hunt 11:32
Well, there was a lot of shit. It was a lot of embarrassing. I mean, this is the truth. You're going to people know your crap whether you like to tell them or not. We all think we're hiding all this stuff and it's just like some ugly zit on our nose that we think we're all just. A little powder, you know. But the reality is, people know when we're messed up, we should. 

Rich Bennett 11:54
Yeah. 

Robert Hunt 11:55
Deal with it and it just gets worse. And so we had to tell my clients because we were making some big changes and it was really affecting our lives. You know, we're selling the house, we're doing all this stuff. And then we had to tell our neighbors we had a for sale sign outside and they're like, Oh, are you guys moving somewhere else? Yeah, we owe $90,000 in debt and we need to start over. So we're going to sell the house and use this stuff to pay off our debt and like, whoa, You know, nobody expects you to be honest these days. 

Rich Bennett 12:22
But I was going to say you're open about it, 

Robert Hunt 12:25
We had to own it. Part of our healing was to look at the way we wasted our money and we just made bad decisions for a lot of 

Rich Bennett 12:32
right? 

Robert Hunt 12:32
years. You don't get to $90,000 in personal debt overnight. 

Rich Bennett 12:36
No. 

Robert Hunt 12:38
Part of our healing, part of our journey is to own it. And so if you've got some junk in your life and you don't like it, then you have a choice. Living it as a victim or own it and do something about it. And when you take accountability for everything in your life, is the time when you have the power to change anything in your life. 

Rich Bennett 12:58
I'll be honest now, since that since you've done that. Especially getting rid of that $90,000 in debt, does it feel like a ton of braces lifted off your shoulders? 

Robert Hunt 13:07
Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I remember in April, we contacted everybody. We paid everybody off. So like mid-April we were debt free and I remember sitting on the couch one morning and we literally could not take any of our furniture with us except our beds and dressers, because none of it would fit in this house. 

Rich Bennett 13:25
Wow. 

Robert Hunt 13:26
The older gave away everything we owned, including clothes. I mean, my wife had so many shoes. There was nowhere to put them. And so we had to make some pretty drastic cutbacks. So we moved in here. We didn't have furniture. We had folding chairs, a folding table. The TV sat on the folding table and of course, cupboards in full swing. So you cannot buy furniture. We had enough money to have $500 left over. Once we paid off, everybody gave the real estate person their cut and then paid off all the bills. We had 500 bucks. But we're going to buy anything. Nobody sell anything. Every. 

Rich Bennett 13:54
There. 

Robert Hunt 13:55
So the first couple of months, we pretty much just sat on the ground and on folding chairs until we could start to get out and find places to buy furniture that would fit here. But I remember sitting one morning in my living room having my time with the Lord first thing in the morning, and I had this weird feeling I hadn't had in so many years. It was peace and I'd forgotten. I'd forgotten what real peace felt like because bit by bit I had traded off peace for anxiety. But it wasn't overnight. It was a little. A little, little, little. 

Rich Bennett 14:24
The time. 

Robert Hunt 14:25
Yeah. And so it felt amazing. And the cool part about accountability is you get clarity because you're not dogged by all these things that hold you back. You can actually see and think clearly. It's a very exciting time. So when you get free of all the things that hold you back as a victim, you feel confident and encouraged and excited. And it was it was very freeing. We started looking at everything in our lives and. 

Rich Bennett 14:50
Yeah. 

Robert Hunt 14:50
I'm not happy with this. Let's go conquer this one next. 

Rich Bennett 14:54
Oh, I love that. Ah, so if you wouldn't have done that, where do you think you would be at today? 

Robert Hunt 15:00
Wow. 

Well, I know my wife would still be with me and put up with me. She's amazing. She truly is. But I. 

Rich Bennett 15:09
True love, man. It's true love. 

Robert Hunt 15:11
She's a great, godly woman and my best friend, I'm pretty sure we would be on the government would have seized our funds and they would be managing our money for us. I probably would have been worse off in business than I am today because I was making decisions in desperation and fear instead of in power and confidence. I'd probably be pretty miserable. Nothing would have changed. We were. 

Rich Bennett 15:36
Right. 

Robert Hunt 15:37
Lived the way we'd lived for the last six years before we got to that place. So I think we would have been worse. I never really thought about it. 

Rich Bennett 15:46
But the big question, the big question, are you happier now? 

Robert Hunt 15:49
Oh, man, I am truly happier now. And, you know, life is still hard. You know, we move from one problem to another. If everything you stressed about today was fixed, you'd find something else to stress about. You're never going to be done having something to worry or have fear about. But I mean, I'm 61, so I guess the next thing on the horizon is bad health issues. Everybody I know is getting old and sick and starting to have problems. And so we move from one worry to another. But I know God has a plan for my life and I'm not fearful about anything. But I felt like I was a prisoner before. And now I feel now I feel free now 

Rich Bennett 16:26
Yeah. 

Robert Hunt 16:26
I feel excited to face any opportunity and every place I go and and to really have the life I really want. So my hope level is really high. 

Rich Bennett 16:34
It's a great feeling, isn't it? 

Robert Hunt 16:35
It is. It is indeed. 

Rich Bennett 16:38
And and I'm sure you probably thank God every day for it as well. 

Robert Hunt 16:46
Yeah, we we feel empowered to go do so many cool things. And the beauty about it is that when your mind is free, of all the things that hold you back, you see things more creatively. My business took off in 2020. It doubled in 2020 and it doubled again in 21. And I really think that's God's kindness just to say, Hey, if you're going to stop looking at me like I'm the bad guy because of the choices you made, and now you're going to own it and start doing the right thing, then, now I'm ready to bless you. And. And he really did. He poured out crazy blessings on us financially from our business wise. I mean, I still had lots of blessings. I had a wife who who believed in me enough to be able to say, Yeah, we'll sell the house and start over. I don't know how many other dudes out there would have. A wife would be like, okay, I mean. 

Rich Bennett 17:29
Yeah, exactly. 

Robert Hunt 17:30
That's what she was. She was okay. And it sucked. I mean, it was hard for her. She found her identity in her home. She had made a beautiful home for us. It wasn't her fault that I let us make bad decisions financially. And then the business didn't materialize like I promised her it would. But she was willing to go down that road, and that made it all possible. 

Rich Bennett 17:50
And I'm glad you brought this up, because a lot of people have, you know, wound up maybe not $90,000 in debt, but, you know, where they're debating on in one or the move whether to move or not, just, you know, to get up, sell their home and move elsewhere. Because a lot of times they they feel it's hard or that they're leaving something great. Before you guys moved because you said you told your neighbors, how did you get along with all your neighbors? 

Robert Hunt 18:20
We barely even spoke to our neighbors. We'd lived. 

Rich Bennett 18:23
Okay. 

Robert Hunt 18:23
Seven years and new, maybe two or three people. 

Rich Bennett 18:28
Okay. 

Robert Hunt 18:28
But I think we were we were busy, which is probably just 

Rich Bennett 18:31
Right. 

Robert Hunt 18:32
a safe way of avoiding people. Although we love to entertain and we love to have people over, our our neighbors never came out of their house. They had a garage in the back. They pull into the back of the house and close the garage. You never even know if they were home or. 

Rich Bennett 18:46
Hermits. 

Robert Hunt 18:46
Yeah, but we were like that too. 

Rich Bennett 18:49
Yeah. 

Robert Hunt 18:50
But I think we took that for granted. So when we moved here. It was during COVID, we started going door to door meeting people and thinking, Hey, maybe you're suffering during COVID. Can we help you? And we 

Rich Bennett 19:02
That's. 

Robert Hunt 19:02
tried to rally all of our neighbors together and to this day, we still open our home every month and have a dinner here. And we invite all the neighbors to come over and we just feed and we're just like, Hey, come over, have a glass of wine, visit, chat. Leia Laugh. So the backyard, when the weather's good, and those rare Texas days where you want to be outside. But we are continuing to invest in our neighborhood and care for them and build relationships because we realize we had been those hermits in the past and we don't want to live that way here. 

Rich Bennett 19:29
Okay. Are we twin brothers or something? 

Robert Hunt 19:32
Yeah, we clearly looked like it. 

Rich Bennett 19:34
I we we do the same. Now, keep in mind, I've been here. Well, God, I grew up in the house that I bought. 

Robert Hunt 19:41
Really? 

Rich Bennett 19:42
Yeah. 

Robert Hunt 19:43
Wow. 

Rich Bennett 19:43
Because there are. There's four of us. We live in a cul de sac quarter, whatever you want to call it. There's four of us that actually grew up here, too. Ended up buying the houses we grew up in. 

Robert Hunt 19:53
No. 

Rich Bennett 19:54
Yeah, but we do it all the time. Well, like, if I pull the grill out front, everybody just gathers around and we all just sit down. Will grill food. Halloween. Halloween. We all sit in the driveway. 

Robert Hunt 20:11
Yeah, that's. 

Rich Bennett 20:11
Just everybody brings Arcadia over. We do. I mean, it's just. I'll never forget my one neighbor. They moved away since. But he said when he first moved in, he felt like he was moving into. To Leave It to Beaver. He said, because all the neighbors just came over, welcomed us. I never had that happen before. 

Robert Hunt 20:30
That's awesome. 

Rich Bennett 20:31
And. 

Robert Hunt 20:32
Neighboring the lost art. You know, it really 

Rich Bennett 20:35
Oh, it is 

Robert Hunt 20:35
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 20:36
it. And I think in all honesty, I think that's ah, some people mess up when they go to move and they look at a house in the neighborhood. They don't take the time to actually look and see how the neighbors are, you know, because. 

Robert Hunt 20:52
I don't know. How are you going to do that? I knock on the doors. I'd like to visit with you for a while. SOFA by the house, I mean to me. You can make a great neighborhood. 

Rich Bennett 21:00
Well, that's true. Yeah. 

Robert Hunt 21:02
We moved here. I'm not making this up, but the neighbor right there had never spoke to the person. Two houses down. They both live there 20 years. 

Rich Bennett 21:11
Wow. 

Robert Hunt 21:12
20 years. And then they came over to our house and I'm like, Well, she lives over here, and I live here. You live there? Oh, hi. I'm this. You know, they're 20 years and had never met the person two houses down. And so, you know, you can make the neighborhood. My beautiful wife, Kathie, she got to know Mimi and Bob, and then Mimi got cancer. Kathy spent the, like, the first four months of this year taking Mimi to doctor appointments and getting to the hospital when she fall. And we'd go over there and take care of their home and bring them meals. And then Mimi went to be with the Lord in early part of April, and the whole neighborhood came together to remember her at our house. And you know that that's what you do. We're humans. We just care for one another. But if you don't, you'll never know who's there. You can't help one another. So we're intentional to try and build the kind of community we want to live in. So whether neighbors are good to each other, when we moved in there, they're getting there now. 

Rich Bennett 22:10
Love thy neighbor. 

Robert Hunt 22:11
Yeah, which is everybody. 

Rich Bennett 22:13
Exactly. Exactly. Actually, how many of your neighbors have your book? Have you given it to them? 

Robert Hunt 22:18
I have never pushed it on anybody. I mean, they see it everywhere. They come in my office. No, it. 

Rich Bennett 22:24
I mean, you got a big nobody care sign on the front door. I mean, you go. 

Robert Hunt 22:29
Propaganda gives you a cup of coffee. You know. 

Rich Bennett 22:33
Robber's got a blimp flying over his house. The object of joke, 

Robert Hunt 22:38
I'm very self-conscious about not wanting to be that guy 

Rich Bennett 22:42
right? 

Robert Hunt 22:42
because I've met a lot of authors over the years who, like, you know, give it to you and you're like, Dude, I don't want your book where you give me this book. 

Rich Bennett 22:48
Mm hmm. 

Robert Hunt 22:49
And so if someone wants it, I would be glad to give them a copy. 

Rich Bennett 22:52
Right. 

Robert Hunt 22:53
And then they'll give it to him that. What? Will you sign it? Okay, I will if you want. I'm just not gonna have the audacity to pre sign it like you want my signature. I'm nothing. I'm nobody. Salem and I are nobody's. We run businesses. We have our wives. We love our kids. We're nobody's. And if we can be accountable, that's the whole point. If he and I can model what we want the whole world to have, anybody can do it because we're just knuckleheads. And if anyone else can, if we can do it, anyone else can do it. 

Rich Bennett 23:22
Actually. How was that? Co-authoring a book. 

Robert Hunt 23:25
Easy because we hired a publisher to do it for us. We both knew we were never going to get it done. Part of accountability is owning it, right. And so when you look at that and they said, look, we both had two businesses to run, there's no way we're going to get this done. We hired a publisher, paid him a stupid amount of money. They gave us a ghostwriter. And they did all the work for us. We gave them the stories, the outlines. And then we actually flew to California and spent two days with the ghostwriter just getting to know her and talking about stuff so that she could get our mojo in writing. And she did a fantastic job just capturing one voice between the two of us throughout the book. 

Rich Bennett 24:01
So you two are busy? Well, are your only business partners in the book. But you're not business partners. 

Robert Hunt 24:07
No, no. He's a client of mine. He's been in our CEO groups for six years now. 

Rich Bennett 24:12
Oh, wow. 

Robert Hunt 24:12
And I met him through this. And actually he was the one who introduced me to the the accountability ladder, which is what the book is basically modeled 

Rich Bennett 24:19
Right. 

Robert Hunt 24:19
after. And I would when he shared it with me, I thought, this is a great way of teaching accountability. So I picked it up and started running with it and promoting it and teach it to everybody. But there was so much lacking in that ladder that we felt we needed to tell it a different way. So we move it to a mountain structure in our book so we can explain that. It's like climbing a mountain. It takes effort and planning, and sometimes you just you don't get to a ladder and sit there for a while. You get in the ladder, get off. Well, accountability isn't just a bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. It's like a climb. It's a journey. So we we wanted to change it to the mountain, and that's how we structure it in the book. 

Rich Bennett 24:54
So of the people that have read your book. Do you have any feel good stories where you know from somebody who has read your book and has changed their life that you 

Robert Hunt 25:05
How. 

Rich Bennett 25:05
can share with us? 

Robert Hunt 25:06
Yeah, lots of them. And they're on and they're on our website if you go to. Nobody cares. Bookham. There's a community page. And the reason I want you to buy the book from me is I want you to join our community. I want to get your contact information, and I want to see your satisfaction assessment when you take it. And then I want to hear what are you going to work on first? And I want to email back and forth with you. I don't know many authors who say, Hey, let's be on this journey together. I wrote this book, email me, let's talk. But 

Rich Bennett 25:33
Mm 

Robert Hunt 25:33
we 

Rich Bennett 25:33
hmm. 

Robert Hunt 25:33
want to know and we respond to every single email that comes in. And that community page will tell you stories of people who bought the book, read the book, share their testimony, talk about their their journey and we on social media tell stories about people who have read it because we want encourage other people to be bold and to own it and have that journey that we went through. 

Rich Bennett 25:54
Sounds like to me there. And if you blow me away and tell me you're already working on it, I'm just going to give up here. But it sounds like there's a sequel in the works to this book. 

Robert Hunt 26:07
Yeah, we thought about that at this point. No, what we thought about doing is having small little booklets that that are like accountability for idiots. Remember them. The computer for idiots. We would do like, Hey, nobody cares. You're fat. Hey, nobody cares. You're broke. Hey, nobody cares. Your marriage sucks. You know, they buy all these little, little booklets based on stories that we've heard from people, but we haven't had enough people share their stories yet. We've sold about 5000 copies of the book, and 

Rich Bennett 26:37
Right. 

Robert Hunt 26:37
we think that's pretty decent. But what we have, we do not have 5000 stories, and so we want people to come talk to us and read the book and tell us, here's where I was, here's what I changed, here's how I owned it. And then, excuse me, we want to capture all that and share that with other people so that other people can be encouraged in their journey. And someday that might become its own book. I don't. 

Rich Bennett 27:00
Oh, I figure it will be. Nobody cares. But we do. 

Robert Hunt 27:04
Yeah, it could be a lot of stuff there. 

Rich Bennett 27:07
It'll be I mean, I can see this becoming like the chicken soup for the Soul books. 

Robert Hunt 27:13
Yeah. Yeah. You know, this is why I'm on this podcast tirade lately. You know, I've done 45 podcasts in the last couple. 

Rich Bennett 27:22
Yeah. 

Robert Hunt 27:23
Because I am trying to tell our story. And getting a book published is one thing. Get it in the hands of readers is another. Something like 480 books a day get released. Well, how do you compete with that? I mean, my book is available through Walmart and Target, but it's not sitting on the shelves of Barnes and Noble. You're not going to walk by and see the title, which was kind of our vision of agency. Nobody cares on a bookshelf. Well, that doesn't work that way. But you could buy it through those places. It's on Amazon, it's on Barnes and Noble, but you don't just walk by it. So 

Rich Bennett 27:57
Now. 

Robert Hunt 27:57
we've got to get out and tell the story. And so we've got a website that we want people to come to and and buy the book from us. So you're part of our community and then you can tell me your story and you can we can encourage you in the journey. But it's a long way to go to get the world to know about our book. 

Rich Bennett 28:13
And actually this was published in. And correct me if I'm. 

Robert Hunt 28:16
22. 

Rich Bennett 28:16
22. That's all I thought. 

Robert Hunt 28:18
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 28:18
Okay. 

Robert Hunt 28:19
But we're done. We're like, Hey, we're done, you know? 

Rich Bennett 28:22
Well, I was going to say. What what took you so long to start doing the podcast circuit? 

Robert Hunt 28:26
Well, we both have very busy jobs, Salem. 

Rich Bennett 28:29
Right. 

Robert Hunt 28:30
Shortly after getting the book published, decided to open up a brand new business and was swimming in the rolling out this virtual reality gaming facility and flower mound that's just consumed every day of his life. And we both also agree that we're going to maintain margin in our lives so we don't put our family life on hold while we chase our dreams. And so that means that you can only get so much done and God knows what I want to do. And if God wanted to, he could make things this easy. But so far, it's this easy. And so, you know, we're we're kind of working with what you can. But I'm not going to trade off enjoying my my married life to run a business or to sell a book. I'm going to do both. I'm going to run a business and have a great marriage. I'm going to run a business and spend time with my kids and my neighbors and do the things that I enjoy in life and run a business. 

Rich Bennett 29:25
I've never asked an author this, and I'm going to get your input because you're getting on. And I tell authors this all the time, especially local authors get on podcast it. It definitely helps. But as a podcaster, 

what can and I'm as far as all other podcasters go, what can we do that would help book sales for you even more? 

Robert Hunt 29:57
Even more. I need to have the chance to tell my story to your audience is fabulous. Your your opportunity to reach the people in your world is a great opportunity. Anything you could post on social media, let the world know about what we do these 

Rich Bennett 30:13
MM hmm. 

Robert Hunt 30:13
days. If you buy an ad somewhere and go on SEO and you place an ad, you know the algorithms are so hard to understand. So 

Rich Bennett 30:22
Yeah, 

Robert Hunt 30:22
if I make a great ad and I go on Facebook or on LinkedIn or somewhere and I paste an ad or just on the World Wide Web, the odds of you seeing it is infinitesimal. It's 

Rich Bennett 30:33
right. 

Robert Hunt 30:33
a tiny. But if if if you tell your audience, hey, this is a book, you should think about reading it, well, then they're going to hear and they're going to hear it from you. And that makes it have some credibility because they've been listening to your show. I could start my own podcast, but I'd have to then drum up all the followers and it would take me years to get a following of someone who's got all these podcasts that you've already got, you know, 2 million people listening to you right now. 

Rich Bennett 30:58
Well, the thing because I always ask people, have they planned on starting a podcast? But I mean, with you, you have a ton of guests at your fingertips, and that's the the people in your community. 

Robert Hunt 31:12
Yeah. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 31:13
They have a hard part is whether or not they can record virtually. That's the big question. 

Robert Hunt 31:17
Everybody could be on a podcast. I could have and I used to do 

Rich Bennett 31:20
Yeah. 

Robert Hunt 31:20
a podcast for my clients. And a couple of years ago we started one and it was just giving them a platform to tell the story about their business and it was good PR for their company. But but me and my mom were the only ones who actually aggressively listened to it. And so this you're going to work and promote it. You don't have an audience. What's the point? I can make a podcast is getting people to listen to it. 

Rich Bennett 31:40
Exactly. And it takes time. 

Robert Hunt 31:41
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 31:42
It they. Well, you're on pod match, so 

Robert Hunt 31:46
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 31:46
I don't know if you follow some of Alex's post, but he said it's you have a better shot of being successful at starting a business than you do a podcast. 

Robert Hunt 31:58
And that's start a business. Your success rate is really low. 

Rich Bennett 32:02
Yeah, I think the success rate for podcasters was a little over 6%. Yeah, it's crazy, but it's a lot of them. A lot of people, they start a podcast think it's they think it's easy. It's time consuming. 

Robert Hunt 32:18
The hardest part, I think, is understanding what your audience needs. And since you probably don't hear from them, or at least not very often, it's hard to know. Am I hitting the market? My wife is going a lot of podcasts and she'll listen to the whole thing while she's doing chores or doing some. 

Rich Bennett 32:33
Yeah. 

Robert Hunt 32:34
And man, if I listen 5 minutes on a podcast, I'm like, hurry up, get to the point, you know? And I love these guys who do podcast and they say at minute 15, they talked about this a minute 23 they talked about it. So I can skip to the parts. 

Rich Bennett 32:47
Right? 

Robert Hunt 32:47
Interested in. But the reality is we're all pretty busy with a lot of stimulating inputs in our lives. So if you could know what your audience really wanted to hear, you could go get the guest that they want to hear. But really, you're doing it for the for the ones that you want to hear. And you 

Rich Bennett 33:04
Yeah. 

Robert Hunt 33:04
hope that there's enough people who think or respond to things like you do that will stay and listen. You know, I'll make an offer on your show at 33 minutes into it. Whoever will go to Nobody Cares podcast. That's nobody cares. Pod like podcast. And enters the code word rich. I will mail them a copy of my book. For the first two people who will fill out the form and send it to me at no charge. And that way we can we get to hear who's listening to your podcast, How many people stay a half an hour into it as we're bantering about stuff and to see how many people stick it out and listen and also give you a chance to connect with some of those listeners in an email, I'll copy you in it and let you talk to some of your listeners. But it's very rare that people hear with or talk to their audience. And I think that's the bummer of. 

Rich Bennett 33:53
It's hard. 

Robert Hunt 33:54
Yeah, because I don't know. Did I land it? Was that a good one, or did you like that guy? Did you not like that guy? 

Rich Bennett 33:58
Yeah, yeah. It's, it's and the marketing. I mean, I've been doing this since 2015. I'm still learning things, but I found the best marketing for podcast is to advertise on other podcast. And I don't mean being a guest, I mean actually creating an ad and. 

Robert Hunt 34:17
Oh, really? 

Rich Bennett 34:18
Yeah, 

Robert Hunt 34:18
Oh, that's interesting. 

Rich Bennett 34:19
well, it makes sense because we're podcast listeners, 

Robert Hunt 34:21
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 34:21
they're listening to the podcast. 

Robert Hunt 34:23
Yeah, good point. 

Rich Bennett 34:24
Social media ads didn't really help me at all. I mean, maybe one or two, That's about it. It's tough. Just like being an author preneur. 

Robert Hunt 34:34
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 34:34
It's tough, actually. 

How in the world did you guys because you this is the first book you've done, right? 

Robert Hunt 34:42
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 34:43
How did you find a publisher right away? Because that's a hard job for authors to do. 

Robert Hunt 34:48
Well, we had one guy that was referred to us from someone else. He was very pleasant. 

Rich Bennett 34:51
Okay? 

Robert Hunt 34:52
But it was him and a couple of his buddies, and that's this year. I feel very confident with this. 

Rich Bennett 34:56
Mm hmm. 

Robert Hunt 34:57
And then we just went on the World Wide Web and we typed in book publisher and found Advantage Media. And they're a machine. They're they're connected with Forbes and they've got a great. And they were very, very good. They did a very, very good job. But they we spent almost $100,000 between 

Rich Bennett 35:16
Wow. 

Robert Hunt 35:16
publishing the ghostwriter, the website, you know, all the things that had to go into it. It was a lot of dough. And I don't feel bad telling you that dollar amount, because I'm saying if you're going to do it, you've got to really commit to it if you're going to hire a publisher. Now, there's other ones. I'm sure you could get cheaper. But again, we look at I have more money than I have time. 

Rich Bennett 35:36
Right? 

Robert Hunt 35:36
If I can pay them to do all the work and I just show up and tell my story and put some notes together and they the ghostwriter would interview us on a video. We'd spend a half an hour telling our stories, explaining what the notes meant in my outline. She'd go back and write it, send it to us. We'd go, Yeah, but this is this and change this. And then we do another one. And so we did chapter by chapter that way. But she did all the heavy lifting, She did all the work, and she was phenomenal. So, you know, it's it's it's a big commitment. But 

Rich Bennett 36:05
Yeah. 

Robert Hunt 36:05
if it's something you really believe in. 

Rich Bennett 36:08
Yeah, You took a different route because I know a lot of times, especially being a first time author, publishers want you to have an agent. Agents want you to have a publisher. 

Yeah, it's. It's so difficult. But I'm glad you brought that up, too, about using a ghostwriter. So when you. Got the book and read it. What was your first thought? Because you're not writing it. 

Robert Hunt 36:34
Yeah, well, we had written a chapter by chapter, so, you know, we had seen each piece of it. Every time she would take our notes and our stories and the. 

Rich Bennett 36:42
Okay? 

Robert Hunt 36:43
She'd send us the chapter, we'd look it over and then we get we did probably six of those. And then finally she's like, I got it from here. And then she finished them out. She got our voice. She understood how we did it. And he and I had written an outline that was pretty thorough with stories and points to be made and all that. She just went did some research that said there was a study in that had that quotes these things. She filled in the gaps quite well. But when I held it in my hand and I started reading them like, this is so cool. This is 

Rich Bennett 37:10
Yeah. 

Robert Hunt 37:11
this is really, really cool. And I never. 

Rich Bennett 37:14
Wasn't it? 

Robert Hunt 37:15
It was very cool. 

Rich Bennett 37:16
Wow. So I don't know if I should ask you this or not. 

Robert Hunt 37:22
Yes, I'm wearing pants. 

Rich Bennett 37:23
What the 

what? What was your favorite part of the book? That Salem. 

Robert Hunt 37:35
You know, he's so transparent, he's so real. He's just a wonderful man. You know, he talks about trying to commit suicide and how he just felt like his life didn't matter. He had broken up with a girlfriend and he just felt like, you know, screw it, life's nothing. And he tried to kill himself. He he took drugs and drank and tried to knock himself out. And the next morning he woke up, he was laying in a pile of boxes and and didn't know how he got there. But he was still alive. He's like, Well, that didn't work. All right, let's get going again. And he just had to press on. But to be vulnerable enough to tell, you know, I tried to kill myself. 

Rich Bennett 38:14
Yeah. 

Robert Hunt 38:15
That doesn't shine really well. You know, when you want to be out in the world saying, Hey, trust me. But, you know, he's a super man. He is just an amazing, brilliant, confident business man, very smart. But he had a dark time in his life. And I you know, I thought about us telling our story about. Oh, and $90,000 is nothing compared to a guy who tried to kill himself. 

Rich Bennett 38:36
Yeah. 

Robert Hunt 38:37
So I think his vulnerability was huge. And that's just the guy he is. He's just a genuine, caring human. 

Rich Bennett 38:44
Mm hmm. Now, for you, because we know your favorite parts of the part you probably already told us about, especially, you know, with your loving wife and all. What was the hardest part for you to write? 

I don't want to give away too much in the book, so. 

Robert Hunt 39:00
That's okay. I mean, I think being vulnerable enough to admit that I owed a stinking amount of money 

Rich Bennett 39:07
Okay. 

Robert Hunt 39:07
was hard. You know, I tell the stories that are kind of funny about my son. A lot of these things came from watching my. At that time, 16 year old boy grow up and he'd come home with excuses about teachers that sucked or the coach didn't give me enough playtime and all these things. I said, James, nobody cares. I mean, at the end of your life, when you get older, not at the end of your life. When you grow up, your your wife's not going to care that you had a jerk boss. She cares. You lost your job and your boss isn't going to care. The traffic was bad day care. You didn't show up on time. And so you just got to keep saying to yourself, Nobody cares. Nobody cares. And he couldn't get it through his head. They used to make him so angry. Stop saying nobody cares. Well, James, I kind of say to you now, because that's what the world's going to tell you someday. And if you can't start saying it to yourself when you're going to come in and tell me how stupid your coach is or how bad your teacher is or how weird your friends are. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Nobody cares. What are you going to do about it? And so that was really hard to to think of being that vulnerable with my my little boy and I had to get his approval. Hey, are you called me telling this story? Because these are his real stories, and 

Rich Bennett 40:14
Right. 

Robert Hunt 40:14
Gabby's a mature adult. And so she saw the value of being transparent. But he's a at that time, 17, 18 year old boy with a future ahead of him. And you didn't like some of the stories that he had said, If I had to come in right now, he'd be like, well, that's Taco Bell story was an accurate. 

Rich Bennett 40:30
Taco Bell story. 

Robert Hunt 40:32
Yeah. Yeah. We're supposed to hang out, and he just. He shows up late, and that is. I'll do the summary version, but he's like Taco Bell. And I'm like, What are you talking about? They screwed up our order. What do you mean, your order? Well, we got an order, and we were gonna get some food, and then we got it was wrong. We had to go back and wait. Why are you going to Taco Bell? You're supposed to be here. Why stop by to see Sophia? Why are we stopping you? Sophia, You're supposed to be with me. Well, if I stop real quick, she wants some tacos, you know, and it just rolls on to this whole thing about Taco Bell being the problem. I The problem is, you weren't here, and you were going to be here an hour ago. So we can hang out. And I stopped working and cleared my schedule to hang with you. And you decided to go see your girlfriend. Take her to Taco Bell. It's not Taco Bell's fault. It's your fault. This is how we do life when things don't go our way. We're quick to blame and make excuses, but we don't see how the role we played in. We love to be a victim. We don't go like to be a victim, but we act that way. And then we blame and we see how screwed up the government is or bad our bosses or how horrible our spouses. But dude, you're the one who married her and you're the one who took that job and you're the one who voted for that guy. Why don't you just own it and figure out what to do now? And I think if we could all just step back and stop complaining, Stop whining. Stop making excuses and truly own it, we could actually pursue the life we really want, and that would be a very different journey. 

Rich Bennett 41:48
Amen, man. Absolutely. See, this is why people have to get this book. 

Robert Hunt 41:55
Yes, they do. 

Rich Bennett 41:56
I'm telling you, man, I know. And I cannot wait to read it. I 

So those of you listening again, you can't you can't see Robert. But 

his dream, my dream studio is behind him because he's got the bookshelf. And that's what I want to do on bookshelves behind me with all of these books. Just another way to advertise all the authors I've had on back there behind me to show and again, everybody listening, get it? Nobody cares until you do and order from Robert's website, of course nobody cares. Bocom. And after you read it, go ahead and leave a full review on Amazon. Good read wherever you can leave reviews, but also purchase a book for a friend. Our family member, because if he can help you, you know, there's other people that can actually help as well. 

Robert Hunt 42:59
And I've made an offer to companies that if you buy a book for all of your employees and you have them read it, I will do a lunch and learn for free. I'll do a zoom call. I've done. 

Rich Bennett 43:09
Oh, wow. 

Robert Hunt 43:10
Six of them in the last couple of months where they buy 20 or 30 copies, will mail them out. Everyone gets a copy, they read it, and then I jump on a Zoom call and I review and I answer questions and I clarify and help them understand the book better. But I love hearing the stories of people said, Man, when my boss gave me his book, I was so mad. What do you say? I'm not accountable. Nobody wants to be offended by everything these days. 

Rich Bennett 43:34
Oh, yeah. 

Robert Hunt 43:35
This is not blaming you. This is saying there's freedom and power and accountability. And if you want a better life and therefore more fun at work, you being accountable makes it more fun because you actually 

Rich Bennett 43:46
Mm 

Robert Hunt 43:46
get 

Rich Bennett 43:46
hmm. 

Robert Hunt 43:46
to enjoy the life you want. So I make that offering in one list. Your podcast. If you order a copy of the book for all your employees through us at our website, it nobody cares. Bookham. I will mail them out to you with a bookmark and a sticker. And each one. And if you even want, I'll sign them if you tell me to. And then I'll do a zoom call over a lunch break or a morning coffee, and I'll just answer questions for all your employees and help. 

Rich Bennett 44:10
That's great. 

Robert Hunt 44:10
I'm a cultural thing. 

Rich Bennett 44:12
That's a great idea. And actually, with the community. Whose idea was it to start that? Because that's a great idea. I love it. 

Robert Hunt 44:20
I think it was Salem because we really said we're not looking to sell books, we're looking to change lives. And how are we know? 

Rich Bennett 44:25
Right. 

Robert Hunt 44:25
People's lives unless we talk to them. And what's the best way to talk? Is if we can do it where it's a community group, where people are like in our peer groups, we don't tell each other what to do. We just share our stories and we learn from one another. So we wanted to make an environment where people could share their story and be encouraged to other people. It still hasn't taken off like we envision it. We actually envision it being like a Facebook page where you post your 

Rich Bennett 44:49
Right. 

Robert Hunt 44:49
story and then someone comments and someone ask questions and it goes back and forth. But we don't have that kind of following yet. So for right now, it's more like testimonies where people say, I read this book and here's what I thought, and we put those up there. But ultimately, on our Facebook page, we post things we'd love for people to come and share their story and tell people, because that's a way you can not only build real accountability by telling the world what you're doing, but also you can encourage other people by your story to help them have the life they want. 

Rich Bennett 45:19
So what's the next big thing for Robert Hunt? 

Robert Hunt 45:22
Our next big thing is workshops. We wanted 

Rich Bennett 45:25
Oh. 

Robert Hunt 45:25
to. On the world. We've already done two workshops this year and they were phenomenal. And the goal is to have people come into the room, which is what we did in these workshops, and that day in that room, you will learn all the areas of your life where you've been living as a victim that you weren't aware of. We'll help you get to that moment where you go, Wait, nobody cares until I do, and then we'll help you make a plan to on one topic that day will help you take the awareness and make a plan all the way through. So when you leave, you've actually learned the skills of how to apply the principles of accountability in your life, and you've actually taken it and did it in four specific area of your life. That's real. And measurable and you can get started on it right then and there. And that will be the tools that you need to continue on to own more and more parts of your life. So we want to take this anywhere in the country who will bring us out to do a workshop? 

Rich Bennett 46:17
I love that. Now, with the book real quick, because on the book, Margaret says the the assessment on page 20. Do you. Are people supposed to go right to page 21st or do it read on up the page 20 and then get their. 

Robert Hunt 46:34
Just seeing eviscerate page number. 

Rich Bennett 46:38
I believe it's page 20. 

Robert Hunt 46:40
Okay. So. Yeah, that's right. Page 20. Good. 

No, You're supposed to not skip the assessment. You need to read that chapter. But at the end of it, there's two little wheels in the book, 

Rich Bennett 46:54
Yes. 

Robert Hunt 46:54
and a lot of people have just blown by it. Said, I'll do it later. But every chapter hinges on what you declare in that book. Now, let's say your marriage isn't what you'd like it to be, and you're maybe you want to write in there that my marriage is probably a two. And so then you can go online and take a digital version of this test and you can print out a PDF and have a copy for yourself. And that way, if you don't want to really share with anyone yet, but you want to be completely honest, go onto our web site. Nobody cares. Booking.com go to the resource page and take the assessment online, print out a PDF and hide it somewhere. But be radically honest with yourself because if you lie to yourself, this doesn't work. It doesn't have. 

Rich Bennett 47:34
Right. 

Robert Hunt 47:35
And that way you can then have something to work on. And at the end of every chapter you go back and it says, Okay, now look at your assessment. Pick one of those areas that you felt wasn't right and do this. So it's a workbook as you go through it. You need to take the assessment. 

Rich Bennett 47:48
And I love that fact, too, because this is something that you don't read once and put down. You can go back and do it over and over and over again and then sign up for the workshops in the future. 

Robert Hunt 48:02
Let's do it. Let's do it. I think of a company who looks around their employees and says, you know, these people just don't get it. They don't think like an owner. They don't care. And I get it. And most people don't because it's not their company, it's yours. 

Rich Bennett 48:14
Yeah. 

Robert Hunt 48:14
So why would I care about your company more than you seem to care about your company? I mean, the way you run it, you're not accountable. You're not modeling this behavior. And so if if companies could start modeling the mindset of accountability, the whole company would start to embrace it. But it starts at the top. And so I think this would become a common language, a tool for how we solve problems, how we improve efficiencies, how we make decisions, how we treat one another. It's a common language. And that's that's the way we wrote it. We saw it was a tool to use for your personal and professional life. 

Rich Bennett 48:48
I said, Who gave you the name? The accountability guy. 

Robert Hunt 48:53
Me. 

Rich Bennett 48:54
Okay. I love it. You held yourself accountable. 

Robert Hunt 48:57
Yeah, I did myself. You know, I actually went online and found there was an actual dude in Australia that had copyrighted the name Accountability Guy and so I don't know if at some point he's going to sue me over, you know, using that. I think you can call yourself King of England if you want. And I guess the king of England could come back and say, Hey, you can't use that title. But until he gets mad at me, I don't think I'm going to worry about it. It's not like I'm making shirts and, you know, promoting stuff off of that. But to me it made sense to try and get that that out there and see if it's stuck. 

Rich Bennett 49:32
Especially with the book, it makes a lot of sense. 

Robert Hunt 49:34
It's what I do for a living. I mean, I run meetings where we allow ourselves an opportunity to be accountable. And that's another principle. Nobody can hold anyone accountable. We say that at work. I'm going to hold my people accountable. No, you're not. Because what do you do? Ask them questions if they didn't do it in a firearm? No, you're going to go how are you going to get this done? I'm serious. And they're not accountable because nothing got done. They didn't do it in life. Went on. And if you do fire firearm, then you're the one being accountable because you fired the guy. But he just leaves and goes somewhere else and be unaccountable. You can only hold yourself accountable if you want to. And the reason you would want to is because you look at your life and you go, I don't like my life. I don't like my weight. I don't like my marriage, I don't like my health, I don't like my finances. But all I do is make excuses and blame and say, I can't do any better. Just hope it gets better. I know I'm £40 overweight. I drink too much. I don't workout. I don't know why my doctor says I'm pre-diabetic. Well, maybe next year it'll get better on its own. Well, maybe you got to stop doing that stuff. That's where accountability comes in. Your doctor can hold you accountable. They can just say, Well, now you're diabetic and then you can just continue to do anything you want. He can't make you do anything. But when you want to, you will. 

Rich Bennett 50:49
I love that. I love it. Anything you would like to add before I get to my last question? 

Robert Hunt 50:55
I'm really diving into this whole concept of laziness. I think I'm inherently lazy as human and I do a lot of stuff. I run a company. I have a family. I volunteer with my community. So you wouldn't think I'm lazy. But when you look at the way I do stuff, it's lazy. What is the excellence of running a business? You would have a written plan, you would measure against it, you would check it, you would share with other people, and you would be accountable. Well, I just don't write it down. Everything's free. I can do whatever I want. So the laziness of what it looks like in comparison to excellence, I find myself not doing the things I know would be the best version of that thing because I'm lazy. Like you should floss every day. We know that that's not a mystery. How often do you floss? Every other day or so, 

Rich Bennett 51:47
Yeah. 

Robert Hunt 51:47
you know. But, you know, it's just lazy. You're right there brushing your teeth. Just take some floss out and knock it out and tired. That's lazy. I know I should have a certain amount saved or a written budget. I don't have one that's lazy. And so I think I'm starting to look at stuff from the eyes of what would excellence look like and where I don't do it in the eyes of laziness. I'm owning that and step up my game in my relationships and my health and my finances to do what I would think would be an excellent version of that and not be so lazy. 

Rich Bennett 52:23
Sounds like another book. 

Robert Hunt 52:25
I don't know about that. 

Maybe I'll make it to a movie. We'll just jump right to the movie. 

Rich Bennett 52:31
No worse. 

Robert Hunt 52:32
Starring George Clooney. 

Rich Bennett 52:35
God. All right. So if you weren't doing what you're doing today, what do you think you would be doing? 

Robert Hunt 52:41
Hmm. 

You know, I. I am doing what I dream of doing. It is my passion. So that's hard to say. I probably work at Home Depot. 

I love Home Depot. It's my happy place. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 52:59
It's like. It's like a toy store. 

Robert Hunt 53:01
Italy is. I can tell you many Saturday mornings where I just get up, go get a McDonald's sandwich and a cup of coffee and sit in their patio furniture section. Just watch people. 

Rich Bennett 53:14
Okay. I have to ask you this because this is something I miss. I don't know if they had him there in Dallas, Fort Worth. Did the Home Depot here have hotdog vendors outside? 

Robert Hunt 53:24
Rarely they used to. But there. 

Rich Bennett 53:26
Yeah, they used to all the time. What the hell happened? 

Robert Hunt 53:28
Well, now they have it. If you buy an air conditioner, they're trying to sell you an air conditioner or something, and they'll have a right inside the door free hot dog. We just want to give you our pamphlet for you can get air conditioning that, you know, a hot dog is never going to make me want to do anything for you. 

Rich Bennett 53:42
Oh, I miss. I mean, the Home Depots around here used to have hotdog vendors all 

Robert Hunt 53:46
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 53:46
the time. I miss that. I mean, not good for me, says Oscar. Died. I probably shouldn't be eating anyways, you know. But still. Once in a while you can have a good hot dog. 

Robert Hunt 53:59
The only place to eat a hotdog is a ballpark and a Home Depot. Otherwise, 

Rich Bennett 54:03
Oh. 

Robert Hunt 54:03
you shouldn't be having a hot dog. 

Rich Bennett 54:05
Oh, well, never mind. I'm not going to say it. 

Robert Hunt 54:09
Who knows? 

Rich Bennett 54:09
Robert. Robert, Thanks so much. Bob, It's been a pleasure speaking with you. And if you in Salem would like to come on together one time. 

Robert Hunt 54:19
We love it. 

Rich Bennett 54:20
The doors open. 

Robert Hunt 54:21
Oh, thank you. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 54:22
Door is open. 

Robert Hunt 54:23
Let's do this. Let's hear your listeners have such an uprising that they are We want them back. We want them back. So if you're interested in having Salem and I come together and talk about some other things, not to rehash what we've already talked about, but to dive in deeper to these principles, have your listeners send you a message or how do they get a hold of you when they want to talk to you? 

Rich Bennett 54:42
Well, they can go to my website and there's a couple of ways they can either email me. Of course, we have the Facebook group. They can leave comments on there. We also on the website, you can actually they can record a voicemail 

Robert Hunt 54:57
Oh. 

Rich Bennett 54:57
on the website and it will get emailed to me as well. 

Robert Hunt 55:00
That's pretty cool. 

Rich Bennett 55:01
So and of course, actually there's so many ways my listeners can get in touch with me, and they do, because that's one of the one of the biggest rewards I've gotten from doing this is when and this happened, I had somebody contact me from another country thanking me. 

Robert Hunt 55:20
Wow. 

Rich Bennett 55:20
For an episode they heard. 

Robert Hunt 55:22
Wow. 

Rich Bennett 55:22
We talked about addiction, talking about recovery, and they didn't know what they what they were going to do with their daughter. And that episode helped them and. 

Robert Hunt 55:30
Oh, praise God. That's. 

Rich Bennett 55:32
Yeah. Yeah. Those. Those are you just like you love here in 

Robert Hunt 55:37
Moments. 

Rich Bennett 55:37
New. I mean, after 6 hours, some episodes. I mean, it was way before that, but still. Robert, thanks a lot there. Take care. 

Robert Hunt 55:48
Thank you, Rich.