112. [Re-release] Expert Advice For Holding Yourself Accountable On Your Solo Journey with Anne Bachrach

We speak with a lot of solopreneurs every week, and have started to see a pattern with some of the most successful ones: they have accountability partners or accountability groups.

Because this has come up so much recently, we want to pull an episode from the vault that we recorded over a year ago, fittingly called: Expert Advice For Holding Yourself Accountable On Your Solo Journey.

In this episode we had on The Accountability Pit-Bull,”  Anne Bachrach, who says that having someone to answer to on a regular basis about your progress is a powerful motivator. 

She believes that personal accountability is the single most powerful tool to help professionals improve their businesses and overall quality of life. 

We had her on to discuss things like:

• What an accountability coach is and why it's important to work with one
• What to look for in an accountability coach
• The type of person in a solopreneur’s life that does not make for a good accountability partner
• Common things solopreneurs do that unknowingly sabotage their careers
• The types of systems that can be put in place to make solopreneurs personally accountable in achieving their goals
• Patterns with high achievers
• The most important thing solopreneurs can do to achieve greater success and improve their personal accountability

Plus so much more. So be sure to tune in!

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Carly Ries: 00:00

We speak with a lot of solopreneurs every week and have started to see a pattern with some of the most successful ones. They have accountability partners, accountability groups, or accountability coaches. Because this has come up so much recently, we wanna pull an episode from the vault that we've recorded over a year ago, fittingly called expert advice for holding yourself accountable on your solo journey. In this episode, we head on the accountability pitbull and back rack who says that having someone to answer to on a regular basis about your progress is a powerful motivator. She believes that personal accountability is the single most important tool to help professionals improve their businesses and overall quality of life.

Carly Ries: 00:41

We had her on to discuss things like what an accountability coach is and why it's important to work with 1, what to look for in an accountability coach, the type of person in a solopreneur's life that does not make for a good accountability partner, common things solopreneurs do that unknowingly sabotage their careers, the types of systems that can be put in place to make solopreneurs personally accountable to achieve their own goals, patterns, way of high achievers, and then the most important thing solopreneurs can do to achieve greater success and improve their personal accountability. That's a lot but we talk about so much more so be sure to tune in.

Carly Ries: 01:17

You are listening to The Aspiring Solopreneur, the podcast for those just taking the bold step or even just thinking about taking that step into the world of solo entrepreneurship.

Carly Ries: 01:27

My name is Carly Ries, and my co host Joe Rando and I are your guides to navigating this crazy, but awesome journey as a company of 1. We take pride in being part of Lifestarr, a digital hub dedicated to all aspects of solopreneurship that has empowered and educated countless solopreneurs looking to build a business that resonates with their life's ambitions. We help people work to live, not live to work. And if you're looking for a get rich quick scheme, this is not the show for you. So if you're eager to gain valuable insights from industry experts on running a business the right way the first time around, or want to learn from the missteps of solopreneurs who've paved the way before you, then stick around.

Carly Ries: 02:07

We've got your back because flying solo in business doesn't mean you're alone. Okay. So before we jump into this episode, I just have to share this new free offer we have called the SoloSuite Starter. Being a solopreneur is awesome, but it's not easy. It's hard to get noticed, and most business advice is for bigger companies, and you're all alone until now. LifeStar's solo suite gives you free education, community, and tools to build a thriving one person business. So if you're lacking direction, having a hard time generating leads, having trouble keeping up with everything you have to do, or even if you're just lonely running a company of 1.

Carly Ries: 02:45

Be sure to check out SoloSuite Starter at Lifestarr.com and click on products and pricing at the top menu. It's the first one in the drop down. Again, it's totally free, so check it out at Lifestarr, with 2 r's.com. Click on products and pricing, and it's the first one in the menu. Hope to see you there.

Carly Ries: 03:02

Anne, we are so excited to have you on the show, and welcome.

Anne Bachrach: 03:05

I am so excited to be here.

Carly Ries: 03:08

Anne, let's just start with the basics. What is an accountability coach and what are the benefits of working with 1?

Anne Bachrach: 03:14

Well, let me start by asking you a question. Wouldn't it be great if our good intentions work the way we think they should?

Carly Ries: 03:22

Oh, so great. Tell us more.

Anne Bachrach: 03:26

You know, not even enthusiasm guarantees positive results. There's obviously often a wide gap between our intentions and our actions. Poor follow through, in other words, consciously deciding to do something then, of course, not doing it is a fact of life for many of us. You know, we fail to take action necessary to be in alignment with our good intentions and this can be very frustrating as you can imagine. Poor follow through takes a toll really on virtually every aspect of our life.

Anne Bachrach: 03:59

It not only threatens our health, but it prevents us from achieving personal, financial, and business goals that are really well within our reach. Good intentions don't magically lead to good results but you know what? They're a start. It's just unfortunately, they're just not enough and that's just the truth. So, what I think an accountability coach really is or should do is there they specialize in helping to create even better work life balance because I believe in a balanced life.

Anne Bachrach: 04:29

Our life should not be one-sided. I think that, you know, they've road tested all the business success systems that help you to achieve your goals. They help you get crystal clear on your professional and personal goals, and I'm talking long term and short term, and they keep you consistently focused on your highest payoff activities necessary to achieve your goals so you can ultimately enjoy having your ideal business and ideal life. Now, let me say a couple of things here what they should not be doing. So, in my opinion, again, accountability coach is really not a therapist.

Anne Bachrach: 05:09

You know, they're not a nutrition expert or a fitness trainer. They're really a process expert guiding your journey and coaching you to your destination with the end results accomplished by you. Now, of course, when appropriate, an accountability coach would recommend other professionals or specialists that could assist you in things like nutrition or fitness, things like that. The bottom line is that an accountability coach holds you accountable to follow through with those good intentions.

Carly Ries: 05:43

I love that one. And you were just talking about what maybe wouldn't make for a good account accountability coach. So what specifically should people look for if they wanna work with 1?

Anne Bachrach: 05:55

I believe that it's important to work with a coach that has business experience. You know, they walk their talk in other words. They've achieved a certain level of success by implementing what they actually teach. I don't think in my opinion that you can get what you need from someone who's been to school to teach them how to be a coach.

Anne Bachrach: 06:18

Your accountability coach, in my opinion, again, should really have real life and real world experiences to be able to be in the position to help you reach your next level of success. They should have some kind of interview process to see if really it's a good fit to work together or not. So, for example, when I talk to people and initially, they have to have a big enough gap from where they are today to ultimately where they want to go for me to really be able to work with them, and I found that people who don't have big enough goals, you know, unfortunately, typically just won't do and don't do the work required that they say they want to do in order to achieve a a certain goal.

Joe Rando: 07:03

Interesting. I just wanna explore that a little bit. So you're saying that people that don't have lofty enough goals tend not to be motivated enough to actually achieve any goals.

Anne Bachrach: 07:14

I'm not saying they don't achieve any goals, but they're going to achieve goals at a slower pace because they're not motivated enough. So, unfortunately, I found that working with a lot of people over the 20 plus, 26 plus years I've been doing this that if the gap isn't big enough, most people even though they don't like where they're at, they'll learn to be comfortable enough where they're at and grow at a much slower pace because they're just not going to do the work required. And, unfortunately, I've just found that out over time through trial and error that I realized that they really had to have a big gap between, hey, here's where I am at, and here's where I ultimately wanna be. And usually, that's a bigger motivator than just, hey, if I'm just here and I just wanna go, you know, just a small step further, it's it doesn't really happen very fast. Also, thinking about that when I work with people that are really starting to hit their ideal business area and their ideal life and they might have a few more clients that they could add to really hit the absolute target that they were shooting for, they actually get complacent too because it's like, hey, I'm already here at this level.

Anne Bachrach: 08:30

Do I really wanna go any higher? Is it really that important?

Joe Rando: 08:35

Could it also be fear at that point? That people are afraid of too much success? Fear of success?

Anne Bachrach: 08:43

Certainly, people do have a fear of success. They do, believe it or not. it's crazy, but that's sometimes why they procrastinate, because a fear of success can cause people to procrastinate.

Joe Rando: 08:59

I thought it was Wordle.

Carly Ries: 09:03

Oh, gosh. Anne, let me just take it back for a second because I feel like some people might be listening to this and be like, well, do I need an accountability coach? Why can't I just have an accountability partner? For example, my husband and I, the number of times we've tried to hold ourselves accountable to train for a marathon would blow your mind. I have never run a marathon and neither has he.

Carly Ries: 09:26

So as much as we wanna be accountability partners, it doesn't always work for certain things. Who doesn't make a good coach?

Anne Bachrach: 09:35

I would say, you know, believe it or not, and this is unfortunate, but sometimes people unfortunately hold you back, and those people can be family, friends, or even peers. Some people just unintentionally wanna hold others back because they want you to stay with them at their level. They don't want you to grow and they don't want you to be even more successful for whatever crazy reasons they might have and and usually it's just it is unintentionally or unconsciously they do that. So, for example, Ryan came to me because he was tired of being at his current level of success. He really did want more.

Anne Bachrach: 10:16

He had a big gap. So when he went through my process for creating his long range goals and then chunking them down into annual goals, etcetera, he set some pretty lofty what I call stretch goals which, I believe in because I believe stretch goals typically get you to accomplish even more than you thought was possible. And even if you don't hit the stretch goal, you would have hit something higher than what you view as realistic. So being excited about the process, he shared his goals with the people around him. His friends and peers told him he was crazy.

Anne Bachrach: 10:53

He would never in a 1000000 years achieve those goals that he set. They were not supportive in any way and made him feel very, you know, unsupported and just not very nice about the whole thing that he was sharing with them that he was so excited about. Well, luckily, Ryan didn't change his stretch goals, and at the end of the year, he had exceeded every single stretch goal but one which he hit on the money. You know what? He I know.

Anne Bachrach: 11:22

He even shocked himself. He told me he says, I can't believe, even during the path, I'm so far ahead of my goals. This is amazing, but you know what? He did the work.

Anne Bachrach: 11:31

He got focused. He did what he knew he needed to do to achieve his goals, and the same can happen for anyone who is listening who is just committed to the achievement of your goals. So, again, sometimes accountability partners, you know, you have to be very choosy, and you don't want someone in your life that's really holding you back. I had a lady friend of mine talking about running a marathon. I played tennis with her, and she wanted to run a marathon.

Anne Bachrach: 12:01

Actually, it was a triathlon. And her husband kept telling her she couldn't do it and holding her back, and she felt terrible. I ended up getting, triathletes who had won the Hawaii Ironman signature for her on I forget what it was, a book or something I had and gave it to her, and I said, don't you give up. Don't let anybody hold you back.

Carly Ries: 12:23

Wow. That is so amazing. I love both of those stories, and I know the Ryan story. Like, he had the right mindset. He had the right tools in his pocket.

Carly Ries: 12:31

It sounds like he had the lofty goals. But we're also talking about how what things what people do unknowingly that could throw them off. So what are some common things you see solopreneurs do that unknowingly sabotage their own careers?

Anne Bachrach: 12:45

Well, it's really trying to do everything, you know, themselves and that's in my opinion just not sustainable. In order to grow and reach your next level of success and I think we all have a next level, we need some kind of support. Now, that being said, the support can be leveraging your adult children or I've had somebody, he was he was I had a gentleman who was doing some administrative work and I said, well, aren't your kids like 1213? And he said, yeah and I said, well, can't they do some of this to help you out? And he's like, yeah.

Anne Bachrach: 13:21

You know, they're at home and you know, they can do some of this stuff to help me out. So, he actually got his kids to do some of kind of admin work, research that he was doing to help him out. It could be just finding an intern. You You know, a lot of times you can get an intern for no money. Those are nice ways to be able to get additional help, and there's kids in the neighborhood sometimes that want jobs.

Anne Bachrach: 13:44

So, paying them, you know, a few bucks to help you out with things can do that. A spouse can even help you, of course, you can always hire a virtual assistant whether that's part time or full time.

Carly Ries: 13:57

Absolutely. Yep. Definitely agree with that. And actually I guess I'm just fixated on Ryan's story right now. I love that he had such lofty goals and exceeded them.

Carly Ries: 14:05

So are there any systems that could be put in place to help solopreneur stay personally accountable for achieving their goals like Brian did?

Anne Bachrach: 14:14

Yeah. And and I really believe there's a couple really super simple things that you can do that really help make a huge difference. The first one is really tracking your activities against your goal. So, hey, here's my goal. So what are all the activities I need to do that are gonna help me be on the path to achieving those goals and know every single week what those activities are and then making sure you have sufficient time in your calendar to achieve those goals.

Anne Bachrach: 14:47

These two resources, time blocking your calendar and tracking your activity consistently go hand in hand and really are a powerful tool that when you consistently use them can really help propel you forward. The other thing is, I think time management obviously is super important. I have an audio that I created that's helping, like, its focus your high on your highest payoff activities and achieve your goals learning effective calendaring and time management. And if people wanna get that, they can just go to accountability coach.com forward slash landing. I've got other tools like on time management, like a time log.

Anne Bachrach: 15:29

I have created so many simple resources. The other thing that they could download easily is I just updated and created a virtual accountability system or sorry. It's actually a virtual accountability success tips for maximum results guidebook. So in my guidebook, I actually share virtual accountability options that people can consider and of course a lot more. So it really can help you take those good intentions and turn them into reality for you.

Anne Bachrach: 16:01

So if they wanna download that, they could go to, it's a bitly. I created a short little, bit.ly code for it. So it's bit.ly/accountabilityguidebook.

Carly Ries: 16:16

Awesome. And all of these will be in the show notes for listeners that, don't have a notepad or their phone with them right now. Cool. And in terms of these processes, do you see any patterns with high achievers, whether it be personalities or habits or anything like that?

Anne Bachrach: 16:32

Yeah. You know, it's interesting you asked that. I believe that all successful business owners are comfortable with being uncomfortable all the time. That's how they got to be successful, and everybody can do the same. You just have to get a little bit outside your comfort zone at least initially and learn to apply some new things that will help you take you to the next level.

Anne Bachrach: 17:00

And so you learn to be comfortable with being a little bit uncomfortable, and that will propel you forward to being successful. Now, you know, a lot of people go, oh, you know, oh my gosh. You know, nothing really bad is gonna happen. So many people think, oh, my gosh, if I get outside my comfort zone, you know, what's gonna really happen? I don't really know.

Anne Bachrach: 17:24

I'm scared of what could happen, you know, fear of the unknown And the reality is as I tell my clients, you know, ask yourself, okay. When you do this, what's the worst thing that could happen? Because I think people are are just afraid of the unknown. Mostly, that's what stops them. And so it's like, well, what's the worst thing that could happen? we talk about that and it's really not terrible things. Nothing really bad is gonna happen to you and then and then flip that and then say, well, what's the best thing that could happen when you do this? And, it's like, well, you know, all these good things can happen. So, you know, the reality is is when people get outside of that comfort zone area and apply some things that they might be a little afraid to because they have that back of that, you know, back of your head little voice going, don't do that. This is gonna happen.

Anne Bachrach: 18:18

This is gonna happen. And most of the time none of those things happen. They learn to realize that hey, okay. I did that. It didn't kill me.

Anne Bachrach: 18:28

It didn't hurt so bad. Nothing really bad happened. So I can do that again next time when I'm a little bit uncomfortable or a little bit afraid. And high achievers also really squeeze every ounce of productivity out of their days by time blocking their calendar, And then, of course, the hardest part is honoring what's on your calendar.

Carly Ries: 18:50

Oh, yes. I think we've all fallen victim to that from time to time. And, Anne, it's so funny. I feel like you were, speaking to me directly about the the fear and, like, what could actually happen. I used to have a sign above my bed that said life begins at the end of your comfort zone because I just needed, like, a daily reminder of just push a little bit more, push it a little bit more. it's so true. They just kinda have to get past that. But you are so well versed in accountability. You're so knowledgeable on all of this. So I have to ask you a big question, put you in the hot seat.

Carly Ries: 19:24

If you had one thing that you want a person who's flying solo in business to take away today, what would it be?

Anne Bachrach: 19:31

Carly and Joe, I really have 2, and it's gonna be really the 2 things that I mentioned before. It's gonna be track your activity. Know your key performance indicators. Track every week what are what are your highest payoff activities. What are your revenue generation goals, what are the activities that you need to do in order to get to your next level. it doesn't have to be big things. These are just little things. and then also time block your calendar really get good with time management. There is so much more we can do and we all should be looking to improve with our time management. You know, unfortunately, we can't invest our time and get any back.

Anne Bachrach: 20:12

So, every second of every day, we're spending our time doing something. Is that activity moving you forward or is it keeping you where you're at? And so it's really those 2 things in combination that are really simple that can really make a huge difference and have a big big impact on people flying solo that can really help them make some significant progress. And the other thing that I I think is important is also to really, you know, have a solid business success plan, and I don't mean it's just all business because I think, you know, again, I believe in work life balance, but I call it a success plan and really getting crystal clear on what that is and executing on that because that helps you again with what are the activities you need to be tracking and time blocking in your calendar. And if people don't have this crystal clear game plan and success plan, I've got a master class that I did, this year, of course, to help with planning, and you can put the link in the show notes if people wanna check that out.

Carly Ries: 21:21

Great. Well, and on that note, I know you mentioned a bunch of other resources earlier. Do you have any others that you'd wanna share, Or did that cover it?

Anne Bachrach: 21:29

Well, you know, I have over 26 plus years I've been doing this, every time somebody had a problem with getting something done, I created I think it was an Excel spreadsheet or a guidebook or I did something And so I've created so so many resources over the years that are complementary. And in addition to the guidebook that I talked about, the virtual accountability success tips for maximum results, they can actually go to accountabilitycoach.com and go for my free silver membership. Again, it's free silver membership, and there are tons of complimentary resources there that can help them for sure. And if you wanna get a jump start on things, like I said, you know, if you don't have your business plan done, you know, get that done.

Anne Bachrach: 22:16

And then I've also got a program called the 30 days on the path to success that really helps you get, again, crystal clear on helping you with time management and laying out your tracking.

Carly Ries: 22:28

And it's so true. Your website, I was trying to brainstorm which types of questions I wanted to ask you today, and I was like, oh, I'll just look go to her website, try to figure it out. And I was like, I could interview her for the next year, and I wouldn't be able to ask all the questions, because there's just so much stuff there. So we'll include all the links in the show notes to all of that. And, actually, we're on our last question.

Carly Ries: 22:48

It's something we ask all of our experts, and that is, what is your favorite quote about success?

Anne Bachrach: 22:54

Well, so I'm a quote fanatic, I don't know that you know that about me, but I am a quote fanatic. One of my very favorites is by Andrew Carnegie. He said, you are what you think, So think big, believe big, act big, work big, give big, forgive big, laugh big, love big, and live big, and I added expect big because I think you should expect what you want. Expect what you want in life, expect what you want in business, and you can make that happen.

Carly Ries: 23:32

Gosh. And do you hope every morning, like, listening to the Rocky soundtrack or something? Because I know I just wanna go outside and run up my stairs a few times after talking to you.

Joe Rando: 23:42

You know, Carly, I wanna go off script here for a minute because we ask all of our solopreneurs what song they use to get pumped up, to get motivated. And we don't usually ask our experts that, but I'm going to ask you, what is your go to music for seizing the day?

Anne Bachrach: 23:59

You know, that's a good question. I have a lot of them actually. One of my favorites has been 24 karat gold. I like that song. Another one is Diddy.

Anne Bachrach: 24:09

So I'm a kind of a r & b hip hop person. So, those kind of songs get me rocking and rolling. Love it.

Carly Ries: 24:21

Love it. I know I have so many motivational songs playing in my head right now. Thanks to you. So, thank you for that.

Carly Ries: 24:28

And, Anne, we talked about your website. What is your website, where can people find you? If you have any social channels, what are those? We can include those in the show notes as well.

Anne Bachrach: 24:37

Sure. people can certainly contact me at [e-mail] My website is accountabilitycoach.com Pretty simple. And if you want business success information, resources, tips, and tools, I do a blog that's at accountabilitycoach.com/blog.

Anne Bachrach: 24:56

Again, I have tons and tons of resources that are all free on my website that people can totally take advantage of to help them reach their next level of success. And I'm hoping that they all check them out and, you know, use the ones that are gonna be the most helpful to them.

Carly Ries: 25:13

Great. Well, thank you. And as predicted predicted, this has been such a great episode. We cannot thank you enough for coming on the show. And listeners, there you have it.

Carly Ries: 25:23

If you like what you hear, be sure to visit lifestarr.com/podcast where you can hear this episode and others, or you can find us anywhere you subscribe. See you next time. You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a one person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures?

Carly Ries: 25:49

At Lifestarr, we're creating a one person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com. That's community.lifestarr.com