Embark with us on an Owner's Odyssey, where the entrepreneurial journey is as diverse as those who walk it. Ever pondered how the fabric of family shapes your business aspirations? Our latest episode peels back the layers of influence and ambition, as our guest narrates their shift from KPMG accountant to nonprofit CFO in Africa, culminating in the courageous launch of their very own accounting firm.
Our conversation with our guest doesn't shy away from the emotional rollercoaster of starting a business – from the initial trepidation to the thrill of scaling new heights. I open up about my own hurdles, sharing tales of setbacks that taught me just as much as my victories. It's a true testament to the resilience required to carve out success and the learning that comes from embracing our most challenging moments.
As the odyssey draws to a close, we don't just talk shop. I share a slice of my personal quest, from aspiring author to seeking tranquility with my family. It's all about striking that delicate balance between personal joys and professional pursuits. So, if you're ready for a dose of inspiration that might just spark your next big idea, join us. And stay tuned for our next episode with Paul McCoy, where the conversation promises to be as enlightening as it is entertaining.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Zach (00:05):
Hello and welcome to the Owner's Odyssey, the podcast
where we delve deep into thetransformative stories of
courageous business owners whohave embarked on an
extraordinary adventure.
I'm Zach Jones and I'm BrookeGattia.
We're here to explore the reallife experiences of
entrepreneurs.
Brook (00:22):
Each episode, we'll embark on a quest to uncover the
trials, triumphs andtransformations of remarkable
individuals who dared to answerthe call of entrepreneurship.
Zach (00:34):
Like all adventurers, our guests have faced their fair
share of challenges, vanquishedformidable foes and braved the
unknown.
Brook (00:41):
Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a
seasoned business owner orsimply an avid listener hungry
for captivating stories theOwner's Odyssey is here to help
you level up.
Zach (00:52):
So join us as we embark on this epic expedition.
This is the Owner's Odyssey.
Let's start our adventure.
Brook (01:03):
The intro in my mind, just because I'll get it out and
it'll help me.
Zach (01:05):
Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, absolutely.
Brook (01:08):
Is totally like hey, you know, this is the owner's
journey and you know, while it'sabout primarily about the
business owners, there's reallythe people who are owners of
their division or theirorganization or just the job
that they have to do, or owningyour own vision, whatever that
is.
While we're focusing on thebusiness side, we're talking
(01:30):
about that journey and whileownership can be fun and
exciting and inspiring, it'salso really really hard, and we
understand that engaging in thatreally really hard is a
community and that there is notone size fits all.
You will listen to the TikToks,all of those other things out
there.
They're like here's your onesolution that will allow you to
(01:52):
be free.
That doesn't exist because oftrauma and opportunities and
money and people and processesand your industry and the
location of your industry.
Nobody's story is the same.
So it's just a journey and thispodcast is about the learning
(02:12):
from other people's journeys andunderstanding that it's not a
big aha moment of like it allcomes together, but it's a 1%
improvement all along the way.
And so we're sitting here,we're talking about what are
people's journeys, what are thethings that help them find their
path in the middle of it.
And so that's the little we canfeel that a little bit better,
(02:34):
but really almost that succinctpiece of just saying this is the
fine, you know owner's journey.
You don't have to be a businessowner.
We're going to focus on that.
But really we're talking aboutpeople's journeys and how to
find them and how to find oneperson, improvements and how to
find your path in the midst ofit and hopefully get encouraged
(02:55):
and inspired and have fun andlaugh and all of those
components of it, while alsorelating with people when it's
hard and you sometimes mightwant to cry.
I'm not sure we're gonna cry,but you know maybe.
Um, yeah, so you know all ofthose.
It's like you guys might cry.
I probably won't either, butyou never know, I might be more
likely, you know.
So that would be my spiel of,like the beginning piece of it.
Zach (03:18):
Um, yeah and so, yeah, I think that's good, okay, yeah
especially for especially apilot episode, definitely having
a welcome to the podcast kindof moment.
Paul (03:31):
I was thinking that we have a particular set of
questions.
The questions can be the same,but the answers are all going to
be different.
Brook (03:41):
So who's the host?
Is it going to be Zach?
Zach (03:44):
I mean today.
I think we're just going tokind of tag team and chit chat
yeah.
I think, you know in the futureyou'll be kind of running
things and then I'll.
Paul (03:53):
I'm very loud mouthed, so Hop in and yeah, the other thing
is To add some base to theequation.
If you're sat there havingsomething up there like the
question, so that when you'reasked a question as the
interview, then you've got thequestion up there.
Brook (04:06):
Oh, that's not a bad idea .
So you're not having to?
Paul (04:08):
what was that question again?
Brook (04:09):
I don't have to look down and be like, yeah, I can look
up and like just having littlelittle prompts that are not
distracting but just helpful.
Yeah, no, that's not a bad idea, which, by the way, awesome,
yeah, I have been sitting.
The last one.
Yeah, the kind of pyramid.
Okay, the font was not.
Sorry, the first one.
I was like no, it's good, Ilike that.
Zach (04:31):
And I appreciate the feedback because that's that's
like what I always get when I dothose graphic design jobs for
people.
They're like it's really reallygood, it's like really
masculine, and I'm like it'sreally really good, it's like
really masculine, like, and I'mlike I don't know, like, it's
just that's what I see, you gotto give me more, so that was
(04:51):
perfect.
You gave me some examples and Iwas like, oh okay, that's
what's different about thesefonts Like pulled it together.
Brook (04:56):
But yeah, it's like if you're just very like bold,
clunky, like straight lines,like I'm here, I'm like, okay,
let's like, let's just be here.
If you had to put feelingbehind the font, that was what
you got in the midst of it.
Paul (05:10):
But this is what this is all about is getting different
perspectives to do what we'retrying to do.
Brook (05:17):
So do you just want me to talk?
Zach (05:20):
So yeah, I mean, I kind of where?
Where do you feel like yourowner's journey started, like
what's the first kernel of yourcurrent path that you can
remember?
I?
Brook (05:40):
don't.
Yeah, no, it does.
I don't know if I have thesevague like feelings as a
teenager and I remember, sittingwith my dad, um had like a
(06:06):
graduation thing and it was asmall group of I don't know if
it was a church or what and allthese girls are up there and
saying, and probably even guys,saying, I want to be a mom and
have a family and I, um, I'm ateenager so I'm rude, but in my
brain I'm like rolling my eyesof, like really, that's, all you
want is to be like a mom.
(06:28):
Now I'm a mom, now I love beinga mom.
Like that's not, there'snothing wrong with it, but like
that, that thought pattern oflike I, I want more than just
that again, nothing wrong withthat.
But um, just I remember thosedistinct kind of feelings of
things.
And so I didn't know her.
(06:50):
I went to college.
I barely made it to it.
I thought I was going to be adoctor because I watched ER and
I thought that was the coolestthing.
I'm not a doctor and my friendswill laugh at me because I
can't pronounce anything.
So I probably would wronglyprescribe lots of stuff if I had
gotten that direction.
But accounting kind of madesense because my dad would
(07:13):
always like play, made thesegames for me with numbers, like
I would always just computergames before computers were
anything and it just numbers fit.
My aunt was an accountant Like.
I was just like okay, let'sjust do this, but still, there
was probably this thoughtpattern somewhere in the back of
my head of like business sideof things, and so Was there
(07:36):
anybody in your life at thatpoint that was a business owner?
No, so what's very interestingis my one brother owns his own
business.
My other brother is a pastor ata church, like my dad is a
pastor, but I think my parentscultivated this very
(07:58):
entrepreneurial mindset.
I don't even know what they didor how they did it, but I just
like looking at us now, like weall, we think up something and
we go towards it and we try tomake it happen.
Paul (08:11):
But being the pastor that's almost like being the CEO
of that church Right.
Brook (08:16):
And it was.
He had his own church for awhile and then he was like a
part of a bigger church where hewas one of the pastors.
But yeah, like it is definitelythis you have to lead people,
you have to inspire people, youhave to get them Running an
organization can be moredifficult than owning your own
business.
Entrepreneurial side of things.
(08:36):
But I don't know what I tookaway from that or what my
brothers would have taken away,but we totally something in us
was cultivated in this mindsetof, and I remember my dad.
I'd ask him how to do somethingand he'd look at me and he'd
say figure it out.
And I tell him today which hetotally disagrees with me.
I'm like I kind of think youwere just lazy and didn't want
(08:58):
to do it.
But in reality I reallyappreciate that Best of both
worlds.
Yeah, like he told me, like I'mnot helping you figure it out,
and so I did, and so I don't.
I don't know if if that's partof it, I do find it very amazing
when people can't figure stuffout like I'm like, I okay like,
and try not to lose patiencewith I don't understand why you
(09:20):
can't just play until you figureit out.
Paul (09:21):
So what about the process, like your father being, say,
the head of this church, andhe'd say over dinner, maybe I
think we're going to do this,and then you just see it happen.
Brook (09:35):
I imagine that there probably was some of those
things.
I think my parents were verycareful not to bring home the
gossip of work on sort of stuff,but I don't know if there's a
distinct pace where I rememberseeing any of those things, but
(09:57):
I'm sure they happened.
I remember my dad there was aschool attached to the church
that we were at and if anyissues happened at the school he
very rarely would have to stepin.
He would if he had to, but hedidn't.
It was a very hard conflict,I'm sure, for him of like he's
the kind of the boss and likeyour kids involved Like so when
(10:18):
do you interfere and have peoplescared of you because you're
the boss, versus like this isyour kid and you need to like
take care of them.
But again, I don't know ifthat's part of the like just
kind of go and figure things out, and if that was part of the
mentality that taught me to.
(10:39):
It's okay to risk stuff, it'sokay to try it and oh well, if
it doesn't work out like, we'llfigure it out.
And I don't know if that's partof it, but I certainly wonder
at times with it and so, yeah,and then I did stuff you do.
(11:00):
After college, you get a job.
I worked for an accounting firm, kpmg, and did consulting stuff
and then worked for theDepartment of Defense, because
you know why not?
No, I was part of preparing theArmy's financial statements,
and all of which is totally twodifferent.
That's a totally differentsphere from the entrepreneurial
world is being in that space.
Zach (11:22):
Was that just out of necessity?
Or was that out of interest inthat space?
Just a natural?
Brook (11:26):
flow of like I graduated.
Zach (11:28):
Kind of opportunity.
Brook (11:29):
Yeah, like okay, I'll take this job.
It was a really weird interviewand it was a very I was
actually like an administrativeassistant as my first job out
and as the consulting divisionof stuff.
And people looked at the guywho hired me and was like she
has an accounting degree, why isshe sitting there, like we need
her over here?
And I was green, you know I was, but whatever, they pulled me
(11:51):
over and just opportunity kindof stepped and you stepped with
it and it was and we wereconsulting with the department
of defense and so eventually Istarted working for the
department of defense and um.
And then I got um opportunityand I had gone once to Africa
with a group of people and theguy who ran it, jim Hawking.
(12:12):
He started a drilling watercompany and he asked for a CFO.
Now, when you're a nonprofitorganization, you can't afford
anything, so to do this ittotally was like a pay cut and
all of this sort of stuff.
But I was like, yeah, let's dothis, like I've always wanted to
be in Africa, like that wasalso a childhood sort of thing
(12:34):
and I don't know why.
Just something popped up andI'm like, oh, that sounds really
cool, like yeah.
And so it did that and it wasvery cool.
What they do is phenomenal.
I could I could rave aboutmultiple aspects of it.
Zach (12:46):
How long did you do that I ?
Brook (12:48):
want to say three years I think, but it was so hard and I
don't.
I still, to this day, don'tknow why emotionally it was so
hard for me, but to fly there Iwould go three to four times a
year and you'd be there therefor three weeks usually, because
it takes three days to getthere.
Paul (13:08):
Why was that?
Brook (13:09):
Central African Republic.
Okay, so it's right below Congo, right above Congo, right below
.
Paul (13:17):
I don't remember.
Brook (13:18):
There's some you know, it's Africa, there's conflict a
lot in multiple differentregions.
So, but it would literally therewas one flight from Paris down
there a week so you had to catchthat flight.
So you made sure you got toParis with 12 hours of layover
and like it was.
It was a long haul to get thereand I don't they speak French
(13:38):
and Sango.
I don't speak English very wellat times, so like it was just
emotionally very, very hard andI liked many pieces of it.
Like what they did was cool.
I liked being out and likeexploring stuff, like, but I I
didn't know how to navigate.
I didn't know how to navigate alot of that.
Um, and it's very weird beingthe only I'm sorry here's
(14:03):
getting into political stuff,the only white person, but not
in a, not the only one, but thefew one, but in a more
affluential space.
So people, you know, kidsswarming around you, people
swarming around you just becauseof your skin color, wanting
something from you, and not thatthat's bad, nothing.
(14:26):
But it was hard, Like it wasjust hard.
Paul (14:28):
It's just a culture shock, yeah exactly.
Brook (14:30):
And so I did it for three years and then finally, I lived
at home by myself and I workedremote for most of the time and
I just kind of got lonely and Iwas like you know what?
I'm going to start my own thing.
I've always wanted to start myown thing, and so I'm going to
do that Now.
I'm going to sit down andfigure out what it is I want to
do.
And so I thought about.
Airbnb, not an Airbnb, a B&B,like a real bed and breakfast.
(14:51):
And then I realized they had towork 24 seven and like can
never get away from it and itsounded exhausting doing that
and I was like, hey, I'll do aspa, cause I really love spas
and I get stressed and I want tolike be in that world.
And then I realized they take alot of money to start and I
don't have a lot of money.
And so I was like, all right,fine, you're an accountant,
(15:16):
you're a CPA, just do this.
All right, I'll do this.
And as soon as I did, I realizedthat all the things I was
trying to create bed andbreakfast, a spa, I think there
was something else on my list,but they were all around this
concept of you're stressed outand you want to breathe, and I
want to create space for peoplewhere they can relax and space
for people where they canbreathe.
(15:37):
And business owners kind of arestressed and really hate doing
their own books, kind of arestressed and really hate doing
their own books.
And so I can come in and helpthem kind of create a spa-like
experience to just breathe,because we got the books, the
accounting stuff done and then,literally, I was going to start
(15:58):
just as a bookkeeping businessand my other half looked at me
and said you're a CPA, why areyou not doing taxes?
Why are you not doing the morecomplicated things?
And I'm like because I'm scared.
And well, stop being scared,just get out there.
And I remember when I'm firstgetting started, I'm literally
like, okay, swallow your pride.
You literally just need to telleverybody what you're doing and
(16:18):
ask them if they need any help.
It doesn't matter if you thinkthey do or not.
Anybody on your list, you justtell them what you're doing and
you ask them if they need help.
And I don't.
Most of them.
I didn't want to ask becauseI'm like I just want to do it
and be successful.
But like I don't know anybodyelse, like I don't know how to
market, I don't know how to doany of this stuff.
So I just and I was stillworking part-time for the it's
(16:47):
Water for Good now, but theywere different names then but
the nonprofit side of things.
So you know, I was trying tolike figure out.
So I kept going backwards in mypay to be honest, like.
So I'm like cutting it in halfwith each space.
But you know we're going to trythis.
Like I don't have kids at thatpoint in time, like let's go
through this and so I this andso, um, I my it.
(17:11):
It took a lot to just be likeI'm going to ask whom ever, and
not if they, if they don'tanswer me, if they say no, it
means nothing about me, it justdidn't need it, Like, and I can
do my thing, and they can justknow that I'm doing it.
And one or two of them said, ohmy God, yeah, I do have someone
who needs something.
And that starts to be themarketing learning how to market
yourself.
And I would show up at BNImeetings, which are places where
(17:34):
you're only one person for eachindustry that you're in and you
have to refer other people andthey refer you and you go once a
week.
And I needed that structurewhere I had to go every single
week and I had to stand up andsay who I am and what I'm doing
and what I want, and be like,push myself to put myself out
(17:56):
there.
And that was really uh, Ibottled it up, I bottled
everything up.
I don't think I realized at allhow hard it was, but like,
looking back, I'm like that wasso hard for me to just put
myself out there with almost noskillset, like I'm still pretty
green, I probably look like I'm10.
Like all of those things, andjust standing there and saying,
(18:16):
hey, this is what I do, this iswhy it's worth you engaging in
me and I have nobody to refer toyou.
But I'll pretend I do and likekind of work for them.
Zach (18:24):
Do you feel like that ability to overcome and push
that kind of button to get intothat gear, if you will?
Is that a product of runningtowards something or away from
something, in terms of, like,working for somebody else or a
(18:46):
certain?
Brook (18:47):
I think it was probably more uh, I, I don't.
I didn't have the like oh mygosh, I hate working for
somebody else.
Space piece of it.
Um, I, I probably would havebeen fine if I stayed at the in
the government like I would have.
It'd been an interesting spacethat I would have probably
developed into, but it would, Iwould have been fine.
(19:08):
I just saw an opportunity and Ididn't want to look back on my
life and regret not taking anopportunity.
So the putting myself out theremay have been a bit about pride
and just like oh my gosh, likeI got to make this.
But I also knew in the back ofmy brain at that point in time
if I needed to pick up the phoneand get back in the world I had
left, I could have.
(19:28):
I can't.
Now All of those people areprobably gone and it's a whole
different story, but at thatpoint in time my fallback wasn't
destroyed Like I hadopportunities if I really wanted
them.
Paul (19:40):
You mentioned about.
There's a switch in thatthinking where you ask the
people who wanted help and thenyou force yourself into okay,
I'm just going to switch and askeveryone what was that mindset
switch that you had to adjust?
Brook (19:58):
I didn't have money.
I didn't have.
I mean, I had a small job thing, but I knew if I wanted to get
going with stuff.
I needed to find things and Iwas too scared.
I never have been able to dothe cold call.
I wonder, I probably could doit a little bit more today, but
I was not really great at thelike.
(20:18):
Hey, I'm going to pick up thephone and call you and ask you
if you want, and everybody saysthat.
No one likes that side of things.
So I was too scared to do that,so I had to like, I had to ask
somebody, I had to put it outthere some way, and I don't
think I mean this was 2008.
So Facebook existed, right?
(20:39):
I don't remember thosemarketing tactics being
something that was largelystepped into.
I mean it was starting maybe,but so it.
I mean I remember MySpaceAnyhow.
Not as all-encompassing Right,just a go-to, like it is right
(21:00):
right I was like, okay, I canjust put something out there for
the world to know and like, tryto market without ever making a
personality, like I can marketwithout ever seeing someone roll
their eyes at me, right, um,and I I didn't, you know, I just
you just kind of had to.
So the like, was it pushingtowards something?
Yeah, I think it was morepushing towards something of
like I want to see if I can dothis, like, can I make this work
(21:22):
?
And if I need to, I need tofind customers.
And I just got to kind of putmyself out there and try to do
what I can do and experiment.
And I spent a ton of money and Ihad to give myself a lot of
grace and learn to do this too.
Of like I spent money onsomething that was kind of not
beneficial at all.
Either I didn't execute itright or it just doesn't mix my
(21:43):
thing, but I had to experimentand I had to evaluate.
And then I had to drop likeI've done that so many times and
oh well, like that's part ofbusiness and not beating
yourself up for a decision thatwasn't the most productive
financially or evenaccomplishing vision wise.
Zach (22:04):
Yeah, so tell us more about that.
So once you are past that point, you've gotten to where you're
asking for business.
You're, you know, landing gigsof some sort.
What then ended up being kindof your biggest learning curves
(22:27):
through.
Brook (22:29):
I remember the biggest.
Zach (22:30):
Because this would be your first actual attempt at
entrepreneurship, right Did youhave any kind of smaller side
hustle type things before this.
Brook (22:39):
No, I didn't have any small.
I was not like the teenager whohad a little lawn mowing
business or anything like that.
I did none of those.
Zach (22:47):
Yeah, so obviously you've got the background for the tax.
You know how to stay compliant,but what are the things that
you're learning?
Brook (22:54):
Right, I mean the first times I'm doing tax returns I'm
like freaking out.
They took me hours to do onesimple tax return.
Because I'm like doublechecking, cripple checking,
because I'm nervous Because alsothis may or may not have been
smart.
I did go to a public accountingfirm but I was in consulting, I
was not doing bookkeeping ortax, and so then I'm going to go
out and try to do tax on my ownwithout zero, like kind of
(23:17):
doing it for real with somebodyelse, so I'm again.
I'm learning this my dad figuredout, just figure it out.
Okay, I'll just figure it out.
And this might take me likefive hours to do one tax return.
That today would take me 20minutes.
But at that point in time, likeI kind of totally went through
that, I remember as far as mylike big moments of stuff of me
getting to the point where I'mlike I can't be working from my
(23:38):
house anymore.
Like I go out and I meet peopleto pick up their tax returns
and I try to print them off andlike take it Like I need an
office and that growth point togo okay, can I afford an office?
I have to do an office.
Like I need to have a spacethat people come to.
(23:59):
And then getting an office andthen going I don't want to do
the books for this person everysingle time Like, I need a
bookkeeper who can come in andhiring someone.
Um, I I uh hired probably twopeople before I hired um,
jeanette, who's still on mystaff, but I didn't keep any of
those two people.
And um, and I've gone throughmultiple like, but how do you
(24:20):
hire people?
And I'm actually, um, that'sstill probably not one of my
best suits of stuff of figuringout how to interview people and
read them, and I think the bestof people versus trying to
decipher the flags of like arethey the right person for this?
And for the flags of like, arethey the right person for this?
(24:42):
And so, growing to the pointwhere I was like, okay, now I
have people, and each one ofthose steps I felt like I was
going five steps back andpraying to God it would allow me
to go 10 steps forward.
Sometimes it didn't.
Sometimes, again, this is thelike.
All right, I'm going toexperiment.
I'm not going to beat myself up.
Sometimes it didn't.
Zach (24:59):
Again, this is the like.
All right, I'm going toexperiment, I'm not going to
beat myself up.
Do you feel like, overall, thatframework has served you well
and that you do find that a lotof those five step back type
decisions?
Brook (25:11):
have ended up being good for me.
They are good.
So me hiring the wrong personis uh always been costly.
I, I need, uh it is importantto try to learn and develop in
those pieces of it.
I do think that getting my headaround and my concept to I need
(25:33):
more than just me.
Yes, it totally helped me gofive steps forward on on stuff,
um, but the I did it cost me agood amount in that too, yes,
you know, I looking back and I'mlike dang, I probably could
have a good chunk of money stillin my pocket if I had not made
some choices that I made.
(25:53):
But also going, I like my lifenow, like I like what I've
developed up.
There are hard parts and thereare exhausting parts, but I do
like them, and so the harderparts probably in me looking
back and I still think they aregood is when I decided to
actually read a book called Bold, I believe, and it said dream
(26:13):
something big and bodacious andthen try to make it happen, and
I was like I want 10 offices in10 years, so I don't remember
what year this was 2017.
Zach (26:23):
And was that goal just built out of ambition?
Yeah, just, I was like.
Brook (26:27):
I want to grow.
I want to become more than justme.
I want, I want to be a like,just a bigger.
I didn't have a like.
I want to be one of the bigfive accounting firms.
Like that was not anywhere in mybrain, I just wanted to be
bigger than me so that it's notjust me who has to get all of
the work done, and I think thatwas the huge piece of like.
I want the flexibility that Ihave backup in place.
(26:48):
I have different things inthere and so.
But sometimes, as you grow, itrequires more of you than less
of you, because what happenswhen the people you hire to do
the work don't?
Now you have to do it plus whatyou were doing, and so now
you're doubled up on that pieceof it.
But I read that book and I waslike I'm going to go buy an
(27:09):
office.
So I was brilliant.
I live in Indianapolis anddecided I would buy one up in
Fort Wayne.
It's only two hours, right Like, I can just drive up there.
I'll hire someone to likemanage that office and go from
there.
Well, I hired the wrong personto manage that office and it was
exhausting, like when you havesomeone you're trying to bring
(27:32):
on all these brand new clients,help them not feel nervous about
the switchover, and you havehired some of the wrong person
on the bus in the middle of taxseason.
You can't just.
I mean, I should have lessonlearned too you can release
someone in the middle of taxseason, but I was like I have to
keep them on.
We got to just filter through.
We got to like I did it allwrong.
(27:55):
I felt like and I don't know ahundred percent if it was all
wrong because I mean, I, I Ilost some clients.
I still have clients that I hadfrom when I purchased that side
of things.
But like I was exhausted and Isaid I'm not doing this again,
I'm not buying another firm.
Of course, as I'm saying this,I still would look at all of the
things that the brokers thatwould send to me saying, hey,
this person's looking to likesell or do whatever.
(28:16):
It would send to me saying, hey, this person's looking to like
sell or do whatever.
And so, and a couple yearslater, two, three years later,
buying Edgewater came up andthey did exactly the same thing
as we did, and my former namewas Brookside Accounting.
I hired someone to come up withmy name, told them not to put
my name in it.
They put my name in it.
Everyone loved it and I'm likesure.
But I was like all right, do Ipick the Edgewater name or the
(28:38):
Brookside name?
And I'm like I'm totallykeeping the Edgewater name for
multiple different reasons, butlargely I really hate saying
this is Brooke with BrooksideAccounting, and so yeah, and
this location, this office hadtwo locations.
So now all of a sudden I hadfour locations in almost a
five-year time frame and I waslike well damn, like I totally
put in my brain, in 10 yearshave 10 locations and about five
(29:01):
years I've had four locations.
Like I didn't even I toldmyself I dropped that dream like
and I'm did it anyway.
And then now I purchasedanother office and now I have
it's been six years and I havefive locations.
Since I've done that, and I'mlike, okay, I, but I'm, I think
I'm, I think I'm done, um, I'mgoing to grow a different way.
(29:22):
Is is where I am, becausethat's, it's just um, it's,
that's hard and um, and thenthat and that has become
probably the hardest part istrying to morph in.
It's not like you just hiresomeone and you get to pick
(29:42):
someone who has the rightmentality that meshes with you.
I purchased something that hasa bunch of mentalities that are
not the same as mine, and notonly me, and not only my
employees, my clients too, havea different mentality, and so
trying to mesh all of that andit's money, it's people's money
(30:03):
and you want to watch someoneget really mad really fast is
when they're talking about theirmoney, and even if you're not
at fault or there's no, likeyou've done amazing service.
If there is something thatcosts them money and they don't
know you and they don't know howto trust you in that, they get
really mad.
And so then you have to filterthrough all of those kind of
(30:26):
components of things and that isalso hard of the journey of
going.
Your anger, your disappointment,your wish that I would have
operated different than I do.
Your anger, your disappointment, your wish that I would have
operated different than I doisn't me being a horrible person
.
I'm not falling apart.
(30:47):
This is not falling apart.
I haven't failed.
I've actually grown a lot ofthings.
And even if I fail and even ifit all falls apart and I have to
claim bankruptcy someday,because there are days when cash
flow is not there and you'relike, oh my God, the journey was
still fun.
I still had a lot of stuff init.
I've learned a lot, and I don'teven know what I've learned.
(31:12):
I'm sure it's like but green meback when I'm like, just like,
all right, I'm going to go sitin this BNI place and tell you I
can do this and puff myself upLike now, I, I, I know what I
want to do.
I know, um, I know how to talkthrough things with people.
I love that part.
Um, and I've I've taken thingsto be more than just I'm doing.
This is the other part of myjourney of realizing I started
(31:35):
this to help people not stress,and I realized a couple years in
that they're still stressedbecause they just have to get
their taxes done.
They're still stressed by it.
You're running your business.
Thanks for doing my books.
I'm still stressed by it.
So now the question is how do Ihelp you become profitable?
(31:58):
How do I help you work throughthat space of things?
So I literally sat down thisweek Friday not this week, it's
Monday last week with a clientand he's like I have all of this
ideas for this organizationthat I'm part of and how we need
to structure the staffing.
And I sat there and I asked himquestions and I pulled it all
down and we put it on aspreadsheet and he was like, oh
(32:19):
my gosh, like you just lifted somuch weight off of me because
you took all of the weirdthought patterns I had going all
over the place and tried toconcise them down into a
spreadsheet-ish thing that Icouldn't even wrap my head
around to put there.
And now he can plan according toit and now he can do stuff with
it.
And that is so much fun for meto even go through my journey of
(32:39):
going.
I started it here with thisplace and goal.
As I'm going through, I'm doinga good thing for people.
You want to have a conversationabout how do I save money on
taxes, but really, at the end ofthe day, you have a vision for
your life, you have a dream forit.
You want to go someplace andyou can't quite get there and
it's really fun to sit with youand kind of help you figure that
(32:59):
part out.
And to also know and this is theother part I know as I go
through my journey is that everysingle one of the hiccups,
every single one of my not beingable to attain the goals or the
things that I want to be, isbecause my brain, my thing,
won't let me do it, for whateverreason that is.
So when I say I can't cold call, I wonder if, at the beginning
(33:22):
of this whole process, I had tojust ask the people who I knew.
But why could I not?
I remember a long, long, longtime ago he probably doesn't
remember this Denny said hey,you're brand new to this.
I'm an ADP, I do payroll stuff.
Let's go walk from place tothis.
Like I'm I'm an adp, I dopayroll stuff.
Like, let's go like walk fromstore to like place to place.
Like I'm totally green I don'teven know if, like this is way
(33:45):
long ago like we'll walk intogether.
We'll like cold call.
Like walk into right along yeahright and like, and I, and I
think I gave him platitude oflike, yeah, and then avoided it
like the crap, like, but whatwould have happened if I would
have gotten over my mentalwhatever block and tried to do
that Like?
Would I have had a few moreopportunities that I didn't have
(34:07):
today?
Yeah, and like.
What would go through my brainif I was able to not just
pretend that everybody'swonderful and hire whomever says
, yeah, I love this side ofthings, but actually willing to
like.
All right, like I see a flag,like I, I feel it, I feel the
flag, but no, just stupid flag.
(34:29):
You don't think like that aboutpeople.
Like my brain, what am I doingthat's blocking my path to stuff
?
Um, you stuff.
Why am I not willing to putsome structures in place and
some business processes in place?
That would just make things somuch easier for my staff or
whatever else.
Zach (34:48):
And obviously you act as a tool for others to have that
dialogue with themselves and runthrough that process.
What are the tools that you useor have found useful for myself
, for yourself and theconversation?
Brook (35:04):
And then this is where I kick myself a lot, Cause
sometimes I can sit down and doall of this stuff with other
people, but I can't.
Paul (35:11):
I can't.
Brook (35:12):
I don't have a lot of energy to do it for myself and
so, um, I, I you know it's thatshoem's piece of thing.
It's not the person I do thebookkeeping and accounting for
so many firms.
The last day thing I want to dois my own books.
So I finally hired somebodyelse to do my own books because
I'm getting big enough that it'sa bigger deal to catch up on a
(35:32):
bunch of stuff, like listeningto my own advice that I give to
other people is hard sometimes,but I not even.
It's almost two years ago, Ithink I went through a spot not
very healthy mindset wise.
(35:53):
I had someone quit the very endof January, like I had hired
them.
They'd been on for four monthsand their whole goal, the whole
reason I had them there, wasbecause I had bandwidth issues
for tax season and I had justacquired an office, and it
burned me mentally andemotionally and physically all
(36:16):
of it.
And I have two small kids atthat point in time I have a
one-year-old at that, whatever,and a four I don't know it was
three and so I I remember like Inever have cried when someone
quit, totally like was bawling,and I had a phone call right
after that with myadministrative assistant, I get
on the phone and I'm like okay,suck it up.
(36:37):
Like you're fine, you can dothis.
Like started talking and juststarted crying and she's like I
think you need to take the restof the day off.
I didn't even get out what wasgoing on.
She's just like I have no ideawhy you're crying on me, but
like you and um, but that was avery, very hard, hard season
because I didn't have the rightstaff structure and it's really
hard to find an accountant inthe middle of that.
(36:57):
You know piece of things, um,yeah and uh.
And I had had a hard yearbefore that, anyway, I think,
cause I had had a kid and itwasn't a great birth, so I was
still like off of that and thenshe quit these are all the
mental side of things and thatseason was horrible.
And at the end of that season Ibought an electric bike and I
(37:21):
started to I mean, this isreally, these are not business-y
sort of things.
I started to listen every.
Actually the electric bike wasnot the first thing.
I started to every day when Idrove to and from work listen to
a book.
I would not let my brain startto go down whatever rabbit hill
it needed to go down.
It didn't get to go there, likeI literally would listen to a
(37:44):
book and then I would listen toa and um.
Then I would listen to a uh,one time during the day, a
meditation thing, um and uh, itwas a great meditation.
Uh, ryan Yogi and when you lookup what his meditation is, you
(38:05):
might laugh, if you know me butum, uh, yeah.
So, and I like just, and I dothat every single day and I
would find okay, find okay, Ican take a deep breath.
My brain wasn't spiraling intothis.
I built something up.
I am crashing and burning.
It's all falling apart.
I'm going bankrupt.
I don't know how I'm going topay for things, because I had
just bought an office too, andso when you first buy an office,
(38:26):
there's a crap ton of moneywithout out, without any coming
back in, and so it just like itwas this.
But I'm trying to pretend a lotwith people.
I'm not going insane, we're notfalling apart.
I'm supposed to be the personwho's inspiring everybody else,
and I don't know if they cantell or not, but I'm not feeling
any inspiration, like I amburning inside, and so I just I.
But I did a very simple thing Ilistened to a book and I did a
(38:48):
meditation thing.
And then somewhere along thelines, I have a friend, she has
a podcast and all of this stuff,and she started talking about
all the things she does whichare very.
At the time I kind of wasrolling my eyes because I know
her, and I was like wow, youfeel like you're on the woo
train of stuff, like okay, butit was something and things she
was saying I was like okay,she's probably right, okay, I
(39:10):
should probably do a few morethings for myself.
Like it's kind of pissing meoff how much she's probably
right, but like okay.
So I started journaling too,like I started journaling in the
midst of it too, and I read abook and I met you, I think
somewhere in this process too.
You I'm pointing to Paul, sorryand we started talking about
(39:32):
and he actually pointed me tothis guy, keith Cunningham, stop
Doing Stupid Stuff.
What's the book called?
Paul (39:42):
The Road Less Stupid.
Brook (39:43):
The Road Less Stupid and it's a brilliant concept.
But he's like just make aquestion up and write answers
Like think, stop, slow down,think.
And his little slogan is you'llthank me for it later.
Yeah, I kind of do.
And so what became what Istarted to realize?
And then I bought an electricbike and I would bike to work,
(40:04):
but my headspace needed release,like I needed space to write
things out.
I needed space to listen topeople and my first audio books
I listened to were not businessbooks, they were like Will Smith
, which, whatever you think ofwhatever has happened like his
book is phenomenal, and otherones that are like, and they
(40:24):
were usually someone's memoirsor whatever Kind of a biopic.
Yeah, like just their journey,like just listening to, like,
okay, everyone has gone throughcrap and they're going to come
out on the other side andsomewhere in that, slowly, not
immediately, it was notovernight, and I'm not through
probably parts of it.
Like I, I felt like I had abreath, I started to have a
(40:46):
vision, I started to paint athing of like okay, what happens
if we do this?
What happens if we do that?
And that's a big piece for me.
A lot in my life is I oftenwill dream up something I want
to do.
It's not big, it's littlethings.
Like I wanted to go to Africa.
So I went to Africa and I justsort of step into them somehow
or another.
I wanted to jump out of anairplane.
(41:06):
I did that.
Once I'm good, I wanted to jumpout of an airplane.
I did that once I'm good.
You know all of those things andI, for the longest time, wasn't
, and I felt depressed and Ifelt lost.
And I felt depressed because Iwasn't thinking of anything I
wanted to do and I was tired.
I had two little kids who werelike Mom and I had no space for
me.
And so, taking those smallincremental pieces, so what is
(41:29):
my thing, that I do for me is isfocusing a lot on my own
headspace and giving myselfgrace.
And you know, to the pointwhere I hardly work on the
weekends anymore and I used tobeat myself up while I wasn't
working and so I just wasanxious about the fact that I
now I'm kind of like, probablyshould have I would have gotten
a little further if I would havedone this, but oh well, like I
(41:51):
enjoyed my kids, I enjoyed myfamily.
It's crap's going to come,crap's going to go, like we're
going to be fine somewhere inthere.
So I um, I still beat myself upa little bit on the like I know
how to walk other peoplethrough, what are the equations
and the different pieces thatneed to be done, but sometimes
I'm like, oh, I know I need todo this.
Why am I not implementing this?
So I need that coaching andinspiration and that
(42:12):
accountability just as much as Iam that for other people To
have people go.
You said you were going tocreate a metrics that evaluated
XYZ.
Did you do that?
No, okay, I'm going to set anappointment with whatever so
that they do it each time,because I'm not going to be the
one who does it, but like, atleast I get it and so I.
I need those just as much asI'm.
(42:33):
I love helping other people seethem and kind of work through.
Although I'm really good atwriting out my vision for things
or my wants for stuff, it'ssometimes the middle ground of
like, okay, I know, how do I getthere?
Um, and my current one rightnow is by next June.
Zach (42:48):
That was my next question, yeah.
Brook (42:50):
My um.
I want for the month of June.
It's probably not.
It's probably been part ofmonth in June and July.
Now my kid's in kindergartennext year.
So I got the like schoolschedule way annoys me, um and
uh, but I'm going to be a lovemy kid and let him go to school.
Um and uh.
But so, like for June, like amonth, I want to go somewhere,
(43:16):
like I want to just, and I canbe working there, like whatever
that is.
But I want to create enoughspace that, because I was
realizing I feel trapped,because I want to travel, I want
to go places, I want to, andI've always talked about
spending a month somewhere orsomewhere somewhere where you
just get to sit and enjoy it,like and bring my kids, and I'm
like not doing that, and I'mlike I'm not doing that, I'm
feeling trapped.
So I own my own business.
I set this up so I can workfrom wherever I can do that.
But it's become harder becausenow I have kids I'm like so,
(43:39):
hire a summer nanny, let's goand do this.
So now I'm trying to figure outokay, where are we going?
Are we going to spend it in?
Like Northwest Oregon,washington, like that space, are
we going to go to Hawaii for amonth?
We're literally trying to getpassports, which, by the way, is
really annoying when you havetwo kids and you have to have
(43:59):
both parents present and yourother half happens to travel all
the stinking time, and now youhave to set up an appointment
Long story.
If you need passports, do it,like right now, anyhow.
Story.
If you need passports, to do itlike right now, um, anyhow.
So I don't know if it'll beinternational side of things and
so um, but like that's.
That's my next.
Like.
I want space to not only andthings like this too, of where
(44:20):
I'm not, I also want to from abusiness standpoint.
I want to grow thatconversation of.
I want to help businesses grow.
I've been, I I'm a very big.
I like Disney, but not reallybecause of the Disney stuff, but
really because of their wholetheme of like, make your dreams
come true.
Like I want to help people maketheir dreams come true, like
whatever that is what that thatgrowth is for them, that vision,
(44:43):
whether it's an organization, aperson like like I want to
encourage it, but I don't wantto be in the weeds of what
you're doing.
Like.
I want to dialogue.
I want to help you.
I do want to be in the weeds,but not quite the weeds that
people are like, but like reallyhelp you figure out what, what
it is that you want to get toand how to help you get there,
um, and you know what is themental blocks that are coming
(45:03):
into play for that.
What are the people blocks,what are the process blocks?
And so I want to be able togrow that support, such as this,
this conversations that we'rehaving here, um, different
programs, but all of that, thatpiece is business wise.
What I want to do personal side,I want to enjoy that while also
getting to travel places.
So I want to spend a monthsomewhere.
(45:25):
So that's my current like inthe next year, like build this
space and then also keep my kidsso busy that they don't want to
watch TV, which is reallyexhausting.
That's just a side, personalthing of like I pick them up, I
have to like, at the end of theday, I'm like I just want to veg
in front of a TV and I'm like,nope, we're going to go swimming
, we're going to do all of thisstuff, but those are, you know,
(45:51):
those are small right now, butthey're really healthy for me to
be just enjoying the momentthat we're in and making sure
that I don't um, someone sent methe YouTube clip.
Someday is not a day of the weekLike um, and I didn't fully
listen to the YouTube.
I got through enough of it thatI was like oh yeah, someday is
not the middle of the name ofthe week, um and uh, so I don't,
I don't want my someday to beout there, like I always wanted
(46:12):
to do that.
My other thing on my list issomeday to I'd love to write a
book, and I'm not really surewhat that is or how that is.
So I'm starting to likeformulate those pieces.
That's a still someday thing.
I haven't quite figured it out,but it's coming together a
little bit better than my formersomeday of that.
I think that's been on my listfor years but not articulated
clearly, like it's like one ofthose subtle, like it's just
(46:33):
back there and I'm starting toarticulate it out of just saying
something I want to do, likeI'm actually telling people.
Right Starting to reallymaterialize it, and it may be,
it may be nothing, it may be alittle short stories that I just
published on my own and I justI got stuff out and it was fun
for me.
It might turn into something,it might be a kid's story, it
(46:54):
might I don't know.
But I want, I don't think it'llbe a kid's story, I don't know,
I might surprise myself, but,um, oh, so we'll, we'll see.
On that side of things, um, Ihope my journey is not over and
so I just kind of keep coming upwith something new.
I also want a cold plunge.
I'm having this very big debatewith my other half because, um,
(47:17):
those ice cold things.
Zach (47:19):
I don't know this, I'm not familiar with this.
Brook (47:20):
You don't know what a cold bath is.
No, I mean I, I, I know I'mtaking an ice bath before, like
sports injury or something, soit's supposed to be super
therapeutic, like it helps withinflammation, it helps with
metabolism, it helps with yourmood, it helps, um, with your
immunity, like all of thesethings like just like three
minutes I don't remember howmany minutes a week, but like
(47:41):
jumping in three minutes a dayor something like that.
So, um, I got a really cheap$20 one on Amazon and I was like
, okay, it doesn't have a top.
So then I bought another onethat has a top on it, but I
still have to fill it with iceall the time.
So now I'm like I want a reallike bath bath one and I'm gonna
put it in the backyard.
That has like one of thoseheater things that heats it when
I want to heat it and coolchills it, like so that I don't
have to put ice in it.
Like, um, so I want to havespace in our backyard for them.
(48:08):
So it's a current like thingthat I have on my list that I'm
talking my other half into justbreathing and letting me have
back there.
So these aren't all I mean.
I think that's, but they're notcheap too.
Business owners or people whoare like the real push of why
(48:30):
you're doing what you're doingis not necessarily the business
being successful.
I mean, at some level there'sthe pride of like I was like
successful business.
Well, what do you define assuccessful in your brain for
that pride?
But it's usually something else.
Like I want to be able totravel a lot.
I want to be able to buy thingsthat I want to buy when I want
to buy them.
(48:50):
Well, what do you want to buy?
Like I want a Rivian truck.
That's like ridiculouslyexpensive sort of thing and I'm
going to, like you know, maybethat's not, there's lots of
ridiculously expensive cars outthere, but like whatever that is
for you, that you know I want ahouse in Hawaii.
Or I just I want a simple houseon the lake down the street.
Like you know, whatever thosepieces are, people have dreams
(49:12):
that have nothing to do withwork, that they do work for.
That helps, you know, pullingout what is it that you really
want and what is it that you'rereally trying to get to also
helps, because sometimes youjust spin the wheels on the
wrong, and that's what I wasfinding when I was feeling
trapped of like I'm justspinning the wheels and I can't
leave and I'm like cause I'm notintentionally saying I want to
(49:33):
go travel somewhere for fourweeks just to travel somewhere
um to expose my kids to do somestuff, and you know, the first
time we do this, we're doing itin the U S somewhere.
The next time I want it to beinternational, like how, how do
I?
Those are my dreams are, butthey come back to the business
(49:53):
side of things, because I want abusiness behind the scenes that
still functions just fine,while I also enjoy that and also
creating space for my people toalso be able to do similar fun
things.
Um, you know, and how do you?
How do you create that balanceof stuff?
Paul (50:09):
But setting up your lifestyle, setting what you want
out of life and setting thebusiness up to support that is
the key, I think, to being asuccessful business owner.
Brook (50:21):
Definitely.
Yes, I was about ready to saydefinitely like for smaller
businesses, because that's thepoint of like, where you are,
but I actually think it alsoapplies for the bigger
businesses too, so I stoppedmyself.
Um, that you know you're owningyour division, you're owning
your they call thementrepreneurs you're not an
entrepreneur and the fact thatyou are on out but you're inside
of a system and you need tohave the entrepreneurial
(50:43):
mentality inside of like.
How do I still accomplish allthe goals they're asking me to
do in a manner that doesn't killme?
And it requires you to figureit out, to think through stuff,
to like to work.
And sometimes that means youask someone to brainstorm with
you.
Sometimes it means you get overyour fear of asking for
something.
Paul (51:01):
I don't know.
Brook (51:02):
Like there's lots of different pieces, but and your
journey is not something whereit's like you know, I, when I
was first starting, I would havenever been like, how do I
afford a cold tub?
Um, but uh, my, my pain pointswere a lot different, but really
if I come back to it, it stillcomes back to I want the
flexibility to travel.
That's what I created to startwith Um.
(51:24):
It's kind of interesting howsometimes those goals all stay,
stay there.
Paul (51:29):
All right cool, I'm trying to think of.
Is there anything?
The one point, I think, the onelittle piece we can explore
because it's part of the journey, if you like.
Zach (51:48):
is your imposter syndrome yeah, that is something I meant
to ask earlier on is like isthere a certain point in this
process where you feel youstarted to kind of come into,
you know, grow into the shoes ofthe owner, if you will, and
sort of wake up like you know,this is, this is me and I'm, I'm
in this now, or does it stillfeel like a daily kind of
(52:10):
evolution?
Brook (52:12):
Um, I'm not sure.
Paul (52:16):
I know how to answer that one or if I uh.
Brook (52:18):
I mean, I remember those moments when I would spend hours
doing a tax return and someonewould question me on something,
um, or like even me.
Someone inquires of somethingon me and I give them the wrong
answer.
And they find out the wronganswer I was wrong in it, and
how embarrassing that was at thebeginning side of things.
I still have moments where it'sa topic that I don't know a
(52:40):
whole lot about.
I have learned a little bitmore that I can still be
confident in who I am and say Idon't know a whole lot about
that, but I'll dig into that andsee what I can find.
But they say using those allthe time.
But as far as like, feeling likethis is not really me, I don't
know if I ever felt like I came.
I know terms I've said havemade it seem like that was what
(53:02):
I was feeling.
But I don't know if Iconsciously sat back and said I
don't feel like I should be here.
I think I was scared.
Could I make this happen?
Could I get to a spot?
But like, am I an imposter?
Like I shouldn't be here?
Paul (53:18):
The one bit I was thinking was when you were doing the,
you'd worked for the KPMG.
Then you started doing your owntax returns and that piece was
I was scared, I didn't know whatI was doing.
Brook (53:32):
So I guess that's the imposter part, and I think as I
learned more and I felt moreconfident in what I was doing, a
lot of that has kind of feltfallen away.
Zach (53:39):
Um that's what I think is interesting is like the question
of is it like the impostersyndrome subsides, but is it
because you've acquiredinformation on the journey that
you needed at the beginning thatyou have developed, or is it
learning just literally?
The essence of not knowing isokay.
Brook (54:00):
I think it's both.
I think it's both.
I think I learned how to dothings, so I got in, I figured
it out, and so there was aninsecurity because I didn't
really know what I was doing andwould someone?
peg that and then not pay me andsometimes they did, to be frank
.
And so I think a good piece ofit was I learned how to do
(54:25):
something.
I practiced it enough.
I had those 10,000 hours ofpracticing something so that now
I can fly through it muchquicker.
I've done it enough times.
You've got the confidence inthe results.
(54:45):
Know this, but I don't knowthis, so I'm going to kind of
try to pretend yes, I still dothat on some topics, but at the
same point in time have builtenough confidence to say this
isn't our sweet spot.
So here's some stuff I know andhere's some deductions that I
need to like.
Paul (55:01):
So I don't know if that's answering your question but I
think for me it's a huge amountof like.
Brook (55:06):
I just I've practiced my way out of that.
Are there other owners who arebetter than me?
Yeah, probably.
Depending on how you classify it.
They've built strongercompanies in some respect.
Yeah, do I have some people wholike working under my style?
Yes, do I have some people whohate working under my style?
Yes, and maybe I've just kindof come to peace with.
(55:29):
We're all different, we all,and we're all good people inside
.
This is a personal belief thatI think fundamentally.
We've all had traumas that haveimpacted us.
Who have been.
You respond from that traumaand some people's trauma I want
to bounce against, and otherpeople's I don't, and I don't
(55:50):
think that's bad.
There's still plenty ofopportunities out there.
And that was also something Iremember I literally had a BNI
meeting when I was first gettingstarted no, it was at a
Rainmakers meeting, which is adifferent type of networking
side things but they literallywere saying we're not nervous
about having more than oneperson here because there's so
much work out there.
We all can stay employed, andthat meant that it was a very
(56:13):
interesting shift for me too ofjust going away from the
scarcity mentality.
Yes, into a like there is enoughwork so that I can also say you
client are not fun for me towork with, you're not fun for my
staff to work with, and if youdon't want to play, that's fine.
Like we, you can go indifferent direction.
(56:34):
This is not.
This is I'm not going to crashand burn because one client
doesn't like my style.
If that makes sense, or youknow and we're not free from
mistakes we make mistakes and wetry really hard to like, remedy
(56:54):
that stuff.
You know, sometimes that's acomponent of us not working
together with a client too fromit, but most of the time it
almost comes down to acommunication style that just
doesn't mesh for people.
Not a good fit, not a good fit.
Or we forgot to communicate,like it just is all there, or we
forgot to communicate, like itit just is all there, and or
they forgot to communicate, andso it just.
I've come to a point with myscarcity mentality and I don't
(57:16):
have to.
I don't have to play with youif you're going to make my life
exhausting and take up so muchtime that you're not worth
keeping.
Zach (57:25):
That's what we were talking about earlier.
Brook (57:27):
Yeah, it's a it's it's a hard space to fire someone as a
client.
Paul (57:33):
Yeah.
Brook (57:34):
It's a really hard space.
But it's relieving and it's itis, and I don't know if it's
better to build it to the pointwhere they quit or I release
them, or maybe you try to doboth, cause I kind of try to do
both, sometimes when I'm like,okay, let's just make this
obvious, it doesn't work.
Sometimes when I'm like, okay,let's just make this obvious, it
doesn't work.
Um, but most I like a goodmajority of my clients, you, you
(57:58):
tend to find the people whomesh with you, um and yeah, and
same thing with your clients,like they're my client, like
these are the people who wantthe stuff that we provide, and
um, yeah, it, it.
It usually flows somewhere inthere and so, um, it's still
journey, still learning all ofthe stuff.
Zach (58:15):
How are we doing on time Nine o'clock?
Oh, okay, perfect, cool.
Well, thank you for being onthe podcast today, brooke, we
appreciate your time.
And, uh, please, uh, rememberto tune in next week for Paul
McCoy and his origin story ofwhatever his book is called.
Paul (58:37):
Yeah, exactly.
Thank you, guilty, as charged.
Just kidding, no, but I need it.
I need it.
Zach (58:48):
That felt good.
How did you feel about that?
Brook (58:49):
Yeah, I can talk like that all day long Cool.
Paul (58:52):
That was really good.
I wanted to interject, but youwere flowing.
It was just.
Zach (58:56):
Sorry, I do that.
Paul (58:57):
No, yeah, it was perfect.
Thank you Bye.
Hello and welcome to the Owner's Odyssey, the podcast
where we delve deep into thetransformative stories of
courageous business owners whohave embarked on an
extraordinary adventure.
I'm Zach Jones and I'm BrookeGattia.
We're here to explore the reallife experiences of
entrepreneurs.
Brook (00:22):
Each episode, we'll embark on a quest to uncover the
trials, triumphs andtransformations of remarkable
individuals who dared to answerthe call of entrepreneurship.
Zach (00:34):
Like all adventurers, our guests have faced their fair
share of challenges, vanquishedformidable foes and braved the
unknown.
Brook (00:41):
Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a
seasoned business owner orsimply an avid listener hungry
for captivating stories theOwner's Odyssey is here to help
you level up.
Zach (00:52):
So join us as we embark on this epic expedition.
This is the Owner's Odyssey.
Let's start our adventure.
Brook (01:03):
The intro in my mind, just because I'll get it out and
it'll help me.
Zach (01:05):
Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, absolutely.
Brook (01:08):
Is totally like hey, you know, this is the owner's
journey and you know, while it'sabout primarily about the
business owners, there's reallythe people who are owners of
their division or theirorganization or just the job
that they have to do, or owningyour own vision, whatever that
is.
While we're focusing on thebusiness side, we're talking
(01:30):
about that journey and whileownership can be fun and
exciting and inspiring, it'salso really really hard, and we
understand that engaging in thatreally really hard is a
community and that there is notone size fits all.
You will listen to the TikToks,all of those other things out
there.
They're like here's your onesolution that will allow you to
(01:52):
be free.
That doesn't exist because oftrauma and opportunities and
money and people and processesand your industry and the
location of your industry.
Nobody's story is the same.
So it's just a journey and thispodcast is about the learning
(02:12):
from other people's journeys andunderstanding that it's not a
big aha moment of like it allcomes together, but it's a 1%
improvement all along the way.
And so we're sitting here,we're talking about what are
people's journeys, what are thethings that help them find their
path in the middle of it.
And so that's the little we canfeel that a little bit better,
(02:34):
but really almost that succinctpiece of just saying this is the
fine, you know owner's journey.
You don't have to be a businessowner.
We're going to focus on that.
But really we're talking aboutpeople's journeys and how to
find them and how to find oneperson, improvements and how to
find your path in the midst ofit and hopefully get encouraged
(02:55):
and inspired and have fun andlaugh and all of those
components of it, while alsorelating with people when it's
hard and you sometimes mightwant to cry.
I'm not sure we're gonna cry,but you know maybe.
Um, yeah, so you know all ofthose.
It's like you guys might cry.
I probably won't either, butyou never know, I might be more
likely, you know.
So that would be my spiel of,like the beginning piece of it.
Zach (03:18):
Um, yeah and so, yeah, I think that's good, okay, yeah
especially for especially apilot episode, definitely having
a welcome to the podcast kindof moment.
Paul (03:31):
I was thinking that we have a particular set of
questions.
The questions can be the same,but the answers are all going to
be different.
Brook (03:41):
So who's the host?
Is it going to be Zach?
Zach (03:44):
I mean today.
I think we're just going tokind of tag team and chit chat
yeah.
I think, you know in the futureyou'll be kind of running
things and then I'll.
Paul (03:53):
I'm very loud mouthed, so Hop in and yeah, the other thing
is To add some base to theequation.
If you're sat there havingsomething up there like the
question, so that when you'reasked a question as the
interview, then you've got thequestion up there.
Brook (04:06):
Oh, that's not a bad idea .
So you're not having to?
Paul (04:08):
what was that question again?
Brook (04:09):
I don't have to look down and be like, yeah, I can look
up and like just having littlelittle prompts that are not
distracting but just helpful.
Yeah, no, that's not a bad idea, which, by the way, awesome,
yeah, I have been sitting.
The last one.
Yeah, the kind of pyramid.
Okay, the font was not.
Sorry, the first one.
I was like no, it's good, Ilike that.
Zach (04:31):
And I appreciate the feedback because that's that's
like what I always get when I dothose graphic design jobs for
people.
They're like it's really reallygood, it's like really
masculine, and I'm like it'sreally really good, it's like
really masculine, like, and I'mlike I don't know, like, it's
just that's what I see, you gotto give me more, so that was
(04:51):
perfect.
You gave me some examples and Iwas like, oh okay, that's
what's different about thesefonts Like pulled it together.
Brook (04:56):
But yeah, it's like if you're just very like bold,
clunky, like straight lines,like I'm here, I'm like, okay,
let's like, let's just be here.
If you had to put feelingbehind the font, that was what
you got in the midst of it.
Paul (05:10):
But this is what this is all about is getting different
perspectives to do what we'retrying to do.
Brook (05:17):
So do you just want me to talk?
Zach (05:20):
So yeah, I mean, I kind of where?
Where do you feel like yourowner's journey started, like
what's the first kernel of yourcurrent path that you can
remember?
I?
Brook (05:40):
don't.
Yeah, no, it does.
I don't know if I have thesevague like feelings as a
teenager and I remember, sittingwith my dad, um had like a
(06:06):
graduation thing and it was asmall group of I don't know if
it was a church or what and allthese girls are up there and
saying, and probably even guys,saying, I want to be a mom and
have a family and I, um, I'm ateenager so I'm rude, but in my
brain I'm like rolling my eyesof, like really, that's, all you
want is to be like a mom.
(06:28):
Now I'm a mom, now I love beinga mom.
Like that's not, there'snothing wrong with it, but like
that, that thought pattern oflike I, I want more than just
that again, nothing wrong withthat.
But um, just I remember thosedistinct kind of feelings of
things.
And so I didn't know her.
(06:50):
I went to college.
I barely made it to it.
I thought I was going to be adoctor because I watched ER and
I thought that was the coolestthing.
I'm not a doctor and my friendswill laugh at me because I
can't pronounce anything.
So I probably would wronglyprescribe lots of stuff if I had
gotten that direction.
But accounting kind of madesense because my dad would
(07:13):
always like play, made thesegames for me with numbers, like
I would always just computergames before computers were
anything and it just numbers fit.
My aunt was an accountant Like.
I was just like okay, let'sjust do this, but still, there
was probably this thoughtpattern somewhere in the back of
my head of like business sideof things, and so Was there
(07:36):
anybody in your life at thatpoint that was a business owner?
No, so what's very interestingis my one brother owns his own
business.
My other brother is a pastor ata church, like my dad is a
pastor, but I think my parentscultivated this very
(07:58):
entrepreneurial mindset.
I don't even know what they didor how they did it, but I just
like looking at us now, like weall, we think up something and
we go towards it and we try tomake it happen.
Paul (08:11):
But being the pastor that's almost like being the CEO
of that church Right.
Brook (08:16):
And it was.
He had his own church for awhile and then he was like a
part of a bigger church where hewas one of the pastors.
But yeah, like it is definitelythis you have to lead people,
you have to inspire people, youhave to get them Running an
organization can be moredifficult than owning your own
business.
Entrepreneurial side of things.
(08:36):
But I don't know what I tookaway from that or what my
brothers would have taken away,but we totally something in us
was cultivated in this mindsetof, and I remember my dad.
I'd ask him how to do somethingand he'd look at me and he'd
say figure it out.
And I tell him today which hetotally disagrees with me.
I'm like I kind of think youwere just lazy and didn't want
(08:58):
to do it.
But in reality I reallyappreciate that Best of both
worlds.
Yeah, like he told me, like I'mnot helping you figure it out,
and so I did, and so I don't.
I don't know if if that's partof it, I do find it very amazing
when people can't figure stuffout like I'm like, I okay like,
and try not to lose patiencewith I don't understand why you
(09:20):
can't just play until you figureit out.
Paul (09:21):
So what about the process, like your father being, say,
the head of this church, andhe'd say over dinner, maybe I
think we're going to do this,and then you just see it happen.
Brook (09:35):
I imagine that there probably was some of those
things.
I think my parents were verycareful not to bring home the
gossip of work on sort of stuff,but I don't know if there's a
distinct pace where I rememberseeing any of those things, but
(09:57):
I'm sure they happened.
I remember my dad there was aschool attached to the church
that we were at and if anyissues happened at the school he
very rarely would have to stepin.
He would if he had to, but hedidn't.
It was a very hard conflict,I'm sure, for him of like he's
the kind of the boss and likeyour kids involved Like so when
(10:18):
do you interfere and have peoplescared of you because you're
the boss, versus like this isyour kid and you need to like
take care of them.
But again, I don't know ifthat's part of the like just
kind of go and figure things out, and if that was part of the
mentality that taught me to.
(10:39):
It's okay to risk stuff, it'sokay to try it and oh well, if
it doesn't work out like, we'llfigure it out.
And I don't know if that's partof it, but I certainly wonder
at times with it and so, yeah,and then I did stuff you do.
(11:00):
After college, you get a job.
I worked for an accounting firm, kpmg, and did consulting stuff
and then worked for theDepartment of Defense, because
you know why not?
No, I was part of preparing theArmy's financial statements,
and all of which is totally twodifferent.
That's a totally differentsphere from the entrepreneurial
world is being in that space.
Zach (11:22):
Was that just out of necessity?
Or was that out of interest inthat space?
Just a natural?
Brook (11:26):
flow of like I graduated.
Zach (11:28):
Kind of opportunity.
Brook (11:29):
Yeah, like okay, I'll take this job.
It was a really weird interviewand it was a very I was
actually like an administrativeassistant as my first job out
and as the consulting divisionof stuff.
And people looked at the guywho hired me and was like she
has an accounting degree, why isshe sitting there, like we need
her over here?
And I was green, you know I was, but whatever, they pulled me
(11:51):
over and just opportunity kindof stepped and you stepped with
it and it was and we wereconsulting with the department
of defense and so eventually Istarted working for the
department of defense and um.
And then I got um opportunityand I had gone once to Africa
with a group of people and theguy who ran it, jim Hawking.
(12:12):
He started a drilling watercompany and he asked for a CFO.
Now, when you're a nonprofitorganization, you can't afford
anything, so to do this ittotally was like a pay cut and
all of this sort of stuff.
But I was like, yeah, let's dothis, like I've always wanted to
be in Africa, like that wasalso a childhood sort of thing
(12:34):
and I don't know why.
Just something popped up andI'm like, oh, that sounds really
cool, like yeah.
And so it did that and it wasvery cool.
What they do is phenomenal.
I could I could rave aboutmultiple aspects of it.
Zach (12:46):
How long did you do that I ?
Brook (12:48):
want to say three years I think, but it was so hard and I
don't.
I still, to this day, don'tknow why emotionally it was so
hard for me, but to fly there Iwould go three to four times a
year and you'd be there therefor three weeks usually, because
it takes three days to getthere.
Paul (13:08):
Why was that?
Brook (13:09):
Central African Republic.
Okay, so it's right below Congo, right above Congo, right below
.
Paul (13:17):
I don't remember.
Brook (13:18):
There's some you know, it's Africa, there's conflict a
lot in multiple differentregions.
So, but it would literally therewas one flight from Paris down
there a week so you had to catchthat flight.
So you made sure you got toParis with 12 hours of layover
and like it was.
It was a long haul to get thereand I don't they speak French
(13:38):
and Sango.
I don't speak English very wellat times, so like it was just
emotionally very, very hard andI liked many pieces of it.
Like what they did was cool.
I liked being out and likeexploring stuff, like, but I I
didn't know how to navigate.
I didn't know how to navigate alot of that.
Um, and it's very weird beingthe only I'm sorry here's
(14:03):
getting into political stuff,the only white person, but not
in a, not the only one, but thefew one, but in a more
affluential space.
So people, you know, kidsswarming around you, people
swarming around you just becauseof your skin color, wanting
something from you, and not thatthat's bad, nothing.
(14:26):
But it was hard, Like it wasjust hard.
Paul (14:28):
It's just a culture shock, yeah exactly.
Brook (14:30):
And so I did it for three years and then finally, I lived
at home by myself and I workedremote for most of the time and
I just kind of got lonely and Iwas like you know what?
I'm going to start my own thing.
I've always wanted to start myown thing, and so I'm going to
do that Now.
I'm going to sit down andfigure out what it is I want to
do.
And so I thought about.
Airbnb, not an Airbnb, a B&B,like a real bed and breakfast.
(14:51):
And then I realized they had towork 24 seven and like can
never get away from it and itsounded exhausting doing that
and I was like, hey, I'll do aspa, cause I really love spas
and I get stressed and I want tolike be in that world.
And then I realized they take alot of money to start and I
don't have a lot of money.
And so I was like, all right,fine, you're an accountant,
(15:16):
you're a CPA, just do this.
All right, I'll do this.
And as soon as I did, I realizedthat all the things I was
trying to create bed andbreakfast, a spa, I think there
was something else on my list,but they were all around this
concept of you're stressed outand you want to breathe, and I
want to create space for peoplewhere they can relax and space
for people where they canbreathe.
(15:37):
And business owners kind of arestressed and really hate doing
their own books, kind of arestressed and really hate doing
their own books.
And so I can come in and helpthem kind of create a spa-like
experience to just breathe,because we got the books, the
accounting stuff done and then,literally, I was going to start
(15:58):
just as a bookkeeping businessand my other half looked at me
and said you're a CPA, why areyou not doing taxes?
Why are you not doing the morecomplicated things?
And I'm like because I'm scared.
And well, stop being scared,just get out there.
And I remember when I'm firstgetting started, I'm literally
like, okay, swallow your pride.
You literally just need to telleverybody what you're doing and
(16:18):
ask them if they need any help.
It doesn't matter if you thinkthey do or not.
Anybody on your list, you justtell them what you're doing and
you ask them if they need help.
And I don't.
Most of them.
I didn't want to ask becauseI'm like I just want to do it
and be successful.
But like I don't know anybodyelse, like I don't know how to
market, I don't know how to doany of this stuff.
So I just and I was stillworking part-time for the it's
(16:47):
Water for Good now, but theywere different names then but
the nonprofit side of things.
So you know, I was trying tolike figure out.
So I kept going backwards in mypay to be honest, like.
So I'm like cutting it in halfwith each space.
But you know we're going to trythis.
Like I don't have kids at thatpoint in time, like let's go
through this and so I this andso, um, I my it.
(17:11):
It took a lot to just be likeI'm going to ask whom ever, and
not if they, if they don'tanswer me, if they say no, it
means nothing about me, it justdidn't need it, Like, and I can
do my thing, and they can justknow that I'm doing it.
And one or two of them said, ohmy God, yeah, I do have someone
who needs something.
And that starts to be themarketing learning how to market
yourself.
And I would show up at BNImeetings, which are places where
(17:34):
you're only one person for eachindustry that you're in and you
have to refer other people andthey refer you and you go once a
week.
And I needed that structurewhere I had to go every single
week and I had to stand up andsay who I am and what I'm doing
and what I want, and be like,push myself to put myself out
(17:56):
there.
And that was really uh, Ibottled it up, I bottled
everything up.
I don't think I realized at allhow hard it was, but like,
looking back, I'm like that wasso hard for me to just put
myself out there with almost noskillset, like I'm still pretty
green, I probably look like I'm10.
Like all of those things, andjust standing there and saying,
(18:16):
hey, this is what I do, this iswhy it's worth you engaging in
me and I have nobody to refer toyou.
But I'll pretend I do and likekind of work for them.
Zach (18:24):
Do you feel like that ability to overcome and push
that kind of button to get intothat gear, if you will?
Is that a product of runningtowards something or away from
something, in terms of, like,working for somebody else or a
(18:46):
certain?
Brook (18:47):
I think it was probably more uh, I, I don't.
I didn't have the like oh mygosh, I hate working for
somebody else.
Space piece of it.
Um, I, I probably would havebeen fine if I stayed at the in
the government like I would have.
It'd been an interesting spacethat I would have probably
developed into, but it would, Iwould have been fine.
(19:08):
I just saw an opportunity and Ididn't want to look back on my
life and regret not taking anopportunity.
So the putting myself out theremay have been a bit about pride
and just like oh my gosh, likeI got to make this.
But I also knew in the back ofmy brain at that point in time
if I needed to pick up the phoneand get back in the world I had
left, I could have.
(19:28):
I can't.
Now All of those people areprobably gone and it's a whole
different story, but at thatpoint in time my fallback wasn't
destroyed Like I hadopportunities if I really wanted
them.
Paul (19:40):
You mentioned about.
There's a switch in thatthinking where you ask the
people who wanted help and thenyou force yourself into okay,
I'm just going to switch and askeveryone what was that mindset
switch that you had to adjust?
Brook (19:58):
I didn't have money.
I didn't have.
I mean, I had a small job thing, but I knew if I wanted to get
going with stuff.
I needed to find things and Iwas too scared.
I never have been able to dothe cold call.
I wonder, I probably could doit a little bit more today, but
I was not really great at thelike.
(20:18):
Hey, I'm going to pick up thephone and call you and ask you
if you want, and everybody saysthat.
No one likes that side of things.
So I was too scared to do that,so I had to like, I had to ask
somebody, I had to put it outthere some way, and I don't
think I mean this was 2008.
So Facebook existed, right?
(20:39):
I don't remember thosemarketing tactics being
something that was largelystepped into.
I mean it was starting maybe,but so it.
I mean I remember MySpaceAnyhow.
Not as all-encompassing Right,just a go-to, like it is right
(21:00):
right I was like, okay, I canjust put something out there for
the world to know and like, tryto market without ever making a
personality, like I can marketwithout ever seeing someone roll
their eyes at me, right, um,and I I didn't, you know, I just
you just kind of had to.
So the like, was it pushingtowards something?
Yeah, I think it was morepushing towards something of
like I want to see if I can dothis, like, can I make this work
(21:22):
?
And if I need to, I need tofind customers.
And I just got to kind of putmyself out there and try to do
what I can do and experiment.
And I spent a ton of money and Ihad to give myself a lot of
grace and learn to do this too.
Of like I spent money onsomething that was kind of not
beneficial at all.
Either I didn't execute itright or it just doesn't mix my
(21:43):
thing, but I had to experimentand I had to evaluate.
And then I had to drop likeI've done that so many times and
oh well, like that's part ofbusiness and not beating
yourself up for a decision thatwasn't the most productive
financially or evenaccomplishing vision wise.
Zach (22:04):
Yeah, so tell us more about that.
So once you are past that point, you've gotten to where you're
asking for business.
You're, you know, landing gigsof some sort.
What then ended up being kindof your biggest learning curves
(22:27):
through.
Brook (22:29):
I remember the biggest.
Zach (22:30):
Because this would be your first actual attempt at
entrepreneurship, right Did youhave any kind of smaller side
hustle type things before this.
Brook (22:39):
No, I didn't have any small.
I was not like the teenager whohad a little lawn mowing
business or anything like that.
I did none of those.
Zach (22:47):
Yeah, so obviously you've got the background for the tax.
You know how to stay compliant,but what are the things that
you're learning?
Brook (22:54):
Right, I mean the first times I'm doing tax returns I'm
like freaking out.
They took me hours to do onesimple tax return.
Because I'm like doublechecking, cripple checking,
because I'm nervous Because alsothis may or may not have been
smart.
I did go to a public accountingfirm but I was in consulting, I
was not doing bookkeeping ortax, and so then I'm going to go
out and try to do tax on my ownwithout zero, like kind of
(23:17):
doing it for real with somebodyelse, so I'm again.
I'm learning this my dad figuredout, just figure it out.
Okay, I'll just figure it out.
And this might take me likefive hours to do one tax return.
That today would take me 20minutes.
But at that point in time, likeI kind of totally went through
that, I remember as far as mylike big moments of stuff of me
getting to the point where I'mlike I can't be working from my
(23:38):
house anymore.
Like I go out and I meet peopleto pick up their tax returns
and I try to print them off andlike take it Like I need an
office and that growth point togo okay, can I afford an office?
I have to do an office.
Like I need to have a spacethat people come to.
(23:59):
And then getting an office andthen going I don't want to do
the books for this person everysingle time Like, I need a
bookkeeper who can come in andhiring someone.
Um, I I uh hired probably twopeople before I hired um,
jeanette, who's still on mystaff, but I didn't keep any of
those two people.
And um, and I've gone throughmultiple like, but how do you
(24:20):
hire people?
And I'm actually, um, that'sstill probably not one of my
best suits of stuff of figuringout how to interview people and
read them, and I think the bestof people versus trying to
decipher the flags of like arethey the right person for this?
And for the flags of like, arethey the right person for this?
(24:42):
And so, growing to the pointwhere I was like, okay, now I
have people, and each one ofthose steps I felt like I was
going five steps back andpraying to God it would allow me
to go 10 steps forward.
Sometimes it didn't.
Sometimes, again, this is thelike.
All right, I'm going toexperiment.
I'm not going to beat myself up.
Sometimes it didn't.
Zach (24:59):
Again, this is the like.
All right, I'm going toexperiment, I'm not going to
beat myself up.
Do you feel like, overall, thatframework has served you well
and that you do find that a lotof those five step back type
decisions?
Brook (25:11):
have ended up being good for me.
They are good.
So me hiring the wrong personis uh always been costly.
I, I need, uh it is importantto try to learn and develop in
those pieces of it.
I do think that getting my headaround and my concept to I need
(25:33):
more than just me.
Yes, it totally helped me gofive steps forward on on stuff,
um, but the I did it cost me agood amount in that too, yes,
you know, I looking back and I'mlike dang, I probably could
have a good chunk of money stillin my pocket if I had not made
some choices that I made.
(25:53):
But also going, I like my lifenow, like I like what I've
developed up.
There are hard parts and thereare exhausting parts, but I do
like them, and so the harderparts probably in me looking
back and I still think they aregood is when I decided to
actually read a book called Bold, I believe, and it said dream
(26:13):
something big and bodacious andthen try to make it happen, and
I was like I want 10 offices in10 years, so I don't remember
what year this was 2017.
Zach (26:23):
And was that goal just built out of ambition?
Yeah, just, I was like.
Brook (26:27):
I want to grow.
I want to become more than justme.
I want, I want to be a like,just a bigger.
I didn't have a like.
I want to be one of the bigfive accounting firms.
Like that was not anywhere in mybrain, I just wanted to be
bigger than me so that it's notjust me who has to get all of
the work done, and I think thatwas the huge piece of like.
I want the flexibility that Ihave backup in place.
(26:48):
I have different things inthere and so.
But sometimes, as you grow, itrequires more of you than less
of you, because what happenswhen the people you hire to do
the work don't?
Now you have to do it plus whatyou were doing, and so now
you're doubled up on that pieceof it.
But I read that book and I waslike I'm going to go buy an
(27:09):
office.
So I was brilliant.
I live in Indianapolis anddecided I would buy one up in
Fort Wayne.
It's only two hours, right Like, I can just drive up there.
I'll hire someone to likemanage that office and go from
there.
Well, I hired the wrong personto manage that office and it was
exhausting, like when you havesomeone you're trying to bring
(27:32):
on all these brand new clients,help them not feel nervous about
the switchover, and you havehired some of the wrong person
on the bus in the middle of taxseason.
You can't just.
I mean, I should have lessonlearned too you can release
someone in the middle of taxseason, but I was like I have to
keep them on.
We got to just filter through.
We got to like I did it allwrong.
(27:55):
I felt like and I don't know ahundred percent if it was all
wrong because I mean, I, I Ilost some clients.
I still have clients that I hadfrom when I purchased that side
of things.
But like I was exhausted and Isaid I'm not doing this again,
I'm not buying another firm.
Of course, as I'm saying this,I still would look at all of the
things that the brokers thatwould send to me saying, hey,
this person's looking to likesell or do whatever.
(28:16):
It would send to me saying, hey, this person's looking to like
sell or do whatever.
And so, and a couple yearslater, two, three years later,
buying Edgewater came up andthey did exactly the same thing
as we did, and my former namewas Brookside Accounting.
I hired someone to come up withmy name, told them not to put
my name in it.
They put my name in it.
Everyone loved it and I'm likesure.
But I was like all right, do Ipick the Edgewater name or the
(28:38):
Brookside name?
And I'm like I'm totallykeeping the Edgewater name for
multiple different reasons, butlargely I really hate saying
this is Brooke with BrooksideAccounting, and so yeah, and
this location, this office hadtwo locations.
So now all of a sudden I hadfour locations in almost a
five-year time frame and I waslike well damn, like I totally
put in my brain, in 10 yearshave 10 locations and about five
(29:01):
years I've had four locations.
Like I didn't even I toldmyself I dropped that dream like
and I'm did it anyway.
And then now I purchasedanother office and now I have
it's been six years and I havefive locations.
Since I've done that, and I'mlike, okay, I, but I'm, I think
I'm, I think I'm done, um, I'mgoing to grow a different way.
(29:22):
Is is where I am, becausethat's, it's just um, it's,
that's hard and um, and thenthat and that has become
probably the hardest part istrying to morph in.
It's not like you just hiresomeone and you get to pick
(29:42):
someone who has the rightmentality that meshes with you.
I purchased something that hasa bunch of mentalities that are
not the same as mine, and notonly me, and not only my
employees, my clients too, havea different mentality, and so
trying to mesh all of that andit's money, it's people's money
(30:03):
and you want to watch someoneget really mad really fast is
when they're talking about theirmoney, and even if you're not
at fault or there's no, likeyou've done amazing service.
If there is something thatcosts them money and they don't
know you and they don't know howto trust you in that, they get
really mad.
And so then you have to filterthrough all of those kind of
(30:26):
components of things and that isalso hard of the journey of
going.
Your anger, your disappointment,your wish that I would have
operated different than I do.
Your anger, your disappointment, your wish that I would have
operated different than I doisn't me being a horrible person
.
I'm not falling apart.
(30:47):
This is not falling apart.
I haven't failed.
I've actually grown a lot ofthings.
And even if I fail and even ifit all falls apart and I have to
claim bankruptcy someday,because there are days when cash
flow is not there and you'relike, oh my God, the journey was
still fun.
I still had a lot of stuff init.
I've learned a lot, and I don'teven know what I've learned.
(31:12):
I'm sure it's like but green meback when I'm like, just like,
all right, I'm going to go sitin this BNI place and tell you I
can do this and puff myself upLike now, I, I, I know what I
want to do.
I know, um, I know how to talkthrough things with people.
I love that part.
Um, and I've I've taken thingsto be more than just I'm doing.
This is the other part of myjourney of realizing I started
(31:35):
this to help people not stress,and I realized a couple years in
that they're still stressedbecause they just have to get
their taxes done.
They're still stressed by it.
You're running your business.
Thanks for doing my books.
I'm still stressed by it.
So now the question is how do Ihelp you become profitable?
(31:58):
How do I help you work throughthat space of things?
So I literally sat down thisweek Friday not this week, it's
Monday last week with a clientand he's like I have all of this
ideas for this organizationthat I'm part of and how we need
to structure the staffing.
And I sat there and I asked himquestions and I pulled it all
down and we put it on aspreadsheet and he was like, oh
(32:19):
my gosh, like you just lifted somuch weight off of me because
you took all of the weirdthought patterns I had going all
over the place and tried toconcise them down into a
spreadsheet-ish thing that Icouldn't even wrap my head
around to put there.
And now he can plan according toit and now he can do stuff with
it.
And that is so much fun for meto even go through my journey of
(32:39):
going.
I started it here with thisplace and goal.
As I'm going through, I'm doinga good thing for people.
You want to have a conversationabout how do I save money on
taxes, but really, at the end ofthe day, you have a vision for
your life, you have a dream forit.
You want to go someplace andyou can't quite get there and
it's really fun to sit with youand kind of help you figure that
(32:59):
part out.
And to also know and this is theother part I know as I go
through my journey is that everysingle one of the hiccups,
every single one of my not beingable to attain the goals or the
things that I want to be, isbecause my brain, my thing,
won't let me do it, for whateverreason that is.
So when I say I can't cold call, I wonder if, at the beginning
(33:22):
of this whole process, I had tojust ask the people who I knew.
But why could I not?
I remember a long, long, longtime ago he probably doesn't
remember this Denny said hey,you're brand new to this.
I'm an ADP, I do payroll stuff.
Let's go walk from place tothis.
Like I'm I'm an adp, I dopayroll stuff.
Like, let's go like walk fromstore to like place to place.
Like I'm totally green I don'teven know if, like this is way
(33:45):
long ago like we'll walk intogether.
We'll like cold call.
Like walk into right along yeahright and like, and I, and I
think I gave him platitude oflike, yeah, and then avoided it
like the crap, like, but whatwould have happened if I would
have gotten over my mentalwhatever block and tried to do
that Like?
Would I have had a few moreopportunities that I didn't have
(34:07):
today?
Yeah, and like.
What would go through my brainif I was able to not just
pretend that everybody'swonderful and hire whomever says
, yeah, I love this side ofthings, but actually willing to
like.
All right, like I see a flag,like I, I feel it, I feel the
flag, but no, just stupid flag.
(34:29):
You don't think like that aboutpeople.
Like my brain, what am I doingthat's blocking my path to stuff
?
Um, you stuff.
Why am I not willing to putsome structures in place and
some business processes in place?
That would just make things somuch easier for my staff or
whatever else.
Zach (34:48):
And obviously you act as a tool for others to have that
dialogue with themselves and runthrough that process.
What are the tools that you useor have found useful for myself
, for yourself and theconversation?
Brook (35:04):
And then this is where I kick myself a lot, Cause
sometimes I can sit down and doall of this stuff with other
people, but I can't.
Paul (35:11):
I can't.
Brook (35:12):
I don't have a lot of energy to do it for myself and
so, um, I, I you know it's thatshoem's piece of thing.
It's not the person I do thebookkeeping and accounting for
so many firms.
The last day thing I want to dois my own books.
So I finally hired somebodyelse to do my own books because
I'm getting big enough that it'sa bigger deal to catch up on a
(35:32):
bunch of stuff, like listeningto my own advice that I give to
other people is hard sometimes,but I not even.
It's almost two years ago, Ithink I went through a spot not
very healthy mindset wise.
(35:53):
I had someone quit the very endof January, like I had hired
them.
They'd been on for four monthsand their whole goal, the whole
reason I had them there, wasbecause I had bandwidth issues
for tax season and I had justacquired an office, and it
burned me mentally andemotionally and physically all
(36:16):
of it.
And I have two small kids atthat point in time I have a
one-year-old at that, whatever,and a four I don't know it was
three and so I I remember like Inever have cried when someone
quit, totally like was bawling,and I had a phone call right
after that with myadministrative assistant, I get
on the phone and I'm like okay,suck it up.
(36:37):
Like you're fine, you can dothis.
Like started talking and juststarted crying and she's like I
think you need to take the restof the day off.
I didn't even get out what wasgoing on.
She's just like I have no ideawhy you're crying on me, but
like you and um, but that was avery, very hard, hard season
because I didn't have the rightstaff structure and it's really
hard to find an accountant inthe middle of that.
(36:57):
You know piece of things, um,yeah and uh.
And I had had a hard yearbefore that, anyway, I think,
cause I had had a kid and itwasn't a great birth, so I was
still like off of that and thenshe quit these are all the
mental side of things and thatseason was horrible.
And at the end of that season Ibought an electric bike and I
(37:21):
started to I mean, this isreally, these are not business-y
sort of things.
I started to listen every.
Actually the electric bike wasnot the first thing.
I started to every day when Idrove to and from work listen to
a book.
I would not let my brain startto go down whatever rabbit hill
it needed to go down.
It didn't get to go there, likeI literally would listen to a
(37:44):
book and then I would listen toa and um.
Then I would listen to a uh,one time during the day, a
meditation thing, um and uh, itwas a great meditation.
Uh, ryan Yogi and when you lookup what his meditation is, you
(38:05):
might laugh, if you know me butum, uh, yeah.
So, and I like just, and I dothat every single day and I
would find okay, find okay, Ican take a deep breath.
My brain wasn't spiraling intothis.
I built something up.
I am crashing and burning.
It's all falling apart.
I'm going bankrupt.
I don't know how I'm going topay for things, because I had
just bought an office too, andso when you first buy an office,
(38:26):
there's a crap ton of moneywithout out, without any coming
back in, and so it just like itwas this.
But I'm trying to pretend a lotwith people.
I'm not going insane, we're notfalling apart.
I'm supposed to be the personwho's inspiring everybody else,
and I don't know if they cantell or not, but I'm not feeling
any inspiration, like I amburning inside, and so I just I.
But I did a very simple thing Ilistened to a book and I did a
(38:48):
meditation thing.
And then somewhere along thelines, I have a friend, she has
a podcast and all of this stuff,and she started talking about
all the things she does whichare very.
At the time I kind of wasrolling my eyes because I know
her, and I was like wow, youfeel like you're on the woo
train of stuff, like okay, butit was something and things she
was saying I was like okay,she's probably right, okay, I
(39:10):
should probably do a few morethings for myself.
Like it's kind of pissing meoff how much she's probably
right, but like okay.
So I started journaling too,like I started journaling in the
midst of it too, and I read abook and I met you, I think
somewhere in this process too.
You I'm pointing to Paul, sorryand we started talking about
(39:32):
and he actually pointed me tothis guy, keith Cunningham, stop
Doing Stupid Stuff.
What's the book called?
Paul (39:42):
The Road Less Stupid.
Brook (39:43):
The Road Less Stupid and it's a brilliant concept.
But he's like just make aquestion up and write answers
Like think, stop, slow down,think.
And his little slogan is you'llthank me for it later.
Yeah, I kind of do.
And so what became what Istarted to realize?
And then I bought an electricbike and I would bike to work,
(40:04):
but my headspace needed release,like I needed space to write
things out.
I needed space to listen topeople and my first audio books
I listened to were not businessbooks, they were like Will Smith
, which, whatever you think ofwhatever has happened like his
book is phenomenal, and otherones that are like, and they
(40:24):
were usually someone's memoirsor whatever Kind of a biopic.
Yeah, like just their journey,like just listening to, like,
okay, everyone has gone throughcrap and they're going to come
out on the other side andsomewhere in that, slowly, not
immediately, it was notovernight, and I'm not through
probably parts of it.
Like I, I felt like I had abreath, I started to have a
(40:46):
vision, I started to paint athing of like okay, what happens
if we do this?
What happens if we do that?
And that's a big piece for me.
A lot in my life is I oftenwill dream up something I want
to do.
It's not big, it's littlethings.
Like I wanted to go to Africa.
So I went to Africa and I justsort of step into them somehow
or another.
I wanted to jump out of anairplane.
(41:06):
I did that.
Once I'm good, I wanted to jumpout of an airplane.
I did that once I'm good.
You know all of those things andI, for the longest time, wasn't
, and I felt depressed and Ifelt lost.
And I felt depressed because Iwasn't thinking of anything I
wanted to do and I was tired.
I had two little kids who werelike Mom and I had no space for
me.
And so, taking those smallincremental pieces, so what is
(41:29):
my thing, that I do for me is isfocusing a lot on my own
headspace and giving myselfgrace.
And you know, to the pointwhere I hardly work on the
weekends anymore and I used tobeat myself up while I wasn't
working and so I just wasanxious about the fact that I
now I'm kind of like, probablyshould have I would have gotten
a little further if I would havedone this, but oh well, like I
(41:51):
enjoyed my kids, I enjoyed myfamily.
It's crap's going to come,crap's going to go, like we're
going to be fine somewhere inthere.
So I um, I still beat myself upa little bit on the like I know
how to walk other peoplethrough, what are the equations
and the different pieces thatneed to be done, but sometimes
I'm like, oh, I know I need todo this.
Why am I not implementing this?
So I need that coaching andinspiration and that
(42:12):
accountability just as much as Iam that for other people To
have people go.
You said you were going tocreate a metrics that evaluated
XYZ.
Did you do that?
No, okay, I'm going to set anappointment with whatever so
that they do it each time,because I'm not going to be the
one who does it, but like, atleast I get it and so I.
I need those just as much asI'm.
(42:33):
I love helping other people seethem and kind of work through.
Although I'm really good atwriting out my vision for things
or my wants for stuff, it'ssometimes the middle ground of
like, okay, I know, how do I getthere?
Um, and my current one rightnow is by next June.
Zach (42:48):
That was my next question, yeah.
Brook (42:50):
My um.
I want for the month of June.
It's probably not.
It's probably been part ofmonth in June and July.
Now my kid's in kindergartennext year.
So I got the like schoolschedule way annoys me, um and
uh, but I'm going to be a lovemy kid and let him go to school.
Um and uh.
But so, like for June, like amonth, I want to go somewhere,
(43:16):
like I want to just, and I canbe working there, like whatever
that is.
But I want to create enoughspace that, because I was
realizing I feel trapped,because I want to travel, I want
to go places, I want to, andI've always talked about
spending a month somewhere orsomewhere somewhere where you
just get to sit and enjoy it,like and bring my kids, and I'm
like not doing that, and I'mlike I'm not doing that, I'm
feeling trapped.
So I own my own business.
I set this up so I can workfrom wherever I can do that.
But it's become harder becausenow I have kids I'm like so,
(43:39):
hire a summer nanny, let's goand do this.
So now I'm trying to figure outokay, where are we going?
Are we going to spend it in?
Like Northwest Oregon,washington, like that space, are
we going to go to Hawaii for amonth?
We're literally trying to getpassports, which, by the way, is
really annoying when you havetwo kids and you have to have
(43:59):
both parents present and yourother half happens to travel all
the stinking time, and now youhave to set up an appointment
Long story.
If you need passports, do it,like right now, anyhow.
Story.
If you need passports, to do itlike right now, um, anyhow.
So I don't know if it'll beinternational side of things and
so um, but like that's.
That's my next.
Like.
I want space to not only andthings like this too, of where
(44:20):
I'm not, I also want to from abusiness standpoint.
I want to grow thatconversation of.
I want to help businesses grow.
I've been, I I'm a very big.
I like Disney, but not reallybecause of the Disney stuff, but
really because of their wholetheme of like, make your dreams
come true.
Like I want to help people maketheir dreams come true, like
whatever that is what that thatgrowth is for them, that vision,
(44:43):
whether it's an organization, aperson like like I want to
encourage it, but I don't wantto be in the weeds of what
you're doing.
Like.
I want to dialogue.
I want to help you.
I do want to be in the weeds,but not quite the weeds that
people are like, but like reallyhelp you figure out what, what
it is that you want to get toand how to help you get there,
um, and you know what is themental blocks that are coming
(45:03):
into play for that.
What are the people blocks,what are the process blocks?
And so I want to be able togrow that support, such as this,
this conversations that we'rehaving here, um, different
programs, but all of that, thatpiece is business wise.
What I want to do personal side,I want to enjoy that while also
getting to travel places.
So I want to spend a monthsomewhere.
(45:25):
So that's my current like inthe next year, like build this
space and then also keep my kidsso busy that they don't want to
watch TV, which is reallyexhausting.
That's just a side, personalthing of like I pick them up, I
have to like, at the end of theday, I'm like I just want to veg
in front of a TV and I'm like,nope, we're going to go swimming
, we're going to do all of thisstuff, but those are, you know,
(45:51):
those are small right now, butthey're really healthy for me to
be just enjoying the momentthat we're in and making sure
that I don't um, someone sent methe YouTube clip.
Someday is not a day of the weekLike um, and I didn't fully
listen to the YouTube.
I got through enough of it thatI was like oh yeah, someday is
not the middle of the name ofthe week, um and uh, so I don't,
I don't want my someday to beout there, like I always wanted
(46:12):
to do that.
My other thing on my list issomeday to I'd love to write a
book, and I'm not really surewhat that is or how that is.
So I'm starting to likeformulate those pieces.
That's a still someday thing.
I haven't quite figured it out,but it's coming together a
little bit better than my formersomeday of that.
I think that's been on my listfor years but not articulated
clearly, like it's like one ofthose subtle, like it's just
(46:33):
back there and I'm starting toarticulate it out of just saying
something I want to do, likeI'm actually telling people.
Right Starting to reallymaterialize it, and it may be,
it may be nothing, it may be alittle short stories that I just
published on my own and I justI got stuff out and it was fun
for me.
It might turn into something,it might be a kid's story, it
(46:54):
might I don't know.
But I want, I don't think it'llbe a kid's story, I don't know,
I might surprise myself, but,um, oh, so we'll, we'll see.
On that side of things, um, Ihope my journey is not over and
so I just kind of keep coming upwith something new.
I also want a cold plunge.
I'm having this very big debatewith my other half because, um,
(47:17):
those ice cold things.
Zach (47:19):
I don't know this, I'm not familiar with this.
Brook (47:20):
You don't know what a cold bath is.
No, I mean I, I, I know I'mtaking an ice bath before, like
sports injury or something, soit's supposed to be super
therapeutic, like it helps withinflammation, it helps with
metabolism, it helps with yourmood, it helps, um, with your
immunity, like all of thesethings like just like three
minutes I don't remember howmany minutes a week, but like
(47:41):
jumping in three minutes a dayor something like that.
So, um, I got a really cheap$20 one on Amazon and I was like
, okay, it doesn't have a top.
So then I bought another onethat has a top on it, but I
still have to fill it with iceall the time.
So now I'm like I want a reallike bath bath one and I'm gonna
put it in the backyard.
That has like one of thoseheater things that heats it when
I want to heat it and coolchills it, like so that I don't
have to put ice in it.
Like, um, so I want to havespace in our backyard for them.
(48:08):
So it's a current like thingthat I have on my list that I'm
talking my other half into justbreathing and letting me have
back there.
So these aren't all I mean.
I think that's, but they're notcheap too.
Business owners or people whoare like the real push of why
(48:30):
you're doing what you're doingis not necessarily the business
being successful.
I mean, at some level there'sthe pride of like I was like
successful business.
Well, what do you define assuccessful in your brain for
that pride?
But it's usually something else.
Like I want to be able totravel a lot.
I want to be able to buy thingsthat I want to buy when I want
to buy them.
(48:50):
Well, what do you want to buy?
Like I want a Rivian truck.
That's like ridiculouslyexpensive sort of thing and I'm
going to, like you know, maybethat's not, there's lots of
ridiculously expensive cars outthere, but like whatever that is
for you, that you know I want ahouse in Hawaii.
Or I just I want a simple houseon the lake down the street.
Like you know, whatever thosepieces are, people have dreams
(49:12):
that have nothing to do withwork, that they do work for.
That helps, you know, pullingout what is it that you really
want and what is it that you'rereally trying to get to also
helps, because sometimes youjust spin the wheels on the
wrong, and that's what I wasfinding when I was feeling
trapped of like I'm justspinning the wheels and I can't
leave and I'm like cause I'm notintentionally saying I want to
(49:33):
go travel somewhere for fourweeks just to travel somewhere
um to expose my kids to do somestuff, and you know, the first
time we do this, we're doing itin the U S somewhere.
The next time I want it to beinternational, like how, how do
I?
Those are my dreams are, butthey come back to the business
(49:53):
side of things, because I want abusiness behind the scenes that
still functions just fine,while I also enjoy that and also
creating space for my people toalso be able to do similar fun
things.
Um, you know, and how do you?
How do you create that balanceof stuff?
Paul (50:09):
But setting up your lifestyle, setting what you want
out of life and setting thebusiness up to support that is
the key, I think, to being asuccessful business owner.
Brook (50:21):
Definitely.
Yes, I was about ready to saydefinitely like for smaller
businesses, because that's thepoint of like, where you are,
but I actually think it alsoapplies for the bigger
businesses too, so I stoppedmyself.
Um, that you know you're owningyour division, you're owning
your they call thementrepreneurs you're not an
entrepreneur and the fact thatyou are on out but you're inside
of a system and you need tohave the entrepreneurial
(50:43):
mentality inside of like.
How do I still accomplish allthe goals they're asking me to
do in a manner that doesn't killme?
And it requires you to figureit out, to think through stuff,
to like to work.
And sometimes that means youask someone to brainstorm with
you.
Sometimes it means you get overyour fear of asking for
something.
Paul (51:01):
I don't know.
Brook (51:02):
Like there's lots of different pieces, but and your
journey is not something whereit's like you know, I, when I
was first starting, I would havenever been like, how do I
afford a cold tub?
Um, but uh, my, my pain pointswere a lot different, but really
if I come back to it, it stillcomes back to I want the
flexibility to travel.
That's what I created to startwith Um.
(51:24):
It's kind of interesting howsometimes those goals all stay,
stay there.
Paul (51:29):
All right cool, I'm trying to think of.
Is there anything?
The one point, I think, the onelittle piece we can explore
because it's part of the journey, if you like.
Zach (51:48):
is your imposter syndrome yeah, that is something I meant
to ask earlier on is like isthere a certain point in this
process where you feel youstarted to kind of come into,
you know, grow into the shoes ofthe owner, if you will, and
sort of wake up like you know,this is, this is me and I'm, I'm
in this now, or does it stillfeel like a daily kind of
(52:10):
evolution?
Brook (52:12):
Um, I'm not sure.
Paul (52:16):
I know how to answer that one or if I uh.
Brook (52:18):
I mean, I remember those moments when I would spend hours
doing a tax return and someonewould question me on something,
um, or like even me.
Someone inquires of somethingon me and I give them the wrong
answer.
And they find out the wronganswer I was wrong in it, and
how embarrassing that was at thebeginning side of things.
I still have moments where it'sa topic that I don't know a
(52:40):
whole lot about.
I have learned a little bitmore that I can still be
confident in who I am and say Idon't know a whole lot about
that, but I'll dig into that andsee what I can find.
But they say using those allthe time.
But as far as like, feeling likethis is not really me, I don't
know if I ever felt like I came.
I know terms I've said havemade it seem like that was what
(53:02):
I was feeling.
But I don't know if Iconsciously sat back and said I
don't feel like I should be here.
I think I was scared.
Could I make this happen?
Could I get to a spot?
But like, am I an imposter?
Like I shouldn't be here?
Paul (53:18):
The one bit I was thinking was when you were doing the,
you'd worked for the KPMG.
Then you started doing your owntax returns and that piece was
I was scared, I didn't know whatI was doing.
Brook (53:32):
So I guess that's the imposter part, and I think as I
learned more and I felt moreconfident in what I was doing, a
lot of that has kind of feltfallen away.
Zach (53:39):
Um that's what I think is interesting is like the question
of is it like the impostersyndrome subsides, but is it
because you've acquiredinformation on the journey that
you needed at the beginning thatyou have developed, or is it
learning just literally?
The essence of not knowing isokay.
Brook (54:00):
I think it's both.
I think it's both.
I think I learned how to dothings, so I got in, I figured
it out, and so there was aninsecurity because I didn't
really know what I was doing andwould someone?
peg that and then not pay me andsometimes they did, to be frank
.
And so I think a good piece ofit was I learned how to do
(54:25):
something.
I practiced it enough.
I had those 10,000 hours ofpracticing something so that now
I can fly through it muchquicker.
I've done it enough times.
You've got the confidence inthe results.
(54:45):
Know this, but I don't knowthis, so I'm going to kind of
try to pretend yes, I still dothat on some topics, but at the
same point in time have builtenough confidence to say this
isn't our sweet spot.
So here's some stuff I know andhere's some deductions that I
need to like.
Paul (55:01):
So I don't know if that's answering your question but I
think for me it's a huge amountof like.
Brook (55:06):
I just I've practiced my way out of that.
Are there other owners who arebetter than me?
Yeah, probably.
Depending on how you classify it.
They've built strongercompanies in some respect.
Yeah, do I have some people wholike working under my style?
Yes, do I have some people whohate working under my style?
Yes, and maybe I've just kindof come to peace with.
(55:29):
We're all different, we all,and we're all good people inside
.
This is a personal belief thatI think fundamentally.
We've all had traumas that haveimpacted us.
Who have been.
You respond from that traumaand some people's trauma I want
to bounce against, and otherpeople's I don't, and I don't
(55:50):
think that's bad.
There's still plenty ofopportunities out there.
And that was also something Iremember I literally had a BNI
meeting when I was first gettingstarted no, it was at a
Rainmakers meeting, which is adifferent type of networking
side things but they literallywere saying we're not nervous
about having more than oneperson here because there's so
much work out there.
We all can stay employed, andthat meant that it was a very
(56:13):
interesting shift for me too ofjust going away from the
scarcity mentality.
Yes, into a like there is enoughwork so that I can also say you
client are not fun for me towork with, you're not fun for my
staff to work with, and if youdon't want to play, that's fine.
Like we, you can go indifferent direction.
(56:34):
This is not.
This is I'm not going to crashand burn because one client
doesn't like my style.
If that makes sense, or youknow and we're not free from
mistakes we make mistakes and wetry really hard to like, remedy
(56:54):
that stuff.
You know, sometimes that's acomponent of us not working
together with a client too fromit, but most of the time it
almost comes down to acommunication style that just
doesn't mesh for people.
Not a good fit, not a good fit.
Or we forgot to communicate,like it just is all there, or we
forgot to communicate, like itit just is all there, and or
they forgot to communicate, andso it just.
I've come to a point with myscarcity mentality and I don't
(57:16):
have to.
I don't have to play with youif you're going to make my life
exhausting and take up so muchtime that you're not worth
keeping.
Zach (57:25):
That's what we were talking about earlier.
Brook (57:27):
Yeah, it's a it's it's a hard space to fire someone as a
client.
Paul (57:33):
Yeah.
Brook (57:34):
It's a really hard space.
But it's relieving and it's itis, and I don't know if it's
better to build it to the pointwhere they quit or I release
them, or maybe you try to doboth, cause I kind of try to do
both, sometimes when I'm like,okay, let's just make this
obvious, it doesn't work.
Sometimes when I'm like, okay,let's just make this obvious, it
doesn't work.
Um, but most I like a goodmajority of my clients, you, you
(57:58):
tend to find the people whomesh with you, um and yeah, and
same thing with your clients,like they're my client, like
these are the people who wantthe stuff that we provide, and
um, yeah, it, it.
It usually flows somewhere inthere and so, um, it's still
journey, still learning all ofthe stuff.
Zach (58:15):
How are we doing on time Nine o'clock?
Oh, okay, perfect, cool.
Well, thank you for being onthe podcast today, brooke, we
appreciate your time.
And, uh, please, uh, rememberto tune in next week for Paul
McCoy and his origin story ofwhatever his book is called.
Paul (58:37):
Yeah, exactly.
Thank you, guilty, as charged.
Just kidding, no, but I need it.
I need it.
Zach (58:48):
That felt good.
How did you feel about that?
Brook (58:49):
Yeah, I can talk like that all day long Cool.
Paul (58:52):
That was really good.
I wanted to interject, but youwere flowing.
It was just.
Zach (58:56):
Sorry, I do that.
Paul (58:57):
No, yeah, it was perfect.
Thank you Bye.
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