Change Your Mindset

Do you know the difference between time management and energy management?

If you’re a CPA, accountant or anyone that's entering their peak revenue season, this podcast is a must-listen. We have a number of tips and techniques on how to get the most energy out of ourselves and how to generate more energy when we need it.

Greg Conderacci is an expert on energy management. He wrote Getting Up!: Supercharging Your Energy and rode his bicycle across the United States of America in 18 days averaging 150 miles a day. He really understands energy management.

Greg believes that we should move away from those old time management techniques into a new and more productive method of managing our energy.

“We’re kinda missing the boat here in the 21st century by talking about time management time management time management when, really, I think this is the century of energy management.”

The emphasis on time management goes back a couple hundred years.

• When most people in the U.S. worked on farms, the day started when the sun came up and it ended when the sun went down.
• During the Industrial Revolution, there was a concerted effort to make people think of time laterally. People on assembly lines were taught to think of time in terms of minutes and hours.
• We are still victims to this time management mentality, especially in our education system.

Not a lot of people work on assembly lines anymore, so why do we still have that mentality?

We need to focus on where we add value – and we add value with our energy.

“If you look at people who are making fabulous amounts of money, they're making fabulous amounts of money because of the value that they're adding – not because of the time they’re spending.”

The key is to focus on energy flows. None of us are at 100% peak all day long so you should take note of the times that you are most efficient and effective and schedule the most intellectually challenging work at those times.

After that, Greg has two big suggestions for maximizing the amount of energy you have in those times:

• Get at least seven hours of sleep.
• Drink a lot of water.

Your energy is maximized when you have seven hours of good sleep (so don’t drink yourself to sleep!). On top of getting energy, your brain is also working while you’re asleep. You can literally solve problems in your sleep.

There’s also value to the idea of a midday siesta, or an afternoon power nap. Most people are at their lowest energy between 2:00 and 4:00 in the afternoon, anyway. Sleep or rest will charge your batteries and make you more productive for the rest of the day.

The last part of the equation are all of the energy suckers in your environment. We have technology, we have instant messaging, we have texting, we have constant interruptions and, if that's not enough, we’ll pull out our cell phones. Discipline will save your energy.

“We're working on a scarce resource. We should manage our time carefully, there’s no question about that, but we keep thinking it's going to give us more time – it's not!”

If you have energy and you are purposeful about using it on your most intellectually challenging work, then you can maximize productivity by doing less challenging tasks when you have less energy. Emails don’t need to be checked first thing in the morning.

I greatly appreciate Greg coming on the show to share these extremely valuable tips for getting the most out of our energy. A lot of accountants are going to have a much better busy season if they put his advice into action.

Resources:

• Getting Up!: Supercharging Your Energy by Greg Conderacci
• Connect with Greg at MorePersonalEnergy.com
• Valuable articles for the busy season:
• • “3 Critical Areas of Personal Well-Being During Busy Season”
  • “Communication Will Matter This Season”
  • “Manage Your Busy Season With a Dose of Humor”
  • “Be the Leader Your Team Needs This Season”
  • “Your Busy Season Sitcom”

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Matt Horan is a professional development consultant with experience in engineering, practicing law, the Navy and management. In this episode, he explores why we need to be teaching people leadership skills earlier, before they are leaders. He also offers, possibly for the first time ever in a podcast, a good definition for “adding value.”

Some people naturally want to be leaders and some people are thrust into leadership, but it doesn’t matter which camp you fall under – everybody needs to learn how to be a good leader before they can actually lead effectively.

If you have never had the opportunity to lead, where do you start?

• Self-awareness. It's understanding your own strengths, skills, priorities, values and expectations.
• “If you know yourself, then you can start to lead other people because to lead people you need to set expectations with those people.”
• Set goals based on what you want to achieve.
• Find a mentor, and don’t be afraid to ask someone to be your mentor.

Matt rejects the notion of “fake it ‘till you make it.” It’s a bad way to be a leader or a team member. A self-aware and honest leader is able to say they don’t know something in order to better understand it, and they’re able to speak up when they make a mistake.

What do you need to learn to be a good leader?

• You have to be able to say you made a mistake, when you make a mistake.
• You have to be able to say you don’t know something.
• You have to actively add value to everything you work on.
• You have to be present, in the moment and focused – just like in Improv!
• You have to create a culture where people want to do the same.

The Matt Horan School of Adding Value says adding value is basically your thoughts, your perception of how you think this should go, and being able to communicate that in a manner that somebody else can understand. It’s a critical skill for good leaders.

I greatly appreciate Matt coming on to share his insight and wonderful stories – he’ll definitely be back again soon.

Resources:

• Connect with Matt on LinkedIn

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We talk about how learning improvisational skills can be a valuable tool in your continued professional education (CPE) all the time. Today, we’re learning how other comedy skills can help hone different presentation and communication skills for professionals.

Greg Kyte is the Founder of Comedy CPE, a stand-up comedian, a CPA and a cartoonist. In other words: he is a standup comedian, with a niche in accounting.

We go into detail about the ways in which humor helps break down barriers in the workplace to facilitate open and honest communication. We also discuss how putting yourself in uncomfortable situations, and overcoming that discomfort, can improve your performance in every aspect of our lives.

“The humor that I can bring to the job really breaks down barriers, breaks down people's defenses, and it makes for some real open and honest communication – which, in the long run, really helps me be more effective at what I do.”

As a special treat, Greg shares one of his biggest claims to fame as a standup: opening for Weird Al Yankovic. It was an… interesting experience, to say the least.

You can learn more about Greg at ComedyCPE.com or on Twitter @GregKyte.  

Resources:

• ComedyCPE.com
• Follow Greg on Twitter: @GregKyte
• Enjoy Greg’s accounting cartoons on Going Concern
• Listen to The THRIVEal Podcast

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Today’s guest, Randy Nelson, is CEO of Gold Dolphins, LLC author of "The Second Decision: The Qualified Entrepreneur.” It’s a wonderful book that has changed the way I lead my own business.

The first decision is your decision to start a business. The titular Second Decision comes in after the business is up and running smoothly.

The Second Decision is whether or not you, as a Founder of a business, are the right person to run a business. The book helps you answer the question, “Am I the right person to lead this company for the next 3-5 years?”

Randy defines five roles in the book – three are qualified to help run a business and two are not.

• The Leader is the person who is at CEO and wants to be the person to lead the company’s future.
• The Role Player is the person who doesn’t want to lead the company but has their own expertise, and they might fill a position like Chariman of the board.
• The Creator is the person who loves getting businesses off the ground, they’re a startup person, but they aren’t passionate about running a business.
• The Dabbler is the person who wants cash but isn’t interesting in learning everything they need to learn to build a business.
• Status Quo is the person who is happy where they are at.

Randy models his qualification system around the tests he went through to become a submarine pilot. It features a qualification card that asks you every question anyone will need to be able to answer to run a business for the foreseeable future, built around the top reasons companies fail or underperform.

“I really am pushing leaders for self-awareness on whether they are the right person in that right seat. It's a combination of self-confidence and self-awareness. If you have both, it's a powerful combo. If it's just the self-confidence piece without the self-awareness, it’s a risk.”

Randy wants leaders reading the book to be more self-aware of the role they are best at and enjoy the most. It’s okay if you aren’t the leader and don’t have a role to play in running a stable company – you just have to be self-aware enough to hire someone better suited for that role or leave the company behind.

Randy is currently working on “The Third Decision,” which will explore how leaders and entrepreneurs can avoid some regrets in their lives by being more self aware of the decisions they make in their personal lives.

If you haven’t already, pick up "The Second Decision: The Qualified Entrepreneur" and become more self-aware about the role you should have in your business. It’s a must buy.

Resources:

• "The Second Decision: The Qualified Entrepreneur” by Randy Nelson
• Learn more about Randy and Leadership on www.randyhnelson.com

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Bob Dean is a collaborator, innovator and talent developer. His firm, Dean Learning & Talent Advisors LLC, consults with companies on learning and development, talent management and customer experience.

“I believe that learning and development needs to be a life-changing experience for people.”

He is a ”Certified Experience Economy Expert” and joined the first group of professionals certified by the authors of The Experience Economy, Joseph Pine and Jim Gilmore. The book explores the opportunities that businesses have in order to create a better experience within whatever platform they’re on.

Bob is passionate about virtual meetings, virtual collaboration and virtual learning – he has been ever since he saw the first virtual meeting platform in 1997 – but the PowerPoint platform has had a negative impact on both face-to-face business and virtual experiences.

Bob was very excited about the potential for the virtual classroom because he envisioned subject matter experts being able to extend their reach to many, many more people than they ever could in a classroom. He thought we would have a revolution on learning with virtual classrooms. Unfortunately, we’re 20 years later and it really has not taken off as much as he had hoped and expected, and a lot of that is due to the challenges with virtual facilitation.

“I really believe that, as businesses go global and as the Millennials become such a significant part of the workforce, that virtual learning, virtual meetings will become a differentiator for many companies.”

Bob has used a lot of virtual web platforms, but ThinkTank is the game changer for virtual collaboration. ThinkTank is over 25 years old and the company developed many of the guiding principles for best practices in collaboration, including the importance of anonymity.

Anonymity is a critical element of virtual collaboration and education because participants are more honest, open and eager to participate.

When participants are collaborating anonymously, they still need a virtual facilitator who is able to direct the process and optimize productivity. Bob believes virtual facilitation will be a core competency for future professionals. Facilitation requires two key skills:

• Confidence. You need the confidence to direct people who you can’t see or identify.
• Improvisation. You're dealing with the unknown so you have to be listening to what is being said, whether that listening is what has been written or on the call, and you have to be completely focused in order to adapt to the situation.

“I think the relevance of improv is greater now, in business, than it ever has been”

Improvisational skills are viewed by many business people as something that is fun and out-of-the-box, but not necessarily totally relevant to the way they interact with each other or with clients. However, in a world with instant communication, instant responses are critical to both face-to-face interactions and virtual interactions. It requires some level of improvisation to be able to respond quickly, with helpful information.

Improvisational facilitation ties back into the experience economy because working with different participants and adapting ThinkTank to provide different types of classroom experiences allows participants to retain more information than they would from a PowerPoint-driven type of presentation.

I greatly appreciate Bob for taking the time out of his schedule to teach us about virtual learning, virtual collaboration and virtual facilitation, and how they relate to improvisation.

Resources:

• ThinkTank
• The Experience Economy by Joseph Pine and Jim Gilmore
• Yes, And by Second City
• Look by Jim Gilmore

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2016 flew by faster than a european swallow, or maybe that's an African swallow?

Well, in any case, on June 27th this podcast was launched with the intent to help my audience strengthen their communication and leadership skills through improvisation.

I wasn't sure what I was walking into but I did tell myself that I needed to invest a year's worth of time to see if this was right for my business and I can answer that question right now with a resounding, “Yes!”

This episode includes a short review of the past 29 episodes and my favorite quotes. For more information and to see all the quotes, visit my website: PeterMargaritis.com/podcasts

Resources:

• Want to be a guest? Send me an email: Peter (at) PeterMargaritis.com
• Gaitten Wellness
• Listen to the cbuzz podcast (hosted by Dan Swartwout)
• Trusty & Company: Website | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn
• College Bound Advantage
• Gratitude Marketing by Mike Sciortino
• Stop Knocking on my Door: Drama Free HR by Karen Young
• Accounting Dreams and Delusions: Scenes From Professional Paradise, and What Really Happens in the Accounting Industry by Kristen Rampe
• The Message of You by Judy Carter
• The Message of You Journal by Judy Carter
• The Comedy Bible by Judy Carter
• Learned Leadership by Greg Kozera
• Just The Fracks, Ma’am: The TRUTH about hydrofracking and the next great American boom by Greg Kozera
• The Intuitive Therapist by Janis Cohen

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Today’s guest, Dr. Jay Young, just launching College Bound Advantage to provide more value and information to any college applicants, and their families, in the Ohio area.

At College Bound Advantage, Jay will use his 20 years of academic experience and months of in-depth campus research to provide applicants with a trail map and all of the information they will need to make the best decision. His expertise and knowledge is only $549 – well under the $3,000 it costs, on average, to hire a college consultant.

“People look for colleges but it's really like hiking without a trail map.”

When people apply to colleges, they are often going into the experience somewhat blind. College consultants and school counselors have a keen understanding of the academic timeline and the best strategies for applying to a college, but they don’t necessarily know about academic programs.

Jay’s primary focus is on academic programs. He’s interested in the ways that they are connected to each other and the kinds of opportunities they provide students, both while attending and after graduating.

College applicants really don't know what they don't know and they don't really know what to look for – and they certainly might not know where to begin or where to go. Now there’s College Bound Advantage.

“I do what college consultants don't do and I do what high school counselors don't do. I know colleges in Ohio and I know their academic programs, I know their co-curricular programs and I know the trade-offs that result from the connections between those.”

Jay went to more than 50 Ohio colleges to prepare for his launch. When he visits a campus, he makes sure to do at least three things:

• A student-led campus tour to see the campus and talk to students who are actually attending there.
• A meeting with admissions to talk generally about programs, what schools they compete with, what they're proud of, what's going well and what's new.
• A meeting with a faculty member who is in one of the programs that they are particularly proud of to talk specifically about
• • the program as a whole
  • other similar programs in Ohio
  • the best programs outside of this school
  • important accreditations
  • required academic standards

Speaking with faculty members in unfamiliar, different disciplines helped Jay dive deep into how academic programs are structured and organized, what represents a quality program, and what doesn't – even outside of the business programs, which he is very familiar with.

When you come to Jay at College Bound Advantage, he will go through a three-step process to give the student and their family an edge.

• Intake – Transcripts, standardized test scores, personality test and a short interview to establish the student’s and family’s top priorities. Jay also educates the family on issues related to student debt.
• Trail Map – The trail map basically provides them feedback on the personality inventory, re-identifies the criteria that were discussed and prioritized, then identifies five to eight colleges that meet those criteria. For each school, he then provides feedback on how each criteria is or isn’t met and exactly the ways in which the school meets them.
• Coaching – Depending on the majors and what the student prioritizes, Jay provides a set of things to make sure the student covers and to make sure they do when they visit campus, so that they make those campus visits meaningful and better enable them to make the best decision.

“I can help them get to the right schools to look at the right programs and ask the right questions so they can make the best decision.”

I greatly appreciate Jay taking the time to talk about his new business endeavor. It’s an insane value proposition for the price he is asking, so I highly recommend heading over to College Bound Advantage to learn more or email DrJay (at) collegeboundadvantage.com to discuss a consultation.

Resources:

• Learn More: College Bound Advantage
• Get in Toch: DrJay (at) collegeboundadvantage.com

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Today’s guest on the show is Jamie Richardson, the Vice President of Government and Shareholder relations at White Castle Systems, Inc., the Chairman of the Ohio Restaurant Association, and a family-owned business advocate.

“It's 95 years ago that the epicenter of all cravings was launched, and we’re going better and bigger and having more fun than ever.”

White Castle is celebrating its 95th birthday this year – and its 95th year as a family-owned business.

Jamie is an advocate for family-owned businesses. He believes it is important for family-owned businesses to share their story with thought leaders and lawmakers, whether that's at the state level or the federal level, to ensure that lawmakers consider the impact that new policies might have on family-owned businesses.

Jamie believes that family businesses are unique in a number of ways.

• “They are very distinctive… because a lot of the the businesses that are known for treating their team members well… tend to be family businesses.”
• Being family-owned gives them the freedom and flexibility to make good decisions for the long haul.
• Family-owned businesses are less likely to get caught up in what Jamie calls “the sudden tug” in an emergency.

“We feel it gives us an anchor and we call it the base of all metaphysics here in Castle Land.”

Jamie is also a great networker, which comes down to being a great friend. Jamie approaches community engagement and networking events as opportunities to make new friends, and that opens him up to connect and start helping them more easily.

Jamie engages with local communities, professional communities and charitable communities because it opens him up to a more diverse network of friends from different industries, different backgrounds, different worldviews and different perspectives. When you start to listen to people and genuinely appreciate them, then networking can begin to unlock some doors.

“The greatest part of networking is about friendships, and part of that friendship is being a good listener.”

Since 2008, Jamie has seen bigger barriers to entry in the foodservice industry, and more restaurants are going out of business. These barriers are put in place by regulators at the local, state and federal level – often with good intentions – and it puts a strain on an industry that already operates with compressed margins.

The impact of regulation is real. The struggle to remain profitable is only made more difficult by the fact that these threats are often more external than they are the result of a foodservice company’s own decisions.

“We think it's our responsibility to focus on being good citizens and let them know what the real world looks like.”

I appreciate Jamie for taking the time to talk to me. He’s a great person and a great friend, and that has taken him a long way in his career.

Resources:

• Get in touch with Jamie on LinkedIn

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Today on Improv Is No Joke I am talking to Janis R. Cohen, a licensed clinical social worker and author of The Intuitive Therapist. She has been a practicing therapist for the past 25 years, but eight years ago her practice changed dramatically when Janis’ intuitive and psychic skills opened up and her practice completely shifted. Janis is a clairvoyant, an empath and a medium.

Janis’ goal in life is to teach other people. She wrote The Intuitive Therapist because she wants therapists to know how to do what she does so that they can help their clients faster and more effectively. It offers both professionals and laypeople effective strategies for getting in touch with the major driving system within them – their intuition.

“I am addicted. I am obsessed with helping people end their pain and suffering.”

She also wants to provide real, tried-and-true strategies about how to problem-solve on your own. She will do whatever it takes to help her clients achieve happiness, and all of that together was the impetus for her writing the book.

Janis has a seven-step process to strengthen your intuition:

1. Intention – Start with the genuine intention of noticing and connecting with your intuition.
2. Be aware – Be aware of everything around you and within you.
3. Imagine – Be in a space of fun and fantasy, in which you are open to receiving the messages.
4. Write It Down – Validate that your intuition has the strength and ability to guide you and lead you in all the right directions by writing down your experience.
5. Acting – It's taking what you become aware of, noticing what's going on and just going and doing.
6. Trust – Trust what you get. What many five-sensory people do with intuition is they immediately discard the immediate sense that they get.
7. Environment – Live in a space that validates that your intuition plays a key role in your decision-making, your relationships, your job and how you show up in this world.

There’s an interesting cross section between intuition, improvisation and service professionals. It’s all about serving your client or audience. The strategies that Janis employs are similar to the strategies that all service professionals should employ – there's a know, like and trust factor that dictates if your client will buy in. They have to know you are adaptable to their needs and like you as a person before they can offer you their trust.

I’ve known Janis for years, but I really enjoyed learning more about her life, her process and her business – and I absolutely loved reading The Intuitive Therapist. It made me think in different ways, which I always love to do, and I appreciate Janis for taking the time to write something that helps people.

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Resources:

• Learn more about Janis
• The Intuitive Therapist by Janis Cohen

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I spent 10 years in higher education, with eight of those years at The Ohio Dominican University in Columbus, Ohio. One of the great benefits of being a professor is seeing your students graduate and start developing wonderful careers. Today, I’m excited to be joined by one of my former students, Ashley Matthews, Senior Tax Manager at Rea & Associates.

A constant struggle in public accounting is that work is always being added, but never subtracted – and this issue was exacerbated by the economic downturn in 2008. Public accounting practices became leaner and hiring slowed down to a crawl. The result is a gap in experienced senior managers, because there were so few new hires 5-8 years ago. CPAs rising in the industry need to be adaptable and maintain an open line of communication with the people they work for, in addition to their clients.

“I found that you have to be stern and you have to mean what you say in order to be taken seriously. People have a tendency to pile on and see how much you'll take, and so pushing back is always appropriate.”

People who are not in public accounting, and clients, may not think of the word adaptability and CPA in the same sentence, but CPAs must be adaptable to everyday occurrences in order to be successful. If you're not adapting, you may be way too rigid and start losing clients and business.

“This definitely is not a profession for someone who wants to come in and sit at their desk and have their day planned out and be predictable and get their to-do list done every day and punch the clock and go home.”

CPAs like Ashley, who are often Millennials, are fighting the stereotype of an awkward business person chained to a desk counting beans. At Rea & Associates, they want clients to view them as trusted business advisors who understand all aspects of the clients’ businesses so that they can help the clients improve their businesses. Ashley and her associates are trying to break the CPA mold not only in the eyes of the outside world, but also in the eyes of their clients.

“We're working, especially here at Rey, for our clients to view us as their trusted business advisor.”

The role of a trusted business advisor is changing, and that’s why CPAs are providing excellent value to the firm and to the client when they’re able to adapt. Ashley discussed what her ideal public accounting firm will look like in the future. A successful firm will:

• embrace changing technology
• be transparent about partner succession and upward mobility with its employees
• be smart about the work that they do and when they do it
• realize that the best decisions and some of the best relationships are made when CPAs are out from behind their desk and really talking to people

“If you're doing the same thing today as you were doing three years ago, then you're missing the boat.”

I really enjoyed talking to my former student Ashley, and she offered an enlightening glimpse into the minds of a hungry generation of young professionals who are currently working their way up the ladder, in every industry. I expect we’ll be learning more about communication, technology and business relationships from Partner Ashley Matthews in no time at all.

Resources:

• Rea & Associates
• Listen to the unsuitable on Rea Radio

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