089 What I Needed To Hear As A 25 Year Old Accountant

Accounting career. Life advice for my 25 year old self. I want to hear yours too. And I'm so excited to announce for the first time the Jason Daly house Band. It's Old Darling Tuesday. Unless it isn't Tuesday, where we help young accountants before they all go away. Yeah. Yeah.

Nope.

Sorry, that just happened. Come on in, it's Jason Daly.

I tell you what, the AI tools for making silly things just are getting better at a shocking rate. It's fun. Time to make silly things.

Okay, Life advice. I'm 35 now.

Big deal. And I thought now that I'm super old, what advice would I have given to myself a decade ago? Maybe earlier.

I know there's a lot of, a.

Lot of the youths listen to this show. Also old people welcome one and all. But I think what we can all.

Do is speak a little wisdom into.

The moldable clay of our profession. That's what we try to do on Old Timey Tuesday or whatever day it lands on. I put some posts out on social people shared a bunch of great stuff. So I'm gonna share a few of my tidbits, kind of a few of my biggest things, but also wanted to cruise through what folks had shared online. Cause there was some really good stuff there. Maybe kicking off with a big one.

For me, the day that I got.

Outside my own little firm bubble was huge for me in so many ways. And for me, that probably started with when I first went to Zero Con in San Diego. What was that? 2019. And I don't know, that was the first investment I feel like I really like. Meaningful investment I made in myself that led to me building a network just beyond the people in my firm.

And I can tell you the reason.

That probably didn't happen earlier was my employer probably didn't want me to have that bigger network. It's one of those things where the more you learn about the bigger profession and what other firms are doing and all of that, the more you're able to put your own circumstances that you're currently in into perspective. And sometimes that's totally fine. Other times it's problematic because you realize, oh, okay, there's actually much more interesting versions of this. But to be honest with you, like if I am and when the day came when I was running firms and developing people and all that, I would send people to those conferences because I wanted them to be enriched by what everyone else was doing and get them out of kind of our, our internal firm group think. But I think many of us are probably in situations where the People that manage you don't see the value in it. If anything, it may increase the likelihood that you put on your wings and fly away somewhere else, maybe to your own opportunity. If you were looking for your custom potholder quote for this episode, there it was, put on your wings and fly. Probably with a comma after put on your wings. Pretty profound stuff. But once I had developed a bigger, I don't know, understanding of the profession and what people were trying to do, it actually gave me a tremendous amount of hope because I could see other people that talked the way that I did about it and saw some of the same traps that I saw and what they were doing to manage those traps. When you're just like stuck in your own kind of little group, think of the people that you work with every single day. That can feel really claustrophobic. And I do think most of the time when people leave the profession, they're probably just leaving their manager, they're leaving the crappy situation that they're in or the abusive clients that they were forced to work with. But if you have a bigger perspective of all the different flavors of accounting firm that are out there and all the different ways you can run firms these days, I do think it gives you more hope as to having control over your own destiny, rather than getting plugged into a really crappy situation and be like, man, accounting sucks. Because ultimately accounting, I mean, you can do it any way that you want to do it, you can build any lifestyle that you want around it, and what you may hate, somebody else may love, and vice versa. For me, that all kicked off with that conference and I do love in person conferences. It's a great way to make very, like, deep personal connections. But honestly, I think today that's as simple as like starting to build that network on social media. Folks that do what you do and folks that talk about the flavors of accounting that you either want to do more of or you're embedded in the more visible you are. And the more you talk about what you do, the more it enables optionality. You can think of optionality and putting stuff out online as kind of like creating all of these sort of branching possible timelines of your life. If what you do is just your head down at a desk in your firm or in that company all day, every day, relatively small number of kind of branching possibilities, right? Because you're not meeting people every day that could open a door to something that you couldn't today imagine. Your possibilities are like, what are the roles that I see in the company? That I'm at, and that's kind of it. But, you know, for example, every YouTube video that I post, every tweet that I make enables kind of a new branching timeline where you find that person who maybe has a skill set that pairs really nicely with yours and enables some cool new opportunity, or that person that's putting together speakers for this conference that they invite you to and you meet a bunch of cool people there. The more visible you are, I think the, the more you start enabling optionality, not necessarily in a negative or distracting way, but in a way that just kind of like for me at least opened my eyes to the diversity and the kind of, you know, exciting things that are happening all around you that you're not otherwise aware of. And it took me from a place of feeling constrained and bored and kind of limited within this profession to realizing, holy smokes, there's actually a ton of stuff happening in firm running of all sorts of different types that I never even imagined to even non accounting roles within firms that may lean into things that you like more, like sales or tech or any more kind of traditional business roles within an accounting practice. Stuff on the software side, like AI stuff. I think the more visible you are, the more of that stuff you find and attract and kind of more of those branching possibilities you open up for yourself. And really the earlier in life you do it, I think the better. Like, there's definitely value in building domain expertise that can only be built, you know, in a meaningful way, probably over time. But ultimately all this stuff boils down to meeting other humans that are in the space and whether it's something that that human can connect for you today or 10 years down the road. Like building those relationships, I think is the biggest thing. Being able to be plugged into what they're working on and you'll find that you, like, you are never, you know, without a job. I don't know how any accountant could be without a job for long these days, but for me, like it was a, rather than a, I don't want to lose my job and then have to go find another one thing. It kind of turned the profession on its head to holy smoke. There's a whole ton of like opportunity out there. And if I ever wanted to, I knew that overnight I could make the jump and go do this with that person and they would be pumped to have me. It would be a really exciting opportunity and it wouldn't even necessarily be like a forever decision. It would be a, this is what I want. The next step on my journey to be. But until you like start working outside of that bubble and trying to kind of expand your sphere of influence and network beyond just the people that you go into work with every single day, like, you don't start kind of opening those doors until then. And if you're an employer, if you're on the other side of it, this is the fastest way to grow your people, to build self confidence into them. The confidence that we find as leaders honestly comes like, stems from, I think, understanding what we do and being able to talk with peers about how they do it. And the more you do that, the more you find this really profound confidence in how you position yourself and communicate with clients about what you do. And oftentimes when we look at our team and their inability to do the same thing, it's just because they don't have that same level of confidence and experience. So it's kind of the old adage of, you know, what if we invest in a bunch of training in this person and they leave? On the flip side of that is like, okay, what if you don't? What if you don't do any of that stuff and you don't invest in your people at all? I think, you know, a hallmark of a company that is doing something really, really compelling is that out of that company comes a ton of amazing people. And those amazing people may go to do other amazing things. And by my book, that's okay. I would rather have that than kind of this group of people who you are not investing in and kind of that stagnation. Right? So number one thing for me is probably just getting outside of your firm group think and putting yourself out there to get a better understanding of other things that are happening in the industry. You'll make a ton of friends along the way too, who have a deep understanding of what it is that you do. And you can kind of follow their journey through different things as well.

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Too, but that one's free. I think it's a good idea delighting.

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People Shared on Twitter Adam Markowitz Treat the person on the other side of the table as if they were your grandmother. Treat folks right and work hard for them and you're going to be fine in this profession. Honestly, there's like and pretty much all of your professional relationships. I feel like people just don't. There's a lot of like very low touch relationships and cheap relationships, you know, and maybe they start with like automated outreach and stuff like that, but there's an increasing amount of Cheapness and those kind of peripheral, peripheral contacts where these days, like it is not hard to rise above that and build meaningful connections with people. Like I always try to do that with the folks I'm really impressed with because you never know down the road if there's some collaboration that will make sense. But anytime those people I see are going on and, and you know, starting a new job or something like that, I always try to get in touch and be like, tell me what you're up to and like, you know, why are you looking for something new? And it doesn't take much to like meaningfully connect with people. There's a level of like caring about them as humans that I think goes a long ways. And it doesn't seem like a super high bar, but that'll take you a long ways. Somebody shared get operational experience for sure. If you come out of school and go straight into public accounting. There's a certain like, there's a certain like side of the equation that I think we can miss, you know, especially through the lens of coming in and you know, doing tax work or audit or something like that. Like we see a side of the company and a side of the ledger, but the way that we look at it and interact with it is completely different than the way the day to day people in operations do. I wasn't really, to be honest, like, the best thing I did that got me up to speed in a more meaningful way on all of that was building a cast practice like I came in and taxed. But it wasn't until I was running a practice that was like running the back office for these companies that we realized the most useful and helpful and meaningful thing that we can do for them is make this accounting department in a box work with the rest of the business. And to do that it took understanding all of the other touch points people had with the business from invoicing, you know, and how we would set that up in the accounting system and the process for onboarding and offboarding employees. Building that cast practice actually I think made me better at tax and understanding how businesses managed to their own accounting systems when those decision makers were not accountants. When I was just doing taxes, very easy to like look down your nose at like, oh, they did, they did this thing and that thing wrong and the debit here and the credit here were wrong. When it's like, how did they actually get to the point of that entry hitting the ledger? Oh, it was like this module and that module. And this is why it's unclear. And if I can help them with that. It's going to make my job easier on the back end. That's definitely a blind spot that I had for a while. Ashley, the CPA said making yourself sick, to quote unquote, win the game now is only betting against yourself in the long term. I'd also add, like, it's very easy, especially early days when you don't have really any confidence or experience to let your like self worth be very shaped by the people around you, when those people are all just trying to be successful in their own job and like save their own heinies while also projecting like their own insecurities on you. So like I've always been an achiever and I can definitely put my finger on people in my life who made me feel a certain way. Kind of like for their own benefit, right? Like to put themselves ahead. And it's really hard early days when you don't know what's real and what's not real, whether to take that stuff to heart or just accept it as man. Humans kind of suck sometimes. And you know you're going to do that some days too. Like, we're all very insecure sometimes you say stuff without really thinking and it may stick. And there's a certain level of Teflon armor that is maybe the right balance there of actually taking stuff to heart and reflecting on it versus just being able to cruise past and keep doing your best, gang.

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A link in the show notes below. A few folks talked about staying in toxic situations too long. I have definitely seen that myself. I do think maybe part of being accountants we are change averse and so the notion of going out and doing something different is really hard. And sometimes we wait way too long to do that. And if you think about the compounding effect of that throughout your entire career, think about that kind of branching set of timelines. The longer you take to get out of those bad situations, the more you limit yourself long term. But I would also say if you open yourself up to live and communicate every day outside of that little bubble that is your firm and the people that you talk with every day, it makes those changes a lot less scary. I think the less plugged in you are outside of your own company or your own firm, the more scary it is to think of going and doing something else. But if you're well connected, it takes a lot of the fear out of that. Nathan Clark says, stay in touch with all your co workers and people you graduated with from accounting school. Accounting school. One day they'll be your friends and clients for sure. I would doubly say like the people who you have, you know, some sort of meaningful connection with, like I'm. There's sometimes where I'm just really, really impressed by a person and I'm like, man, I just got to keep, keep connected with that person. I'm not even sure why today necessarily, but besides the fact that I was just super impressed with them or you've got other. Some sort of, you know, common thread like common interest or something like that where you just hit it off and there just aren't that many people like that that you can, that you immediately connect with in that way. I think those people are gold. And if you can keep connected with them over the years, that's super, that's super valuable to have that kind of in your back pocket. A lot of people said find another career as soon as possible. Maybe some people said good for Big four is a good start. Maybe I would say there's a. When you are considering, like what advice to take to heart versus stuff that may not apply to you, be mindful of how certain bits of advice lead you to an end that you may not necessarily be happy with and how what that, like that successful end for you might be a moving target over time. Like me, for example, at 22, I just wanted to be an owner, to be a partner. Like. Cause that was really for me the only picture of success that had ever been painted for me. And like my little baby universe at that point, just working at small firms was like, well, that's the top. That's like, that's, I don't know, kind of the destination. But then once I was a firm owner, I was like, well, geez, I gotta grow and I gotta like put up some really impressive numbers so that people think I'm good at this stuff. Now at 35, I think what I'm probably most motivated by is like more macro level, you know, helping the profession and kind of helping highlight the folks that are doing really cool stuff to encourage the next generation of people coming into the profession of how much kind of opportunity and flexibility there is to be found. But at no stage did I ever want to be like a CFO or do vcfo. At no stage did I ever really want to do private. Private to me. And I haven't done it, so I can't really speak in an educated way on this. But private to me felt a little too, I don't know, limiting, repetitive. Like I loved the flexibility of getting to talk with different business owners every day who are doing cool novel stuff. Like it's actually really privileged position to have access to those people on such a regular basis. How I measured success and balanced that with family. Also changed big time over the different kind of stages of my life. So you'll get a lot of advice that is like, here's how to get to partner, here's how to be a cfo, you know, by the age of X. And it is worth considering. Like, I get that that's kind of a general maxim of how to be successful, and you'll probably hear a lot of stuff like that in undergrad, but is that something that you will actually enjoy? I've always thought it's really funny the number of articles you see with like, life advice from like, Jeff Bezos, the Rock and Warren Buffett. And I'm like, you know, I've got like pretty much nothing in common with Jeff Bezos, so I don't know that I should make my morning routine be the same as his. I think he spends like 45 minutes hand washing dishes every morning or something like that. So be mindful of where that advice would take you. And honestly, like in your early 20s, you probably just don't know what you want to do yet. And so if there's a way to like get a taste of, of different things, like in middle school, I job shadowed at a Bimart. Bimart in the Northwest. It was like a, like a, like a Walmart before that was a thing, but just like on a tiny, tiny scale. And it was a membership thing. And you would walk in and there was. I always thought it was really cool. There's like squeaky saloon doors you would walk through to get in. But anyways, I had like a job shadow dance, maybe even in elementary school. And I did a stint with the cashier and with the guys moving heavy stuff in the back and with the people stocking the shelves and maybe even like the pharmacy or something like that. If there's a version of that that you could get access to within the accounting profession, like, that's gold because you just don't know what you like doing until you do it. And many things theoretically sound interesting when in practicality, like what it actually looks like to do that job every single day may or may not be as interesting as you thought it was. So the more experience and exposure you can get to that stuff, I think the faster you learn what you're going to enjoy doing and not enjoy doing. I would also add when you are early in your career, you can feel like you're kind of just like you're along for the ride. You may not feel like you have the level of agency that can Take you into those different things that you actually want to do. And that's where having that bubble beyond the scope of your firm can be really valuable, too. Is the best thing for you is that intersection of here's where I want to be going next, and here is that firm or that situation that needs that thing that I want to invest in. Like, finding that intersection is gold, because that's not always going to be the place that you are. And when you're on the employer side, that is always the best hire. You know, the people who are super motivated to do that thing that you need where it doesn't even feel like work for them, because they are, like, so into that thing right now and into investing in that, where you can kind of like, hop on that rocket ship and let that person take you to whatever is next. And honestly, like, it's why I'm. I don't know. More. I don't know. Philosophical is the right word, but I just try to be realistic about whether I'm always going to be the right place for that person to work and just being realistic about how there's probably seasons of affirmative seasons of a person's life where that stuff's gonna fit really well together, and then probably seasons of that life, those two things where they won't necessarily fit together. And as a decision maker, you can either try to brainwash team members into thinking that they need you, or you can actually, like, see the world through the lens of what's best for this person. Maybe right now, I genuinely think it's my firm in this role, but it won't necessarily always be. And I always try to think kind of more through the latter lens of how can I enable something within my firm that is, like, the right thing for this person and their professional journey, Acknowledging that that won't always necessarily be for me because I've been on the other side of that coin where it definitely wasn't. And all the people around me would be like, oh, no, this is what you need, and this and that. And I was like, oh, yeah. Oh, okay. No, I guess that makes sense. And in hindsight, it was like, no, that was just what the company needed. It wasn't what I needed. And in my experience, like, trying to be more helpful to my team, like, I feel like that has always paid dividends. Like, those folks actually stick around for longer because you have that loyalty. But even if they go on to do something else, like, you still have those relationships, and I, like, those are still really valuable to me. Derek Footchart find and build community beyond a cohort within your firm. Yeah, it's going to really suck as everyone quits and it feels like losing friends, keeping connections takes intentional work. Yeah. Cause honestly, not everybody's like, I don't know, down to do that. Some people are interested in those connections. Some people, I think are too selfish about those connections where they'll only maintain them if there's some sort of like meaningful immediate gain to them. And those are the people that you probably don't bother investing in. But when you find the people that do and like that, you really jive with like building that little kind of community of friends or whatever you want to call them. That's really fun. Logan Graff Shared actually review your work. I'm probably gonna do a main channel video of this. It's like maybe kind of the collection of my favorite, I don't know, six to eight bits of advice. What are the biggies that, I don't know, maybe we didn't touch on here? What were kind of the most impactful things for you? Would love to see them in the comments. Let's get the house band to play us out here with a little jingle. Thanks for coming. I'll see you tomorrow.

You had a great time on the back tomorrow. Unless it gets too busy. Don't forget to like and subscribe. Jason.