So almost every single week, maybe daily, I get messages from men on Instagram, on Facebook,

through the podcasts, in different social media platforms, through the Man Talks Alliance,

about accountability, about how we as men, how you as a man can be more accountable to yourself,

specifically, and then to others.

And I think that as men, we really understand that our level of accountability and the depths to which we feel like we can be accountable to what we've said we are going to do and to follow

through on that is the depth that we feel like

we are going to trust ourselves. And for years, I struggled with accountability. For years, I was

terrible with it. I didn't trust myself to follow through with what I said I was going to do

on almost anything, right? In university, writing a paper, getting a project done, like I knew I wasn't accountable.

It's not watching pornography, not texting that woman back that I knew was maybe dangerous or unhealthy,

not engaging in the infidelity, waking up when I said I was going to wake up,

holding myself accountable to go to the gym and working out when I said I would.

I mean, it really was a

struggle in almost every aspect and area of my life. And one of the things that fundamentally

changed my perspective of accountability was when I really realized, not just intellectually,

not just cognitively, that my self-worth and my value as a man

was dependent on my accountability, but when I actually physically felt it, when I realized the damage

that in some ways I was doing to myself by not holding myself accountable,

and that my self-esteem challenges, that my lack of confidence, that my need for external

validation specifically from women, a lot of those things were a byproduct of the fact that

I felt wildly out of control in being

able to hold myself accountable. And when I started to realize that, I could start to remind

...