ISI Brotherhood Podcast

The Man in the Mirror

• Aaron Walker • Season 2 • Episode 1

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What happens when you look in the mirror each morning? Do you like who's staring back at you? Aaron Walker and his new co-host Seth Buechley kick off Season 2 of the ISI Brotherhood podcast by tackling this profound question head-on, examining how we build personal resilience in the face of daily challenges.

The conversation begins with a refreshingly honest admission: both successful entrepreneurs still struggle with the man in the mirror. But rather than offering platitudes, they dig into the practical tools that have sustained them through decades of business and personal challenges. Their blueprint for building resilience rests on three powerful pillars: morning routines, faith-based perspective, and genuine accountability.

As they share their personal practices, what emerges isn't a story of perfection but persistence. Aaron describes his evolution from a desperately poor childhood to business success, revealing how those early struggles shaped his relentless drive. Seth offers a counterbalance with his concept of "the gift of limits," challenging listeners to recognize when ambition becomes detrimental to other priorities. Both men speak candidly about times they've faced difficult business decisions that tested their principles.

The most compelling moments come when they discuss accountability—not as an imposed obligation but as a chosen vulnerability. "None of us have it all together," Aaron admits. "Until you come clean and own it, you're not going to be able to build on a solid foundation." This willingness to remove masks creates the context necessary for meaningful guidance and growth.

Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just beginning your personal development journey, this conversation offers both practical wisdom and spiritual encouragement for becoming the person you want to see in the mirror. Connect with the ISI Brotherhood community at theisibrotherhood.com and join the conversation about building resilience through intentional living.


0:00  Introducing the Man in the Mirror

8:35  Meet Co-Host Seth Buechley

13:20  The Daily Battle with Self

21:33  The Power of Morning Routines

27:03  Developing Emotional Resilience

33:20  Accountability: The Missing Link


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Aaron Walker:

Hey guys, let me ask you a question. Are you struggling with the man in the mirror? Well, I know I do each and every day, and in this episode, we're gonna be talking about the power of routine. What gets us going each and every day, developing emotional resilience, how I have accomplished that over the course of my life, and I still deal with it every day. But what holds me together is the role of accountability, and that's what we're going to talk about in this episode. Hey guys, welcome to the ISI Brotherhood podcast. I couldn't be more excited than I am for season two. You know, we've got new branding, we've got a new producer and we've got a brand new co-host this year, mr Seth Buechley. Seth, it is so good to see you, man.

Seth Buechley:

How's it going? You know it's going great and this is a thrill to be able to do this with you, big A.

Aaron Walker:

Man. I don't know who's got the biggest thrill, because you and I met each other at a Brendan Bouchard conference about eight years ago now, I think it was, and so little did we know. You know we were going to cross paths at that point. I think you've got kind of an interesting story about how that transpired. I'll leave that up to you, but I just wanted to tell the audience kind of where you and I met initially.

Seth Buechley:

Yeah, that was a great event. I remember you have a gift, as you know, of standing up in a big room and asking a question, but doing it in a way that just kind of makes it interesting. You're like man, I'd kind of like to get to know that guy. And I happened to have my daughter with me at that event and I said you know what, I'm going to connect with him. And then one of the other gentlemen I was with met you and we had breakfast.

Seth Buechley:

And the thing that I'll always remember about our breakfast big A, is I was kind of sharing a little bit of my story, just at a high level, and you leaned over and you said something like well, now you're living your life for somebody else. And you were quoting Galatians 2.20, which happened to be my life verse, and I looked at you and I thought, okay, there's a guy that I'd like to get to know even better. And you know I was going through a time. At that time I had lost several mentors in my life my father and the founder of the company I now run. I had lost and frankly, I was kind of looking who's out there? That would be a great mentor that I can get to know a little bit better.

Aaron Walker:

You know, what's funny is that I even teach guys in our ISI Brotherhood Mastermind today to do what I did at the Brendan Bouchard and it was a kind of a marketing ploy, quite honestly, because when you have hundreds and even thousands of people in a room and the host, like Brendan Bouchard, gives you an opportunity to ask a question, well, you always started out with hey, this is Aaron Walker from you know Iron Sharpens, iron Brotherhood, and I'd like to ask you a question. It gives you an opportunity to get your name out there and it was a selfish motivation, but look what God was working in the background. He was putting together a relationship. So my selfishness in the marketing aspect of it. God worked in spite of that and brought me to an amazing new friend and today an amazing new co-host for this season.

Aaron Walker:

So, man, I'm just so thrilled that you're here. I know that you add immeasurable value in all of the meetings in my life now for seven years, and I'm excited to bring you on the show that you can share your knowledge and wisdom. Tell everybody a little bit more about you, your family, what you do professionally, little bit more about you, your family, what you do professionally, and then we'll dive in today's topic?

Seth Buechley:

Sure, well, I'm a person of faith, I'm a Christian. I got saved when I was, I think, 18, and I married my high school sweetheart and have been a follower of Jesus for a long time. But that doesn't mean my life has always been easy. I am hardwired as an entrepreneur and I've been on the entrepreneurial journey. Some days I'd like to think that I'm a brilliant investor and I do big business, but at the end of the day, I really have a soft spot and I have a lot of, frankly, experience working with smaller businesses that go from small to midsize and then occasionally exit, which has been my journey. And so I have, like I said, a wife that I met in high school. We've been married 34 years now. I have four kids and three grandkids.

Seth Buechley:

In September my daughter will give us her third child, and I'm very involved in the telecommunications industry and I really have a heart for peer groups and the ISI Brotherhood is really that. It's places where men can come together and help each other win, and it's a huge part of what makes me happy and, frankly, it adds purpose to the work that I do. I can lose interest just chasing my own ambitions, but when I can turn those to helping others. It really gives me joy and purpose in the work.

Aaron Walker:

Yeah, and you do such a remarkable job in your group as well, and you're one of my go-to guys and have been for eight years now that you've been in the mastermind, and so you've just done phenomenal job in your space. You're a remarkable husband and dad. It's very evident in your lifestyle. It's very evident in the things that are important to you, so it's an honor for me to be the host here today, so thank you for joining us on the ISI Brotherhood Podcast. Hey, let's jump in.

Aaron Walker:

Today We've titled this the man in the Mirror Building Personal Resilience. And I'll be honest with you, seth, I don't really like the man in the mirror. Oftentimes I don't know about you, what you feel about that, but sometimes I'm like disenchanted or disgruntled or you know it's like man you could level up, you could do better. There's other things that I know that you could do better, but you get lazy sometimes and I think that greatest battle that we'll ever fight out there is talking to that guy in the mirror.

Aaron Walker:

And I think if you wanna lead well in business, you wanna lead well with your family, you wanna lead well in your faith, I think it starts by leading yourself, and I really overlooked that a lot in the earlier years of my career. Honestly, I was like I don't have time for that. I don't have time for personal professional development. I just got to get out there and make some money and make it work, and so I've really come to learn over the past 46 years of my career how important it is with starting to lead with yourself, and today I wanted to really dive in to the power of self-discipline, and that's related to faith and accountability, because those are two things that are paramount in this and these are the three pillars that really separate strong men from those who crumble under pressure. So what is your situation with dealing with the man in the mirror?

Seth Buechley:

Well, I see every mistake I've ever made right. I still have an awareness of that and I actually think it takes a fair amount of discipline to set those things aside and kind of reframe the conversation we have with ourselves, which is is this my world or is this God's world? And if I say, well, it's God's world, what does he say about me? And you start to kind of reframe from performance and, frankly, in my case it's often it's measuring. I'm measuring myself against something that's external, right, Maybe how other people do it, or the best I've ever seen.

Aaron Walker:

And when I can Do you struggle with that today? Is that something you've just recently learned as you mature, or as a young guy? Did you know this? The ones that are listening to us out there today that are in their 20s or 30s this is probably a new concept for them. Yeah, have you always been self-aware, or is it something that, over time, you've learned?

Seth Buechley:

Well, you know, you'll learn my story. I grew up in a commune in the woods and so, where it was encouraged to be self-aware, so maybe I practiced a little bit more than others. I'm not certain, but I definitely feel self-aware and you know, my belief is that if we're aligned with what we know to be true, we feel good about ourselves. We feel like we're doing the thing that we value the most. In my view, it's when we feel or know that we're not in alignment with something that is true and that we know it's true, or which is often what happens to me I start comparing myself to other people. That's when things get weird and that man in the mirror isn't a fun experience, because I just don't feel good about myself.

Aaron Walker:

That's how I you know when you say that though to be honest, I'm sitting here thinking about, because obviously I knew we were going to talk about this subject today, so I've given it a little bit of thought. But I don't really do that much comparison for me. I'm so hard on myself, the expectations that I apply to myself. That's tiring as well. Right, even if I compared, that would even be worse, and I can't say that I haven't compared over time. Obviously we all have compared at some level, but it's not a real stranglehold in my life in the comparison I apply so much pressure alone just to myself to excel. And I'll tell you what I attribute some of that to.

Aaron Walker:

I was broker than a convict when I was a kid. Right, I grew up in a household with nothing Like we didn't have anything. We lost our house when I was seven years old in bankruptcy and I lived with my cousin. Then we lived in a $60 a month rental house. You can imagine what that looked like. My dad was trying, he was trying to do his best and my mom was working exceptionally hard. But I put that pressure on myself because I didn't want to go through that. As an adult.

Seth Buechley:

I'm like I don't want to do that, and so there's two different personas here, right, yeah, and you know, I had a coach one time and I'm a huge fan of having coaches and people that can speak into your life and one coach looked at me and he looked at the amount of work I was doing and the things that I had in my hands and he said, seth, you need to discover the gift of limits. And it actually caught me off guard. I'd never heard that phrase before, like limits are a gift. And so when I hear you talking Big A, what I would say is sometimes you got to know listen, I've done everything before. I should. Not everything I can, not everything I want to do, not everything I'm capable of.

Seth Buechley:

Sometimes you have to put a limit on it and say, yeah, I could keep grinding here, but at what cost? Because when we take a half step back, we say it's costing us somewhere. Maybe we're so busy, focused on the work and the outcome and that's where we're spending our energy that we're ignoring our health or we're ignoring the people in our life. You know that happens to me. Get so busy that I'm like man. I'm not investing in these people that are in my life for a reason because I'm overwhelmed, maybe chasing the thing that I'm chasing.

Aaron Walker:

So putting all these limits has been beneficial. We think it's constraining, but it's oftentimes helpful, right? It's like no, I don't need to focus on that, brooke. Oftentimes helpful, right, it's like no, I don't need to focus on that, brooke, it's funny. You said that Brooke's my daughter. She's the chief directing officer of, you know, iron Sharpens, iron Brotherhood. She's been with us about 11 years now. She sent me a text yesterday. It's in perfect alignment with what we're talking about. She said she saw this meme and it says your best is what you can do without harming your physical or mental health, not what you can accomplish when you disregard it.

Aaron Walker:

And so that goes back to the limits that you're talking about.

Seth Buechley:

Yeah, I was going through a really challenging season towards the end of last year and not through it. There were some business things that happened with the economy that caught us. And I went for a walk with my wife and she's good about that Like if it's sunny here in Oregon, which ain't that often in the end of the year, three days a year I heard Exactly she's like let's go for a walk. And as I was walking I said you know, I've done everything I can. The rest is up to the Lord. You know, and it was kind of funny when I said it because I thought, you know, I should put it all in the Lord and do my piece. But the point was you can only do so much, right, and then you have to let it go. And you were talking about the man in the mirror is often judging you based on this standard and this expectation that you know it's kind of performance-based right.

Aaron Walker:

I always say work like it depends on you and trust like it depends on the Lord. I want to get better at being able to depend on Him sooner rather than later. You know it's like, hey, it's that total dependence each and every day. Some of the things that I know help us gain this sense of order in our life, first of all, is the power of routine, and let's talk about routines. When I first think about routine, first think about that question. I think about my morning routine. Yeah, let's talk about routines. When I first think about routine, first think about that question. I think about my morning routine. Yeah, let's talk about yours, your morning routine, just a little bit. What does that look like and is it helpful and beneficial?

Seth Buechley:

It's very helpful and beneficial. It's coffee. I've got a great coffee maker. There you go, make a little cappuccino.

Aaron Walker:

Are you a cream guy and sugar guy A?

Seth Buechley:

cappuccino Are you a cream guy and sugar guy? Cappuccino, that's yeah, that's steamed. You know, it's the whole thing. I'm a black guy.

Aaron Walker:

Hot as you can drink it.

Seth Buechley:

I believe you.

Aaron Walker:

None of the frou-frou stuff.

Seth Buechley:

I'm West Coast, you know you got to give us a little bit of that Go ahead Coffee and then it's some prayer and stretching. On a good morning it's almost always Bible and then some sort of a note. Lately I just had a friend out of the country and we went through the book of John and we would read a section of John and we would just share what we're observing in John and then about then I pretty much start to get towards work. I'll almost always exercise in the first part of the day.

Aaron Walker:

You went a whole year and did exercise every day, didn't you?

Seth Buechley:

I did. I went 369 days and then I had double hernia surgery. So you know you pay for those kind of things. But yeah, so to me that's a good morning, it's coffee, it's Bible, it's exercise. I'm not as disciplined around prayer as I could be, but I love it when I can just take some time and just process thoughts by myself in the morning.

Aaron Walker:

So what gets in when you say when you can like. You own the company. You're in charge of your time. What is the distractions Because I'm gonna be honest with you, I'm very similar to yours Mine is get up early.

Aaron Walker:

I actually quit drinking coffee November, the 18th of last year, and the caffeine was bothering me. It was accelerating my heart rate, so I quit drinking coffee. It was funny, because I drank coffee for 45 years and I quit in one day. No headache, no withdrawals. It's amazing. I don't know, maybe God spared me all that.

Aaron Walker:

But I drink hot tea now, decaffeinated hot tea, and I'll spend the first 15, 20 minutes just in silence. I don't do anything, I just kind of gather myself, drink my hot tea. We're reading through the Bible right now. Our whole church is doing the same reading every day in every group. I will say this I'm not an everyday guy, though I was for a period of time.

Aaron Walker:

I kind of got a little bit lazy on it and I went three or four days and do it. Then I'll go a couple of days. I don't want to be legalistic, but I'll be honest with you. When I don't do that, I feel out of sorts. I really feel good about starting my day in meditation. Then you know through scripture, and then I pray. I have a hot tub, so I go outside, regardless of the time of year, get in the hot tub and I can pray there. But I don't always do that either, so I don't want to mislead our audience and you're like, oh, big A, you do this seven days a week, every day. It's just not the case because things get in the way you get stressed or things are bothering you or appointments, or grandkids or kids have issues you have to deal with. But I will say, when I do do that routine, it really helps start my day.

Seth Buechley:

Yeah, I think it's foundational. It orients us to truth. I think positionally it positions us as all right, this isn't my world, this is somebody else's world, and I get a tap into that and get some perspective. To be honest, my brain is going in the mornings, even though I'm kind of a slow roll, but immediately I think I'm probably most productive in the work in the morning and it actually takes a bit for me to not want to just go into my projects in the morning to say, no, you're not doing that till after you work out, after you shower, then you go to your office and then get after it.

Aaron Walker:

So yeah, I don't exercise every day either. I do that three days a week. I have a trainer and I'll go Monday, wednesday and Friday. I'll usually walk an hour before I train, then I'll train, come home, get a shower, get to work, and so what are some massive changes that you've seen as a result of that level of consistency?

Seth Buechley:

Well, I think having the ability to draw from Scripture because you spend time in it right, you know you can always, you're filtering what you're seeing in the natural environment against things that are true right environment against things that are that are that are true right it gives you a deep well for being available for people to. You know, talk about, ask questions. You know, it's amazing how people keep track of who they perceive as being a person of faith and not, and when they perceive you as being a person of faith they're going to come to you with, with issues. So so there's that, you that and, I think, just having truth to draw from when the business crisis of the day hits you and you have to stand back and say, okay, I wasn't expecting this. This is very disappointing. How do I process this from what I know is true, kind of eternally, I end up kind of using that to regulate my emotions, right, which can be all over the place. You know, business is wild.

Aaron Walker:

What do you say to young guys out there? You know you're in your 50s, you know I'll be 64 here in a few days. What do you say to the young guy though out there that's listening to this? It's like, hey, I got three kids, I've got a demanding job, I hit the ground running, I've got to get up. I don't have time to pray and meditate and read scripture and stretch and get in the hot tub, Like that's not where I'm at. What do you tell those guys today about starting the day?

Seth Buechley:

I don't know that I'd tell them much other than I might ask them a question. You know how much time do you spend listening to Joe Rogan, right? What do you do on social Right? Because I think for all of us in today's world we have way more time than we let on Now. It doesn't mean we always want to optimize every second, because that doesn't feel fun either, but we have time for what's important, and particularly for people that are of faith and that want to build something that's enduring. I mean, there's just no other choice. It's like you know, the things that you're spending your energy on that you tell yourself are maybe more pressing than your spiritual development, actually require your spiritual development to be successful, right? Your spiritual development impacts your marriage, impacts your business, impacts your finances, impacts all sorts of things, right? So we tell ourselves that we're solving the problem. You know we're too busy, but actually you know we need to double back and do the first thing first.

Aaron Walker:

in my view, Seth, you know what helps me a lot. It seems like God's always watching, because it seems like when I'm reading, I get so convicted oftentimes in my reading because it's applicable to the situation I'm currently going through and that's why it's the living word. Right, it's the things, and I've read passages. It didn't mean anything to me currently and I read them again at a different phase in my life and it's very impactful, and so I think that's the reason that we should do that. The other thing it really helps me do is when I'm up against the wall in a tough situation. It gives me the biblical perspective that I can overlay on it and say, okay, how should I handle this properly?

Aaron Walker:

And when you're in the carnal being, you operate differently than when you're in the spiritual realm and so the spiritual realm just gives you so much more clarity for long-term than the initial blast of you know, I want this to happen or I want that to happen. It just seems like it broadens your horizon to a level that you can see the whole picture better.

Seth Buechley:

Yeah, and it's amazing to me. You mentioned how sometimes scripture is just like real time, like I need this today or it's applicable today. Sometimes it's also in advance, like about two or three years ago a handful of us were memorizing James 1, which says consider it joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kind, and we memorized the best we could that entire first chapter and it hit the fan for several of us the following year and many times we look at each other with a little, you know, a little smirk or a high five. We're like holy cow, had we any idea? You know, one gentleman had a business turned down that he'd never had his business turned down and it turned down he had his father passed of cancer, these kinds of things all within that period of time. And so we experienced that as grace. It was getting ahead of what was coming down the pike.

Aaron Walker:

Seth. Next point I wanted to ask is kind of developing emotional resilience. Dr Andy Garrett in ISI has put together an amazing course on resilience and we can put in the show notes below how to contact Dr Andy for that. It's an incredible experience that he's put together, but in it we really develop a sense of how to deal with this emotional resilience. And how does faith shape your response to adversity, like when you're not in the Word, you're really not on your knees, you're not in prayer and you come up against something that's very adversarial versus being in the Word, and how do you do that?

Seth Buechley:

Well, you just feel unequipped, you know, and panic, you know. When, like, it's up to me, those are the kind of feelings that I would say if I'm not approaching it right, like and as I was sharing earlier, you know, when I have something really bad happen, it's easy for me to take the lens out and say, well, look at all the other screw ups you've had in life, you messed up here, you messed up here, you messed up here. And by the time you process the bad thing that's happening now, you know you have a very negative view. All right, I'm gonna tell a quick story. We love stories. So I have a lending business and we have a loan that went into default and I hate it. I hate it because I hate losing. I have some other people's money in this deal, etc. It's just a lot of emotions and it's something I can't just fix quickly, and so I'm having to work through it.

Seth Buechley:

And I had a meeting with somebody I never would have met and I had a chance to ask him if he was a person of faith. He said no. Later on, he shared with me that members of his family, including his daughter, were people of faith, and so I asked him over the meal. I said do you mind if I pray, because we're talking about doing some business here? It's a great time to start something with prayer. And he said oh no, of course, we had a great conversation and a couple of weeks later we were talking about our project together and he says hey, I want to let you know, I let my daughter know that you prayed over our lunch and she started crying, and so it was one of those moments and I went in and I met with my wife and I said, holy cow, here I am complaining like a stuck pig that I'm in this situation that I can't get out of.

Seth Buechley:

Yet the Lord is at work in this guy's life because his daughter's been trying to reach him for years and and now he's in relationship with me, and so it just kind of reframed. Yeah, it's a tough situation. I don't like it, but that doesn't mean God's not working through it, working on my character, you know, creating opportunities for things that I would never would have done if he hadn't disrupted me and made me do it, and so that's how I work through these things.

Aaron Walker:

Seth. How many of those opportunities do you think we have and don't take full advantage of A lot?

Aaron Walker:

Yeah, I think, yeah, I feel so guilty too, because I know when I miss opportunities to be able to do things like that. And a similar story not exactly two years, but similar is that you know I totally abstain from alcohol. I've never drank in my entire life. It's alcohol's devastated our family. I can't even begin to tell you the devastation we've had as a result of alcohol. One of my daughters almost lost her life as a result of it and recently had a liver transplant. So I could go on for hours talking about that. So I've taken a real firm stance on alcohol.

Aaron Walker:

And I was in another country and I met with a guy that is very instrumental and very helpful in my business and I met him for lunch with our wives and we're sitting there eating lunch and I said, hey, it's my treat. So I'm not saying alcohol is wrong, I'm saying it's wrong for me. I'm saying that my position on it and I think I've got to go with my conscience on that and so I've never bought a drink for anybody ever. But he ordered alcohol at our lunch and when the waiter came around I was nervous. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I was nervous about this because I was thinking this guy's really important to me. He's a huge, huge guy and he's really promoted me heavily. And I'm like man, what in the world Do I? Just? It ain't that big a deal. I'm rationalizing it in my mind and then I finally tell the waiter hey, bring two bills, one for the food, one for the alcohol and give my buddy the one for the alcohol. So when the waiter left, I was nervous about that. I was like I don't know what he's going to think, I don't know what he's going to say, he's going to be offended and so he doesn't really practice faith either. And so I leaned over to him, where our wives couldn't hear, and I said hey, you know my position on alcohol. I've never bought alcohol. The waiter's going to bring you a tab for the alcohol and I'm picking up our meal. And he sat there and looked at me and he acted like he didn't know what he was going to say. And then all of a sudden he leaned over and he goes Big A. This is why I respect you and promote you so much. And I was like thank you, lord. I'm so glad that he accepted it that way.

Aaron Walker:

But my point is that we've got to be that person, regardless of wherever we're at. We can't be double-minded, we can't straddle the fence. God gives us this emotional stability and ability to be resilient in difficult times. And that guy wasn't even a believer and you prayed with him. That shows your desire for people to know who you are and know who the Lord is, and who knows what the Lord's gonna do in that situation. Same with me. With this guy, it's like I don't know what that's going to seed, that's going to plant. I don't know what that's going to do, but there's great rewards on the other side of those adversities if we'll just stand up and be the person that God called us to be.

Seth Buechley:

Yeah, the one thing I was going to say is that I have found, when I get hit with those things that are kind of overwhelming and I have that emotional response, because when I think about resiliency, that's pretty much where my mind goes. It's not like am I going to live, am I going to keep going? It's like, of course you are, but it's like are you going to melt under the pressure and the weight of the moment? And one of the things I found is I force myself to tell somebody what I'm feeling and going through. I don't want to right, but I just get it out of me. And so many times I mean CS Lewis has famously said the true mark of a friendship is you tell something like that and they say you too. And you get that connection and it helps me to process it, to say, look, they know the truth now, they know that your world isn't perfect and they still love you. Who would have thought that right? And it just kind of helps me move past it and realize everybody's got their stuff.

Aaron Walker:

You know, the last pillar in dealing with the man in the mirror for me is the role of accountability, and that's a really hard word. That's a really tough thing to deal with because I've dealt with so many men over the years in Iron Sharpens, iron Brotherhood who just flat out say I don't really want accountability and I'm like let's dive into that and talk through that. Then other guys are like man, that's the reason I need to be there and it's the reason I pay a trainer. I know what to do at the gym but if I'm paying money and he's going to hold me accountable for being there, I show up month after month, year after year because I need that level of accountability. I've got three accountability partners Hugh Morris, chris Freeman, randy Butler. We meet every week 6.30 am and we have now for 20 years and without those guys I'd probably be divorced, I'd probably be out of business. Because they asked me the tough questions what has accountability meant for Seth over the years and how pivotal is it in your success?

Seth Buechley:

Well, it's an interesting question. For the longest time, my attitude was nobody can hold me accountable, but I will be accountable.

Aaron Walker:

You can show yourself accountable.

Seth Buechley:

Yeah, I think that's the way I've approached it. As I've gotten older, what I've come to conclude is no, I need to share what's really going on. I need to reveal more of myself so that people have enough perspective they can hold me accountable.

Aaron Walker:

How close do you get of doing that with a limited people, like truly vulnerable and transparent, like really knowing what's going on in your life? Like how close to 100% do you get at doing that?

Seth Buechley:

I would say in terms of things I don't want to share, that might be shameful. I'm pretty close to 100% with my ISI brotherhood Meaning. Here's the thing They've earned that trust.

Aaron Walker:

That's why you do.

Seth Buechley:

Yes, and even if they haven't, I feel like the fact that they're part of ISI means they've already been vetted and I would feel that level because, again, these are men and all men generally have the same kind of issues and struggles yeah, but they can't really hold me accountable if I don't share with them what's really going on when I feel like I have a lack. And I'll give you an example I wrote a book years ago and you were like, where's your audio book? And I'm like, yeah, I really haven't got to it. And you just looked at me and you said, hey, I want that done by such and such date, or we're going to have a little $100 bet here. You're going to have to give it to the political opponent.

Seth Buechley:

That level of coaching towards an outcome. I don't have enough of that and I don't know whether that's because people I think I have it all together or what. But that level of accountability is interesting to me and, to be honest, I haven't solved for it yet. You know, I've solved for the part where you know I don't have any major sin in my life, I don't have any major secrets in my life and I'm willing to totally be accountable on that kind of stuff. But the how do I improve performance and make commitments and really push myself at that level of accountability? I'm still working on it.

Aaron Walker:

Yeah, I think accountability is what you said. I think it's a play on words, I think it's the same thing. It's just your perspective on how you look at accountability and I agree with you. No one can force you to do something that you don't want to do. There's fun things that you can do, like I did with you with the audio book. It's like, dude, you're sending $100 to this opponent politically if you don't have that audio book and you did, and you did it. I don't know if you would or wouldn't have done it outside of that, but it becomes a little bit like a contest. Guys want to win. They don't want to show up and be a loser. So I think you can do fun things with that. But I think it's paramount in our life and let me dive a little deeper into it.

Aaron Walker:

A lot of guys that are listening to this right now are like I don't want everybody to know everything that's going on in my life. I don't want them to know that there's secret sin or that they don't have it all together. Let me just be the first to say none of us have it all together, none of us. There's seasons in our life where we're failing miserably personally or professionally, or relationally or financially. There's some area of our life that is always a bit of a struggle, and until you come clean to that and own it, you're not going to be able to build on the solid foundation. And so you've got to admit where you're at. It's like this is the spot I'm at. I want to be better. I hate it that I'm not better in this situation, but this is reality. This is where I'm at. Now. We've got a baseline and now we know where to go from there. The there.

Aaron Walker:

The other thing is is when there is secret sin in your life, it will be exposed, it will be found out. It will cause you immense trials and troubles. The best thing to do is, with the appropriate people, say, hey, I didn't plan this, but it happened. This is where I'm at. It teaches us in scripture to confess it to a brother so he can pray for you, and it's like be careful who you confess these things to. I think you got to be really mindful of that. But when you do say, hey, I want you to help me work through this. And so a lot of guys struggle with different things in their life, but for me, it's gotten me to a place to where I've faced the reality of my shortcomings and now it's like I want to get better. Whatever I've got to do to get better, that's what I want to do. It comes slow sometimes in some areas and it really comes fast in others, but here's the main reason People can't help us in our lives if they don't have context to where you're at.

Aaron Walker:

You can ask a question and they can give you an answer, but if they don't have context around your personal circumstances, your superpower, your kryptonite, your blind spots, your financial wherewithal, your vision, if they don't know those things, they may be giving you good advice for somebody else, but it's not applicable to you, and so that's why accountability is so important to be around other guys that have context to where they can help you make solid decisions. For over five years, we were giving advice to one guy, before we started exposing our finances to one another, and he was a click away from bankruptcy and he positioned himself in a way everyone thought he was worth a fortune. And I went to him and I said I apologize to you because the advice I've been giving you is wrong advice because I didn't have the contextual piece related to your finances.

Seth Buechley:

Yeah, think about the posturing he felt he was probably posing in some levels. He was posing 100%.

Aaron Walker:

He was never divulging where he was at, and guys do that every day. They go up to people every day. Guys that are listening to me right now. You're asking advice to people that you really shouldn't be asking advice from unless they have context to where you're at and what you're trying to accomplish. So that accountability piece, I think, is huge. Anything else on accountability you'd like to throw in?

Seth Buechley:

You know, I think, getting clear on structure around it, you know, I think one of the reasons accountability doesn't happen it's a little bit like words, like mentoring and discipleship is they're kind of lost arts and you don't, nobody knows like. Well, how do you do that? Do you sign up for that, you know? So, being real, very clear on what kind of accountability would be helpful for you, right? Because nobody likes somebody coming in and over top trying to put some constraints on them that's uninvited. So just being really clear, this is what I need from you to help me do better, to help me win, to help me achieve something I've already committed that I want to do. I just need a little bit of nudge, right.

Aaron Walker:

Yeah, no question about it. Seth's been fun today. Listen, guys, strong habits build a resilient foundation, and if you want to have emotional resilience that grows through faith and through perspective, and that often involves perspective from other people that have contextual information around your personal situation, and then for me, accountability keeps me on track when nothing else will. I want to thank you guys for coming today. Remember, go to theisibrotherhoodcom and you can get connected more with our community and I'm excited to see you next week.