QBQ! Practicing Personal Accountability at Work and in Life- by John G. Miller

This subject is one that has helped me tremendously. I am reading this book again to help refresh the concept. I will be sharing with you a few of my thoughts on this book. For the record it receives two thumbs up or five stars, depending on your method.

In other exciting news The Money Resolutions Show is now in iTunes. You can subscribe if you use iTunes and after you have listened you like what you hear please leave a review. (Even if you don’t like it, you can still leave a review!) If RSS is your preferred method then the MR RSS Feed is for you. Enjoy!

What does QBQ! stand for? The Question Behind the Question.
What to Really Ask Yourself to eliminate blame, complaining, and procrastination

My example? A pizza service being so terrible they had no record of my order or that I called. This happened more than once. Employees have literally ignored customers. They were in their own world and conversation. I hear they have better management. I haven’t been back to see.

Have you ever heard these words?

Not my fault.
Not my job.
Not my problem.

OR

“When is that department going to do its job?”
“Why don’t they communicate better?”
“Who dropped the ball?”
“Why do we have to go through all this change?”
“When is someone going to train me?”

The questions above are lousy questions or as John refers to them: Incorrect Questions aka IQ’s.
What if we asked the QBQ! ? The results no doubt will vary, but things like the following could happen.

Improved productivity- Who couldn’t use a dose of this?
Greater Teamwork- This could lead to not only productivity, but shorter meetings. That could impact the bottom line.
Reduced stress- Now that could be a game changer.
Healthier relationships- Sounds like a win win to me.
Better customer service- Ultimately you want to serve them better right?

You may be saying, “nobody else will practice the QBQ! so why should I?” My answer to you is, you should do it for your own personal accountability even if those that are around you don’t. It will cause you to be more productive, creative and benefit those that are around you. They will notice the difference trust me. If you keep working at it this could change your environment. I often use the analogy of how we have more faith in the negative actions rather than in the things like this concept of personal accountability being able to change our world. We automatically discredit the notion of trying to do good or improve. We are much better at believing that if someone did something negative that it would certainly cause problems. Let’s say hypothetically that your boss had an affair with a subordinate employee. Do you have a problem believing that this would cause a negative reaction or that it could in someway cause the moral of the sales team to drop? Of course not! We would be insane to think otherwise. Now.. so you were thinking in your head that this whole personal accountability thing.. there is just no way it could change my boss or employees! Wait.. were you? What do you have to lose? Could it hurt to have our thinking tuned up?

Asking the right questions and will help you to make better decisions. You can begin now to implement this. You do not have to have permission. Ask yourself how you can help in a situation that everybody else just walks away from. You can stand out from the crowd with personal accountability. Kick out old negative thoughts and make a difference in your life and the lives of those around you.

Here are a few quotes for you to enjoy. Read one in the morning and find a way to make the difference.

“Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility . . . . In the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have is the ability to take on responsibility.”
- Michael Korda Editor-in-Cheif, Simon & Schuster

“The price of greatness is responsibility.” – Winston Churchill

“The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely to be the one who dropped it.”- Lou Holtz

“You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself.” – Jim Rohn

“The reason people blame things on the previous generation is that there’s only one other choice.” – Doug Larson

“In the old days, words like sin and Satan had a moral certitude. Today, they’re replaced with self-help jargon, words like dysfunction and antisocial behavior, discouraging any responsibility for one’s actions..”- Don Henley Singer/Songwriter

“Ninety-nine percent of all failures come from people who have a habit of making excuses.” -George Washington Carver

“All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him, it will not change you.” – Wayne Dyer

“In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity.” – Abraham Lincoln December 1, 1862 Message to Congress

“It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.”-J. W. Goethe

It has been a crazy few days in the stock market. So how can you control what happens on Wall Street? I’m not so sure you can. So what should you be doing? Figure out where you are and proceed.

Here are a few ideas and things covered in the first Money Resolutions Show.

Do you have money ready for the rainy day? If not then start here.

Do you have the right kind of and correct amount of insurance? If you don’t know, look into it. Now.

Are you in debt? If yes then list them from smallest to largest. Put the cash smack on that first one as you pay minimums on the rest. The accomplishment of paying the first one off will give you momentum to keep going forward. Something happens in your thinking process when you make progress. It is okay to rejoice, but don’t stop here for too long.  Keep that excitement moving forward. Take the amount you were paying on the debt you killed and move it over to the next punk up the line. When you add the previous amount to the minimum do the math. Can you see how much faster it will be paid off? Nice eh? Oh once you kill them bury them. Close the account and let them rest in peace.

Do you have an income crisis? If you do then maybe you could take another class to build on your skill set. Read a good book. Build a relationship with someone who is more successful than you are.

Basics and balance-Keep things simple. No need for fancy expensive insurance or day trading software.

Pay attention and be responsible. See above….

Contact me

Ladies and Gentlemen, after many months of who knows why, I have a simple contact form if you would like to get in touch! It should have been done long ago. The inspiration and kick in the backside came from the guys at Blogging Your Passion and Justin Lukasavige at CoachRadio.tv. Now if Justin reads this he will be wondering what he had to do with it. Let me explain.

While listening to a webinar replay from Blogging Your Passion, I just had to search through their site. I found an article that described how to add a contact page to your WordPress site. I asked myself: “Self, why haven’t you already taken care of this?” Okay it really didn’t go down like that. Bob and Jonathan recommended a plug-in called Contact Form 7. Sounded perfectly fine to me, but before I could install the plug-in my mouse guided me to CoachRadio.tv, This is where Justin comes in. I noticed that he uses Google Docs for his contact form.  So the more I thought about it the more it made sense. Google is after all taking over the world right? After a few minutes of reading the new contact page POOF materialized!

So you may be thinking, what does this have to do with Money Resolutions? Well, if you have a site that you hope to monetize or possibly get new clients from and they can’t contact you eh hm..(phew glad I got that done before this post) how do you expect to get that potential client’s information? You don’t have to raise your hand.

My hand is raised and my answer is, it’s finally available now here.

So often we dream dreams and long for more out of life. We buy a new book or reach deep into the bookshelf for an older book. All of this in an attempt  to bring back the feelings. You know the feeling you had about writing that ebook, planning the dream vacation or missions trip.

Don’t stop dreaming. Take time to dream. Read the right things and hang with the right people so that you don’t get stinkin thinkin. Proverbs 23:7 states that as a man thinks in his heart so is he. It does matter what we think. If you think that everything is going wrong with the economy then you will likely not take the steps toward writing the ebook or anything else because of fear. This also may be an indication that you have been hearing to much news. At some point we have to do the work.

Now I am the first to say that this has been a struggle for me. It’s not that I mind work. The problem for me is I have been “preparing” for long enough. AKA making excuses. By no means do I think I have “arrived” or that I know it all. Preparation and learning should never stop. Please understand we all go through periods of preparation. An example could be, you want to run a marathon. For goodness sake you would want to be training in advance for that. Does that mean that you shouldn’t sign-up and give it a shot? Not at all. Please don’t try to run the entire thing, it may not be good for your health. Just a thought.

My friend Andy Traub has started a community. It is the Do The Work Community. It is based on the book “Do the Work” by Steven Pressfield.  I purchased the Kindle version of the book to read. You can find out more at the website’s FAQ page he has setup. Consider joining in and making a difference in your life and the lives of those that are looking to you. The idea is that you are serving not self-serving. More to come on this.

At some point we have to start bringing the dream and vision to pass by doing the work. Doing the work for you will be different from everyone else. You are on this planet for a purpose unique to you. We have to step outside our comfort zones to make it happen. I cringe at the thought of doing a podcast or getting in front of a video camera. What if I keep preparing? Waiting for the perfect time? Well it will never get done. The solution for me is to do the work. Get the mic connected turn on the camera and start something.

I listened to a great podcast by Kevin Miller. He was talking to his Dad Dan Miller. The topic was Why Delay? I encourage you to listen to it. It is sure to give you tremendous insights.

What is holding you back?

Yes personal accountability. That’s 22 letters not four, so don’t read it like that. Read it again and relax those face muscles.  

The book QBQ! was written by John G. Miller. What is QBQ!? Here is a quote from John’s website: “QBQ! provides the “how to” of personal accountability by helping people ask The Question Behind the Question.”

I have personally grown as a result of this book. I hope that you will purchase a copy and apply it to your life. Personal Accountability could change the world. I know you think that is a large mission and it is. Start with your own personal accountability mission and you will at the least change the world you live in.

Thanks for stopping by and come back for more on the QBQ! book.

Dear Dave,

I grew up in a house where my parents always lived below their means. They taught me to live that way, but they never showed me how to make it happen. Now, at 45, I’ve gotten out of debt and fallen back in several times. I’m sick of this, and I want to get control of my money. How do I break this bad cycle?

Sandy

Dear Sandy,

It’s frustrating, isn’t it? The fact is, you’re pretty normal. But who wants to be normal when normal is broke?

It sounds to me like you’ve had a “Dr. Phil” moment. You’ve taken a look at your situation and asked yourself how your behavior is working for you. You’re also smart enough to know that it’s not working and that you want to make a change. That’s a great place to start!

When it happened to me, there were three pieces to the puzzle that helped me break the cycle. One was disgust. I realized that what I was doing was stupid, I was tired of living that way, and I made a conscious decision that things were going to be different. The second thing was fear. I was scared to death that I’d retire broke. Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t think you should ever live your life in fear, but a reasonable level of fear can be a great motivator.

The third piece, and I think it’s the most important part because it’s connected to our spiritual walk, was contentment. We live in a culture that is marketed to more than any other at any time in history. When we have this stuff crammed down out throats all day long, rapid-fire, it can affect our level of contentment.

One of the things I did was to stop going places where I was tempted to spend money. If you go wandering through a store or the mall without a specific plan, you’ll lose every time. You wouldn’t give a drunk a drink, right? So, don’t put yourself in a bad situation when it comes to your behavior with money.

When you have to go to the store, make a list of only the things you need, and take enough cash with you to make the purchase. If you can do that—walk in and walk out again without buying a bunch of stuff that wasn’t on your list—it’s a victory.

Spending money on a bunch of stuff you don’t need, and probably don’t really want, isn’t going to bring you contentment. I think that’s the word you need to keep in mind and the thing you should be praying for while you fight this battle. Believe me, it will help!

—Dave

I don’t know about you, but I find myself writing things down on a scratch sheet of paper, the palm of my hand or digitally online. A few weeks ago Evernote was installed on my HTC Hero. The application has been quietly lurking in the list. I tried another program, but I found it lacking in the area of usability. So I went online and actually signed up for an account with Evernote. So far, I am very impressed. They have browser extensions for you to choose from that will prove to be a time saver. Having the ability to grab things from the web with Web Clipper for your computer is an essential feature. You can check out the video below for ideas on how it could help you.

I know several people that could use this tool for show prep. Everybody has their method that works for them and as they say, “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”. I would be interested to hear from people that actually use Evernote or something similar. Typing in search criteria would be much better than flipping through that stack of paper.

The real world example for me will be to use Evernote to gather resources and ideas for a project I am working on. What method or tools do you use for notes that are accessible anywhere and on multiple devices? Feel free to share those as well as how you use Evernote.

Net is Gross

Have you ever looked at your check and compared the Net vs Gross? It seems gross is the winner with every paycheck. Now I am not here to say that we shouldn’t be thankful for what we have. That is not the intent. Certain parts of the deductions are much more pleasing than others. Insurance and retirement savings are not as gross as some of the other things you can see listed. Does it frustrate you when you see gross winning over net?

There is nothing wrong with you desiring to make more money, if your motives are pure. You could want more so you can give more. Make no mistake about it you should not wait until you make more to give. In fact if you want more you should give more. There is a law of sowing and reaping. Money is simply a tool. Yes it is more complex than a hammer, but it can do many of the same things. If you want to build an orphanage chances are you might use a hammer. On the other hand if you want to destroy something, you could use?…ding, ding ding, A hammer! I encourage you to find a portion of that net amount you see and give it away. That is the only way for net to win out over gross.

What ideas do you have to increase your bottom line? They don’t have to be “Big Ideas”. Recently I have had this idea of starting vegetables, and fruit (tomatoes) from seeds to sell. I am still hashing this out. The farmer in me wants to plant and grow. My reason for this is yes to potentially make a bit of net on the side, but there is more to it than just that. This is a great way to help families eat healthy, and hedge against inflation. Planting your own garden is a way to hedge against the rising cost of food. What pure pleasure it is to raise your own food. If you want to be hip you can raise it all organically. We will see if this one pans out or not. Feel free to share your ideas to increase the size of your net.