214: Brian Henderson – Knocking It Out of The Park In Accounting

Brian Henderson in the Austin area joined us for this “2nd career” edition of Where Accountants Go, the Accounting Careers podcast.  This is one of our “second career” episodes meaning that the guest started in a different career first, and then migrated later on into accounting.  For Brian, it was professional baseball!

Brian’s boyhood dream was to play professional baseball, and unlike many though, he actually did get the opportunity to do so.  Although he was cut from his freshman team in high school, he continued to work at it, played college baseball, and eventually was able to get drafted to play professionally – which came with a signing bonus and two additional years of college scholarships for his post-baseball life.  Brian played for six to seven seasons, spending part of the time as a Durham Bull (reference the Kevin Costner movie), and was on a triple A team.

How does this relate to accounting though???  We will get to that now…

Many of the lessons Brian learned during his baseball days have served him well in accounting.  First was the lesson of persistence.  Had he not stuck it out in those early years, he never would have had the opportunity to play professionally later on.  This carried over to the determination he needed to return to school and finish his degree, hoping for a career that was a little easier from a physical standpoint.  Also, the people skills he developed during that time served him well for getting his first real accounting position… a position he basically got through networking.  And lastly, all kidding aside, he learned to “embrace the suck” (a quote from Brian), which definitely helped him through the time preparing for the CPA exam.  I think that’s something most of us will understand.