The Modern CPA Success Show: Episode 123

Joey Kinney, fellow Virtual CFO and host of the Young CPA Success Show, joins Tom as they share candid stories about the impact of stress on their personal and professional lives. They emphasize the importance of setting boundaries, prioritizing tasks, and creating a supportive work environment where stress can be openly discussed. They encourage leaders to address structural issues causing stress and to support their team in managing workloads. The episode concludes with a reminder that stress is a personal challenge and the importance of honest communication with employers about individual needs.

Intro (00:00:00) - Welcome to the Modern CPA Success Show, the podcast dedicated to helping accounting firms stay ahead of the curve. Our mission is to provide you with the latest and greatest insights on cutting edge tools, innovative marketing strategies, virtual CFO services, and alternative billing methods. Join us as we change the way people think about accounting.

Tom (00:00:22) - Joey says some people are probably in the modern CPA success show saying, who's this Joey guy? And some people are on your podcast. I knew this Tom guy. You want to tell me a little bit about what we're doing today?

Joey (00:00:31) - Sure. So yeah, one of the things we're trying to do, Tom, is merge some of our podcasting and create some more intentional opportunities for the various audiences to interact and work with each other. So, I'm here today representing the Young CPA Success Show and our, you know, more, you know, up and coming centric audience of working with accounting professionals. And we thought it would be great to talk with you and bring your modern CPA success show knowledge to talk about something that we know impacts people across the workplace, which is stress.

Tom (00:01:03) - Yeah. And so, I think it's a great conversation that people feel stress. And we've got leaders in place who can make some changes or support people on that. And so, to me, that makes it a valuable conversation. And we use ourselves as an example because we're human and have that kind of stress. And what are we doing to try to manage ourselves.

Joey (00:01:24) - Yeah. And I you know; I would love to hear from the audience too on this. You know, what sort of other things would you like to hear from us about in this same format? Because I think there are many opportunities for us to have great conversations that run the gamut, because as we talk about in the show coming up, our lives are not perfect circles. There's a lot of, you know, overlapping stuff there that we can do and learn from people. So, I'm looking forward to the conversation.

Tom (00:01:48) - Good. I hope people can relax for a minute, listen carefully and recognize that.

Tom (00:01:52) - That's right. Relax and then listen to stress.

Joey (00:01:55) - Yeah, get a little Zen.

Tom (00:01:56) - I hope people enjoy it.

Joey (00:01:58) - Let's start there, Tom. So, one of the things that we were talking about before, before we hit, recorded before we started the episode, is about stress and I think. The longer I've been working in, the more I've realized this. It's difficult to compartmentalize your life in that regard. And I think the assumption for a long time has been, you've got your work life and you've got your home life, and those two things should never intersect. Yeah. And I think what we've learned as we've studied this more and have read more and learned more and evolved as, as people and humans, that our understanding of how those things don't always. Completely stay separate is continuously evolving. So, I would love to talk to you about stress, and managing it at work, managing it at home, managing work and home stresses and having an interesting practical conversation about your experiences with it.

Tom (00:03:06) - Yeah, I think it's a great point. And I think maybe thinking that you can compartmentalize, and they shouldn't intersect. Yeah, it's wrong and maybe they should be allowed to. And I'm thinking that as people work more from home, it's probably even harder not to have worlds intersect as you're just feeling. Now I'm even closer.

Joey (00:03:24) - Yeah, because you no longer like your office. Like my office is, I don't know, 15 steps from my bedroom. Yours is just in another room at your house. It's not the. Those lines are becoming less and less blurred. And, you know, it's a challenge, right? Because whenever I look and think about myself, it's hard not to run everything through the lens of where I am. And then also remember, like. Everybody has different levels of stress, right? Like, I am fortunate enough to live in a stable household. I don't have a ton of there's a lot of people who are in a lot worse situations than I am, and I'm not.

Joey (00:04:02) - That's not lost upon me. So, I'm coming to this with a level of privilege. But regardless of where the stress is, there's some interesting statistics I found on a place from stress org, which seems like a decent place to talk with. I'm looking here to see if I can see where these statistics came from, but it's usually it's been within the last couple of years that they've made some reports here. Here's just some statistics, from, attitudes. In the American workplace, 80% of workers feel stress on the job and nearly half say they need help. And learning how to manage stress. 42% of those say their coworkers need help. So, you got 80% self-identifying, 42% saying, yeah, I might be good, but that guy really needs some help.

Tom (00:04:51) - Yeah and half are saying essentially, I'm not sure how to deal with this or I need to. Exactly. I'm not good at dealing with this.

Joey (00:04:59) - Exactly. And it's one of the things we've talked about on the young CPA success show is that as we think back to our education and sort of what trends are happening in education and in the workforce, we feel very prepared to handle life from like a technical perspective, like I feel very comfortable in my education, providing me the tools to handle, like the structural things of accounting, like making journal entries and reading financial statements. I feel so woefully unprepared for handling the human and emotional parts of work. Yeah. And humanity. And I think many people are feeling that too because where do you go to get help in your organization, I can't deal with this level of stress other than eating that grief and internalizing it?

Tom (00:05:50) - Right. Well, I off air, Joe, you mentioned an example of a stressful meeting and the impact later. Do you mind saying that? Because I'd love to talk a little bit more about that as an example.

Joey (00:05:59) - Sure, totally. So. And I'm fine given the full details. So, one of the things that I've kind of been on a journey on over the last, it's probably been about six years. So, six years ago, my dad had a health incident involving his heart that we didn't see coming. So historically, my family has low cholesterol, so we never thought health or heart health was something we needed to pay attention to. There's something that was happening to my dad where instead of having his arteries clogged with cholesterol, it was clogged with inflammation that was coming from stress. And his primary heart valve, or I guess, like the area where the blood travels through was 90% blocked from inflammation caused by stress. Yeah. And thankfully we caught it before anything happened. It required some significant lifestyle changes for him. But at that time, we kind of my now wife and I decided, well, let's start investigating this for ourselves. Let's start making some changes. So, we moved to a whole food plant-based diet.

Joey (00:07:06) - We started exercising regularly. We started running 5Ks, which led to 10Ks, which led to a half marathon which, you know, not sure I'm going to go do the full Tom Wadellton and do like 100-mile cross-country race up and down the side of mountains. But you know, it's a journey that we've been on. And one thing we've been monitoring closely through is bloodwork and metrics related to health, including blood pressure. So, my normal blood pressure is normal. 120 over 80 is kind of where my baseline is a little bit higher than I'd like it, but it's not in the danger zones. I had a stressful meeting here in the office regarding an onboarding that wasn't going particularly well, and having to deliver some difficult news to the client that they didn't take well. And about a half hour after that meeting ended, I had a normal follow up from a procedure I had earlier this week and my blood pressure at that time was 150 over 95, which is.

Tom (00:08:07) - Oh, that's really.

Joey (00:08:08) - Above hypertension and starting to get into like the danger zone. Yeah.

Tom (00:08:14) - And I was feeling it too. I assume you were in the office. You were feeling stressed.

Joey (00:08:17) - Yes, yes. And the sad part was I didn't feel as stressed as I felt in other situations, but I'm like, wow, I've now got this data point. That's showing me like, this is the toll that this is taking on your body. Right? And I'm sure you know, it's. My guess is, is that it's come back down. It's probably back to normal. But that data point is interesting, and it got me. I've spent the last two days just thinking about things like that. What is this doing to me? And. You know, how do we make sure that these jobs that we and these careers that fill us with so much satisfaction and, and joy also don't end up being the thing that kills us?

Tom (00:09:06) - Yeah.

Tom (00:09:07) - I'm curious, do you remember, Joey? Sort of.

Tom (00:09:09) - What was going through your mind is you're in the doctor's office. Was it? In terms of, like, I'm replaying the client meeting, I'm having the argument in my mind. What were you thinking about during that time?

Joey (00:09:19) - The challenge with this client is that the solution they need from us is not one we can give. So, we're feeling like we're tasked with solving a problem that is impossible for us to solve in a way that 100% satisfies what the client needs from us. Okay.

Tom (00:09:40) - And you don't want to be in this situation. Right. This is I don't want to okay.

Joey (00:09:43) - And it's one of those things where you know when you think about. And I've also had an interesting experience with anxiety. And one of the things that I noticed is that anxiety and stress tend to be linked for me. And one of the triggers of my anxiety is external locus of control. It's a well-known joke in the office I don't like getting on airplanes.

Joey (00:10:05) - It's hey, not something I love to do. The reason is I don't like being out of control in that situation, and I can't control if I need to leave. I can't leave because I'm on the tube in the middle of the year. Yeah. I think that was the stressful thing about that was we had an external locus of we can't. We don't know how we're going to solve this problem. And it was causing a stressful thing because this is a client we care about, and we want to see them succeed and do well. So that's I think that's where a lot of it was for, for me in this thing. But it could be anything else, whether it's a deadline that sure, you know, accounting has deadlines. You know, financials are due and sometimes life happens. And how do you deal with it? Taking your kid to the doctor. If you've got a financial statement that's due tomorrow. That's a very real, tangible thing that I know our team members are feeling too.

Joey (00:11:05) - And how do we create an environment? Yeah. That allows them to succeed there.

Tom (00:11:10) - Yeah. And in that example, the one that you gave your client I think is a good one because it's not an easy solution. It's not I can delegate, which is why it becomes stressful. And I assume you don't want to disappoint them, don't want to disappoint people internally by saying, you know, go figure it out. Or we knew this, or we didn't know this. Why are you doing this? All that kind of stuff can go through your mind.

Joey (00:11:32) - Yeah.

Tom (00:11:33) - That is really. I don't have a simple answer for that. The one when I asked if it was ruminating something that and I'm not sure if this was a case for you, but if I've had difficult client meetings, I can find myself essentially having an argument in my head with the client where you're debating over and over. The one thing that has helped sometimes with that is, and I got I heard this from someone else.

Tom (00:11:55) - But asking yourself when you go over things in your mind is this useful? Right? If I'm going over that argument for the 20th time in a row, is it still a useful argument to have? And maybe you would say, well, the first time it does make sense, because the next time I talked to Joey about this, now I've sort of thought about this and said, hey, Joey, let's have this conversation.

Joey (00:12:13) - Well, and that self-awareness, I think is important too.

Tom (00:12:16) - I'm sorry.

Joey (00:12:16) - Self-awareness in that is important to like, I think it's a good, healthy habit to sit there and say, well, could I have done something different here?

Tom (00:12:24) - Sure. Yeah.

Tom (00:12:25) - But you might acknowledge that there's a point of saying, okay, it's no longer useful. And sometimes that acknowledgement can help me say, stop doing that, okay. It's not useful. I'll put it aside. I realize what I'm doing. And like you said, the self-awareness that you catch yourself like, oh, all I'm doing is replaying that over and over, and I'm frustrated because I'm trying to watch TV with my wife and I'm totally distracted and like, then you can say, okay, let me come back to where I'm supposed to be because I'm not helping myself by that.

Tom (00:12:49) - Part and.

Joey (00:12:50) - That again. And I think family members feel that, too. I'm sure you're I'm if you've ever been on the receiving end of this comment, raise your hand. You're not even here with me right now like you're here, but you are not here. That happens to me all the time, right? And it's a challenge, and I'm sure that's not the type of husband or father you want to be. Yeah, you know.

Tom (00:13:15) - That totally true.

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Tom (00:13:59) - Yeah. And if I can share it, just to give an example, because I certainly don't have all the solutions for stress. But one of the things that causes me the most stress is being in one place, or doing one thing and feeling like I should be somewhere else. Yeah. And so just this week, it was an excellent example that I had mentioned earlier. My wife had some health issues, and she was in the hospital. We had made the agreement, hey, I'll be at work, and I'll come down after that. You're being taken care of. I was also supposed to participate in all day meeting that was on site, but I said I'll come virtually. They were cool with that. The problem was, I didn't completely clear my calendar. Oh, so I'm at home feeling like I should probably be at the hospital. I'm trying to pay attention to the meeting, and I'm worrying about I'm going to have to step out of this meeting, and I hadn't told him ahead of time. So that's stressful.

Tom (00:14:41) - So, you're like, I'm doing one thing. I feel like I should be doing another. What I should have done is just totally come clean with each one. My wife was fine and told the group, I'm going to be here for this time, and I'll step out. But what I found is just feeling like I'm not in any place. And then, you know, you go down that sort of downward spiral of why didn't you manage this? And I'm going to beat myself up. And at some point, if I'm good at it, I stop and say, okay, which one are you going to do? Commit to it and do it. But that's where I find myself just kind of not planning and doing the wrong thing at that time.

Joey (00:15:12) - Well, and I think the, you know, one of the things that I struggled with a lot early in my career is how do you manage those competing interests, right. Like how you do you've got 19 things that need to get done. And it's a zero-sum game in certain things.

Joey (00:15:27) - Like you can't be in two places at once. And how do you prioritize? Yeah. So, and I think it's a structural thing that you've got to. You've got to recognize. Right. Like you, you know, I think if you could go back and armchair quarterback your performance on, on your calendar management, I think you self-identified like, well, I could have solved this problem for myself by just making a slight tweak. In advance. 

Tom (00:15:52) - I agree. I agree completely and it would have been either. Yeah, you choose one of those two things and go forward with that. Which gets me to also there's a piece of sometimes those 19 priorities can be boundary conversations of saying upfront, if I had said no, I won't, that could have been better. There's no black and white. I'm never going to make a mistake again in this. But that recognition of, you know what? I just should have said no. Because when Joey asked me to do something I didn't want to, I'm like, yeah, I probably could.

Tom (00:16:18) - And then when the date gets there, I feel bad, but I don't want to back out. Yeah, I if you can play that back to say, okay, next time it happens, I'm going to say, you know what, it's a hard conversation to have you with you, but I'm not going to do that. And we'll have that. And then I am freed up later and I'm happier.

Tom (00:16:31) - Yeah.

Joey (00:16:32) - Or even just like, hey, I can't commit to this, but I can commit to this other thing. Yeah. Is there room for a conversation here? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree.

Tom (00:16:42) - So I can tell you a couple of the strategies I do and sometimes I do. Well sometimes I don't on an ongoing basis. Exercise I think is one that really helps, just physically getting things out can help. And then I feel like, okay, I'm doing some of that. I have meditation practice, and many tips they will give are helpful, like around self-awareness.

Tom (00:17:03) - That was the same thing. Is this useful? And even just at points of being stressful, if I can remember to take a step back and say even, it's just things like, okay, am I, am I physically safe at this very moment and just sort of come back and ground yourself and say, there might be a point where I'm escalating the stress on my own doesn't always work, but sometimes it does. Or I can calm myself down and say, how do I kind of look at these things?

Tom (00:17:25) - Yeah.

Tom (00:17:26) - Is there anything when you've had a relationship with anxiety? Are there some things that do work? Well, even though it's not perfect?

Joey (00:17:32) - It's funny. One of the things you mentioned reminded me a lot of the best piece of practical advice that I had around my anxiety was, was, simply just acknowledging, you know, I used to sit there and say to myself, thank you, anxiety, I appreciate you, but I'm safe. I'm good. Thank you for doing your job.

Joey (00:17:49) - But I'm good and sometimes just acknowledging that helps. I think the other boundaries are something I think that. It is a very interesting conversation to have around. You know, that's a learned skill. I think I am learning how to have those conversations because there's a fine line between setting healthy boundaries for yourself. And not doing it in a way that comes off sounding like a jerk. You know, I've personally struggled with that because, you know, as someone who, you know, loves to say yes and loves to be a helper and wants to do those things, you really do genuinely want to do that.

Tom (00:18:31) - Yeah.

Joey (00:18:32) - And sometimes I found with myself, I've had to learn a little bit about how to do that in a manner that's constructive, rather than just saying. You know, pushing it off, pushing it off, pushing it off and then exploding on someone and saying, I can't do that anymore. You've pushed me past my limit. Instead of defining that upfront and saying, okay, here's kind of what I think I can do.

Joey (00:18:53) - Here's where I think I can help, and here's sort of what I think I can do, and the timelines or whatever the parameters of the of the situation happened to be. It. I didn't understand what clear kind is meant until I started thinking about it from that perspective and said, no, no, no, I'm not being a jerk up front if I'm saying, here's what I can commit to and it's realistic, it's not aspirational, it's realistic. What can I commit to on this timeline, does this work for you? 

Tom (00:19:22) - Yeah. I think you've got a great point. I wonder if one thing that I heard, and this is Tim Ferriss, who is a podcaster, mentioned this, can you make one decision now that can help you not make 100 decisions later?

Tom (00:19:34) - Yes.

Tom (00:19:35) - His example was he came to the point where he said, I am not going to accept any speaking engagements unless it hit one kind of criteria. Yeah. You said that way all the things that came in, he just kind of repeated that of, hey, now I'm not doing this.

Tom (00:19:48) - I've had similar with an active conversation about the moment. I can't take on non-work-related, like, can you sit on this board or help with a group? Yeah. At that point you're saying, okay, for six months I have to say no to everything. And that way I don't have each one saying, but Joey likes me, and it does sound like fun. And this. And then I end up regretting that kind of thing. I wonder, have you had anything similar where you can sort of see themes or things like that, where you can just say, okay, it's got to be a no to everything, and then it's just a matter of telling people versus stressing about should this one be a yes?

Joey (00:20:18) - Yeah. So, and that is it. You mentioned a great point there, which is when someone asks you to sit on a board. It's an honor, right?

Tom (00:20:28) - Yeah.

Joey (00:20:29) - And when people are when you're when your kind of the go to person in an organization, it's.

Joey (00:20:37) - There's some pride that you can have there, right? Yeah. You know, and there's nothing there's nothing wrong with that but one, I'll tell you a great a great example, Tom, that you and I have talked about before, earlier this year here in, in the organization, they, they asked me to kind of sit on some webinars and kind of do those types of things and for whatever reason, I can handle podcasting, differently than I handle hosting a webinar. and some of the feedback I got was like, man, I had no idea that you were struggling with this so much because I'm adept at hiding it, and a lot of it was internal. It's the proverbial duck on the surface, but the legs are turning underneath. Sure. And, you know, I had to have a conversation with our marketing team and said, hey, thank you all for thinking of me on this. Like, I, I'm, I'm happy I did a couple of them. It's just not something that I'm set up for success on.

Joey (00:21:36) - And I think I would be doing y'all a disservice long term if I'm the if I'm the solution here. And. I immediately felt better.

Tom (00:21:46) - Good.

Joey (00:21:46) - About it because it, you know, it's like on the one. Am I sad to not do the webinars? Yeah. Because when you do execute it, like you get that little bit of that adrenaline rush and you're like, it's great. The lead up to it was so bad. My wife was like, Joey, you are a different person. Yeah. These mornings. That was the key for me. Yeah, that's, that's, that's the boundary that, that I need to solve. I can do all the podcasts you asked me to, but that's the line. Yeah, that I can't cross over.

Tom (00:22:17) - I like you exploring that. In that case, there's a bit of self-protection if you know what it does to you. Because I remember you told me this, but the feedback I gave you was honest, as you did a great job and hit it well.

Tom (00:22:29) - And I remember you were doing the introduction that I often due to the webinars. And as I was watching you do it, I was learning and saying, hey, there's a better way that I can do it because Jody's just killing it. So, it surprised me. And you said, I don't want to do this because I was like, let you hit it, but I will compliment you by saying, but it's not worth it to my own emotional well-being. And I think you must look at that and say, yeah, I would like to do that. And that is just not for me. And you.

Tom (00:22:52) - Have. Yeah.

Joey (00:22:52) - And it's and I also told them it's not a no forever. It's just to your point, it's a no for right now. It's a no for until I, you know and it's you know it's something that I'm constantly working on as well is, you know, I can't not get on an airplane forever. I know there's some things I need to work on, solve, and do those types of things for myself and my family.

Joey (00:23:16) - But, you know, there's nothing wrong with saying, hey, it's a no for now. but let's explore this down the road if I can get things figured out, to where I do. Where I can do it. Because it is. It is fun. And I'd. I'd love to do it, but, you know, that was just that was the proverbial bridge too far on that one piece. 

Tom (00:23:36) - Yes. If we think of tools to help with stress, the other one that has helped me has. And for me it's the getting things done approach by David Allen. Yeah. And so, an organizational model that I at least understand what's in front of me. And the other thing and what this solves is another piece of stress for me is, in my mind, going through all the things I must do. And I don't want to forget something. Yeah. And I've often had the experience of when it's written down and organized, then often I'm like, I can get it done or I need to go tell Joey it's going to be another week.

Tom (00:24:06) - And that makes me feel better because I have time to do stuff. So just feeling like, hey, when the world's crazy and it's all coming in, I at least have a way of collecting and knowing what's there. And I'm not going to just spin out of control with that. And so having something that you're saying, yep, I can at least do it. I'm not Superman. And I have found that with many of my clients, when they ask for something, I often interpret that they want a quick response. And I've rarely had a case where I've gone back and said, can I get that to you within two weeks? Did they not come back and said, yes, that's okay. Yeah. But if I don't do that often, it's like, oh, he asked for something that means he wants it now. And suddenly, you're like, why did I stop working on what I was doing? And did a left turn? Suddenly, I'm 15 minutes into this.

Tom (00:24:47) - And all it was is I glance at an email, and it happened to be I wasn't even looking for that email. I went to my email to get something else. I'm like, okay, get some control, write it down and have a process for that.

Joey (00:24:57) - No, I remember when I first joined summit, I watched your training because you did the internal training for us on GTD, which I think is a great thing. And the thing I took from that was exactly what you're saying. If you've got all those ideas bouncing around in your head. That's you know, we're not built like our brains. Pareto principle. Everything. Right? They sit there and say, "I'm going to pay attention to the 20% that matters, and the 80% is going, bye. So, getting those things written down so that, you know that that's where your home base is, like I, you know, a tool that I love using for that is my remarkable, creating a good a good system of like, note taking and centralized organization and stuff like that.

Joey (00:25:39) - That's wonderful. that's been very helpful for me too.

Tom (00:25:43) - Yeah, that's good. Then, from a conceptual standpoint, we've talked about it a little bit, and I think you said it well acknowledging that stress happens. We must live with it. And for me, one of the worst things when I'm starting to feel anxiety, I make it much worse. When I feel like I shouldn't feel anxiety because I'm whatever I work for 30 years, I should be able to handle this by now. Now, none of that is helpful and it's a very quick spot. You can go down versus like you say, okay, that was a rough meeting with the client. I didn't like it and like how it went. Well, just acknowledge this doesn't feel very good. Here's what I can do versus spending a lot of time wishing that it didn't go that way, that you have no control over that part.

Joey (00:26:22) - Yeah. And I'm glad you mentioned that because the thing I wanted to end with here is that, you know, stress is not something I think a lot of times, we feel as humans that we have to, you know, internalize and eat the stress and we can't let anybody know and we can't talk to anybody about it.

Joey (00:26:37) - I think that's the worst mistake you can make is. Yeah, not acknowledging it. And I think my challenge for the leaders listening to this podcast is, you know, if you know, your team is stressed, or you feel like your team might be stressed and they're not talking to you about it. That's a clue that you need to change something in your organization because I, I mean, one of the reasons I was 10 to 15 minutes late to this recording was I was having a conversation with, our people officer about what I learned at the doctor this week and what that means for me long term. And you know what, you know, as our organization continues to change, what sort of my boundaries and needs for myself need to need to be in there and just had an open and honest conversation with him about this isn't anything that I'm expecting to be solved overnight, but I have to tell you that this is an issue. Yeah, because A, I need to give you an opportunity to work with me on it but B, I also can internalize this and just be sitting on this piece of information that I know.

Joey (00:27:41) - So the challenge for the leaders there is that if you if you if your people aren't talking, your people are stressed. The statistics show that your people are stressed, and if they're not talking to you about it, that means they don't feel like they can in a safe space. So, now's a great time for you to look at yourself internally and see what changes you can make in your structure to help facilitate those conversations healthily.

Tom (00:28:03) - Do you think of the kind of questions that have helped you to where you feel comfortable telling someone it can be, especially if it's a boss right there? Sometimes where we would like to present ourselves as I've got everything under control. Do you think of a way someone can make that feel safe for you to say, well, I'm really stressed about this.

Joey (00:28:20) - That conversation must come from leadership. I think so I think leadership has to leadership has to ask the questions. It kind of feels a little bit like, I hate to I don't have kids, but when I when I talk to my mom about how they how they handled parenting, my mom said a lot of times there are certain things that aren't your job as the kid.

Joey (00:28:45) - It's my job as the parent to get these pieces of information out of you. And I think it's our job as leaders to be able to ask some types of questions about, you know. You know whether it's not just to how are you feeling? But like hey, how are you feeling? Yeah. And, you know, there's a fine line between, you know, obviously, like no organization, especially with leaders, is going to be perfectly done without some sort of delegation. But if you are delegating something to somebody and you're not checking in with them to make sure that long term that's sustainable for them or that they have the tools to handle it, you're only creating a bigger problem for yourself and your organization. So, from my perspective, it starts with leaders saying, I need you, my, my team to understand that this is a safe place. This is a place where you can talk to me about what's going on in your life. And I can't promise an immediate solution.

Joey (00:29:44) - But I can promise that we will do everything that we can right now. And if it makes sense for us to do it long term, great. We can. But I think it starts with leaders. Leaders must create that environment. If you're just waiting for employees to bubble that up, it's never going to happen.

Tom (00:30:01) - Right. Yeah.

Tom (00:30:03) - I've had success with bosses who will say things like, hey, this can be, you know, I'll pick right now. We're early in the year. This can be one of the most stressful times during the year because you're trying to finish last year, get budgets in place, tax prep, all that stuff. Yeah, this can be one of the worst. How are you doing with that? Yeah, there's an opening. Or it could be maybe it's more specific about hey, I understand what this client, we've made a bunch of changes, and they were unhappy, and we've all done again, sort of. How is that going for you to sort of open that?

Tom (00:30:30) - Peace up.

Tom (00:30:30) - If you're stressed as a leader, you can also say, hey, I'm feeling stressed about this. How are you doing? Which totally, you've opened. Hopefully you've opened that door where someone feels comfortable acknowledging.

Joey (00:30:41) - And you can ask like, do we have the structure in place? Do you feel comfortable with your checks? Do you feel comfortable with your delegation? Do you feel comfortable with even if it's something as, have you made a list of all the things you need to get to so you can check those things off the list? Like, you know, and I think it helps to be an example like Tom, it's fantastic when you sit there and say, here are some of the things that I'm doing to kind of help. Keep from internalizing some of these things. The other thing, too, that I love to remind my team and remind my folks is that. This is an accounting centric podcast sometimes, but yes, there really is no such thing as an accounting emergency.

Joey (00:31:22) - Like, you know, if we need to have a conversation with the client about deadlines, we need to have the conversation. And as you know, I've gone to something that had to happen this week. We had a client meeting scheduled on Wednesday that when I had that little health issue pop up over this week, I just sent a message to my senior and said, hey, this is happening. Can you just move this back to next week? Yeah, because, you know, 2023 is done. Whether we review it this Wednesday or next Wednesday, it's not really going to change anything for the client. Yeah. And it couldn't have gone smoother. Everybody was very happy. And you know if we needed to sell it to them the sell point would have been I would rather be able to give you a dynamite presentation a week from now than a not so good one today.

Tom (00:32:06) - Yeah.

Tom (00:32:07) - And you know, Joey, you just made me think as the leader, if there are things that I can do to help alleviate some of that stress, and I found that most of my team members don't ask me to do everything.

Tom (00:32:16) - They don't say, can you just do my job, or can you just not do this? But if it's something like, well, I'm stressed because I'm not getting the documents from the client, that can be very much okay. So, you've asked and they're just not responding. Right? Okay, great. Let me go ahead and contact him and say Joey's asked three times if it doesn't get here by then, we're not doing it often from the team members are thrilled to have that sort of air cover. Yeah, that comes in and do that and say, I can try to push and make that happen. And so, if there are things you can do, sometimes it can be prioritized. Oh, that's done. Why don't I go tell the client it's going to be a week late? Yeah. Sometimes you can't. Sometimes they just want to be listened to. But if there's a chance to say, what can I do that would make some of this go away? You can try to do some things.

Joey (00:32:58) - And if it's a recurring structural problem, you know that this report that I need is never done in time.

Joey (00:33:03) - Or, you know, we've got an outsourced bookkeeper that we're working with, and we can't quite seem to get the timelines aligned. That is the perfect opportunity for you as a leader to come in and in cinematic terms, kind of play the heavy a little bit, right? You play heavy, get in there and say, okay, here's what we need for this to be successful. If it can't happen, then we need to reevaluate our plan to go forward.

Tom (00:33:28) - Yeah.

Joey (00:33:28) - And if that doesn't come from the leader, then it's like that's something that must come from the leader in my opinion I agree.

Tom (00:33:35) - I agree. Yeah. You know, you said something very big. I think it was important around. I think what you said is I don't want to get to the point where I want to self-select and say, maybe accounting is not for me. Yeah. So having the strategy, because I would believe for many people, and it may be okay. Yes.

Tom (00:33:47) - It's not accounting. I think for many people, if they're feeling stressed in the workplace, it's really driven crazy switching to another kind of job. They're probably going to have similar kinds of things in that job, too. This is probably a personal thing for many people. And so, I think you can acknowledge it's important, I can manage it, I can make it better. Maybe I can't make it perfect, but hopefully not just saying, oh, I want to go to a job that's not stressful because it likely for people doesn't really exist, right?

Joey (00:34:13) - Because if you if you're a high performer, you're going to be a high performer no matter where you go. If you put a lot of pressure on yourself to perform, you're going to put a lot of pressure on yourself to perform. And I think it's I think the allure of that for folks might be, you know, well, at least I'm the one who's in charge of what I'm willing to take on or not. you know. We'll see.

Joey (00:34:34) - But, you know, it's it is something where when I think about. Pie in the sky type aspirations for this field and not just the accounting world too. I mean, we work with a lot of a lot of different people, across a lot of different industries, who I'm sure are all my clients who are very concerned about their team health. They're very concerned about whether this is something our team can do. Are we being the type of employer that we want to be? And I think that's, you know. It's important to identify within yourself what your boundaries and limits are. And again, just have those conversations if you start with yourself but then, you know, try to figure out a way to. Work within the structures because, you know, most employers are not unreasonable people. They want. We all know from a business perspective, it's a lot more beneficial for the organization to keep a good person than to have to try to replace them, right. So, you know, if you don't give your employer the opportunity to work with you on it, then, you know, you're kind of tying their hands to begin with, too.

Joey (00:35:37) - So, it's a symbiotic relationship that must happen there.

Tom (00:35:42) - Yeah, I think that's great. And those are well spoken. Probably a good place to be close to where we've talked about.

Tom (00:35:49) - Good examples of stress and some tools that can make it better, and specially creating an environment. If you're a leader, how do you make it so that people feel better about that and can get things done?

Joey (00:35:58) - Well, Tom. Thank you. This has been a this has been a pleasure.

Tom (00:36:01) - Good. Thank you for me too. Yeah.

Outro (00:36:04) - Enjoy this podcast. Visit our website. Summit CPA Dot net to get more tips and strategy for achieving modern CPA firm success. We are here to be a resource in this ever-changing industry.