Burnout is Real: How Legal Bookkeepers Can Protect Their Energy

Welcome to Accountants LawPod, where accounting professionals and law firms converge, hosted by Lynda Artesani, Sarah Prevost, and Stephen Libhart.

Hello everybody, welcome back to the podcast. How are you doing today, Sarah?

I'm, I'm feeling our topic.

Are you feeling your topic? You know what I was going to say to you, Sarah?

Yes.

I'm burned out. I can't do this recording today.

What's the topic today?

The topic today is burnout is real and how legal bookkeepers can protect their energy. Yeah. So why don't you share a little bit about how your day has gone, just to kind of let people out there know that they're not the only ones.

They're not the only ones. Honestly, I, you know where this came from, Steve, to be honest with you, probably a This was on the list, but it came out of— I was doing a recording last month or this month, but this month maybe. I forgot now. And we're having a great conversation, and I was talking about how exhausted I am at night sometimes when I come home after working.

Yeah.

Because I feel like what we all go through as just in the profession is this mental geriatrics of things and It's very mental. It's so exhausting at times. And so I needed to, like, diversion of some sort, like some sort of other thing to think about. And sometimes I don't know if anyone feels this way, but I find myself watching really dumb shows at times where I'm like, okay, it's just meaningless. I don't have to think. And I feel like that's true of a lot of things I've noticed where I keep things in a very routine space so I don't have to overthink it because We are thinking about puzzles in the accounting world, especially—

All day long.

Yeah, with trust and, you know, client costs and all the different kind of geriatrics. So, yeah, I kind of this morning, it was, you know, a set routine of geriatric mental things first thing of helping other team members work through some problems, identifying the right way to do things, especially In our world of compliance and regulation, we have to make sure we're recording things in a way that actually makes sense and we can go back to, and in case of an audit. And so getting through that to a client phone call that maybe they just thought I was sitting in their file right then and there, and like you said, had a magic wand to— I was like, well, let me hold on a minute. I just happened to pick up the phone. I'm in a meeting, you know? Yeah. So it's already, and it's barely mid-morning, and I'm already like, oh man, I hope this is a little easier.

I think that our legal clients, I'm going to venture to say they probably have this scenario even worse than we do.

Yeah.

Because, you know, when they, when they get that last-minute call and they've got a client who's really concerned about something and they've got to jump right into it and, and have have some comforting answers or, or action answers or whatever right away that I kind of think, you know, we get a chance to stop and think about things sometimes more, I think, than the attorneys do. But to your point, it's a puzzle all day long because we're working with numbers and we're working with the trust accounts and we're working with helping the attorney be compliant with the trust accounts. And it is a puzzle every day. When something goes south, if they make one little mistake and you try to unravel that puzzle and get it protected right away, that can be very stressful. And, you know, that's, these are just a few examples of burnout and, you know, yeah.

Yeah.

I always say that if you burn that candle at both ends, you know, the light goes out a lot quicker.

Yeah, that's true. Or your mental capacity for having the ability to manage the most simplest of things. there is some truth to, like, sometimes you just— I, I'll say this, and I mean no disrespect to any of my family members, but I'm like, I just don't want to think about it.

Uh-huh.

It's not like I don't want to, you know, take charge of it or be in the control of, you know, assisting in that process, but it's the same kind of thing as, like, you just want to take a break because your mental capacity has filled. And I feel like in our space, we are dealing with a type of profession that is of, you know, a certain tenure, a certain kind of skill set. And we're also managing possibly a whole bunch of people, our own team, and then our own selves. And when you get in the bus— and this is not a complaint, it's just like the everyday life of the—

It is what it is.

Bus you drive, you're like, okay, what road or what avenue am I going to take? And like, is this the right path for today. And, um, sometimes you just have to take it at, at little increments. And I always say that, I'm like, okay, it's just for the now, like right now. Okay, well, it'll move on. But it, it's constant load. I don't know how you manage it, Steve, as far as like the to-do list, the here and the now, and then like the most, you know, the disruptive phone call, the most imminent thing that lands in your plate.

Well, you know, one piece of advice that I, I think I would have there based on what you just asked is you don't have to answer every phone call right now.

Mm-hmm.

You know, if you give yourself permission not to answer every phone call immediately, you can see who it was and you can probably think about what they're going to ask you or what you needed from them the last time you communicated or, or whatever. I mean, you can kind of formulate some thoughts and give yourself some space. Before you jump into the fray. Same thing with the staff.

True.

You know, if you empower them to come up with their own solutions, suggested solutions, however you wanna word it, that takes a lot of pressure off. You know, I'm today, as you know, I'm sitting in my RV up in the middle of Nebraska, and tomorrow I'm going, I'm floating down a river in a horse trough, but I'm working today.

That's your disconnect.

That's my disconnect. And, you know, so I work all, I don't mind working 7 days a week and I quite often will, um, just to crank it out because, um, I do the lion's share of production in my firm. So I have to stop sometimes.

Mm-hmm.

And I have to give myself permission. And, and so I have to tell clients, I'm going to be out of the office. If you have something urgent, you know where to find me. But, you know, I, I did your payroll today. It might be Sunday afternoon. I did your payroll. I did all those things, but I give myself permission to stop. And you can see behind me, there's all these trees out the window. Yeah, that way. Opposite of what I just said.

The opposite way. But I know what you're talking about.

In the wall.

In the wall. Yeah.

And I'm sitting, I'm sitting on a lake in this beautiful part of Nebraska. And, you know, today is a workday. So I arrived up here yesterday and I said, okay, Tuesday's a workday. And I'm handling all the email and things that come in today. And my clients don't know where I'm at. But I think you have to build systems to handle that. You can't be everything to everybody. And I think that that's a gift. You have to give yourself that gift to recognize that.

Yeah.

You know, and I think you and Lynda in your company, when you partnered up, you guys just rocketed to the moon with growth and over the past few years and, you know, you have added to the team and you've added to your leadership and all those sorts of things. And those are things to recognize. That it's okay for you to delegate some of those things.

Yeah.

And maybe give yourself some more space.

But yeah, you have to celebrate your wins. You have to. Yeah, exactly. Truly. Yeah. You, you just in general, it's when you're a party of one, like maybe one and a quarter or three quarter, however you are.

Right.

Right.

You're a party of one to many. It's It's that recognition internally that can help you drive, basically.

Right.

So, yeah. Yeah. And the same for firm owners too. Like you're saying, our clients are constantly in that space of depending on what practice area they're in.

Right. Right.

That will be the kind of the ups and the downs and the evolution. I mean, family law is very different than—

That's very in the now on the stage.

Yeah. Yeah.

Stomping out the fires, whereas, um, perhaps a corporate attorney has a little more time, but then, you know, they're a lot deeper thinking and transactional type things and all that. But, um, you know what, I, um, quite often when I reach that midday burnout, yeah, you know, where it's just been one thing after another from the minute I walked in the door in the morning, and, um, I just give myself, uh, a chance to take like a half hour, close your eyes, Sit back, put on some nice music.

Yeah.

And clear your head. And then you know what? I'm good to go again for a while.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I really love doing that. It's a nice way to break up the day.

Yeah.

And kind of just let everything settle.

Mm-hmm. So, yeah, no, yeah. You, you get a lot of things thrown at you. I, I do feel like our, our lives in general, it's nice to celebrate the little things too. Like, um, did you make it to the gym? Did you go for your walk? Did you, you know, our, our lives are so constantly churning. And of late, I feel like it's just a magnitude of different things. It might have been the full moon. Who knows? You know, there's a lot of, a lot of differences happening in the world right now and a lot of uncertainty. And so how do you bring that to yourself and still crank and produce and be the best human you can be? And I do feel like it's individualized. A lot of people love to make the blanket statements. Well, if you just go do this, this will be better. You know, I kind of want to sometimes tell people, like, did I ask for that advice? Because I—

no, that—

yeah, that's like looking for that, you know.

I was, I was telling Tierra before we started the broadcast today that, uh, the campsite next to me, the people, their RV broke down. And so there they are stranded, and they have one of those RVs that you drive your house. They don't have a car with them. So, you know, it's a, it's a drivable RV and it's broken down. And I've watched all the guys from all the different campsites coming over and telling them what to do this morning. And I can just— and I've stayed away. I just said, I waved. I said, if you need anything, if you need coffee, if you need whatever, I'm over here. But to your point, you know, everybody's been jumping in and telling them what to do, and that's just causing more stress.

It causes more stress.

Yeah.

And sometimes it could feel like judgment or like, how did you not think about this? Or how, you know, and It's, it's just, you never know what's going to come your way. So yeah, it, I feel like, um, and I say this out loud, not just for the audience, but for myself. It's, it's finding that rebalance and that repurpose for me, like you were saying. And it is every day. It, what's hard is to equate what feels like an emergency moment to somebody else. And it's really not maybe, um, and helping them kind of reframe it.

And how you can, how you can calm them.

Escalate that down.

Yeah.

And even, even though in your mind you might be going, oh God, I gotta do this now.

You know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, gotta get that wand out, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or just the sheer acknowledgement, um, of like, okay, well, if you're gonna try and get this done today, I'm around. May not always answer my phone at that moment, but, uh, so yeah, it's, it's very interesting how you can burn out can Also show itself up in different ways.

Um, let's talk about that.

Okay. So one way is you might just not have any drive to do the work, right? You might just be like, oh my God, what's the purpose today? That might be one way. That's—

Or I don't, or you resent it.

You resent it. Yeah. Yeah.

True. Easy. Everybody does that. It doesn't matter what kind of job you have.

Yeah.

You know, you can be making sandwiches in the deli and resent every single one that you make.

Yeah.

You know?

So, yeah. And it could be lots of different things. It could just be the inability to maybe delegate or the inability to, uh, you know, just always feeling like it's on you and then you're the fear to it.

The fear, the fear factor, the, the, what is it? The, um, oh, it's, it's escaping my mind now, but it's related to the fear factor of doing the actual task. The, um, yeah.

Yeah. I know what you mean. I, I don't know. Uh, right now the terminology, but I know exactly what you're— there's also like you're trying to delegate and it just piles back up on you. Yeah.

Yeah. That's the hard part.

That's the hard part. And then you have to pivot. And, um, it's interesting because I feel like there's times where I do this. I'll just speak from my space. I'll go through these evolutions of like wanting to listen to different audiobooks to help me kind of retrain or rethink my thinking. And along with that has to be the intention of wanting to fulfill whatever that retrain, rethinking is. Sometimes I feel like people look for the answer in those, and really it's just back on you. It's the answer is how you prepare yourself. And that's hard because then you have to own that.

Well, yeah, there is that. But you know what? Because we're entrepreneurs, we, we tend to have the personality of we have to fix everything for everyone.

True.

And you just can't.

Yeah.

And you have to give yourself— the word grace comes in. You know, you're getting the, you're getting the former spa owner talk here now, but you have to, you have to give yourself grace and permission and slow down. And yeah, you know, I love Tierra for that in her super busy life. She's always saying, I did this or I did that. I went camping or I went for a walk or I did, you know, I start my day, especially in the summer. I go out on my deck. As you know, I raise koi fish and I have this giant pond on my property and, and I go out in the morning and I put Cat Stevens morning has broken on. And I, oh, do you? I have my cup of coffee and, and the dog and I sit out on the end of the deck and watch the fish.

Yeah.

That's how I start my day.

Yeah.

You know, let's, let's kind of pivot. You used the word pivot. How do you do friendly, respectful boundaries? And this goes for everybody who has customers. Again, again, I don't care if you're a car salesman, if you're an accountant, if you're a lawyer, if you're a doctor, how do you get— how do you set healthy boundaries? Let's take the doctor out of that because they have to be available all the time. But how do you set healthy boundaries when a client expects you to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to answer that question? You know, and then I gave the example of all— I do work these marathon days in a row, but, um, I've, I seem to do pretty good with clients. Don't contact me on weekends. You know, because I've, I've let them all know that's when I'm doing things for you, but I need focus. You know, I need to get it done.

Mm-hmm.

You know, and you shouldn't be working because you have me.

So, you know, I don't know.

Talk to me here.

The best answer to this because it's so—

Remember healthy.

So personable, right?

It is.

Um, and most businesses, this is the funny thing I find about business. Is it really Monday through Friday? Is it, is it really Monday through Friday?

Not anymore.

No. So what, what is your working day? What are your working hours?

I guess here's an example I have. You can say to a client, did you want me to do this first or that first?

I see what you mean. Yeah, in that scenario, yeah, you'd prioritize the, the requests. My simple thing today was Like, hey, I get that you're kind of anxious about what just occurred. It feels very frustrating. But my response was, well, I'm in another meeting, and I'm happy to help you with this. Let me just bow out of what I'm doing. But also, like, okay, that's a nice way to have a boundary. But also, let's prioritize, to your point, what are the 2 problems? Because they're both big problems. They were both actually pretty important problems, but I cannot solve both of them on a phone call. And I made that known. You know, this is not something I'm going to in 10 minutes have an answer for. It's going to take some work on your part too.

You can say, I really want to help you with this.

Yeah.

But I'm going to need some time and space.

Yeah.

And always end, you know, in that type of sentence with, and I will get back to you no later than.

Yeah, if you have an ability. Well, that's if you have an ability. But I, I think, Steve, your question is a good question really for the general audience, and I'd love to hear how people establish, uh, their own boundaries, uh, suggestions that are helpful, that are healthy. Um, it's an interesting word because it's a— sounds like a negative word, but it's really a way for us to, you know, probably get more done or do better things or do better to ourselves or for ourselves in order to be a better person. I'm not sure how you— I mean, I know you, so I know how you would handle a lot of these things, but I don't— I'm not sure how, you know, if you got this disruption moment or something came up and you're traveling. How would you restate your abilities or your working days? How would you comfortably feel if you want to share how you restate that so the person knows they're just as important, but whatever the issue is?

Oh, you know, I, I have no problem saying I'm not in my office right now.

Yeah.

In fact, I did that with a client right before this meeting. I said, I'm not in my office right now.

Yeah.

Um, and I am traveling this week. And, and thanks for contacting me because I sent you that email that let you know I was traveling. So I'm glad that You've trusted me that you could call me with this challenge today, but is it something that can wait until I'm in the office next week? Because that's when I can really focus on it.

That's so good to ask the question. How important is it?

And you know what else I do on travel days? Because, you know, in the summer I love to get out in the RV and just go see things, float down rivers and horse tanks, you know? Um, but when I'm on the road, I will bring a list of 2 or 3 clients that I want to talk to uninterrupted, and I'll call them on the phone from the road.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And I'll say, I'm driving, so, you know, I'm really focusing on that, but let's talk about this situation. Or I'll make an appointment with them and say, I'll be on the road. Can we talk then?

Yeah.

You know, and I cover it. And guess what? On the, on the clients that are on an hourly rate structure, I, you know, I can bill that time while I'm driving down the road.

Yeah.

So, but I can solve some issues for them and, and it's a more focused, if you will, cuz I, nobody, I know nobody else knows where I'm at.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, truthfully. Yeah.

You know, I'm driving right now. Did you know that?

Thank God you're not.

Yeah.

You know, I was thinking here in our, our show notes that we have, you know, where we feel guilty about taking vacations or we feel maybe we can't because the work doesn't get done.

It took me years to get there. I, I, I worked for, I, I built this life. Of getting on the road in the RV and being able to work out of the RV. It took me almost 7 or 8 years to put that together. Yeah, the first couple trips were really scary. I was like, oh God, I, I, this, that was even before Starlink days, you know. Yeah.

So I think that for me, the biggest thing is, is, is going back to the initial question. Yeah, there are professional services that are Monday through Friday. You may not work Monday through Friday as an accounting person. You might do different days. You might, Be in my situation where you're an empty nester. Life is very different. Your spouse has a different schedule. My schedule shifts according to, like what you said, your, your needs and the to-dos, the to-do lists.

Well, you know, I have, I have an elderly father and a very sick brother right now.

Yeah.

And I've given myself permission to tell people about that, just to mention that so that they know that if I disappear, Something's up. Yeah, you know.

Yeah, it's not. Yeah, so there's— it's— I guess it just goes back to your— how you're serving yourself. Um, if this is your business, or if you're an employee in a business, what are the abilities for you to, to be able to professionally speak up in a nice way, in a kind way, but also hopefully get your needs addressed? As firm owners, For law firms, it is quite the balancing act because, like you said, it's definitely— we don't know a lot of times what is in that world. And depending on the type of law you practice, I mean, things don't just stop overnight. Obviously, accidents happen at different hours, things occur like— so depends on the type of area of focus. But I do feel if it is your time to take that time off and you do want to, you know, shut down or visit with family or do what you need, that's okay too. Like, just being okay with that. And I do feel like celebrating, like you said, in the summer being outside. I think celebrating that, honoring— like, those are the things that we— we're such in a materialistic space of time, you know, with everything, all the ads. I think it is nice to have a popup of someone being outside walking around. And, you know, I like follow different people that have like donkeys and dogs. It's just nice to see. And myself, I went for a walk last night because I needed the reshaping of the mental focus in my mind.

I need—

I've seen you post pictures with you and your, your, your mama, you know, out walking around and, and you were sharing the scenery in Portland, I think. And I don't know if you remember that one, that post, but, you know, Stop and give yourself some time. It's okay. And you know what I think a lot of people miss in this industry and the accounting industry is that at the end of the year, it really does quiet down. There is a time.

Yeah.

There is a time. And have you planned ahead or did you just let it sneak up on you? And now you're like, well, what am I going to do with this 2 weeks? I'm going to watch TV. You know, I mean, think about that. You know, think about planning to take care of you because if you, if you can't take care of you, you can't take care of everybody else. Sooner or later you are going to burn out and resent it. Yeah, not good. Yeah, even if you're scraping by financially, you know, you're having a hard time yourself and you need every penny, guess what? If you build it, they will come. You know, give yourself some grace and figure it out. And, and even if it's just a little bit every day, do something.

Right.

Meditate, go for a walk. Just sit and be peaceful. Just, you know, whatever it takes.

Read a book.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Call your best friend.

Whatever it is, the re— whatever you need for recovery, it's for you. It's not for anyone else's approval or, you know. Yeah. And I mean, you see this all the time. People do hobbies and they enjoy it, and then it turns into a business, and then there's sometimes regret over that, right? Like, That's sad. Um, so you always have to like kind of look, like ask the question, is it gonna work?

Let me give you another example, an entrepreneur, because you know I love RVing. I'm in the Airstream world. I love Airstreams. I'm in the club. We do all the—

I'm in the club.

I'm in the club. But my RV repairman, I found him.

Uh-huh.

He— how did we find each other? He called some— oh, I know what it was. He had, I had him come change batteries in my, one of my past RVs. And as it turned out, we found out that we lived across the park from each other. He and his wife live on the other side of the park and I live on this side of the park. And then we got to talking one day when he was doing something on my RV and he said, I need a CPA. Can you refer someone? And I referred him to a good friend of mine who's a CPA.

Mm-hmm.

And we built this, this relationship and I'm a little bit of a long story here, but what he does In his life is he's in Colorado in the summer traveling around in his geographical area that he covers, fixing RVs and camping in between, fixing RVs and camping in between. And then in the winter, he goes to Arizona, and everybody knows in Arizona where he goes that he's going to be there and they can depend on him to fix their RVs. And he takes vacation time in between, you know. Tonight, this afternoon, when my other friends arrive here. Okay. Are you ready for this hokey thing we're gonna do? But I gave myself permission to do it. We, a friend of mine found this place here in North Platte, Nebraska, that it's at an art center and they're gonna give us each a birdbath and we're going to mosaic tile our birdbaths. Okay.

That's interesting.

Now, if that's not relaxation, what is? And of course we get to have wine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, well, I mean, you're right, it's, it's all in different forms. Art. Yeah, yeah, simplistic things, walking, whatever it is that we all have something.

And I get— you can tell I get passionate, but—

Yes, you do.

We all have something in our lives that we've always wanted to do, including you, Sarah Prevost, you know, and you're pretty good at that.

Yeah.

But, yeah, don't stop. Find another thing. Yeah. You know, I've always admired that about you.

Well, thank you, Steve.

Where's Lynda? Lynda is gone right now. She gave herself permission to go.

Yeah, she's taking a really nice trip. I'm excited to hear when she gets back what she's going to share with us. I mean, the pictures I've seen is pretty incredible. But yeah, it's, um, so I guess really this should be labeled as give yourself permission.

There you go. Give yourself permission. There's nothing wrong with it. And if something comes up that prevents you from doing that thing you've given yourself permission for, just use your word, pivot. Yeah, you weren't meant to do that at that moment in time. Just change and figure something else out.

Just make a change. And yeah, you see it publicly too with people. They'll— they've made a change publicly. You're like, whoa, You know, like, say, like a celebrity person or someone, you're like, right, right, that's a big deal, right? Or there's ones that are being done to them, and it's how they respond to that is where I'm always fascinated. Like, wow, this was, you know, not a gracious exit. How would you respond to that? And you kind of like see and you think, yeah, you totally—

Do you know who Katherine Heigl is?

Yeah.

She, you know, she pivoted from accounting— listen to me— she pivoted from acting Yeah. To her pet food company.

Yeah.

Because she has this passion for animals. So she found a way to have her passion for animals and make her living.

Yeah.

You know, that's a great example.

That is a good example. Yeah.

How many, you know, how many professional actors have you seen that end up doing something else and they're successful at that as well? You know, a lot of them because they don't always have a job.

Yeah, that's true.

That's true. And it's true of, um, I'm always amazed at people that are, you know, attorneys in the legal profession that probably got burnt out or realized maybe this isn't what I want to do, and they go into another profession. I, I find it—

A lot of them do that.

In software. Yeah, which is fascinating to me. I've met a lot of them in software.

One of my clients who listens to this podcast pretty regularly, he'll tell me, I listened to this one in the car this morning or whatever, is just now getting back, I think at the end of this week. Anyway, took the entire month of July and is hiking a trail over on your side of the world. He just—

Oh, the Pacific Trail, probably?

I don't know which one he's hiking, but it's just so cool. I admire him for giving himself permission to go and take care of his soul that way.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

Wow. Way cool.

Yeah, it is really.

Because when he's on, when he's working, man, he's, he's a superstar. He's, he's on it.

Yeah.

You know, but he, he, he gives himself permission and he takes such good care of his staff as well. They, they have regular retreats and a lot of lunches are brought in every day and a lot of coffee is brought in in the morning and they, they do all these nurturing things to take care of everybody because they realize how hard they work.

You know, yeah, it is interesting. Certain professions, you know, like you mentioned doctors earlier, they have probably their own outlets, nurses as well. You know, just, it's interesting, you know, depending on where you're, where you sit. And each profession has a probably a balance of help. You know, this need to want to help other people, this need to want to serve other people or some something else, right?

Well, here's a great doctor example. I have a friend who co-owned an emergency room with 4 or 5 other doctors.

Yeah.

And they set it up on a rotational basis. And so he and his partner bought a house down in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Mm-hmm. And they had their apartment house in Denver. And when it was time for him to work, he would fly back to Denver and work in the emergency room for X number of weeks and then back to San Juan and parasailing and boating and, you know, all this sort of stuff.

Yeah.

I've seen people in our industry who specialize, as an example, in cleanup work only.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, they will niche right down into cleanup work only, really work hard on the, the, the year-end tax stuff, and then they take time off. My mom was that way. I was raised— I guess maybe that's where I got it. Thanks, Mom. Um, she was, she was an income tax person.

Oh, wow.

And literally, we didn't— you did not say boo to Mom between January and May. You just left her alone or she would rip your head off. But then she took the rest of the year off.

Yeah.

You know, she made all her money during tax season. There's, there's ways to do it.

There's ways to do it. Yeah. So you have options, friends.

Yeah. So what, what are you going to give yourself as a gift today in closing here, Sarah?

The value of time and space for myself. So I'm just going to, as I go through things, it's just what I can only accomplish for the day. That's it.

Yeah. You've had a rough start today. I mean, we're, we're Broadcasting the, the, uh, or recording the podcast while your electricity went out in your, the room you're sitting in.

My home office.

Yeah.

I think I had to move to a different space, but yeah.

You had a crazy, almost like a Monday morning on a Tuesday, you know, today. And so what I want to know before we close, I want to know something you're going to do for Sarah this afternoon.

Oh, I'll probably go for a walk.

There you go.

Yeah, I know myself. I, I know myself well enough.

Yeah, it's a great way to refocus.

Yeah, yeah.

So, well, I sure hope this has been helpful to everyone today.

I hope so too. Yeah.

You know what, just, just one, one other really quick thing. Just talking about this, didn't that kind of lift—

Oh yeah.

You know, put it in perspective and lift some of that pressure off?

Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's all—

Tiara, can you, before you, before you close us out, can you share one thing you, that you do?

I like to paint.

Oh yeah, just get, just disappear into the painting.

Yes.

I, I was hoping you'd say that, not like paint the bathroom wall, but—

Oh, I would love to do that too, but I like, I like to paint and embroider.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

A nice snowy afternoon and, and brighter all afternoon, huh?

Yeah.

Love it. Well, take us away, Tiara.

Well, for everyone else, if you enjoyed today's episode, please take a moment to like, share, and leave a quick review. It's the easiest way to help other accountants and attorneys find our little corner of the podcast world. And while you're at it, hit subscribe so you never miss an episode. Do you have a question or a topic you would love us to cover? Drop us a line at info@accountantslawpod.com. Send us a message through our website, accountantslawpod.com, or leave us a comment on any of our socials. Your idea might just make it into a future episode. And if you want to go beyond just listening, consider sponsoring an episode and get your company in front of our growing community of accounting and legal professionals who love learning, laughing, and leveling up. And as always, don't forget to join the conversation inside the Accountants Law Lab Mastermind group at accountantslawlab.com, where collaboration meets inspiration every week.

Oh, that was wonderful. I'm so glad you shared with us.

Yeah, definitely. Thank you. Thanks for the time.

Thank you, everybody. Have a great week. Bye-bye.