[Editor’s note: today’s post is an excerpt from ‘Open: What Happens When You Get Honest, Get Real, and Get Accountable’ by Craig Gross, with Adam Palmer]

When I say we all need to “get accountable,” I mean we need to live our lives out in the open, simply and easily, with no fine print or legal jargon.

Perhaps you hear me tell you to get accountable and you think that just like corporate finances should have an overseer to help eliminate funny business or an out-of-control dictator is held in check by the United Nations Security Council, accountability provides you with an outside source of authority to help keep your life in line.

However, those are imperfect analogies, because those are more like policing people or installing a bunch of rules to follow.

That’s not what I’m talking about.

…The kind of accountability I mean isn’t a police force or even a strict teacher who threatens to crack your knuckles with a ruler if you step out of line. What I’m talking about is a deep relationship, a support system.

Think about diving. Not like diving off a board and into a swimming pool, but diving into the ocean to explore. Now think about how far you can get if you just hold your breath. Even if you’re a champion breath-holder, you can only give yourself a few minutes underwater before you have to come up
for air. That means you have to stay pretty near to the surface, doesn’t it?

So on your own, you can’t go very far. (Tweet This!)

Now think of accountability not as a policeman who tells you to get out of the water or as a boundary line that barricades where you can go, but as the scuba apparatus you wear on your back. It’s the air you breathe underwater, allowing you to go farther and deeper and explore more than you ever would be able to on your own.

That’s what I mean by accountability. It’s a support system.

 

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