Chip Franks: All right. Well, Achieve Your Goals Listeners, this is Chip Franks and once again, I assume that Hal has probably recorded some kind of introduction to this but today, oh my goodness, today we have something really, really special. We have someone really special that’s talking with me today and his name is Akshay Nanavati. I got there right? Yes. All right. And I should say my dear friend, Akshay, he is a superhuman individual and just an actual, as a person, he is just fantastic, an incredible heart, an incredible mind just comes to things with the best intentions and has become one of my dearest friends in a very short period of time, which is wonderful. And I will tell a little bit more about your story as we move on but today we’re actually talking about accountability partners and how to set up a great accountability relationship, an accountability buddy to help you move further and faster in life to accomplish your goals, which is probably pretty important to you if you’re listening to The Achieve Your Goals podcast. And I think that this is going to be really good.

 

Today is actually going to be a kind of a behind-the-scenes because I talked to Akshay about this beforehand and he and I are setting up an accountability relationship. And as we’re doing that, you’re going to get to be kind of behind-the-scenes, behind-the-curtains on this, some of the things that we talked about, some of the things that are important to us in accountability relationships and we’re just going to riff on it. And I think that you’ll get a lot of value out of it because it should be really good stuff. I know from Akshay it will definitely be great stuff. So, this will be really, really good. And I just woke up excited to talk to you, Akshay, today.

 

[INTERVIEW]

 

Akshay Nanavati: You too. Always. Thank you, brother. It’s such a pleasure. So, I’m really excited to go into this with you.

 

Chip Franks: Oh, you’re very welcome. And just real quick about Akshay, he has been on the Achieve Your Goals Podcast before with Hal and he and I met at the Quantum Leap Mastermind that Hal has put on in the past in Cleveland. And it was a great way to meet. We just went really deep really fast and really good experience. And Akshay is the author of FEARVANA and I’m doing this off of memory. I’ve actually read the book and I love it but the revolutionary science behind…

 

Akshay Nanavati: The revolutionary science of how to turn fear into health, wealth, and happiness.

 

Chip Franks: There you go. That is a fantastic title. And you’re welcome. I can also brag on you a little bit because the person who wrote the foreword for the book and gave a fantastic blurb was the Dalai Lama. Yes, that Dalai Lama and Akshay is an expert not only at turning fear into something useful, which is what FEARVANA is all about and if you haven’t gotten it yet, go look up FEARVANA. Fantastic book. I was the hundredth…

 

Akshay Nanavati: The 100^th review. Yes, sir.

 

Chip Franks: Yes, 100^th review. So, happy to do it. It was a fantastic book. I got a lot out of it but you’re also an expert at getting publicity and getting people to know what you’re doing. Obviously, you have over 100 reviews on your book now. You’re getting podcasts with people like Dr. Drew and Aubrey Marcus and obviously me, so there’s that.

 

Akshay Nanavati: That’s that. Exactly. That’s the best one, brother.

 

Chip Franks: That’s really good. And if you don’t mind, I mean, you can tell folks where can they learn more about you as we get started on this.

 

Akshay Nanavati: Sure, yeah. You can learn more about me at Fearvana.com and go deeper into expanding on these subjects of fear on how to, basically, the subject of mastery in any endeavor, how do you improve your life in any context of happiness and success, whatever that means. And then also, I’ve been blessed with some media success in launching my book kind of starting from no brand and no platform. So, how I did that just helping others because we all have a powerful message to share. And we have some, you know, doing some good work in the world. So, how do we do that in a strategic and effective way?

 

Chip Franks: That’s fantastic. And I just know you have the heart of a teacher as well so that’s wonderful. And I’ll even brag on Akshay right now. He’s preparing right now as we’re speaking to go to elementary students, right?

 

Akshay Nanavati: It’s my first time speaking to 10, 11-year-olds. I’m beyond terrified.

 

Chip Franks: You know, I know someone you could talk to about that fear.

 

Akshay Nanavati: Right.

 

Chip Franks: I’ll keep my eyes that into action. That’s really good. Well, actually, thank you so much for this. Thank you for riffing with me. This is going to be a lot of fun here.

 

Akshay Nanavati: Thank you, brother. Thank you for having me. I’m excited.

 

Chip Franks: You’re very welcome. So, just today, we are talking about accountability buddies and why that’s important. Really, the intention behind this whole thing is to be kind of an instructional podcast. If you’ve heard me before and I think the Achieve Your Goals Podcast has a lot of this, but we have things that are instructional and things that hopefully can help change your life. I know a lot of times, if you’re like me, you’ve listened to a ton of podcasts. I mean, I’m a podcast junkie and really enjoy them and they don’t always make a difference. You know, you hear something that might be kind of good or whatever but it doesn’t necessarily give you a great how-to and that’s kind of what we want to provide here. Because we want to show you how to get an accountability buddy, how to set it up to where that relationship becomes one of the most important in your lives, and also how to do it like the structure and the formats in different ways. The reason Akshay is on this other than the fact that I love the guy and he’s freaking brilliant is that he set up an accountability partnership with a mutual friend, with Anthony Balduzzi who’s an awesome human being too.

 

Akshay Nanavati: Awesome guy, Anthony Balduzzi, from Fit Father Project. Amazing guy. He’s my accountability buddy so we’ll talk more as we get into this about the structures and how we do it. And it’s very on-point. It’s a beautiful relationship we have.

 

Chip Franks: That’s awesome. Yes. And Akshay told me about that. I’m like, “Oh my gosh, we need to talk about that and let’s make this something that helps a lot of people.” So, that’s the theory behind this. And if you already have an accountability partner, if you don’t, then this will help you get one and recognize the importance of it and hopefully change your life with that. And then if you do have one, this should be able to take it to another level because Akshay and Anthony are, again, brilliant people, brilliant human beings who are doing wonderful things in the world. And I know that they have squared theirs away. And then of course, at the end of this, this is actually behind the scenes like we talked about. Akshay and I are setting up our own accountability partnership with each other. So, we’re going to go into that. So, that is it, sir.

 

Akshay Nanavati: Let’s get into it, brother.

 

Chip Franks: Yeah, let’s do this. So, Akshay, my friend.

 

Akshay Nanavati: Yes, sir.

 

Chip Franks: Why is it important to have an accountability partner?

 

Akshay Nanavati: You know, so anything worthwhile achieving, anything worthwhile is going to be hard. It’s going to be really tough and navigating the struggle of that is obviously a challenge but having an accountability partner, having an accountability buddy gives you that partnership, that teamwork. We’re tribal creatures just on an evolutionary level. Human beings are tribal creatures so we need community, we need our tribe, and having accountability buddy with the clear structure to follow, which we’ll talk about of course is it’s a game-changer. I mean, I wouldn’t just say it’s valuable. I would argue that it’s necessary in order to achieve something great. And Jack Canfield, who actually was my mentor who wrote Chicken Soup for the Soul series, he was the one who taught me about accountability buddies and he had a good analogy. He said that when you break a leg, if you break a bone, you put a cast on it and you put a cast on it until that bone is healed then you don’t need it. And you kind of use that as an accountability buddy like the accountability buddy is a structure. It provides that support you need to grow and heal, but like you won’t necessarily need an accountability buddy to brush your teeth in the morning, right? You’re going to go wake up and do that. But when you’re doing hard things, great things, things that push you outside your comfort zone, that accountability buddy is like that cast. It provides that extra level of support, to not just heal but to grow and to improve and to take that Achieve Your Goals, to achieve all those goals. Again, all goals are going to be challenging, right?

 

Chip Franks: Yeah, absolutely. I thought about this too. I mean, a lot of us are our pleasers and we like to please other people and a lot of times we can break our own word to ourselves. It’s easier to sleep in or hit the snooze button or not do that fearful thing that we’re thinking about but if someone like you is on the other line, I’m not going to disappoint you. I mean, there’s no way. I don’t want to do that.

 

Akshay Nanavati: No, that’s a great point exactly is that like, I mean, I’ve had accountability calls. If you come on every accountability call and you keep saying, “Hey, I didn’t get this done. I didn’t get this done,” you’re going to start feeling a little bad about yourself and you’re going to get it done.

 

Chip Franks: Absolutely.

 

Akshay Nanavati: It provides that support, that love, and sometimes that tough love when needed to help you hit that targets because, yeah, it’s easier to like you said for ourselves hit the snooze button if it did not do the thing we say to do to ourselves but others, it’ll light a fire under you for sure.

 

Chip Franks: One of the things I read, when I was doing study for this, was an African proverb and it says, “To go fast, go alone, but to go far, go together.”

 

Akshay Nanavati: I love that.

 

Chip Franks: Yeah. And I just thought that was really important because an accountability partner gives you support and the encouragement and the occasional ass kicking when needed.

 

Akshay Nanavati: Exactly. Success is a team sport. I mean, it’s a team sport and to be great at anything. So, an accountability buddy is that teammate that’ll be in your corner and you will be in their corner to work together as one to accomplish your respective missions.

 

Chip Franks: Yeah. So, hopefully, if you’re listening to this, and you haven’t, I mean, I think at some point if you’re an entrepreneur and you’re kind of a go-getter, you think about accountability buddies at some point. And I know I’ve had some in the past, and actually, I didn’t really even think about it before the podcast but I actually had a company once called the Accountable Me, which was all about getting an accountability partner and having someone professional do it. And I ended up losing some money on that business.

 

Akshay Nanavati: That happens.

 

Chip Franks: That’s quite all right. I mean, I actually learned a lot from it. So, this will be some of the fruits from that. Yeah. So, that will be really good. But If you don’t have an accountability partner, I hope this just gets that light underneath you to do it. Because if you have big dreams for your life, if you have things that you want to accomplish and people that you want to impact and a legacy that you want to leave or at least to make the world a lot better for other human beings, you’re obviously going to be outside of your comfort zone.

 

Akshay Nanavati: Yeah, yeah.

 

Chip Franks: To put it in your language, obviously, you’re going to be doing things that you fear. And to have someone that’s in your corner is just invaluable and I think you were saying just like just that it’s necessary even.

 

Akshay Nanavati: Yeah. I would argue exactly that it’s necessary. Again, you’re not going to need it for the little things you’re already doing, the comfortable things, brushing your teeth, whatever, all those things. The big things, the big goals, that that’s going to make a monumental difference, to have that external support. And sometimes also even on entrepreneurship, it can be a lonely journey. So, having just that love, that support, it’ll move you much faster than you think you are. And I think one of the biggest reasons why it sometimes falls apart or fails or people don’t do it is because they don’t have a structure. And with a clear structure, that provides a framework for you to keep moving forward, because I’ve had accountability buddies in the past before, Anthony, and it kind of fell apart. It didn’t have a structure. I know people who’ve tried it or they think that I don’t know how to do it. And because we don’t know how to do it, we have a structure, we don’t do it. But with a clear structure, a clear framework. It’s just, yeah, it’s necessary, I would say.

 

Chip Franks: That’s awesome. And we’re about to get into the specifics and I don’t even know how you and Anthony do this. So, between your brilliant minds, it’s got to be like kind of mind-blowing. So, I’m looking forward to that but let’s ask or answer the question who like who should you reach out to for being your accountability, buddy? And what are your thoughts on that, sir?

 

Akshay Nanavati: Yeah. I think you need to find somebody who is – it doesn’t have to be somebody doing the same thing that you’re doing or like the same even arena, but it does, I believe need to be somebody who’s at least on a similar wavelength of the mentality, the mindset, the way you approach things. Like Anthony and me have a relentless drive like we are driven to a high, high level and so we are good accountability buddies. I’ve done some before and there’s no right or like this is not a judgment or like a good bad right/wrong. I have other people who aren’t looking to like have worked in the past and they’re much more content and chill and that’s cool like that makes them happy to living a good life. But it didn’t work because with Anthony we were just at a different level of how we’re seeking. And because we seek at a certain level, we live a higher level of stress, a high level of fear, a high level of discontentment, but it’s okay because we’re choosing that. So, find somebody who’s at least approaching on that same wavelength as you because then you’ll be able to or maybe even like a step like, yeah, around that same wavelength and that will help you support each other at that level whatever that level is. Again, it’s not a right, wrong, good, bad or anything like that but something on that I think is really important. And this depends, but generally speaking, I would say don’t go to somebody who’s a family member or like your, you know, and this is not like I would say a hard and fast rule if you have like let’s say a spouse that you think he can, but generally speaking, I would say don’t do that.

 

Chip Franks: Jack Canfield, actually, I’ve watched a video of his on accountability buddies, and he says, “Do not go to your spouse.”

 

Akshay Nanavati: Exactly, yes. So, I would say, generally speaking, you know, like, again, maybe this is not to put a blanket statement on all relationships on how those relationships function, but I would say, generally speaking, yeah, don’t do that.

 

Chip Franks: Absolutely. And a few things that I’ll add to that is someone who’s trustworthy and we’ll get to talk about this because one of my rules for an accountability buddy and a partnership is a fiduciary relationship looking out for each other and then what’s said in the conversation stays in the conversation.

 

Akshay Nanavati: So, that’s a great point. Yeah, yeah. Trustworthy, service-oriented. Someone who’s going to like someone who you can trust. Not just that confidential but trust to have your back when things get hard.

 

Chip Franks: Yeah. Are you sure you want to do this with me then?

 

Akshay Nanavati: I love you, brother. I’m sure I am. It’s going to be a beautiful thing.

 

Chip Franks: That’s awesome. Yes. Oh, and here’s the other thing that I’ll say. Actually, I’m a little scared of this, which is probably a good indicator of having the right accountability buddy but you have to find someone who is willing to kick your butt when needed.

 

Akshay Nanavati: That’s also a good point. Yeah.

 

Chip Franks: And I want to say that because, again, I’m kind of a people pleaser and I like to be kind to other people but I don’t think that you’re doing yourself or your accountability buddy any favors if you’re too easy on them. And they have greatness that you can help draw forth sometimes by being a hard-ass about it and that’s something that has to help. And that’s another reason why maybe it’s not best to do someone in your family.

 

Akshay Nanavati: Yeah. And you can even get clear on what those structures look like. Like one of the things you can ask your accountability buddy is like, “Hey, when you’re in a low or if you’re not hitting your target, what do you need from me that would be of value?” So, for example, like, I need somebody who like sometimes I might need somebody to show me love like I’ve gone through some dark moments and just say, “Hey, I love you. I care.” Other times it’d be like, “Dude, you’re being weak. You’re being a victim. Get your act together.” And Anthony does that like he pushes me. He’s called me out on my stuff sometimes, you know, and I needed that call out. So, you can ask a person ahead of time what do you need when you’re like let’s say you come to an accountability call two or three times and you haven’t hit your goal, what do you need to be light you under fire? And because that, one, it gets that person thinking because sometimes I don’t think even we’re aware of what we need, right? But it gets you thinking and then you can test it like if as long as both parties know that you’re coming from that place of genuine love and service, if somebody you feel like is saying something that doesn’t help, then you should be able to be open, be communicate with that. “Hey, man, I don’t need you to punch me right now, literally or figuratively, but I don’t need you to be hitting me hard right now. I just need your love.” Okay, cool. You know, like you can have that open dialogue with them.

 

Chip Franks: Absolutely.

 

Akshay Nanavati: Yeah.

 

Chip Franks: Okay. So, we have talked about why this is important. We’ve talked about who and the right type of person we need. Sorry. Okay. We’ve talked about why this is important. We’ve talked about who is the right type of person for getting an accountability partner. Now, let’s actually get into the how, like, how do we do it? Actually, we can start with how do we approach people and talk to them about this. And of course, then what I’m dying to hear is the juicy structure that you set up.

 

Akshay Nanavati: Yeah. So, as far as like approaching people, there’s many different ways like you can go to the Achieve Your Goals Community and the Miracle Morning tribe, right? For listeners, I know you have a big tribe on Facebook so like they can find communities in your area that you’re a part of. You can go to somebody you know like a friend or somebody you know who’s on the same kind of wavelength as you and just say, “Hey, look, I’m up to big things. I know you’re up to big things,” or, “I’m up to X, you’re up to X too, and I’d love to set up an accountability structure so we can support each other on the journey, and we can help each other achieve our goals and we have each other’s back.” And, yeah, if you approach the right person, it’d be hard-pressed to say no and then again, it’s about setting up the structure, which we’ll talk about the value and again, the necessity of that, because if you don’t have that, it falls apart and I’ll give you examples of that. But I just think it’s about having that dialogue. If you talk to somebody, again, who’s on a similar wavelength, again, they don’t have to do the same thing you’re doing, right? Like you could be, let’s say, I don’t know a runner, and they could be building a real estate business and that’s cool, but as long as you’re on the same wavelength of who you are, how you approach life, at least to some degree.

 

And with that said, let me offer a caveat. It’s not to say you approach, you’re going to somebody who has the same exact way of thinking about life and the same belief systems, the same mental models, because if you just stick with what you know, you’re not going to grow, right? All I mean is just like, if you’re driven at a certain level, it’s good to work with somebody who’s at that level, right? Just who’s going to, who’s going to be able to have that grit, whatever it may be.

 

Chip Franks: They’re on your wavelength and they’re kind of on your similar level of ambition.

 

Akshay Nanavati: Exactly. Similar level of ambition. It doesn’t mean you have to have the same belief systems because you want to have somebody who can question your own paradigms and say, “Hey, can you look at this differently?” Also, a key point I think worth addressing is that if you’re going to do this thing with somebody, you got to be willing to question your belief systems and say, “Hey, I could be wrong about this thing.” The biggest mistake I think I see a lot of human beings make not just in goal setting but in life, I mean, we fight, die and kill for our belief systems, right? But the quest to be able to question my belief system and say, “Hey, I could be wrong about this,” that’s the only way you’re going to grow because if you do the same thing you’ve always done, you’re going to get the same results you’ve always got. You have to be willing to question. And an accountability buddy, a good accountability buddy will be able to do that for you.

 

Chip Franks: Yep. And along the same lines just so the wavelength is someone that has done something similar to you. I mean, again, not necessarily even in the same field, but they’ll have some ideas in like, “Hey, you’re hitting your head against a brick wall. Have you tried this kind of thing?” Because some of that coaching or counseling could be invaluable in your accountability buddy. That’s awesome.

 

Akshay Nanavati: And I think that’s a good point is to actually refer back to Anthony and me do similar things. So, that does have its own value in the sense that we’re both kind of building businesses online. So, sometimes he’s been able to counsel me on like, “Hey, this is what I’ve done that’s worked.” So, in a sense, it is valuable if you’re doing similar things too. They both have their kind of pros and cons in a way but, yeah, having so you doing similar things has its value that you can kind of provide a different level of coaching since you’re up to the same things.

 

Chip Franks: Yeah. And then the outsider’s perspective is also very valuable.

 

Akshay Nanavati: Exactly.

 

Chip Franks: They’re just looking at it from this and they can literally look at it from a completely different paradigm and pull you out of it.

 

Akshay Nanavati: Exactly.

 

Chip Franks: So, that’s fantastic. So, one of the ways and I just wanted to say this, we’re kind of doing this as an experiment to make the podcast a little more interactive. But if you go to the Miracle Morning community, and you click on Units, and look in there, and again, in some countries, if you’re listening to this from France or other places, they might call it modules but if you look on Facebook inside the Miracle Morning Community and click on Units, there is a Units with Achieve Your Goals Podcast, and we will have these actual podcasts posted there so you can reference them which will be kind of nice. But the other thing is we’re going to have a resource section. And in this case, if you’re looking for an accountability buddy, go into the Miracle Morning Community because these are people that all want to improve themselves and fish around, put out a little classified ad post type thing of looking for an accountability partner with these traits or these qualities or whatever, and talk to a couple of them. Maybe interview them, see if it’s the right fit. I think with all of us, it’s always a little awkward for like, “Eh, don’t really want to be accountability partners with you,” but this being as important as it is, you can just set it up and say, “Hey, if anything comes up, we’ll talk again. And if not, you know, that’s okay, too,” because you have to be a little bit selfish in this in wanting to get the right person, I think.

 

Akshay Nanavati: Absolutely. And it is like in one of the most important relationships. So, I agree that you got to be very on point with finding the right person.

 

Chip Franks: Awesome.

 

Akshay Nanavati: Like, I mean, I have people who are friends of mine that I don’t necessarily do accountability buddy calls with. Well, that’s cool. Yeah.

 

Chip Franks: Absolutely. Well, now is the meats on the whole, the treasure. This is how do you do an accountability session?

 

Akshay Nanavati: The structure. Okay.

 

Chip Franks: Yes.

 

Akshay Nanavati: So, there’s different ways and I’ll suggest a few, like, based on again, how I learned from Jack Canfield. Like what he says is sometimes one way is you could do daily, either texts or calls, either in the morning or night. This is why it’s somewhat sometimes valuable to at least be in similar time zones so you don’t want to have like one person in India and one person in the US on opposite ends of the world. But with that said, Anthony, we have done it from the opposite worlds. Sometimes I’m in India, but we’ll talk about that in a second. So, one thing is a daily structure where you do either a text or a phone call, morning or evening, you guys, whoever sets the decision what that looks like, and you just say, “Hey, here’s my top three to five things I’m going to get done today and here’s what I got done yesterday.” And when you do this, there’s no excuses. No, “Why I didn’t get it done.” No anything. I got like 1-2-3 done. I did not get done 4 and 5. In fact, one, this provides new clarity on because most people I don’t think have that level of clarity every day. At the end of the day, I write down what are my top three to five actions to accomplish the next day? Now, I don’t do a daily accountability structure. Where I’m at I just track my things religiously in myself. Again, this is where you got to think about, right? Like the accountability structure is like this cast so depending on where you’re at, there’s no right wrong, good, bad. You might need an extra level of support and if you do, that’s totally cool.

 

Chip Franks: All those function with that.

 

Akshay Nanavati: I love it. Absolutely. So, setting that up and then getting you getting clear every night, “Hey, here’s my top three to five for the next day.” Then you text your accountability buddy, “Here’s what I’m going to get done tomorrow. Here’s what I got done today.” And that’s it. Again, one key thing and I’m stressing this for an important reason. No explanation. No why you did not. No, this is not the time for any of that, right? Like I did it. That’s it. Now, that’s one way is these daily either text messages and/or a five-minute phone call. Again, if you’re doing this phone call, this is not a social call. So, now I can get to how me and Anthony do it because it transitions. So, what Anthony and me do, we do a half-hour phone call once a week. Once a week, we do a half-hour phone call and we get on the call. One thing is you got to be on point. Set this rule with your accountability buddy to honor your time. If somebody is going to show up late two, three, four times, that is not a – one time is like okay, hey, you know that might happen. But two, three, four times that’s not a good accountability buddy. You need to end that relationship. I know that sounds harsh maybe but honor your time. Our time is our most valuable asset. I cannot stress this enough. I’ve done this in the past. Accountability buddies, they wouldn’t show up five minutes late, 10 minutes late, that’s just unacceptable. Unacceptable.

 

Chip Franks: And I’m thinking of myself right now. So sorry about that. I’d have a hard time telling, “Hey, let’s not be accountability buddies,” but you can do that in a soft, nice kind of way too and say, “Listen, I love being your friend but it’s not working as an accountability partner. Yeah, so let’s be friends.”

 

Akshay Nanavati: Yeah. That’s important. I get it. I get it. It’s a hard conversation to have but you can say like you said in a loving way like, “Listen, I’m really trying to honor my own time so maybe this is not working but obviously it doesn’t affect our friendship,” something like that. Whatever, right? But the key thing is that to honor your time, honor the other person’s time. So, Anthony and me we show up on point, like, literally on the exact like on the dot. And when we get into it, this is not a social call. This is not, “Hey, what’s up, man? How are things? How’s life?” We immediately say, “Let’s get into it.” Right? Hey, what up Anthony? How are you doing? Let’s go. And when we go, we spend 15 minutes on one person, 15 minutes on the other person.

 

Chip Franks: You set a timer for that?

 

Akshay Nanavati: No. We’re pretty on point. And sometimes it’s a little less. So, sometimes like the last accountability call, we did it. It was about 10 minutes each. We just were both crushing it and had a fantastic week. There was not much to report. It was like this, that, another thing and we’re crushing on with it. Done. So, otherwise, we just pay attention to time. So, it’s like 8:30 then 8:45, I’ll kind of I know and I’ll stop talking. And whoever goes first and we don’t set a clear rule for that. You could if you need that level. Like with Anthony and me, we just be like, “Hey, you go first,” or he’ll be like, “You go first.” We just whoever ends up going first. That’s not like for us that works but you don’t have to do it that way. You could say every, you know, alternate weeks but just having clarity with us. We don’t really care. So, sometimes we switch. And so, when a person goes first, they’ll say things like, “So, if I’m going first, what we do is we’ve created buckets in our life under an area.” So, for Anthony and me, we both have very similar buckets. We have our business, our training or fitness, our personal/relationships, and then we can touch on any sort of spiritual growth, learning things. That’s usually our life like business training, you know, personal and it’s usually…

 

Chip Franks: It generally works for each buckets each week?

 

Akshay Nanavati: Each bucket.

 

Chip Franks: That’s awesome.

 

Akshay Nanavati: So, each week, each bucket we’ll be like, “Hey, okay, personal relationship stuff is going great. Ten out of 10. Awesome.” If there’s nothing to report, just move on. Okay. Our training, here’s what I did for my training for last week. You know, like my mind could be like I didn’t hit as many miles as I needed to. Here’s why. Here’s the gap. And this time when you’re saying here’s why, I want to be very clear, not making excuses. You’re just saying, “Okay, here’s the gap. Let me notice the gap,” and then I can address the gap to move forward. So, key thing to think about here. All growth is two things. And these accountability calls are basically a combination of these two things. Find what’s working and do more with it, find the problem, fix the problem. Just like setting that framework, find the problem, face the problem, find what’s working and do more. If the accountability calls, provide a structure. You do those things. So, here’s my training.

 

Chip Franks: People are taking notes on this. That is awesome.

 

Akshay Nanavati: This is like, yeah, this is everything. So, like, this is how my mileage was last week. Here’s the next thing. Here’s my business. This is what I’m working on. This is what I said I got done, and we kind of report in on the previous week. And then sometimes if one of us needs coaching, we’ll ask for it. Sometimes maybe we won’t ask for it but the other person will do it. So sometimes like I was going through some really tough times, personally, a little while ago with divorce and all that. And so, I might take a little longer but like Anthony, you know, I’d love your coaching and counseling, thoughts on this and feedback on this and help with this. And the person can do that. And then like once or twice it’s happened where I’ll take 20 minutes and he’ll just take 10 because I needed it. In that sense, we weren’t clear, but like it wasn’t like a hard fast but those aren’t fairly extenuating circumstances like it was some serious stuff happening, right? Borrowing to that we’re just very on point with that structure. And we just report in what we got done last week, what we’re going to get done for the next week. And so, “Hey, so here’s the rest of my week looks like until we speak. This is what I say I’m going to get done.”

 

Now, like sometimes we might write it. Initially, we still kind of write it down like okay, this is what Anthony said he’s going to get done. Let me write it down so I can check with him next week and I recommend if you’re starting off to do that structure, to have like a written thing of like, “Hey, I said I’m going to get this done next week,” and then have it written down like these are the things and then have the other person’s written down as well. So, you can both when you get on the next call, you can check what are the things they said. If you decided to weekly and not daily. We know…

 

Chip Franks: Maybe that’s through WhatsApp.

 

Akshay Nanavati: You can write it on a computer and then just have it when you do our next call if you do Zoom. So, Anthony and me no longer do our write-down. We did when we started, but we no longer do it because where we’re at now both of us we’re just pretty on point about holding ourselves accountable to our own thing so we know what to come into the call with, “Hey, this is what I said I would get done. This is what I did. This is what I didn’t do. This is maybe why. This is what I learned. This is what I’m going to do the next week.” Because part of the reason is my accountability calls with Anthony I only do while I’m running so I couldn’t call while I run.

 

Chip Franks: I noticed you’ll give me a lot of messages while you’re running too.

 

Akshay Nanavati: While I run. Exactly.

 

Chip Franks: Probably because you run like eight hours a day.

 

Akshay Nanavati: So, that’s why but when you’re starting off, I do not recommend doing it that way. I recommend having a clear written thing of this is what I’m going to say I’m going to do and you can kind of experiment with this so you can experiment with daily. You can experiment with weekly. If you really need that and both parties have to obviously agree. Let’s be very clear, both parties have to agree and like honor that agreement, like your word is your life. I mean, imagine if somebody held a gun to your head like this is, you know, you honor that. I have tried daily text with a different accountability buddy and it just didn’t work so we didn’t do it. With Anthony and me though, we’re very on point. And so, one more thing about that. We are generally like on point with our show up on our calls. Like sometimes we’ve done it while I’m at the airport about to step on a plane. We go out of our way to make sure we can be in the call. This is not to say it always happens like Anthony’s getting married now so this Thursday, we’re not doing a call and that’s fine.

 

Because we both know that we both will go out of our way to be on the call so that if it’s something that’s not there, like sometimes I was traveling for an interview, and I was doing the interview while our call was scheduled so obviously, I wasn’t on the call. But if we don’t do a call, we do a WhatsApp voice and we’ll check-in and basically simulates that, except there’s just one way we just send a voice note, “Hey, buddy, you know, here’s what I said to get done. Here’s what my next week looks like.” So, one way or the other we do a check-in if it’s not one-on-one.

 

Chip Franks: Well, let me ask you, and thank you for this all, by the way. I have my journal out and I’m trying not to write too many notes because you’ll hear my pen scribing here in the background but on these four buckets that you have, are you setting like to-dos or things that you want in each of those? Or are you just giving it a number and saying, “Everything’s cool. Let’s move on to the training?” So, what does that look like?

 

Akshay Nanavati: That’s a great question. I’m glad you address it. So, what that looks like is you want to work backwards from the future. So, the way to do it is I like to set like a lifelong vision, right? Here’s my vision for my life but when it comes to tangible goals, a lot of reasons you’ve shown the best way to set goals is 90-day targets. So, set a quarter target. So, I have my quarter targets mapped out in a Google Doc. I share that with Anthony. We can see each other’s quarterly targets. So, every 90 days here’s what I want to get done. Here’s the buckets. So, if something we’re doing is not working, like in line with that, and it’s like way off then the accountability buddy’s job is to be like, “Hey, why does your 90-day target says this but you’re doing this? Like what’s going on here?” So, we’re setting a 90-day target and being clear on that. Okay, this is the goals in whatever areas you choose. It doesn’t have to be at my areas or our areas, right? Like we have business and then fitness is our clear targets mostly. With personal it’s not so much like a goal like we don’t say. I could be. I mean, it could be like, “Hey, once a quarter I want to go on a five-day vacation with my wife or my husband,” whatever, right? That could be. It doesn’t have to be.

 

In our case, it’s not personal. It’s just like we just check-in, “Hey, things are going good. Things are a 10 out of 10 or things or 9 out of 10. This week was bad with my spouse because X. Here’s what I thought. Do you have any thoughts? You know, we could do that.” But we’re working backwards from clear targets of the goals we want to achieve in whatever areas you want. It could be, again, health, business. Ours are basically fitness and business and then with spiritual, it’s not target, like, there’s no specific target but we will say, “Hey, I had this beautiful meditation session,” or when I went on a darkness retreat or sometimes we also say a learning so I’ll say, “Hey, my goal is to finish one book a week or whatever it may be, right? Like, this is the book I’m reading now. I want to be held accountable to finish that book or this learning,” so stuff like that, but you’re working backwards from the 90-day targets. And also, to add on that, the 90-day targets must be in alignment with your larger vision for your life. So, that could be a whole separate conversation. We can talk about how to do that, how to set the vision, creating a personal philosophy statement, a mission statement, just like companies have. And I’m happy to share it now if you’d like but I have a philosophy statement that’s very articulate. I have a mission statement that’s very articulate. So, I know that like from my 90-day targets are everything is aligned with that at the highest level.

 

Chip Franks: That is spectacular. And actually, like I’m looking at the time here and one of the bad things about I can’t say bad thing. It’s a good thing but Hal likes to keep these certain links here.

 

Akshay Nanavati: Roger that.

 

Chip Franks: So, what’s going to have to happen with this is we’re going to continue this conversation if you’re cool with that and actually again, like we promised earlier is set up your and my accountability, which we’ll go through and I would love to actually bring that into it to where we talk about the mission for our lives and the quarterly goals that we set for because I know that this will be of immense value to people and the listeners. If you’re listening out there right now, you’re hearing our voices, oh, we want to bring this to you because, yeah, the kind of thing I can geek out on. And I’m excited about this too because I want to hear your big mission and I want to see how you do that because I do very similar type things. And I have “I am” statements and I have belief statements that I repeat every morning and I’d love to see how you do it because, of course, you probably know this but one of the great things about accountability buddies is you get to see what works and what they’re doing and what you’re doing. And between the two of you, you’re going to create some great things that move your life forward. So, super excited about that.

 

Akshay Nanavati: Yeah, brother, me too.

 

Chip Franks: Yeah, this is going to be good. And the more, I mean, I already knew I was excited about having you as an accountability buddy but this is going to be revolutionary.

 

Akshay Nanavati: Likewise. This is going to be really exciting. Sorry if I rambled on further there.

 

Chip Franks: No. This is fantastic. Nothing to be sorry about on this. But folks, again, if you’re listening to this, one, check out Akshay. Go to Fearvana.com. And, Akshay, I appreciate your time on this. Thank you so much.

 

Akshay Nanavati: Of course. I’m excited to be here.

 

Chip Franks: This is wonderful. So, check him out. Wonderful guy and Anthony Balduzzi, we’ll give him a shout out at Fit Father Project. I can say actually as a customer of his because I took his course and it was fantastic. So, yeah, very, very cool. And just what I want to leave you with is a commitment, if this makes sense, now you’re listening to this and I don’t know if you’re in your car or you’re working out or if you’re like Akshay and then going on like a 48-hour straight run or something like that but make a commitment that you’re going to do this if it makes sense for you because, again, this is something that can move your life forward. And I say this with all sincerity, as we do these podcasts and as we reach out for this, we want to help you and make a difference in your life and hopefully, this will do that. I think it will. I know it’s going to make a big difference in my life. So, make that commitment to yourself. And with that, we wish you a fantastic day and continue achieving your goals. You are loved and you are deserving. Thank you.

 

Akshay Nanavati: Thank you

[END]