I saw a cartoon clip that had a kid visiting their father at work. The kid asked their dad what it is that his company produced. The dad responded, “Around here, we make excuses.” The dad’s work environment wouldn’t be rated high on the responsibility scale. Few in that facility wanted to own accountability for their actions. Staff were seeking to be passive bystanders and observers in the operation as opposed to active owners trying to build and improve. None other than Arnold Schwarzenegger offered the quote, “You can have results or excuses. Not both.” Robert Anthony, former Harvard professor and author, put it slightly differently observing, “You can have only two things in life, reasons or results.” We can’t be a victor and a victim at the same time. When we opt to complain, blame, or make excuses we’re give up our power. We become smaller as a result and mere cogs in someone else’s machine like the depressed dad in our comic strip.
In Every Shot Must Have a Purpose, Pia Nilsson and her co-authors, introduce the acronym of VERB writing, “VERBs is a self-pitying state here you see yourself as the VICTIM who is ENTITLED to better and instead of working wants to be RESCUED from a fate that you BLAME on conditions outside yourself.” It’s a great and actionable acronym to use to steer yourself away from falling into a wormhole of weakness. Victims cede control, slip into feeling Entitled, wishing to be Rescued (embedding their dependence), and lean in to Blame, running from responsibility.
Where we see ourselves as a victim of circumstance, hopeless becomes helpless. It’s the opposite of ownership. When we own where we find ourselves, we can embrace the wisdom of Ernest Hemingway where Hemingway writes in The Old Man and The Sea, “Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.” It puts you in a position of power to act. What can I do right now?
Personal agency can be thought of as “owning” yourself. If we own ourselves, we recognize that we are responsible for our efforts, our goals, our output. In business we are often excoriated to think and act “like an owner.” What does this mean? It implies that we take 100% responsibility for our contributions to that business. In sport, we may hear the phrase, Johnny just got “owned.” This usually implies that a competitor was able to completely dominate poor Johnny. Johnny was, effectively, controlled by our competitor. To own is to be responsible for or to control something. Agency is owning ourselves. Inherently we all appreciate the value of owning something. As Jonah Berger writes in The Catalyst, “When something is ours, we value it more. In fact, the longer people do or own something, the more they value it.” It’s called pride of ownership for a reason. How many of us wash and detail the rental car before we return it? How about your first car or that new sports car sitting in your garage? Is that one you purchased with your hard-earned money more likely to be spit-shined and polished compared to the rental? To own something is to care about it. It’s to be responsible for it. It’s to be accountable.
Erica Jong sums up the fear many of us have about ownership noting, “You take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.” The extension of our excuses evaporating is, as Jack Canfield wrote in The Success Principles, “Taking one hundred percent responsibility means you acknowledge that you create everything that happens to you. It means you understand that you are the cause of all your experience.” This can be a bitter pill to swallow. Canfield writes that owning outcomes involves realizing that “Everything you experience today is the result of choices you have made in the past.” If we’re not happy where we are we should ask a question posed by Jerry Colonna, “How are you complicit in creating the conditions of your life that you say you don’t want?”
Even if we’re content with where our life presently is, we can look forward and consider a question suggested by author James Clear, “Can my current habits carry me to my desired future?” Past CEO of Ebay, John Donahoe, points out “The world will shape you if you let it. To live the life you desire, you must make conscious choices.” Bill George writes in True North, “Ultimately, our lives are an expression of the choices we make. What is most important in my life? Asking that question allows us to make conscious choices.” The reality is until you choose, you’re a pawn in someone else’s life. If you’re not your boss, your life is a loss. As Peter Thiel has said, “You are not a coin toss.” Your outcomes are not up to chance but are significantly influenced because of your choices.
High performers of all stripes recognize the wisdom of former US President Harry Truman’s well-worn phrase, “The buck stops here.” Whether you’re in charge of a nation or aspiring to great heights in your personal life, high performers don’t just accept, but relish the idea that everything is your responsibility. David Goggins, introduced in Chapter G, is a former US Navy Seal and Army Ranger. Post his military service, he’s gone on to amaze many with his impressive physical feats of extreme endurance. He’s run many ultramarathons and performed feats of strength like the most pull ups in a 24-hour period. Goggins trains at a relentless pace and volume. He wasn’t born with this intensity and struggled for much of his early life. As a young adult he had let himself become overweight and cared little for exercise. Somehow, he got it in his head that he wanted to join the military. He learned that to have a chance he needed to drop a large amount of weight in short order. He would need to drop something like sixty pounds in six weeks. He didn’t have the luxury of finding a trainer and nutritionist to help. Nor, could he afford fancy food and supplements. He made the decision to change on his own and controlled what he could control. He moved more and ate less. There was nothing pretty or prescribed about his approach. He set his goals and acted. In a moment, a decision was made to own responsibility for his results both present and future. Goggins went from lethargic to leader. On a dime, he deviated from apathy to aspiration. In his book, Can’t Hurt Me, Goggins writes, “The ritual was simple. I’d shave my face and scalp every night, get loud, and get real. I set goals, wrote them on Post-It notes, and tagged them to what I now call the Accountability Mirror, because each day I’d hold myself accountable to the goals I’d set.” Once Goggins decided that he, and he alone, owned complete responsibility for both where he was and where he was headed, he acted. He didn’t wait for a perfect program to be provided. Goggins realized what Jim Rohn observed, that “You can’t hire someone else to do your push-ups for you.” He had to do the work and own his efforts. He stumbled forward, watched what worked, and repeated or course corrected along the way.
It’s a choice—you choose to act as if…you are 100% in charge of everything that does or doesn’t happen to you. Canfield offers, “If something doesn’t turn out as planned, you will ask yourself, ‘How did I create that? What was I thinking? What were my beliefs? What did I say or not say? What did I do or not do to create that result? How did I get the other person to act that way? What do I need to do differently next time to get the result I want?” Canfield introduces a formula for responsibility he learned from Dr. Robert Resnick. The formula is Event plus Response equals Outcome or E + R = O. The formula gives us two levers to move if we want different outcomes. We can either try to change the event or our response. We should look first to our response as it is the thing that we 100% own. Events are tough to change after the fact. Events may contain any number of elements that our outside our control even during their occurrence. Trying to impact change over events may be difficult. Nonetheless, even if we can’t directly change or influence events, we shouldn’t be using them as excuses. The same people facing the same events can have vastly different responses which lead, in turn, to different outcomes.
Movie producer, Guy Ritchie, on an episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast, affirms the importance of ownership. Ritchie supports former US Navy Seal, Jocko Willink’s idea of Extreme Ownership. Ritchie states, “if you don’t own something, you’re not the boss. You have to take 100% ownership of everything that you do. Why be subservient? You must be the master of your own kingdom…. You have to take possession of your life.” Those that adopt the posture of ownership prize accountability and personal responsibility. They see the idea of ownership as both the way to demonstrate their impact as well as control the outcome. Being accountable isn’t a negative, it’s a positive. It’s incorporating a culture of improvement and caring. It helps us allocate attention towards things we can control.
Oracles of ownership adopt phrases like “I’ve got this” or “My Actions Matter Always” or “There’s Always a Way” as their default dialect. They run from phrases like, “It’s not my job,” “I didn’t do it,” or it’s not my fault.” Owning responsibility is your personal power. A phrase like “if it is to be, it is up to me,” is attributed to the late American painter William H. Johnsen. It captures and affirms the idea of ownership as we’re in charge and nothing really happens until we act. We can’t lead anything without taking personal responsibility for the result. We can’t even make a real difference without owning our piece of the puzzle. Change isn’t possible without responsibility. Taking ownership of your life is the only road to independence and freedom. Where we run from responsibility, we end up racing to dependence on someone or something. Responsibility is something that empowers us. Improvement implies accepting ownership. It has been said that improvement starts with “I.” Embracing ownership helps us put the “me” in improvement and get going.
