What is the forgotten secret of success?

I first encountered Og Mandino watching an old video and was immediately impressed! He then said something that left me gaping and I have never forgotten what it was:

“The forgotten secret of success is, simply, to keep your word.”

Keeping your word, of course, is central to commitment – which I am sure you will agree is a far more compelling undertaking than its cousin, involvement!

The reason being, of course, that when you commit to something as well as committing to keeping your word at the same time (aka a real commitment), you are actually committing to yourself above everything else. Significantly, whatever it was you commit to in this way is a big deal; it has power. It is a commitment carved in stone and its likelihood of occurrence is maximized.

What has committment got to do with accountability?

When we hold positions of leadership in business or as entrepreneurs, it is frequently the case that we are not accountable to anyone other than to ourselves. This of course, is frequently why business founders tend towards micro management as their business expand – being solely responsible for everything is a hard behavior to change and accordingly as a business grows its owner/founder often won’t let go.

Leaving aside this digression, what successful people do is ensure that they are accountable to someone at all times, even if it is themselves via specific targets.

Successful people do this because they know that success in anything is driven by the commitments a person makes to themselves and that this is much harder than making commitments to someone else.

It’s for this reason alone, many business owners and CEOs seek out an accountability partner with whom they can be accountable to on monthly basis if not more frequently.

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