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I got invited on a podcast with a significant following. Real show. I was excited about it.
Ten minutes before we go live, I get a message. Feeling under the weather, need to reschedule. Fine. People get sick.
We reschedule two weeks out. This morning, ten minutes before the show, another cancellation. No explanation this time.
I'm not outing anybody. He's just the example that showed up on my calendar. And once I got past being annoyed, I realized it wasn't a character problem at all. It was a difference in standards. He was operating exactly to his.
I come from a world where if you're on time, you're late.
So this episode is about your word — what it's worth, what it costs you when you break it, and how to call somebody out when they break theirs.
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THE FIRST AGREEMENT
A lot of you have read The Four Agreements. The first one is "be impeccable with your word."
Most people read that and hear "don't lie." That's not what it says.
Ruiz breaks the word apart. Impeccable comes from the Latin for "without sin," and he defines a sin as anything you do against yourself.
The first agreement was never about the other guy. Being impeccable with your word is about what breaking it does to YOU.
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THE TWO COSTS
Every broken word costs you twice.
OUTSIDE YOU, and you never see it. Most people won't tell you. They get annoyed, they write you off quietly, and the invite doesn't come back. The referral goes to somebody else. Nobody sends you a bill for a broken agreement. Your reputation is a pile of decisions other people made about you and never told you about.
INSIDE YOU, and this is the one that compounds. Every time you say you'll do something and you don't, some part of you files it away. Then you go set a real goal — the business, the race, the hard conversation — and some part of you won't buy in. You'll call it fear or bad timing or lack of motivation. It's none of those. It's an accurate risk assessment. The man making the promise has a track record, and you've read it.
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YOUR WORD: HONOR IT. OWN IT. CLEAN IT UP.
HONOR IT — starts before you say yes. Most broken words start as a yes you should never have given. "I can't commit to that" is a real answer and people respect it more than a yes you don't mean.
OWN IT — when you break one, name it in one sentence with no "because" in it. The second you add traffic or the kids or how busy it's been, you've stopped owning it and started defending yourself.
CLEAN IT UP — an apology is free, so it isn't a cleanup. Do something that costs you. Reschedule on their calendar. Deliver early. Eat the expense. The cost is the point
WORK WITH ME
If you're good at what you do and can't figure out why it isn't compounding — if you keep making promises to yourself in January and quietly renegotiating them by March — if your team says yes and you can't count on it and you suspect it starts with you — that's not a discipline problem. That's a self-trust problem. And you don't fix that one alone, because you're the one who's been keeping the record.
Coaching: https://www.dohardthingscoaching.com
Speaking: https://www.dohardthingscoaching.com/speaking
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Siegfried "Sig" Tiegs is a keynote speaker, high-performance coach, and co-author of the Amazon best seller Life on Offense: A Tactical Guide to Dominate Life and End Mediocrity. A retired Army Major with 27 years of service, he hosts the Do Hard Things™ podcast and coaches high performers at dohardthingscoaching.com.
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Welcome to the Do Hard Things Podcast with your host Jay Tiegs, Are you ready to amplify and improve your life? Then you are in the right place. On this podcast we have unfiltered conversation with inspiring people who take on challenges and share with us, the wisdom from their journey. We talk about how doing hard things adequately enable all of us to deal with life's struggles and challenges and ultimately improve the quality of our lives.
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