Peter: [00:00:00] Erin, Welcome to my podcast. And thank you for taking time out of your very busy day to have a conversation with me today.

Erin: [00:00:08] Thank you so much for having me.

Peter: [00:00:10] As we’re recording this, we’re also video recording and as you’ll see when you’re watch this on YouTube. The sun is shining where it is and today is April 6th. We’re recording this show some a month or two or three or go by before it actually is aired. But she is talking to us from beautiful San Diego, California, however she used to live in northeast Ohio in the Cleveland area. And I think she was saying before we got started how much she missed the winters the cold the snow. And think about maybe relocating back is that… Or is that just sarcasm on my part?

Erin: [00:00:51] You know I do miss my Cleveland Cavaliers but I do about the weather.

Peter: [00:00:57] Yeah I actually I was thinking about this. I played golf in San Diego at an AICPA conference some years ago. The conference was in May. I’m in Southern California in May and it was the coldest round of golf I think I ever played. What was it. The May gray June gloom?

Erin: [00:01:18] Yeah that’s right. Our nicest months don’t really come around until September and October.

Peter: [00:01:24] And then through now to April.

Erin: [00:01:28] Right.

Peter: [00:01:28] I thought it was sunny and beautiful year round in San Deigo, so I guess I learned the hard way I was completely wrong about that.

Erin: [00:01:35] You must have been here on one of our 20 days of gray.

Peter: [00:01:40] I was. It felt a lot like baby fall in Cleveland at times when we were playing golf. So Erin give us your story tell us tell us about yourself because you are a CPA and as I mentioned in the intro but you’re not their stereotypical CPA, which kind of really intrigues me because obviously I’m not one either.

Erin: [00:02:02] Yeah I like to tell people I’m a recovering accountant. For those of you who are just wrapping up this season and I know you know what that feels like. But I did. I started my career in public accounting. I actually really enjoyed the work for a short amount of time. And then the long hours just really started to get to me and eventually I moved on to industry looking for a work life balance, which is also kind of a joke because we all know that it doesn’t happen if you’re in the accounting field, regardless of where you are working. But while I was in industry I had an opportunity to really work with leaders of all different shapes and sizes. That’s one of, I think, the gifts of working in accounting is you do get a chance to connect and work for different people, which keeps it exciting. Right? it’s not a sterile environment. But what I learned was there were a few that I just absolutely loved working for and there were also asking that I wasn’t happy to work for. right? Didn’t only have the leadership skills that were required. And at the time it just felt like gosh this is not for me I don’t want to work with people like this. [00:03:18] And so I made the jump. I went completely 180 from accounting and started a coaching practice. And really the thing that I love about the work I’m doing now is that I get to come back to the accounting industry and work with these professionals to help them be their best selves. Help them and become better leaders who are more effective and who can connect to the people that they’re leading. [26.3]

Peter: [00:03:46] So tell me, when you when you left public accounting, and you just left accounting and went into coaching. Tell me about this coaching venture that that you went down.

Erin: [00:03:59] Well really what happened – it’s kind of an interesting story – but I went to a cocktail party in our neighborhood. We lived in a condo complex. There’s quite a few units here. And actually wasn’t even thinking I was going to go. But I got dragged there against my will and I ended up meeting a neighbor of mine and she overheard me telling somebody that I was an accountant and I was really not enjoying my work and I felt like there was more to life. And she came over and said “You know I’ve been there. I’m a recovering accountant too. And you should come check out this program,” and it was a coach training program, and really I went hoping to learn more about myself because I was in this place where I knew I didn’t like what I was doing but I also didn’t know what else was out there. So people said well why don’t you go back to school or why don’t you switch careers. But [00:04:53] I really felt stuck. I didn’t feel like I had a clear direction. So I actually took on coaching and coach training as a way to just learn more about myself, really for that person development aspect of it. And almost by accident fell into it as a career. [17.9]

Peter: [00:05:11] That’s a great story. So you’re kicking and screaming at a cocktail party. I don’t know anything what that’s like. I think I run to them, versus kick and scream, but you know even to the point, when I talk to the accountants and stuff about networking, you just never know what could happen at any type of networking event. And the ones that you tend to go to kicking and screaming, or hemming and hawing, actually I find that something actually magical. That’s happened to me a couple of times.

Erin: [00:05:47] Yeah. It’s all about relationships. You just never know.

Peter: [00:05:50] It’s all about relationships because we are we are all in the people business and the more relationships the better relationships. So prior to coming back into the accounting side of this, what type of industries were you were you involved with?

Erin: [00:06:06] I worked with people from a variety of industries. Some of them I still work with today even though my focus is on the accounting industry. I was working with psychologists. I was working with attorneys. I was working with small business owners. People who were leading teams, and a lot of that is consistent with my business now working with business owners or team leaders. But really when I was starting out I would work with anybody.

Peter: [00:06:36] One of the qualifying questions was does the check clear – Will the check clear? I’d be happy to work with you. That’d be great. That true entrepreneurial spirit. When someone asks you can you do this and you pause for a moment and go, “Of course I can.

Erin: [00:06:52] You look at your bank account you’re like yeah. I can.

Peter: [00:06:55] Give them a great big smile and go into the lab and get it done. So when you going through this training program, what did you find that was maybe a strength of yours that you have that maybe you didn’t realize was as strong as you thought it was?

Erin: [00:07:16] One of the things that I really think I took away from it was connecting – connecting with people. It’s something that I love to do, and I think in that regard I took it for granted: that it’s a skill that not everybody has, but it’s something that I really enjoy. I really need interaction with people I love to meet new people and learn different things from them and from their experience. And so then they told me that by connecting with people and helping them to develop as individuals I can build a business, and I thought well that’s pretty awesome. Good deal. And [00:07:54] I think I took that for granted in the in the accounting industry, too. Not. Not everyone has that natural ability to connect and relate to other people. So it’s a skill that I like to help others develop. [13.0]

Peter: [00:08:08] I got a couple of quick follow up questions but, one, I mean we go back… how long have we own each other? on LinkedIn.

Erin: [00:08:15] I don’t know maybe a year or two.

Peter: [00:08:17] Yeah I was trying to find that information but we had talked earlier this year, maybe last month, a mutual friend of ours Kristen Rampe, who I interviewed a while ago, kind of gave us one of those online virtual introductions on LinkedIn and you had contacted me a month or two ago kind of emailing back and forth. We said why don’t we just pick up the phone and have a conversation, and all of a sudden like an hour flew by I think. Because I mean we do share a lot of the same interests in the accounting profession. But [00:08:56] it’s just making that connection. And you’re right. A lot of our brethren in the accounting profession really have a hard time making that connection. I hear a lot of times “what do I say?” It’s as easy as just walking up to them and saying hello and just asking some questions, but I know there’s a bit of nerves involved. [21.1] But the one thing I do want to ask about your background: when you graduated college, did she go immediately into the accounting profession?

Erin: [00:09:27] Yeah that’s kind of an interesting story too. I. Went to school and my parents said you know what do you want to do? What do you want to major in? We’re not going to pay for your college for you to just go party the whole time. You have to have some direction. And I said you know I’m not really ready to answer that question right now, but all I know is I will not major in accounting. I know for sure. And I started to register for classes and wouldn’t you know it, because I had transferred, so I was kind of late to the game. And the only class available for intro to accounting was this professor who had a real reputation. He was the guy that was going to chew you up and spit you out and filter people out of his beloved accounting program.

Peter: [00:10:18] Ahh.

Erin: [00:10:18] Like oh I’m in for it. And one day he told me he came up and he said Erin I think you’re really good at this. You should consider a career in accounting. And that’s literally all it took. Next thing you know graduating with my degree in accounting and I did. I was able to secure a full-time offer through an internship and moved to California and started right away.

Peter: [00:10:43] So do you remember the name of the professor?

Erin: [00:10:45] Yeah. Dr. Robert Bloom at John Carroll University. I’m sure… everyone knows him. People still talk about him. I hear he’s still there.

Peter: [00:10:55] So if anybody is listening to this podcast in the Cleveland area and went to John Carroll University, please go tell the professor to listen to his podcast. I think he would enjoy that reference because being a former professor of accounting at Ohio Dominican University, I love it when I would hear stories like that from my students. That’s really cool. But you’ve had… I mean you’re not your stereotypical accountant. It must have been growing up, and your parents gave you this gift of communicating, this gift of gab. In my family… you know I was raised in the Greek-American household. All we do is we eat we talk, we connect, we serve food. I’ve worked in restaurants, and that’s where I developed that skill. And I’m curious how yours was developed at an early age.

Erin: [00:11:50] You know I think my mom’s very social She always used to throw parties, hosted events at our house. We were always kind of house to be at, but my dad’s a little bit more shy so I’m not sure. I must have gone after my mom and maybe a little bit of having to figure it out on my own in school. I’m not sure.

Peter: [00:12:13] That’s great because it does take a little bit of… I think once you get the hang of it, once you’re comfortable with it, you don’t think about it. But it’s making that transition from it’s something I’m not used to to something I need to do. And last year I was in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and my contact there was a partner at a local firm. And I asked answer the question how did you get into accounting? And her words were “because I didn’t like people.” All I wanted to do was come to the firm, sit in my cubicle, and do tax work. And I said wait a minute. Clearly, you’re a partner in the firm, you realized at some point in time that you needed to make better connections and she goes “yes, and I’ve worked on it very hard to get to it. It still doesn’t come naturally.” But she’s worked so hard perfecting it that she doesn’t have to think twice about it, except she says she can stand in front of 400 people teaching class and not even worry. But sometimes she struggles in smaller social, say four or five people, and a circle communicating and she just goes blank or tries to stay away. What advice would you give this person in how to break through that?

Erin: [00:13:36] Well I think that you said something interesting, where like we have to do it, and I think it also gets easier the more you do it. So part of it is just about practice: where you start to trust yourself in those types of situations. And it’s interesting because usually it’s backwards, right, where you can talk to five people, but put me in front of 400 and no thanks.

Peter: [00:13:57] Right.

Erin: [00:13:58] But on the other hand you can rehearse what you’re going to say to 400 people, and you don’t have to deal with that uncertainty of what will they say or what will they ask me or how will they respond. So I would say practice, for sure. And I think it’s really just about trusting yourself and owning who you are. All your quirks and all of it. Just bring it and connect with people.

Peter: [00:14:23] I like that. All of our quirks. Because we all do, and a lot of us will let that be a hindrance into doing something because we’re afraid that we will make a mistake or say something stupid. If I had a nickel or dime for every time I said something stupid at a networking event, I could retire very rich… But you know you learn when you say something stupid. I’m sorry I didn’t really mean or apologize or just move on and move past that and don’t make it that big of a deal, while inside your head your inner critic is just screaming their bloody voice at you. It is that balance and that confidence level.

Erin: [00:15:05] Yeah and I think it’s also remembering that they’re human too, and they’ve been in your shoes. They’ve made the silly comment at a networking event before. You know we can all really relate. I think we hold ourselves to super high sometimes unmeetable standard, and think that everybody else is perfect and we’re the only ones that you know that put our foot in our mouth sometimes, and it’s just not… it’s not fun to… it’s so much pressure.

Peter: [00:15:33] Accept failure. [00:15:34] Accept that you’re going screw up or make a mistake. And the other thing I tell audiences on this on this topic is you know why you might not like to network, you know why you might be hesitant to network. And it’s it all goes back to your mother. I blame your mother. I blame my mother. I blame all mothers for those who struggle in networking [19.6] because your mother always told you “don’t talk to.

Erin: [00:15:58] Strangers.

Peter: [00:15:58] Strangers. However, [00:16:01] a stranger is somebody who’s in downtown Cleveland with a bottle of Mogen David trying to get a conversation going with a mailbox or a light pole. That’s a stranger. But I always tell people in any business environment, these aren’t strangers – these are opportunities. [16.4] And the more that you can grasp that knowledge that you just never know what could come about meeting someone and not giving them that power… it’s easier to get past that shyness. It’s easier to get past it and embrace it versus repel from it.

Erin: [00:16:35] Yeah. And you know my my husband actually has historically been very introverted; very much against networking. If he could build his business and be successful in his career without it, he was the kind of guy who would do anything.

Peter: [00:16:51] Yeah.

Erin: [00:16:52] To avoid that step, and we actually met with somebody recently that is very successful in the military arena. He’s an admiral, and he was sharing about some times in his career where he just you know kind of went above and beyond to help somebody who was struggling. And then later on was faced with… I think he shared that it was someone who he had mentored when he was working at the Naval Academy, and then he was up for a job promotion and turns out that student’s dad was going to be his future boss. And it’s just things like that… he didn’t know that at the time, when he reached out to mentor this young Navy officer, and it turned out that it was somebody that really advanced his career later on. So I always think of that too because [00:17:44] the thing I see at networking sometimes is people say well I’m not selling anything or I don’t mean to network for my accounting career. And you might not quote unquote need it right now, but like we said: you just never know where you may be able to help that person or they may be able to help advance your career in some way. [21.5]

Peter: [00:18:06] Yeah. I agree with that. You just never know. Somebody came up to me at a conference and said that their companies are just merged and he’d been the CFO for one company for 20 plus years and now he’s going to be out of a job. And he goes oh my gosh I haven’t networked in 20 some odd years. And he had this fear in his face. And I said, one, breath, two, go home and take a pad of paper and just start writing names down. You have been networking. You just haven’t been really focused on it. But ultimately you’ve made connections, you’ve run into people, you just need to remember who they are. Write them down. I think you’ll be surprised how big your network is. And then I put the caveat: It could have been it could have been a whole lot bigger if you said I need to network at any business opportunity. Any CPE event. And just get to go as many people as possible.

Erin: [00:19:04] Yeah absolutely.

Peter: [00:19:06] Because you just never know. So when you’re coaching those in the accounting profession, are you primarily coached at the manager level, senior manager or partner, CFO, staff? What is the crux?

Erin: [00:19:22] Yeah [00:19:22] I like to say that I coached throughout our career lifecycle. I start way as early as CPA candidacy, so that might be fresh out of college just starting their careers, or sometimes up to the manager level. I help candidates who are struggling to pass the CPA exam to be more successful and they’ve been having really good results from it, which is pretty cool. [23.6]

Peter: [00:19:47] OK we’ll get off the phone right now. Hold on. So tell me about this. You’re helping coach those who are studying for the CPA exam, but it sounds like you’re not coaching them in the technical aspect of taking the exam.

Erin: [00:20:00] Mhm.

Peter: [00:20:01] So you tell me more about that now. Now I’m intrigued. You’re a guru.

Erin: [00:20:05] Yeah. So you’re right: it’s not at all about technical content. Because to be honest it’s been a little while since I’ve done that, and also I could never keep up with all the different studying materials that people use. So candidates usually come to me after they’ve failed one or more parts. Some have failed multiple parts multiple times, have been passed up for promotions. Like they are really getting to that point where it’s make or break. And so we work on things like how to get over a failure. We were talking about a high performing group of people, many of whom have, you know like me, breezed through life and were very successful almost by accident, without ever having to try… And then you meet your first challenge where you have to… you know, you don’t become automatically successful. And it’s a challenge. It really is. So I help them with bouncing back from a failure. We also talk about creating a plan that really works with our life. When I was taking the exam myself I remember people would say well here’s how I did it.

Peter: [00:21:15] Mhm.

Erin: [00:21:15] That’s not necessarily what’s going to work for everyone. And so we really work closely with you know sort of looking at the demands of their life. Do they have kids and a family? Do they have outside activities that are really important to them? And how can we have the CPA exam fit in with what’s already going on? And then there’s of course some things about boundaries and accountability and sticking with it.

Peter: [00:21:39] Right.

Erin: [00:21:40] It’s a long process. You know you have to stay motivated and to study, even when you don’t feel like it. But it’s been a lot of fun. It’s super rewarding, and I get so excited when they call me and say “I passed!”

Peter: [00:21:53] Wow. So you might have the statistic, you may not, but if you can guess: [00:21:58] what is your success rate on those who come to you wanting your help, wanting your advice, on how to get past the failure and how to create that plan and how to be successful? What would you say that success rate would be?

Erin: [00:22:11] Well the average pass rate is something around 49 percent for each part of the exam. I run more like 85 percent, and I don’t think I’ve ever had someone who’s failed twice after working with me. And to give you a little bit of insight, I had people sit for five parts of the exam in the last quarter and they all passed. [38.5]

Peter: [00:22:37] Wow.

Erin: [00:22:38] Mhm.

Peter: [00:22:38] All right so now I have asked this question: do you take clients nationally?

Erin: [00:22:44] Yeah. I work nationally. It’s all over the phone. I do have a few clients that I meet in over Skype or Zoom, because they like the personal connection. If I can meet them in person, locally, or if I’m traveling, I always try to do that. But yes, my clients are everywhere.

Peter: [00:23:00] OK audience. Those of you who know people who are studying for the exam and struggling, I think we may have a solution for you. Uncovering a solution for you. Because I am so intrigued by… I’ve always heard, when I hear somebody talk about a CPA exam coach or a CPA exam, I think of Becker. I think of the review courses. But this is the other– This is completely the opposite. And having an 85 percent success rate – Wow! That is… that’s boom! That’s cool.

Erin: [00:23:36] It is really fun, and I use to… actually when I first started doing it I didn’t like it because I was feeling the pressure. Like I have to help these folks pass – it’s on me now.

Peter: [00:23:49] Right.

Erin: [00:23:50] But I’ve really been able to refine the process and get some tricks up my sleeve that do tend to help people.

Peter: [00:23:57] OK. So two things. So how long have you been doing this coaching? How many years?

Erin: [00:24:01] I’ve been coaching for four years now. I’ve been coaching for the CPA exam for the last two.

Peter: [00:24:07] So not to give out all your tricks and techniques. but if there’s one small trick that you could share with the audience on being successful what would that be?

Erin: [00:24:18] Well I’m trying to think of my favorite. You know this is the one that I really love. A lot of candidates come to me and, whether they’ve started already and had some failures or if they’re just getting started, which is amazing because they don’t have any experience with it, but they come to me already hating the CPA exam.

Peter: [00:24:39] Yeah.

Erin: [00:24:39] They are like geared up, ready for battle, I’m going to conquer this thing… And they’ve already got this enemy type relationship with it. And so one of the things I’ve worked with my clients on is developing like a love-hate relationship with it. It’s not going to be fun all the time, but it’s almost like hey come on like we’re in this together. It’s going to be a kind of brutal six months, and actually where this came from I’ll give you the background: A colleague of mine her or, her aunt I believe, was experiencing some really debilitating back pain. She went to all sorts of specialists, was really struggling, and was frustrated because she had just retired and this was supposed to be like the prime time of her life where she would get to enjoy and really experience everything. So she was heartbroken that she was basically bedridden and was just in so much pain and no one could figure out why. And she was resisting it. She was angry about it. You know she was just trying to get rid of it. So really resisting her current situation. And one day she just decided look – I can’t let this ruin my life. I’m going to figure out a way to live with it, and actually had a conversation with it and said you know what… It’s just me and you back pain. We’re going to do this life together. You’re coming with me. And you know we’re so going enjoy the grandkids, we’re going to go travel as much as we can, and we’re going to do this together. And within a few weeks it was gone.

Peter: [00:26:14] Her back pain?

Erin: [00:26:15] It Went away, and it was just… I mean some people aren’t believers in that stuff, but I really am and I think that the more we resist things the more it persists. And she just was willing to let it go and partner with it. And you know move through it. It’s crazy. And that’s the same thing with the exam: we resist it, it persists. So just own it and love it.

Peter: [00:26:41] Wow! That’s a wonderful story. Man, my jaw hit the floor. Phew! At the college level, at the university level, I don’t ever remember professors saying it’s OK. The CPA exam you’ll be okay. Back when I took it was before they had it… We had to take it all at once, basically over two and a half day period. The horror stories that people would talk about coming out of it and just even the professors… they were they were not painting a decent picture. And you know I knew my strengths and weaknesses. I got into a profession a little bit later in life. So I was in graduate school and I went and took all four parts without studying.

Erin: [00:27:28] Mm. How did that go?

Peter: [00:27:28] I wanted to see, one, if I would pass anything – I didn’t – But I also didn’t fail anything at the time. So that gave me a baseline. I said OK, what are my two favorite parts here? So the next time I took it I took all four, but I focused on those two knowing that I had a good probability that I would pass the other pieces. I think it took me three times in total to do it and figure out a plan, versus I hear people – and I did spend a lot of time studying and preparing for it – But yeah you do psych yourself out for that thing.

Erin: [00:28:03] Mhm. It’s just like golf. It’s just as much a game of technical skill as it is mental. You know if you go in there and you spend all the hours that you should – you know really did your work as far as studying and preparing. That’s great. But the first second you get a question that you don’t know and it psyches you out, and you’re not mentally prepared for that, that’s it.

Peter: [00:28:28] Well that’s a great point because I use that same analogy when I talk about public speaking. If you’re so… if you’ve got this perfectionist mentality, the first thing that you know that you messed up or got the question wrong or something, standing in front of an audience, you begin to panic and it’s just all downhill from there… versus OK I messed up. Let’s just keep moving forward and I’m not going to let this thing get me down. And as we’re sitting here talking about it, in my mind I’m having flashbacks of nightmares, I believe, that was happening. But wow that is such great great advice. And even more so: hire her! Don’t go through the mental anguish of the exam – take the great outlook that Erin has and have her help you, and don’t stress over it any more. Wow. That’s awesome.

Erin: [00:29:22] Yeah. It’s cool. But then, kind of back to your original question, I do work with people past the CPA exam. Later on in their careers when they’ve been successful and now they’re managing people. I do coach and also train a lot of those folks with really developing their leadership skills to be more well-rounded as professionals.

Peter: [00:29:45] Because we all know that the first four years, five years of the CPA’s is life is full of technical knowledge and absorption with no anything else. And when you get to the manager level… you know a lot of I think the profession has utilized Peter Drucker’s theory of the Peter Principle: we will promote you to your level of incompetence.

Erin: [00:30:08] Mhm.

Peter: [00:30:08] Because I’m not used to working with people. I don’t know how… and I’ve got to do reviews. I’ll have to manage them, but now I have to manage up to the partners – oh and I have to manage out to the clients, and it’s not so much about the work. And yeah there’s a lot of need for us in this area.

Erin: [00:30:30] Yeah. It is overwhelming. And like I said you get a chance to work with all different leaders. I had a chance to work with one. His name is Kevin, and he was my supervising senior on one of my biggest engagements and he really pushed me – he pushed me outside of my comfort zone as a young staff. He had me working on challenging areas. I was in audit practice, so challenging audit areas, and at the time I thought he was crazy. I was thinking to myself like does he not know I’m fresh out of school and have no idea what I’m doing? What is he thinking? Like this guy’s crazy. But he took the time to really develop me. He took time. You know he was really busy also, but he took time to help me understand why I was doing the things I was doing, why it was important. And you know not only did that develop me as a professional but it created a loyalty from me to him. If he ever needed anything, I was the first one to raise my hand. I was willing to work long hours or go the extra mile for him. And we’re still friends today. [00:31:40] So I think we tend to have this short sighted view of things when we’re real busy. You know let’s just get done what we have to get done. But there really needs to be a focus on developing yourself as a leader and developing the people around you. [17.1] The one thing I think of sometimes is, you know, when you do get promoted, it’s like they know you’re technically strong. If you weren’t technically strong you wouldn’t have gotten promoted. They would figure out a way to move you to a different department or move you out. So you’ve proven that already. And now it’s about soft skills.

Peter: [00:32:19] Wow. That’s so true. So [00:32:22] when when you’re coaching at this level what’s the number one skill that you see is missing? [8.7] That you have to spend more time on in developing?

Erin: [00:32:34] Just one?

Peter: [00:32:36] What’s the top one? The number one.

Erin: [00:32:40] I think the top one is actually probably delegation. [3.4]

Peter: [00:32:44] Delegation.

Erin: [00:32:45] Yeah. Knowing how to delegate effectively is one part of it. Right. Actually having a road map or how to step by step guide so that you can do kind of like Kevin did, where he delegated work to me but made it a development opportunity and had be something that I saw value in for myself versus this guy is just piling on more work. And this isn’t really my job I should just be auditing cash and have an easy day. So that’s one thing – it’s the how to – but then it’s also the willingness to do it. There’s all sorts of fears and underlying things that get in people’s way that stop them from delegating altogether.

Peter: [00:33:30] What are some of those fears that you see?

Erin: [00:33:33] Well one is… we talked about how this is such a high performing group of individuals right. We’ve been praised, many of us (this may not speak to all of us, but many of us) have been praised throughout our lives for being the one that gets results. Like I am- You can count on me to produce high quality work and I’m going to get it done for you. Now if I’m getting my value from you appreciating that part of me, I’m not going to give my tasks to somebody else because I get praise for that.

Peter: [00:34:06] Mmm.

Erin: [00:34:07] So they almost see it as… some people will share, well, if I delegate these tasks, they’ll see me as replaceable or my value inherently goes down because I’ve given that to someone else and now they can get praise for doing that work. So that’s one side of it. And then the other is not wanting to be pushy – not wanting to be that guy that is dumping more work on other people. You know it’s my responsibility. The only other one is just wanting to control it. I’m better at it, faster at it, smarter than you. It’s easier for me to do it myself rather than take the time.

Peter: [00:34:48] That’s the one I probably hear more often than not is I can get it done quicker, it’s easier, I’ll just get it done. But then I also ask them how many hours a day are you working, because you haven’t delegated. And then if I do it’s going to take me twice as long to teach Erin how to do this. Right it is. But you know a month from now you can let the reins off and Erin will be fine and you just carve out extra extra hours in your day. There is that you know that upfront cost, that sunk cost, that you have to incur in order to release some things. And I hear that. But the one that you lead off with kind of surprised me a lot. That thought process of I’ve been praised as the high performer. I am a person that gets it done. But once you once you’ve moved into a management role that whole job description is now changed from when you’ve been a senior or a staff person, and your job is to develop people. And I think teaching is a hard thing to do. As we’re sitting or thinking about it, we speak in a different language. We speak in a foreign language called accounting.

Erin: [00:36:13] Yeah [laughs]

Peter: [00:36:13] And it has taken us a long time to master that. So as they’ve been learning this new language of accounting to delegate, to teach, it’s not all accounting language. You’ve got to use some different approaches. Some plain English aspect to get people to understand. If I can’t get you to understand I get even more frustrated, and then it just goes haywire versus let me let me see how I can translate this to you in a simpler manner or put some type of analogy around it or metaphor to help you understand. A lot of people really struggle with that.

Erin: [00:36:53] Yeah. Yeah absolutely. I think one of the challenges when I was first in a leadership role with brand new staff working for me was if I explained it the one way that I understood it, and then they didn’t get it, they have a different learning style or just a different communication style than I did… It really threw in my face like oh maybe I don’t know it as well as I thought I did. It kind of highlights some of those insecurities. And again I think that’s really all it takes for some people to get thrown off and not want to confront that again. Like OK well never mind I’ll just – I’ll do it.

Peter: [00:37:32] I ran across a recent quote by I think it was Einstein said “if you can’t described something simply then you don’t know it well enough.” I just I’m sorry Albert I know I just kind of butchered that. But it was along that sense there.

Erin: [00:37:48] Mhm. Some people say you should be able to describe your business or describe what you do so that a seven year old can understand it.

Peter: [00:37:54] Right.

Erin: [00:37:55] And it is – it is a challenge, and I think that’s where accounting firms could… well, I don’t want to call anybody out, but I feel like we could do a better job of developing those types of skills and really placing some more emphasis on how necessary it is. [00:38:14] We tend to focus on being really technically sound, which of course is important because that’s the job. But being able to teach and develop others is not a skill that comes naturally. We don’t just know how to do that because we got promoted to senior or promoted to manager. You know it doesn’t come in a little package they give you – you have to develop those skills, and sometimes it feels a little too little too late. [25.0] They do it at the manager level. These folks have been leading others for a long time… and maybe not doing a great job of it.

Peter: [00:38:49] Exactly. And it should be it should be sprinkled at some degree – the 15 percent or 20 percent during those first five years. I think another challenge that managers have with this complex language that we’ve learned over a period of time is translating that in a way that somebody else who doesn’t have the same learning style that we do, even within the profession, but [00:39:18] we tend to be attached too much to data and we don’t turn data into stories. People remember stories… we don’t remember data. [12.6] And I think that’s one of the biggest opportunities we have as a profession – is to take very complex information and build a story around it so people can understand, and I’ve heard people say mine is so complex and there’s no way I could turn that into a story, and my response is to go watch a TED talk. Technology Education Design – it’s all technical in nature, and they take very technical topics and craft it in a way, into a story, and talk about the statistics and the story that really resonates with people. So it can be done… it’s just not billable; it’s not chargeable.

Erin: [00:40:16] [laughs]

Peter: [00:40:16] And that might actually – I just thought about that. That might be the challenge because it’s something that’s not, but takes extra work to do.

Erin: [00:40:23] I love that though. I was thinking that you do need to be able to understand the application of it. You know I think the other challenge is that, when we do get busy in accounting, and I mean we get real busy and if there’s not enough time for that it resorts to well I’ll just file the work paper from last year. I’ll just do what they’ve done. I’ll kind of figure it out, but we don’t take that extra time to get a really deep understanding that would be required to create a story out of it to explain it in multiple ways. But I love that. I think that would be more fun, if it was stories that people can remember.

Peter: [00:41:02] I think it is too, and what you just described was… what was her name? We all dated her. Sally? Yeah. Same as last year.

Erin: [00:41:13] [laughs] Yeah.

Peter: [00:41:14] Yeah we have to find a way to dump Sally and find a new creative approach. I just… shameless plug, but the class that I developed came about because a managing partner who I knew, I asked him a question: So what keeps you up at night? He goes Sally, and I say your wife’s name is Mary.

Erin: [00:41:35] [laughs]

Peter: [00:41:35] Are you confessing something to me? No. You know what I mean. Sally same as last year. Our firm has been in business for a number of years. He was a young managing partner and we’ve been doing that same thing we did prior year, prior year, prior year. I’m afraid Sally is going to rear ugly head one day and is going to take this firm down. And he said how could you help me? So I came up with that creativity course for him. But yeah we get so busy that we’re also under these chargeable constraints, whatever, that I think don’t allow us to take a moment to really think through the issue.

Erin: [00:42:15] Mhm.

Peter: [00:42:15] Because we got to make budget.

Erin: [00:42:17] Right. Yeah. It’s kind of like you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. Something we should do, and sometimes the constraints don’t allow for it. But I think it’s really worthwhile to take some time out and and look at that. Because, I think like you were saying, that partner is onto something now. You know we get – I’m guilty of it in my personal life, too – [00:42:41] You get sort of stuck in your ways, you get complacent, and then things get comfortable. And then before you know it the industry changed; it’s moved on, and there you are still doing it the same as last year, which is really the same as 20 years ago. And you’re like woah, what happened? [14.4]

Peter: [00:42:56] Exactly, and you’re a lot younger than I am, so you can imagine how I see my baby boomer brethren getting really… still, this is the way we’ve done it. When I hear “this is the way we’ve always done it,” my first thought is now we need to change it.

Erin: [00:43:13] Yes.

Peter: [00:43:14] Because it’s outdated. And some people go oh no it’s not. I went Oh OK. May I ask you this question? Do you have a Blackberry on you that I can use?

Erin: [00:43:23] [laughs] Or like the the old car phones that you have to plug into the cigarette lighter.

Peter: [00:43:29] [laughs] They were about the size of a couch at one point in time. Go back and watch the movie Wall Street with Charlie Sheen and his dad. You look at these phones – and Gordon Gekko and Michael Douglas – and these things were huge and now we’ve got everything on a phone. Yeah. We have to not be complacent and reliant on salary. And so… is it time – this was probably stuck in my mind because this one of the episodes coming up in the next couple of weeks is I interviewed Jodi Padar, who’s the radical CPA. If you don’t know Jodi, listen to the interview because she’s trying to flip the profession to get out of that rut – to start looking at things in a different way, and maybe it’s time that we have to dump this utilization, realization, building model and go to a flat fee type of thing to allow us to have the time to reflect; ask that extra question and don’t feel like we’re under this budgetary time constraint. Because what I even ask those in the firms, “Does utilization and realization really work?” And I get the same answer: “Probably not, but this is the way we’ve always done it.”

Erin: [00:44:53] Yeah it’s true. And I think the profession really is moving. I will check out her interview and that sounds really interesting. But it sounds like it is moving to being more people focused, more client focused, client service in a new more dynamic way, and things are going to have to change. We’ve got to keep up with the times.

Peter: [00:45:15] Yeah, we need to keep up with the times. As I say you know for many, for a long time, the P in CPA stood for procrastination, when it really now needs to stand for progressive – being in front of it versus behind it. You know we’re always working on yesterday. Now if yesterday’s gonna be done by maybe a machine or some type of program then I need to be able to look forward and do more predicting versus procrastinating.

Erin: [00:45:46] Yeah. Strategy. But that doesn’t really work with the CPA. I like your word.

Peter: [00:45:53] Exactly. But to your point I think I see more and more firms start to really embrace this and start looking at it, and recognize that they need the change. They need to do something different. So how do we? And as you have grown your business with your leadership and coaching those people skills… Same way with myself, because during the recession I was just teaching all hardcore accounting. That consists of maybe .113 of my business today because there is that need that continues to grow. So that’s that’s a good sign. And there will always be those who won’t believe in it and will be just stuck in the ways. And for those who I’ve talked to, those are the ones who probably won’t be around much longer.

Erin: [00:46:46] Mhm. Yeah I think we have to embrace it. You know just like I’m telling candidates embrace the CPA exam. I see a lot of firms that are resistant, you know whether they’re one and two individuals up to multi-office larger firms. We’re all resistant to change right? It’s uncomfortable, we’re moving into the unknown. So there is that level of unease I guess with not knowing. But I think we do have to kind of lean into it and embrace the opportunity that’s there, versus seeing it as something wrong or seeing it as a negative.

Peter: [00:47:25] Right. And I love how you said lean into it. Because we tend to be like a little bit like this, versus leaning into it and taking the challenge on – and failure is an option because when we fail we learn.

Erin: [00:47:40] Mhm.

Peter: [00:47:40] And so crazy ideas and crazy failures have led to you know bigger and better things down down the road. I think that’s one of the other challenges that we struggle with is accepting failure because a lot, and I believe this is changed, but back when I was in a firm there was like was a lot of finger pointing when you screwed up, and a lot of fingers were pointed at that person, that guy, that girl… I’d say I did that pretty well because I was on the receiving end of that finger a lot. But those mistakes… you know it’s just like giving somebody some rope. They can either build a bridge or hang themselves.

Erin: [00:48:18] Yeah.

Peter: [00:48:18] And I’ve hung myself a lot. I’ve got some really good rope burns on my neck, but I learned a lot from that and I will never let that happen again.

Erin: [00:48:29] Mhm. Well and to your point you know it’s one type of culture that would point the finger of failure at somebody else. You know that’s one dynamic in an organization and I think that it’s a place that companies should look. If they’re taking on these major shifts, their business will look different five years from now than it does today, but that’s going to take something. And I think that they’re going to have to be in it together and it may highlight some of the issues they have with their culture. They may also want to take some proactive steps to really build their team you know team connection and build that culture up so that they can go through this change more smoothly.

Peter: [00:49:11] Exactly. I will share this with you: that one of my attendees in a class just recently was talking about change we were talking about this at a point of we’re we’re we’re we’re competent, we’re comfortable… that was the word: we were conventional. Things were the same. And then we’ve got unconventional. The whacked out, the crazy idea that we’re afraid to say but we need to say it to get it out there. And as you said, in between this is where the opportunity is.

Erin: [00:49:47] Mhm.

Peter: [00:49:47] My face just fell off when he said that. I went oh my god opportunity is somewhere between conventional and unconventional. We have to we have to allow ourselves to be unconventional and say crazy things because somewhere in between… that’s where we’re going to change, and that’s really the sweet spot.

Erin: [00:50:05] Yeah. And I think it’s creating the culture that makes it safe for people to throw their ideas out there. You know, if it’s a judgey culture, somebody might be sitting there with a brilliant idea that’s going to save that business and really take it to the next level, and they’re going to maybe die with that idea. Because they won’t tell anybody.

Peter: [00:50:24] Well said. I was doing that creativity course for a company in Maryland and they brought their emergent leaders from the U.S. and Latin America in. And one of the things was how can we increase profitability within the company? And let’s just brain storm, and I had set the stage: Say anything. Bad ideas are just bridges to good ideas – no ideas lead to nothing. It comes from improv. After a while, this one guy from Latin America says “I tell you what we’re going to do my friend. This is how we’re going to increase the profitability within. We are going to kill all of our competition salespeople. That’s what we’re going to do.

Erin: [00:51:06] [laughs]

Peter: [00:51:06] And the whole place erupted in laughter and then we all got a little bit nervous, and I went OK guys if I’m going to walk the talk here and say bad ideas are pitchers to good ideas, first thing’s first: I’m going to take murder off the table.

Erin: [00:51:21] [laughs]

Peter: [00:51:21] But let’s think a minute. look at that. Let’s identify the competition’s top sales people and let’s go poaching. Let’s go give a $40,000 increase with a signing bonus. We might catch one or two without having to kill anybody! Would we have gotten to that point if the guy didn’t have the courage to say something completely wacky? I hope he was being completely wacky. I hope he really wasn’t serious about that. But I’m not sure if were the guy without that crazy idea.

Erin: [00:51:54] Yeah. And it’s being willing to try things out, and maybe fall on your face. But if you don’t try it, you’re going to get left behind. And it does take courage to share the ideas and it takes courage as an organization to be willing to take a flyer on some of these ideas.

Peter: [00:52:13] Yeah. It does take a lot of courage. Erin, we could be here for two more hours and time would fly by – as it has again. So here’s what I’m going to ask of you: here in the near future, another Skype call, another interview, because there are so many – I didn’t think, in preparing for this, I had no idea about the CPA exam thing so I just took.. I was not going to back away from that, so I still probably have eight to 10 more questions back here that I’d love to ask. But out of respect for your time and everything, will you come back and do another episode with me?

Erin: [00:52:54] I’d love to come back. Yes.

Peter: [00:52:56] Oh that’s great. Is there anything that you can leave our audience with that you haven’t already said? One more nugget of wisdom that they can run with?

Erin: [00:53:07] I’m actually just sitting here at my desk and I have this quote I love, so I’ll just need to share that with them. It sorta ties into the work that you and I are both talking about, and the quote is: “In the absence of a created future, the past looks enticing. In the absence of a created future, the past looks enticing.”

Peter: [00:53:27] Who is that from?

Erin: [00:53:28] I have no idea.

Peter: [00:53:30] Anonymous?

Erin: [00:53:32] Anonymous.

Peter: [00:53:33] Wow.

Erin: [00:53:33] I think it’s so cool though because it’s true. [00:53:36] We really have to create where we’re going as individuals and as a profession, because otherwise it does look really enticing to just do tax returns how we’ve always done it. [14.2]

Peter: [00:53:51] This is one of the few interviews my jaw has dropped three times, if not more. That’s deep and profound – you nailed it. That’s great. Oh my gosh. I may just say let’s just keep plowing through because I don’t want to miss anything that you got to share. But once again, I’ve had a blast talking with you. I’ve got to go you a little bit better. I love what you do. We will have how to contact you on the Web site. I will mention it in the outro. And you know that if I can be of any assistance, do not hesitate – contact me. This has just been a really fun and informative interview, and I thank you so very much for carving out this much time for me.

Erin: [00:54:37] My pleasure. It’ been so much fun!

Peter: [00:54:39] Thank you.

Erin: [00:54:41] Of course.

Peter: [00:54:42] And oh, by the way, enjoy your sunny southern California San Diego weather out there.

Erin: [00:54:49] I will. I sure will.

Peter: [00:54:52] Thank you so very much, Erin.

Improv Is No Joke – Episode 50 – Reverend Susanna Goulder

Rev Susanna: [00:00:00] It comes about being in tune with what your personal strengths are, as well as what your passions are, as well as what your values are. And if your life is lined up with all of those it does become easier because when you’re asked to do a project you don’t have to study and figure it out because you’ve already got it innately in You.

[music]

Peter: [00:00:32] Welcome to Improv is no Joke podcast, where it’s all about becoming a more effective communicator by embracing the principles of improvisation. I’m your host Peter Margaritis, the self-proclaimed chief edutainment officer of my business, The Accidental Accountant. My goal is to provide you with thought-provoking interviews with business leaders so you can become an effective improviser, which will lead to building stronger relationships with clients, customers, colleagues and even your family, so let’s start the show.

[music]

Peter: [00:01:04] Welcome to episode 50 of Improv is no Joke podcast. Thank you very much for downloading this episode. Today’s guest is Reverend Susanna Goulder, who is a life purpose coach. Susanna helps people remove obstacles to step into the life that they were meant to live. She specializes in helping entrepreneurs and professionals quiet their minds to align with their strengths and purpose. Susanna helps organizations with women’s initiatives. Her timely, highly interactive programs help organizations understand the distinct and separate roles of gender communication that are a key factor to increasing success, retaining top talent, and increasing profits. Susanna is the life purpose coach and president of Live Your Good Life coaching. She is also a visiting faculty member of the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland. Susanna left her successful career in Motion Pictures and Television and entered the seminary to lead a Purpose Driven Life. Susanna was the original set decorator for Sex and the City. In this insightful episode, we talk about her time as the original set decorator of Sex And The City and the tremendous amount of work and thought that goes into set design. Even though she had it all and everything looked good on the outside, but inside she felt like a square peg in a round hole. Now the challenge becomes that you start beating yourself up. But the ultimate challenge is to not beat yourself up and to start to listen to ourselves. If you’ve been listening to my podcast for a while, you know that one of my goals with this podcast is to help you begin to make changes in your work and personal lives so you can better connect with others and create meaningful relationships. To be successful at this change, you need to make it a habit. Research has shown that it takes 66 days to create a habit, not 21. That’s why I created the Yes, And challenge: to help keep these principles in front of you so you can build up your improvisational muscle. To sign up, please go to PeterMargaritis.com and scroll down to the Yes, And challenge call to action, and click to register to begin building the productive habit of Yes And, and the principles of improvisation. And remember to share your experiences on Twitter using the hashtag #YesAndChallenge. If you’re unsure of what the yes and challenge is all about, I discuss this in greater detail in Episode 0. So go back and take a listen. Remember you can subscribe to my podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play. If you’d like to purchase an autographed copy of my book Improv is no Joke: Using Improvisation to Create Positive Results in Leadership and Life, for $14.99 with free shipping, please go to my website, PeterMargaritis.com, and you’ll see the graphic on the homepage to purchase my book. Please allow 14 days for shipping. You can also follow me on social media. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram. With that said, let’s get to the very informative interview with Reverend Susanna Goulder.

[music]

Peter: [00:04:34] Susanna, thank you so very much for being a guest on my podcast today. I’ve been so looking forward to our conversation. Rev Susanna: [00:04:41] And me as well. Peter: [00:04:44] We go back oh many many years I guess Susanna, from really from our relationship at the National Speakers Association Ohio chapter. Rev Susanna: [00:04:54] How lucky we are. Peter: [00:04:57] Well, how lucky I am. We’ll figure the other side of it out, having me as one of your colleagues and cohorts and stuff. Rev Susanna: [00:05:08] Well we’ll figure that out today. Peter: [00:05:10] Exactly. [laughs] So Susanna could you tell the audience your story. Tell us about you. Rev Susanna: [00:05:21] I’d be happy to. I’d be happy to. Well I’m Reverend Susanna Goulder, and I’m president of Live Your Good Life Coaching, and what I do– Well you know, essentially, [00:05:34] everybody here, all of us, come down to we want to be happy. We want to live a life that supports happiness. And in my journey of life that’s really what I was seeking, from a very very young age. [17.3] Peter when I was probably about 9 I was in the auditorium at Sunday school, and I might have been even younger. I might have been seven, for all I know, and I was walking across the stage, and it’s interesting it was a stage, and all of a sudden as a little girl just playing, and in Sunday school, I stopped dead in my tracks and I looked at all the people – the kids and all of everything around me – And the thought came in. [00:06:30] Do you know those experiences where, once in a while, a thought bigger than who you are comes into your mind? And in that moment it was just my heart stopped. Everything stopped, and there was a thought that said “why are we here?” And there was something in me that realized there was no actual reason for us being here – that it was actually somewhat unusual for beings to be living, and from that moment in that very young mind I realized there was a mystery to life… and why was I here? [43.6] And then in a blink of an eye, I was back into action running around with the kids and chasing around. But that moment stuck with me. Peter: [00:07:23] Wow. Rev Susanna: [00:07:24] Yeah. Did you ever have an experience like that? Peter: [00:07:28] Not at nine. [laughs] I think that’s the part that just… I didn’t know that about you, but just kind of blows me away that you had that cognizant of a memory, of a thought, at nine years old. That’s so impactful. Rev Susanna: [00:07:48] What was interesting was it was almost as if time stood still in that moment, and that experience happened, and it was interesting that it was on the stage because, as I said, people are looking to be happy. Peter: [00:08:04] Right. Rev Susanna: [00:08:05] And yet, in life, there’s always clues along the way for us. So it’s interesting I was on a stage because, in my life, my passion was theater, and I chose I wanted to be an actor. And I was very lucky that my passion for the theater took me to touring the United States and playing Lincoln Center by the age of 17. Peter: [00:08:33] Wow! Rev Susanna: [00:08:35] Yeah! It was great. It was great. And theater led to motion pictures and television, and that’s where I discovered my best life in film. And I wanted to be the greatest actress of our time. When I found that my best expression in film was as a set decorator– set decorator is so much fun. Sets were my canvases and decorating was my art. And basically if you envision a room, there’s the floor, there’s the ceilings, there’s the wall, and all everything that is adhered to. Even the floor and the wall has been brought in by the set decorator. Every single solitary thing. And so I got to create an environment that propelled the story of every movie or television show I worked on. And I got to work on pictures with some of the greats throughout my 22 years in motion pictures and television. I worked with Meryl Streep, who was hysterically funny, and Goldie Hawn, who was like a bee to honey with men. It was my jaw would drop. It was unbelievable. Jack Nicholson, who is just an amazing actor. Makes it look so easy. Kevin Spacey, also 24 hours seven days a week a comedian. Hysterical. Wesley Snipes, strong man the guy worked out every day. And Kevin Bacon, who at a wrap party asked me to slow dance with him. Peter: [00:10:17] Whoo! Wow. Rev Susanna: [00:10:17] I got to slow dance with Kevin Bacon. Of course I have to add all the other members of my crew as well. There’s other decorators, but it was wonderful. He was he was a consummate professional, and really just amazing man. And I was the original set decorator for Sex and the City, working with the team that created the look of that show. Peter: [00:10:40] Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. Did you just say Sex and the city? Rev Susanna: [00:10:45] Yeah. Peter: [00:10:46] Wow. The original set decorator for Sex and the City? Rev Susanna: [00:10:49] Yeah. Peter: [00:10:51] I knew that, but when it when you read it on paper it doesn’t have the same power as it does coming from you. That’s that’s that’s super impressive. I’m at a lack of words. What was that like, being the set decorator on Sex and the City? Because if it’s the first season, you kind of… you almost have like a license to almost do anything creative because it hasn’t been established yet. Would that be a correct statement? Rev Susanna: [00:11:23] It was amazing. Taking these characters and saying, “OK how can we express their personalities in the set?” And we went out and I had four assistants going to all the tri state area. In other words, New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey, going to flea markets and antique stores. Thousands and thousands of pictures of options. Every single piece handpicked to express the personality of Sarah Jessica Parker and Carrie, to the point where we look everywhere just for this coffee table that I wanted, that I thought in my head. Finally I just had the carpenters build what I thought in my head. Her lounge that was in her apartment. We looked high and low for it, and I actually saw it on the cover of a book and I said oh this is the one I want, and you got to go find it. And you know to Samantha’s apartment, and her very you know sensual sexy personality to Mr. Big. I love doing Mr. Big’s apartment and creating that you know masculine and yet prosperous very you know… who he was. It was a blast. And the production designer was just a genius. And the sets were so much fun. Jeremy Conway was a designer and he is just amazing. So it was it was an amazing experience and I have complete admiration for Sarah Jessica Parker as a person. She’s a beautiful woman. Not an ounce of fat in any wrong place on her body. Peter: [00:13:25] [laughs] Rev Susanna: [00:13:26] Yeah I was like oh my god how could it be so perfect? Perfect body. Perfect. But more importantly, who she was as a person, she was an amazing… She commanded respect of men and women by her presence. Extremely kind. And yet she knew what she wanted and was very clear. Emanated respect. She’s a wonderful person. You just wanted to be good around her because she came from the right place. Her heart was always in the right place. Very respectful of the people that worked with her. And she didn’t feel like she was putting herself on a pedestal. And yet very intelligent, very smart. Knew what she wanted. Knew how to communicate it. Easy to work with. She was wonderful. Peter: [00:14:16] So you could say she was– She found that happiness. Rev Susanna: [00:14:20] She was in the right place doing exactly what her talents were beautifully expressed, and that’s what everyone – whether it’s an accountant, whether it’s a lawyer, whether it’s an artist. That’s what everyone wants to do: be in a place where they’re expressing their talent, their strengths, and where they’re living true to their own values. And at that time I was expressing myself in ways that I loved. I own an eight thousand square foot prop house in midtown Manhattan, providing prop and set dressing to movie, theater, and television, and at the same time as being a decorator. And yet, and here’s the important thing for everyone listening in, and I’m really thinking of you guys right now. Here’s the important thing about creating a life of happiness: at the same time I was doing all that, and on the outside it looked great. [00:15:23] I mean I was bringing in the money, getting the jobs, had a very successful life… at the same time, there was a part of me that felt a little bit like a square peg in a round hole. And at that time I only knew that I wasn’t exactly happy. [23.0] I couldn’t… I didn’t know why, and I kept looking at others and saying well they’re doing this. Let me try doing what they’re doing. And she’s doing that, let me try doing what she’s doing. And I kept looking outside myself to try and find where I fit in – that place where I say I’m happy. [00:16:11] I love life, you know, but at that time, even though it looked good, I mean inside it didn’t feel good. I didn’t know what was wrong, and the challenge is – and I’m speaking to people in your listening audience – the challenge is, when life is like that, is that you start beating up yourself and saying what’s wrong with me. And the ultimate challenge is not turning it inward and beating yourself up, but to start to listen. [35.4] Like I know, Peter, in your book… so much of your book, Improv is no Joke, is about listening well. Peter: [00:16:53] Exactly. Rev Susanna: [00:16:54] And [00:16:55] you teach to listen well with others, and we also need to listen well with ourselves. [6.7] Peter: [00:17:02] That’s interesting. Listening to ourselves as that listening skill. But a lot of times when I think about listening I think about something that you’ve taught me over the years: it’s not about me, it’s about the audience. And I think that listening to the way I teach listening is like what we’re doing right now, in this interview. I have no scripted questions. I’m listening to the conversation. I’m crafting you know maybe what my next question or jotting some notes down to just to be able to move the conversation forward, but [00:17:42] I don’t think we do that well when we try to listen to ourselves. I think it takes a lot more effort, and maybe even more than effort: patience. [10.8] Rev Susanna: [00:17:53] You know it’s effort, it’s patience, but it’s also understanding the species that we are and where we are in our evolution. Stanford did a study of the brain, and what they found– and most people know that there are two hemispheres of the brain, there is the left and the right hemispheres of the brain, and that the left hemisphere is the one that is very practical, pragmatic; it makes sure you’re safe. Survival oriented and analytical. The right hemisphere is the creative side. It’s where inspiration comes from. It’s the one that passion comes from, and what they did is they looked at the neurons and the neurotransmitters and they said that the left side of our brain is like superhighway; we are thinking so much on the left and making sure we’re doing the right thing. Dotting the i’s and crossing the T’s, and it’s a superhighway of analysis, and also judgment, and also being critical, because we have to be critical to be safe. We have to look at that hot stove and say watch out – don’t touch it or you’re going to burn yourself. So that side of our brain is like a superhighway. Peter: [00:19:20] So what you just described was an accountant, an engineer, that type of profession, per se. Rev Susanna: [00:19:29] It’s for all people, and gosh knows what it’s like even more… if it’s a super highway for the typical average American, for the accountants and lawyers and the engineers it’s probably a super highway into other planets. It is the super highway of the 22nd century. It has drones going, as well. Peter: [00:19:59] I love that picture you just painted. Rev Susanna: [00:20:02] Yeah. The thoughts are everywhere. I know that there’s a lot of critical analysis going on. So in terms of a personal human being, it’s like are you doing the right thing? Should you be doing this? Why are you doing that? Now the right side of the brain is also on a transportation road system. But you know what kind of road system? In other words, how much is that system of thought developed in our brain? Peter: [00:20:32] Hm. Rev Susanna: [00:20:32] It’s like a dirt path path. [laughs] Peter: [00:20:38] [laughs] I was thinking maybe it was a 35 mile an hour speed zone. OK so it’s a dirt path. Rev Susanna: [00:20:45] So as a species we very much develop the left brain, but we’ve underdeveloped the right brain. We’re out of balance. So as individuals, our challenge is to: instead of criticizing ourselves, judging ourselves, and analyzing ourselves, our challenge is to build up that right brain. [26.4] So to take out more time to listen to ourselves, to go on a walk and put down the work, to do things that… we can listen to ourselves. Even by doing an exercise – going out and playing a game of tennis or going for a jog. Some people jog and it brings great clarity, or yoga. Whatever it is that takes you out of that left brain. “I’ll do this. Are you doing that? Did you finish that. You got more work to do. Well look at our calendar and fill it up even more.” But just going out and having fun. So you know a client– let me give a quick example. A client that came to me and we were talking, and she was at a point where her eyes were dim and she was just… she has a business. She did worked successfully for 18 years. She tried a new initiative, and it was very much from the left brain. She had been part of Goldman Sachs 10000… I can’t remember the name of it, but she had gone through this whole program with Goldman Sachs. She tried this new initiative. At the end of it, it didn’t really work. And she was OK with it, but she had all this energy within her. Come on let’s go forward. Let’s come up with a new initiative… And she looked bad. And she felt like how can I hold myself accountable everyday for getting things done? We were in this Goldman Sachs program. Now we don’t have that group-filled energy with us anymore. So my team and I were trying to reenergize ourselves, and they don’t look energized at all. She looked frustrated and dim. She looked dim. Her energy was dim. And a lot of suggestions just would bounce off her like no that won’t work, no we tried that, no I tried that before. You know how you get that way? Peter: [00:23:20] Yes. It’s just like you give up a little bit. Rev Susanna: [00:23:25] Yeah. Peter: [00:23:26] You become supercritical. It’s almost like you’ve created this new bias in your head. That almost defeat type of attitude. Rev Susanna: [00:23:38] Yeah. And she didn’t realize it, and I don’t think we realize it. We think OK I just have to work harder and I’ll come to it. You don’t necessarily– I’m not sure she ever necessarily saw, and I love that word you used, that she had a bias; a defeatist bias. Peter: [00:23:58] Right. Rev Susanna: [00:23:59] We were talking, and we were talking about accountability. And she felt, left brain, I need to get up early. I need to do this. I need to fill out my day. I need to fill out the week. My team needs to come together. We need to come up with this new brilliant idea, and we need to go forward, and I can’t give myself a break because this is needed. You know you know that experience where it’s just like… the picture I got in my head is that you know the carriage driver whipping the horse with the whip. Come on keep going. Keep going. Peter: [00:24:38] Wow, you can see into my house. Rev Susanna: [00:24:42] [laughs.] Yeah Peter: [00:24:42] You can see in my office because I get that feeling sometimes. You’ve got all this stuff that you want to accomplish, and then my super highway must be on steroids because this very task oriented, get things done… But my eyes haven’t dimmed. Still you know bright eyed and bushy tailed, but you can tell this person sounds like she’s almost… not at the end of her rope, but she’s just… corporate America got her; spent. Yeah. Rev Susanna: [00:25:14] And you know it happens a lot to accountants and engineers, especially accountants, especially in season. I mean there’s so much to do and there’s so much expected of you that you’ve got to go and you’ve got to produce and you got to bring in the clients and you’ve got to get the report out. There’s so much to do and you see others doing it around you, and why can’t you do as much or why can’t you do more? There’s a lot of pressure. Peter: [00:25:38] Exactly. There’s a tremendous amount of pressure. Rev Susanna: [00:25:41] Yes, a tremendous amount of pressure. And so I was talking to to her about… because she put so much of it on herself, I said you know take a look outside right now. And we turned around and we saw the winter trees in northeast Ohio, and they were there against a gray background. And you know they might have one leaf sort of dangling that had been there since the fall. But it’s still barren, and the silhouette of branches with nothing. No life. And I asked her to take a look at it and I said is that how it feels right now? She said it kind of does. Peter: [00:26:30] [laughs.] Rev Susanna: [00:26:30] “It just… I mean I keep trying to make life come, but it’s not coming.” What she was wanting to see is the leaves you know take leaves and glue them to the tree. I said you know but on the outside you see no life no evidence of life ever going to come. We know in our mind that eventually it will, but we don’t see any evidence of life. But underneath there’s so much life happening. Underneath there’s the preparation of the seeds in the soil, and we can’t see all that happening underneath that’s preparing for the spring that will sprout new growth and the new blossoms. And the same thing is happening for you, I said, and could be happening for people listening right now. There may be people that are listening right now saying you know I want to be happy, but no matter what I do I’m doing everything to make myself happy… or I could be happier. The thing is, can we move to that stillness, like there’s a stillness of winter. And there may be people on the call right now who there’s a stillness in their lives that they see as stagnation, and yet underneath, within them, there’s so much happening. But instead of using the left brain to analyze it sit down and let’s let’s do the pros and cons of that analysis. Right? Peter: [00:27:58] Right. Rev Susanna: [00:27:59] What do we do? What do we do about this? We need to fix it! Peter: [00:28:02] Take a legal pad out and start writing down. Rev Susanna: [00:28:07] [laughs. Peter: [00:28:07] One side pro’s, one side con’s. Rev Susanna: [00:28:09] Yes that’s right. Peter: [00:28:11] Right. Rev Susanna: [00:28:12] How do I make a decision about this? What we’re invited to do is build up this right brain hemisphere, which says to you know go within and be quiet. You know what? [00:28:26] Your best life is continually coming to life, and watching what’s happening in your life will guide you. But you have to be quiet because, if you’re using your mind to direct yourself, then you’re not paying attention to the world around you giving you signs. [17.6] So in my case, I was in the film business and I had a great life and I could strategize forever how to get to further in my career, and I had plans for retirement. And, yet, when I was listening, there was something that wasn’t right and I wasn’t happy. Peter: [00:29:06] Let me… I want to ask you a question first. You said something about quiet. [00:29:11] I want you to define quiet, because when you’re talking about the right side of the brain and the creative thoughts versus the analytical, the the dirt highway, is quiet meaning a dark room, lights turned out, no sound? Or is quiet meaning I stopped that superhighway left side and I’m doing something to slow the left side and reenergized the right? [31.1] And I ask this in the sense of I get some of my best ideas, or I get a lot of ideas, when I jump on my bicycle and I go riding. I seem to slow down that left side and sometimes I can see… and maybe it’s the endorphins, when they kick in, I see things a lot differently. I come up with more creative ideas. I don’t feel that that left side dominating me. Is that a version of quiet? Rev Susanna: [00:30:17] You know that’s a perfect example. And you know for the engineers and the accountants that are listening in: these kind of things, like hopping on a bike, what you want to do is bring what is fun for you. Something that’s fun for you, and for all I know it could be video games, but whatever is fun and engages you. With that client that I was talking to, I said to her… when’s the last time you went out and had some fun? Is your work fun for you anymore? And you could see something really settle in; nothing was fun for her anymore, and the freedom to think that if she spent time having fun it actually could resolve her problem, in the same way that you go bike riding. I know for me, as a speaker, if I start writing a speech and I get stuck, I sit there and I’ll try and pull it out and figure it out. And I do – I get on the bike if I get stuck. I don’t even waste time trying to push an answer anymore. If I can’t figure out an answer, I get on the bike, and within 20 minutes like more than one answer- 50 answers come about! 50 different things I’m trying to figure out. And so, for each of us, [00:31:42] it doesn’t matter if we’re left brained or right or people. What we want to do is find ways, when we get in that stuck time, where we’re pushing at the work in front of us, to just step away. You can go for an errand -quiet time can even just be going out and going for an errand. Peter: [00:32:02] Just something different. [21.1] Rev Susanna: [00:32:04] Just something different. Steven Spielberg got some of his best ideas, he said, as he was driving. He’d go for a drive. Peter: [00:32:13] Hm. Rev Susanna: [00:32:13] And so sometimes when I get stuck it’s like you know get away from the desk. I have a couple of errands to run. Let me run those errands. And then my mind is freed. [00:32:23] There’s another thing about brain science: if you take your hands and you put your thumb underneath your four fingers, so you bend over your four fingers and you kind of put your thumb horizontally underneath the four fingers, that’s somewhat the shape of the parietal lobe. And there’s a little space there. That’s about as much room as we have for new thoughts and new ideas to come in. So when we’re working hard, it fills up, [37.6] and for different people it could be a different amount of time. Depending on the day, as well. It could be an hour or two hour three hours or four hours. But, eventually, it’s like a sponge that can only take in so much water, and then it can’t take in any more. So if we sit and continue to try to pummel in more information or try to figure out how to put two and two together or to complete the analysis you’re putting together… you can’t anymore, and it’s those times where your best productivity is stepping away, and doing something else. And then it let that sponge release some of the liquid and make room for more. Peter: [00:33:48] I like that analogy. I really do, because I very much can relate with that. When I get stuck in whatever I’m doing, I have learned to step away from the spreadsheets, step away from the the computer, and just go do something different. And what you said about Spielberg driving a car, you brought back something I haven’t done in a long time, but I don’t remember when I was working on. But man I was stuck. So I jumped in my car and was just driving. And before I knew it I was in Cleveland. I didn’t realize it. Rev Susanna: [00:34:24] [laughs] Peter: [00:34:24] I mean I was… I would say I was driving, I was cognizant of the road, but I wasn’t really cognizant of where I was going. I was just trying to figure this thing out, and that seemed to help clear my head and come up with an answer, albeit I lost four hours of my day. Rev Susanna: [00:34:42] But did you lose hours or did you gain insight needed? Was it worth the time? Peter: [00:34:47] Yes. As soon as I said that,I went ah.. yeah. I thank you for mentioning that because it was well worth the time, and it did help solve the problem I was stuck in. But I think today is – we’re recorded this on April 11th – Most of my accounting brothers who are in public accounting are seeing that light at the end of the tunnel, and they’re just hoping it’s not a train coming at them in full blast. Rev Susanna: [00:35:20] [laughs] Peter: [00:35:20] But I have lived through my fair share of what we call a busy season – I like to look at it as opportunity season because that’s where we make most of our revenue and profits – But it is just inundated, from the moment you walk in to the moment you leave, of just left brain, compliance, work. And I did see, I was in an accounting firm in Maryland I believe, and I was really kind of shocked because it was an accounting firm and they had this room and it had a nameplate on it saying relaxation room. I went whaaaaat?! Rev Susanna: [00:35:58] [laughs] Peter: [00:35:58] I opened it. I opened the door. There’s a lazy boy recliner in there and one of those trickily waterfalls. And I said, Really? And I asked a few people around the firm. So tell me about this relaxation room. “If we need to step away, we can go into this room for 20-30 minutes and just take a quick power nap or just step away from the spreadsheet so we can get our thoughts back. So, as you said, so we can make more room so we can squeeze out that sponge and be able to soak in some more ideas; to come up with some new… Just getting away from it. Rev Susanna: [00:36:35] That is so great. You know, as people, what we want to do is, when we are in that optimistic, in the zone… we want to be in the zone. Peter: [00:36:45] Right. Rev Susanna: [00:36:46] Because when we’re in the zone, things are flowing and we’re happy. The works getting done. And then there are also times, and these aren’t bad times because it’s also an opportunity season, but there are times when we aren’t in the zone, we’re not getting things done, we’re judgmental of ourselves, and perhaps hating our lives for what it’s looking like. We’re beating ourself up. And at that time, a power nap is a great thing because it stops that thinking mind that’s in that negative place, and it sort of reboots. So power nap. Some people meditate. Meditation also quiets the thoughts, and that’s why it’s well embraced these days, because sleeping and meditating stop that negative thought cycle and get you back into being in the zone. And that’s the goal: how can I be in that zone? Because when you’re in that zone, you’re a magnet to opportunity. You know how it is when things are going wrong… it’s like you’re a magnet to things going wrong! You can have the worst day possible and, finally, like finally I’m headed home, and then have a flat tire. Peter: [00:37:59] [laughs] Are you kidding me? Rev Susanna: [00:37:59] But, when things are going right, it’s like you don’t have to try at all and the phone rings and can you do this for me? And you know you get an email and somebody else wants to do something, and then you go to the store and they say “Here, you walked in here the 1000th customer, you get the TV for free today,” you know. And so you want to be in that place – that magnetic zone of opportunity where things are going your way. That, again, is building up that right side of the brain. Or we could say build up that zone side of the brain. Build up those opportunities more, and that is also realizing that there are transitions and crossroads that come when we’re not expecting it, and not to try to force them to make them be OK, but to listen to them and let them be our guide. So as I was saying, in the film business, I was listening to the transition and saying something’s up here. You know, for the last five years, when I was in the film business, it was a love hate relationship because my values with the film business… they were starting to diverge. I wanted to take more time to be at peace. I wanted to eat healthier. I wanted to have better relationships, and the relationship with the film business is a very… it’s a very jealous relationship because the film business wants about 95 percent of your time and your life. And so there was a day that I went into the into the film business, I was on a job, and it was a television show, and you know the producer had some feelings for me that I did not have for him in the same way. And he had me let go in a way… I had never saw it coming. And in one day, I was off the job. I went home and I was sitting on my balcony looking out over the Hudson River and the Palisades, and I said that’s it. I’m done with the film business. And it was one day, the day before I thought the film business would be my life until retirement, but in that day that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. And I said I guess I’m done. You know, not everyone has to take a big huge change, but in my case I did. But how did I know it was the right thing? Because it could have been a stupid mistake, you know. Could have been the stupidest thing I ever did. Is it reaction, or an attraction to my good? About a week later I signed up for seminary. It’s something that I’d always considered. I never saw where I’d fit in in my life, but I signed up for seminary. Peter: [00:41:14] Mhm. Rev Susanna: [00:41:14] And then the next day, in my church, somebody from my church called out to the minister and said we believe in you and what you’re doing. So we’re going to pay half the tuition of your seminary. Peter: [00:41:29] Wow. Rev Susanna: [00:41:30] And I’m speaking to someone or some people listening now: you’re going to get that confirmation. If we listen, the world around us speaks to us and guides us, I believe. It’s happened a lot for me in my life, and in that moment I knew I was on the right track. I had a family. I had friends telling me stay in the film business, take some jobs, or some money. But in that moment I felt that the universe was telling me you’re doing the right thing. Keep going. And the first day that I sat in that chair at seminary I just… I found myself in the right place. I no longer felt like a square peg in a round hole. I felt like my whole life had prepared me. I was finally being who I was meant to be. And Mark Twain had that memorable, memorable quote: “The two best days of a person’s life: The first day is the day you are born and the second day is when you discover why.” And there’s such a release of stress. I know it happened to you. You were laid off, right? Peter: [00:42:43] Right. Yeah. Rev Susanna: [00:42:45] It looked like a big obstacle. Peter: [00:42:48] Right. Rev Susanna: [00:42:49] And look what happened. Peter: [00:42:51] Same thing. Caught me completely off guard. Next thing you know, I’m I’m unemployed going I mean I’ve left jobs before, but I’ve never been asked to leave a job before. Rev Susanna: [00:43:01] [laughs] Peter: [00:43:01] And I was in this fog. “Sorry we’ve eliminated your position in your department.” Uh.. OK. And I was in a fog for a couple – two or three – days, and I remember someone. I don’t remember who it was, but someone said you’re going to look back on this to be the best thing that could have ever happened to you. And you know the person was right because I did. It allowed me three months to regroup. To your point, to listen to myself, to listen to the environment around me, and that put me down a path… put me down a journey that, ultimately, got me to where I am today, of owning my own business, my own speaking business, going out having fun with audiences and teaching. If I hadn’t been laid of,f I may have never become a teacher. And I look back on it and went you know everything happens for a reason. Rev Susanna: [00:44:08] Yeah. Peter: [00:44:09] Even… I’ve been divorced. The first Mrs. Margaritis… we were married for about three years. We left Fort Myers, Florida, for Cleveland, Ohio. Long story. And then we got divorced, but I even look back on that time, where we divorced, and I took it very bad, very badly. It was a very very dark time in my life. Rev Susanna: [00:44:34] Yeah. Peter: [00:44:34] But looking back on it, I never would have met her. I never would have gotten to Cleveland, gotten the case. I thought what would have happened if I never left Florida, where would I be, or would I be… And you know everything happens for a reason. Sometimes it’s… it’s hard to see the purpose of it, but ultimately that there is a purpose of it. Rev Susanna: [00:45:03] Yeah. And that, again, is living in that right brain. Considering there’s an opportunity, rather than looking at that as critical. [00:45:14] When a transition comes, when a failure comes, when the obstacle comes… Rather than looking at it critically and analytically, shift and saying this is an opportunity. How can I set up my life to make this opportunity grow? To help the opportunity? To allow the new normal to come in, rather than be critical of it and beating myself up and taking it out on me. But what if it’s that the universe or God or your best life is actually calling to you? Can you listen and say how can I help you build this so that I allow myself to be guided through this to the opportunity that I had? [54.9] Peter: [00:46:10] I agree. I think where this happiness comes from… you’re making me think about this, and I tell people that 2010 is when I went full time with my business – I have not worked a day since then. You asked my wife. I work all the time. Rev Susanna: [00:46:29] Yeah [laughs] Peter: [00:46:29] The only way to get the phone away from me is taking me to a country that does have Wi-Fi to stay connected. Rev Susanna: [00:46:36] [laughs] Peter: [00:46:37] And I think I get that happiness because I’m helping people. Rev Susanna: [00:46:42] Yeah. So here’s the thing, and I hate to interject, but because we’re talking to- many of the people listening are accountants and engineers. I want to encourage that it doesn’t mean you have to stop what you’re doing and totally change to be something different. One of my clients that was an accountant came to me and she wasn’t happy at the firm. She was very unhappy and she was thinking of leaving and moving on and doing something herself. And we started looking at her values. We did an assessment of what her actual top five strengths were, and in time what we saw is that she was just a little off in what she was doing in the firm. And so she started talking to her superiors and just doing a little bit of tweaks with them as well as with her and her time there. And then she fit in to how she expresses herself perfectly and was able to use her strengths better and feel like she was expressing her values and living her values and not countering everything she wanted to be, but actually being in the place… she really adored the people she worked with, and was now able to funnel herself in a better way. [00:48:13] And so part of it is getting the help need to to find where you’re in your own way, and how simple adjustments can be made to be either uncomfortable and unhappy or to be really just radiating joy by doing your job in ways where you can really let your talents flow out better – and then you’re more productive, you’re more passionate, you’re more fun, you’re more magnetic to the opportunities, and everybody is happier because the superiors are going to be happier you’re doing what you’re doing. [38.2] You’re more productive, living with purpose… And you know accountants – I love talking to accountants and seeing their eyes brighten when talking about how they’re helping their clients achieve their financial goals, and lawyers who protect the rights of individuals; the justice in the world. [00:49:10] There’s purpose everywhere. It’s a finding of how to settle into where you are, where you’re expressing your strengths… [8.7] because when you are like you, Peter, you’re expressing your strengths – you’re a teacher! And so it’s easy. It gets easy! [00:49:26] We want it to be easy, and well-being is easy when you’re in the right place doing the right thing. [7.0] Peter: [00:49:34] I want to change one word you said. Versus easy, I’m just say that when you’re in your zone because you will work hard as you can when you’re in that zone. And then it comes into play as it comes easier to you to do that. When you when you find that the passion that you love… and you’re right. Accountants, lawyers, sales people. I think everybody really wants to help their clients or customers, the people they work with, the people they manage. And when we can do that in a way that it becomes second nature. And we’re always striving to get better. I think that’s part of being happy. Rev Susanna: [00:50:19] It is, and what happens is when we’re unhappy where we’re focusing on ourselves because we’re unhappy and we’re constantly trying to fix things. And so our focus is on self and turned inward and it can end up being self centered. But when we find ourselves doing what we love to do, suddenly we’re looking outward. How can we help because now we’re funneling that passion. We have that drive. We are productive. And it’s… I’ve got this how can I help you. Let me give let me give it away. I got that. Let me give you, let me help you. I’m a sales person. I’ve got something that’s going to help you and I know it’s going to help your life. Let me help you. I’m an accountant. I know how to help you ease your financial pain. Let me help you – and so that’s when we become outwardly focused. And that’s the biggest doubt as we as we mature. How can we be the one to help the world? And when we are the one making a difference in our community that brings such joy to our heart. Peter: [00:51:33] It does. it really really does. And I think this is something that you taught me a while ago about knowing your audience. It’s about them. It’s not about me. And the more that we look at them, and them being whether, like I said, someone you work with, your customers or clients or family or whoever. [00:51:54] Once we are more outwardly focused versus inner focused… Maybe things become easier. I think of easy like the easy button on Staples, but no, things become easier. I guess it takes less work. Rev Susanna: [00:52:11] It does. And that’s the goal, and it really does happen that way. It just flows. It flow easier, and it comes about being in tune with what you’re personal strengths are, as well as what your passions are, as well as what your values are. And if your life is lined up with all of those, it does become easier [43.5] because when you’re asked to do a project you don’t have to study and figure it out because you’ve already got it innately in you. You may have to hone it – We’re always honing our art of who we are – So we’re stretching. Now, I was great in the film business. I have an excellent eye and I was a fantastic set decorator, but it wasn’t innately in me and I could continue to do that job and I would output great. But it was hard. There were there were people that it just was who they were. They were living, breathing, drinking, and eating decorating. And now I live breathe drink… Everything about me is the life I’m living. And I can’t stop leading it. I can’t stop doing it. I can’t stop it. It’s everything I am, and you are – that’s why your wife says you’re working 24/7. It’s not that you’re working – you’re having person living your life! it’s your life, and so we want the people that are with us today and everyone to have that opportunity to really be in tune and just doing what you’re really enjoying doing because then helping others just becomes natural. It just becomes natural because it’s fun! Peter: [00:54:11] You’re right it is fun. So Susanna, as we begin to wrap up this interview. If somebody is listening to this and they want to get in contact with you for you to help them. How will they find you? Rev Susanna: [00:54:23] Oh well I have some live events that are happening in May and June, and I have a book coming out. And if you’re interested in attending a live event you’re being put on the list to get the book, Manifest Your Big Best Life: Love What You Do, you can go to my website at www.live-good-life.com, or really just email me Susanna@live-good-life.com, and in the subject line “my purpose,” and then I’ll know that you’re listening into this broadcast and I will respond right back to you. Peter: [00:55:17] Wow that’s great. And I’ll also put that information in the show notes and It’ll be in the transcript for you. Rev Susanna: [00:55:24] I can’t thank you enough. I love our conversation. I love the thoughts and things that you brought to the table to share with my audience. There are so many takeaways that you’ve given everybody here. Wonderful stories. Thank you so very much. And we will have to do this again. Rev Susanna: [00:55:49] I’d love to. Peter: [00:55:50] And go down another path because I have a feeling – well, we could talk for hours. Rev Susanna: [00:55:56] I know. I know we just got started. Peter: [00:55:59] Yeah. We’re just getting revved up on that superhighway. Rev Susanna: [00:56:04] We’re revved up on that superhighway [laughs] That’s right. Super Highway of opportunity. [00:56:13] Everyone in the audience that’s in the middle of their busy season, and you know might be working really really super super hard, and just when you can just take a moment out even just to breathe. Just take a moment for yourself just to breathe. [18.5] Peter: [00:56:32] That’s the best tip to leave my audience. As we begin to sign off. So thank you again Susanna. I greatly appreciate your time and I’ll be seeing you soon. Rev Susanna: [00:56:44] I’ll be seeing you soon. May I leave with a quote? Peter: [00:56:46] Please do. Rev Susanna: [00:56:47] OK. This is by Daniel Burnham: “Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s and women’s blood, and probably will themselves not be realized. Make big plans; Aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die.” Peter: [00:57:14] I would like to thank Susannah again for taking time out of her schedule to give us her thoughts on how to live the good life and sharing her stories about her time in Hollywood and working on the set of Sex And The City. In episode 51, I interview Aaron Dobber, who’s the founder and CEO of Erin Dobber coaching and consulting, a firm specializing in providing coaching training and leadership development to the accounting industry. She’s also the CPA exam guru. And if you are studying for the CPA exam or planning on it in the near future, this is a must listen to episode. Thank you again for listening, And remember to use the principles of improvisation to help you begin to live the good life.

Improv Is No Joke – Episode 49 – Thaddeus Rex

Peter: Welcome Thaddeus, I greatly appreciate you taking time out to be a guest on the podcast, sir.

Thaddeus: Thanks, Peter, great to be here.

Peter: Great to see you again. It’s been awhile since the last time we crossed paths, and I do believe that was maybe a year ago at an NSA Ohio meeting.

Thaddeus: Oh you mean after the speakeasy thing.

Peter: oh yeah after that.

Thaddeus: So yeah absolutely National Speakers Association or Ohio. That’s right. That was a good time. Great group over there.

Peter: Yeah, we had a good time and you drug along your friend Karl Ahlrich. I think he was episode number 5 of my podcast. So it was great to see both of you guys.

Thaddeus: That must have been some episode.

Peter: Oh it was. You know he’s got a lot of great information stored up in that head of his.

Thaddeus: I know. Have you ever done the StrengthsFinder?

Peter: I have the book upstairs but I haven’t done it yet. I can’t pick it up. I’m not strong enough.

Thaddeus: He and I both are cursed with what they call inputter. So he and I both were the type of people who just love to read information, just for the sake of having information in our heads.

Peter: Oh my gosh you’re one of those. Because he can gobble up more content and replay it on a dime.

Thaddeus: That’s a skill, before 1998, was extremely valuable… after 1998, not so much.

Peter: [laughs] So why don’t you give the audience a little bit of your background, because it’s a very unique background for a branding expert.

Thaddeus: Yeah, absolutely. Which parts do you want? Do you want all the way back? Well I was born in a small town and the banks of the Wabash River. My mom put me in a reed basket I floated… no.

Peter: We’ll speed it up about maybe a week or two from that point

Thaddeus: okay great. I did go to school. I went to Indiana University and I finished with a degree in philosophy.

Peter: Mm!

Thaddeus: As you can imagine, my parents were incredibly proud.

Peter: [laughs] okay

Thaddeus: Yep. And I was working of course as a bartender at the pub, with all the other philosophy majors.

Peter: Oh that was that was the the internship, right?

Thaddeus: Yeah right. So I decided that my chances of a career in philosophy were pretty slim. So there are not a lot of degrees you can get where going into the entertainment business actually looks like a good idea, but in my case it was a spectacular choice.

Peter: It was a career path.

Thaddeus: Yeah. It was a rocky path, but there at least was one. So I immediately became a starving artist, and I did that for several years. But I learned early on– I talked my way into this band, and I was the one making phone calls to get gigs, and I learned that everybody wanted us to come play so long as we would play for free.

Peter: No different than being a speaker out on the circuit. [laughs]

Thaddeus: Yeah, exactly. Yeah very similar gig. And so I was doing that, and I learned but if I called places that were like several thousand miles away and told him I was coming through town with my cold calls, they would hire us. So we actually set up these shows. I set up 37 shows in seven weeks and we went all the way out to the west coast and back, and me and a couple of the guys went and did these shows and it was awesome. So I just started doing that all the time, and after a couple years I wound up getting on to this PBS show, and that changed everything. So I used PBS. I’ve made no money on the PBS show, but I was able to – when you call people and you say you’re with PBS, they return your phone calls.

Peter: Oh yeah.

Thaddeus: It’s amazing. So I quit calling a book stores and nightclubs and I started calling theaters, and I built stage shows, and I actually kind of fell into this special niche where I was using rock and roll to motivate kids to read and write. And these theaters loved the show, it was called Read Like a Rock Star, and I got to stand up and write my own music and play songs and tour the country. And I was in these you know theaters with 200, 800, 1000 people. Sponsors were bussing families in to see the show, and then administrators began asking me if I could train the teachers and I had no idea how to do that. So I did some research in motivation, and along the way we had that big recession hit.

Peter: yeah.

Thaddeus: It was good times. I was about ten years into the career. Everything was cranking. I just hired the Chicago Bears and the Chicago Bulls – I’d hired their mascot coordinators as consultants – and we’d just built a big stage show called Rockasaurus Rex. It was like a dinosaur mascot Rock Show, and we were ready to rock. I had a writing team in LA and I had a publisher in New York. We were putting together a graphic novel series, and he talked about disruption. I hired a full-time booking assistant, a publicist. Everything ready to go. We were launching it. We did the showcase in New York City in January 2009, and the economy collapsed like eight weeks before that.

Peter: Timing’s everything.

Thaddeus: No one decided to go, of course, and we knew no one was going to.

Peter: Right.

Thaddeus: So we had to look for something new, and I had six months on the calendar booked. You know how it is speaking: it’s very similar. You already have the calendar booked, but you’re looking out seven months and you’re like okay we’re going to be eating steak in six months and starving in eight months, and so I started looking at all that federal stimulus money that was being spent and I actually did some research on money going to the Department of Education, and I went back to the motivation research I’d done and put together a set of qualitative data, and I hired a PhD to sign off on it. So we were able to go to schools and say that big pile of money you just got – we satisfy three of the ten requirements, and the rules were vague and hard to understand but we had PhD’s signing off on it and justifying it so we just hand them the paperwork already filled out, but I knew that wasn’t gonna last very long either. This is a long-winded way of telling you how I got to branding.

Peter: Oh no no it’s interesting. I keep hearing this ding in the background. Is that Tinker Bell doing another set of wings?

Thaddeus: Oh that’s – sorry. Every time someone deposits money in my account it just dings.

Peter: Oh wow. Good for you man. Wait wait wait wait – listen for my ding… it’s not there.

Thaddeus: Ah, bummer.

Peter: That’s great.

Thaddeus: Yeah, I wish that’s what it was.

Peter: Cody, cut that out. Make people believe that every time it dings, he’s getting cash.

Thaddeus: Absolutely. I should just keep a bell on my desk.

Peter: Ding!

Thaddeus: [laughs]

Peter: It’s not a long-winded way because it’s a very interesting background in, and going back to being the rock star to kids, I take that you played the guitar.

Thaddeus: I did. I play guitar. I was a singer-songwriter. You know acoustic and electric. I mixed it up. I had a band in Nashville, they were fantastic, and then we started adding dinosaurs to the band so everybody freaked out about that. And it was it was the right concept, just wrong time.

Peter: So if I may be so bold – I see that you have a guitar in your office.

Thaddeus: Oh yeah. Of course. Doesn’t every office have one?

Peter: Actually, I have two.

Thaddeus: nice

Peter:I don’t know how to play them, but I have two. I actually have two guitars in my office, and when I need a spurt of creativity, even though I don’t know how to play, I know the air guitar won’t do it so I’ll just pick up a guitar and start strumming. I know a couple of chords and it just kind of help spur that creativity, but would you mind like giving us a little sample of what you you would do?

Thaddeus: Oh, absolutely. One of the keys to communicating, and this is something I talk about on the platform these days, is the power of a metaphor.

Peter: okay

Thaddeus: When you describe something as a metaphor, it’s like a magic trick. It forces someone to use their imagination. [playing guitar]

There’s a dinosaur livin’ inside my head I think I got him from a book I read He’s the best friend that I’ve ever had That dinosaur inside my head

Peter: Wow that’s great!

Thaddeus: So now of course, being all grown-up and official, I wear a suit jacket and I try not to get holes in my jeans as much as I used to. So now I sing… I actually used to use the guitar on the platform all the time. It’s a good time. I’ll give a little sample. [playing guitar]

You’re sinking into the sand Everyone’s let go of your hand So you take a stand Do you understand When you’re the one with the plan Leave them chanting your brand Every woman and man Leave them chanting your brand Fear that helping hand Like a rocket man for the moon Feel it all expand Brass band of the high command Like a grand slam spanning across the promise land Leave them chanting your brand Leave them chanting your brand

Peter: [applause] Freebird! It’s amazing what a guitar will do in almost any situation because, as you were playing that, about the brand… I met a woman in one of my seminars in Maryland, and she was a CFO of a manufacturer of guitars.

Thaddeus: oh wow

Peter: And she would have to deliver the financial information to a group of very creative people.

Thaddeus: Sure

Peter: and she was getting the deer in the headlights look, so she picked up a guitar and learned how to play the guitar. So now when it comes time for delivering the financials, she does it to song.

Thaddeus: That’s amazing.

Peter: Yeah, that really is amazing, which made me think… as you were doing that, I mean she captivated them. And any time you can deliver information like that, in a song, you’ve got their attention.

Thaddeus: You know what, I have to say, she might have actually won the prize in that entire company for being the most creative.

Peter: Exactly.

Thaddeus: Because there are tons of people who write songs but about love and stuff, but I’ve never heard of anybody delivering financials in song. So that’s pretty cool.

Peter: We’re in the red, we’re in the black.

Thaddeus: Yeah I’m gonna write this down and tell my accountant to do this, and I might actually be able to pay attention next time.

Peter: [laughs] Yes, same here. So when you’re on the platform, when you’re on the stage, you’d bring in your guitar and you’re talking about the brand because you’re the brand expert.

Thaddeus: Right. Well what happened– it all started in the entertainment business, because I got this guitar and I thought well I can’t make a living with philosophy so I’m gonna use my guitar. And it doesn’t matter where you go in this country, anywhere you go, within two miles of that coffee shop or that bookstore that or that stage, there are hundreds of people who would come do that work for free. And so I learned early on, and the advice I got is you can’t make a living playing guitar. There’s like five guys in Nashville who are good enough to actually make a living just playing just playing guitar. You have to be able to be Thaddeus Rex, and that’s what I learned early on. Like nobody will pay me to play guitar, but they’ll pay me to be Thaddeus Rex. And of course I wasn’t famous, so nobody really wanted Thaddeus Rex, so I had to create something unique; something different that they hadn’t seen before, like a rock concert to promote reading. It was this niche that was creative and the interest hit my passion, because I’d always loved reading and actually was already using books to inspire my songs, and a teacher heard me sing a song inspired by Alice in Wonderland… and it was a crazy song, like not even appropriate for kids. Alice in Wonderland… that’s a drug story! Right?

Peter: [laughs] yes it is

Thaddeus: But the teacher heard it and she was like, oooh, would you come to my school and promote reading? And of course all I could think was, wow, the bookstore’s paying 50 bucks and I’ve heard schools that paid 300.

Peter: [laughs]

Thaddeus: And so I was like, yeah, of course I will, and that was the start. And then as it evolved, I really geeked out on the research. I’m kind of a social scientist, like a nut. Like I’m the kind of guy who reads a self-help book, and then reads the bibliography of the self-help book and goes and reads like the original research because I want to see like what’s really going on behind the scenes. So as I figured out what made the motivation work, I started tweaking everything I was doing on stage to maximize the motivation. And then I get comments from administrators and parents saying they came back home begging for pencil and paper, what are you doing?

Peter: [laughs]

Thaddeus: and I was like “motivating them, I guess.”

Peter: I’m just being me!

Thaddeus: Right, exactly, but it’s just like getting employees excited. If you just tell them hey you have to get that report done they might comply, but you’re not going to inspire them and they’re not going to be excited about it. If you tell that person who’s working with the financials and trying to deliver it to musicians and if you just came in and say you got to make sure they understand this, they have to get this, or we’re just gonna have to downsize your division. You’re just gonna stress the heck out of her. But if you tell her, hey, just go have fun with it. It doesn’t matter. They’re musicians. They’re gonna forget it anyway.

Peter: [laughs]

Thaddeus: You just got to deliver it and make it as fun as you can, and then lighten the load. It makes it a little easier.

Peter: Yeah, make it as compelling as possible. Actually I’ve got a course called Financial Storytelling, and I’ve written an article and I’m doing a white paper for the AICPA on how to present data in a manner that’s compelling. Because data is data. There’s not much there. But I just got a quote, and I’m reading to this book called Talk Like TED, and second chapter. I love this quote. “Stories are just data with a soul,” by Brene Brown, who did a TEDx Houston in 2010, and I watched it this afternoon and she was fabulous. But it is stories, it is songs that captures that imagination, that captures that emotion, and to be able to create a brand, a niche, something that’s very unique; in order to be seen in today’s digital day and age… I mean that’s critical.

Thaddeus: Oh yeah. Well I think exactly what you’re saying. Like if you can take data and turn it into a story… because data is just data, but it’s the story that changes changes opinions, changes how people feel about something. It’s the story they remember.

Peter: Right. Because stories evoke emotion.

Thaddeus: Right. I think the the refugee example… I mean there’s horrible things happening in Syria and other places around the world, and it’s easy… because the numbers are just – I can’t get my head around thousands of people just drowned in the ocean. That doesn’t connect. But then you show me that one picture the toddler who washed up on the beach in Turkey, and everybody’s heart goes boom boom boom oh my gosh there’s a real problem here. Because it’s a person. We can we identify with people, but not with masses.

Peter: You remember the tsunami many years ago that hit Indonesia? I’d heard the word tsunami, and I couldn’t put my head around it. And all these people had died, and I still couldn’t… I just couldn’t connect the dots, until I saw the video. I went holy crap. But yeah, story. pictures, music really helps in, one, retention and, two, getting that point across.

Thaddeus: Oh yeah. It’s powerful stuff.

Peter: So what are you doing these days?

Thaddeus: So I got lucky… as that recession hit, luckily that federal stimulus money was there. We were making a living, but we knew it wasn’t gonna last very long. I had joined a Rotary Club. It was my wife’s hometown Rotary Club, in this little town called Portland, Indiana, that no one’s ever heard of it, except you should because the people there are amazing. I had some amazing mentors take me under their wing and they began to ask you know… I thought, hey, when this recession ends I’m gonna go back to New York and build this big stage show, and they started just asking some poignant questions. Have you considered business consulting? And I was like I don’t know how to be a consultant. And they go how do you know you know how to be a consultant?

Peter: I think that’s everybody’s initial response. When they say you should do some consulting, you’re like whaaaat?

Thaddeus: Right. Well my very first client actually was an accounting firm, and it was a small firm, like 15-20 people, but the the owner saw me speak and he came up and asked if I would come speak at their summer retreat, and do sessions to help improve their brand. And I thought oh yeah that sounds good. Inside, I walk away going I don’t know how to do that.

Peter: It’s called entrepreneurialism.

Thaddeus: Right, and so I was actually about to call them up and turn it down, and a friend of mine who I was bouncing the idea off of said dude, let me take out to lunch. We go out, and this guy ran a factory, and he said, look, what what they see you doing is they see you out there making a living with nothing but stories. And they have products people need, but they just want a better story so people can understand it better. I was like oh, now that made sense to me, and when I actually got into the project it turned out there was a really specific problem that made a lot of sense. It was the owner, the founder, of this accounting firm. It was his name on the door, his name his name was the brand, and it was his his base on the billboards, and it was his personality that brought everybody in, because people in the community trusted him. And he said, look, I want to retire in six or seven years and I need to somehow transition the brand so it’s not just me, but it’s a team, and I need to have that brand be something I can sell that somebody else can take over and I can leave. So it can’t be about me anymore, and so we had to transition that. First of all way defined what are the core values of this firm, how do we subordinate the values, why are you here, what do you really stand for. And it was a small-town firm, but they reached across multiple counties so they had a pretty good reach, and identified why they chose that that particular town. And just all the advertising campaigns we shifted just to start bragging on that town and tell us why you love it. Instead of telling us why we should trust you, why don’t you tell us why you trust this town so much. And that became the whole campaign. People just loved it. He wrote back about how much they loved doing the new radio ads, and then we brainstormed. We sat down with everybody from the CPAs down to the secretary and brainstormed. Okay, this new brand is all about integrity and concern, but the real issue is how much we love this community, and that we chose the community, and how does that affect the way you answer the phone? How does that affect when someone has a problem on their tax return and they call up in its April 14th and you want to go?

Peter: [laughs]

Thaddeus: And one of the different issues you might deal with… we just ran through all these scenarios, but we had the employees then build the brand. So they’re building the experience and it was their ideas, as they’re building out the experience, on top of these core values.

Peter: That’s awesome. Because I’m hearing, in my world of improv, respect and trust, but also the ability to listen to everybody else within the organization and build it as a community, build it as an ensemble, this new brand. And it’s a group of CPAs. That’s a great story.

Thaddeus: Well if you think about a brand, the whole point of a really good brand is that it’s a collection of stories that you want all pointing in the same direction. And I mean, really, when we interact with a business, everything they do becomes part of the story. So even a gas station, like the sodas they stock, a clerk smiling, are the bathrooms clean. Part of what they do is the stuff, like keeping the bathrooms clean, making sure the clerk is smiling, making sure there’s gas in the tanks… then there’s the stories: billboards, campaigns, advertising. And those two things really need to match perfectly. So if the Billboard says sparkling clean bathrooms, they have to keep the bathrooms clean.

Peter: Right, right. And in the way they treat their customers, as well as the way they treat their employees. Being Greek, I grew up in restaurants. I’m very critical and hard on restaurants that don’t provide that customer service. Nine times out of ten we’ll eat at my restaurant here at the house versus going out because it’s a lot of disappointment, and traveling as much as I do most of the time I get room service. But I went to this one restaurant, and I’ve written a couple articles about it, called Ciao Bella in Bloomington, Minnesota. And man they had me at hello.

Thaddeus: Wow

Peter: The service was way beyond belief. Because usually when I go into a restaurant, if I’m sitting behind the bar taps, I’m invisible.

Thaddeus: yeah

Peter: And somebody came up and it it was it was amazing. I got a chance to talk to management, and they said it starts at the top. It’s just how we treat our people, and people is a broad concept. It’s people that work for us and people that join us for dinner every evening.

Thaddeus: Yeah. I mean it really is. If you create this collection of stories that helps people see what you care about as the leader, as the owner, as the founder, as the CEO, and it does start at the top… and if there just a bunch of rules I have to comply with… I may comply with them or I may defy you, and that’s what’s gonna happen. And if you give me a story, something to inspire me, then I can choose to be part of it. And that’s really, I think, what a good brand does: It just helps your employees and your customers understand what you’re doing and why they want to be part of it.

Peter: So how does one develop that story? Because that guy had the CPA firm for a long period of time, and I think about other CPA firms or other businesses that are going through some motion, and they may have gotten a little bit detached from those stories that really define their brand. How does one define those stories?

Thaddeus: There’s a couple things. I mean the first, especially in professional services, and I have a new training coming out in a few weeks that’s actually focused on helping professional service firms – Realtors, financial advisors, accountants, even attorneys on occasion.

Peter: On occasion [laughs]

Thaddeus: Right, and I try to limit those occasions– no, I’m just kidding. And it’s really tricky because, if you think about a professional services firm, it’s really difficult to distinguish your “stuff.” So you have stuff and you have story, and like financial advisors are in the worst situation. I mean they they only have one stock market, they all have the same stock market, it’s completely outside their control, there’s only so many mutual funds… I mean they literally are all selling the same stuff. So how do they tell a unique story? And there’s the third component of every brand, and it’s one we found a lot of companies easily overlook, and especially I think for professional service firms this is one of the best ways to differentiate, is to choose that audience. Because, as you begin to attract an audience, that audience begins to co-create your brand. So imagine this podcast right now, in everything you do to make it entertaining and fun and all the expertise you share and the guests you bring on, and imagine executives and CEOs across America talking about your podcast and what you bring to the table. Just the fact they’re talking about it, what that would do for your brand. Now imagine the same you, the same entertainment, the same information, and people in trailer-park across America are talking about you and your podcast.

Peter: They are.

Thaddeus: It would change your brand.

Peter: Right.

Thaddeus: And that’s fine. Duck Dynasty makes a fantastic career targeting that market. You just have to know who your audience is.

Peter: I like how you start off: you choose your audience, versus your audience choosing you. That’s key.

Thaddeus: I think if you choose the audience… the moment you choose to do business with me, I feel special.

Peter: Right

Thaddeus: I did a project for a financial advising firm a couple years ago and… for financial advisors, I mean it’s really tough. They’re everywhere, and to be honest some companies turn out too many of them knowing that a lot won’t make it just see who can make it. So there’s more out there than we need, and they all have the same stuff. But I worked with this small financial advising team and helped them realize they really wanted to work with women who’d been recently widowed or divorced. Now they kind of came to us with this idea. They were excited about it and I was like that’s kind of a really good idea, except it would make more sense if you were women.

Peter: [laughs]

Thaddeus: He approached me with this idea, and I was like oh I know who you need to talk to. I had referrals in my head. I’ve met hundreds of Financial Advisors, and never once does it pop oh they need to talk to Jimmy, or and they need to talk to Jean, but as soon as I started talking to him three people popped into my head that he needed to talk to, or someone from his team… and then my next thought was why does this team only want to work with women, especially women who’ve just been divorced or widowed?

Peter: [laughs]

Thaddeus: I said you just sent my imagination a whole lot of places you do not want my imagination going.

Peter: Right.

Thaddeus: You need a story.

Peter: Yeah

Thaddeus: And as the story should be true. It’s better if it’s a true story.

Peter: [laughs] Yeah

Thaddeus: And, in my experience, everybody has a true story. We all wind up where we are because of decisions we make, and if we go back and analyze those decisions… that’s how we find your core values. And so we could take clients through a process to go through these turning points in life and to assess why those decisions happened, and as we kept going back and back in his career he did have a ton experience with this market and really had a passion for it, but it wasn’t clear why… until we got all the way back to when he was 8 years old and his dad walked out on his mom and his little brother.

Peter: Ooooh.

Thaddeus: And then he’s like oh yeah, and I was like do you tell people this story? He’s like I don’t tell anybody… but what happened is his dad walked out, his mom had to get a second job, he got a paper route to help her pay the bills. He still remembers packing his brother’s lunch every morning because his mom was already gone for the day. And he started studying finance me was 12 years old because he was concerned about his own college, and also concerned about his mom. And I was like… you have to share this story, man. This this is why you care, and then suddenly I care because I understand your story. And so now, because it’s the truth, every time he shares that story, every time he helps a client it still feels like he’s helping his mom. And that’s the honest truth, and the assets he brought in under management 12 months after that increased 40% from what he had before.

Peter: Wow!

Thaddeus: Yeah. To increase sales forty percent just like on a dime like that.

Peter: You have to go back into into your career and into your life to find that, as one of my guests Judy Carter says, that aha moment.

Thaddeus: Absolutely.

Peter: That have put you on on that path, and it took time for the person to peel that onion back to get to that core, but once you find it…

Thaddeus: Yeah, and this is all the brand strategy before you get to your logo, website, photo shoot… you know, all that stuff’s really important. That’s like the icing on the cake, and that’s what we see.

Peter: yeah

Thaddeus: We all see the icing and that’s what we get excited about, and it’s true a cake with no icing is not a very good cake, but just a bowl icing with no cake inside… that’s pretty lame too.

Peter: [laughs]

Thaddeus: And so you really got to figure out what’s on the inside first. And you’re right it’s like peeling back that onion to see what’s really in the center of this person and their business, and what’s in the center of this business. And then we give customers something to care about.

Peter: Yeah I love using the term co-creation… People allowing themselves to be vulnerable.

Thaddeus: mm-hmm

Peter: and that quote that I read from that TED talk that I watched today… what caught me on that TED talk was it was about being vulnerable.

Thaddeus: oh yeah

Peter: And you just demonstrated it. It’s weird that I watched that today and we’re having this conversation right now… I’m a little creeped out, but it’s okay [laughs]. But she ended up saying the more vulnerable you are, the more that you show that side, will take you further, and you’ll find…

Thaddeus: I think was Oscar Wilde who said the more personal you get, the more universal you become.

Peter: Bingo. Yeah, exactly. But a lot of people fear doing that because, and she made this point, they fear it because they fear shame, and they fear other people’s judgment, and you get to a point… I don’t know if it comes with age or what. She’s like I don’t care what that other person thanks, even though my mother still says what will they say. I don’t know who the hell they are. I don’t even like they. But yeah, you don’t care because you you’re staying true to yourself.

Thaddeus: Absolutely. I think that’s powerful. Every film we watch, the first 10 minutes of that film is the main character and all their weaknesses, and every film starts off that way. Imagine Star Wars, one of the most successful franchises, but if Luke Skywalker had had rich parents who sent him to the best academies, made sure he had the top education, and he had relentless training to hone his reflexes and be the best fighter pilot on that end of the galaxy, and then he’s the one that the Rebel Alliance you know recruited and put a team behind to keep him safe; he’s the one with the with the magic hands and sent him in to destroy the Death Star… it would have been kind of like, well, I’m glad that you destroyed the Death Star, but…

Peter: Eh

Thaddeus: But that’s not the story George Lucas told. He is an orphan; a farmer on a desert planet. Metaphorically, how much worse does it get?

Peter: Exactly. But storytelling is an art.

Thaddeus: Oh yeah. Well I think there’s there’s two sides. There’s the understanding the mechanics of it, but then also bringing the heart to it.

Peter: Right you need the heart story there.

Thaddeus: Absolutely. And that’s I think what you said earlier about being willing to get personal.

Peter: mm-hmm

Thaddeus: It’s hard, but it it really takes your storytelling to a new level, and for me I get into the entertainment business, obviously, right out of college. And I never got famous at it but I was able to make a living and I loved it, and as a result – my youngest sister was 11 years younger than me – and when she when it came time for her to go to college she really just wanted to go to LA and become an actress. And so as much as I value college and it was one of the rare times right I thought it really was important to skip College, if she wanted to have a chance as an actress, because she looked really young, she literally could play 12 or 13 she just had a really young look.

Peter: okay

Thaddeus: and she was 18 and I said you know if she goes out now she’d very likely get work, but you wait four years there’s just more competition and she’ll look older, and it’s just that much harder. And she did, she got work in the first three years. Started getting work in all sorts of TV shows: Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Glee. She did McDonald’s commercial. Good Luck Charlie. She’s been in all sorts of stuff. A couple of movies you’ve probably never seen.

Peter: cool

Thaddeus: And so years later it kind of came full circle because, when I was an entertainer, I was always the funny guy and I had tons of jokes and it was entertaining and I had great songs. I thought they were great songs, and luckily some of my fans did, but I never really did drama. I might sing a song that would bring a tear to somebody’s eye, and I could go into it in the song, but as a as a storyteller I always kind of steered clear of the drama. It just wasn’t– I thought I’ll just be funny all the time. And as I started doing keynoting and I watched the great keynoters, I notice all of them have that moment in their keynote where you almost get choked up. They bring a tear to your eye.

Peter: right

Thaddeus: and I started watching the great keynoters and I saw them doing that. At first my ego says well you can get by without it, right? But I just kept coming back to it. I thought you know I’ve learned that that skill of making people laugh and how to design a joke, and I’d always like to get more of them of course. Increasing that laugh count is good.

Peter: right

Thaddeus: But to get that drama, and it actually was my my baby sister. I called her up several years later and I was like how do you do that? Because she’d taken tons acting classes at that point, and as a performer there are things that make sense to you when you spend a lot of time on the platform that are hard to understand otherwise. But she said you know when you’re telling a joke, you learn the timing and you force it, and you force the timing. You control everything, and you’re in control. You know exactly where the jokes going. You wait for the audience to catch up with you and then you snap them, and typically something’s funny because you switch someone’s paradigm on a dime. We thought we were going one direction and then he’s talking about something else and it’s funny, and she said drama is a completely different strategy. You just can’t force it. All you can do is tell the story and let yourself go, and it’s that moment of letting go… I had been on stage for thousands of hours at that point. That was the scariest thing I ever did.

Peter: So tell me: what do you mean by letting go?

Thaddeus: So when you start to tell the story.. now you want to tell a story that is emotionally important to you.

Peter: Right

Thaddeus: and when you tell that story, you have to let yourself go into the emotion.

Peter: oh, okay

Thaddeus: and if you try to control it too much, you’ll ruin it. You can’t push it. You have to let it pull you.

Peter: Okay.

Thaddeus: does that make sense?

Peter: That makes sense.

Thaddeus: and so she was explaining this to me, and she had taken a master class with an acting coach that worked with Meryl Streep, and she said what I learned was even Meryl Streep, and the great actresses and actors that we all look up to, every time they do it, it’ll be different. A joke you might nail it exactly the same 100 times in a row.

Peter: right

Thaddeus: But drama doesn’t work that way. You just go with it, and she said sometimes everybody will cry and it’ll be amazing, and other times you’ll just kind of get it out and it’ll be okay. And if it doesn’t come that’s okay, because you can’t force it. You just have to open up and let the emotion pull you along, and I have to say it was one of the best pieces of advice I got.

Peter: I may have to second that because I’ve never thought about it, obviously, in that manner. Having done some stand-up, having done the improv and stuff, and I’ve got a few key notes out there and and I’ve got a couple heart stories in there to go along with the humor, but I never viewed it from that point… and I’ve taken a few acting classes, nothing to the level of… but I like that. That’s part of the art of storytelling; part of the art of what they’re doing on these TED Talks. It’s drawing you in and having that reaction to it, just like a brand; just like the guy whose aha moment was when my dad left.

Thaddeus: Yeah. It’s huge.

Peter: And that’s really compelling. So I’ll just throw this out there, and we’ll just say whether you’re in a not-for-profit, whether you’re an accounting firm, whether you’re in an organization, if you go out and do these strategic planning retreats, I think that’s the perfect place to figure out what that story is

Thaddeus: oh yeah

Peter: and allow yourself to open up to this group of people, because if they do, in this case, as you said, the next year their profits went up by 40 percent.

Thaddeus: Absolutely, but remember, you don’t want to go out… you want to tell the story to inner circle first and work your way out.

Peter: right

Thaddeus: so that you are ready. It has to be a story you’ve dealt with emotionally. If your dog just died last week you probably want to get on the platform and tell that story. If you haven’t dealt with it you’re just gonna… you don’t want to break down sobbing onstage. Channel it.

Peter: yeah

Thaddeus: At the same time, you want to be able to let that that drama pull you along because you can’t really pull it or push it, you gotta let it pull you.

Peter: Pull versus pushing it. That’s cool.

Thaddeus: Yeah, and I think when you share those personal stories, especially if you build your brand around it, it makes it so compelling because we can get our accounts done anywhere. We can get financial advice anywhere. But the place that shows to where… hey I’m not a single mom, but I’m like wow he’s helping those people. I want to be part of that. And so it can even build your business, and this is sometimes… as you narrow your audience, it helps us see what you stand for and what you care about, and you’ll draw in people from outside that narrow focus because they care about what you care abou. And you look completely different than all the other people. Actually we have this new training coming out, and we’ve identified… so if you think of the stuff side and the audience side, there’s five factors that every customer looks for in your stuff before they make their choice, and these are really the factors that create that competitive edge, and the training we call Checkmate Your Competitors, because once you stand out as different no one can compete with that. Once you claim your space. Like nobody else in town can be the firm that helps single moms because they’ve claimed it, and anybody else is just a copycat. And it’s fine, but everybody wants to see the original, not the copycat.

Peter: So what are those five things?

Thaddeus: Yes, so if you think about stuff – so it can be a gas station, financial advice, accountants – the easiest point is cost to go to, right? Let’s be the low cost firm. We’ll charge 20 percent less per hour, whatever it is, and that can be compelling. It also hurts your margins, makes it hard to grow… it’s not a great place to be long term, unless you have… there’s a few situations, like if you’re Walmart, if you’re Amazon, you can maintain that low cost and become a multi-billion dollar company. But you have to have a sustainable way to build it, and actually doing branding in Indianapolis me and the other firms in the area actually do get to maintain a low cost advantage because we know we can beat the guys in New York and San Francisco for decades. Our cost it is so much– it’s cheaper for us to fly from here to New York and work with a New York client than it is for the firm that’s already there to stay in business. It’s just the way it is. So we know it’s sustainable, so we can keep it as part of our assets, but for most businesses it’s not. If you’re an accounting firm and you’re competing with other firms in the region, it’s very difficult to maintain a low cost factor without losing your margins, which you want to keep margins up. So typically we want people to flee cost, and if you think about flee it starts with F features, which means your stuff can do something the competitors can’t. In professional services, it’s hard to build any features that your competitors can’t do.

Peter: I just got the Flee.

Thaddeus: Yeah, absolutely. So you have features. The second one is location. You’re in a place your competitors can’t be. So Peter, you and I, we start a hot dog Factory. We start selling hot dogs. Sow the problem is hot dogs are a really competitive market. There’s some big established players there, but we put hot dog stands on the beaches up and down the Atlantic coast. We just might be the only ones there. So if you can find a location, or if we could broker a deal to be the only hot dogs in Walmart, that’d be an incredible location advantage.

Peter: yes it would be

Thaddeus: So FLEE: features, location, experience. Now if you can offer an experience your competitors can’t offer, fantastic, and this is what Disney does versus Kings Island, Cedar Point. And Disney carries it all the way through their their films. The same Disney experience. The same experience you get at Disney World is the same experience you get at Disneyland is the same experience you get if you see go see a Disney movie, and I can call you up and say hey Peter I’m in town you wanna go see the new Disney movie, and beyond thinking I’m kind of weird

Peter: [laughs]

Thaddeus: You would know right away if you want to go.

Peter: right

Thaddeus: Maybe you have a niece in town and you’re like yeah let’s go, but if I call you up and I say want to see the new Warner Brothers movie you would have no idea what. It doesn’t mean anything because the experience isn’t consistent. Now I will say, in professional services, what typically happens is the experience is what everybody works so hard to create. We work so hard to create an experience of trust, integrity, rapid return, response to phone calls, high service, lots of friendliness, having a great environment for people to walk into so when they come in they they feel safe, they feel like they’re your advice is trusted. And we worked really hard to build all these fantastic experiences, and the only problem is all our best competitors are doing that too.

Peter: Right

Thaddeus: And so you it’s really hard on professional services. We’re really proud of the experience that we’ve worked so hard to build, but it really is just par for the course. It’s not typically a great way to distinguish yourself. The last one, and this is the one people often overlook, is esteem. When your product can build the esteem of your customers – their self-esteem – and this is what BMW sells. They don’t sell cars; they sell esteem. This is why knowing your audience is so key. Prius sells the same thing to a completely different audience, and they sell that esteem, but people get to feel good about themselves when they drive a Prius. People get to feel good about themselves when they drive a BMW. So we’re oftentimes looking for opportunities. Once we assess where are your greatest strengths, how can we take those strengths, those factors that you already have that are really strong, and how can we move those into the esteem column? Like this financial advisor. It improves my esteem to work with him because I know he has this cause he’s supporting, and I feel good about myself when I support his business, and that’s that’s huge.

Peter: That is. I know a lot of those who are a lot younger than I am in the business world… they will gravitate to products and service that meet their social responsibilities versus going someplace else just because it might be of lower cost. That experience… you talk about accountants, professional service firms… I think more of that experience is in the interactions they have with the partners, the managers, and staff, and I’ll take you to a point is can they can have a conversation?

Thaddeus: yep

Peter: Can they explain very complex information and put it in a manner that I can understand?

Thaddeus: absolutely

Peter: Because when you say depreciation to a non accountant they go that’s the value I lose in my car when I Drive it off new car lot. No no. It’s a systemic allocation of an asset over time.

Thaddeus: Well you just lost me. [laughs] I’m with you, yeah.

Peter: So I think these professional service firms: the ability to provide skills necessary to all staff, in order to have these compelling conversations with their clients, that’s the experience. And I know there’s some research out there to say one of the reasons why clients leave firms is because it’s lacking that experience, and to some degree that empathy that’s out there.

Thaddeus: and I think creating that consistent experience, which I’ve heard you talk about many times, where it’s not just the CPA or it’s not just the leadership, and it’s not just the marketing. Where it’s consistent. From the moment I walk in the door, even if I run into somebody who’s cleaning up the bathroom in your office, that same experience is consistent. And I don’t expect everybody to understand depreciation, but to have the same friendliness, the same sort of knowledge, knowing where I need to go, making sure I’m taken care of, and if that experience is consistent I feel really good about coming back.

Peter: Yeah I don’t know if you’ve read this book called The Experience Economy

Thaddeus: mmm

Peter: Oh you got to pick it up. The authors are Joe Pine and James Gilmore, and this book was first published in 1999. They’ve done an upgrade on it. You would just go nuts over this book because it breaks this book up into two pieces. It talks about experience, and you know when you mentioned Disney…. you know it’s like birthday parties. Your mom would bake a cake from scratch, and then it kind of moved up to the next I can go get Duncan Hines, and then went up to the next like I could go to Baskin Robbins or Kroger’s or wherever and pick up a cake, and then I went to the final experience I’m gonna go to Chuck E Cheese and listen to these rats playing and have that experience. So he talks a lot about how to build that experience, and he also talks about, in the second half the book, how the business world is a stage and, we we’re actors on this stage.

Thaddeus: I like that.

Peter: I think you would really enjoy that book. I’ve gone through it twice, and actually a friend of mine, Bob Dean, who I interviewed earlier on one of my podcasts, was certified by this group in the experience economy.

Thaddeus: oh that’s cool

Peter: yeah it is really cool. It’s a really cool book. It’s a great read, and being a consumer of information, you might have it done before the morning.

Thaddeus: Right, yeah. I like the sound of it. I’m gonna check it out. I think having that experience is key, and then find opportunities to move your assets into that esteem column, because that’s what we see over and over again. That’s when companies are able to charge more than anybody else, and still not only retain the loyalty, but grow.

Peter: Exactly.

Thaddeus: I think I have some great examples my own past; in my own business. In the entertainment business, you deal with copyright and trademarks all the time.

Peter: right

Thaddeus: and there was a firm in Houston that was using… they had trademarked something that I had used before them, and they sent me a cease and desist that I could no longer do one of my programs. And I checked all the dates and did the records, and according to everything I could find publicly available I had used it first, so I knew I should be able to use it. So I called the first attorney up and I explained the situation, and they just basically told me well I don’t really want to do the case. You know it doesn’t sound like a good case. I was a little ticked off, you know.

Peter: yeah

Thaddeus: and so I met this guy at a conference, and he was an East Coast attorney and I knew he’d be more expensive, but I went ahead and called him. I got referred to their trademark specialist, and so I’m explaining to her how we’re gonna sue this company and she’s telling me the process and what’s gonna happen, what it’s gonna take, and I’m all in because I’m emotional. I’m ticked off about this, and then she goes whoa wait a minute. Brian wants to talk to you, and he hops on the phone. He goes wait a minute, Thaddeus, what are you trying to do here? And I explained the situation to him, and he goes okay wait a minute. Now I just overheard what was going on, I hopped online, I looked real quick… it looks like they’re making a lot of money with this mark. They have several people doing these programs. Now here’s the deal: it’s going to cost you thirty thousand dollars just to file, because we have to go to federal court for trademark, and at the time this other company had more money than I did, and they said they’re gonna be able to guess that most likely, and once they recognize that they can easily run the cost up to eighty, one hundred thousand dollars before you get an answer from a judge. And if you do get that answer from a judge, if you have eighty thousand dollars to spend on this, judges hate to put businesses out of work, and because they’re out using this mark a lot and it’s supporting several employees… we don’t really know what a judge will do, it’s a random thing, it’s kind of like playing Russian roulette, but the odds my guess is they’ll give you co-usage to the rights. So you’ll get to use it and they’ll get to use it, and now you’re gonna have to compete with somebody and you’re eighty thousand dollars in the hole competing against someone who has a lot more money than you, and they’re really ticked off. So I just want to let you know that I’m telling you this, suggesting maybe you don’t write me this thirty thousand dollar check, what do you think? Now that experience… I can’t tell you how many times I’ve called that guy back up, because that was helpful. He didn’t tell me just what the law told me was possible, but he told me what was best for my business.

Peter: That’s a great story, because when you told that story, all the money going into your account stopped dinging. I don’t know if you noticed that. Yeah that’s a great story, but he took the time, and he had empathy for you, and now it’s turned into a great referral base.

Thaddeus: Absolutely. I think it was that that ability to look past his expertise into my situation.

Peter: yeah

Thaddeus: And that was so much… because that’s what we want. When we come to a professional services firm, we want you to help our situation and understand our problems – and yes, if it’s a lawyer I want them to know the law, if it’s an accounting firm I want to make sure they know how to do the books, but if you can help me with my situation and help understand where I am, that’s so much more valuable than then just giving me the expertise and trying to give me the knowledge. Don’t just tell me what depreciation is, but tell me how it can help me or how it can hurt me or what I should look out for. That’s awesome.

Peter: The ability to put themselves in your shoes, and that goes back to my world of improv and Yes, And. I’m allowing myself to yes agree and listen, but I’m putting myself in your shoes and I guess if it was my business would I want to do it? And so you were up to $80-90,000… there’s no overall win-win for you in the situation. Keep your money and use it for something better.

Thaddeus: right

Peter: That’s an outstanding story.

Thaddeus: I was blown away and appreciative.

Peter: Oh yeah very much so. You talked about the course that’s coming out. Can you give us a little bit more information about that?

Thaddeus: Yeah sure. Checkmate your Competitors, and it’s about using these five factors. So obviously we have to understand which of these five factors – features, location, experiences, esteem, or low cost – which of them is your sweet spot, and you’ll notice really successful businesses will nail four out of the five, typically. Usually, except for low cost, they’ll get the other four. We don’t need all four, but we need at least one if we’re going to have customers, and if you do have customers then one of these is there already. And so it’s great interviewing customers, interviewing employees, understanding what it is that really stands out, what is your competitive edge, and then how can we position that. If we can shift that… say you have features that no one else does or you offer a deeper better experience than other firms, and you can shift that into the esteem column, and once you do that then I want to work with you. I want to work with your firm, when you help me feel good about myself.

Peter: I could cook up another half hour of your time, and what I’m thinking about doing is getting you back on soon to continue the conversation because there’s a couple of scenarios I run through my head that I’d just like to spitball with you. It goes back to the experience economy. How do you move from a commodity to that experience, or you’ve got a product or service that’s moved its way back down into being a commodity because of cost and price. How do you get past that and go back and turn it back into an experience, and I know that’ll be a longer conversation.

Thaddeus: But I think you’re exactly right. Creating that consistent experience is critical, because if you give me a great – for instance, the attorney – if he give me this great advice, but next time I called his firm gave me terrible advice, or if they then totally misunderstood my situation and just left me… one of the things he did was help me help me get through my own emotions on this situation that was hard for me, and he empathized and shifted me rapidly. But if I call back and he failed to do that the next couple times, then it destroys it. So you have to build consistency in that experience, and then one of the things we advocate for is if you have a cause, some sort of core values, like the firm that said we want want to help women who’ve been recently widowed or divorced, and there was a reason for it. Or a firm that says look… an IT consulting firm we worked with recently the founders moved here to Indianapolis, from Chicago, which 20 years ago was unusual. The migration went the other way, and the question was why. And they really loved Hoosier values, and so instead of going out saying our IT consultants are down to earth, or you know easy to get along with Midwestern guys, and you can trust us, which all just sounds like that’s about us, instead the whole campaign is this is why we chose Indianapolis; this is why we chose hoosiers, or wherever you are. If there’s some sort of cause that you believe in, and TOMS shoes of course is the cliche example we use in the business world all the time, but when people buy a pair of TOMS shoes they know what it stands for and they know what they’re supporting. And this law firm, even them. His focus was helping performing artists. He does a lot of visa work. His whole team is focused on helping stage shows, artists, performers, musicians, and actors, and that’s something I want to support. So when I call up his business, hey, I know what I’m supporting. I know who I’m helping. I have another law firm that I’ve worked with many times who works almost exclusively with musicians, and they could make a lot more money working another market, and I use them… I don’t do a lot of music business deals anymore, but I still use them and their expertise because I know what they support and I care about that, and so I get to feel good about myself when I work with them, and I think there’s something really powerful in that. It takes that exploration: what is it you stand for? What do you care about most? And if your firm could change something in the world, if your firm had unlimited resources, what would you do?

Peter: It goes to Simon Sinek’s it starts with Why.

Thaddeus: yeah

Peter: Because what are you passionate about? I can tell you what and how to do it, but if you can’t tell somebody why you do something, and that where the great companies and the great leaders come from. I’m there with you. And you know the crazy thing is it’s so easy, but it’s so hard to implement… consistently.

Thaddeus: It’s consistency, and we get myopic because it’s so easy to get concerned about we have expenses, we have health care’s going up, you know all these different things, and how do we maintain that culture, and how do we continue to prioritize what’s really important to us? And if we do, the customers notice, and trust me customers are shopping all the time. Even the most loyal are always looking for something else, and when you differentiate on cost they can always find someone whose lower cost. When you differentiate on features, they can always find someone who has different expertise or can do something different or knows the new training. But when you differentiate on esteem, and you have a cause that you believe in and your customers know it, that’s really hard for someone to copy.

Peter: Yeah, but because it’s personal.

Thaddeus: It’s personal, exactly, and I’m personally invested in you. And I love working with vendors when I get personally invested with my vendors. It makes it more fun to do business with them.

Peter: Oh yeah. It’s that networking, but it’s creating that friendship, and when you create that friendship, trust, and respect. Would you do business with somebody you don’t trust? Someone you don’t respect? No. But through that process, you are developing that relationship.

Thaddeus: Oh yeah. I think that’s what it’s all about: how do you become more compelling?

Peter: Right.

Thaddeus: As an accounting firm, you have sales people out there who are networking, trying to bring more business in, and what are you giving them so they can go out and be compelling?

Peter: A story.

Thaddeus: There you go. Bingo.

Peter: Tell them how they can find you on the interwebs.

Thaddeus: Sure. We love https://www.facebook.com/scienceofcharisma. And we’re also at ThaddeusRex.com. As a matter of fact, I think we have an alias up, so if you go to the scienceofcharisma.com it’ll bring it right to our site.

Peter: Okay cool. Thaddeus, I can’t thank you enough. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation, and like I said we could probably go on for another hour so we will next time.

Thaddeus: I look forward to it.

Peter: We will pick it up, and thank you very much. I look forward to our next conversation.

Thaddeus: Me too. Thank you all.

—

Improv Is No Joke – Episode 48 – Ria Greiff

Peter: Ria thank you very much for being a guest on my podcast and taking time out of I know a very busy day that you have.

Ria: I’m very happy to be with you again Peter. It’s always nice chatting with you.

Peter: and just so the audience knows, Ria and I go back maybe eight months or so. We met last October at a conference we were both speaking at, and you were in attendance at my session I was doing on on using improvisation, about my book, and I asked for a volunteer and you did not hesitate one second. You jumped right up.

Ria: [laughs]

Peter: We had a blast, then after the fact we found out that we’re both from Columbus and we’ve kept in touch and it’s great to have you on on the podcast. Just give the audience a little bit about who you are what you do.

Ria: Okay, well I do quite a bit — many things, as you had mentioned Peter. So I’ll just start with what I’m working on right now, and we chatted a little bit about this before we started. I’m speaking at an event called Pecha Kucha. It’s kind of a speaking engagement and it’s kind of like a TED talk, but the format is 20 photos and you speak on each photo for 20 seconds, for a total of six minutes. And when you’re asked to speak you have to tell a story about something that is remarkable enough to be asked to present it. In this particular case, I had worked as part of a community garden for many years, and then when I joined as the press chair for my civic association we were in charge of a park. Based on my experiences and how rewarding it was for me, for my children, to be a part of growing things and being in the dirt seeing, how rewarding that is, I wanted to move that towards that being a public edibles initiative. And I have read about some of the urban forests that they had in Seattle and I thought you know this would be a really great to be able to provide this for the public for the people who are at the bus stop across the state street; for the people who may be loitering there because they don’t have anywhere else to go; for the people that are shopping at the local businesses; for people that are just walking by, who live in the neighborhood. So I successfully managed to write two grant cycles and received funding in in the form of cash. And then I also got a lot of supplies in terms of soil enrichment, compost, mulch, dirt. And we did really well. We planted a bunch of local native fruit trees like pawpaw, and also like sour cherry. This year we’re getting some nut bushes. Of course we did our herbs. We did all sorts of vegetables as well, and it went really well, so that’s what I’m going to be speaking about this week. I also kind of have my foot in the fashion industry, and we’re gonna give you my little side stuff before we get into the meat.

Peter: Okay

Ria: Recently I was asked to be the model trainer for Columbus college of art and design fashion show. That just happened yesterday, actually. I’m very honored to be a part of that. And also I’m on the board of the Student Fusion Foundation, and that is a foundation that’s also tied into fashion. So that’s kind of my side stuff. My interest is fashion. I published a couple of magazines for a local fashion and music festival also. Now my main thing that I like to do and that I’ve been doing, even though I was trained to be a therapist. At some point in my life I decided I wanted to move into the Wellness – the preventative part of the continuum – as opposed to treatment. So I thought to myself rather than spending one hour with one person dealing with their problems and trying to treat that, wouldn’t it be great if I could speak to larger audiences and be on the preventive end of the continuum? And so I started doing some of that. I think I kind of got bit with that bug when I start doing group therapies, and then just started working on clinical director of my own benefits consulting firm. Started working doing presentations for professionals, for Fortune 500 companies, and then moved into working for a firm out of New York to do some of that stuff, and then that kind of led into doing some of that working, you know speaking at national conferences like the ones that the one that we met at. So true to form for me, I thought to myself one day well I want to reach more people.

Peter: [laughs]

Ria: and I said, hey, I know what. I want a radio show, and I wanted to have this radio show on this particular station that’s our local national public radio station here in Columbus. It’s 90.5 WCBE are the call letters. We’re moving into syndication in 2018. We also capsulate each one of our broadcasts into podcasts. I do two shows a week. The original show is called You Inc., and the mission of You Inc is to elevate the emotional intelligence of the populace. I feel like, more than ever, there’s just so many people who don’t have the tools to speak to each other, who default to anger, ad hominem types of attacks and logical reasoning. And I really just want to give people the tools to do better for their brand, and your brand is You Inc. I always think of myself as Ria Inc. I’m always thinking to myself what’s good for my brand. So kind of sharing that and giving people the ability to maximize their experiences with others. You know elevate themselves. Enlighten and elevate, and to be able to kind of create bridges instead of dams. Giving those tools. So tools can range from anything from optimism to resiliency to multiplicity, which was the one that we did together when you were on the show. Every week it’s a different tool, and then what I do is I introduce a guest on to the show and this guest is someone who’s particularly successful on wielding this particular wellness tool, and then we do a series of you know little interview questions that pertain to that tool. So that’s You Inc, and then I saw an opportunity to do a little tune-up, a little five-minute module, which is a little bit more lighter in feeling. You Inc. show also go has a library of books and scholarly articles that we refer to so that people can have something to follow up with. Those are all located on our websites and are mentioned in our program and in our podcast. But You Tune, which is the second show, is basically a five-minute tune up. And it talks about that tool but it’s a little bit more humorous. I give a smaller anecdote of how I wielded that tool in my personal life, so that’s kind of a connection. In You Inc we bring on a guest, while I do my little snippet of myself and then in You Tune we also mention a movie, which kind of is also again like more entertainment. So like you, Peter, edutainment is what it’s all about. And you and I have talked about this: I think it’s important to deliver a message in a way where people don’t feel like it’s too preachy or it’s too heavy, and that way it’s just open and available to everyone. And when you get people to enjoy what they’re listening to, they’re more attentive. Rather than feeling like here’s another lesson. I don’t really don’t want to deal with that. And you know I joke about with You Tune, like if you don’t have time to go to a shrink just here’s five minutes with me.

Peter: [laughs]

Ria: So you can find these things, as I mentioned, the show You Inc and You Tune are both on our local central Ohio NPR station. Our website is WCBE.org. And you can look up You Inc there if you want. We’re also on iTunes and on soundcloud. We even started putting up the little modules because they’re a lot of fun. One thing that I’m also going to be doing soon, and I don’t know how but I’m going to do it, is I’m going to start a YouTube channel also. We’re going to start working on doing fun things with anger management, for example. So you know like when you’re driving and you think that this person who’s swerving in front of you is like you not paying attention, or if they take a turn really slowly it’s because they’re being a jerk, and what we want to show is that you think that that’s what they’re doing but in reality there’s a person there with a cat in a cat carrier taking them to the vet saying don’t worry pookie it’ll be okay. So we’re doing something that’s really funny, kind of like SNL shorts, but that hasn’t launched yet. But anyway, if you want to find us on iTunes it’s You Inc Radio, what the name of the podcast is, and on soundcloud it’s it’s also the same. It’s you inc radio, and you’ll see WCBE FM or NPR. So yeah check us out. You’ll really enjoy it. I’m always looking for feedback. Most of the feedback that we’ve received, not all of it, has been really positive. I think people really are looking for something like this, especially in these types of days we really want to build those bridges. So that’s in a nutshell, I think, what’s going on. I’m also a mom.

Peter: I was going to say. Do you spend any time with your two beautiful children, and you have a husband, and I want to do you sleep, and how much coffee do you drink?

Ria: [laughs] okay I so my coffee of choice is what’s called the 701 – it’s at our local coffee shop here Cup of Joe. I get a large 701 with two extra shots, and that’s a total of five shots of espresso in that and it’s a large brewed coffee on top of that… so that’s quite a bit and that gets me going.

Peter: I would say so. My brother drinks something along those lines, but I have to stop you for a second. We gotta take a huge big uh rewind here. What is the name of the park that you did all this work for and got the grant money and are going to be speaking that six-minute piece on?

Ria: It’s portal park it’s a here in clintonville, and it’s the smallest park in the city of Columbus. So one of the things that I’m going to say is like if I can do it there you can do it anywhere. I’m actually looking at other parks that people can duplicate this public edible initiative.

Peter: And its portal park. Where’s it located in clintonville?

Ria: It’s at 18 East Arcadia, so basically it’s on the corner of Arcadia and High street. Tim Hortons is kind of underneath it, and there’s also Lucky’s market is in the same kind of block. Across then across High Street used to be PJ’s tavern, but they’re closed down now.

Peter: Okay, so I do have a fairly large audience here in the columbus ohio area. I suggest that all of you guys go check it out. I’m going to go check it out as well. That just fascinates me that the energy and the drive and the determination that you have to get something done for the community goes way beyond what a lot of people do, and I commend you highly. That was fat that was fascinating to know and I’m going to see if I can come down and watch you do the presentation.

Ria: Absolutely. Oh yeah! It’s this thursday.

Peter: Do they do this once a month? Is it every couple weeks? Is it once a week? How many times do they do this speaking occasion?

Ria: They don’t do it monthly, exactly, or they might do it monthly but it’s not extremely frequently. And then portal park is something that we do. We have people come out. We’re on facebook: friends of portal park. You can come up on any of our care days. We’re also a registered Earth Day site, and so we have about a hundred people come through the week of Earth Day to help kind of do the plantings for spring and things like that. Especially we have 50 bushes coming into that little teeny park the week of Earth Day, so we are a registered site and people come in. So go check out friends of portal park on facebook. Pecha Kucha is also on Facebook, and so is You Inc with Ria Greiff and guests. It’s also on facebook if you want to check us out there. We’re also on Twitter of course. Again it’s a You Inc Radio, and it’s @YouIncTool is our handle. We’re also on Instagram, so you can find us anywhere.

Peter: You got social media covered. I’ve been wanting to ask this question, and I haven’t because I wanted to do it on my podcast. Well how did you pitch NPR to give you a radio show? I find that fascinating.

Ria: Well I guess I was just driving down the highway and I always listen to this station and I said I want to do this. So I basically just went forward, contacted the station manager, and just told him what my idea was. And the station manager at at WCDE, wonderful gentleman, extremely intelligent. You know he was very busy at the time, and then I managed to contact the support staff person Melanie Wells, to whom I’m always going to be eternally grateful for printing my emails and putting them on his desk, because she loved the concept too. I guess the concept also resonated with the people there, I have to say, and it also coincided with the fact that a lot of shows on NPR are going off the air and have gone off the air, like Car Talk, and so there was this opening. So it was also this incredible opportunity of serendipity to where they’re looking to fill in shows that have been there, historically, for many many many years, and now are going off the air. So I also got very very lucky, in terms of timing. And so I was asked to fill out a proposal and it was mud not a like a one-pager. It was a 10 page proposal.

Peter: Okay.

Ria: You had to give evidence towards the effectiveness of what you were doing. The need to support it. But then I also had to do some small modules. I had to do some pilots, and I did. And then the other thing that I did was I made sure that I volunteered at every single possible weekend, so that I wouldn’t go away. It took about six months before I even got approval for the for the proposal. It was a long process. Probably another six months before I even got my pilot on the air. So it was a one year process of just being tenacious and and really just making sure that what I presented was extremely well thought out, and that the format was just very appealing to people. And in fact when people hear the show they just really get a lot of value out of it. So there’s a lot large amount of value out of it, and I think for me the most important part was I didn’t want to do just another talk show. I wanted to do something that was really directly related to offering something that people could use – a tool that they could use to build their brand.

Peter: It is a very good show, and tenacity is… that’s you.

Ria: [laughs] right

Peter: but you said something there: that you had the idea, made some connections, but then you volunteered. So they got to know you. When we did our episode, the gentleman who was producing it, he shared a story with me that he was with a radio station here in the Columbus area for many years, left, and wanted to come work at the local NPR station, and he was talking about how he got his job was by spending time volunteering at the radio station, and getting noticed. So I want to put that into the audience. If you’re looking to do something, you’ve got this passion, you want to get in front of a group, one way is obviously through the proposal process or writing or whatever – the other is attending their events, volunteering, meeting people, and making those connections. That goes, as you can hear, it goes a long long long way.

Ria: It does, and I myself too have occasionally had interns come and work because this is their way of getting into this medium. So they get to meet people, they get to come to these events, and eventually they get hired. I mean almost every student that has worked with me after graduation has moved on to working in that field that they had worked with me. So I think it’s very important for people to really take that message that like you said – you just got to be there. You just gotta be present. And also people will trust these like, oh I’ve known this person for four years, they’ve always shown up on time, they provided this added value to our brand, so you also get the opportunity to show them that you’re good, you’re trustworthy, and you have something to offer. And then also even better they get used to having you around them. They want to keep having you around.

Peter: Right, and I heard a couple words there that resonate in my world of improv. You said the word trust, which is one of the principles of improvisation, and also being present, which is a principle of improvisation. And you’re right. I mean I always say, who do you do business with: people you trust or people you don’t trust? That’s the easy answer, but the challenge is how do you gain someone’s trust. And in this case it was being present. Have them see you and have them get to know you and build that quote unquote relationship over time, to the point where they approved your show, you’re on NPR, and for those of you in central Ohio, in her third episode of this radio show she interviewed some guy by the name of Gene Smith. The athletic director at The Ohio State University. Oh my god!

Ria: [laughs] yes he is like a great guy. He’s always been so gracious. I actually worked with Gene on a photo shoot that I did, a spring 10 page fashion spread for our sister media outlet City Scene Columbus, and Kathy Gill is the president and the CEO of that. When I started doing the magazine, my magazine, I had met her at this party and I said Kathy I’m really stumbling across these printing costs. She says get in touch with me. I’ll help you out, and she did. And then after that I was like hey, I do this wellness stuff, how about I write some articles for you? So she occasionally, and actually I have a deadline this week, occasionally she’ll ask me to write an article and we’ll publish it, and then I pitched this fashion idea to her she’s like sure let’s do it. And Gene Smith was one of the people that came to that shoot and we put him on the cover. And then so I was like alright let me see if I could parlay this into a show, and there you go. There you have it. There’s Larry Smith, who also did an episode with us. He is the husband of Piper Kerman from Orange is the new black, so he was also on the show. And him and David are kind of big into storytelling. All these hacks and storytelling and getting people to take that jump to be an entrepreneur, and both of these guys are really inspiring in terms of you just keep putting yourself out there and just don’t be afraid to think about you have something to offer; you have a story, and to just follow that and not to be afraid to take those risks and take those chances. And that’s what I’ve always done and it’s always worked.

Peter: It’s what holds a lot of people. That fear of failure. That fear of looking stupid or saying something, but you know what? You got to take a risk. You have to accept failure, not as something negative but as something positive. In a sense of that it’s a learning experience more than anything.

Ria: You know I wonder about that sometimes. Like I wonder is it a fear of failure or is it a fear of succeeding? Because honestly, when you when you get to this next level of success let’s say, every time you get to this next you’ll point where you get up and up and higher, then there’s like there’s more pressure. And so now you have to really produce and people have expectations of you, and I think sometimes that’s even scarier. Like when I first got the green light to do this, and I had Gene Smith there, and I’m thinking to myself who do you think you are, Ria? Like who do you think you are? You start to have these ideas you’re like oh my God I’m going to make a full out of myself. You’re more afraid of the success, where people like take you at your word that you can do this and now you have to perform. So I guess it you know it’s both sides of that fear of failure / fear of succeeding kind of thing. And then there’s that pressure because people think oh well she can do this much and then you think they expect a lot from you, but really when I start to feel that way, when I start so overwhelmed that way, I just know that what works for me is to be prepared, to do my homework, and to really push myself to just keep doing more and more. And another thing, my pro tip I would say, if people are looking for a pro tip, don’t look – at at least this is what works for me – I never once, when I was putting my format together for my radio show, I never once looked up what those templates were supposed to be. Never. When I put together articles or when I decided to do fashion shoots, I never looked at how other people did it for me to find out how I should do it. I just did what I thought was right, and of course it’s based on experience, it’s based on excellence, it’s based on doing my research in terms of making sure I have the right information and that I’m really producing something of high quality and high value… but there’s a book that I read it’s called The Cheat Code, which kind of talks about that and it just says just do it. Just go, move forward, and do what you think works… and most people, like if you think about great musicians, great writers, they broke molds, right? The greats just did whatever it is they wanted to do. Like, for example, thinking of a contemporary band that would mirror that would be twenty one pilots, for example. I read something about when they first were getting popular was during the Mumford & Sons type of era, and they had asked them to kind of change their sound. They’re like no way this is what we’re doing, as long as it takes. I think they’re excellent musicians, even farther back like Beastie Boys. People who are great musicians did things because they just did – Queen is another example. Oh my god they’re so talented. So just do what it is that you want to create. Create something new. You don’t have to look for that template.

Peter: When you were talking about the fear of success and how you described it takes me back to episode 39 with Maureen Zappala, who talks about this impostor syndrome. This imposter syndrome affects people like ourselves because we’re highly driven, we want to do, but then as you said you sit there getting ready to talk to Gene Smith and you’re like who the heck do I think I am yeah.

Ria: [laughs]

Peter: Yeah, and I was doing the same thing prior to calling you.

Ria: [laughs] You’re sweet.

Peter: But I think that that that’s also a very valid point. That imposter syndrome, that fear of success, can paralyze some people, because as you said that that level of risk increases. The level of stress increases. The demands on you increase. And I think some people want to jump through it and some people go you know I’m just comfortable right now at this, and I don’t want to attempt that.

Ria: mm-hmm, and that’s okay too. Some people are comfortable where they are, and that’s completely okay as well. I can tell you this is not for everyone, where you have to sit there and you are managing multiple individuals, you’re managing multiple projects, you’re creating things, and you’re being on public display. It certainly is not what you would call low pressure. There is constantly on my mind I have to send out this email I have to do this I have to do that. It is a lot to take in, and it’s not for everyone. And that’s fine. I just don’t want people to hold themselves back. If you feel like you want it, just jump into it. Just go for it.

Peter: Just go for it, and speaking of your upcoming presentation you said the magic word: in order to be successful at doing that is the preparation that goes into it, and I call it preparation is not perfection. Because you might make a mistake in six minutes; you might make one mistake, but don’t let that one mistake set you back. But the more you prepare, the more you turn it into a conversation versus a presentation, and that’s the ultimate goal in front of any audience – to turn it into a conversation versus a presentation.

Ria: Mm-hmm. I like that. I like the way that sounds because you’re right; because if you are prepared, you don’t have to worry about presenting it because it’s already a part of you, and then it can just be something that just comes out and it sounds to the public that it’s organic. And in essence it does become organic because you put that into yourself and it becomes a part of you. So that’s why it feels and it sounds organic, because you have made it a part of who you are. Absolutely.

Peter: Yeah. I watch a lot of TED talks and I watch the I watch a lot of speakers, and they look so cool, calm, and collected, and they know their stuff inside and out, but what people tend to forget is all the preparation they put in for that one hour, or all the preparations they put in for that six minutes.

Ria: Mm-hmm. mmhmm. Yeah. Thinking about just this six minute thing, I’m going through records, I’m getting old photographs from the park, getting the history of it, I’m going around looking at other parks people can make this happen in. And this for six minutes.

Peter: [laughs] Yeah

Ria: One of the things to, when working with some of my junior staff and some of the interns, like asking them to help develop some of the questions; to see what they come up with, and you know I’ve made this clear. If you can ask a question of this person and any other person on this planet, then it’s not specific enough. This question has to be so specific that it can only be asked of this particular individual. So that, for me, tells me that you have to find out what this person is, you have to link it to something that you read about them, it has to be tied into the tool also, and so that’s that preparation that we talked about. I think that’s when things really come across and that’s why people like to hear things like You Inc and You Tune. It’s because it really is something that has taken time to be developed. When you think about other great things like Saturday Night Live, for example, it’s just so well done, the writing, and you get that feeling of like mind blown. When you read a really good book, and there’s so many of them out there right now, like for example I’m reading this book right now talking about the whole history, I mean this is one who wrote this, the entire history of the settling of New York. From the days of New Amsterdam. Like the whole history, in detail, and you read this and you think to yourself my god this person… how in the world did he do it? And, no doubt, countless hours of pouring over material, assembling it, probably had one of those big story boards out there. It’s just incredible. And it feels good, too. When I was talking to the station manager over there at WCBE, you know it too. Like when you work on something, how do you know you’re done? There’s this moment when you write that one last word and you say that’s it. It’s perfect. That’s it. You just know. You just have this moment of like something clicks, and then when you when you have that moment on the receiving end, people get that moment of mind blow. And so those are some indicators if people are looking for well how do I know? Those are kind of the things that you want to look for to know.

Peter: Yeah, you know when… because you struggle to, either, this doesn’t sound right, this doesn’t feel right, something’s missing. Or a lot of comedians, some people think they just come up with these jokes. No. They mine and they craft and they polish them. My friend Dan Swartwout, who is a nationally touring comedian who I interviewed back in episode 17. We talked about writing and writing jokes, and the time that you put in trying to craft that, which only lasts for maybe 10 seconds or 30 seconds. The amount of time and energy that you put into it to get it right; to polish it. I remember years ago I wrote a joke that took me two years to complete it.

Ria: mm-hmm

Peter: and it was always stuck in the back of my head and there was something that I was missing. I couldn’t see it, I couldn’t find it, and then that one day I went aha! I got it! and then ta da, I went out and did it and it worked. Okay now I can park that and just keep moving forward.

Ria: mm-hmm, exactly. Yep. That is so true. By the way, that book is called The City of Dreams: the 400-year epic history of immigrant New York. One cute thing that I learned from there: Alexander Hamilton was actually not even born in the US. I mean there were a lot of generations of New Yorkers then, but he was an actual immigrant. Alexander Hamilton was. But he was not born in the United States, even back then.

Peter: Oh.

Ria: Yeah, not a lot of people know that.

Peter: So You Inc… you’ve interviewed some very interesting people. When you talked to Gene Smith the topic was resiliency. Episode 2 with Jamie Goldstein was about creativity. And your initial podcast with Cheryl Harrison was about dreams.

Ria: mm-hmm

Peter: and then ours was about multiplicity. So you’ve got you’ve got these themes that you come in with every week, and you’ve done your work; you’ve done your research. And then you have somewhat of a dialogue with the guests, and actually I had a blast at it. It was a lot of fun, but but as I told you I’m used to being on the asking side not the receiving side, so I will say it was weird at first.

Ria: [laughs]

Peter: but it also it also gave me a lot more compassion to those who I interview, because I kind of know what they’re going through, and I will post it when our episode goes live. And I can say that I’ve been interviewed on NPR, which thank you very much. That was on my all-time bucket list.

Ria: [laughs] Nice

Peter: Outside of all of this, what else do you do? I mean you must have a so much free time on your hands.

Ria: [laughs] right. Well, I have my kids and we are screen light, meaning they don’t have any devices. We do one hour of Netflix. So we do things like they do kung fu and tumbling, and then they both cheer actually. You know it’s just something to keep them involved; they can develop their talents. We saw my friend David Niwa, who was in the columbus symphony orchestra. He did a small concert at the performing arts center on sunday. So we try to be cultured. I took the kids to see the odd squad at the ohio theater on saturday. I try to keep them cultured. One, they don’t have devices because screens are really bad and I feel like saying this like the South Park character. “Screens are bad.”

Peter: [laughs]

Ria: But there’s this book that came out called Glow Kids, and for all of the parents out there please read this book. It’s kind of like my personal… crusade is a good word. Screens are dopaminergic, so what they do is it creates dopamine in your brain. Same thing as cocaine. So giving children screens is like giving them cocaine, and you can read this book to get the verification. There’s science behind it. It’s very very dangerous. It’s called glow kids. There’s another book that just came out that’s even talking about how it’s really creating addictive behaviors in children and adults. So not only are we just addicted to the screens, but that we addictively shop, we addictively get engaged in other types of screen behaviors, gaining maybe even some other areas. So this book is called irresistible, and just came out, so I am really anti screens. And as a result like I said what we do is we really try to get involved with doing stuff at our rec center, we go to the library once a week, we do we do cultural things. Like I mentioned, listening to classical music live and going to theater performances of that nature, and you know we enjoy doing that quite a bit. So that’s the stuff that we get involved in, in terms of other things that we do right here. My husband and I try to go dancing.

Peter: Oh no we have to stop this interview because my wife’s gonna listen to this. We have to stop it right here and stop it right now!

Ria: [laughs] Yeah it’s important that we do that also. Yeah so then that’s kind of the other stuff that we do. I think that covers… you got most of Ria encapsulated there. I think you got her.

Peter: I think I do, and I do follow you on facebook and thanks for clarifying because I was watching. You were playing Monopoly the other day, weren’t you? With the kids on the floor or something. I’m going Wow, come on Steven get down here, we’re playing some rummy. Get away from my screen.

Ria: Exactly.

Peter: But you do keep a very busy life. You’re extremely talented. Looking through your LinkedIn bio and I have to ask this question: do you still bartend at the greek festival in columbus?

Ria: That’s a good question. [laughs] I used to. I did that for a number of years, but now the greek festival and the contest… I kind of moved into working with contest. I MC at contest now. So I’m heavily involved with that festival. And then the labor day weekend, too, there was another festival, fashion beats music festival, which I published their magazines and I work with their talent and I’m on the board of their fusion foundation. So other things have drawn me away from the greek festival, unfortunately, but it was it was a good time while I did it. It definitely was a very good time.

Peter: oh I bet it was. A couple times I’ve worked the saganaki booth there many years ago, and I always looked over here and you guys, the people who were pouring the beer and were pouring the wine and stuff were having just as much fun as we were trying to catch ourselves on fire.

Ria: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Because you know then people come over and they say oh come on do Ouzo shot with me, and you have to. You don’t want to offend anyone. You have to.

Peter: Quit playing with my dopamine right now.

Ria: Exactly.

Peter: Well Ria I really appreciate you taking time. I’ve enjoyed this conversation. You brought a lot of ideas that I know that my audience will gravitate to, and I look forward to talking to you again in the near future.

Ria: Yeah, thank you, and you know if anyone ever wants to shoot me an email you’re always welcome to do that. You can send me an email at Ria (at) 2rogues.com. Feel free to shoot me an email if you want me to answer a question; if you have an idea. I’m always listening.

Peter: Okay, now now that you brought that up, how did you come up with the name of the business as 2 rogues?

Ria: Well, so kind of a behind-the-scenes person that helps me out a lot here as my husband, so there’s some of that quality in that he’s one of the Rogues here in the family, but there’s also – and we talked about how you and I have a lot of similarities in this – there’s this kind of analytical side; there’s this creative side. So there’s the lone wolf. The lone wolf is known, also, as being a good parent, and the wolf is just kind of this me a wild figure that’s just out there just doing its thing. And then there’s the the untamable mare, which is another aspect of who I am. So that’s kind of like both sides, and you know the logo kind of shows like these roguish figures, but just feel like it embodied everything that I try to do in terms of just going out there, setting the path, trail blazing, and you know just embodying all sides of these two heads going apart. So embodying both sides of everything.

Peter: Thank you for clarifying that for me, and we do we do have a lot in common.

[laughs]

Peter: Well thank you again so very much for taking time out. I’ve enjoyed this conversation, and I look forward to a future conversation, as I once said. And I can only imagine where we’ll take that next direction.

Ria: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it I look forward to our next conversation

—

Improv Is No Joke – Episode 47 – Jody Padar

Peter: [00:00:00] Welcome everybody. I’m with longtime friend Jody Padar, and I just want thank you for taking time to spend with me on my podcast, seeing that you’re a tax account and we are in tax season. You must be a better time than I ever was when I was a tax accountant. So welcome Jody. Jody: [00:00:22] Thanks for having me Peter. Peter: [00:00:24] When you agreed that that you would be on the podcast, I was waiting to see any time after April 15th. But January 30th… That would be a great time. Wow. I’ll guess she does own her own firm, so I guess there is privilege to that. Jody, for those in the audience who do not know you, can you give us a little bit about your background? Jody: [00:00:45] Sure. So I’m Jody Padar, otherwise known as the Radical CPA. I am CEO and principal of New Vision CPA group, which is a small firm outside the city of Chicago. However we do service clients globally and nationally. We’re a cloud based firm, so in order to work with our team you have to be in the cloud. A lot more of our customers are actually remote, rather than coming into our office, and the way I know Peter is because we’re both educators and presenters and teachers. And so when I say I’m the radical CPA, I wrote a book called The Radical CPA: New Rules for the Future-Ready Firm, based on running a firm and a whole new business model. So we don’t keep time we don’t track time we don’t build by time. We use the cloud 100 percent. We focus on our customers through an experience and we use social media extensively so we are not a traditional CPA firm. We are definitely radical CPA firm, and I like to teach others how to get radical . Peter: [00:01:51] The blasphemy. You don’t charge time. You don’t keep time! But yes, you’re cloud-based structure that I don’t think too many in the profession are even venturing down that pathm or have ventured into the path. You’ve kind of been a pioneer in this. Jody: [00:02:09] Yeah absolutely. So about seven years ago I got on Twitter because none of the CPA in my area… well I guess I should back up a little bit. I left a mid-sized firm, and because it wasn’t working for me, it wasn’t working for my lifestyle as a young mother, and I came off a really bad tax season and I said there’s got to be a better way. And I actually joined my dad’s firm and I was looking for… I was looking for help in running a firm a new way because I started to utilize these new technologies, and they didn’t even call it the cloud then. And when things would take me two minutes I was like ‘oh my God, how am I going to bill for that?’ Like I had to change my business model. And so like any young entrepreneur did they went to Twitter to find out how to do it. And I found a bunch of other CPA who were all over the country doing the exact same thing that I was. And we kind of figured it out together using social media, and then we ended up meeting up in Vegas and Mark Koziel of the AICPA coined us a movement, as well as Tom Hood. And let’s just say the rest is history. So since then I’ve really been… my passion is really to help other firms learn how to have a life as part of their firm so that they can be gone in January, so they can be on a lovely podcast such as this and not even worry about it. Peter: [00:03:32] Well that is awesome and we’re going to get really deep into your book. But I do believe you left something out of your bio. You’ve talked about your firm. You’ve talked about your book. But I do believe that you’re on the radio as well are you not? Jody: [00:03:45] Oh yes I do have another podcast. My podcast is Let’s Get Radical, and it’s actually for small business owners. So I’ve gone to radicalize the other side now because I believe that, as small business owners demand more from their CPAs, it kind of closes the loop. So I can teach CPAs how to act, but I think small business owners need to know the questions that they need to ask their CPAs as well. So it’s kind of a whole ecosystem of business. Peter: [00:04:14] And that ecosystems is found on Voice America? Jody: [00:04:17] Yes we’re on Voice America on Tuesday mornings at 10am Central or you can download on iTunes or stitcher. Peter: [00:04:25] Cool. I listen to episodes. I really enjoy them, and the one I just listen to prior to this you were explaining how much you love taxes and that your tax geek. You were saying, but you were saying this with so much passion and laughter it was just contagious. Jody: [00:04:41] Well thank you. But I mean you should do what you love. If you don’t, you should get out. Find a different job I think. Peter: [00:04:48] I completely agree with that. Find what you love, do it 110 percent, have fun doing it, smile, laugh. The best part about that is your laughter, your passion, is contagious, which has to resonate through your office, as well as throughout the cloud and your clients dealing with them because I can’t imagine ever having a conversation with you, and I’ve known you for a little time, where you’re not happy, you’re not motivated, you’re not bringing the passion. You probably just go home and collapse. Jody: [00:05:21] Yeah. I mean I do. I would say I do. Peter: [00:05:25] So as an entrepreneur you said I don’t like the way this model is built. I don’t like taking a taxi cab; I want to build Uber. Basically you build the Uber accounting firm that really nobody else had out there. And how is the book going? How do you teach it? Are people starting to grab on to this model? Jody: [00:05:47] Absolutely. So what’s happened is that you know the world has changed exponentially since we started like figuring out this model. So we really started figuring out this model about seven years ago. The book came out two years ago, and since then it’s just exponentially growing because the world keeps changing faster and CPAs already feel the pain. They know their business model isn’t working. They just don’t know how to change. And so by reading the book and really starting to understand the whole idea of the radical CPA, they can make a business model that works for them – and they want it. I mean I really believe CPAs want to change. It’s just they have a hard time in the how and like getting started. So if I can help them do that then that’s awesome, for my selfish world, because I don’t want another CPA to live in that old firm model, which wasn’t very nice to women. And so really that’s my passion… and I say women, but that’s because that was me, but I’ll say even men too. Right. Because who wants to work 12 hour days for four months a year? I mean that’s crazy. Peter: [00:06:59] [laughs] Exactly. It’s funny you should mention that because I was having a conversation with a partner in a firm here in Ohio, and I’ve known him for a long time, and he’s a few years older than I am. So he’s a baby boomer. And he made this comment to me over lunch and we were talking about people, and he said we can’t be mean to them anymore. And we started laughing. I said you know what we shouldn’t have been mean to him back then. Yeah, but we could get away with it. We can’t get away with it now because then they’ll leave. We didn’t know how to leave, or something along those lines. And I went yeah, the world has changed. We are in the people business and I think you recognize that, first and foremost, without good people around us, we have no business. We have no clients. Jody: [00:07:45] Well and more even so… I think that the people’s one piece of it, but the other thing is the technology is there to help you. And what I really don’t understand is why CPA don’t let the technology do the grunt work so that they need less people. So you know everyone says there’s a talent shortage. I don’t think there is a talent shortage. I think, if they use the technology the way they should, that we would have more than enough CPAs to do all the work. And the problem is CPAs are spending their time doing work that’s not value added, instead of letting that technology do it. And so if you look at it from talent, if you look at it from technology, if you look at it from a pricing and from a process standpoint, you put all those things together, there is a perfect firm out there. It’s just too many CPAs are afraid to take the first step to change it up. Peter: [00:08:36] Well, correct me if I’m wrong: CPAs have taken on the technology. They’ve moved from the 10 key to excel. Jody: [00:08:44] Right.[laughs] Peter: [00:08:45] But I guarantee, if you ask a roomful of CPAs if they still have a 10 key (for those of you who aren’t accountants, that’s an adding machine with tape.) They would still say that they have it. And I tell him there’s a support group for them… So so basically you tell me there’s more than just excel out there in technology? Jody: [00:09:04] Absolutely and I think it’s pretty funny because I still have my 10 key. [laughs] Peter: [00:09:18] And you’re the technology guru![laughs] Oh that’s funny. Oh I just called her out. Jody: [00:09:23] I love my ten key. Peter: [00:09:25] I don’t have one is because I could never use it. I could never get my fingers to go that fast and not look down and stuff. But go ahead. Jody: [00:09:35] So one of the things that I think they don’t realize is what really technology can do and when you start applying technology it really forces you to change up your business model, and that’s kind of how the whole pricing thing started. Because if things that used to take you two hours now take you two minutes, how do you bill for that? How do you bill two minutes? And so then it really holistically changes your firm at its core. And that’s what creates the disruption, and that’s the real time ness and the transparency that I think CPAs are afraid of, and so they don’t really adopt it. They adopt it half way and then they run back and hide. Peter: [00:10:11] Didn’t CPA stand for Change Procrastinating Always? Jody: [00:10:17] I thought it was Cut Paste Attach, but remember I still have my ten key. Peter: [00:10:21] You do. I always said the P and CPA stood for procrastination. We’ve never been the most risk savvy individuals. We we like the way we’ve done it. We tend to be a little bit more risk averse. But in today’s business environment. Jody: [00:10:34] Well they’re going to go the way of Blockbuster. So CPAs are going to be just like Blockbuster. Peter: [00:10:40] Right. Jody: [00:10:40] If they don’t start to change. And the real problem is, and this isn’t to scare them, but I’m the person who would buy their firm and I’m not buying it because I can steal their clients without it, because they haven’t kept up and they haven’t done what they need to do. So we grew 25 percent last year. Peter: [00:10:59] Wow. Jody: [00:11:01] The average firm grows 4 percent. Peter: [00:11:05] Well I can do that math. [laughs] That’s awesome. Jody: [00:11:09] And we didn’t we acquire anyone. We didn’t buy anyone. Right. So like all these other firms say they’re growing but they’re just acquiring other firms. We didn’t acquire anyone. It was 25 percent organic growth, and we’ll probably do another 25 percent this year. Peter: [00:11:22] So how are you finding this growth of other clients versus buying firms? How are they finding you? Jody: [00:11:31] Via social media. But you know, CPAs aren’t supposed to be on social media. Peter: [00:11:35] That’s right. That’s always a waste of time. It’s a waste of time. How can you get business from that? Jody: [00:11:42] Right. Right. Right. Via social media. Peter: [00:11:45] Yeah. Betty White calls it the Twitter, so there must be something not right there. Jody: [00:11:49] Right. So I’m out there. Like I blog and I write. I have a podcast. And so people come to me. I don’t even… like I don’t do coffee or I don’t like talk to bankers. Like I don’t even know what a banker is. Peter: [00:12:06] I don’t either. So I want to back up. You said something very powerful there. Basically you’re also a writer. Jody: [00:12:14] Absolutely. Peter: [00:12:14] So you’ve you’ve written the book, and you’ve got another one coming out and we’ll talk about that here in a moment, but you’re also blogging and you also write for Accounting Today and for CPA trendlines, right? Jody: [00:12:29] Yes. For CPA Trend lines. Peter: [00:12:30] And who else? Jody: [00:12:32] Well I’ve been in Forbes, and I get quoted all the time in Inc. or Entrepreneur, or things like that as well. Right. So once you put yourself out there, people react to it and they connect to you. So it’s like PR. It’s like people don’t realize what PR does. Peter: [00:12:50] Right. And when I’ve tried to explain that content marketing, authority marketing, and writing, and getting out there… You ask a CPA would you like to write an article and this is what you hear: No. Jody: [00:13:03] [laughs.] Peter: [00:13:03] I think a lot of people are intimidated by writing because it’s not easy; it’s hard. But the ability to write, the ability to get your content out there in the publications where people can see it. Yes that is marketing, that does drive business, that brings clients to you. Jody: [00:13:21] Absolutely. I forgot to mention that I was – and this isn’t to kind of tout myself – but I was named for the second year in a row the top 10 LinkedIn blogger for money and finance. A nd it was all organically driven by likes and shares. So think about that when you think about a social network. And I have a 124,000 followers on LinkedIn. Peter: [00:13:44] I’m one of them. Jody: [00:13:47] [laughs] I think the funny thing about that is that CPAs get so caught up in the writing piece of it. And one of the best things that I did seven years ago when I started writing was I hired an editor. Peter: [00:13:58] Yes. Jody: [00:13:59] And so I never publish anything without an edit on it, and it gives me the ability to be a CPA and know that I can create content and know that it will get, I’ll say, checked. So I don’t have to worry about misspellings or periods or sentence structure. And yet I still get my ideas out there and I think it’s the best brand building that a firm can do, and they don’t realize that for a couple of hundred bucks a month they can have a delightful blog and it’s not going to cost them thousands and thousands of dollars. And yet they can really put their stake in the ground as to who they are professionally, and they don’t have to worry about it. And so if that’s like a one take away from today, if you want to blog but you’re afraid of blogging then get an editor. Where you’re writing it and the editor’s just like proofing it, so you don’t have to worry about it. Because you shouldn’t be, and I’ll say wasting your time, but you shouldn’t be spending three hours on a blog. You should be spending 20 minutes on it, and then let that editor make sure that it’s all good to go. Peter: [00:15:05] And we’ll talk about technology now, because I do that, but what I end up doing is I use Dragon dictation and I put the headset on and I will just brain dump whatever the idea is. I may have a small outline and I’ll just talk it through, and then I’ll go through a couple of times and just look at it. Pick up some of the easy stuff. But then I too have an editor that I send it to to say make this thing pretty, make this thing nice, make this say what I need it to be, and then I’m off to the next thing. So you know there’s so many different ways of getting our content out there into the marketplace. And for those CPAs who are delivering conferences and speaking at conference: record your conference, record your presentation, and then have it transcribed and turn that into content. There are so many easy ways of doing it – we just forget to do it. Jody: [00:15:54] Well, I don’t even think we forget. Nobody told us because we’re CPAs. We learned excel – We didn’t learn about editing and writing and stuff, and then like the world has changed. Now really we have to think about content as part of our business. We have to think about marketing. And if we’re not, then we’re going to be out of business. Peter: [00:16:10] And marketing is more than just referrals, because referrals is the cheapest form of marketing but there’s other ways that we’ve got to get our name out there into the public, just as you’re doing with Forbes and Inc and General Accountants. I know you’ve been quoted in there. Oh by the way, we said accounting today right? Jody: [00:16:29] Yes. Peter: [00:16:29] So since you won’t tout you, I’ll tout you on this one. How many years have you been one of the top 100 influencers in the accounting profession, according to accountant today? Jody: [00:16:40] So I think it’s six years now, but actually like the award that I’m really really proud of as I was Managing Partner Elite, and there are only 10 managing partners a year that are chosen and you can’t be on the list more than once. So like you can’t be a repeat on it. And I’m like connected. It’s like the same as like the managing partner of top 100 firms, which is crazy to me. I mean you think about how small our firm is, and my managing partner status is just as big as theirs. Peter: [00:17:13] That’s awesome. Wow that’s outstanding. I guess my question to you, if we have a firm listening to this and you’ve got a managing partner who has let’s say five other partners, and they’ve got a firm but the size maybe of about 100 associates. How do they turn in into becoming the radical CPA. How does it mesh into maybe a larger firm versus a smaller firm? Or does it? Jody: [00:17:40] Oh it totally works. So the whole idea of the radical CPA firm, or being a radical, is applying certain principles to your firm because everyone comes into a CPA firm with a certain different technical skill set. So you have to radicalize based on your own technical skill set. But I think the first thing is a commitment, and a commitment to doing everything in one unique way, which is the biggest problem. It’s like they have seven partners doing seven different things different ways, and they’re not really cohesive. So the first thing is to get cohesive on it, and then I think the second thing is to say we’re going to invest in it and we know that it may be a little bit slower, but if we don’t invest in this change we’re not going to be relevant in the future. And again I don’t want to scare firms, but on the flip side if they don’t make these changes then nobody wants to buy them, including their managers who they think are going to come in as partners. They’re jumping ship and starting their own firms because it’s so easy to start a firm today. It’s so easy. Peter: [00:18:46] Yeah technology makes it very easy to do that. And I think a lot of times the firms are reluctant to change because the partners are of we’ll just say my age, and then and then older, and there might be succession planning they’re thinking about, or we’re bringing some youth in that’s going to take over the firm, and maybe at that point is when they retire and the youth come in and take the firm in a completely different direction. But I thoroughly agree with you. Jody: [00:19:18] But they’re not going to pay for it. Why would I pay for your mess? Peter: [00:19:21] No. Right. Jody: [00:19:23] They need to start the journey before I come in and want to buy it. And that, I think, is the biggest disconnect between managing partners and the next gen of staff. Peter: [00:19:33] So I can imagine you have ruffled some feathers in the profession. Jody: [00:19:40] Oh, me?. Peter: [00:19:45] [laughs] But that’s good. I mean the feathers need to be need to be ruffled a bit. Jody: [00:19:53] So I think if our profession really wants to survive, and everyone says ‘oh why are you doing it?’ Because I love our profession. I truly believe that CPAs are awesome, but we need to stay awesome and we need to stay relevant. And if we don’t we’re going to be extinct. So if you take my suggestions or my ideas from a place of love, and to know that I’m doing it because I love our profession, then maybe you can take a first step towards making a change because I really do want our profession to survive. And I’m afraid quite honestly if we as a whole don’t start to make these changes, where will CPA be in 10 years? Peter: [00:20:36] Yeah. Or where will it be in five years, with the way technology is moving, and Watson’s get involved, and Watson is part of the auditing practice. And now I don’t need this whole staff over here. I know you’ve heard this. Jody: [00:20:52] I mean technology is only getting faster, and we need to we need to keep up with it so we can lead our clients and help be part of it. Otherwise we’ll be replaced by it. Peter: [00:21:04] We need to be more consultants. Jody: [00:21:06] Absolutely. Peter: [00:21:07] We need to be looking forward versus being historians, as we’ve been for so many years. And I had Tom Hood on an earlier podcast talking about looking to those trends. What’s out there? What’s changing? What’s the gentleman’s name. Burrus. Daniel Burrus. I believe that we’re starting to see CPAs embrace it because now at AICPA Council, I think it was last year Daniel Burrus first came and spoke to council, and got their attention. And Tom has been trying to get Daniel Burrus to speak to that group for at least two or three years and they wouldn’t embrace it. Jody: [00:21:54] Right. Peter: [00:21:54] Blockbuster. I like that reference. My other one is BlackBerry. Jody: [00:22:05] Blackberry [laughs]. Peter: [00:22:06] Yeah, you don’t want to get complacent. We’re trying to grow firms, we’re trying to do some things. So you’re cloud based. You’ve got clients all over the world. Jody: [00:22:18] Correct. Absolutely. Peter: [00:22:21] What’s your furtherest client? What country? And Cleveland is not a country, even though a lot of people think it might be. Jody: [00:22:28] Well I guess Peru. Peter: [00:22:30] Peru. Wow. How’s your Spanish? Jody: [00:22:34] Not good at all… I don’t know. Is Peru farther than China? I don’t know. Peter: [00:22:42] China’s further. Jody: [00:22:44] I’m not good at Geography. Peter: [00:22:45] Yeah. China is further. To get to Peru it’s not a 16 to 18 hour flight, I don’t think. And you’re based out of Chicago and you’ve got clients all over the U.S. Jody: [00:23:02] Yeah so our clients a lot of them talk to us via Skype so it really doesn’t matter where we sit. Honestly the hardest part of my day is figuring out what time it is and what time my meeting is at. Like scheduling meetings… seriously, if I could figure out the global calendar, I would be in good shape. Peter: [00:23:22] [laughs] Yeah. I use Google Calendar and if I’m on the west coast and I type in I got a 10 o’clock meeting with somebody and it records it in the West Coast time, and I get home and I’m like wait a minute. That thing’s not at one. And so I finally found that feature to keep myself within the right time zone. And yeah, when you travel across different time zones it does get a little bit confusing. Jody: [00:23:48] Yeah, but I mean on the flip side of it, the next generation business owner (typically my client, who’s typically under 40). They’re global right away. There they go right away into new territories, sometimes without realizing the regulatory issues that’s involved with it. But on the flip side of that it’s amazing how much small business is done globally now that I don’t necessarily believe used to be. And so if you’re not serving clients that are global I would be curious as to what kind of customers you are serving because there are so many small businesses that do have global components now. Peter: [00:24:25] Right. Right. And you know him from a speaking perspective, just as technology is. So my podcast my podcast has been up for six months and I just did a report yesterday that I’m in 30 countries, including the U.S. Jody: [00:24:39] Right. Peter: [00:24:40] Seriously? I just went into Russia. I think Putin listens to me! Jody: [00:24:46] [laughs]. Peter: [00:24:46] It could be. [laughs] So let’s talk about 2.0. Jody: [00:24:52] Yeah. So my first book, The Radical CPA, was really about why. Why CPAs needed a change, and kind of the early stages of how. Right. Well so my first book was released two years ago and I’ve learned so much more because the world keeps moving at an incredibly fast pace. I feel like I have such a better handle on how to build continuous innovation into your firm, and so that you’re really doing it all the time. So there’s no longer change management. It’s just continuous innovation as part of your firm, and that’s really what Book 2 is going to be about. How do you have that culture of continuous innovation? How do you measure it? How do you manage it? How do you get your team members to do it? And all that good stuff. Peter: [00:25:40] Do all your team members work out of the office in Chicago. Jody: [00:25:44] So we have an office. We do have a physical presence. However, I have one full time… well she’s permanent.. I guess she’s part-time permanent remote. Now she lives in Chicago but she doesn’t come into our office because it’s like 45 minutes, and why would she want to drive? Peter: [00:26:02] Right. I get that. Yes. Jody: [00:26:07] And she’s always been remote. She never worked in our office. From the day like we hired her she’s been remote, and she’s actually a mom which was one of the things that I wanted to enable, and she works I think during tax season from about 4:00 in the morning to about 9:00 a.m. or 8:00 a.m. and then she takes a break and then usually you can catch her after 10:00 to about 2:00 or whatever. And then I don’t know. So yeah and it really doesn’t matter. She gets her stuff done and it all works. Plus my team can work remote as well. I mean like they don’t have to come in… but I don’t know. I’m an office person. I can’t work at home. I would get nothing done. Peter: [00:26:51] You have to build something in your basement, and really that doesn’t work all the time either. It is a challenge working from home when you have family and kids and stuff going on. So the 2.0 is continuous improvement, continuous innovation. If Bill Clinton was here he’s say, “Well what’s your definition of continuous innovation? Tony what is that? Could you explain that to me please?” Jody: [00:27:17] [laughs] It means that we have a permanent R&D in our firm. So we’re R&D all the time, and we’re really running our firm like a software program. So like think about how companies create software and how they release things and then they have customer feedback and then they change it and then they add more stuff. And so that’s the way we productize our services. And so we’re always making changes, we’re always taking feedback, and then we’re always improving. So there’s none of this we’re going to do it like this for a year and then we’re going to revisit it. Now it’s this continuous improvement cycle that we’ve just built into our DNA; into our process. Peter: [00:27:58] Well that’s almost like the old Just In Time model. Jody: [00:28:01] Yes. Yes. Or like Agile. Like a lot of people talk about Agile Software. Peter: [00:28:06] Yeah. Jody: [00:28:07] Some of the companies out there have talked about agile firm. So I think I’m really kind of going to talk about what does it mean to be an agile firm. Meaning you’re going to be able to pivot, at any time, because you have your your radar out there as to what’s important. What you need to be moving towards. You can’t wait any longer for someone to come to you and tell you how to do it because you’re already behind. Peter: [00:28:31] Can you give us an example of that pivoting? Something that’s happened to you and you know with this continuous improvement you’ve been able to pivot and not wait. Jody: [00:28:43] So I think the easiest thing is in technology. It always seems to be in technology right. Though you can do it in process in other places, but there’s a lot going on with bots. Do you know what a bot is? Peter: [00:28:59] I do. Jody: [00:29:00] So like the whole idea… Like think about Alexa on Amazon. A lot of people got Alexa for Christmas and what she does is she’s like this little black thing who sits in your kitchen and you can turn on the radio or she’ll play songs for you. You can order things from Amazon. Anyway she’s an Amazon bot, essentially. Right. So they now have bots in accounting. So like Sage has one. I think Zero has one. Intuit is working on one where you can actually talk to it and Facebook and tell her that you had an expense. Peter: [00:29:36] Yeah. Jody: [00:29:36] And then it records it and it gives you a response. So right now we’re not actively putting them out to customers, but we’re playing with them because we want to be there before everybody else has one. So we really want to understand what she knows, what she can do, what she can’t do, and tinker with her. And she may never go mainstream because like I said there’s a few different bots out there, but if you don’t even know what a bot is and you don’t even understand that then how can you even advise your client? And actually my favorite bot is on my phone, and her name is digit savings.

Peter: Digit savings.

Jody: Yeah, and what she does is she goes into my bank account every day and she tells me the balance, and then she saves money for me based on an algorithm in my checking account. So based on the balance she may move six dollars or twenty dollars or whatever, and she just moves it to another account for savings. So it’s kind of like this unknown way of forced savings, but if you text her back and you ask her something she tells you how much is there. Or like she just texted me like a little bit ago, well maybe a couple weeks ago, and she goes “make it rain savings like a boss. You now have over two hundred and fifty dollars in your digit account. Spread the love.” And then they have like this crazy GIF there with like money flying around.

Peter: Yeah yeah.

Jody: You may laugh at that or say well like what is she doing, but if my customer comes to me and says hey I downloaded this bot on my phone and it’s telling me to do savings account and asked me that question, and I don’t know that it’s out there, how do I look as a financial advisor? I look like a dummy.

Peter: Right right right.

Jody: So like how do you put these things in your firm so that everybody’s aware of them so that it just makes your collective firm know what’s going on in the world?

Peter: So I have known that bots are now existing in accounting, so I could be sitting here I could open up my my general ledger quick books–

Jody: Facebook. You tell it to Facebook and Facebook puts it in where it needs to go.

Peter: Oh, okay.

Jody: But CPAs aren’t on social.

Peter: That’s right that’s right. Well, no, there’s there’s two: one practicing (that’ you) and one not practicing (that’s me).

Jody: Right. But just think about that. CPAs aren’t on social. And I know that’s a lie and I know I’m really over-exaggerating it because I have a lot of friends who are CPAs on facebook, but think about that. If you can do accounting via facebook now… I mean it’s just crazy. But how are you not even aware of it, and how does your firm look if you don’t know what’s going on?

Peter: right right right. So do you envision a version of Alexa or Google home, a device on our desk, that will be able to answer financial questions that we have based on logarithms that are in there? Or I’ll be able to predict and I got a client and and here we’re just going to upload all this information and then you’re going to spit out some reports and you’re gonna give me some advice and you’re going to tell me some things, and now I need to go converse with the client.

Jody: Yes I think that within five years time bots will be mainstream. Now I may be wrong. I’ve been wrong before. But I think I think it’s going to happen sooner than CPAs realize, because I mean think about nobody knew about Alexa but now everybody has her.

Peter: I haven’t brought her into my house. I’m not allowed because you know I have ADHD and I can log on to Amazon and my wife goes ‘they’re here again? Would you quit buying stuff.’ With Alexa there I’m gonna be bankrupt. But yeah Alexa kind of snuck up on us. Google home kind of snuck up.

Jody: and I think the big thing to think about is is consumer-driven. So it’s not that CPAs are thinking oh I want to use a bot to do my work faster. What’s happening is customers come into your office and they tell you about the bot they’re using, and if you don’t understand what it’s doing how are you going to be relevant to that client anymore?

Peter: Exactly. And as you were saying I’m going Jody I think this is a wonderful opportunity for you to invent a bot.

Jody: [laughs] No. You know what, I’ll let the the technologist invent the bot. I just like to play with them.

Peter: Also we should call it the Padar. But yeah, the way technology is moving… the firm that we grew up in – okay let me rephrase that. The firm that I grew up in many years ago. You’re right. It might not be there in five to ten years.

Jody: But here’s the thing: like there’s an opportunity to change now, but partners have to get on board. They have to realize that it’s time and that they can do it. I mean I don’t want to be like this big debbie downer and say oh my god like you’re gonna be obsolete. I want you to say oh my goodness I need to change. Let me get started so that I do remain relevant. I think there’s such an opportunity here, and I think CPAs can be relevant. I think they’re smart people. But they have to get started, and I think that’s the big thing. The biggest problem is not even doing the work; it’s acknowledging that they need to do the work. So if you can acknowledge it and just start with one foot in front of the other, before you know it your firm will flip because it has to. It’s like you just start moving and then somehow you’re at the end of the marathon. Like you didn’t even realize, or like the training that you’ve done through the beginning of the marathon just gets easier and easier and easier. So it just becomes a muscle. Your innovation muscle just gets developed, and then all this new stuff being thrown at you. It’s not change management. Its innovation.

Peter: So a good place to start, if somebody’s firm is listening to this, I would say good place to start is to purchase your book.

Jody: Well of course. That would be awesome, but but actually you can sign up for my newsletter and get it all for free. I know you’re CPAs. Come on!

Peter: Before we forget, where can they find your newsletter?

Jody: They can sign up… well, on social media, but oh wait… they might not be on social.

Peter: I’m gonna name this episode ‘accountants aren’t on social media and then just put a smiley face texture because we know.

Jody: that is not true. If you go to like theradicalCPA.com or if you go to CPA trend lines you’ll find out like all kinds of information about my newsletter. And again you could buy my book, but you don’t have to. You can just sign up for my newsletter.

Peter: Buy her book too. I’ve been an author. Buy her book too. Get the radical CPA, read it between now and the start of May, and then pick up 2.0 which would be probably coming out would you say maybe summer fall?

Jody: Yeah hopefully July.

Peter: Hopefully July okay. It sounds like building a house.

Jody: Well and I think the thing is, too, that it just takes a small step, right? As long as you get moving, the big thing is just to start. It’s not to flip your firm overnight, but to just get started. Because I think the other thing is, if you get started your younger team members will see that and they’ll help you and they’ll see the energy and they’ll want to help you continue to move forward. I think the biggest problem is the the mid-level managers don’t see the partners wanting to change, and so they’re revolting and they’re frustrated and they’re leaving and all this stuff. But I think all they need is a sign that you’re open to change so that they can like be part of it.

Peter: Yeah because if you begin to change and we get moving in that direction and you employ your younger staff, and I use the term younger in a very broad way, you’re gonna get excitement from them. They’ll be more than happy to walk through a brick wall for you in this transition to the firm of the future.

Jody: Right. Totally.

Peter: Totally. So I don’t take up too much more of your time. So we got 2.0 coming out. We’ve got your book. They can read all about you in accounting today, CPA trendlines. Get your newsletter. You can find Jody. I was gonna I was gonna read her bio… I thought I was busy, and then I read her bio and I went nah, i’ma let her do it. But she’s got a lot of great advice. This is not something she just started 10 minutes ago in her garage. As she said, this came about I would say seven-plus years ago when you said there’s got to be a better way. Boom, and just put the mindset behind it. I don’t have to wish you luck because you’ve got all the luck in the world moving forward. I look forward to 2.0 coming out. I love watching your career just explode and keep exploding. You’re you’re fighting the great fight for the profession. I may not practice in this profession, but I am a CPA and I do love it as well and my big crusade is to convince CPAs that communication skills are important, if not more important, than the technical skills. So we both have our our battles, we will keep fighting them, and thank you so very much for taking time out to be on this podcast today.

Jody: Thank you for having me Peter

[music]

Peter: Remember, you can subscribe to my podcast on itunes, stitcher, and google play. If you’d like to purchase a personalized autographed copy of my book Improv is no Joke: Using Improvisation to Create Positive Results in Leadership and Life, for $14.99 with free shipping, please go to my website, PeterMargaritis.com, and you’ll see the graphic on the homepage to purchase my book. Please allow 14 days for shipping. You can also follow me on social media. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram.