The world’s most successful entrepreneurs are transforming their ideas into huge results easier, faster, and more often than everyone else.
They do so by leveraging a tremendous psychological advantage: Accountability.
Accountability itself is the single most scientifically validated tool for improving human behavior. The empirical evidence for this is vast and includes not only studies by psychologists but also research conducted in the field of applied economics and sociology.
The tremendous power of accountability to improve human performance is more important than ever before in history. Why?
Because of two extraordinary transformations occurring in the way humans work:
In the 21st century, we have more freedom and opportunity than ever before. There’s just one problem:
It’s harder to stay accountable, focused, and productive than ever.
In this article, we'll explore why finding reliable accountability is so critical in the new world of work and how services like Commit Action provide the accountability coaching entrepreneurs need to thrive.
The Double-Edged Sword of Modern Work Freedom
In the next 20 years, the United States treasury is predicting over half of the white-collar workforce will transition to self-employment. And one in three Americans dream of owning their own business.
What’s unique about the present day is that… for the first time in history, one in three people have everything they need to start a business. It has never been easier to “do your own thing”.
This revolution in the way we work is driven by advances in technology that are so rapid, that the world is becoming unrecognizable.
It is now possible for executives to create millions of dollars of value while working from where they feel like it – via messaging apps and video conferencing – hundreds of miles from their company’s HQ.
Entrepreneurship has been utterly transformed too: The barriers to entry have fallen to almost nothing. Anyone can start a business online, from their bedroom. By working on a laptop in their pajamas.
Entrepreneurs are building multi-million dollar revenue streams, or simply supplementing other income with “side gig” passion businesses… without ever actually meeting a customer.
Technology and the internet have created this opportunity. There’s nothing like it in human history.
But the opportunity isn’t the only thing that’s changed.
Humans are also finding it harder and harder to focus, be productive, and take action.
The same technology that is empowering us to work and create value – with more freedom than previous generations could imagine – is also making us more isolated than humans have ever been.
Remote, tech-empowered creatives and entrepreneurs are facing an accountability crisis.
Why Our Brains Crave Accountability?
People working primarily with digital tools and total location independence, are inadvertently placing themselves into a state of “accountability vacuum”.
This is especially true for people participating in the creative, knowledge economy as skilled workers or entrepreneurs. This demographic has the most opportunity to create freedom for themselves from a conventional nine-to-five work life.
As a result, they’re also the most vulnerable to feeling ineffective, unfocused, and unmotivated. They lack the accountability that focuses their execution powers on their biggest opportunities.
Advances in cognitive science prove that accountability is the ultimate performance booster. One study showed that weekly accountability check-ins conducted by skilled facilitators more than double adherence to plans to achieve goals.
Human beings are social and political primates. As a species, we have thrived by developing sophisticated communication and teamwork strategies. Relationships with other humans were a tremendous advantage for our evolutionary ancestors and our brain structure reflects that heritage.
You could say that we are literally “wired” to work better when we feel accountable to another human.
That’s why ultra-successful entrepreneurs – who’ve surrounded themselves with empowering webs of supporting advisors, investors, staff, and accountability coaches – do not experience the overwhelm, procrastination, and self-sabotage caused by isolation.
Entrepreneurs with professional, reliable accountability in their lives can hit home run after home run without having to exert enormous amounts of time and mental energy. Another study showed that merely knowledge of the possibility of impending accountability check-ins increases positive behaviors by 50%. With accountability, entrepreneurs don’t have to endlessly push themselves to execute—instead they easily show up as the best version of themselves.
Day after day.
The brain circuitry that drives optimal focus and performance is naturally activated and sustained by accountability, not willpower.
Discover Your Entrepreneurial Edge: Curious about your entrepreneurial strengths and how they can propel your business forward? Take our Entrepreneur Personality Test to uncover your unique capabilities and learn how to leverage them for maximum success.
Bringing Elite-Level Accountability Coaching to Entrepreneurs
Optimized accountability—and planning rituals that utilize it—used to be a secret weapon of elite executives and the world’s top entrepreneurs leading huge organizations. The army of advisors, coaches, investors, boards, and even staff that support a visionary to simply show up as the best version of themselves is something only the top 0.01% have access to.
Peter Shallard—the founder of Commit Action—was one of those advisors to the entrepreneur elite in his role as “The Shrink for Entrepreneurs”. A psychotherapist by training, Peter went renegade and built a practice dedicated to supporting the performance of the world’s top founders.
He started Commit Action because he realized that the most effective core of elite coaching and advisory was the accountability that came from working with the humans delivering it. The idea was “Personal Training for Productivity” — a “minimum effective dose” of the structure and accountability that unlocks effortless peak performance, for the entrepreneurs who need it most. Today Commit Action’s flagship accountability service—The Weekly Planning Ritual— is notorious for double its client’s effectiveness in their first 30 days of membership. Long-term it creates results clients describe as “life-changing” in independent, 3rd party verified reviews.
His vision for Commit Action was simple: Pure accountability coaching for entrepreneurs, delivered through an evidence-based methodology by ultra-vetted experts—individually trained by Peter himself.
The Commit Action Methodology
To date, Commit Action has serviced thousands of entrepreneurs and creatives in over twenty countries.
The service revolves around a cornerstone ritual that it “installs” in the client’s business and lives: A once-per-week accountability coach check-in call that acts as an accelerator for all your goals.
Commit Action has also built proprietary technology: Clients now benefit from a custom-built planning tool that allows their dedicated coach to manage their to-dos each week, plan a calendar of “deep work” sprints, and send personal one-to-one accountability reminders and check-ins throughout the week. It’s like having a concierge for your to-do list, and a dedicated team member whose sole job is optimizing your focus.
For a rapidly growing group of entrepreneurs, Commit Action isn’t just accountability coaching. It’s a mental gym membership with a dedicated “personal trainer”.
It’s insurance that guarantees you perform at your best. And it’s an investment that pays for itself ten times over annually, by supercharging your ability to focus and execute on your boldest growth ideas.
Thousands of entrepreneurs have skyrocketed their bottom-line performance with accountability coaching.
If you need accountability coaching to stay focused and achieve your biggest goals, sign up for Commit Action’s coaching program today.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is the difference between a life coach and an accountability coach?
A life coach helps with broader goals like finding purpose, achieving work-life balance, and personal growth. An accountability coach has a more targeted focus on keeping you on track toward specific business, productivity, and performance goals through consistent planning and follow-up.
2. How do leaders demonstrate accountability?
Effective leaders demonstrate accountability by taking ownership of outcomes, following through consistently on commitments, openly acknowledging mistakes, and holding themselves and team members to agreed-upon standards.
3. What is the accountability ladder?
The accountability ladder is a framework with self-accountability at the bottom, followed by peer accountability, manager accountability, and organizational accountability at the top. It depicts how accountability expands from intrinsic to extrinsic and individual to collective as you climb toward greater maturity and performance.
4. How do you practice accountability?
You can practice accountability by sharing your goals and metrics with caring humans, scheduling regular check-ins with an accountability partner like Commit Action, conducting after-action reviews on projects, and creating systems of mutual accountability within teams or colleagues.
5. Why is an accountability coach important?
An accountability coach provides an unbiased perspective to keep you focused on your priorities, along with systems to track progress and celebrate wins. External accountability helps motivate follow-through when inner drive lags. It delivers the clarity, motivation, and objectivity entrepreneurs need.