Change Your Mindset

“Emotional Intelligence helps you connect with your feelings, turning that into action, and making informed decisions about what matters most to you.” Peter Margaritis

To succeed in the highly competitive world of financial consulting, accounting professionals must possess the right mix of technical experience and soft skills, or think of them as power skills, or better yet, emotional intelligence — EI. EI plays an increasingly significant role in today's business environment. Therefore, you must optimize your EI to improve your bottom line and increase your organization's job satisfaction, engagement, and retention rates.

EI is the ability to understand, use and manage your own emotion in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict. EI helps build stronger relationships, succeed at work, and achieve your career and personal goals. It can also help you connect with your feelings, turn that into action, and make informed decisions about what matters most to you.

The four components of EI are defined as self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, and relationship management. Self-awareness entails how you understand your emotions and how they affect your thoughts and behavior. Self-management refers to controlling and managing yourself and your feelings, resources, and abilities.

 In social awareness, you assess whether or not you recognize the emotions in others. It is about reading the emotional landscape and responding with empathy. Social awareness skills will help us understand professionalism in the workplace and make it easier to share information, communicate, and collaborate with others. Social awareness is a fundamental part of creating relationships with the people we work with and the customers and clients we need to build our businesses.

When we understand the top three elements of EI and apply them correctly, CPAs can begin to develop and maintain good relationships, communicate clearly, inspire and influence others, work well on a team and manage conflict. Improving your EI requires that managers first understand how people feel about their jobs and help them to improve morale.

Three main elements, empowerment, meaningful work, and recognition, can drive and engage workers to stick around even when they're unhappy with their pay or leadership. However, disengaged employees are three times more likely than engaged ones who quit within six months, resulting in a loss of productivity and cost amounting up to $3 million per year.

Improvisation plays a critical role in EI. In business, life, and sports, EI separates high performers from mediocre and average performers. Improvisation is the ability to adapt to change. It is the yes and philosophy of improv and EI leadership. This skill is also crucial for career development. Improvisation allows people who may not have a natural knack for talking themselves out of trouble to get creative by thinking on their feet.

Think about how you build an EI culture in your organization from start to finish. The first thing is to hire people skilled at managing their emotions and reading those of others and then develop a culture that promotes the skills, so employees see the value in developing EI.

To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: petermargaritis.com

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“In rapidly changing times, dexterity to speed is your key to adaptability.” Rod Collins

In today’s episode, we are joined by Rod Collins, a returning guest. Rod’s initial episode was released on February 14th, 2022. The topic of conversation was ‘The Benefits of Flat Organizational Structures.’ Today, our discussion focuses on the strengths of running a collective intelligence workshop when you're trying to solve problems or coming up with new ideas. If you have not listened to the earlier recording, I highly suggest giving it a listen and then following up with this episode.

Rod is a leading expert on digital transformation in the future of business. He is the host of The Thinking Differently podcast on the C-suite Radio Network, where he explores how technological innovations continue to transform the rules of how successful businesses. Rod is a regular blog contributor on Substack and the author of Wiki Management, a revolutionary new model for a rapidly changing and collaborative world, highlighting the innovative tools and practices used by a new breed of business leaders to sustain extraordinary performance in a world reshaped by digital disruption. Rod is the former chief operating executive of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Federal Employee program, one of the nation's largest and most successful business alliances. Under his leadership, the business experienced the most significant five-year growth period in its 60-year history.

A collective intelligence workshop gets a microcosm of the business in the room. Everybody who would touch on the business's project, process, and initiative must be in the meeting room. We come up with a way to develop good ideas where we put them into groups to discuss their ideas. At the end of the sessions, each table reports the vision they have settled on. As a decision-maker in a rapidly changing world, you want the best picture, which helps move things along.

After identifying the ideas, we open them up to agreements and disagreements because we want creative energy. The members are also allowed to present their grievances to uncover unknowns that always mess up projects. By having the whole system in the room, things get to be handled in real-time and rapidly, and it helps to drive unanimous consensus.

In rapidly changing times, dexterity to speed is your key to adaptability. My experience is that collective intelligence is more significant than one person providing answers, and frequently this is the power of a network. 

To learn more and for the complete show notes, visit: petermargaritis.com

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“Go write those stories, prepare and practice. And then if the occasion calls, go off script.” Peter Margaritis

This excerpt from the book “Off Script: Mastering The Art of Business Improv.“

The Silent Killer of business is ultimately a lack of financial acumen. The death knell of a company comes from having leaders who are empowered to make important decisions and who don’t understand the fundamentals of Accounting and Finance. Leaders need this understanding and knowledge to make more informed, smarter, and more profitable decisions. Further, without the key elements of Improv in place, we won’t have the courage or safety to talk about the money.

We need to teach accounting and finance to non-financial leaders to remove the complexity of accounting and financial jargon and teach them the fundamentals in plain English. When you switch the accounting and finance light bulb on and include it as part of the Improv leadership development, your leaders will make better business decisions because their business acumen has been fully achieved.

In business, problems and solutions are always about money. The improv exercises in this book provide you with tools that can always make you stronger regardless of your title or the amount of work experience, or your confidence. Your ability to generate significant results from these improv activities sometimes hinges on the participants’ essential financial acumen to have these conversations in the first place.

The combination of improv, off-script leadership skills, and strong financial acumen can take you and your organization to new heights. It’s been my great honor to introduce you to the world where more yes is possible. A world in which respect, trust, and support underlie our every interaction, a world in which we can focus on what matters and listen to the people who matter. A world in which we can adapt to any contingencies, opportunity, or crisis, like a seasoned, talented improviser, ready to accept the gifts of change and forge forward into a story that’s worth waiting to be written.

If you'd like to learn more about off-script mastering the art of business improv, go to www.offscriptimprov.com. 

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“There is a real direct application to being human with what you learn in theatre and Improve.” Robert Bendetti

Today, our guest is Robert Bendetti, Jr., CPA, who is the Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Life Cycle Engineering. As CFO, he is responsible for all financial operations of the company and accounting contracts, purchasing, Process automation, and IT. Before Life Cycle Engineering, Robert served as VP of Finance at Galey and Lord and CFO of the Coastal Logistics Group and a financial management position within Lockheed Martin, Hormel Foods, and Hilton Hotels.

Robert is also president and founder of the Global CFO Council. The purpose of the global CFO counselors is to provide an educational and networking forum for senior financial executives to share the best practices, discuss current financial issues, and learn about current topics related to their job performance. There are 1500 members in 32 countries. Robert has a great sense of humor and embraces Improv due to his background in the performing arts.

There are four L's that goes into changing your mindset. These include Learning, Leading, Listening, and Leaving. The first L is learning, which comes from podcasts, books, mentors, and networking, and it could be professional certifications, which is a great way to learn in whatever field you're in.

The second L is leading, which includes serving and empowering others and volunteering wherever you're. In the current environment, community, civic, and industry associations desperately need folks like us to volunteer at any phase of your career. There's no greater way to learn and change your mindset than by embedding yourself with others and serving and empowering them.

The third L is listening, and a great way to grow is by being a mentor and having mentees and listening to them. Another way to do this is to listen to your customer, and the only way you can listen to the customer is if you're out with the customer. It is also essential to listen to your team members and learn from them.

I am primarily an internal consultant to the CEO and the business operations leaders. But also, my customers include the end-user of the service and products and solutions that we sell, and then I have all the team members at the company. My job is to keep everybody happy, engaged, excited and equipped to do their job.

The last L is Leaving, and sometimes to change your mindset, you got to change some things about your environment. You need to take out some things and leave like negative influences, some bad friends or some habits.

To affirm those that are listening and doubt themselves, you can learn enough so that you can have an enjoyable conversation and interact with people, or have the confidence to say something in a meeting or to your boss in the moment, instead of on the way home and have all the regret not doing it. Those are the kind of skills that you can learn by doing maybe a little reading or listening to a podcast or taking an Improv class.

To learn more and for the complete show notes, visit petermargaritis.com.

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We are in the people business and we need to treat our people and customers with the respect that they deserve.” Peter Margaritis

Saving a few pennies is not worth losing a customer. In this era of social media, bad reviews, pictures of disappointing meals, and word of mouth can significantly impact your business. While we must always watch our costs in order to make a profit, it is important to realize that it is the revenues that drive that profit. If we don't get a return business, we lose revenue, and the business loses sustainability and growth period.

As a professional speaker, I customize my presentation to each audience and never do the exact same presentation twice. It takes a lot of work, and has been a key driver in the success is my business for 12 years. I will never serve leftovers to my audience or client. It's simply not a good business plan or practice.

We all need to remember that we are in the people business. We have no business when we don't treat our people and customers with the respect that they deserve, and provide them with a constantly reliable and top quality product or service

To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: petermargaritis.com

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Leadership has many attributes associated with it, such as perseverance, vision, inspiration, motivation, and service, to name a few. A leader is there to serve, and my uncle Dean was a great leader who served his country. Retired Colonel Dean Danos passed away on January 27, 2022, after a valiant and brave battle with pancreatic cancer. He served in the Vietnam war, where he flew over 300 combat missions in the AC-47 Gunship, known as Spooky.

After serving in Vietnam, he was stationed in the Panama Canal Zone. He flew A-37s to support the Peruvian Earthquake Relief Effort and assumed command of Joint Command Post personnel. After that assignment, he was stationed at Craig Air Force Base in Selma, AL as a T-38 instructor pilot and flight commander. His next assignment was in Nellis AFB in Las Vegas, where he was assigned to the Aggressors, a squadron that flew McDonnell F-15 Eagle fighter jets. His next assignment was in Vicenza, Italy, where he brought Penny and his four children – Stephanie, John, Athena, and Katherine. Uncle Dean led the 5th ATAF’s crisis action support during this tour in support of Desert Shield/Storm. Uncle Dean was pinned a Colonel on December 1, 1989. Uncle Dean and the family returned to the U.S. in August 1991 to Randolph Airforce Base in San Antonio. Dean held several roles at Randolph, including base commander, before retiring in 1997. 

When I published my first book in 2015, Improv is No Joke: Using Improvisation to Create Positive Results in Leadership and Life, I sent him a copy. He read it and enjoyed it. However, he felt that I left out one chapter in the book that should be there: a chapter on Ethics. His comment got us discussing the ethics issue, particularly the responsibility of educating and training our workforce. Uncle Dean believed that it was the employer’s responsibility to train the employees, no matter how long they stayed, because they needed the knowledge to be better stewards of their communities and country.

During his retirement from the Air Force, Uncle Dean did become an executive director for a non-profit association for a few years. While playing golf with him at Randolph Air Force Base, it was the first time that I looked at him without any intimidation and saw him as the person he was – a loving man to his family, country, and God.  

I would be remiss if I didn’t say that he was an outstanding public speaker who commanded and engaged an audience. We did talk a lot about the speaking business, and I did share some of my speaking videos with him, and he provided excellent feedback.

I WAS DEVASTED when I received the news that he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. 

He was a man that meant a lot to me and my life. Uncle Dean was a great leader, and may his memory be eternal.

To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: petermargaritis.com

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“When it comes to cybersecurity, the effort level on the part of the bad guy is not any different, regardless of whether it is a large entity or small entity.” Chris Barber

My guest today is Chris Barber. Chris is the Chief Nerd at Cheaper Than A Geek IT service provider. They have demonstrated a history of providing award-winning support in the IT service industry. Cheaper Than A Geek helps small businesses save money with a smart managed IT service. As an industry leader Cheaper Than A Geek has pioneered providing cutting-edge information technology services for even the smallest companies. They have perfected the art of even one-person companies getting enterprise-grade IP support, like next-generation computer and network security, encrypted disaster recovery, and ensuring maximum uptime and efficiency. They are incredibly proud of the many customer service awards earned due to their commitment to client successes.

When it comes to cybersecurity, the effort level on the part of the bad guy is not any different, regardless of whether it is a large or small entity. There is a presumption among these bad guys that the smaller entities are less fortified, and therefore these small businesses are constantly under attack. Small companies need IT security, just as good and just as severely as big firms, but they don't have the budget.

I have been advocating for over a decade before the pandemic that we should see more work-from-home behavior since the technology is undoubtedly present. Some of this work-from-home shift will be permanent and probably for the betterment of everybody. The security attacks are real, so we're throwing most of our research and development behind it to stay ahead of these bad guys and keep everybody safe.

In IT and business, there are many ways to secure your environment, and a lot of it comes down to the IT provider's philosophy. We've always subscribed to a school of thought that you should take security down to the computer level's endpoint level. This turned out to be a good strategy because when everybody started working from home when the pandemic hit, they had their security in place.

Owning a business is not for the faint of heart, and I've always been very cautious and conservative. However, I think it was a little too careful, and if I could find a younger Chris, I’d tell him to take chances.

To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: petermargaritis.com

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“It's really about understanding what is your way that you uniquely contribute to your business, and most of the time, it's not going to be where you're spending most of your time.” Courtney DeRonde

Today, my guest is Courtney DeRonde, a CPA and managing partner of TDT CPAs and Advisors— the boutique advisory and accounting firm for small businesses and nonprofit organizations. The company helps overwhelmed, successful leaders, understand and maximize financial information to achieve better results and move the organizations to the next level.

As the owner of a firm and managing partner, she also has first-hand experience running and scaling a small business. Courtney understands the need to help and teach clients the importance of being more financially literate. When TDT takes on clients, they learn more about their business to become a better partner, not just for a transaction.

The first question that successful business owners ask is, “how does my business make money?” As businesses grow and scale, you get the increased activity that you're not directly involved with anymore. Therefore, the mindset shift is looking at good information that tells you where your business is making money.

The second question is about cash flow, and it is a shift from how much I have to what is flowing in and out of business over the next few weeks. Continuously looking at that helps eliminate surprises because most financial surprises are not usually positive. This mind shift allows you to be prepared and take action if things don't look good shortly and not just look at where you stand today.

Our approach with our clients is very much from an educational standpoint, and the goal is to empower them to understand and use the information that we give them to make decisions.

The third question is about determining the highest leverage of time and talents. It's really about understanding how you uniquely contribute to your business is. Most of the time, it's not going to be where you're spending most of your time.

Your product needs to be profitable, but it doesn’t have to be the best. It would be best to focus on the mix of something that you can do profitably and something that people need. Once you get something out there, you can improve it and make it better.

Often, people don't have accurate information in their heads about costs and overheads just because no one's helping them understand how all of this information flows. Pricing is a big part of how we help clients with recognizing and getting information around margins.

There’re certain times when it might make sense to lower your margin on a particular bid because of the future opportunities that can come from it. The main thing is knowing your actual margin to avoid paying to do the job instead of getting paid to do it.

If the price is a very sensitive issue, you need to give clients a couple of options. This gives them the opportunity and the agency to decide what they want.

To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: petermargaritis.com

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“Higher education needs to change how accounting is taught and align it with the critical power skills required to succeed in today's business climate.” Peter Margaritis

As an accountant, understanding how to sell yourself, both in an educational setting and in the workplace can help you succeed professionally.

Technical accounting skills are the foundation of accounting education. However, in today's accounting profession, technical skills are not enough to grow your career by themselves. You need to develop your power skills.

Power skills, aka soft skills, are helpful in just about any career and essential to communicate accounting complexities to those non-accounting business leaders. They include aspects like curiosity, self-awareness, empathy, and more.

According to the Josh Burson company blog, titled, ‘Let's Stop Talking About Soft Skills, They’re Power Skills’, states that the skills of the future are not technical, they're behavioral. The article goes on to state that IBM's latest research lists the top five power skills that are most critical in the workforce today are;

1.     willing to be flexible, agile, and adaptable to change.

2.     Time management skills and the ability to prioritize

3.     Ability to work effectively in team environments.

4.     Ability to communicate effectively in business contexts.

5.     Analytical skills and business acumen.

Considering how important they are for success both in your professional and personal development, it makes sense to begin the process of learning these power skills in the university classroom.

Accountants speak the foreign language of business — accounting, which is no different from speaking Spanish, Greek or Chinese to someone who's not fluent in the language. We need to be cognizant of this fact and become better translators of our technical accounting knowledge.

The college classroom allows us to experiment, fail, hone and gain confidence. Failure is a part of the process when we view learning any new skill. How do you eat an elephant‒one bite at a time. Higher education needs to change how accounting is taught and align it with the critical power skills required to succeed in today's business climate.

Let us begin to embrace the term financial leadership.

To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: petermargaritis.com

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“I truly believe that every person you meet has the power to change your life, and you have the power to change theirs.” Jen Nash

My guest today is Jen Nash, The Connector in Chief. Jen helps people add more meaning to their lives through connection. She's a master facilitator, passionate about masterful storytelling, corporate training, and an author and sought-after executive coach. With over 20 years working as an entrepreneur building a multimillion-dollar real estate portfolio, and offering consulting services to Fortune 100 former tech, health, and finance giants, Jen Nash now regularly inspires and supports leaders to deepen their connections of all the good things in life.

 Born in Canada and raised around the world, Jen is an IFC certified executive coach and a graduate of the coach of the Life program. She studied communication design at Parsons and the New York School of Social Research in New York City. When not traveling the globe learning new ways to say thank you in finding bright souls with whom to foster lifelong friendships, Jen Nash can be seen biking around New York City, Los Angeles, or striding around El Centro, Mexico.

People have this innate fear of talking and connecting with strangers, and it is human. In chapter two of my book, I ask the reader to scan the top eight excuses that come up to avoid connecting with people. I then ask them to pick the one that resonates with them, and I jump into it.

Networking to some degree sounds hard because there's a net underneath; you're working. I genuinely believe that if you want to stay employed for the rest of your life, you want a net around your work. But connecting is so much more because it is about infusing that little moment with intangible fun.

We really get hard on ourselves, and it's like from the outside to the inside, humans second guess themselves. One of the things that I suggest in the book is if you're feeling awkward, be honest, lean into that vulnerability and share that because all of a sudden, it just makes you human.

I think that in life, we have this misconception that there is such a thing as good and evil. Sometimes we all need to accept that we don't always get the final say. Unfortunately, I believe that humans only grow when they're in pain. One of the exciting things about the big power of tiny connections is these little sparks with other people that are not always pleasant.

When you look into the answer to what more you want out of life, you can understand where you might want to consider leaning in and connecting. I truly believe that every person you meet has the power to change your life, and you have the ability to change theirs.

There are a lot of people who are held back by fear. Only a courageous person can realize that they will never get more if they keep living precisely how they have been living. It is hard but sometimes, when you hold a spotlight at something scary, all of a sudden; it's not so frightening because the spotlight is illuminating all the dark crevices, and you're seeing it.

To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: petermargaritis.com

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