Sandra Finch has been helping business owners commandeer and predictably manage their taxes, retirement, and net worth since 1989. In addition to Finch CPA Firm, she owns Finch Exit Strategies, which guides owners through successful tax-minimized exits from their businesses by educating, preparing, and planning them for years and months before their target date.
As someone who coaches business leaders, I feel directly responsible for the leadership teams I work with. Today, I sit down with Sandra Finch CPA, who is as passionate as I am when it comes to getting businesses out of trouble and helping them make diffiult decisions to help their companies stay alive. We talk about the struggles that businesses are facing right now because of the pandemic, the measures we are implementing to try to keep these businesses alive and how these businesses react to the help we're giving. We also get down to the nitty-gritty of how much of ourselves we give to our clients and if breaking down our walls, letting our guards down and giving them a sneak peek into who we are as a person helps or damages the client-consultant relationship we've forged.
04:11 - The comparison between the pandemic's effect on entrepreneurs and its effects on employees
07:19 - How are you managing the all the ideas flowing through you as a visionary?
13:42 - Helping clients out by finding ways to make them eligible for PPP
21:13 - "I think the worst is over"
27:23 - New financial options for people who are thinking of starting, expanding or closing their business during these difficult times
33:14 - Look at data to keep yourself grounded
40:09 - Flat is the new hockey stick
46:00 - Yale University's "The Science of Well-Being" online course by Dr. Laurie Santos
52:55 - Self-comparison leads people to think they're stuck when they're really not
59:43 - If you spend time working on your weaknesses, you can improve 3-5%, but if you work on your strengths, you can improve 95%
1:05:22 - If your co-workers can't provide you with honest and helpful feedback, you can count on kids to do that
1:06:01 - Sally Hogshead "How To Fascinate" Test
1:12:46 - Determining how much of your true, personal self should you share and show to clients
1:17:19 - Finding your specific role and purpose is a lifelong journey and is always changing
1:21:28 - Struggling with your personas - who you are in the business and who you are outside of it
1:31:04 - Sandra's passionate plea for entrepreneurs
REFERENCED MATERIALS:
Yale University's "The Science of Well-Being" online course by Dr. Laurie Santos
Sally Hogshead "How To Fascinate" Test
GET IN TOUCH:
MARK LEARY:
www.linkedin.com/in/markhleary
www.leary.cc
SANDRA FINCH:
www.linkedin.com/in/sandrafinch/
www.finchcpafirm.com
www.finchstrategies.com
PRODUCTION CREDIT:
Engineering / Post-Production: Jim McCarthy
Art / Design: Immanuel Ahiable
July 8, 2020, Wednesday
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, work, business, entrepreneurs, question, life, important, thinking, leader, learn, employees, hear, clients, started, visionaries, conversation, day, leadership team, pay, business owners
SPEAKERS
VO, Mark
Mark 00:00
So we're rolling, cool. We are live. This is you're doing it wrong with Mark Henderson, Leary, and my name is Mark. And I have a passion that you should feel in control of your life. And so what I do is I help you, business owners, entrepreneurs, get control of your business. And part of how I do that is by letting you listen in on a conversation between two people who have a passion for excellence in the entrepreneurial world. We're talking about a subject you already know something about, but hopefully at a new depth where you can get some nuance and details and some deeper understanding that really breaks it down for you. So you can pick up those valuable nuggets and break through those ceilings and those stuck places that you're stuck at, and hopefully doing that in a really fun and engaging way. And so before we dive into that, just a quick housekeeping, please do not forget to subscribe and share. I cannot tell you how our maddeningly slow, feedback accumulates, even when large amounts of people are listening. Clicking, clicking a rating and sharing is so important one or two here and there makes a huge difference. Just trust me, it makes a big difference. And so thank you, for those of you who haven't been doing that. So today, we've got a great subject very timely on many levels. My friend, Sandra Finch has been fighting alongside business owners in the war between making money and all those things that prevent us from making money like tax, and other other and you know, just wasteful spending. She's been doing that for 31 years, and so has a ton of experience. And I'm sure that we're going to hear about what she's learned in the last 12 weeks that have really flown into the context of that. But in addition to Finch, CPA firmer or CPA practice, she owns Finch exit strategies, and she has a deep passion for what it is to really help a business owner think about what an exit looks like, and make a plan to get there that really gets them what they need. And so I'm very excited to have a conversation and find out what we've learned and what we're doing, moving into the future. So welcome, Sandra.
02:15
Well, thank you, Mark. And thanks for inviting me to do this with you. I don't think I've ever done anything quite like this. And I'm really excited. And a little curious about how this is gonna go and where we're gonna end up.
Mark 02:28
It's really easy. We just talk like nobody's listening. And so I have to ask, what have you learned about yourself, and other things in the last 12 weeks in the COVID? End, and we're in Houston, this is a lot of oil related crisis, what have you learned?
02:51
You mean, business wise or personal? Just either way? Either way, you're
Mark 02:55
a business owner yourself. So yeah, I'm Amy, from the entrepreneurial perspective, what have you learned,
03:01
um, that, you know, that works really important. Entrepreneurs are creative. And they actually thrive in chaos, I've got a lot of business owners who are starting new businesses branching out into side businesses, you know, buying up dying businesses, and everybody's, the entrepreneurs are kind of doing pretty well in this because they get bored, pretty, we get bored pretty easily anyway. And so this isn't boring at all. And the other thing that I think is that entrepreneurs, if you put them in a box, like I was in a class all last week, and if you put me in a box where I can't move around, and I can't do a lot of stuff, I'm like, every other entrepreneur, I start thinking of a million ideas. And so I'm getting calls all the time from, from business owners who are thinking of new things to do, but the average employee who's working for these entrepreneurs is not they don't like chaos, and they don't like change, and they like for things to be done. You know, we as entrepreneurs, we really rely on employees to be able to, to want to do the same thing pretty much every day and have the steady paycheck and have that. And so, some of those people, some of the employees are kind of The Walking Dead right now. And they're not responding like the entrepreneur comes up with Oh, I got a new idea. And they're like, Oh, my God, not another one, please go away. Leave me alone. I'm doing well enough. I'm trying to teach my you know, my kids school at home, and I don't have my daycare open and my husband's at home and he never is in or my wife and and it this is all I mean, kind of deer in the headlights. Everybody's kind of just glazed over right now at the employee level. And so I think we just have to temper it where employee ID entrepreneurs maybe just talk to each other about about all this fun new stuff right now, and leave the employees out of it. I
Mark 05:03
wish it were that simple. And so you hit you really hit a nerve for me, and it resonates. And I'm, and I'm so excited that just to kind of unexpectedly be in this question, what I have seen is and predicted and indirectly that visionaries not just entrepreneurs, the visionary entrepreneurs, most of the time, we're synonymously describing that, but there is another entrepreneurial leader that type and function we call the integrator, which is more planful, less emotionally excitable leader. That's a part of the equation, but specifically to this challenge of entrepreneurship, who an entrepreneurs who are purpose built to turn uncertainty and chaos into something useful. There's never been more more raw material in their life in our lives in our time, this is our time as visionary entrepreneurs. And so what that manifests as is total frickin overload for these these visionaries who started off a little disrupted or a lot disrupted and now have a whiteboard that's just overflowing, and now they're overwhelmed with where do I start. And I have been coaching entrepreneurs through that process and letting people know to be aware, look out for these these visionaries who are like, drowning in their own ideas. And they know they're gonna need some help. And I have a prescription for that. But what you brought to this even further was that that polarity is even stronger, that they read that the rest of the company is even less ready for that kind of thinking. So the push and pull gets out of control. And it creates a higher need for that intermediation. And between the right the right leadership team, the right instructions for the right leadership team in the right leaders, including integrators, who are those people who can say, gotcha, visionary, I love your ideas, please keep thinking, and let me work on the plan and make sure we're making progress. And we're consistent. And there has to be that yin and yang balance, and so it just as totally amped up the need for that. And you don't sound like you're that much different than me because I have that same overwhelm. Like all the ideas, all the things I'm trying to do have kind of overwhelmed me, how are you managing all the ideas that are probably flowing through you?
07:25
Well, I think I'm doing based on what I can hear in other conversations with other with a lot of my clients, because all of our clients are business owners. I'm doing it as well as anybody else. Meaning that there are days that I am almost, you know, in tears and in the fetal position, because I overdo and overdo and overthink and overthink. And there's this other feeling during COVID. And in the year of our Lord COVID. It's what I keep calling it in my head. There's other, there's this whole I don't know, it's like the teachers out, it's like you, you there's nobody watching you. And so there's a whole lot of things that you think you could do or get away with, or, you know, it's like, I guess, the typical, you know, visionary entrepreneurs, like, it's hard to almost chain them to them through their desk, they're usually out and about, and they're doing things and they're you know, and now it's like, no one knows if you're at your desk, because they're not there either, or you've got some kind of weird work environment going on. And so there's not a lot of accountability. And so that just makes me unleashed even further. And so it spilled over into my personal life where I'm trying to buy a house and I'm trying to sell a house and I'm trying to lease a property and I'm trying to all these things, you're not going to contain this just at the business level, you start thinking you know what, I can clean up the garage, because I don't have to go to my my, you know, my vicious Vistage meeting or something, you know, my networking group isn't meeting this month, therefore, there's an hour on the freeway or two that I wasn't gonna be in. So I could do this, I could do this so you completely overcommit and wear yourself out. I mean, when it first started, I decided what I should do and could do was to buy a bunch of food, and from my restaurant and bakery clients and pizza clients, and send it to the people on the front lines at the hospitals and the cops and the you know, whatever. And I now see that that was a way for me to feel like I could do something as I think I felt really vulnerable and powerless. And I also felt like I am in charge of, you know, the leaders of 100 companies in their financial situation and they're either kind of call me for help. And I need to feel strong, be strong and look strong. And so it just and it's not that I didn't want to do those things, but I do see where it came from where that impetus came from. too, to just kind of lash out at this disease by saying, Ah, you know what I can send 150 cookies to a hospital, huge cookies into every environment on staff and I can make people smile, and you can't do anything about that. And it just took me a while to realize that that's probably where that was coming from was that I wasn't going to let us beat it. And then of course, making everybody work 14 hour days around here to to learn the new the laws on the PPP loans, and how do they work, and who can get them and help people get them and help? You know, it was just like, we just said, Okay, stop taxis. And let's just get these people these loans because they're scared to death, and they don't know how to get them in the laws change daily. So, and, um, you know, I don't get much happier than when a new tax law comes out or a new law. And I could stay up all night and read it and figure out what's client? can it help? And what where's the loopholes? And what can you do with it? And so I had a heyday with that. And
Mark 11:00
you are I one of the reasons that I've had such a connection with you is because you really are passionate, you geek out on this stuff, like you really loved like, I gotta learn the tax law. Like there's this is very complicated stuff. And so I'm going into this really deep and so your your culture in your, in your, your team members share that, I think at least they visibly, it looks like they resent the hell out of it,
11:20
aren't they? Well.
Mark 11:24
So I think that it's, I hear you talk brings me back to the first days for myself, I couldn't figure out where I needed to grow. Well, that's not true. I felt like I needed to grow everywhere. And I needed to become an epidemiologist, I needed to become an economist, and I needed to become all these things. And so I found that when I went back to my core focus, that my job was exactly how to kick the podcast off, I have a passion that you should feel in control of your life. That's true. And what I do is help entrepreneurial leaders get more control their business, and give them some tools for that. And when I did that, that allowed me to let go of kind of all those cookies was not in my formula after that like but until I reminded myself, like I was not sure like I was looking around every it was an infinite way I could contribute, grow, do something, and giving some focus to like, okay, now my mission is this. And that's what I'm here to do. And it allowed me to let go of a lot of that. But still, there was still quite a lot left over of things to be to get better at. And it's created a lot of anxiety around wanting to master all of the knowledge and skills and get the answers to all the questions that people have. And I've had to honestly recognize some real humility, that it's, it's impossible to master it all. And even in this podcast, the whole idea is like, Look, I don't know the answers. And I love some input from other people who have more of the picture in it, because I was overwhelmed and still get overwhelmed with anytime there's a there's a question, a process, a tool, a discipline that I don't feel mastery over, it really makes me feel or I end up feeling bad or incomplete or, you know, not whole. And so it's the well, so when you focus yourself on things like tax PPP, that you know that the regulation and governance and all the legalities and just really in that lane, did you still feel overwhelmed? Or how how have you felt around your best contributions?
13:42
Well, I think you know, it, it comes in it goes because it's will there'll be like a quick, almost like drills of Okay, the SBA just dropped the latest regulations on how they're interpreting the PPP laws. And so let's all get in the conference room, and we may read file folders for everybody. We call it COVID care. And we found out you know, we have a big huge whiteboard spreadsheet of who's got the loan, who doesn't, what do we need to do to get one? Do they also need one of those disaster loans? Do they did they get the grant? Did they, you know, and everybody's, you know, got somebody assigned to it. And it, we did join a group of the CPAs, who are doing this nationwide. And it's kind of a coaching group who has a leader, but we share information there. That makes us feel a whole lot less vulnerable. Because as you start to look at the walls and how they affect each each company, you can kind of throw something out and go, Hey, wait a minute, I just had this. Has anybody had that? What do you think that means and everybody's very supportive of each other. And I will say this, I don't think I've ever gotten more. Thank you. From my clients then I have through this, I've seen a lot of appreciation as far as, and a lot of true vulnerability. And because everybody, I think, think everybody kind of thinks they know what taxes are, and they think they get tax season, they get how that works like, they, but this was like a whole new, you know, you get to see the I don't know, the captain of the ship, or the gunner or whoever you get to see them do a job in a totally new war. And, you, you, you kind of go Okay, well, now I feel safer, because I didn't realize that you could pick up a diff, you know, if we had to, we had to deal with a different war, that you could kind of get me through that. And I was, you know, maybe two steps ahead of everybody else as word was coming out. But it did feel like, you know, we got a handle on it, we got everybody alone. And now we've gotten a couple of people already completely forgiven, because they qualified for the eight weeks rather than the 24 weeks deal. And some of these loans are huge, and we've got some fairly good size clients. And so that part has felt good. And then Meanwhile, you know, this happens in the middle of tax season, and we pride ourselves on never filing extensions, we, we still like to have everything get done on time. So you know, April 15, became July 15. And so we still have, I would say we've got 95% of them done. But trying to get people to focus on getting it done, because this just wasn't important anymore. wasn't as easy as it is, it could have been an end even for us. It's like how many ways can you make your brain think in one day, either you're doing COVID care? Are you doing, you know, are learning new law for COVID care, or you're you're doing regularly scheduled tech season? And I would say that sometimes I'd say and now we return you to our regularly scheduled tech. Because, you know, they're different pieces of us around here, we get into a momentum and a Mojo, you know, around tax season and we never got to have our end of tax season party. We never, you know, we didn't. I can't say never we did two Fridays ago did spend a day at the beach in one of those tandem bicycles and right down the beach and eat if I would Gump shrimp and play games and and we just did a day of it. But as a team, you did that we did that? Yes,
Mark 17:33
that's great. I think, yeah, I think I tried to reach out to you on one of those days. They're like, no, we're not gonna be around. There might have been, might have been that. So I guess what's your level of optimism, all of your clients, maybe take a step back? So your client list, what percentage of them are really hurting? And which ones are thriving? And what's what's the percentage of kind of in the middle?
18:00
I would say that less than 10% are really hurting.
Mark 18:06
And when you say really hurting meaning what like probably gonna go out of business.
18:09
Yeah, yeah, that's gonna be tough. Because they're like, hands on kind of businesses and every time and they couldn't even really open till just recently, and in even now with the spiking, they're losing business again, and they just killed
Mark 18:27
restaurants, hospitality, that kind of thing. Or, um,
18:33
let's just say things that deal with teaching children things and childcare and, and then specialty retail, where, you know, they couldn't really open for a long time, if you didn't have food, you couldn't open stuff like that. And, and maybe they have five locations in expensive malls. And they have to keep paying this rent, and they can't open the doors. And so those people are hurting the most. And then I have a lot of contractors and people who do things outside and they're, they're down, but they're not in danger. And then of course, I've got people who are just killing it if they're tech, they're super busy. My lawyers all say they're really busy. I don't know why that is. Some of them are divorce lawyers. I think I know why that is.
Mark 19:27
That makes sense. For sure. Yeah. Mark with a criminal defense law firm and they're like, Look, people people break the law and if you if you make the lock them in the house, so they can't break the law that's gonna slow us down. But when you unlock that door, we're gonna make up for lost. And that is exactly what they did.
19:48
Yeah, when you lock the door, sometimes you lock them in there with some booze, right? Yeah, this particular.
Mark 19:55
Yeah, this particular firm. I'm thinking of it as a close association with alcohol related offenses. And so you Yeah, that's for sure that there were. And it's exactly what you experienced if it was a
20:05
Yeah, clash, whiplash. You know, I don't know what I have different clients who are that go, you know, they have just pulled out all the stops, because they're such visionaries. And they're like, well, we can't do this. And then, and they'll call me and they'll just be the same to the world. And then two days later, they're going, Okay, now, we're doing this instead. And our profit margins are better. You know, we don't have 200 employees anymore, we have 12. But we're making the same profit. And we're doing this, this this and it's like, okay, so I guess it's part of being the therapist, part of my job where there's, you know, it's the end of the world. It's just, this is the end of the world, and we're all gonna die, and it's terrible. And, and this is, this is awful. And then oh, no, we came up with this really cool idea. And now we're doing this, this, this and this. And so, as far as I can tell, I do think everybody's riding on PPP money right now. And I think that that's gonna go away. But I think the worst, you asked me if I'm optimistic, I'm always optimistic. I think the worst is over. Yeah. Well, so
Mark 21:14
you said a couple things that made me want to draw some attention. First is that I think it's important understand, particularly for this audience, and the people we're trying to reach is that these are entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial leaders, and the community of entrepreneurial leaders is generally very bullish strong confidence, you know, traumatised, maybe, but eager to capitalize it on the changes, and confident that we can pull out of this, you know, almost across the board, it's very exciting. And I think it bears calling out that that is an isolated segment. That's awesome. We are in an isolated segment, because if your company goes from 200 employees to 12 employees, as you described, there's 180 888 88 employees who don't share your optimism more than likely Exactly. And I think that that takes some understanding, because I do believe that that is tragic for them. In many cases, it could be optimistic for them, they could get out of the wrong job into the right job. That's very possible. But that's their journey to work through. But I do think that it's important to say like, Look, I can't, as a doctor, you can fix anything except dead, right. And so if the business makes a choice that causes them to die, you cannot, you cannot hire back. So if but if you can't, if say if you have 100 businesses that reduce their employee count by 80%, you've got 100, businesses are going to be hiring in a quarter or two. When they do well, if if that same 100 businesses hold on for dear life, and 50% of them go out of business, you've only got 50 businesses that are trying to grow. And it's that's not as good for the economy, that's not as good for people. So we want I want businesses to make hard decisions in that macro perspective, that feel bad, but create a sense of power, and potential, when the businesses have potential and in a strong position to win and grow over the next couple of quarters. It's a very painful short term with a very big upside down the line. So I just want people to be thinking in terms of how to how to separate those that thinking, do you do you see people struggle with that at all? I'm
23:37
not the entrepreneurs, not the seasoned entrepreneurs, because what we are all used to is a bull ride, you know, you got to stay on for eight seconds, and then another eight and then another eight. It's always a bucking bronco. And honestly, when it's not, you get bored. And, you know, my entrepreneurs love
23:59
visionaries, do that visionaries, visionaries. integrators are like stop it. I was we solve that problem. Can we just follow the point?
24:06
Can we get off the roller coaster and get on the merry go
Mark 24:09
round? Yeah, roller coasters are not profitable. They might be exciting. They tell great stories, but they're generally not profitable. You need to anyway, that's my rant on the yin and yang of visionary leaders and the integrators. That's why it's so important. I get what you're saying.
24:24
You do need a certain amount of rhythm and Mojo, as I call it in a business and so that part Yeah, but I think even at that, even when it's calm, and it's working well and it's generating money and the employees are working and the economy's working, get plenty of business. It's still I still picture it as you know, kind of a wild ride. It's it's still it's, it's it's heightened. It's a heightened awareness, to be in charge of a lot of people people's lives and a lot of projects and a lot of money and you don't ever, you know, I always say if anybody in the family is owns a business, then you have a family business, whether anybody else works in the business or not, you have a family business because you don't own a business, it usually owns you. And
Mark 25:17
that's the problem I'm working with, with companies and business owners to solve. So you're right, that is that is the problem. But it doesn't have to be that way. But you got to work at it to get it to be something that you own, not the other way around.
25:30
Yes, you need to get in front of things. And I think that's at what this moment I guess why I wanted to use the bucking bronco analogy is that there's it's not time to think about, and I guess maybe a better analogy is probably like whitewater rapids, you know, you're navigating, you're navigating. So you get to some calmer waters. And it's just not time to be so much. It's time to survive, it's time to do everything you can possibly think of, to maximize this time to maximize this PPP loan. You know, this is this, this could actually save some of the businesses that I've I've looked at their books, I absolutely,
Mark 26:20
I see, I see. There are companies who are being saved by their companies who are being set up for strategic advantage, they're like, but this is a total windfall for us. Like we know, we were able to use this money to do things we weren't otherwise going to be able to do. And we are better off as a result.
26:36
You know, there was a thing that came out last week that that is a tiny little part of the PPP law that people should know about that. And, you know, obviously, if you already had an SBA loan of some kind, there was a provision that said we're gonna make six payments for you for free principal interest, whatever, you don't make a payment for six months, just forget PPP loan, but just to SBA regular Oh, whoa, whoa, well, now, if you read a little deeper in that section, it says if you get a new SBA loan, not PPP, but a new SBA loan before September 27, they'll still pay six months free.
Mark 27:15
So does he it all does not
27:18
count. Now, it's funny idea, that standard traditional SBA, you know, 789 to seven beat,
Mark 27:23
yeah. So that would be very important for somebody who's thinking about starting a business for the very first time starting
27:28
a business or buying a new segment of their business by, you know, an add on some sort of strategic merger of some kind. This is a super, super deeper plan, planning opportunity. And, and I do know, some people who are like, you know, I'm going to use this time to add on to my business, I see some flailing businesses that they wanted, they kind of were going to hang on one or two more years, and then they were going to exit, but now they're like, okay, no, forget it. I'm ready to get out. What will you give me for this? And it's like, well, you know, you get one of those loans, you get the first six months free. Now, what does that amount to about 5%, you know, of a, normally a 10 year loan, and an SBA. So, but six months of not having to make that payment at the beginning of a, you know, a strategic merger or an acquisition of some kind, or even starting a new
Mark 28:24
value cash and the whole cycle.
28:27
That's crazy. I mean, this is exciting stuff. And then every time we turn around, you know, they just came out with this, that well, then they haven't passed it. Let me say that again. They haven't passed it. But have you heard about the American vacation credit?
28:40
No. What is that
28:43
supposed to be up to $4,000 per family, where if you take a vacation in the United States, between this year or next year, you get a tax credit dollar for dollar tax credit for 50% of your vacation? Up to $8,000. Wow. So and that can be like Disney tickets. It can be airplane tickets, hotel rental car, whatever. I mean, it can you every that's, that's, I am totally geeked out on tax. I mean, ever heard of I read? Who's ever thought of things like this, that you could take your family to Disney World and get a tax break for it? Wow. So I mean, I think these are exciting times. And I mean, we're getting away from the business conversation, but we do we do all need a vacation.
Mark 29:36
No. So actually, I don't know that I agree that it's so far away because we're really talking about most off most often visionary leaders, entrepreneurial leaders who are all wrestle with so many things because they're fighting a big, big fight, the biggest the biggest fights that anybody can pick. Those are the fights picked by entrepreneurs like us. And so there's a whole Health question. How do you find proper? I don't like the word balance but proper chemistry, proper recipe of how much ideation of new awesome ideas and how much execution and how much family time and how much recreation or self care Do you need to put into the, to the recipe to create your best life as an entrepreneur. And I think most, maybe not most, but probably most, most visionaries really struggle with feeling their way to a good recipe, it tends to get out of balance really fast. And we started this conversation with the amounts of inspiration that visionaries are feeling in this time of opportunity. And it completely skews the recipe of balance, and I see a lot of overwhelm. And so the idea that you could make a monetary case for a vacation, some some visionaries, I know this go right to that they have no problem they're comfortable with that others are not they're not as comfortable doing that right now. But I do think that the where I want to kind of turn the conversation is is to taking the lead. So you know i optimism is is great is that we're getting a lot of that, and you're very much reinforcing what I experienced with the leadership teams I talked to, there's certainly some trauma, but generally everybody is ready to go and put more energy more and more because I feel like the next couple quarters could be could be really amazing. But how do we do that? How do we how do we get our our thinking, to maximize what we've learned over the last 12 weeks or so 10? I get the math wrong to eight to eight to 15 some last couple few months? We've learned a lot. How do we turn that into something really usable? Because like we said, the visionaries are overwhelmed, they can get overwhelmed. And we need to focus on a small number of things. What are you? What are you? Are you seeing people reconnect with their? their true core focus? Are you still seeing people kind of in that binary state of frozen? Or completely under under an avalanche of ideas?
32:11
Well, and I don't think we've reached any sort of new normal, and we can't because this is a temporary situation? Or at least we think it is. I mean, every now and then I'll hear somebody say, you know, we're just gonna have to learn to live with life with COVID. We just this is this is the way it is. But
32:33
for the most part
32:34
my life after COVID is life with with
32:36
COVID. Yeah, and I don't think a whole lot of people have grasped that as much as they could. Not because they don't, they're lazy or they don't get it. It's just a really hard concept to grasp. We don't know what life with COVID looks like. And right now we've been in coping, coping, coping, and survival. And let's just, you know, get it done no matter what, let's figure out how to work from home. Let's figure out how to get people PP, if they need to be out in the public. Let's get it. Let's get it done. I mean, that is the entrepreneurs, Craig Wright, let's get it done. My staff bought me a T shirt, this is I get things done. And but I think that, you know, it's, it's hard to think, you know, we're gonna find a way to, to go back to some sort of normal. And but I have to say and this is probably a really an accountancy answer. But data matters. And, you know, one of the things they say to do, should, you know, if even if you're freaking out and you're having like a panic attack is to pay attention to your hands and your feet, because that will make your your your blood flow to your hands and feet and start stop racing to your adrenal gland and your heart beating. And it's the same thing with a business and impersonally too, I noticed what helps me the most is to go look at data. And if that means looking at my business financials or looking at some sort of dashboard, or, you know, writing down what I eat, paying attention to my personal finances, these are measurable tools that will ground you in the moment and the knowledge of where you are because it's so hard. We don't have the social setting to gauge where we are anymore off of each other, or, you know, to look around and say, Okay, I fit here I'm in, you know, on a scale of one to 10. I'm a five. But now we're just sort of like hanging out there loose. And the best way to ground I think is to look at your own data. And to look kind of that's the only way to deal with uncertainty ever. I've had a lot of crisis, a lot of trauma in my life, even as a child and I think I learned early on to just keep reground into myself, because people around, we're not always reliable. And that's where you're always gonna end up going is back to your inner core. And what are you? What did I want to do here? What am I trying to accomplish? Am I trying to accomplish? Let's take it into bite sized pieces let's, what do we need to make every day? What does this company need to gross every day to make the fixed costs cover the fixed costs? And how do we understand that? I
Mark 35:29
don't know what you're saying. And so I have a question. And that is that what I, you have to bear with me in the lead up to the question, the background is that I created a tool like two months ago called vision in crisis. And it was a tool to lead the mentality of a leadership team out of frozen stuckness. Just doing and being overwhelmed into some sense of focus, and sense of impact that they could actually have a sense of control is the same goes back to the whole, give you a sense of control your business. And part of how it did it was by asking you, what are the things that are in your control, the things that are out of your control, and so we named them mood, and it wasn't they have a long list either one in between like five to 15 things we'd add to the board's things that were on our mind that probably may not have named before until we did and once we could name both of them, we could sort of get a sense of we can accept that that's not you know, I can't control what the government does in terms of closures. I cannot control how many people get this disease, I cannot control all of those things. What can I control, I can control how I react, I can control how often we call our customers and how we communicate with our employees and who we pay and who we don't you know, expenses, we can reduce those. And so then we go to the third question, which is, what do we need to know, which was, you know, again, like a handful five to 50, there's a million things you could know, but what the things you in this business need to know is like between five and 15 things depending on your industry, you might need to know which which industries are considered essential, or you might not. And so if it's not your world, you know, take it off your list. And so once we did that, it did very much what you described. And I found it very powerful. And now I since then I've turned the page to the thinking around what I call take the lead, which is how to get the mindset of two quarters from now, are you going to be two quarters ahead of your competition or two quarters behind? And I want to have conversations with the people who in that first category, they want to be ahead. And so I've developed the 19 questions that you must ask to learn what you need to know to take advantage of this. And so that's a separate conversation and it's a whole long thing. But the question in that is how relevant Do you still find your clients needs around that first tool like getting stuck because I was kind of thinking and a lot of companies I work with are like they've said, Hey, we're past stalled, we're not stalled anymore. We need to get aggressive and take the offense and so I'm really helping them get the offense but what are you seeing in terms of today? 12 weeks down the line? How many leadership teams are still kind of you know, being blown around by random information?
38:16
Um, you know, that's a hard question to answer because I'm not in communication with everybody right now. And I wouldn't what I figure is if I'm not hearing anything there okay.
Mark 38:28
Okay, well we know that is it not elite leadership coaching many leader like I'm sure they'll let me know if they're struggling like No,
38:37
well, I send out email blast to everybody saying this is the new information and then you know, if you need anything, contact your account manager or contact me or whatever, and then we get a lot of comments on that. Then we've got someone we have staff meetings, I go Okay, this guy's over here. I know he's a do it yourselfer. I know he's probably doing it wrong. We need to call him and just you know, do a checkup on him you know, it's just they're also different it's you know, I would think that knowing you know, if we've on boarded a bunch of clients this year that are new and so we're trying to stay in constant contact with them because we don't know their rhythm and flow yet we don't know if they're okay. And they're not used to having someone they can call and ask either so so we're kind of getting them indoctrinated into you know, we're here for you we're going to you know, we can help you get through this kind of stuff and so I think that you know, as far as taking the lead from what I can see on you know, current financials and information on getting you know, they're doing everything they can to to focus on you know, revenue and staying, staying revenue level. Even though it might not have been everybody tells me Oh my God, we were gonna have the best year ever before this hit. We were scared we were slated we'd had the best January the fastest. February, we were going to hit a, you know, pick a number. That's what we were going to hit this year. And now we're just like last year. Well, what just like last year's, okay, you know,
40:09
why does the new hockey stick right?
40:13
That's great. Yes, flat for this year is considered to be pretty good. And so you can keep everybody employed, you can keep your you know, you can keep working. And so, you know, if that's what you're defining is take the lead. I don't think it is. I think you're talking about getting a little further out ahead of it than that. But I don't see that I think people are a little more. A little more weary than that, than that sort of mentality.
Mark 40:44
More More weary than that.
40:45
Yeah. I don't see anybody going, Okay, I'm gonna kill it this year. I think they're gonna be like, okay, we're gonna do what we did last year. And, and at some point, I would like to, you know, take a few days off. I think people are dying. Yeah.
Mark 41:01
Well, I said, I think that's a good point. And I think that I've observed that a lot of leadership teams are not as self aware of that point, as I would want them to be that they're tired. Yeah. And they, they, they've tuned out some of the trauma. And the uncertainty, they're kind of used to the ringing in their ears that is draining more of their energy than they are aware. And, and I do think that actually, one of the questions, one of the 19 questions of the take the lead is, what bad habits has this crisis enabled? Oh, and so you actually brought that exact point up, which is a visionary. So I started dating like crazy, and no one's watching them. And so that's, that's one of those potentially one of those bad habits. And another one of those bad habits is expecting everybody to work 20 hours a day, because in the first few weeks, some businesses needed to do that. And many leadership teams were willing to do that. But after six weeks, that is, as well gone past diminishing returns, and now is very self defeating. And you've got real problems if your leadership team is burning out, not being self aware, not not making good decisions, you can see it, you can see, in the first few weeks of being hyper focused leadership team was knocking out objectives. I mean, assuming they did a good job of planning, because a lot of teams went to chaos. But But teams I worked with, I saw them really align around hyper focused initiatives, and they executed at the highest level they've ever executed. And so three weeks in, they're like, man, we're never going back to that old way. This is awesome. Well, six weeks in, people are making the worst decisions, they're exhausted there, they don't have any patients that are not taking time to think things through. And so we have to go back to more maintainable recipe of maintenance, not just change, not just reaction, we've got to breathe, build some health back into the communication and create some space for some better decisions. And so I think that's really important for those teams to recognize that you we are going to have to adjust the recipe, the How often do we meet? how aggressive are our goals and rocks and those kind of things to be maintainable, sustainable at a cost of both time? Or all time? energy and money?
43:21
Yeah, I see what you saw when I mean spike is the spikes than the new keyword, right? So the spike in energy that has taken you know, to get around this ordeal is it is not sustainable. But you can't keep a good man down or good woman down either. So what I'm seeing is these, you know, they'll they'll go at it for a while, and then they'll die for a while, then they'll go at it for a while and they'll cry for a while. And in the neck back at it again. But but it's only been in the last couple of weeks that I've heard people say, Okay, you know what, I'm just gonna take three days off. I, you know, well, problem is there's no place to go. When you take time off there. I have people who are scheduled for vacation next week, June is typically when everybody around here takes a vacation. It's the only month we're not normally swamp. Because we're a planning firm and we plan all year. And so but yet somebody told me this morning, I don't really think I'm going to take my vacation. I don't I don't want to just sit home and do nothing, and can't really go anywhere or do anything. And so, and I think that's that's rank and file employees, but it's also entrepreneurs, they don't know, well, what could I do if I took time off like last week, I went and took this training, was supposed to be taking this training in August. It was supposed to be in Chicago, in a big room and cost you know, about four times more than it then it did, because then they started offering it online and so I didn't have to pay for the hotel, the airline whatever and the certification was a third of what it would cost. So it's a certification. I'm wanted for a long time, and it was like, You know what, I'm just gonna go hang out at a, you know, my place on the lake and I'm gonna, I'm gonna just dive into this, this training. And it was a wonderful diversion distraction, I think if anybody in leadership is looking to, you know, learn a little bit more about something or certifying something or branch out in something, I would strongly suggest it because it was a great break. It kept my mind really meaty and happy with the things that I'm most passionate about, which is exit planning. It was certainly not what it could have been in person I hated that I couldn't meet the other participants and, and, and I couldn't really ask good questions that to the the mentors that were speaking and whatever, but it was kind of a, you know, the watered down version, but I just think that and then there was I don't know if you saw this thing, Yale University was at Yale or Harvard, I think it was Yale. They they offered some of their happiness course online. I don't know if you saw that. But I know a bunch of people who were taking it, it was about
Mark 46:11
Oh, yeah, you know, that I that's Yale. And it is, oh, What is her name? Right. Yeah, it's
46:18
a woman. She's very personable, very easy to follow. And she
Mark 46:23
has a podcast called the happiness lab. Yes. Yes. And, and she pronounces her last name differently than I would. That's as far as close as I can get. So I'll have to look it up and maybe put it in the show notes. But so Okay, so that yeah, that's, that's pretty cool. That's does that some of you've looked at
46:39
that course? Yeah, took it. I took it. Okay, my youngest daughter did. And so, and another friend of mine did. So, you know, I think we're gonna have to, you know, I'm writing a book. And all those funny memes on Facebook about you know, this is that time you were going to clean out your closet, lose 20 pounds, get in shape, write a book, and all these things. And nobody feels like doing this thing. So I have to say, though, after I took the course, I ended up writing three more chapters in my book, because I was I got back into that focused mode, and I was into that meaty material. And but you know, could I have done that a month ago, two months ago, I don't think so I was still trying to digest new tax law and interpret it and regurgitate it for people. And, you know, I just don't, I think, now is the time we can finally we're a little bit more decompressed. And we can get back on track with what's near and dear to us.
Mark 47:35
So I guess I want to slow that down. I told you, that's my phrase. It when someone hears someone else's experience of what renewed them, that it could be like, Oh, that's a good idea, I should do the same thing. Or it could be a bunch of comparison, that leads people to believe that Oh, man, I suck. You need to write the book. I need to get those certifications done. And so I that's where my car my car, if I were coaching somebody one on one, I would say like, Did you just hear Sandra's description of the of taking two online courses? Writing three chapters of the book? And, and all these other things? And did you go like, Oh, you know, I've really been neglecting that. And I can make some space for that. And that's something that's inspiring to you. And maybe it's not exactly that, and but I can find something that adds to my life in a healthy way? Or did you just pile that on your to do list and feel like I'm that much further behind? So how did you? How did you come to believe that those were the right pieces for you? That would not make your your feeling of overwhelm worse?
48:41
Well, I think, you know, when the when the advertisement came out in May or whatever, and they said, or April, even that said, you know, we're offering this for this rate. Well, that made me happy. And we're offering it in June. And that seemed like, Okay, well, that's not now that's later, I can probably do that then. And so I did just the typical thing I do, which is just put it on the calendar, you can always cancel it or reschedule it or whatever later. And then I think that just starts sort of starts building the momentum toward it, you see it on the calendar. And in this case, this is a topic I really want to know a lot about. And I, I didn't, I kept thinking of questions. Oh, well, maybe I'll learn that then maybe I'll learn this then. And okay, honestly, it was a sort of a answer to I was supposed to go to Europe, June 5 through the 19th with a good friend. And that of course got canceled and so it was a fill in to pay me back. That I didn't get to do that that I do you get to I'm a school junkie anyway, so for me getting to go to school is kind of like going to Europe. And it was a it was a reward. I mean, all entrepreneurs have They're little kinds of rewards. This was not drudgery to me now, writing the book was an accident, I just thought of the last thing I want to do right now is write this book. And I thought, Well, why don't use since it's fresh on your mind. Once you set the clock for 15 minutes, can you put 15 minutes of content in this thing? And two hours later, I looked up and went, Oh, my God, it's two o'clock. I never ate lunch. You know. And I,
Mark 50:27
that does not surprise me about you
50:29
know, I've never missed a meal.
Mark 50:32
Really, okay, I just did a distraction, I would figure when you would get when you get ahold of something, you were sort of everything else would drift off into the background and priorities?
50:40
Well, when I get into this topic, yes. And when I get when I'm writing it is, but it is start to it's hard. I mean, I've taken courses on how do you make yourself right? It is start hard to start writing. But it's not hard to keep writing, it's hard to edit. This book is called 50 ways to leave your business there must be. And so I came up with all the 50 ways. And now I could just say okay, way number 23. right about that. I know the topic. So let's just write about that way. So it's again, about breaking it up into little pieces. But also, if I didn't think of this as a reward, and a fun thing that Sandra gets to do, because now she's gone through tax season, she's gone through COVID care, she's given up her European vacation, you know how she deserved something good. She deserves to go, you know, disappear for a week, let the staff take care of themselves go sit on the lake, I mean, my like, my Lake place is pretty nice. And in it, learn all the things she wants to learn and soak it up and not have to worry about you know, anything else for a week. And I will add that this is the town my granddaughter lives in. So I get to see my two year old granddaughter and my daughter's several times at night in that situation. So I dressed it up, I dressed it up. And it was pretty and glittery and fun. And it was not drudgery at all, it was a treat. And it was one of those things that's supposed to cost $5,000 that cost 18 $100. And so that always makes me happy to a bargain. Who doesn't love a bargain, right?
Mark 52:15
Yes, your your passion for making sure there's no monetary waste is is self evident and wonderful. Friends. I think what's interesting here is I love the story, as you're telling me. And what I see below the surface is self discovery and self awareness. Because I think so much of leadership. Learning is as much as much as there's instruction in it. There's pitfall in self comparison. And I see so many people who are stuck or for not stuck and they think they're stuck. That's worse, right? People who think they're stuck because they're not getting the things that their friends are getting or are wanting. And I think the so much of this journey is about for successful entrepreneurs really and in so many so many leaders is understanding yourself. We listen to a podcast like this podcast, or any any read book we read in a book is going to tell us something about how to get from point A to point B. And I love to challenge people to say, I don't think you're at point A Where are you? And what you know what what do you need to know about yourself to know if the journey from point A to point B is for you? And if it is, what do you need to learn and do and do for yourself to make that a healthy journey? It's overachievers a lot of not all of my entrepreneurial clients and friends are overachievers. But many are. Many of them have achieved all of their, their goals that they had from high school, or whatever. Earlier part of their life. They've been married, they've got the house, they made money. Some of them, some of them not. But they check out a whole bunch of boxes. And so in the speed of life of achievement. They collect a whole bunch of other goals and where they got them no one knows. And so I'll ask them, like whose goal is it for you to have that ranch? Is that yours? And well, no, I just keep going to my friend's ranch. And it seems amazing. I was like, is that really what you wouldn't want to sacrifice for us? Like? No, to be honest, I just like visiting is actually bad. It's good point. Maybe Maybe I really want to do something totally different. And when if you can get to the root of that question like what really brings you joy. You can get better attuned to your unique abilities that you when you do more of them. You feel better. The world is a better place. You can do more of it. And you can delegate and outsource and borrow All of those other things that are really not in your lane, did you get comfortable with yourself overnight? Or was this a long journey to understand what how to reward Sandra, and not try to do follow other people's journeys?
55:18
Well, it's funny, I'm laughing already, because we just talked about that Yale course on happiness. And you know, the first two weeks, one of the things that has you do is take a test, and I thought I'd taken every personality test in the world. But this was a new one to me. And it was a strength test, but it wasn't the typical Gallup strengths, you know, like those give at work. Strengths Finder, 2.0. Yeah, it was a, it was a different strength test. And you take that test, and you come up with your top three, top five in what they said was that the Happy Happiness comes from doing the things that are the top three. And then they would give you like, examples of how to do each one of the top three. So my number one strength, I believe, was love of learning. And so of course, that one's an easy one. You know, what you take a class, you take a class you take away I mean, what do I not want to learn piano, guitar, Spanish basket, weaving, gardening, horticulture? And, you know, it's nothing I don't want to learn. And so but then, you know, I know there's a lot of people out there that don't, that they don't have that in their top three, or their top five. And so I feel kind of sorry for them. Because, and yes, that can be an escape for me. But you know, back to your question of have, I always been able to do this, I think I'm turning inward is something that I did learn how to do at a young age, I was left alone a lot. And I had a whole section of a house to myself, they had a bunch of bedrooms. And so I didn't know how to so I was 14, I couldn't drive yet. Nobody was ever home. So on Saturdays, I get my mother to take me to Kmart. And I'd pick out material and I pick out a pattern. And I screwed up a bunch of material and a screwed up a bunch of stuff, but eventually learned how to sell. And, you know, I had kind of a project going in every room where I was trying to teach myself how to do things, as is, of course, long before internet long before YouTube long before anything. But and I've always been able to kind of entertain myself, I'd have a deep spiritual connection. I wouldn't say necessarily religious, but even at six years old, I was walking down to the Baptist Church down the street from me by myself. My mother took me a couple of times, and then I was like, and then of course, she got bored with it. And I said, I can I go, can I do it? Because I loved anything, you know, law school and church and whatever. So that just sort of progressed. I mean, I've continually, you know, read everything. I've gone to a lot of seminars, I've, I'm an ordained minister, you want your faith and your spiritual minister. And so I did a seminary in two years in California. And then I switched over to a seminary in New York, I did all this in my 50s. And these are, you know, that just deepens you just keep asking yourself these inner questions of, you know, can I be happy in this moment? Can I be happy in this moment? Can I be happy in a hurricane? Can I be happy in the middle of a divorce? Can I be happy? You know, where's your happiness come from? What is your source? My source for me is probably knowledge and learning and and I have to be careful that I don't use it for escapism, and right.
Mark 58:33
That's actually I say more about that, because that's kind of the question that's been scratching the back of my head, or my brain is as you're going through this.
58:41
Yeah. Because you can, you can intellectualize a lot and work on your head, but not work on your heart. And which, you know, you can even ministerial school kind of does a little bit of both, but, you know, does it keep me from being in meaningful relationships and having true intimacy and friendships and romantic life, I've had three divorces. And it's not my, it's, it's not easy for me to attract good partners. And or it hasn't been. And business is something that naturally comes naturally to me, and, and so does all this other learning in traveling, traveling, I love to see all these places too. And, and so but you know, you get back to whether it's the Gallup strength test or this other personality strengths test, they'll all tell you the same thing. You could spend a whole lot of time working on your weaknesses, and you might improve three to 5%. If you spend your time working on your strengths, doing things that are in your strengths category, you can improve 95%. So I used to think this whole you got to bring up the rear you got to bring up the rear this these are all working but that one's not let's go pay attention to that. And frankly, it's a waste of time. It's what works works, and what doesn't, probably won't. And you just got to figure out do you want joy? Or do you want work?
Mark 1:00:13
Yeah, I agree. And I love that. And I have added to kind of a caveat to that because I was big adopter of the idea of the strengths based approach many years ago, I ran into obstacles and so I agree 100% that it's about finding your unique ability which is a Dan Solomon term or your you know, your your strengths, which is Gallup and whomever else, I do believe in that the more you can stay in your lane of your sweet spot, your purpose, your your passions, you can just give more to the to the world. There is a caveat, though, which is self defeating patterns. And I do think it's important to understand where we do get in our own way, and not as much, maybe it's the language issue, you know, is it a weakness is it's not so much a weakness, it's, you know, it's a, it's a pattern that does not serve me and i and i want to, and I work hard to help leaders figure out what that is, because nobody holds us back more than ourselves. And so I do think working with both sides of that equation, so you can at least neutralize them, understand them and understand how to get into your own. ability to support yourself is important, which is different than like, hey, I need to be good at math. But these numbers just keep floating around my poor dyslexic head. I you know, it's like, that is not the way you should, you should not try to take math courses to fix your math problem. But understanding patterns that work against you is important. Did you if you ever encountered any patterns that you had to kind of neutralize or understand?
1:01:44
You mean, like self defeating patterns?
Mark 1:01:46
Yeah, patterns that don't serve these sort of what you think?
1:01:51
I'm sure that I have, I'm trying to come up with them right now. I definitely. You know, I, I think I used to be more into power mongering that I had to win had to be right, I had to be in charge. And it It wasn't working, as well as if I you know, would allow myself to be helped if I would allow myself to be part of a team. And I think that was a lot of posturing behavior that I learned, you know, from adults, that that's the way you did things in the 70s is you were a Wheeler Dealer, power monger. That's how I saw my parents were both entrepreneurs. And, you know, to be a woman entrepreneur, like my mom was in the 60s and owning, you know, seven businesses. You know, if you've seen madmen, there it is, that's what it was. That's what I saw every day. And I thought that's how you had to be I mean, shoulder pads and all. And I think it was certainly detracted from my being a good parent. And from my being good. You know, the soft side, I didn't have a soft side, I didn't know what one was for. And I, if I'd ever had one, I long ago, left it on the sidelines, because it wasn't helping me, I thought, and it took, you know, years of studying spiritually and self help wise and Rene brown and, you know, not knowing that vulnerability is okay. And, and then I took that all wrong. I was I went to the, to the side of, you know, here I am being vulnerable. Everybody felt bad for me or something. And, you know, it's not if there's got to be a temporary thing in a safe space to be vulnerable. And But yeah, I mean, I had a lot of posturing behaviors is what I would call that, that I just think weren't serving me. They weren't authentic, and they weren't. They were scary. Yeah, I didn't want to be scary.
Mark 1:04:10
Yeah, that's all sound to large degree very, not say they're not hard, because I don't want to minimize it sounds like it. I know from firsthand that that coming to grips with that is very difficult. And it comes commonly from some form of, you know, self sufficiency was a premium for you, right? You were independent. Your value came from understanding how to take care of yourself and be an adult. Yep. Even if you weren't. And so that's a tool you learned to survive, which served you for a long time. And eventually you raised your game to the point where you felt like, hmm, I'm not getting exactly the results I want. Let me let me self reflect and figure out what that could be. And something gave you a clue that some of those things might have been not what was it? What were the first things that sort of giving you the clue that that some of your exists? habits weren't working for you.
1:05:02
Um, people were scared of me. Or they were I would get feedback, you know? Well, they're, they're not going to tell you that because they're scared of you or it my kids started telling me, you know, when they got to be teenagers, and even in college, you know, they got some good stuff, you get some really good feedback from your kids. About You know, that, that's, that's not gonna work, it's not gonna work on me, you're not going to control me, you're not going to overpower me because, you know, they're, they're pretty strong willed themselves. And so, my daughters are definitely cut from the same cloth, but smarter, definitely wiser than I am.
1:05:43
And,
1:05:45
you know, just maybe some friendships Didn't you know, some honest friendships where you could have some honest conversation, I got some feedback from people who, you know, in business, so this is an interesting thing. I don't know if you've ever heard of the Sally hogshead hogsheads? hogshead. Yeah. And the the whole, the, the fascinate test? Yeah. So I had taken that one years years ago, or whenever she first came out with it in, it came out saying that my to my, my number one feature that fascinates people about me is power. Oh, and the other one is innovation. And so I'm called the maverick leader. And I've taken I've taken 10 years, it's very interesting, have this conversation, I've never had it, it's taken, you know, 10 years of knowing that that's what fascinates people about me. And sometimes I consciously use it in to my advantage. It's like, okay, I can tell this person just saw me speak are just hard something, and they really want to hire me, because what they heard was that I am afraid of nothing. And I'll try anything. And that's something they're missing. And they want that for me. And I less and less want to be that person for people. I don't want to be that all powerful person for people who consider themselves we, I want to work collaboratively with people. But I still attract it almost naturally, because her test is pretty accurate.
Mark 1:07:20
Yeah. So that's really powerful. I that again, this is something we're slowing down a little bit. That it's a natural attribute. It's an asset. When in in the in the comfort zone. But let left unchecked, crowds out other things that you find essential, and it's somewhat obvious for most people what that would be, and that would be human connection, right? So if you're so powerful that you cannot have a vulnerable, loving, trusted, egalitarian, peer to peer conversation. Like you're going to be lonely with people, idolizing you.
1:08:03
Yes. Yes, it is. All of that is perfectly said. And I'll tell you one thing that will fix that pretty quickly, is having a grandchild. Nothing will melt you more than than holding that child and just, you know, seeing seeing the wonder of life and getting to be you know, grandma and not be anybody else. I don't have to know anything. I'll have to do anything. I'll have to be powerful. I don't have to be smart. I don't have to memorize you know learn all the tax laws. The second thing come off the press. I don't really have to do anything except give her another bottle of milk. And I'm, I'm wonderful. And so yeah, that whole need for connection and need for it's hard to be the powerful the maverick leader and then say, hey, anybody want to go to lunch?
Mark 1:09:06
Yeah, I you know, I wrestle with that too. I wrestle with exactly that, which is when people come to me, I have a belief that I think is not totally unfounded that they want me to be stronger than them. They want me to come with confidence and outside perspective that will help them raise their game and at the same time I'm a human being and so there is a little bit of an alter ego of Okay, I'm showing up as coach mark, which is different than mark on any given day. No, no, in no particular role had a bad had a bad relationship day had a bad whatever day injury at the gym, who knows you know, human things. And so I wrestle with sort of like having a conversation with somebody Am I am I am I having a completely vulnerable, unguarded and self aware conversation or You know, is there a function this person is expecting from me and I would be providing a disservice to them by not being intentional about how I present myself to them? Well, I
1:10:11
think I think in some ways you would be because you don't want to go to your doctor for a checkup, or you're sick. And the doctor say, Man, I had a flat tire this morning, and I'm not sure you know, you know, they don't, your client, your customer, your patient, whatever, doesn't it, that moment they've hired you, they're paying you good money to be on your game, knowing what you know, advising them, and yes, being the stronger person, especially when you're advising entrepreneurs, who have to be the leader, all the other minutes of their day, they need somebody to turn to and say, What the hell am I doing?
Mark 1:10:53
What do I do? That's absolutely the binary. And the reason that that lasts like a minute is that my clients become my friends. And some of my friends become clients. And so I have to I have, I am on the journey, like, I'm definitely on this journey of figuring out how to integrate the two in a way that it because I do think, at least on some level, like I can step in and out of a role. And I can literally say, like, Hey, I'm about to step out of friend Mark role, and I'm going to be a leadership coach mark for you. And it's going to feel different, and I'm gonna feel different, like I act different. And I think I can flipping that switch is actually the thing, but I do think is more as integrated as they can be, the easier it is on me. And the more integrity it looks like to the other party, they don't think like, which Mark am I talking to now, so it's a journey to really integrate them for me,
1:11:51
I would say that it's a journey, I mean, integration, integration of all of yourselves, all of your binary selves. That's, that's self actualization that takes a lifetime. And this one is definitely worthy of a longer conversation. But
Mark 1:12:08
that is what this podcast is a manifestation on it. Like, you know, I don't know what's gonna happen on these I'm learning I'm saying things I say stupid things, I say wrong things. And it couldn't be more exposed. Because I don't, the listener does not, I don't see their facial reaction, I don't get a chance to explain myself or have a deeper conversation with them. They draw their conclusions right there. And so this is that part a major manifestation of me integrating like, this is just me, this is really just me. And you will see how my mind works. And I will not be able to hide from you. And so if you want more of that, let's hang out if you don't cool. There's other people for you to hang out with.
1:12:46
Well, what's interesting about that is I find that if I do let that guard down, and I share a whole lot of that most of my clients don't seem to want that they don't they want me on that pedestal they want me to be something you know, they they project things on to me that probably aren't true political affiliations, amount of wealth amount of, they almost all make a marry, they almost all think you know that I've had this perfect life or whatever, that I went to college when everybody else went to college, not when I was 40, after I sold my first practice, they, they think these things, because that's what they need to think about their accountant. And I'm perfectly okay with letting them think that and I'll throw in a few things every now and then like, yeah, I've had three divorces. So when people are in the process of getting divorced, they don't feel embarrassed to tell me. I want them to feel comfortable. I want to reveal enough for them to feel comfortable being vulnerable with me. But I don't really want to be too chummy, palsey with them in the ones that I've had so long that we have developed somewhat of a friendship relationship or somebody that haven't had so long that we're already just really good friends. And I find that the blurred boundary lines is a bit of a challenge. And sometimes I'll say, you know what, let's call me later on my cell phone. Let's talk about that. While not on the clock, I have to set a boundary rule for me. Because if you're my good friend, and you call me at work, and you start asking me stuff about PPP ones, and then you think I'm not turning the clock on, well, then who else is gonna pay for that part of my day, I'm here to work. And so it becomes more of a monetary boundary, but you know, money's what I do when he's who I am. So I feel like that's a good example as well. But you're right, that integration thing and trying to become one person, one person, but in the midst of personas, like you know, you're a parent, so, you know, there's things where, you know, but my friend's son, 14 year old son told her this morning, you know, well, Mom, you know, you can tell me anything and she she said no, no, I can't do that because you're a child and I'm a parent. And at It's almost the same thing when you're in a professional relationship. You can't tell them everything.
Mark 1:15:07
Yeah, I think it ends up being what does the situation need? There is like, yeah, I can. For in a business like you said, You're you are money, which is probably a topic of a podcast. That was your self descriptive statement. But in a company that I'm I'm a hammer and my hammer is leadership, team health and leadership health. And so when I look at a an accountability chart, the structure of leadership in a business, there might be a head of sales, a head of operations, a head of finance, the integrator function that glues it all together, and the visionary function that fuels the emotional energy and the big opportunities, then it may be three people in those five seats. And so are you functioning in that moment, as the head of sales are you functioning in that moment as the visionary and those are different rule sets, but the same person, and they should act consistently with their own ethics, but they have certain things, they need to advocate for certain language, they need to pick up certain things they need to let go of in the moment that they're doing that. So that's, I think it's a simpler way to think of it. And I think I think what you just described, it's like, you just got to take the role. But the hard part really is doing it with integrity. Because I think that, you know, in a leadership team function, you might not really worry about, or you might have might not have a hyper idealized vision for what the head of sales is, versus the head of the head of the company, you might not have an imagination of exactly what that looks like, to the, to the degree that you try to be something or not, do think that, on that very personal level, like Who am I as a human being? That's a deep well, you know, I think everybody is, I know, everybody is on that journey of Who am I right? They can very simply philosophize that. And some people are further on that journey than not, and it's a never ending journey. And picking a role of like, leadership team coach, or financial advisor, or what what other what other sort of socially known roles, those could conflict really easily, I think, and I think it's some hard work to get those to line up.
1:17:19
Yeah, I think it is, I think it's, it is a lifelong work. And, and everything is always changing. And so you're changing the landscapes changing, you know, who are you as a parent, well, then when your kid is 20, it's one thing, but when your kids changing, when your kids 30, you can't go back and be the parent, you wish you'd been at 20, or 10, because they don't need that parent anymore, but they do need a parent. And, and so, it, it's the same thing, as you'd watch a business owner evolve through their business, you know, at first, they just need to make enough money to keep the doors open, and then they need, you know, employees will, then they need to keep the employee, so they need a retirement plan. So then they need to, you know, then they need their own retirement plan. And they, you know, the evolution of the business and how it fits into their life and how that fits into their pocketbook. And in their dreams and their goals. And, you know, one of the things we learned last week was that three out of four businesses of business owners the year after they sold their business, were unhappy, and regretted that they'd sold it. Because they were not properly prepared to know what they were going to do in the I'm gonna say this, right, because I said it wrong the other day, and they left the life after, not the afterlife, but the life after.
1:18:45
Yeah.
1:18:47
And, again, it's all evolution, it's what are you going to turn into? It's Yes, it's Who am I? But who am I? That question is a totally different answer today than it was 10 years ago, I'm sure. And it was
Mark 1:19:04
a great example. That's a great example of exactly what we were talking about. And what I was trying to describe, and that is, people have not given due thought to understand their own identity. When it most of the time what happens is, you sell the business, and this happened to me, actually, I sold the business, I was in a tough spot, my whole identity. I went through a divorce, I sold the business, I moved houses, I had different. Yeah, everything. And I was in a state of lost identity. And a lot of people experienced that. And I think it goes back to complete lack of awareness of who the human being is other than the roles. And so that I think that does to a large extent is kind of the issue. And I think it's hard or because you're talking about the hyper idealized roles. I thought I'd make that more specific. As a human being sometimes we hyper idealize or as a father, we want to be like our dad, our grandfather or somebody else's father, somebody else's dad or somebody we've read About the hyper idealization of something that we tend to aspire towards, or we can compare to, I think that sometimes we hyper idealize about business leadership, but then roles inside of business, not as it's not as often that somebody's hyper idealized, is about the most legendary head of sales of all time. And they have also a hyper idol, that hyper idealization of the greatest visionary of all time, they could very have the visionary that most people will go to, like, want to be like Steve Jobs or somebody they know. So you'll get a hyper idealization there. And then you get a hyper idealization of the individual, if you're lucky. And so I'm, I'm thinking this through, as I say, and I think if you're lucky, you've got to, and you can recognize the contrasts and the contradictions in the choices you're going to have to make. What's more likely is you're going to have a clarity of the business leader, and you're going to be lost on the individual leader. And you're going to be sort of not trying hard enough to get clear on the questions and making weird decisions along the way, kind of unintentionally. So I think it's important to have real clarity of identity, an example of when people sell the business and the life after they sold their identity. It's gone.
1:21:11
Yes. And that was the only one they had. And I guess they aren't lifelong learners, either. Because I know where I'd be. In a school somewhere, learning something, or teaching something, I'm very comfortable in classroom on either side of it. But you know, I think this whole the whole persona thing, you know, one thing that helped me come into my own a lot, and it only happened in the last five years, was I did always struggle with Whoo, I was outside of the business and who I was inside the business, and how was I going to run things. And I'll be honest, I was sitting in a therapists office, and I was asking some questions about a personal relationship I was in. And she just looked straight it straight straight at me. And she said, Where, where is Sandra Finch, the CPA and this? Where is she? And I said, I don't know, that's not, you know, part of this deal. And she said, I would really put her in charge of this question. Because I think she's your best self. And I had to admit that I used to think I was, you know, this business person, this person, person, but the person who was of all the personas of all the means I was me at work is the most me the most real me the most authentic me, this is who I am. And it was a huge revelation. And when I started putting Sandra Finch, the CPA in charge of a lot of my personal life, my personal life got a lot cleaner, and a lot easier, and a lot more manageable.
Mark 1:22:45
Interesting, really interesting. And I will point out that I have had more than one leader who was very successful point directly to an individual personal therapy session. I don't mean to make light of it, because I think it's really important that cracked it open for them. Because I think that business leadership creates a slightly dim view of going too deep into emotional in general, I think the best leadership coaches are not afraid to go there. But I think the common vernacular and the common language of business, peer groups and business environments, leaves a little shallow. And if you have if you're doing deep work in the therapy session in relationship situation, or an individual therapy, like there's no boundaries, it's like, We're going where we got to go. And so oftentimes, you crack open exactly that. And I think that's really profound, what you just said that, it's sort of, I'm assuming it gave you It sounds like it gave you something like permission to open up to that possibility.
1:23:48
Permission is a good word, a good way to describe it, because I think I had always, and I'd said this for years, you know, I'd noticed a lot of women in life who grew up, you know, maybe like me, where home was kind of scary, weird place. But school was a place where it had a lot of good rules. And you could see, you could get from second grade to third grade, and third grade, fourth grade, and you could read the material and take the test and make an A I mean, you could win, you could succeed, you could, you could progress, and it had a structure in order. And it was fair, whereas, you know, outside life was not so fair, then they grow up to become, you know, really good, successful business people and entrepreneurs and everybody always walks around going as smart as she is. She sure is terrible with men, or she's sure a rotten parent or she's sure what's wrong with her. What's that? Where's the disconnect? Well, I wasn't ever curious about the disconnect, because what worked worked outside the home and what did not work was at home. And so you know, you Where did I get the practice? Where did I get the successes, where did I move forward and where did I not and so I always knew That piece of it. But when she said that I had to take the one that was that had it all together and put it in charge of the life that wasn't so together. It was a totally new concept for me. And it did shift, my locus of control opinion over whether I had the right to make decisions and be that Maverick leader of my own life. I could be I can be, and that's okay. But you know, I'm a southern girl, and you had to grow up thinking about the male ego, and you didn't want to be too in charge, and you wanted to be a supportive wife, and that's shit doesn't work.
1:25:47
Now you got to put the the EA on it.
Mark 1:25:51
No problem. We're in great company, for sure. So that's interesting. I've heard I've experienced that as well. To some extent, when I was asked a question that a table would appear. A few of us were asked the question was, if you had to choose, I might even get this wrong. Maybe I should fictionalize this. Make it a better story. But the question was something to the effect of if did you choose? And I'll dive in with the shitty work life in a great home life, or an amazing work life and in a professional career, this highly effective and you have like, not much to show in them in the personal life. Which one do you choose? If you had to choose? Oh, and that seems like one of those, like, Am I allowed to answer that? He really
1:26:37
like that.
Mark 1:26:38
I'm sorry. I'm, we're all supposed to say that person live. Right. And but there was, I was really kind of struggling because you know, you we both wanted both. Like everybody wants, you know, doesn't no one wants to sacrifice any degree of success. It's important to them. But there was one guy that table right to like, Are you kidding me? Like I can make him way bigger difference in my professional life. Like, that's absolutely more important to me. That's how I contribute. That's more of my self worth was that's where I make the biggest contribution, like, next question we'll see. And I was just like, you know, I think, you know, I would be really hard. Because like, like, my relationship with my kids is incredibly important. And the legacy I leave with my daughter, and my son, like, I can't overstate how important that is to me. And so for me, he really I couldn't answer the question for real. But I but my, because I feel like I'd be making a sacrifice. Like, if I had if you said it like, yeah, it was sacrifice related with your with your kids like, well, that's not a question. I'm not sacrificing my wish, but my kids for anything outside of that. But to react to the emotional element of the question. It's like, you know, do I think my biggest contribution is in is in my work? I think it is. And I think so much. So it is potentially how I connect with my kids. And so it has the ability to sort of say, like, you know, my work, is that important to me, and it does kind of get the first it's the lead Domino. And I think it's okay, that was that was hard to sort of digest and like you're hearing it even in my dithering right now, like, I don't want any ambiguity that I would sacrifice my kids for that. I was, I wouldn't. But like I said, I think my work is where it starts.
1:28:24
Well, you know, it's, it's back to strengths, and what's working and what's not working, some very powerful mentor for me once said, you know, it's not, it's not right or wrong, it's not good or bad, it's what's working and what's not working, because, you know, momentum matters. And, and, and paying attention to what's actually working matters and what you can control, and what you can work on what you can make better matters. And what you can't, tends to be, you know, maybe it's just not the right time, it's, there's a time for everything, there really is a time and a season for everything. I think we do get to have it all, we get to do it all. But you just have to wait for those waves like a surfer. Sometimes you will be inspired to do something in business. And sometimes, you know, four years ago, I was inspired to go to Austin, and get an apartment, my both my kids lived there. We had a strange relationship. And I thought, well, you know, they're not going to come home and see me now they're gonna call me I need to be able to say, Hey, I'm in the neighborhood, you want to have lunch? And I need to you know, and I was like, God, that's a lot of money, you know, to pay for a second home and all that just to be able to have lunch, maybe once a month. And I was like, Well, how important is it to you? Yeah, pretty important.
Mark 1:29:46
So So I love where you went with that that's powerful and inspiring. Like, you're exactly right, what, what is important to you, and what can you control and you assess you could make an impact or at least some potential influence there. And then you also address the idea of seasons? Because I think the hardest thing about that question is the permanence of it this idea of like, work or not? And, you know, I think it's fair that I may change my answer about work, and other people might, over time as things as the recipe rebalances based on what how come I'm trying to create, and there was probably a time when you were not able or willing, or whatever to invest in the relationship with your kids. And then one day, you were self aware enough to realize you could dramatically shift resources and create these in place a bet. on changing the outcome.
1:30:38
Absolutely. And it's paid off. enormously. And I'm very grateful for that. And I will say that I never once missed the money.
Mark 1:30:54
Well, you know, it kind of flows into the pay yourself. First thing when you when you when you put your priorities first, you everything else fits in, everything gets
1:31:00
provided. That's true.
Mark 1:31:04
Well, Sandra, I really appreciate where you've taken us. And like I said, when we started this, there was no predicting exactly where we would go. I'm so so grateful for what you shared, it's been meaningful to me. And very thought provoking and, and I'll be very eager to listen to this, again, because listening to my own podcast is one of the places I learned the most, because I hear such a small percentage of it in the first round, and I get a lot more out in subsequent listening. But as we wrap up, is there. What's your passionate plea right now? for entrepreneurs?
1:31:44
Take care of yourself. Don't take care of the business. Don't kick take care of the employees don't. I mean, that's gonna sound terrible. But for right now, take care of yourself. You were the spark that started this business, you were the one that keeps it going every day. And if you have to start all over, you can do that too. But not if you're not if you're gone, not if you're down, not if you're depleted and worn out. Again, we just sort of said, there's a theory that if you've just put yourself first and you put your, your priorities first, then the the way will be made to take care of everything else. I have a theory it's a it's a strange one. It's a controversial one, maybe. But, you know, in the, in the Christian Bible, it says, and I'm an interfaith minister, so all all faiths, but in the Christian Bible, it does say, Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all will be given unto you and I kept for years and years and years, I wrote my dissertation on this What? What is the kingdom? What is the kingdom? Is it piety? Is it you know, what is it? And I am convinced, am absolutely convinced that the answer to that is extreme self care. kingdom is extreme self care. And I have to say the word extreme, because I won't always take care of myself. But the more that you focus on what really matters to you, and who you really are, the more the way will be made, that everything else will be given unto you.
Mark 1:33:26
That it's so beautiful. And I love that question. And that it's, it's To me, it's almost it's a challenge, it's an issuing a challenge to discover what that is. Because I think what we will learning is that there is a very weird and not obvious paradox of the service of others is most greatly served by the service of ourselves, which, like,
1:33:51
what does that like that
Mark 1:33:52
sounds so contradictory. Like, it's better to give than receive, and we just do is, we dim our own light,
1:34:00
okay, give from an empty place, you just can't. So we
Mark 1:34:04
have to figure out how to make your light bright. And that is an inward journey. And it has to be I think, in and I'm always trying to look for the words to describe like how selfishness is somehow selfless. And I think it has to do with understanding what you can control, and you can control yourself. And in the interest of creating a better world. I think it's about the hope and the dream and the timeless impact. if if if my heart is in the place of making the world a better place, I must go deep inward because that is really the only thing I can control. And that is, I must seek out my best contribution and know myself in the deepest way.
1:34:44
Well, so. Oh, thank you. I
Mark 1:34:47
yes, for fear of going too much deeper into this. I'm very grateful. Thank you so much for the time if people wanted to find you and they wanted to continue to conversation about anything, you know, tax and money and profit in excess, of course, how would they? How would they find you?
1:35:07
Well, the website is Finch like the bird ephi NCH, CPA firm.com. Or they can just google Sandra Finch and I'll pop up in a few places. We're in Houston. I'm building an office in Austin as well. And so that's where I am. Awesome.
Mark 1:35:27
And we'll put the details in the show notes. So if you're driving right now, you don't have to try to scribble that down. But that, um, so thank you so much. I'm looking forward to our next conversation, which will be you know, we make sure we are on the calendar. So our conversations are always great. And that's it for today. So just a reminder, please do subscribe. Share this with your friends who you think can use this information, who it will help because if no one hears the wisdom, then it doesn't help them. So make sure you get the word out. do leave feedback. Like I said, that's very important. If you have an opinion, that strong or even mild, go ahead and leave it for us. We'd love to respond to that. And we'll see you next time on you're doing it wrong with Mark Henderson Leary. And that's me, Mark Anderson. Thanks so much.
VO 1:36:17
This is you're doing it wrong with Mark Henderson Leary for more episodes and to subscribe, go to lyric.cc