April 20, 2020 • 32 mins
Ever wish you had a friend who understood the ins and outs of your multidisciplinary life and also spoke finance fluently? Consider Claire Van Holland your new BFF. Claire tells us how she moved from corporate media to furniture and home goods, and then to the CV Ledger, her accountancy firm for creatives — all while dancing along the way. Listen in for business real talk without jargon or judgement, and guidance on how to build a financial foundation with the same gusto as you approach your chosen work.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Limit Does Not Exist is a production of I
Heart Radio. Mm Hey, I'm Christina Wallace and I'm Kate
Scott Campbell and You're listening to the Limit does Not Exist.
A podcast for Human then Diagrams, coming at you every
(00:21):
single week and hosted by us. Have you ever wished
you had a friend who understood the ins and outs
of your creative, multidisciplinary life, but also spoke finance fluently,
someone you could turn to for a bit of business
model real talk without the jargon or judgment that some
(00:43):
financial advisors have. Well, consider us your fairy godmother's because
this wish just came true. Our guest today is Claire
van Holland, a dancer turned small business owner who digs
mid century modern furniture and bookkeeping in equal measure. Claire
tells us all about how she pivoted from a first
career in media to opening a furniture business with her
(01:03):
husband and then launching her own accountancy firm. We get
right to brass tacks and ask Claire for some financial
advice that benefits all human ben Diagrams. So what are
we waiting for? Let's jump in. Let's do it. You know, Claire,
something that we like to do to kick it off
(01:25):
is to throw you one of our favorite questions, which is,
how do you introduce yourself and what you do. I
run a small accounting practice, and I work with a
lot of creatives and small business owners on the weekends
and some evenings. I am also a dance performer. So
(01:45):
let's unpack that first part of your response. Your website
describes you as a creative first who just happens to
like crunching numbers. Can you tell us a little bit
about how you developed both sides of that identity. It
was out of this necessity. For as long as I
can remember, I've always been really attuned to wanting to
(02:05):
dance and perform, but then being raised by Catholic parents
who are relatively you know, I mean there are immigrants
from the Philippines, so you know, they always want the
best and a career in the arts, especially first generation
into the United States. I think to have our children
working in the arts isn't the most stable path. While
(02:29):
it was supported for me to do the arts and
take dance classes and all of that, I think that
to really pursue it as a career was never like
this huge wave of excitement on that front. So I
kind of knew that all along, and really kind of,
just as much as possible, allowed myself to look into, well,
(02:52):
if I'm going to do a career, pursue a career
that isn't in the arts, what does that start to
look like for me, and the trades that might parents
were in. My mother, like so many other Filipino American
women or Filipino women in the United States, was a
nurse and r n and my dad was trained and
(03:12):
went to school as an electrical engineer. When he came
to United States, he ended up just working in office administration,
so not really fully doing what he had gone to
school for because it would have required going back to
school again after having been working in So it was
sort of a lot when I look at my parents
as role models and what was in my immediate threshold
(03:34):
of well, what are the things I can do? I
knew I definitely didn't want to be a nurse. It's
just not my thing. I mean, I have so much
respect for people who work within the healthcare industry and
care for people directly in this way, but I kind
of always knew that my traits were better suited for
office work, which is so lame. It was like, well,
(03:55):
it's like I'm not going to be dancing on stage
or choreographing or performing professionally. Then it's some sort of
office work. And so over the course of the years,
while dancing always sort of navigated my way in college
into media arts. I started off as a publisher's assistant
and sort of wove my way in a career in
(04:17):
media from that point on. So from there I moved
on to working for General Motors Media arm, planning digital
media for General Motors, specifically Chevrolet. That led me to
eventually taking on a role and moving out to Los
Angeles with my Space, so working with my Space on
the web production side, and I was there for a
(04:39):
handful of years, and then eventually moved on to working
with the digital arm for Disney or one of the
many digital arms for Disney for maybe just under a year,
and then from there worked for my longest stretch of
time with anybody with Pandora Radio. And I was with
them at the very very height of when everyone was
still using and listening to Pandora Radio. So all along
(05:02):
really kind of just getting the full ins and outs
all aspects of media, whether it was, you know, a
project management type capacity to actual revenue, business operations, planning,
things like that. So it was really all very valuable
along the way. But I would have to say that
all of those years in digital media and working in
corporate I kind of knew that it wasn't my calling.
(05:25):
So even with Pandora and being in a position where
it was honestly a really really great job to be
in within corporate America, I just knew that it just
wasn't ultimately going to be where I ended up at,
And it took me a while to understand and figure
out from myself like what that really looked like. Along
the way, you and your husband started a furniture company
(05:46):
called House van Holland tell us about that. It was
really just kind of a passion project at first we
both loved and a lot of our early relationship was
developed and centered around this of appreciation for mid century
design and just design of all kinds. He grew up
in the Pacific Northwest and his grandfather had been trying
(06:08):
to take down the dairy barn that my husband grew
up and no one in Oregon really wanted it, and
so he messaged the family and was like, hey, guys,
no one wants to buy the wood or the wants
the barn, so I'm just going to burn it down.
And my husband was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, no,
we're started doing this furniture thing, or starting to you know,
(06:30):
maybe I'll just go up there, I'll take the barn
down myself and if you're okay with it, I'm going
to just take all the wood, which is exactly what
he did, and we started a reclaimed furniture line with
it and started selling. What was the moment that you
realized you wanted to open an accounting firm alongside your work.
I mean, a small business is a lot to take
(06:51):
on all on its own, and you decided why not
have a second small business alongside them? What was that about?
After a couple of years of having the furniture business,
we started picking up pretty decent traction with you know
what we were selling. All of a sudden, there was
sort of this renewed sense of younger folks, you know,
(07:12):
millennial aged folks, wanting to do something a little bit
more than just working. It wasn't just us, It was
like just handful of folks just doing these new things,
never tried before who eventually kind of evolved and grew
into bigger companies, and so I'd like to think of
ourselves as sort of being part of that wave a
little bit around. It really was just this collective feeling
(07:36):
of like small business like really wanting to just kind
of come out and express and create and create something
meaningful to people. And so out of that, simultaneously, I
was evolving my role at Pandora into one that really
focused on business operations, and at the time I had
moved from sort of like a digital project management group
(07:59):
into sort of a more strategic business operation revenue focused role.
That kind of stuff has always been interesting to me.
Usually people just want to move up and manage more people,
and at the time I kind of just was like, Uh,
I don't know if that's so much something I want
to do, as much as I find a lot of
value and understanding how to work with numbers and understanding
(08:23):
the analytics and the business operations in such way that
is helpful and gives me a better lens on how
are we going to grow this corporation, how are we
going to expand this business? And I wasn't at the
time when I shifted roles within Pandora. Wasn't really thinking
about it so much as it applied to small business
at all. It was sort of just that's kind of
how I've always thought. However, it's sort of just perfectly aligned,
(08:47):
I guess, because actually the things that I'm doing for
this role can really be applied to small business in
a lot of ways. Claire, what are a couple of
those basic principles? Are there specific challenges that you find
it artists or creative small businesses face when it comes
to finance and data that you want to address for them? Absolutely.
(09:08):
I think the first is the thought around setting up
a business operations infrastructure is not the first thing that
comes to mind for people, right, It's just not something
that anyone's really taught. And so usually when people decide
to work with software, especially in the guise of a
(09:28):
small business, it's out of a reaction as opposed to
is this the best one? Yeah, I mean maybe some
of those questions are being asked, certainly. I mean the
words accounting in bookkeeping too. I know a lot of
fellow creatives often feel like the antithesis of creativity that
you wouldn't be leaning in towards those maybe from the
(09:49):
get go. And I think the thing that most people
don't really think about the larger piece, because they might think, okay,
well this is a good PayPal it's easy, or square stripe, Yeah,
well use that as a payment processor because it's easy.
So that's usually kind of like the quick sort of
dialogue that folks have when they're selecting different software to
work with for the business. But the larger and overarching
(10:12):
question that people really don't think about is how does
all of this stuff connect, because that's the thing that
will ultimately drive just how sustainable the back end from
the infrastructure for the business really is or not. I
mean that's where the friction is of like if you
have to download one data set of transactions and then
you're trying to sink it with your quick books, but
(10:34):
it doesn't sink properly, so your manually entering stuff like
that can eat up a lot of not just time
but happiness. Yeah exactly, And usually folks will hit the
wall when they realize it just how much work it's
required to connect all the things, just the complexity of
getting it all integrated, and then they're like, I don't
(10:55):
really want to think about this, and I need to
think about making money, which is fair, I need to
worry about all these other things, and so the infrastructure
and building it properly becomes literally the last thing on
the list to do. But unfortunately that's also going to
be the thing that makes or breaks. I mean, good
cash flow can hide a lot of bad habits in
a business. I think it's also just so easy for
(11:17):
it to be a blind spot because, as you said,
it's really not ever taught. Certainly it wasn't to me,
and you're so kind of focused on what is my product,
how do I market it? How do I bring this
thing out into the world, and that creative side that
(11:37):
it can really feel daunting to even crack the surface
of the infrastructure side, And certainly from what I've experienced,
it doesn't feel like it's set up to be accessible.
It probably isn't something that most people don't want to
spend money on. You feel like there's already so many
expenses in setting up whatever it is you do as
(12:01):
a business, as you know, tracking where the money is
going and how you're paying taxes and all of the
other requirements that like investing more time and money into
what feels like what is overhead probably is right up
there with a root canal in terms of things you
want to do. But I think what you're saying, and
certainly we know this to be true, is like figure
(12:23):
it out while it's simple and small, because as it grows,
it doesn't get simpler. It never's more and more complicated, exactly.
And I always explain to everybody, not everybody, but especially
the folks who are so new or just at the
very beginning of building out the business. Yeah, you might
(12:44):
not have a lot going on right now from a
transaction volume standpoint, but this is actually the perfect time
for you to dig in deep with all of this
stuff to get it set up so that as that
volume comes or increase, is you're absolutely ready and there
are no questions asked. You're just going and it's like, okay, well,
(13:05):
I know now that I got to do this as
the volume increases as much as possible as little that
you're not going backwards. You're not being reactive because you
were already proactive from the very beginning. Let's say that
(13:34):
I have multiple streams of income just off the top
of my head, not related to myself at all. Let's
say that I have a podcast acting work, consulting work,
and directing gigs. So as you're talking about some sort
of basic practices to put in place, how do I
begin to wrap my head around organizing all of this
(13:54):
not just for understanding my flow in and out every month,
but for things like taxes. What are some basics that
I can start thinking about to get ahold of my
financial life. Separating all of your accounts. Honestly, it sounds
super extra, but when it comes to tax time, you'll
be able to look at everything a little bit more
(14:15):
holistically if all of your accounts for each of those
endeavors are separated. I get the point of keeping, for instance,
the podcast separate from maybe her acting and directing work.
But do you think, like really keep each of those
lines of work truly separate, even in things that are
related like acting and directing, or could that be considered
(14:36):
one job, one kind of line of work when it
comes to her financial planning, her taxes, her all the
other things. Acting directing absolutely would kind of fall under
the same umbrella. So you don't have to have like
seventeen bank accounts. Just do a lot of different things,
but maybe think about thematically the different lines of work
(14:58):
you do and then try to keep those is a
little bit more separated. I really like that in terms
of thinking of these themes or buckets of organization from
a financial perspective and just from a practice perspective. Well,
I think it helps you keep things separate and easy
to track without creating like this level of complexity that
(15:18):
all of us, you know, like when you try to
keep things too organized, the second you have a mess
in the middle of it, you might just throw up
your hands and walk away. Like that seems like there's
kind of a nice happy medium if you commel between there. Okay,
So I have another question. In project based freelance work,
it can be nearly impossible to know what your next
(15:40):
six months will look like, and often two months are
never the same. So how can freelancers or just creatives
that have kind of that lumpy year, how can they plan?
How can they be strategic with their finances when freelance
planning sounds a little bit of it like an oxymoron? Yeah, absolutely,
(16:04):
I mean I think the first thing is and this
is not even just freelance, but I think especially for
freelancers this would be the case. But it's one figuring
out what are your absolute must have expenses month to month,
what does a single month look like, and making sure
that you're starting to build a reserve for one month
(16:26):
and then maybe two months, because again, as you said,
you might have a really really great month or two
months or three months, and then you know, followed by
one to three months or more who knows of just
not so great months, And so it's in the times
of the good months. Once you have that calculation of
life I need to live, like keep the roof over
(16:48):
my head, get the insurance, just the very bare minimum,
and feed myself, put gas in the car. So identifying
what those expenses are, calculating what that looks like for
just one month, and then as you're getting paid on
especially during the good months, obviously paying off all the
expenses that you owe right away, but taking any reserve
that you have and throwing it into a savings I
(17:10):
think that's great advice, certainly, and I've mentioned this on
our show before. I've never had a year that's looked
like another year, and I just, particularly right now, as
we all know, with the world feeling absolutely uncertain, that
idea of knowing what that minimum is and thinking about
(17:31):
taking some of that extra and holding it into a reserve.
I really like that. I think that's great advice. It's
always good to do an audit of every single penny
that you're spending, because I can almost promise that by
examining every single penny that goes out as painful as
it is in the moment of doing it, because it
(17:51):
is painful for absolutely every single person, you'll probably find
some amount of money that you're spending that you're going, wait,
why am I spending this? You know, like, what is
this ten dollars? What is this subscription that I forgot about?
You know? And we all have that, and so this
is the time to really go through and identify that
(18:13):
and ideally, if we were all super on top of it,
to just keep a really close eye on all of
those things, so then that way unnecessary money isn't being
spent and we could, you know, potentially save more. It's
just not easy to look at our numbers without feeling
some level of anxiety. And at the end of the day,
the more we look at it, the more control we
actually have over it, the sooner we can do something
(18:35):
about it. Claire, listening to you talk about accounting and bookkeeping,
I can hear this passion. I can hear the spark
in your voice about it, and it's very exciting to
someone like me who looks at the word bookkeeping and
wants to run in the other direction. So if you
could kind of pinpoint it down to the nexus of
(18:56):
joy for you in doing this work, what is it
how my we start finding joy for those of us
who don't in bookkeeping like we do in our creative pursuits.
If you think about that point within your creative work
where you have like that level of I don't know
if control is like the best word as it relates
(19:17):
to being a creative, but there is there's some of that, right,
there's some of that where you're like you're doing your
thing like owning and you're yeah, like you're owning it,
and you're and you're so in the moment of it
that you're almost like at one with it. Yes, that
feeling of wholeness, Yes, feeling of wholeness. And so I
(19:37):
think the same can be said. I know that sounds
super insane, but the same can be said when you're
on top of the finances. I mean, again, a lot
less exciting than like doing the creative thing always however,
you can get to that point. And so if I
have the ability to help folks like shift that mindset
in some way, shape or form, everyone should feel like that.
(19:59):
And here's the thing. I only want to work with
creatives because, like, I know, like I understand that struggle.
I understand like the that level of like the fear
and the anxiety because I still have it, you know.
I mean, I'm doing the thing, but it's still there
for me. And so to just be able to empathize
and you know, be like, we're all in this together.
It's not just me, it's it's collectively all of us.
(20:21):
And if we can just talk about it together and
work on it together, then I think that's where things
can start to change. It's not surprising that you are
(20:48):
able to connect with your clients that way because you
are a creative yourself. As you talked about the beginning,
you also have this background as a dancer, and you're
finding ways to express that even now. Ben, if that
isn't your career, will you tell us a little bit
about how you're branching out into dance as a part
of your human ven diagram. So for a long time,
(21:09):
I was really really type a to my point earlier,
you know, just feeling like it wasn't really an avenue
or a path I could really fully, like professionally pursue
this career and dance, and so I made myself suppress
it to a degree. And it was always this struggle.
I guess that I always wanted to dance, and I'd
always take dance classes, but I never let myself get
(21:33):
too far in deep with it because it was like, well,
this is fun and all, but it's not going to
pay the bills. So so that was sort of my
principle and sort of guideline for a very long time.
And when I started my practice, and I think it
really took me seeing the risk that I took with
my practice and finding success in it that finally I
(21:56):
allowed myself to go, well, let me just see what happens.
Let me put myself back into the space of being
creative and pursuing dance just for the love of it
and really being wholeheartedly fully in it, which I had
never really done. You know. Always there was like a
stopping point. I love that you took note of the
risk that you had taken in another area and thought,
(22:19):
let me wrangle that and revisit dance. I mean it
was like, well, I did go into that just full in,
so let me see what happens when I go into
this full end. The biggest thing and the biggest difference
though with dance versus my practice is that it was like, well,
because this is like heart and soul feeding and not
something I'm really looking to monetize on. I was like,
(22:41):
I'm just going to go into this fully with no expectations.
And I didn't really have so many expectations with my
practice other than if I can figure out a way
to make money with this, then great, you know, whatever
that path is. Whereas dance was like, no, I'm going
to just do this and see what happens. It's great
to know what you're approach is going to be. Yeah,
(23:02):
it is, and it's useful to not monetize every single
thing in your life sometimes, certainly the hustle culture and
way you know, many millennials have been thinking about, and
certainly gen Z behind us I've been thinking about career
paths is kind of like, what is everything I could
do that I might be able to monetize? And the
second you go down that path, then there's nothing left
(23:22):
that's just for you, and this is purely just me.
I will say this first, I'm really lucky to have
been able to build a practice where more or less
I'm able to sustain myself and my family. I don't
know if I could ever fully pursue a career in performance,
especially now as an accountant, and now, you know, seeing
the numbers behind it, I'm like, yeah, that's a great decision.
(23:46):
But even more so I can see where, especially at
a time like this, with so much uncertainty in the world,
where folks and friends of mine who are full time performers,
who even knows and a lot of those folks are
really having to quickly pivot because gigs and shows and
(24:06):
performances all around the world are literally being canceled, and
so everyone's having to go, well, what are our our
alternative means of making revenue while everything feels dreary. I
think what we can expect to see is everyone quickly
pivoting to figure out how to sustain themselves, you know,
(24:27):
in a way that's genuine and true, and also providing
value to their audiences. I think it comes back to
what we were talking about with Dance for You is
understanding the place of each pursuit or stream of income
or creative outlet in your life, and embracing the fact
(24:48):
that different things can have different types of meaning to you,
and that is absolutely not only okay, but helpful in
times of unexpected change. Absolutely, I'm really glad that I
don't really have to think so hard about that aspect
at least, and that the performance aspect, I love it.
(25:08):
But the thing that I was always true with myself
about as far as my life within performance and creativity
and dance was that I always wanted to be the
soul feeding fun thing that I do. If I happen
to make money at it here and they're awesome, and
of course being smart in terms of understanding and knowing
what to ask my worth, absolutely, but I don't want
(25:32):
that to be my primary focus. If I can book
a few gigs here and there that pay for costumes
and maybe a little bit of travel, amazing, But for
that to eventually turn into my whole livelihood, you know,
I feel like that's a level of stress I'm not
personally willing to take on. But it's different for everybody,
and I've just been kind of like born and bred
(25:53):
since my start in work to know that that wasn't
really the path I've ever wanted to take with dance.
Per Really, I'm just picturing if this is a movie
right now. We then cut to this dance montage two
years from now, and You're like, it's my whole life?
How did this happen? You never know? Never know? That's true.
It's true. I mean, I will say in the two
(26:15):
years that I have been doing this, it's just been
a path that I didn't really expect to unfold quite
the way that it did. That's really exciting. I just
kind of go with the flow, honestly, and it's been awesome.
So many things have popped up where I'm just like,
is this for real? Like this is a thing that's
happening for this And I do believe that the universe
will open up itself to you when you are on
(26:36):
the right path. And so I know that I'm supposed
to be performing in some way, shape or form. But
it's been quite amazing to me and still is just
how that has transpired. And literally the two years that
I have been performing, now I know like this is
where I'm supposed to be right now. That's an amazing
feeling and I'm so happy you found it, and I
think that, truly is the thing that all of our
(26:57):
listeners are searching for, is knowing that they are doing
exactly what they were supposed to be doing. So, Christina,
longtime listeners know about my traumatic experience going to an
accountant in my early days in New York for help
with my taxes and then feeling deeply judged when she
(27:20):
literally said to me, this can go on no longer.
In fact, I've probably mentioned it so much that some
of you out there thinking, Kate, let it go. I'm
working on it. I'm working on it. There's just a
lot of deep seated shame from that moment, like I
should have known better, or had less jobs right, or
(27:42):
just like less forms altogether. But the thing is, I mean, Christina,
at that point, when I was in my early twenties
in New York, fresh out of college, I went to
a really rigorous college and never got any kind of
accounting advice. In fact, I remember getting a credit card
(28:02):
application because I was targeted as an undergrad. So I'm
just so happy that someone like Claire is out there
who really gets creatives in the work that we do
and how we do it. And sort of our way
in that's often not at all about the bookkeeping side.
She's found her own passion for that other side, that
financial and analytical side of creative business. I mean, what
(28:25):
an amazing blend. Yeah, it's just such a great reminder
that one of the things human ven diagrams are best
at is being the translator between different worlds, and for Claire,
it's giving creatives a way to not just have their
financial lives taken care of, but to understand that world
well enough to help make strategic choices and really feel
(28:48):
ownership over it. Christina, that's such a great point because
Claire is really pulling on so many skills to be
a handholder through what can be a very uncomfortable process. Us.
I also love that Claire still dances, and in fact
really sounds like she has rekindled her love of dancing,
(29:08):
but that she's very thoughtfully chosen to keep that part
of her creative outlet as a hobby rather than trying
to monetize it. We've talked about how important it is
to be intentional about each part of your ven diagram
and how it serves you, and Christina, you made the
point in our first NBA episode that it's not about
(29:30):
monetizing everything. For Claire, dancing serves her creative spirit, and
for her, at least for right now, that's enough. Absolutely.
The other part of her story that really resonated with
me was that she took her quantitative skills from her
media planning career and adapted them to fit the needs
of her furniture business, and then she realized that if
(29:51):
she solved the accounting and analytical needs of Houseman Holland,
that she could offer those same solutions to other creatives.
It was like she was learning how to take what
she was good at and enjoy doing and let it
kind of show her the potential applications and ways to
kind of form the next stage of her career. It
wasn't this giant strategic plan. It was more of an
(30:14):
evolution and discovery process. It was really organic, and I
think that's why it fits her so well. To me,
this is such a hack that we continue seeing on
our show, and it's the perfect antidote to that feeling
of being stuck in a job forever, because so much
of the time we're in a job that might feel
like it's fulfilling ourselves, but then it's not that group
(30:37):
hug that we've talked about, but I think the shift
in framing there that can be so valuable is to say,
this may not be my forever job, but what is
the gold here that I really want to make the
most of that I will take with me. We take
those skills with us. So tell us off Claire's advice
helped you out, and let us know what other financial
(30:59):
question you have on your mind. We want to continue
talking about those kinds of questions. Specifically. You can reach
us on Twitter or Instagram at t L d n
E pod, or you can email us at hello at
t L d n E podcast dot com, or you
can leave us a voicemail at eight three three Hi
t L d n E. That's eight three three four
(31:20):
four eight five three six three extension. Well link to
episode one twelve, which is our first t L d
n E n b A episode in case you haven't
listened to that, and we'll also include all of Claire's
links in our show notes, which you can find at
t L d n E podcast dot com. Slash one nineteen.
(31:48):
Thanks so much to our producer, Maya Coole and Tu
for tuning in. As always, please subscribe, rate, and review
on Apple podcasts. If you like what you heard, it
really helps us get the word out to fellow human
ven diagrams. Until next time, remember the limit does not exist.
(32:10):
The Limit does not Exist is a production of I
Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. Yeah.
The Limit Does Not Exist is a production of I
Heart Radio. Mm Hey, I'm Christina Wallace and I'm Kate
Scott Campbell and You're listening to the Limit does Not Exist.
A podcast for Human then Diagrams, coming at you every
(00:21):
single week and hosted by us. Have you ever wished
you had a friend who understood the ins and outs
of your creative, multidisciplinary life, but also spoke finance fluently,
someone you could turn to for a bit of business
model real talk without the jargon or judgment that some
(00:43):
financial advisors have. Well, consider us your fairy godmother's because
this wish just came true. Our guest today is Claire
van Holland, a dancer turned small business owner who digs
mid century modern furniture and bookkeeping in equal measure. Claire
tells us all about how she pivoted from a first
career in media to opening a furniture business with her
(01:03):
husband and then launching her own accountancy firm. We get
right to brass tacks and ask Claire for some financial
advice that benefits all human ben Diagrams. So what are
we waiting for? Let's jump in. Let's do it. You know, Claire,
something that we like to do to kick it off
(01:25):
is to throw you one of our favorite questions, which is,
how do you introduce yourself and what you do. I
run a small accounting practice, and I work with a
lot of creatives and small business owners on the weekends
and some evenings. I am also a dance performer. So
(01:45):
let's unpack that first part of your response. Your website
describes you as a creative first who just happens to
like crunching numbers. Can you tell us a little bit
about how you developed both sides of that identity. It
was out of this necessity. For as long as I
can remember, I've always been really attuned to wanting to
(02:05):
dance and perform, but then being raised by Catholic parents
who are relatively you know, I mean there are immigrants
from the Philippines, so you know, they always want the
best and a career in the arts, especially first generation
into the United States. I think to have our children
working in the arts isn't the most stable path. While
(02:29):
it was supported for me to do the arts and
take dance classes and all of that, I think that
to really pursue it as a career was never like
this huge wave of excitement on that front. So I
kind of knew that all along, and really kind of,
just as much as possible, allowed myself to look into, well,
(02:52):
if I'm going to do a career, pursue a career
that isn't in the arts, what does that start to
look like for me, and the trades that might parents
were in. My mother, like so many other Filipino American
women or Filipino women in the United States, was a
nurse and r n and my dad was trained and
(03:12):
went to school as an electrical engineer. When he came
to United States, he ended up just working in office administration,
so not really fully doing what he had gone to
school for because it would have required going back to
school again after having been working in So it was
sort of a lot when I look at my parents
as role models and what was in my immediate threshold
(03:34):
of well, what are the things I can do? I
knew I definitely didn't want to be a nurse. It's
just not my thing. I mean, I have so much
respect for people who work within the healthcare industry and
care for people directly in this way, but I kind
of always knew that my traits were better suited for
office work, which is so lame. It was like, well,
(03:55):
it's like I'm not going to be dancing on stage
or choreographing or performing professionally. Then it's some sort of
office work. And so over the course of the years,
while dancing always sort of navigated my way in college
into media arts. I started off as a publisher's assistant
and sort of wove my way in a career in
(04:17):
media from that point on. So from there I moved
on to working for General Motors Media arm, planning digital
media for General Motors, specifically Chevrolet. That led me to
eventually taking on a role and moving out to Los
Angeles with my Space, so working with my Space on
the web production side, and I was there for a
(04:39):
handful of years, and then eventually moved on to working
with the digital arm for Disney or one of the
many digital arms for Disney for maybe just under a year,
and then from there worked for my longest stretch of
time with anybody with Pandora Radio. And I was with
them at the very very height of when everyone was
still using and listening to Pandora Radio. So all along
(05:02):
really kind of just getting the full ins and outs
all aspects of media, whether it was, you know, a
project management type capacity to actual revenue, business operations, planning,
things like that. So it was really all very valuable
along the way. But I would have to say that
all of those years in digital media and working in
corporate I kind of knew that it wasn't my calling.
(05:25):
So even with Pandora and being in a position where
it was honestly a really really great job to be
in within corporate America, I just knew that it just
wasn't ultimately going to be where I ended up at,
And it took me a while to understand and figure
out from myself like what that really looked like. Along
the way, you and your husband started a furniture company
(05:46):
called House van Holland tell us about that. It was
really just kind of a passion project at first we
both loved and a lot of our early relationship was
developed and centered around this of appreciation for mid century
design and just design of all kinds. He grew up
in the Pacific Northwest and his grandfather had been trying
(06:08):
to take down the dairy barn that my husband grew
up and no one in Oregon really wanted it, and
so he messaged the family and was like, hey, guys,
no one wants to buy the wood or the wants
the barn, so I'm just going to burn it down.
And my husband was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, no,
we're started doing this furniture thing, or starting to you know,
(06:30):
maybe I'll just go up there, I'll take the barn
down myself and if you're okay with it, I'm going
to just take all the wood, which is exactly what
he did, and we started a reclaimed furniture line with
it and started selling. What was the moment that you
realized you wanted to open an accounting firm alongside your work.
I mean, a small business is a lot to take
(06:51):
on all on its own, and you decided why not
have a second small business alongside them? What was that about?
After a couple of years of having the furniture business,
we started picking up pretty decent traction with you know
what we were selling. All of a sudden, there was
sort of this renewed sense of younger folks, you know,
(07:12):
millennial aged folks, wanting to do something a little bit
more than just working. It wasn't just us, It was
like just handful of folks just doing these new things,
never tried before who eventually kind of evolved and grew
into bigger companies, and so I'd like to think of
ourselves as sort of being part of that wave a
little bit around. It really was just this collective feeling
(07:36):
of like small business like really wanting to just kind
of come out and express and create and create something
meaningful to people. And so out of that, simultaneously, I
was evolving my role at Pandora into one that really
focused on business operations, and at the time I had
moved from sort of like a digital project management group
(07:59):
into sort of a more strategic business operation revenue focused role.
That kind of stuff has always been interesting to me.
Usually people just want to move up and manage more people,
and at the time I kind of just was like, Uh,
I don't know if that's so much something I want
to do, as much as I find a lot of
value and understanding how to work with numbers and understanding
(08:23):
the analytics and the business operations in such way that
is helpful and gives me a better lens on how
are we going to grow this corporation, how are we
going to expand this business? And I wasn't at the
time when I shifted roles within Pandora. Wasn't really thinking
about it so much as it applied to small business
at all. It was sort of just that's kind of
how I've always thought. However, it's sort of just perfectly aligned,
(08:47):
I guess, because actually the things that I'm doing for
this role can really be applied to small business in
a lot of ways. Claire, what are a couple of
those basic principles? Are there specific challenges that you find
it artists or creative small businesses face when it comes
to finance and data that you want to address for them? Absolutely.
(09:08):
I think the first is the thought around setting up
a business operations infrastructure is not the first thing that
comes to mind for people, right, It's just not something
that anyone's really taught. And so usually when people decide
to work with software, especially in the guise of a
(09:28):
small business, it's out of a reaction as opposed to
is this the best one? Yeah, I mean maybe some
of those questions are being asked, certainly. I mean the
words accounting in bookkeeping too. I know a lot of
fellow creatives often feel like the antithesis of creativity that
you wouldn't be leaning in towards those maybe from the
(09:49):
get go. And I think the thing that most people
don't really think about the larger piece, because they might think, okay,
well this is a good PayPal it's easy, or square stripe, Yeah,
well use that as a payment processor because it's easy.
So that's usually kind of like the quick sort of
dialogue that folks have when they're selecting different software to
work with for the business. But the larger and overarching
(10:12):
question that people really don't think about is how does
all of this stuff connect, because that's the thing that
will ultimately drive just how sustainable the back end from
the infrastructure for the business really is or not. I
mean that's where the friction is of like if you
have to download one data set of transactions and then
you're trying to sink it with your quick books, but
(10:34):
it doesn't sink properly, so your manually entering stuff like
that can eat up a lot of not just time
but happiness. Yeah exactly, And usually folks will hit the
wall when they realize it just how much work it's
required to connect all the things, just the complexity of
getting it all integrated, and then they're like, I don't
(10:55):
really want to think about this, and I need to
think about making money, which is fair, I need to
worry about all these other things, and so the infrastructure
and building it properly becomes literally the last thing on
the list to do. But unfortunately that's also going to
be the thing that makes or breaks. I mean, good
cash flow can hide a lot of bad habits in
a business. I think it's also just so easy for
(11:17):
it to be a blind spot because, as you said,
it's really not ever taught. Certainly it wasn't to me,
and you're so kind of focused on what is my product,
how do I market it? How do I bring this
thing out into the world, and that creative side that
(11:37):
it can really feel daunting to even crack the surface
of the infrastructure side, And certainly from what I've experienced,
it doesn't feel like it's set up to be accessible.
It probably isn't something that most people don't want to
spend money on. You feel like there's already so many
expenses in setting up whatever it is you do as
(12:01):
a business, as you know, tracking where the money is
going and how you're paying taxes and all of the
other requirements that like investing more time and money into
what feels like what is overhead probably is right up
there with a root canal in terms of things you
want to do. But I think what you're saying, and
certainly we know this to be true, is like figure
(12:23):
it out while it's simple and small, because as it grows,
it doesn't get simpler. It never's more and more complicated, exactly.
And I always explain to everybody, not everybody, but especially
the folks who are so new or just at the
very beginning of building out the business. Yeah, you might
(12:44):
not have a lot going on right now from a
transaction volume standpoint, but this is actually the perfect time
for you to dig in deep with all of this
stuff to get it set up so that as that
volume comes or increase, is you're absolutely ready and there
are no questions asked. You're just going and it's like, okay, well,
(13:05):
I know now that I got to do this as
the volume increases as much as possible as little that
you're not going backwards. You're not being reactive because you
were already proactive from the very beginning. Let's say that
(13:34):
I have multiple streams of income just off the top
of my head, not related to myself at all. Let's
say that I have a podcast acting work, consulting work,
and directing gigs. So as you're talking about some sort
of basic practices to put in place, how do I
begin to wrap my head around organizing all of this
(13:54):
not just for understanding my flow in and out every month,
but for things like taxes. What are some basics that
I can start thinking about to get ahold of my
financial life. Separating all of your accounts. Honestly, it sounds
super extra, but when it comes to tax time, you'll
be able to look at everything a little bit more
(14:15):
holistically if all of your accounts for each of those
endeavors are separated. I get the point of keeping, for instance,
the podcast separate from maybe her acting and directing work.
But do you think, like really keep each of those
lines of work truly separate, even in things that are
related like acting and directing, or could that be considered
(14:36):
one job, one kind of line of work when it
comes to her financial planning, her taxes, her all the
other things. Acting directing absolutely would kind of fall under
the same umbrella. So you don't have to have like
seventeen bank accounts. Just do a lot of different things,
but maybe think about thematically the different lines of work
(14:58):
you do and then try to keep those is a
little bit more separated. I really like that in terms
of thinking of these themes or buckets of organization from
a financial perspective and just from a practice perspective. Well,
I think it helps you keep things separate and easy
to track without creating like this level of complexity that
(15:18):
all of us, you know, like when you try to
keep things too organized, the second you have a mess
in the middle of it, you might just throw up
your hands and walk away. Like that seems like there's
kind of a nice happy medium if you commel between there. Okay,
So I have another question. In project based freelance work,
it can be nearly impossible to know what your next
(15:40):
six months will look like, and often two months are
never the same. So how can freelancers or just creatives
that have kind of that lumpy year, how can they plan?
How can they be strategic with their finances when freelance
planning sounds a little bit of it like an oxymoron? Yeah, absolutely,
(16:04):
I mean I think the first thing is and this
is not even just freelance, but I think especially for
freelancers this would be the case. But it's one figuring
out what are your absolute must have expenses month to month,
what does a single month look like, and making sure
that you're starting to build a reserve for one month
(16:26):
and then maybe two months, because again, as you said,
you might have a really really great month or two
months or three months, and then you know, followed by
one to three months or more who knows of just
not so great months, And so it's in the times
of the good months. Once you have that calculation of
life I need to live, like keep the roof over
(16:48):
my head, get the insurance, just the very bare minimum,
and feed myself, put gas in the car. So identifying
what those expenses are, calculating what that looks like for
just one month, and then as you're getting paid on
especially during the good months, obviously paying off all the
expenses that you owe right away, but taking any reserve
that you have and throwing it into a savings I
(17:10):
think that's great advice, certainly, and I've mentioned this on
our show before. I've never had a year that's looked
like another year, and I just, particularly right now, as
we all know, with the world feeling absolutely uncertain, that
idea of knowing what that minimum is and thinking about
(17:31):
taking some of that extra and holding it into a reserve.
I really like that. I think that's great advice. It's
always good to do an audit of every single penny
that you're spending, because I can almost promise that by
examining every single penny that goes out as painful as
it is in the moment of doing it, because it
(17:51):
is painful for absolutely every single person, you'll probably find
some amount of money that you're spending that you're going, wait,
why am I spending this? You know, like, what is
this ten dollars? What is this subscription that I forgot about?
You know? And we all have that, and so this
is the time to really go through and identify that
(18:13):
and ideally, if we were all super on top of it,
to just keep a really close eye on all of
those things, so then that way unnecessary money isn't being
spent and we could, you know, potentially save more. It's
just not easy to look at our numbers without feeling
some level of anxiety. And at the end of the day,
the more we look at it, the more control we
actually have over it, the sooner we can do something
(18:35):
about it. Claire, listening to you talk about accounting and bookkeeping,
I can hear this passion. I can hear the spark
in your voice about it, and it's very exciting to
someone like me who looks at the word bookkeeping and
wants to run in the other direction. So if you
could kind of pinpoint it down to the nexus of
(18:56):
joy for you in doing this work, what is it
how my we start finding joy for those of us
who don't in bookkeeping like we do in our creative pursuits.
If you think about that point within your creative work
where you have like that level of I don't know
if control is like the best word as it relates
(19:17):
to being a creative, but there is there's some of that, right,
there's some of that where you're like you're doing your
thing like owning and you're yeah, like you're owning it,
and you're and you're so in the moment of it
that you're almost like at one with it. Yes, that
feeling of wholeness, Yes, feeling of wholeness. And so I
(19:37):
think the same can be said. I know that sounds
super insane, but the same can be said when you're
on top of the finances. I mean, again, a lot
less exciting than like doing the creative thing always however,
you can get to that point. And so if I
have the ability to help folks like shift that mindset
in some way, shape or form, everyone should feel like that.
(19:59):
And here's the thing. I only want to work with
creatives because, like, I know, like I understand that struggle.
I understand like the that level of like the fear
and the anxiety because I still have it, you know.
I mean, I'm doing the thing, but it's still there
for me. And so to just be able to empathize
and you know, be like, we're all in this together.
It's not just me, it's it's collectively all of us.
(20:21):
And if we can just talk about it together and
work on it together, then I think that's where things
can start to change. It's not surprising that you are
(20:48):
able to connect with your clients that way because you
are a creative yourself. As you talked about the beginning,
you also have this background as a dancer, and you're
finding ways to express that even now. Ben, if that
isn't your career, will you tell us a little bit
about how you're branching out into dance as a part
of your human ven diagram. So for a long time,
(21:09):
I was really really type a to my point earlier,
you know, just feeling like it wasn't really an avenue
or a path I could really fully, like professionally pursue
this career and dance, and so I made myself suppress
it to a degree. And it was always this struggle.
I guess that I always wanted to dance, and I'd
always take dance classes, but I never let myself get
(21:33):
too far in deep with it because it was like, well,
this is fun and all, but it's not going to
pay the bills. So so that was sort of my
principle and sort of guideline for a very long time.
And when I started my practice, and I think it
really took me seeing the risk that I took with
my practice and finding success in it that finally I
(21:56):
allowed myself to go, well, let me just see what happens.
Let me put myself back into the space of being
creative and pursuing dance just for the love of it
and really being wholeheartedly fully in it, which I had
never really done. You know. Always there was like a
stopping point. I love that you took note of the
risk that you had taken in another area and thought,
(22:19):
let me wrangle that and revisit dance. I mean it
was like, well, I did go into that just full in,
so let me see what happens when I go into
this full end. The biggest thing and the biggest difference
though with dance versus my practice is that it was like, well,
because this is like heart and soul feeding and not
something I'm really looking to monetize on. I was like,
(22:41):
I'm just going to go into this fully with no expectations.
And I didn't really have so many expectations with my
practice other than if I can figure out a way
to make money with this, then great, you know, whatever
that path is. Whereas dance was like, no, I'm going
to just do this and see what happens. It's great
to know what you're approach is going to be. Yeah,
(23:02):
it is, and it's useful to not monetize every single
thing in your life sometimes, certainly the hustle culture and
way you know, many millennials have been thinking about, and
certainly gen Z behind us I've been thinking about career
paths is kind of like, what is everything I could
do that I might be able to monetize? And the
second you go down that path, then there's nothing left
(23:22):
that's just for you, and this is purely just me.
I will say this first, I'm really lucky to have
been able to build a practice where more or less
I'm able to sustain myself and my family. I don't
know if I could ever fully pursue a career in performance,
especially now as an accountant, and now, you know, seeing
the numbers behind it, I'm like, yeah, that's a great decision.
(23:46):
But even more so I can see where, especially at
a time like this, with so much uncertainty in the world,
where folks and friends of mine who are full time performers,
who even knows and a lot of those folks are
really having to quickly pivot because gigs and shows and
(24:06):
performances all around the world are literally being canceled, and
so everyone's having to go, well, what are our our
alternative means of making revenue while everything feels dreary. I
think what we can expect to see is everyone quickly
pivoting to figure out how to sustain themselves, you know,
(24:27):
in a way that's genuine and true, and also providing
value to their audiences. I think it comes back to
what we were talking about with Dance for You is
understanding the place of each pursuit or stream of income
or creative outlet in your life, and embracing the fact
(24:48):
that different things can have different types of meaning to you,
and that is absolutely not only okay, but helpful in
times of unexpected change. Absolutely, I'm really glad that I
don't really have to think so hard about that aspect
at least, and that the performance aspect, I love it.
(25:08):
But the thing that I was always true with myself
about as far as my life within performance and creativity
and dance was that I always wanted to be the
soul feeding fun thing that I do. If I happen
to make money at it here and they're awesome, and
of course being smart in terms of understanding and knowing
what to ask my worth, absolutely, but I don't want
(25:32):
that to be my primary focus. If I can book
a few gigs here and there that pay for costumes
and maybe a little bit of travel, amazing, But for
that to eventually turn into my whole livelihood, you know,
I feel like that's a level of stress I'm not
personally willing to take on. But it's different for everybody,
and I've just been kind of like born and bred
(25:53):
since my start in work to know that that wasn't
really the path I've ever wanted to take with dance.
Per Really, I'm just picturing if this is a movie
right now. We then cut to this dance montage two
years from now, and You're like, it's my whole life?
How did this happen? You never know? Never know? That's true.
It's true. I mean, I will say in the two
(26:15):
years that I have been doing this, it's just been
a path that I didn't really expect to unfold quite
the way that it did. That's really exciting. I just
kind of go with the flow, honestly, and it's been awesome.
So many things have popped up where I'm just like,
is this for real? Like this is a thing that's
happening for this And I do believe that the universe
will open up itself to you when you are on
(26:36):
the right path. And so I know that I'm supposed
to be performing in some way, shape or form. But
it's been quite amazing to me and still is just
how that has transpired. And literally the two years that
I have been performing, now I know like this is
where I'm supposed to be right now. That's an amazing
feeling and I'm so happy you found it, and I
think that, truly is the thing that all of our
(26:57):
listeners are searching for, is knowing that they are doing
exactly what they were supposed to be doing. So, Christina,
longtime listeners know about my traumatic experience going to an
accountant in my early days in New York for help
with my taxes and then feeling deeply judged when she
(27:20):
literally said to me, this can go on no longer.
In fact, I've probably mentioned it so much that some
of you out there thinking, Kate, let it go. I'm
working on it. I'm working on it. There's just a
lot of deep seated shame from that moment, like I
should have known better, or had less jobs right, or
(27:42):
just like less forms altogether. But the thing is, I mean, Christina,
at that point, when I was in my early twenties
in New York, fresh out of college, I went to
a really rigorous college and never got any kind of
accounting advice. In fact, I remember getting a credit card
(28:02):
application because I was targeted as an undergrad. So I'm
just so happy that someone like Claire is out there
who really gets creatives in the work that we do
and how we do it. And sort of our way
in that's often not at all about the bookkeeping side.
She's found her own passion for that other side, that
financial and analytical side of creative business. I mean, what
(28:25):
an amazing blend. Yeah, it's just such a great reminder
that one of the things human ven diagrams are best
at is being the translator between different worlds, and for Claire,
it's giving creatives a way to not just have their
financial lives taken care of, but to understand that world
well enough to help make strategic choices and really feel
(28:48):
ownership over it. Christina, that's such a great point because
Claire is really pulling on so many skills to be
a handholder through what can be a very uncomfortable process. Us.
I also love that Claire still dances, and in fact
really sounds like she has rekindled her love of dancing,
(29:08):
but that she's very thoughtfully chosen to keep that part
of her creative outlet as a hobby rather than trying
to monetize it. We've talked about how important it is
to be intentional about each part of your ven diagram
and how it serves you, and Christina, you made the
point in our first NBA episode that it's not about
(29:30):
monetizing everything. For Claire, dancing serves her creative spirit, and
for her, at least for right now, that's enough. Absolutely.
The other part of her story that really resonated with
me was that she took her quantitative skills from her
media planning career and adapted them to fit the needs
of her furniture business, and then she realized that if
(29:51):
she solved the accounting and analytical needs of Houseman Holland,
that she could offer those same solutions to other creatives.
It was like she was learning how to take what
she was good at and enjoy doing and let it
kind of show her the potential applications and ways to
kind of form the next stage of her career. It
wasn't this giant strategic plan. It was more of an
(30:14):
evolution and discovery process. It was really organic, and I
think that's why it fits her so well. To me,
this is such a hack that we continue seeing on
our show, and it's the perfect antidote to that feeling
of being stuck in a job forever, because so much
of the time we're in a job that might feel
like it's fulfilling ourselves, but then it's not that group
(30:37):
hug that we've talked about, but I think the shift
in framing there that can be so valuable is to say,
this may not be my forever job, but what is
the gold here that I really want to make the
most of that I will take with me. We take
those skills with us. So tell us off Claire's advice
helped you out, and let us know what other financial
(30:59):
question you have on your mind. We want to continue
talking about those kinds of questions. Specifically. You can reach
us on Twitter or Instagram at t L d n
E pod, or you can email us at hello at
t L d n E podcast dot com, or you
can leave us a voicemail at eight three three Hi
t L d n E. That's eight three three four
(31:20):
four eight five three six three extension. Well link to
episode one twelve, which is our first t L d
n E n b A episode in case you haven't
listened to that, and we'll also include all of Claire's
links in our show notes, which you can find at
t L d n E podcast dot com. Slash one nineteen.
(31:48):
Thanks so much to our producer, Maya Coole and Tu
for tuning in. As always, please subscribe, rate, and review
on Apple podcasts. If you like what you heard, it
really helps us get the word out to fellow human
ven diagrams. Until next time, remember the limit does not exist.
(32:10):
The Limit does not Exist is a production of I
Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. Yeah.
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