It was only a few years ago when I first encountered the concept of accountability partners, etc.

As someone who takes my commitments seriously, I fell in love with this strategy.

But at what cost? My initial approaches were fear based, even punishment-based.

One time I told a buddy I’d finish writing some code “by 3pm or else I’ll send you $100”.

Oof. When I had to send him $100 after the code took longer than I expected, I sure learned a lesson.

Leaving behind direct punishment, I adopted what I now see was shame-based accountability.

“If you don’t do XYZ, I’ll be disappointed in you...“

It’s effective, to an extent. Avoiding pain (especially ostracism!) can be a powerful motivator.

But it’s not sustainable. And it’s not loving.

One time I half-jokingly asked @David Hu for some accountability and said “can you beam disappointment & shame at me if I don’t do it?”

He refused!

And that’s when I fully realized, that old paradigm is over. [thanks David for being a paragon of the new paradigm]

…

Enter generative accountability.

Chase the dream, don’t run from the nightmare.

Generative accountability is when the arrangement truly benefits both you and whoever is holding you accountable.

An all-win scenario.

When you’re really looking forward to making a contribution that other people expect of you, not doing the thing is punishment enough.

I recently did this with a video training I wanted to make called “How music practice can improve your whole life”.

If you know me, you know I’m mega passionate about these concepts.

And my dream is to share them in digestible & scalable ways.

But, I needed a nudge.

So I made a post saying “if 15+ people comment, I’ll make a 15min video within a week”.

Enough people commented, and boom I was off to the races - and finished it a couple days ago

Motivated by:

- my care for the subject

- my desire to contribute

- my love of keeping commitments

That's a pretty good recipe.

….

I could have done it differently.

I could have worked in isolation and waited until it was perfect to announce (anybody ever tried this one?! lollllzzzz)

I could have asked someone who doesn’t care about the topic to hold me accountable, and maybe punish me if I fail.

I could have made a vague agreement and said “if enough people comment, I’ll make the training” (weasel!!)

...

Generative accountability includes 3 steps:

Think about what you are passionate about creating or achieving

Consider people you care about, and what is meaningful to them

Design a strategy that adds value for others while making you accountable to your desire.

A super simple one is shared accountability around work blocks. Pictured below, a unicorn coworking session with the epic Nick Platoff and Spencer Handley

We’ll jump in a call, announce our intentions, and hold space for each other to crush our goals.

No shame, no fear, no bullshit, just synergistic presence & can-do attitudes in abundance.

In the music world, there are tons of ways to design accountability plays.

Spencer Handley recently knocked this out of the park. He wanted to transcribe a song.

And his (totally amazing) guitar mastery platform Sonora Guitar Intensive has an enthusiastic audience of learners.

So Spencer committed to recording his transcription process to share with the Sonora community.

First of all, he would have left a lot of folks hanging if he hadn’t finished the transcription when he said he would.

Second, in recording his process, he was accountable to living his values and doing his best work, not procrastinating or half-assing it, or being inefficient.

With eyes watching, he had to model a respectable transcription process. [and thus create for himself a great transcription, efficiently]

And his audience got something super useful and inspiring. Win-win!

…

Patreon offers an interesting platform for this. Committed to writing and publishing a song every 2 weeks?

Get a few people to pay you $5/month for that, you are far more likely to keep cadence!

So, the 15min video training thingy dives more into Generative Accountability, plus 4 other strategies to improve your whole life with music practice:

Life Synergy Design

Inner Authentic Relating

Yin-Yang Interleaving

Progression Training

Comment “Accelerate” below or DM me if you want it for free, I'm giving it away while it's in v1.

And I’d love to hear how you use accountability to rock it (or if you’re one of those magic people who don’t like accountability, why?)