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Welcome to Late Boomers, the podcast that is your guide to creating a third act with style, power and impact! Join your hosts, Cathy Worthington and Merry Elkins, as they bring you conversations with successful artists, entrepreneurs and entertainers who have set themselves up for an amazing third act. Everyone has a story, and Cathy and Merry take you along for the ride on each interview, recounting the journey each guest has taken to get where they are, and inspiring you to create a path to success as you look toward your own third act!
This is the EWN podcast network.
Cathy:Hello. It's Kathy Worthington.
Merry:And Mary Elkins.
Cathy:Welcome to season 5 at our 5th year of the Late Boomers podcast.
Merry:We will be bringing you exciting new interviews with guests you won't wanna miss.
Cathy:Come along for our new journey.
Merry:We hope you enjoy Late Boomers.
Cathy:Welcome to late boomers, our podcast guide to creating your 3rd act with style, power, and impact. Hi. I'm Kathy Worthington.
Merry:And I'm Mary Elkins. Join us as we bring you conversations with successful entrepreneurs, entertainers, and people with vision who are making a difference difference in the world.
Robert J Hunt:Everyone has
Cathy:a story, and we'll take you along for the ride on each interview, recounting the journey our guests have taken to get where they are, inspiring you to create your own path to success. Let's get started.
Cathy:Hello. I'm Cathy Worthington. Welcome to the start of season 5 on the Late Boomers podcast. We are pleased to have brought you 209 episodes so far. Today, we will sit down with Robert j Hunt, the account accountability guy.
Merry:And I'm Merry Elkins. Robert coauthored the book, Nobody Cares Until You Do or Until You Do. As a as an executive coach, Robert helps leaders and CEOs reach their goals by helping them remove the things that are blocking them. Welcome to the Late Boomers podcast, Robert.
Robert J Hunt:Thank you so much.
Cathy:Hey, Robert. Tell us about your background and how it led you to where you find yourself today.
Robert J Hunt:Well, long time ago, I I grew up in Southern California. I lived in Orange County most of my life. And then, I moved to Texas in 2010, and I started my life over at 50. Well, just about 50. So I started it really at, in in 2000 yeah.
Robert J Hunt:I moved here in 2010. Anyway, see, that's that's a 50 that's a 60 year old guy moment. Let's see. What year was
Cathy:I'm like,
Robert J Hunt:what? You tell these stories and then you're halfway through and you go, well, it was a Tuesday. No. Was it was it a
Merry:Wednesday? Do I remember
Robert J Hunt:it? You know? And then people are like, it doesn't matter. Just tell the story, dang it. Anyway, so I moved to Texas in 2010 to continue my career in marketing.
Robert J Hunt:And, when I got here, I met a guy who does, peer groups. And as he was telling me what they're like, I'm thinking, so people pay you money to help them and care about them? Oh, I'm in. I'm in. And I quit.
Robert J Hunt:And I quit doing marketing, and I signed up to become a peer group leader. And I did it starting in 2013. So I'm in my 11th year of doing it, and I love it. Executive coaching, CEO peer groups, and leadership development here in DFW.
Cathy:Really good.
Merry:Well, okay. You count your you call yourself the accountability guy. Please tell us what that means and what it means to be accountable in life.
Robert J Hunt:Yeah. I was never an accountable person as a child or even as a young adult and to really struggle to own things and be responsible and take leadership that I should have. And I learned the hard way what it's like to not be accountable and to suffer under the consequences of a lack of accountability. And when I started peer groups, that's basically what a peer group is. We all come together in a meeting, and we all talk about our struggles and our challenges, and we're vulnerable and honest about the things we're struggling with so that we can get help.
Robert J Hunt:I mean, no one wants to be vulnerable and honest. These dudes don't. But the need to have something get fixed and to avoid problems is so pressing that we're willing to go, Okay. I'll let you know. I secretly have no idea what I'm doing as a business owner.
Robert J Hunt:Now that being said, I've got this problem and this problem. Can you help me? So when you have vulnerability, you have the chance to actually fix things. So I've watched that for 11 years as leaders have come into our groups. And those who are really transparent and vulnerable got the help they needed to be their best.
Robert J Hunt:Those who wanted to look good struggled and never really truly were accountable for their journey. So in 2020, I decided I wanted to write a book about this. Really pressed by my client, Salem Thine, who coauthored the book with me. He really encouraged me to write a book about it as this was really my passion. And so together, the 2 of us wrote the book, Nobody Cares Until You Do, which is all about accountability, which sounds like a bummer book.
Robert J Hunt:When you say accountability, it's kind of a harsh topic. But we really
Merry:realize what it means. What does it mean to be accountable for something? What happened to you where you realized that you weren't accountable and that brought this epiphany?
Robert J Hunt:That is a great question. In 2019, my beautiful wife, Kathy, and I, we had our annual planning session that we do as we run this business. And we realized we were not happy with our lives. We were stressing and frustrated and we had $90,000 in debt that did not include the house or the cars. And so, we were under this difficult place in our lives where we just weren't enjoying life.
Robert J Hunt:And I said, I think we need to do something drastic. I think we need to own this problem and stop kicking it down the line and saying, 'Maybe next year things will get better. Maybe next year I'll get some more business.' we need to own it this year. So if for some reason God doesn't bring this opportunity for us to just have huge rapid growth this year, let's sell the house and start over. And neither one of us wanted to do that option.
Robert J Hunt:That was not something, Oh, yes. But I have the kind of wife who believes in me and supports me and says, hey. If that's what you think we need to do, I'm all in. But the whole year, we didn't wanna do that. We just kept trying to find ways to do it and make things happen.
Robert J Hunt:And it's a long story. We outlined it in the book. But, basically, we decided that the only solution and the best solution was to sell our house and and start over. So we did. We put the house in the market.
Robert J Hunt:We sold it. It finally sold in March of 2020 when COVID was shutting down the world. And we moved into little little home rental here. And by April, we had paid off everybody we owed and had 0 debt. And it was amazing, the peace that I had.
Robert J Hunt:When the whole world was freaking out and trying to figure out how to survive, I was like, I don't owe any money. This is awesome. And I just saw the hand of the Lord in my life as he continued to provide. Like, all my clients pay me to meet in person. Well, you couldn't meet in person.
Robert J Hunt:There was no meeting allowed. And so, they kept paying me even though we weren't meeting. And I think that's because I was kind to provide that, but they also appreciated what the group did for them. So, we did Zoom calls, which we quickly learned how to do Zoom.
Cathy:And
Robert J Hunt:we had all these calls and we survived through that. But to me, it was a turning point when I really got to that place where I said, Look, nobody cares if you're broke, fat, miserable in your marriage, unhappy with your kids, unhappy with your life. Nobody cares until you do. And when you do, then you finally gain the power to do something about it.
Merry:Wow. Yeah. I love that.
Cathy:But why would you say people are not accountable? Because I know that's one of your quotes.
Robert J Hunt:I think people think they're accountable, but at best, most people are responsible. So if you're responsible, you show up at work, and you you get a paycheck for that. Right? So you show up. But accountable means you actually care and you pay attention and you think, well, that's not my job, but that could be a trip.
Robert J Hunt:Someone could trip over that. Let me pick that up. Hey. That's that's not my job, but that client sounds really angry. Maybe I could help them.
Robert J Hunt:And where we move beyond doing something which is responsible to doing the thing, and the the thing is you own it. Even though it's not your company, you go, Well, I do work here. I do get a paycheck from here. Why don't I do this and help because I like to stay working here? And so when you get to a place where you start to think beyond doing something to doing the thing, that's when you're being accountable.
Robert J Hunt:And I think most people have got used to just doing the bare minimum in life and then complaining that things aren't the way they want it to be.
Merry:Well, how can you make actually, I have a twofold question for you. How can you make employees more accountable? And how can you make your family more accountable?
Robert J Hunt:Key to the concept of accountability is nobody can hold anyone else accountable. We say that a lot of times and it's a misstatement because I can't make you be accountable. I can ask you the question, hey, you were going to do this. Did you get it done? And you could lie, so you're not really accountable.
Robert J Hunt:You could say you got it done, but it could have done so poorly that it doesn't really meet the need that I'm looking for. So I can't make you be accountable. And we see this in all of our lives with our kids and with our employees. They'll show up and they'll do something and you're like, How could you miss all this? This is horrible.
Robert J Hunt:Why would you not do this? And they're like, I did it. It's fine. Because they did something. They didn't do the thing.
Robert J Hunt:And so what we've got to do is create a world where people want to be accountable. I can't make you accountable, but I can create an environment where we're all being accountable, we're all showing how we're accountable, we're all talking about our accountability, we're being vulnerable and transparent. So if we fail, we figure out why we failed and we don't do it again and we learn from it. But we show our numbers, we show our results, we take ownership of the result we're looking for. And so, if you could do that with your kids, and with your family, with your employees, they will rise up to the occasion and they will own it.
Robert J Hunt:And if they don't, they should not be an employee.
Cathy:Yeah. But it boils down to honesty. It's can you be honest about really what you've accomplished and what you haven't remembered to do. It's being honest. Like, we all need that Yeah.
Cathy:Little honesty training.
Merry:And self aware too.
Robert J Hunt:Well, it does require a level of vulnerability. This is where I saw this in play with the CEO groups that I lead, is that when you come into a meeting, if you don't want to let people know how tight your cash flow is or how messed up your company is or how bad your employees are, you just say, hey, things are good. Things are good. But then when things fall apart and you go bankrupt and nobody knew anything about it, nobody could help you. So if you really it's only because you desire a change.
Robert J Hunt:We say, when the pain of where you are is worse than the pain of where you've got to go, you will be accountable and you will make the change. And for us, $90,000 in debt was miserable. Now someone else here in this podcast might go, jeez. Only $90,000? No big deal.
Robert J Hunt:Well, maybe to them, it
Cathy:doesn't bother them.
Robert J Hunt:But to us, it was a big deal.
Cathy:A lot.
Robert J Hunt:Yeah. And I've never been one to be in debt. I I didn't never like the idea, but bit by bit, I got more and more and more and more until it became huge.
Merry:Mhmm.
Cathy:And what would you say or Did
Robert J Hunt:I catch you off, Kathy?
Cathy:No. No. I just wanted to ask you another question. What would you say are the steps to becoming accountable? Are there is there a path to follow Yes.
Cathy:In your book?
Robert J Hunt:Absolutely. Very first thing to do is to recognize that your actions have consequences. It's in today's world that we can do whatever we want and get away with it. I can say horrible things about you on social media and no one comes over and punches me in the nose. I can jack up my credit and I can decide, You know what?
Robert J Hunt:I don't want to pay my student loans. I think I'll do this. I don't want to pay for my other debt. I think I'll file bankruptcy. And there are laws that allow you to do that.
Robert J Hunt:There's nothing wrong with it, but you got to own the consequences. You can't file bankruptcy and then complain that, Well, I can't get a loan for a house. You file bankruptcy, man. I mean, that's just part of the deal. You're going to have to own the whole journey.
Robert J Hunt:I went through a bankruptcy. I've been through a divorce. I lost everything during those days, but I had to own the journey that came with that. So first thing is to recognize that there's consequences for your actions. And in the book, we outlined the whole structure of becoming aware and then saying nobody cares and how you solve it.
Robert J Hunt:So the becoming aware part is the first half of the book where you have 4 things that hold you back from that that cause you to live life as a victim and hold you back from having the life you want. First one is we blame. If something goes wrong, we blame. Well, it was Kathy's fault. She didn't tell me that.
Robert J Hunt:Okay. If that doesn't work, we make excuses. Oh, I didn't know. This machine never sent me a notification. That's not my fault.
Robert J Hunt:And if that doesn't work, then we say, well, I can't I can't do anything about that. I I don't I don't know how to do that. I can't do that. But what we're really saying is I won't. I can't sell my house and start over.
Robert J Hunt:Yeah. You can. I can't take a job that pays me half of what I used to make at the last job. Yeah. You can.
Robert J Hunt:You don't want to, but you could. You could sell your house and downsize. I'm paying 1 eighth of what I was paying in my last life to live here today. Mhmm. So I can get by.
Robert J Hunt:I have a wonderful you know what? Every night, I go to bed with this beautiful woman in my arms, and life is complete. So, no matter how big my house is or how much money is in my bank account, my bed is still the same size. And that woman in bed with me is all I need. And so, when you look at your life and you say, Oh, I can't do this, or I can't have this, or I can't Yes, you can.
Robert J Hunt:And the way I know you can is because when it's taken away from you, you seem to survive. But nobody wants to do it because it's hard. Yeah. But so is being a victim. Okay.
Robert J Hunt:Back to our journey. So we blame, we make excuses, we say we can't, or the 4th one is we say, let's just see how it goes next year. Let's wait and hope.
Cathy:Put it out.
Robert J Hunt:Wait and hope. Wait and hope never gets better. It just gets worse. You got bad health issues? Don't go to the doctor.
Robert J Hunt:Wait and hope it gets better. No. It gets worse. You got marital problems? Don't talk to your spouse.
Robert J Hunt:Just wait and hope. And then it gets worse and they file divorce. You got bad kids that are unruly, oh, let's just wait and see how it turns out. It gets worse. So everything that you do to make your life miserable as a victim, we all see it all the time.
Robert J Hunt:We do it all the time. But it's not to get that place in your life where you go, wait, wait, wait, wait. Nobody cares. Nobody cares until I do. And then that's the second half of the book.
Robert J Hunt:We could talk about that.
Merry:Well, let's talk about the benefits of being more accountable. I mean, you've given a few, like, having that wonderful wife of yours with you close, and you feel better about yourself. Tell me more. Tell us
Robert J Hunt:more. Accountability is freedom. It's hope. It's joy. When you're not accountable, you're a victim.
Robert J Hunt:Everything happens to you. This bad thing, this thing, everything happens to you. But when you take accountability, which means you own it, the simplest definition of accountability is you own it. And when I own it, I have the power to change it. But if anything happens to me, I'm a victim.
Robert J Hunt:I have no power. Life is miserable. Everyone's just ruining my day and my life. Or you can realize that the world is full of jerks and that bad things happen. But life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you respond to it.
Robert J Hunt:And I've been through all kinds of horrible things in my life. And I'm 61 years old and God has never let me down once. And as hard as life has been, I have a 100% success rate in everything I've ever done because I'm still alive. Was it done perfect? No.
Robert J Hunt:Did I get the result I wanted? No. But, hey, I didn't really have a good plan if if I got the result I wanted. It may be worse. I don't even know.
Robert J Hunt:But you have to get you have to be real that you don't really know what's a good thing for your life. You think this makes sense, but what if not? And so I think those kind of confidence is what is I'm in charge of my life. You're building the confidence to tackle everything that comes your way and actually go and enjoy your life.
Merry:Mhmm. Yep. Love it.
Cathy:That's a good that's a good benefit. How do you think people can perfect a kind of a work and life balance?
Robert J Hunt:Well, you know, that used to be a term we tried to chase early on in my career. There's no such thing as work life balance. The reality is you're always gonna be stealing from one category to give to the other category. You'll never be balanced. And even if you could mathematically figure out what that looks like, it's never going to be balanced.
Robert J Hunt:So we just gave up on that idea of work life balance and we said, well, why don't we just be work life integration? Why don't we just bring them all together in one world? Which is really, you live in the world, some of it's work, some of it's home, and even at home it's work. Doing chores, mowing the yard, raising the kids, all that stuff is work. You never actually stop working.
Robert J Hunt:You just take it from the office to your house. And so, there's no balance, but you could be one person everywhere. If you're just one person everywhere, I can get a call from my work late at night and it doesn't bother me. I just go, Yeah, that's fine. I'll meet you on Tuesday.
Robert J Hunt:And I go back to watching TV with the family. Or I can get a call from my beautiful wife in the middle of the day and they just go, Hold on, it's Kathy. And I could talk to her for a couple of minutes and not be, What? Why are you calling me? Because you don't need to do that because I'm in one world.
Robert J Hunt:Let's be one person everywhere. So we did that for the longest time. I taught my clients how to do that, and we did that, but it never dealt with the key issue, which is overload. Because it's not like
Merry:I asked about that.
Robert J Hunt:Yeah. It's not like, okay, I'm not spending enough time with the kids or not time at work. It's that when I'm there, I'm doing it wrong. I'm living life in overload. Oh, it was.
Robert J Hunt:I was living life in overload. And when you're in overload, you make really bad decisions. And so, we've just got to start changing the way we live life to create room for the unexpected in our life. Margin does that. Margin is the difference between your load and your limit.
Robert J Hunt:That's the margin. That's what you got left over. So if you book your calendar, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, that's your fault. You made that choice. And people say, Oh, no, I have to beat that meeting.
Robert J Hunt:No, you don't. You don't. You're saying I can't, but you really mean I won't. Right? We're back to that statement again.
Robert J Hunt:So if you're going to be accountable, you decide, I'm not going to that meeting. There's no agenda. Why am I being involved in that? I shouldn't be at that meeting. And you make room in your world so that when an employee comes by and says, Hey, I need to talk.
Robert J Hunt:I got an offer from a competitor and I'm thinking about taking it. You have time to talk with them. And when someone comes by and says, Hey, my wife's got cancer and I need to take a couple days off, you have time to talk with them. And so we make room in our world, in our time, our money, our health, and our emotion. And if we create 4 buckets and we monitor these by leaving room for the unexpected, when the dishwasher leaks all over the house and floods it, I don't have to freak out because I have margin in my finances.
Robert J Hunt:And when I pull my back trying to lift up something heavy in the backyard, and it doesn't ruin me health wise because I've lived such a healthy life to start with that it may be out for a day, but I'm right back to it the next day. The older I get, anytime I bump into something, I go, well, that's going to take a month before that goes away. It just seems like it's stateless so much longer than
Cathy:it needs to. Me too.
Merry:Yeah. That's true.
Robert J Hunt:So we've got to create some margin in our bodies, in our souls, in our minds, in our health because the world's constantly falling apart around us. And all three of those things eat our emotional bucket. And so I never really know how much margin I have in my emotions until I realize I'm out of margin and I scream at someone for no reason and lose my mind. Well, then I realized, okay. I guess I didn't have much margin in my emotions.
Robert J Hunt:So I have taught my clients to create margin so they can live the life they really want.
Cathy:And how do you tell them to do that?
Merry:Create margin. Yeah.
Robert J Hunt:We practice it. Every meeting we get together, we score our margin, and we measure where we're not doing well. And then, we'll say, okay. So, my time is busy, but I'm okay. Finances, that's not really great.
Robert J Hunt:But health's pretty good. I've been going to bed at a decent hour. I'm cutting back on the drinking. I'm going to eating healthier and getting to the gym a couple of times. And I feel like my emotions are pretty good today.
Robert J Hunt:I spent some time with the Lord before I got off the couch in the morning. I feel like I'm grounded. My wife loves me. I'm good. So let's go and address the finance side.
Robert J Hunt:Let's go look at that. Why are your finances out of whack? Well, I got all these things cut. Well, let's work on that. So when you declare to yourself again, this is where honesty comes in.
Robert J Hunt:You'd be honest with yourself and say,
Cathy:This
Robert J Hunt:is not what I want. Well, then let's fix it. But what other people again, they'll see a problem, they'll blame something, they'll make excuses about it. They say, I can't do anything about it, but there's always something you can do. Take it from a guy who sold his house and started over.
Robert J Hunt:There is always something you can do. But we have to be proactive in that effort.
Merry:Yeah. I hear
Robert J Hunt:you.
Cathy:Yeah. Well, to flip the switch a little bit, what would you say are the top five traits of great CEOs?
Robert J Hunt:Oh, I love that question. To me, as I've watched the leaders in our groups be really good leaders, I found that there's 5 things they do. They're always learning. If you own your own business and you're not constantly learning, you are falling behind. Because every year, there's new tax laws, there's new regulations, there's new codes, there's new threats.
Robert J Hunt:The cybersecurity world is daily invading your world, trying to steal your data and shut down your company. You have to know everything as a leader of your organization. It's daunting. And so, if you're not constantly investing and learning and growing, you're falling behind. So great CEOs and business owners are always learning.
Robert J Hunt:The second thing they do is they make decisions. They may not always make the right decision, but they make a decision. Because sometimes it's hard out there to make a decision and with all things going on, but we need someone who will do that, who will own it and make that decision. And then the third thing is then they own it. So if you make a decision, you stand behind your decision.
Robert J Hunt:And if you screwed up and you made a bad decision, all right, own the consequences and fix it from there. But you got to be the one making decisions because we got to get going, we got to move ahead. So you're always learning, you're always making decisions, you own it, and then they pour into others. We're not wanting to be the hardest worker in the company. Your company is not worth anything if you don't have a team that is willing to take over and do all the work for you.
Robert J Hunt:Because the day you decide you want to quit and sell the business or you, God forbid, you get sick and you can't work anymore, the whole company falls apart. So all these years of working to build a business, it's worthless. Who's going to buy your business when everything had to go through you and you were the smartest person in the company, the best salesperson, the best at whatever? Your company's not worth anything. So if you're really going to be leading, you have to be creating teams and hiring good people and empower them to get the work done without you.
Robert J Hunt:You should be the one who does nothing except mentor, coach, and encourage, and dream of new opportunities. And the last thing that CEOs do is they drive results because you want to get the numbers done, you want to keep the task, you want to hit your goals, but you don't want to do the work. Again, you're empowering the team to lead well, and so you drive the results, but you drive it through them. You coach, mentor, care for them, look out for them, bring in new people, challenge them. That's the role of a very good leader.
Robert J Hunt:And then, you have the room to dream and to create a new vision and to go out and meet with people who could someday buy your company and start courting them and learning about trends in the market that you can take advantage of. When you're so busy doing so much, you never have time to be creative anymore.
Merry:That's true. That's true.
Cathy:She was, Robert, you make it sound so you make it sound so easy. Gosh.
Robert J Hunt:Well, you're gonna be busy doing something. Right?
Merry:Easy. Yeah. Exactly. But you know what? Part of I think a lot of that boils down to creating a space where people love what they do.
Robert J Hunt:Yeah. And then Which is your your freedom to do that. It's your company, you create the world you live in. If you're not happy with your company, that's your fault. No excuses, own it.
Robert J Hunt:Did you hire bad people? Yes. Then they shouldn't be there. Did you give them a lack of clarity of what it is to do their job? That's on you.
Robert J Hunt:Did you build a culture where everyone yells and is mean to each other? That's on you. It is your baby. And so, as long as we are going to own this thing, we should own it because when you own it, you can change it. And that's what I want to encourage people to see.
Robert J Hunt:Accountability is not a bad thing. It's freedom. It's power. It's hope. Because when you own it, you can change it.
Merry:That resounds very deeply. I'm gonna change the topic a bit because I'd like to know about your thoughts on defining purpose in life. How do you do it? Most people can't figure it out.
Robert J Hunt:Well, I'll start with what I've found is that most people never think about it. They just are head down. I gotta make a buck. I got to take care of my chores. I got to do what I got to do.
Robert J Hunt:They don't think they have the luxury of dreaming or creating a purpose for their life. But when you find your purpose, it is powerful. It is the drive that allows you to be disciplined and to chase your dreams with focus. When you are trying to make a good decision between 2 really good things, how do you know which one to choose from? They're both really good.
Robert J Hunt:Well, if this one allows me to pursue my purpose and this one doesn't, I could choose this one. But until I know my purpose, I can't make a decision. So you lack a clarity of how to make decisions, how to spend your time and money because there's a lack of clarity there. The way that you create your purpose is to look at your life, and I take my clients through this. I walk them through a half day session on defining and living out their personal purpose.
Robert J Hunt:You look at your life, all the things you've gone through, then you look at your strengths, you look at your values. And the combination of all those things are going to it's going to jump right out in front of you. I grew up in a really poor family in Fullerton, California, and my dad was a very angry, abusive man who beat my mom and us kids. And when I grew up, I thought, Well, I don't know how to be a man, but I know I don't want to be him. And so, I had to create this whole journey on my own and there was a lot of failures in that.
Robert J Hunt:But my purpose always was to care for people because I never felt safe And I wanted to create a world where people were cared for and you fought for the underdog, which is just like my son, James. He's just like that. He's such a good man. I wanted to be there for other people and that's always been my quest. When I was able to articulate my purpose, it came clear as to why I'm that way.
Robert J Hunt:My purpose in life is to help people remove the obstacles that keep them from being their best because people are prisoners to their fears and their hang ups and their journey. We all walk around with a big giant bag of crap over our shoulders of all the hard things we've gone through, our childhood, our our bad jobs, our bad health issues. All that stuff's in a big bag. We take it to work everywhere we go. And I need to show people how to dump it out and lighten the bag so that you can get that weight off your shoulder.
Robert J Hunt:But then when you also get that gone, you have clarity and you can think and make decisions and dream. And so that's the purpose of why I want
Cathy:people to do
Robert J Hunt:the purpose.
Merry:Can you give us one hint as to how to dump it out?
Robert J Hunt:Talking with someone you trust. That's why people hire me as an executive coach, but it doesn't have to be someone you pay. If you have a good friend who will not commiserate with you and not allow you to be self deprecating I think it's a word. Yeah. Not to tear yourself up, but to go, I get it.
Robert J Hunt:I get it. I understand it. Now what? And if you can allow them to dump out those things, we just need a safe place to be real and say, I was hurt. Or, Hey, I have fears.
Robert J Hunt:Or, I don't like this. And then that friend should encourage you to seek along the lines of your purpose in life. Well, what do you want to do about it? And then you have to lighten the load if you're going to pick up another load. I have a beautiful wife and 2 children.
Robert J Hunt:And even though my children are adults, I still care for them, look out for them, pray for them, fight for them. That's a burden I will carry till I'm dead. So I picked up the load of a wife and 2 kids many years ago. So I had to dump down the other load, which was the anger of my father and the disappointment in my life and the fear and the hang ups. There was not enough I wasn't strong enough to carry 2 bags of crap.
Robert J Hunt:I could only have 1.
Cathy:And
Robert J Hunt:so I just purposely practiced taking that to the Lord and saying, I just need to get rid of this. And then bit by bit, I had people in my life who would listen to me and say, hey, man. I love you, but that sounds like you're being a whiny baby. And I needed to hear that from people who I respected and cared about because I was. I was being a whiny baby, and everyone wasn't helping.
Cathy:Tell us a little bit more about your adult children and the book you're reading that you mentioned before we came on the air.
Robert J Hunt:Oh, yes. Raising Adult Children by Jim Burns, I think, is who writes it. And my kids are super smart and they're confident adults. And now, they're telling me how to vote and why I'm choosing wrong and all this good stuff. And it's irritating.
Robert J Hunt:I went from being in total control and telling them how to live their lives to being completely out of control in that realm. But I have two choices. I either get alienated by them and we have no relationship or I need to adjust. And I have learned that I need to adjust a lot because I make decisions normally in fear. Well, if I don't make you get out of your room more often and go talk to people, you'll be this weirdo guy who can't get a job, who sits in his room and watches his computer all day.
Robert J Hunt:Therefore, get out of the house and do something. Well, maybe he won't. Maybe he'll be a computer programmer. Maybe he'll be a guy who acclimates just fine. And when I was a kid, I watched a ton of TV.
Robert J Hunt:I had a TV in my room, and I spent a lot of hours watching TV. And then I got out in the real world and I figured, I gotta work. I gotta show up. And so I wasn't able to watch TV like I wanted to. So I I manned up and I got it done.
Robert J Hunt:But I'm making decisions out of fear, and I need to make decisions out of love. And I love my kids and they're awesome. And so I'm slowly bit by bit moving to a role of fractional advisor upon request. And the book has a tagline that says, shut your trap and put out the welcome mat. And I think that's a great way of saying it.
Robert J Hunt:You are welcome in my home. You're welcome in my world, and I need to just listen and remind them I love them. We'll celebrate what we have in common, and we'll just, listen respectfully to everything else.
Cathy:I get it because I've got a 30 year old. Yeah. I really relate to that. Yeah. But, Robert, what would you like our audience to have today as a takeaway?
Robert J Hunt:I would love for you to have peace in your life. And I think the way you get peace in your life is because you own it. When you're a victim, you're miserable. So the way that you have peace in your life is through accountability. So you don't have to buy my book.
Robert J Hunt:You can go to my website for free, and you could download the satisfaction assessment or take it online and go and declare to yourself where you're not satisfied and then do something about it. You can watch all the videos. You can even email me and I'll just talk to you. But I really want to help people to not be miserable in their lives and to have real peace, but that's something you have to own. And so I'd like for them to decide that they're going to at least go take the satisfaction assessment.
Robert J Hunt:Go to nobodycaresbook.com. And you can take the satisfaction assessment there for free. We don't ask for your information. We just want to be a blessing to you. If you want to buy the book, great.
Robert J Hunt:If not, you can watch the videos and get some flavor for it. But, it starts with that awareness of where you're not digging your life and what are you willing to do about it. That would be my hope. And then, for your show, I created a domain called nobodycarespod.com. And if people will go to that website and fill out the form, I'll mail a copy of my book.
Robert J Hunt:If they'll read it and they really wanna change and apply it to their lives, I will mail a copy of the book, Nobody Cares, to the first two people who fill out that contact form on nobody cares pod.com. Oh, and use the code word what did I have for us? I don't know the code word. It's really important, though.
Cathy:Oh, it's like the code to get it mailed? I I
Robert J Hunt:Oh, late boomers. That's the code word. Oh my gosh.
Cathy:Late bloomers. That one. We like that code word. We love that. Yeah.
Robert J Hunt:Code word late boomers. Yeah.
Cathy:I'm ready.
Robert J Hunt:Mail you a copy right away.
Cathy:I'd love to read it.
Merry:And pass it around.
Cathy:You're not allowed to be the first one on there logging on, Mary. He's only gonna get he's only gonna get 2. You you're not allowed to go on there. You gotta buy the book.
Robert J Hunt:Yeah. I'll I'll forward the, I'll forward the copy of the email from the people who fill that out so you can connect with your listeners. But Oh, good. I I really thought it'd be a great way for you to track who's listening to your show and get to know them better.
Merry:Yeah. And they'll love you. Thank you.
Cathy:Yeah. They will.
Robert J Hunt:Thank you. It's a passion. Yeah. It's a passion of mine. I'm thankful for the opportunity.
Merry:I can see that. Must be very good at it. Yeah. Thank you. Our guest today on late boomers has been Robert j Hunt, coauthor of Nobody Cares Until You Do, executive coach for CEOs and business leaders.
Merry:You can visit his website, refdallas.com. And, also, you can email Robert. Again, it's nobody cares book dot com. Yep. And and tell them again how to get the book.
Merry:Great.
Robert J Hunt:So for the the free one that I'm giving for 2 people is nobody cares pod, like podcast, pod.com.
Merry:That's perfect. And you can do that, and then you can get clarity and support for making decisions for your company, for yourself, for your family, and for your life. Thank you, Robert.
Cathy:And thank you
Robert J Hunt:so much for letting me be on your show.
Cathy:You're well most welcome always. We wanna thank our listeners for subscribing to our podcast and checking us out on YouTube and recommending us to your friends. We appreciate you. We'd love to have you give us a 5 star review, and we wanna hear about your experience with late boomers and what gets you inspired. We are on Instagram at I am Cathy Worthington and at I am Mary Elkins and at late boomers.
Cathy:Thank you for listening, and thanks again, Robert.
Robert J Hunt:My
Cathy:pleasure.
Cathy:Thank you for joining us on Late Boomers, The podcast that is your guide to creating a 3rd act with style, power, and impact. Please visit our website and get in touch with us at lateboomers.biz. If you would like to listen to or download other episodes of late boomers, go to ewnpodcastnetwork.com.
Merry:This podcast is also available on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and most other major podcast sites. We hope you make use of the wisdom you've gained here and that you enjoy a successful third act with your own style, power, and impact.