TfP 010. Leading with Authenticity and Vulnerability

Join us each month as we hear from leaders in the public accounting profession sharing their experiences of reshaping their business models and inspiring you to explore new ways to evolve your own organization. Let's dive into this month's conversation now.

Then in 2007, I started Tri-Merit, a real niche practice, and man, I didn't realize how fun specializing in a niche would be and it's been a real great ride. I've enjoyed it.

There's no deficits physically that I have from that stroke. Probably within a month everything resolved from a physical standpoint. But four days after the first stroke, I had a second stroke, very small. First one was small, second one was very small. But that set me down this path of, well, this is my life now. I'm going to have strokes. I'm going to die. I'm going to be disabled. This is my mind playing tricks on me. I'm never going to see my kids grow up.

I'm not going to see them graduate college. I'm never going to get the joy of grandkids. I get emotional when we talk about this and emotions are starting. This will happen multiple times today. It's actually something maybe we'll talk about too because vulnerability, I think is so important. I went down this mental struggle path after the stroke, physical. God forbid, anybody has a stroke, but if you did, you would want to be me from a physical standpoint, I think, because I recovered so fast.

Mentally then, I allowed my mind to play tricks on myself, and for about four-and-half years, I went through panic attacks and at least one of my therapist diagnosed as PTSD and depression, which at the time I called, I was having this melancholy feeling. I didn't really know it was depression until after the fact, but dealing with depression.

But that was extremely significant point in my life and it really got me to where I am today because once I came out of those struggles, I just saw how our profession self-induces stress on ourselves and burnout, which could turn into mental health issues. I became a champion for figuring out ways that we can avoid that.

But when the stroke happened, some very positive things that came out of the stroke. But one, which I fought for a while, but what I looked at and said, I really can't continue this managing partner role, and if I really dig deeper, it is not something I'm passionate about. If I even dig deeper, it's not something I'm really that good at. It's just that again, I convinced myself that that was my role because I started the firm.

That's where we can go down a lot of different rabbit holes on that because there's a lot of things to go into there. But it wasn't, I have to change, or I want to change. This has to be the way it is. It was like, this is not my role. I fought it mentally. But I knew the change had to happen, and once that change happened, that just opened a whole new world for me.

There was all these significant moments that happen post stroke that have really brought me to this place that is not to spoil the end, but I'm in a beautiful place. I want everybody to get where I am because the stroke allowed me to re-evaluate everything that I was doing and managing partner role was not something I should have been doing.

Then as a way to heal, we began working with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and they do annual walks, and the walks require fundraising efforts. In order to fundraise, we needed to tell our story. Man, when we started telling our story, you wouldn't believe the number of people who contacted us with similar stories. "I struggle with anxiety or I lost my dad or my cousin to suicide."

We've raised a bunch of money, but truly the best part about sharing our story was recognizing that we weren't alone. This was pre-pandemic. The pandemic was terrible in so many ways, but I think one benefit of the pandemic was the spotlight it put on mental health. During the pandemic, firms started contacting AICPA wanting mental health resources, and we created a host of resources to give firms the support they needed to start having these conversations.

But even post pandemic, I feel like the topic still holds a stigma, especially among middle aged men. That's the largest demographic in the profession. What gave you the courage to start speaking out and what's been the response when you tell your story?

When I sold my firm, I sold it in '06 because I built it way too tax heavy and I didn't see a solution of getting out of burnout other than selling my firm. There is solutions, and then I saw that after the fact. I'm like, I want to just go tell my story. I had some people encourage me to start telling my story because I would tell it in little pieces here and there, and people in the profession started encouraging me. From a courage standpoint, it was just

more not obligation. That's not the right word. I didn't feel obligated to it, but I felt I really could have an impact. I sighed because I don't know if that's exactly how I looked at it. That's after the fact what it looks like I suppose to me now. But a couple of things that you said. One, couple responses, first to the funny ones, like, at this time, I'm 62-years-old. How does a 62-year-old guy talk about this stuff? You're a boomer. This isn't something you guys talk about.

You're supposed to hide your feelings inside. I think just because of who I am, a 62-year-old boomer, White guy in the accounting profession, I think it surprises people that I talk about this. But hopefully, it gives people, as you said, courage or at least the reality, then feel the need that they should share. The more I've done this now, I feel like I'm going rabbit holes again. Man, I love talking about this stuff.

The more I started doing it, the more like what you just said, people would come up to me afterwards, and they would say, Randy, I just thought this is the way I had to be. I just figured I got five more years in accounting and I just need to power through these next five years and maybe everything will be better then.

I've had people tell me that they just realized that they don't have to be this way, that this chronic stress, this burnout, this mental illness, people come up to me and say, I've been dealing with depression. I just figured it had to be this way, and they'll say, I'm going to make a change. Usually it's at conference. When I get home from this conference, I'm going to go find a therapist and I'm going to start talking to somebody and you've given me the permission.

I was going to say courage, but we said courage multiple times. I like permission much better. The permission to do that. Do you know how many times I've left these presentations just crying my eyes out because I'm so happy that somebody feels like they can make a change in their life? That's the most rewarding thing to me and I probably have cried at more accounting conferences, I'm guessing than anybody else out there. But it's also therapy for me, too, I think.

We just want others who are struggling to be able to talk about that and for those that have lost people by suicide, because suicide itself has such a stigma associated with it that nobody talks about it. Also, typically, I didn't realize this until I lost Jenny, but they typically don't have obituaries and things like that. It's like you can't find the data and you don't hear about. It's really hidden when somebody passed away in that way.

If we can help one person, then we feel happier with sharing what we went through.

I think just talking like that, me talking made it okay for me to say, I need help. It can't just be me. When those thoughts started getting darker and darker and I never got to the point where I felt that suicide was a solution, but I was afraid my mind was going to tell me suicide was a solution. That's where I decided I have to go see a therapist. I have to go talk to somebody. I have to find out why my brain is this way. For the longest time, I thought, well, it's just post-stroke.

My brain rewired now and this is the way I am and I'm going to put up with it, and I finally realized it doesn't have to be that way. I don't have to put up with this. At least I can see if there's a different way, and so I did that. The reason I want to talk about that because the stigma there and seeing a therapist and still, I've got to hide this. I can't tell anybody that I'm going to go talk to somebody.

I can't show a sign of weakness that I don't have all the answers and the solutions myself. But what I want to point out there in addition to it's not a sign of weakness. You're not showing that you can't deal with something. You're being vulnerable, which I think is important and you are helping others honestly by doing that because they're seeing that something's going on. But for me, the first therapist wasn't the right fit, doesn't mean I shut it down.

It was just like she was a great person and this is a funny story, I guess, for accountants. Pretty quick into our conversations, the whole theme of our discussion was, well, Randy, you really can't control what's going to happen, so don't worry about it because you're not in control. In my mind, I go, I'm a CPA. This is what I do. I help everybody. I have the answers, I control things for everybody else, so you're telling me I'm not.

She was right, but I wasn't ready to hear that yet, and so then I went to a couple more therapists and finally, the third one did things a little different, but I think the theme was the same. It's just, hey, look how good you have it. This is what I remember. We started just talking about my family. We started talking about the things that I love doing. It just got me going in this different mindset.

She had this mojo and within four sessions, I went home one day, I think it was the same day as a session and I'm sitting in my melancholy place because for some reason that was kicking in again, which happened to just be in our master bathroom and around the bathtub, and I just had this aha moment. You got to take control back, Randy. You can't let these thoughts control you. I stood up and I looked in the mirror, and I'm not a swearer and I'm not going to swear right now. I swore then.

I looked in the mirror and I looked at my head. Basically, I was looking at my eyes, right through my eyes and I'm looking and then I said, F you, you're not real, get out of my head, I am not listening to you anymore. I was mad. I was pissed off and I was just chanting this and I'm pointing at myself, F you, you're not real, get out of my head. I'm not listening to you anymore. It sounds like it was this, wow, immediate change transformation.

No, it was four-and-a-half years to get to that point, but at that moment in time, it felt like an immediate change to me. I got my life back now. This is it. I'm done with this. I'm not going to take this anymore. I'm going to take control back. In that moment of time, I've had seconds since then of my mind trying to wander a little and then boom, F you, and I'm back. It's been, I think, well over a year before even I've had a second where I thought my mind was going to change.

I just really hijacked this podcast and went in a different way but I thought it fit well what we're talking about because the suicide and that's what scared me the most.

But I am lucky from the standpoint that it wasn't chemical imbalances and that I know is an issue and I'm not a doctor and I don't know that but for me, I was able to just reset the way I thought, and it took an instantaneous change in four-and-a-half years but that was the moment of time where I've gone down this path that I love in every day of everything I do now.

I went to therapy, and I've been on and off even before she passed but I didn't have the right person and then finding the right person to talk through that, and I don't know why, but I was deeply afraid of anxiety being hereditary, and for whatever reason, I was terrified that my children would be suicidal because I was developing anxiety just thinking about that and that I would have to go through it again.

Just talking through that with, not the first person, the second therapist, but I do think therapy is wildly important, and it's so easy to access. It's never been easier to access than it is now. Like, you don't have to go sit on the couch in the quiet room, you can literally do it in your home on the computer. I hope people really take advantage of all those offerings that they need it.

That I think is so important to have that destigmatized within an organization because there's so many people that just ruggle through, power through because they don't want to show a sign of weakness. They think it's a sign. I'm not saying it is. They think that saying that I am burnt out is a sign of weakness. If I do that, if I say that, I'm not going to get promoted. It is that thinking that needs to change and as you said, I think the pandemic has highlighted this more. I think it's helped.

But I went from there to them looking at our organization and thinking, you know what? I don't think we're really dealing with burnout people. I think we've got an open environment here where people will talk about it and it doesn't happen and people don't leave our organization, and so then I started talking about the importance of a people first culture. It's when people are first, clients get serviced. I hear too often, well, we're a client-centric organization.

Clients come first, and so when we do that, what do we do? We basically tell our employees, you're not important. The clients are important. I'm simplifying this. I started then promoting the people first culture and how important that is and I would use the trimeric story. We don't have turnover. We've been named one of the fastest growing privately held companies by Ink Magazine in the last three years. All this positive thing that we've gone through, and so I was on this

rampage? No, that's the wrong word. This was the last two years of me out speaking basically. Then I started looking further. I said, well, so why is that? Why do we have this culture? Then what you just said, vulnerability. I think everything starts with vulnerability because if the leadership is vulnerable, then everybody feels comfortable to share, to say anything that comes into their mind.

This is my new thing now going forward is I'm going to be promoting the importance of vulnerability and leadership, but not just leadership and everybody, but it has to start with leadership. The fact that we are now as an industry struggling with retaining or attracting people into the organization. I think this is an old term mindset of accounting has to be this way, tax season has to be this way.

We've always done it this way, and accountants consistency is important, but we have to realize the consistency in the way we run our organizations, and I know AICPA is doing a great job on transforming the business model and that I think that has to happen. I think we have to look at this differently. But it then starts with, it's okay to share that you don't have all the answers. It's okay to say that you're struggling with something and we have to destigmatize that from all aspects.

Well, actually, with two other people, I did a survey for the profession. We call it the Accountants Professional Satisfaction Survey, and I just released the key data from last year's finding and we're starting the new survey actually in a few weeks.

But in there, what we found is that satisfaction levels in the profession sore when not only are there resources available if you're dealing with burnout or mental health issues or physical health issues or whatever, just having it is not good enough. Having it and destigmatizing it, satisfaction levels went through the roof. If you can just point to that and say, we have a happier organization when we're able to be open and vulnerable about what's going on and have resources available.

I have almost the numbers off top of my head, but I think it was 86% of the people who responded to the survey said they did not feel comfort in their organization asking for help with burnout. Eighty-six, organizations are at a point where you can't show that you're dealing with burnout. That is just so backwards because when we can show that we're dealing with burnout everything turns around. Organizations will thrive and grow and that starts with vulnerability.

I've never had a problem with being vulnerable and I think that we all need to forget the uncomfortable side of that, even though I don't think it should be. Can I tell you a quick story? Again, I feel like I'm really going too long here because you got a lot to say too but I did a presentation at the CPA firm a couple Januaries ago. They asked me to come in and do a mental health awareness pre-tax season. It's a fairly large firm. I finish my presentation. A lot of it's my stroke story.

I cry during that, the whole things we've talked about today. Then at the end of the presentation, the managing partner, a man in this situation, he comes up and he thanks me and he starts sharing the struggles that his family is dealing with with depression. He's crying and I'm crying and the audience is crying, but that vulnerability in him sharing.

Now, I don't know what the organization was like from that standpoint before, but I honestly felt this whole change in this organization, like everybody in that audience listening to him realized it's okay for me to share if I'm struggling with something because he was so vulnerable and open about this.

Now obviously, it's terrible that they're dealing with this depression, but by him being vulnerable, him being open about it, at least, I think the family will be more open to looking for help but the organization itself, it felt like electricity in that room. That is such a powerful moment in my life when that happened, and six months later, I've got an email from this managing partner and he told me, just hey, Randy, I just want to thank you again for the presentation you did.

It was so meaningful and so important. Actually even before you came out, I felt like I had to be in that presentation. I just felt that I needed to hear what you were going to say, even though I didn't know what you're going to say, and I want to let you know, I get emotional again, two weeks ago I had a stroke.

Everything you told me, everything you explained that you went through and how you handled that has already helped me so much and I just appreciate that you did this for us, our organization, and for me. That's what we went talking about before. Seeing one person have a positive impact by what you feel vulnerable to share, you don't know how many lives that could potentially touch.

One of those resources is the argument that mental health is a business imperative and it affects the bottom line because ultimately, when an employee is struggling, it's costing the firm money, they're missing work, pretending to work, or there's turnover, like you said, and the low turnover that you experience but ultimately not addressing mental health does cost firms money.

How do you think firms can balance that pressure of performance, which accounting firms have to perform and do good work and abide by all the standards and regulations but they also need to support their people's well being? I think it helps when we have a case that directly impacts the bottom line.

I don't know if that's the number, but it's significant dollars. When we add this as a stigma and people just think they have to power through it, what burnout is is basically completely backwards of what we want. Burnout is somebody feels cynical about their job, they're getting tired, they're just feeling negative. I don't want to deal with that client. They become less productive. All of that right there tells you, we need to do everything we can to avoid burnout.

We need to put things in place. There's so many tricks that we can do that we don't even tell individuals and their firms that, let's try this this way because we can be as productive and even more productive by putting less time in. There's studies and it's simple. It's almost common sense. The more time you put in, the less productive you become. That's a no-brainer. I think everybody can probably agree to that and everybody's been through that.

If I'm in hour 12 of a day, I'm going to be a lot less productive. Some things that organizations can do, I think, to keep the bottom line where it is, but promote a healthy work life is simple. Promote well-being during tax season. I'm just picking tax season for now. Rather than at lunch, everybody getting hamburger and fries, let's get a salad and a healthy soup or something. Simple things. Let's have the firm do that for everybody. That little cost is going to be a positive.

Let's promote people taking 15-minute breaks twice a day to go take a walk around the building. If it's cold outside, do it inside. Let's promote not eating at your desk. Let's get away from your desk, clear your mind because our body gets tired. Well, it's our mind getting tired too. Our mind, if we can just clear it for that 15 minutes, we become so much more refreshed and we come back and we're more productive. Things like setting specific time aside where you cannot be disturbed.

I think more people are doing this, but I don't think enough are doing it. If you can block out, let's say, three hours, the morning, I'm most productive in the morning. I'm going to block out the morning. I'm going to block out three hours. There's no emails, there's no text messages, my phone's off, nobody can disturb me unless obviously it's life-altering event that's happening. You spend that time and just concentrate on this high brain power work that needs to get done.

In that three hours, you're going to get more done in that time, that non disturbed time than you are in eight hours of reacting to everything around you from text messages to emails to phone calls. Then after that, that's where you can do your billing or you're responding to emails or your phone calls and that little simple trick of just I think it's Michael Hyatt, the free to focus or full focus system. I know a Manji partner of a firm and she put this into their firm.

Just that. The Michael Hyatt system, the free to focus, full focus. I'm getting the words right. I think I have it. She did it for herself personally and she went from 65 hours a week during tax season to the first year, 55 hours a week, personally. She just did it herself and she was getting more work done. It's not like this is an argument for not doing billable hours too or at least billing correctly.

Don't worry. If you're more productive, it doesn't mean you should make less on that project. She dropped her hours significantly. She did it the next year, dropped again to 50. She decided to put this in place for the whole organization. The last time I asked her about this was about a year and a half ago. But the first year that they put in place for the whole organization, the goal was 45 hours a week during tax season per person. I think they got to 46.5.

But the positive thing is it wasn't like okay, well, we just put everything on extension, we did everything later which I'm okay with that. I have no problem with spreading out taxes. I know some people do. But for them is they got more work out the door in less hours by putting the system in like this. What that system basically saying is, hey, we don't want you working crazy hours. We know you can be more productive. We want you to be at home with your family.

We want you to be there to see your kids concerts and sporting events and we want you to have a work life. That simple little trick was a huge transformation for that firm. I've got more tricks, but probably we can go into them if you want, but there's another one that I love.

People wake up at three in the morning thinking about a client or what do I need to do tomorrow or what's that problem I'm trying to solve? A friend of mine, Brian Kush, told me about this three step process of shutting down at the end of the day. What this is is at the end of every day, wherever you are, you're at work, you're working at home, you're in a hotel because you're on the road, whatever it is. At the end of the day, bookmark your work. What were you working on? Just be consistent.

Put it in a Word document, tell Siri to remind you in the morning. If you use an Apple or whatever, Google, ask Google to tell you remind you in the morning, but be consistent. Number 2, have an instead of plan. Instead of like my mind play tricks on me after my stroke, your mind will just wander to work. I'll just happen, train your brain to not think about work. Instead of work when I get home or leave my office, my instead of plan is, I'm going to make dinner tonight.

I'm going to watch a movie tonight. I'm going to read a book tonight. I'm going to do a jigsaw puzzle. I'm going to work out. You just have this plan and it obviously doesn't have to be the same every day. Then the third thing you do, three really simple things. The third thing you do is you just have a shutdown ritual. Again, you're training your brain. This is the end of the day. I don't have to think about work anymore.

Close your computer, meditate for a minute, say a prayer, recite a poem, do a push up, have a physical and mental shut down routine. Now if you do this consistently, you're training your brain again, that work is over. I am not going to have to think about this. I don't have to worry. I don't have to wake up at three in the morning worrying about work because I've already told my morning self the projects that I was working on.

I know when I walk into the office in the morning, this is what I'm working on. I'm not going to think about it anymore and I have now a work life balance because I have this plan that I'm going to do something instead. I do this a little bit, but I don't have the 3:00 AM wake ups and I'm bragging because I just don't let myself do that anymore. I don't really do the routine but I do it in bits and pieces. Like I know we're going to go for a hike after work today.

That's already my instead of plan. I know that. We're taking the dogs about 10 minutes away to a really cool forest preserve and we're doing that after work. I have that plan. I look forward to that. It also gives you something to look forward to now too. That three step process and when I've told people about this and some people already do something like this and then some people have reached out to me and said, I've been doing that and it's made such a big difference in my mindset.

But in addition to that, you got to shut off. You got to shut off the texts, the emails. You can't just get bored at seven o'clock at night and pull up your email like I'm just going to look and see if anybody responded to that email. You have to shut down. You have to be diligent about work is done. Then to do that, you have to set boundaries with your clients.

They know that you're not going to respond in the evening, the weekends, that if you send an email Saturday morning, they're not going to hear back from you until sometime Monday, that stuff. I can keep going on this, but there's so many things that we can do different that we just ignore because of the Sally method, same as last year. Let's just keep going. I'm in a big firm and I'm already making 700 grand a year, so why should I change? Why should I make anything different?

Because look at the money that's coming in. Well, you can make that money in less time and have a better work life balance. Lindsey Curley: Appreciate those tips because we're knowledge workers. We have to protect our minds, and you can only do so much work in a day. I think specifically boundaries is something that I've gotten better with, especially with three young kids. I have to be able to block off work and family or otherwise, they don't get the attention that they deserve.

Frankly, neither does my job. If I'm not able to segment and prioritize and block that time, then I'm not good at either thing so I would like to be present and with my kids when I'm with them and then likewise, when I'm working, I want to be present and do as well as I can when I'm working. I know we could talk about this all day. If there's one thing you wish you could tell yourself before you experience the stroke or to others who are silently struggling, what would it be?

The thing that I found is I honestly don't wish I would have done it sooner because I love where I am right now and if this is the path I had to be on, now, could it have been easier? I would tell myself, follow your passion. What do you like doing in your work? Rather than just I'm a CPA, I got to do everything. No, let's find out what I really like in that. Not to offend anybody. I'm not good at accounting, just accounting in general, auditing. It's also just not passion of mine.

If I'm not good at it because I don't like debits and credits and that stuff, I'm just saying it from that standpoint. Tax. Tax excites me. I like that. Inside tax then, there's so many different niches. When I found a niche with inside tax, that was just this unbelievable aha light bulb moment. It just came to me. I just got lucky and saw that this opportunity was there. I shouldn't say lucky. Opportunity is in front of everybody all the time.

Sometimes people act on it, sometimes people don't, you don't have to. I'm one that has a hard time not acting on something when I see that there's potentially something. The thing I would tell myself or I would tell others. I get questions like this and I often say I wouldn't change anything. Would I want to help others make changes earlier in their career? Yes, and find something you're passionate about. Definitely, there's so many paths in accounting and tax. There's going to be some.

Maybe it's an industry, maybe you love trucking industry. Well, start to concentrate on that. Maybe you love auditing. I don't, but maybe you love auditing. Well, then just concentrate on. But maybe it's not just auditing, maybe you love auditing medical practices. There, now that's something you're passionate about. I have a little trick that I got from somebody else and there's all different versions of this.

I would tell somebody early in their career, make a list of everything that you currently do. Make four columns to the right of that. Love it, hate it, good at it, bad at it, and just put a check mark in one of those first two columns are second two columns. When you find the thing that you love it and you're good at it, that's probably something you're passionate about. See if there's a way that you can dial into that.

If you find a check in, I hate it and I'm bad at it, I guess my mom would say, you shouldn't use hate, but in this case, I'm going to. If you hate it and you're bad at it, it's a pet peeve of mine. When you go into review and somebody says, hey, you really need to work on this. This is a place you're struggling? Well, it's a place I'm struggling because I hate it and I'm bad at it. Why don't we highlight the stuff I'm good at and I love doing? If you hate it, you're bad at it?

Well, that's something you shouldn't be working on in my mind, outsource it, delegate it, automate it, have someone else in your organization. If you're in a big organization and you do this as an organization, you know how many people are going to be in the love it and good at columns that you're bad at it and hate it? Let's juggle those roles and get them into the right person's hands.

Yes, follow your passion, find things you like and figure out a way that you can start to concentrate on those areas because I think I coined this phrase. I looked on the Internet. I didn't see any else anywhere, but I feel like I live at the intersection, my passion, my skill, and I want to get everybody to live at that intersection because it is such a beautiful place to live and I am so fortunate to be there.

That people are coming in and seeing the opportunity within the accounting profession to do what they love to do. I'm always optimistic, but it's not just optimism. I'm seeing change. I don't know if you want me to say this, but I host a conference called Bridging the Gap and it's about changing the profession. It's about how do we be better. It really started with my post stroke journey, the conference and the mental health and physical health.

But the stories I hear at that conference of people doing things different and then sharing that with others and then others leaving that conference and say, I integrated what I heard in this session into my practice and it made such a difference and just a simple thing, somebody who's on my advisory council, Nancy McClellan actually, and I know she's done work with AICPA in the past.

She said one of the most meaningful sessions for her was Nia Carter Gray sharing how she takes a vacation during tax season. Most people don't even think about that. She went through a step by step process and how she does it.

Doing things like that, seeing people integrate that, seeing people realize I don't have to sit at my desk 80 hours a week during tax season that I can give myself a break is something I'm seeing and I'm seeing this grassroots level starting and I'm actually seeing that I live in two communities.

I live in the startup younger owned firm and I live in the top 400 firm community and I'm seeing it trickle up the really cool things going from the smaller firms and I'm seeing the really cool process procedures, all that KPIs trickle down to the smaller firms.

I'm really seeing a lot of integration on really cool ideas happening and it makes me really excited because I think this profession is super important, but I'm also seeing the happiness scale go up in this profession and that's what makes me optimistic.

It goes back to a CPA mindset is that everybody out there has a problem and we have the solutions and we need to help them. I think we just have to realize we cannot help everybody and if we can find that niche that needs our help, we're going to be happier and they're going to be more well served. If we can really concentrate on that, I think we're going to enjoy what we're doing.

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