June 18, 2025 • 38 mins
Let's talk about setting goals and working toward them.
Frank Grimaldi is a talented musican and accountant. Join us as we talk about how he juggled his schedule to make time for his education and career goals while continuing to perform with his band, Slowfoot.
Check out his band
Slowfoot_mi on instagram
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Follow Marci Talks Money (and Life) wherever you get your podcasts to get the episodes as they post.
Visit MoneyMarci.com to check out other financial literacy resources.
Frank Grimaldi is a talented musican and accountant. Join us as we talk about how he juggled his schedule to make time for his education and career goals while continuing to perform with his band, Slowfoot.
Check out his band
Slowfoot_mi on instagram
Video of Day Job
Follow Marci Talks Money (and Life) wherever you get your podcasts to get the episodes as they post.
Visit MoneyMarci.com to check out other financial literacy resources.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Powered by Riverside at M.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hello, Welcome to Marcie talks money in life. I am money, Marcy,
and if you think you don't have time to do
the things you really want to do, you need to
stay for this conversation. I am very fortunate to know
interesting people that are willing to share their stories. My
guest today is Frank Grimaldi. I met Frank over a
decade ago. He was working full time and maintenance while
(00:29):
going to school to get his associate's degree with plans
to go to Walsh College for a degree and accountancy.
In addition to that, he was playing and performing with
at least three bands, as well as hosting open mic
nights at various venues around town. Welcome Frank. Did I
miss anything?
Speaker 1 (00:45):
No, I'm an avid gardener, so that's important. You missed that.
But I think that's the nicest introduction I've ever had,
So thank you for having him. Glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Well, I'm so glad to have you. And then since then,
of course, since I said I met him over a
decade ago, he has since completely all of his schooling.
He is an accountant, he is practicing accounting. He's I
don't know how many bands are you in now.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
I'm only in one band full time. So my band's
name is slow Foot, But I have another band that
I play around with, a called Fixation, with some good players.
My host open mic nights still from time to time.
And the fun thing about music, and like you said,
have the honor to know interesting people, and when your
friends are high caliber musicians. I'm not saying I'm a
(01:27):
high caliber musician, but my friends are. I find a
lot of fun in just throwing something together with you know,
X drummer, wide bass player and a percussionist or whatever,
and a lot of fun stuff comes out of that
that you might not have had with your per practiced group,
your rehearsed group. So you know, music is the language
of love and celebration, and I think that I don't
know what I would do without music. You know, I
(01:49):
like it almost as much as accounting.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Oh good, I'm glad you threw that in. So I
got tired just listening to all the things that I
was listening about the things that you were doing when
we first met, because you were effectively doing at least
three full time jobs, and with your band you were
sometimes touring. I mean, you were playing on different parts
of the state. You went over the country. I think
at one point in time you even left the country.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
So we never left the country. We had a chance
the Bato's and at the time was called Dirty Basement
Blues one of them, and that was maybe one of
the more successful groups I was ever in. We did
a small thing outside of Michigan, nothing major, So we
put a record out and it was getting all sorts
of airplay and attention in like Germany, the Scandinavian countries,
and we had people reaching out and they're like, you
(02:33):
guys are played on our FM stations, Like like you
guys over here like a lot. You know, if you
guys can get over here, we'll provide you a backline
and book you a tour and all that. But no,
you know how life is. You know, if there's six
people in a band, you have six sets of schedules,
and some of them are married and some have kids,
some are going to school, some have jobs, some don't
have jobs, so they don't have any money. If I mean,
(02:54):
it just it is what it is. There was there
was one time, and I'll be brief with this, but
a lady reach out to us and she was allegedly
the Blues Society leader of the Alaska and Blues Society,
and we were like, wow, that's really cool, and they
wanted us to come up and play at the Alaska
Blues Festival. We googled the Alaska Blues Festival. It looked
(03:16):
really cool. They had some really great headliners that we
had we had known, and some of them we'd even
played with. We saw the schedule, everything looked everything looked good,
and then so we like signed on to do it.
They were gonna fly us up to Alaska. They had
like four or five gigs for us to do. We
were so excited. It was summertime in Alaska, so it's
getting closer and closer and closer, and we still don't
(03:36):
have a contract. The person that we were doing the
booking with kind of went radio silent. So I started
going into these Reddit forums, you know, and kind of
just poking around seeing what people were saying, and I
finally reached out to I think it was Devin Allman
at the time. He was supposed to be like one
of the headliners, and I had saying and played with
him a few times at a local club called Callahan's
(03:57):
in Auburn, Hills, so I had his know where. I
called them and I was like, hey, you're headlining the
Alaska Blues Festival. Who's like, no, dude, that's not real.
That's fake. They're not really doing it. And it turned
out that this lady had been raising funds. I think
she had gotten some grant money and she was like
just absconding with it. I don't know whatever happened with
all of that, but needless to say, we didn't go
(04:19):
to Alaska that summer.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
No, but you did go to Nashville for a I
don't know what competition.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
We went to Memphis. It was Memphis the International International
Blues Challenge IBC. That's a relatively large one. So we
did win the Detroit Blue Society Blues Challenge and we
got to go down to Memphis. It was a really
great time. There was so many great bands and there
was just music everywhere. You know. I don't know if
you've ever been to Memphis. It's a really cool little town.
(04:46):
Great ribs, great barbecue everywhere. We ended up getting bounced
out of the contest in the first round, but we
were there for like four or five days. We got
to rub elbows with some people and We played at
the Rumbugie Cafe in the first round of this contest
with the eventual winner. A Mister Sip was the name
of the band, and they were just lights out. He's
still tours. Castro Coleman, I think is his name. It
(05:10):
was humbling to see, like how good a band could
be on tight it could be. There were bands from Australia,
there were bands from Korea, there were bands from Japan,
all over the world, so it truly was an international
contest that was truly representative of the entire world. It
was pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
During all this. You were still going to school and
working full time.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
But I was recording our first album. I was sitting
there as the band. I was just a singer in
this band. I didn't play guitar or anything. But I
was sitting there at the sound shop sound Shop Studios
of McComb with Josh Ford MotorCity Josh, and he's recording
the band, putting down bedtracks, and I'm sitting there putting
together financial statements for a fake sporting goods company. They're
all making fun sitting there doing homework, and I'm sitting
(05:52):
there for six seven hours, so I'm just like running
through running through this stuff, you know, and that was
at the very beginning you do with a pre paid expense,
you know, like stuff like that. It was it was.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Interesting I made it at some point. Were there times
where you said, why am I going to school for accounting?
Speaker 1 (06:08):
I knew I was going to school for accounting when
I graduated high school. I decided that I was going
to go to school for accounting. Ask me why, and
I'll tell you I have no idea. I think I
figured that it was a solid job. It was a
steady job, and it was it was always good at school.
I never had to try very hard, and I passed,
you know, all my classes. I graduated high school at
(06:28):
three point seven, and I don't think I really even
went senior year. I just kind of came naturally to me,
and coming out of school, I was like, I'm just
going to go get my degree, you know, I'll be
done in four years. I'll go get my CPA and
and I'll start work as an accountant. So I take
one year at OCC and I was so sick of
school that I just didn't pay attention. I kind of
(06:50):
blew it off. I think I failed two of my
first four classes. And I was like, you know what,
I don't need it. I'm just going to go get
a job. I'm just going to start working. I was
working at a go kart track track technician, check the
oil and the go karts and fix the batting cage
machine and try not to get hit by a baseball whatever.
And then I remember when I got my job at
(07:10):
Temple where I eventually met you. I like, how used
that maintenance we call ourself janitors now now? I think
I worked at Temple for about five or six years,
you know, moving recks of chairs and tables and building
stages and emptying trash. And after a while, I was
just like I was sick of working with my back
and I was sick of working as hard as I
was working and as much as I was working, and
(07:32):
you know, not really it was a great job, but
it wasn't where I wanted to be financially, within my life,
personally anything like that. I think I was twenty five
or twenty six when I decided to go back to school,
and I get really excited at the beginnings of things,
you know, So I'm like going back to school and
get all my books and get my supplies ready, and
I start going and it's like halfway through the first
(07:52):
first term at OCC, and I'm really just giving it
the old the old college try. I'm really paying attention,
I'm doing the work, I'm paying a class participating. I
was like, you know, I think I really can do this.
So fast forward five years later, because like you said,
I was working full time. By the end of it all,
I had been taking two classes a semester, spring, fall, winter,
(08:14):
summer for five straight years. I did that, and by
the end I was just so burnt out with everything job, school, band, work, whatever,
family time. People need things, you know, and life goes on.
So I guess to cut back to the point, there
were plenty of times where I wanted to quit school.
There was so many times where I was like, I think,
(08:35):
what's interesting. So my girlfriend Brittany, her friend Sarah, was
asking me earlier today just so happens. She goes, you
went to Walsh College, didn't you. I said, yeah, I
went to wa Wassh College. She goes, I'm thinking about
going there. I said, what are you thinking about studying?
She goes, oh, I'm going to get my bachelor's an accountancy.
And I think that you said this exact same thing
to me. Why she goes, well, I've been studying for it,
(08:58):
and I was like, no, well, Walsh is a great school.
And I kind of just gave her the rundown. But
it's like, are you doing pretty good at OCC it's
Oakland Community College for those that aren't in the know.
And she said yeah, And I said, well take your
effort and triple it. At Walsh, they really beat you
up pretty good. You come out knowing, you come out
knowing your stuff, whether you want to or not, kicking
(09:19):
in screaming, You're gonna learn it, you know. I think
back to when I first started at Walsh, and I
had to keep a three point six or three point
seven to keep my IDA scholarship. It covered like twenty
five percent of my tuition if I kept a B
plus average. So I start like B plus average, I
can keep a B plus average. My first two tests
(09:39):
comeback and I think I got like a sixty seven
on them. I would like and that's with trying, you know,
And I'm like, okay, well, well, partner, you're gonna have
to double down and really dig into it. Like I said,
you know, school always came naturally to me. I think
that was a really character defining moment for myself, kind
of getting humbled a little bit and like, all right, dude,
you gotta you're gonna have to sit down and really
(10:01):
get into it. And I just made myself a promise
that one hour a day, I would study one hour
a day Monday through Sunday. At the very least, I
would either do some readings, take some notes, run through
some problems, do something every single day. And that's how
I graduated college. And I'm so glad that I did.
I'm really glad that I that I stuck to it.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
That had to be hard because you were the busy
days man in showbiz, and you were the hardest working
men in Waterford. And if I ran into any musician
in Waterford or I'd say something and oh yeah, you
know Frank, and it's like, oh yeah, all of a sudden,
I must be a somebody. You would go and do
these open mics and you say, oh yeah, I'm not
as talented or not as skilled as my friends work.
(10:43):
And at an open mic, if someone said hey, I
want to play, you know, will you play with me?
You would get up there and play. No one told
you the song ahead of time, and you're so talented
you would just whether you knew the music or you
just heard the notes or whatever it was. I mean,
truly watching you with these oh and Mike Knights was
very impressive to see what you did with the people
(11:03):
that weren't your band, just supporting the other musicians that
were there.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Songs, songs behave a certain way, Chord structures behave a
certain way, and after a while you kind of understand,
you know what's kind of coming, and you can be
ready for it and anticipate it. And that just comes
with repetition, time on task. And that's the same for anything,
for accounting for music, for digging a ditch, for riding
a motorcycle. I mean, if you work on it, you're
(11:29):
gonna kind of get the nuances of it. My friend
and bass player Dan McCaslin, I think you know Dan anyway.
He told me one time because he's like, worlds above
me as far as that goes, he doesn't even know
the song. By the end of the first verse, he's
got the whole thing. I was like, how do you
do that? And he goes, because they're just chords, buddy,
And that kind of opened my eyes up a lot,
you know, don't be scared, just jump in. I mean,
(11:50):
worst thing that's gonna happen as you screwed the song
up completely and everybody laughs at you and it's not.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
A big deal, but that's huge. So many people are
afraid to try new things, are afraid to dig in
that way because yes, chords and songs behave a certain
way and after you have enough repetition, but you have
to put in the work to get to that repetition.
School may have seemed easy, but you were probably doing
more work than you realize just by paying attention. Showing
(12:17):
up is hard of it.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
That was. It's funny you say that because I always
say that The best advice my father ever gave me
my entire life was to pay attention to what to everything,
how people are driving, what they're saying, how they're saying it,
who's doing what, what, how they're doing it. You know,
just if you pay attention to something and sit back
for a second and just kind of take in your surroundings,
(12:42):
you'll be way better off moving forward, and you can
be proactive instead of reactive. Try to I try to
be like that in my life now. My dad's crazy
so that, but he is. He gives good advice, sometimes
very sage wisdom.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
I don't know how to go from that. But you've
got your band. You're still playing with slow Foot, right,
that's your regular band.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Yeah, we're playing. We're playing pretty frequently so Bowfoot. We're
a six piece band. We have two guitars, a bass,
a guitar, a drummer, a Hammond organ, and a percussionist.
Is that six people? Yeah, that's six people.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
So that's the accountancy showing you were able to count
the people.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Do the debits match the credits? Yes? They do. Yes.
So we put an album out called Something Good I
think two years ago, three years ago, and we put
that out at Otis Supply in Ferndale, which was since closed.
It was a great music venue and we kind of
rode that success for a little bit there. We got
on some cool festivals. Even now we go we go
(13:41):
all around the state, you know, in the summertime, Alpina, Marquette, Muskegan,
Grand Rapids, we play all around the Detroit area. So
this summer I was like, I'm not gonna book us
that much. The last two or three summers we've had
five six gigs a week, or at least I have.
If it's not the full band, it's me and another
(14:02):
guy or whatever. So at least two three gigs a weekend.
And it's summertime in Michigan. You only get two months
of summer in Michigan. You know, everybody's on the boat
and you're loading up gear and I so I was like,
I'm not gonna do that this summer. I'm gonna I'm
gonna relax a little bit. I looked at my calendar
(14:22):
the other day and I was like, well, you did.
You failed to do that? You have a gig at
least two every week all summer long, all summer. What
are you gonna do? I I can't. I can't help myself.
It's funny because it's not even it's not even about money.
You know, that's not what it's like what it is
about for me. It's at certain points it was, but
(14:43):
it seems like now that that's not a main focus.
Like we're getting paid better than ever, and the gigs
are better and they're more frequent, and when you're not
even looking for them is when you get them the most.
And it's it's crazy because there was a time where
I'd be like hunting for gigs and couldn't find them,
and then you know, it's it's just funny how life
works out that way sometimes.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Well, you know, you probably paid a little bit more
for accounting than you were, you know, as a janitor, I.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Won Best Janitor of the Year like four years in
a row.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Though, but you were the one who gave out the awards,
so I'm not sure if that counts.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah, but there were sweet awards, and.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
You probably had a theme song as well.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
No, no theme song. I wanted to have something cute
up there. I fail.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
How did you balance your schedule because once you got
back on track for school, once you realized how much
you had to put into it, you know, you still
were working full time. You were still in the bands,
which is more than just performing, because especially if you
were working on new music, you had to work on
new music the standards. The stuff you already had in
your repertoire didn't require a whole lot of practice because
(15:43):
you'd get that just playing the gigs, but you had
to spend time there. And you have a girlfriend, so
you had to spend time on your relationship, and you know,
I know, kickball is a big part of your life
in the summer, so huge.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
I'm fisher retired from kickball my back and he's no
longer or allow me to play. Maybe once a year
we'll dust off the old kickball.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Okay, So I guess that's one less strain on your time.
But I mean, what you're doing and to have a
relationship and to do all of these things, that's a
lot of time.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Well, first of all, Google Calendar is a godsend. I
think without it, I would probably drive into the ocean
not knowing where I needed to be. And the ocean
is far from here, so that's saying something. So I
make sure that if I book something, I put it
in my calendar. I have a shared calendar with all
my guys. When I was going to school, I had
my set days for school, so say I had Tuesday
(16:33):
and Thursday I had class, so we would have to
practice Wednesday, Monday or Friday something like that. If we
had gigs, you just got to do it. But like
I said, one hour a day, one hour a day,
I would study no matter what. So a lot of
times and my lunch break looked like listening to a
financial accounting lecture about discount coupons and how to account
(16:54):
for them, or you know how to account for a
trust tax return, how to do those forms or something
like that, and you just find little pockets of time
that you didn't even know you had. No there's twenty
four hours in a day. If you sleep six hours
a night and you do this for two hours, you
just but you have to budget your time. But I
think most of what came out of all that is
(17:17):
if you want to do something, you'll do it. If
you want to do something, if you want to succeed,
you'll find a way to do it. And those like
two week breaks between like between Christmas and New Year's
or whatever you would get were like heaven, well you
finally get a little time off, but they'd be over
dam that quick. I'll never forget. It was the last
test I had to take. It was an online test
(17:37):
and it was for business technology or song. We had
to build a website. It wasn't a hard class at all,
but it was my last class and I had to
take to take the final online between a certain time
on like a Saturday, And I go to take this
test and my internet's down. I'm like, you gotta be
kidding me. So I call up my guitar player Mike.
I'm like, I gotta take this exam at your house.
(17:58):
He goes, sure, come over, and I'll never get clicking
the last button, the last answer, and I needed like
a D plus to pass the class or some like.
There was like no pressure at all, but I'm like
taking this test and I clicked the last answer and
it was just like the weight of ten million sons
being lifted off of your shoulders. Like I'm done, I'm done.
I'm not going back in three weeks. I'm not. You know,
(18:20):
this isn't a small break, It's not summer Vaca. I'm done.
I'm gonna I'm right, I'm gonna walk across the stage
at commencements. I was twenty eight years old. I think
when I graduated that it was like the biggest accomplishment
I had ever done in my life. And I'm still
very very proud of myself for doing it. Now going
back to get my extra credits and taking my CPA
exam that has eluded me to this point. It's been
(18:43):
six seven years.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
But at the firm you're in, are you doing public accounting?
Do you need the CPA? Do they do they care
if you get it.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
We do do public accounting, but if we lead our clients,
it's almost more like consulting. We do like their whole
back end process. And then they're all nonprofits, so they're
all audited by a third party outside of US. So
we helped them budget, We help them do their day
to day We have an AP department. We help them
work through their grants, how to budget that stuff out.
(19:11):
We help them with grant writing, everything stem to stern
through financial statements and budgeting. And then at the end
of the year, we have another audit firm come audit US.
So the CPA wouldn't hurt, but it's not required where
I'm at. There's a couple of the managers where I
work that don't have their CPA. Now, I don't think
an extra licensure or extra certifications will ever hurt you.
(19:33):
You know, life is a many faceted things. Who knows
what's going to happen in ten years or whatever. So
I think that for me, it was a personal goal.
When I started going to college, I was like, you'll
be graduated by twenty seven or twenty eight, and you
could have your CPA by thirty Well thirty came and went,
and I don't know if you feel the same way,
(19:53):
but time just good.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Thirty went way farther for me. It's best way god.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
And it just beats up every year. And yeah, I
tell this to people all the time. If you want
time to go by really fast, get into an accounting cycle,
because as soon as you're done closing, it's the fifteenth.
I'm almost done with my six clients sets of financials.
So by the time I'm done with all of that
and presenting everything, it'll be time to start again. It
(20:22):
was just January like two days ago. It just goes
by so quick, especially when you're on when you're working
in a repetitious cycle. That's something I talk with my
dad about too. He's a mechanics We have interesting conversations
about accounting. Sometimes it's just like he's like, well, aren't
you done? Is it? You know, when are you going
to finish? And I'm like, there's not really a finish line.
(20:44):
There's a finish line every month, but then there's just
another month. It's not like working on a motor like
the car never drives down the road, you know, there's
just another car that pulls into the shop.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
When I got my CPA. That was before the master's
degree was required. I know a lot of people, rather
than getting a bachelor's an accountancy, just dig right in
to go for the masters, so that that's just part
of the process. That the CPA is essentially inevitable because
you've already done that. But I can understand the thought
of going back for a master's after I graduated. I
(21:16):
had thought about it for a lot of different courses.
Once upon a time, I had thought about going to
law school, but I was like, yeah, I don't really
want to go back to school. So I imagine if you
don't get your masters right off, it's it's got to
be hard to go back to school to get your CPA.
But there's so many other licenses, licensures you can get.
I'm not sure if all of them require the CPA
(21:38):
to do that.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
What would be you know, beneficial to me would be
like a grant writing class or just further training. You know,
there's so much more to accounting than debits and credits,
and you know, you'll never never forget getting out of
college and getting your first actual accounting job and realizing
that you know nothing, like it's so good in school. Well,
(22:00):
I guess, well, you're not in school. I always said
there should be a class where you have to answer
seven emails and get a financial statement out while your
phone is ringing the entire time and your coworker's trying
to tell you a joke, and you're just like, dude,
everybody shut up for one second. Everybody just stop. I
remember watching you going through the budget process, and it's
(22:20):
so funny how everything kind of came full circle because
I end up working for in almost the exact same
vein in respect that you were working when I met you.
You were the controller. Now, yeah, you were the controller
and you were dealing with Razor's Edge and people donating money.
The school, the whole temple underwent major construction and renovations.
With all that stuff, all the capital ins and outs
(22:42):
and restrictions and endowments. People don't understand how in depth
that stuff can be. We gravitate towards each other. I
think it's just a kindred spirit or musician thing, you know,
but also accountants and we're cool. You know, you're cool,
I'm cool.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
We're probably cool.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
So I'll never forget. I was in the lunch room
and I was like like my first accounting like principles
of accounting, and I'm like, well, they spent money and
they got supplies and then they used the supplies. So
I was like, the asset goes down, but like, what's
the debit And You're like, it's supplies expense and I
was like, no, it's not, Marcie. They already bought the
(23:19):
supplies and you're like, Frank, yes, and I was like,
and you just kind of click, you know. So I
ended up coming to you with a lot of At
the time for me, it was like really difficult stuff
and for you you're probably giggling about it. And I
see it come full circle because now I'm working in
the capacity at my firm that I'm in and people
come to me with questions and I'm like, I remember
(23:40):
when that was a problem for me. I remember not
understanding that, and it's just life, you know. You get
I don't want to say I'm wise, but you gain wisdom.
And you've seen it a couple of times, right, You've
been around that block, you've chopped that tree down before,
and it's not so daunting the second time around. It's
easy when you know how well.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
And it's that that repetition, that muscle memory, that chords
are gonna do what they're gonna do. There's only so
many chord structures, and especially if you're in blues. I mean,
there's there's certain blues patterns, but we're not gonna all
of a sudden throw an augmented seventh's Sir John Lennon, Well,
that's totally different.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
He's just a goofball. The other thing is, so chord
progressions might behave a certain way, but so do certain clients.
And so I think I was somewhere on a point
there where you know, accounting it's not just numbers, debit
and credit. There's so much psychology involved. You have to
deal with people, not just your coworkers, but your clients,
the CEO, everybody's everybody's different. Not everybody's easy going. Not
(24:40):
everybody accepts mistakes easily, and that's internal an external, and
people are going to make mistakes. I mean, there's no
way around that. People are gonna mess up. You have
to afford grace to people. One way or another. Mistakes
or the way that people learn the most and probably
the best if they're smart. If you make the same
(25:00):
mistakes six times in a row, you're probably not gonna
have a job anymore. You got to learn. And uh,
there's just so much. There's so much to it from
a people aspect, and I think that being easy going
and you know, just kind of listening to people and
understanding where they're coming from and turning them into people,
turning it making it not personal. I don't want to
(25:22):
say make it make it personal. That's a bad connotation.
But you know, I've I've worked on clients where they're
they're leadership team, they're they're all tough, and everything's yes
or no answer, and they have all these hard questions
and then get them to giggle a little bit, or
you get them to laugh, You get them and they
they ease out a little bit, and now you're talking
on a personal level and you can get more done
(25:43):
that way. You're not gonna get a lot done if
everybody's hard nosed. So again, metaphor for life, maybe just
take a step back and relax. And I don't I
don't see a lot of accountants with that, with that approach.
I think I think I have something something kind of
unique bruin there.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Well, you know, it's hard for me to put the
word relax in with you, because the things you did
to me are anything but relaxing. But you were always
you kind of carried that with you. Okay, we'll get
it done. Okay, you know, we'll take care of it.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Oh, I have my freakouts, you know, I saw a
few of them. I have some freakouts every here and there,
you know, now and again.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
But we all do. We all have those times where
you would see that problem you were like, I don't
I don't even know. There were a couple of times
when you came to me it was like, Okay, that's fine,
it's a real problem. They didn't put this in here
just to mess up your head. We all go through
that in accounting, I mean, and especially as you said,
that transition from the class to the real world, and
(26:42):
all of a sudden it's a different animal because you
don't get it in a nice story problem. You get
a box of receipts, you figure out the story. Good
luck with that.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
New client implementations are always fun. They're from a different
accounting system completely, and everything's just a debit and a credit.
They're all wash accounts and there's no You're like, what's
what's happening right now? Do you guys have any paper files. No.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Anytime you inherit a client, you are you are at
the mercy of the quality and the quantity of the
prior records that they give you to try and figure
out what their real story is.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
I had a client. They were implemented like three or
four years ago, and they were on green bar. It
was like they had binders of ledger paper. Yeah, it was.
It was a pretty big outfit, you know, and we're like, okay,
so we get this client transition. They weren't mine. They
weren't my client at all. I think I helped build
a payroll import or something, and they just they proved
(27:38):
to be a little bit difficult, you know. It was
just kind of hard to work with them a little bit.
And they were like chewing through our staff. They just
chewed through a manager here, chew through a staff there.
And they were like, we need you to go on
this client. I was like, all right, we're gonna we're
gonna make this thing work. And you could see, like
you could see the process of breakdowns and where they
(28:00):
were and how they were happening. After after a second,
I was just like, guys, full stop, just we're gonna
have a meeting. We're gonna talk about all of this.
I can see where it's going wrong, but we're not
gonna point fingers. All we're gonna do is we're gonna
we're all gonna stop. We're all gonna take a breath,
and we're gonna fix the processes and we're gonna make
it better moving forward. I said, I guarantee you every
(28:23):
single month, it's gonna get a little bit better, and
it's gonna get a little bit quicker, and it's gonna
get a little bit cleaner. And I've been on the
client for two years now, I've gone through two audits
with them in a couple budgets. And the CEO, who
actually i'm pretty close with now at this point, it's funny.
She was like, do you know what you said it?
You said you were gonna get us turned around, and
she goes, I can't believe how far we've come and
(28:44):
how clean and easy everything is. All our processes are working.
You gotta get them to trust you a little bit.
You gotta fix it and don't just treat the symptom.
You gotta find out where it's coming from. I think
that that particular client is probably my most memorable professional
accomplishment getting them back on the track. I'm not telling
you anything. You don't know, basket case, and you get
(29:06):
them back on the track and get them back working,
and my firm was impressed. They were impressed, and I
was impressed. There were times where I wasn't so cool
and calm and collected.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Well, you know, it all comes down to you put
the work in, and you spend the time, and every
month you pull out another loose thread, you untie a knot,
you do whatever it is and get it a little
bit cleaner. I love that you said, you know, every month,
we're just gonna get a little better. So you gave
them the knowledge going in, Okay, we're not going to
(29:37):
fix this overnight. This is gonna take time. We're gonna
invest that time in working together to get from here
to there.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
I must have told them thirty five times. Well, I
think that that was the last the skeletons in the closet,
because every now and then something comes out and bites
you in the ass. You know you're not doing something right,
or you find a stack of ar receipts that you
didn't know ever happen, and they're from three years ago,
and you're like, are we with this money? Does anybody know?
But that must have said that thirty five different times,
(30:05):
and the CEO goes, you know, you've said that like
twenty times. I'm like, well, I mean it every time?
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Right?
Speaker 1 (30:10):
No? Right?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
You think it's the last one.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
And it's your closet, sister. I don't know nothing why
I got so many skeletons in there.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
I tell people when they're starting new at a job,
whether it's a new client or a new position, totally
at the beginning is when you're first going to see
a lot of things, but you don't know enough about
the whole process to know exactly what you need to
do or where you're going from. And it's a process.
You see the things as you see them, and you
deal with them, and each time you pull something out,
(30:38):
you see something else. It's nice to start fresh because
then and you're not married to any of the processes,
you're not married to any of the results. So you
have a great perspective when you knew it's something. But
then as you get more familiar, you're able to keep
cleaning things up a little bit better.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
I think back to the first job that I had,
like accounting. It was at the roofing company, and I
didn't know anything about anything. I was working at International
Automotive Components as like an intern right out of college,
and I got a call from the roofing company and
they're like, we can pay you better, you know, come over.
I was like cool. So I go over there and
(31:19):
I start working, and I immediately realized. I was like,
I have no idea what I'm doing. And I think
back to that stuff now and it's like, wow, I
could have been doing I could have done so much
more and so much better, but I just didn't know,
and there was no one there to ask, Like I
was the accounting department, and it was like having a
four year old watch your two year old.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Well, that's that's the problem with anything, even with an internship,
even with whatever. You didn't have the breadth of experience
at that point in time to really offer possibly what
that position needed, and probably added stress to your life
because you'd come in and you'd know you didn't know
what you were doing and you'd be trying to figure
it out. You probably did a lot of things well,
(32:02):
but you didn't understand how you were doing them. Or
why you were doing them.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
I think what was the biggest like step for me
at my position now is when I started running financial statements.
I had done all of the accounting all month long.
I put in all the credit card transactions. I wouldn't
do the ap but I would oversee it, make sure
the coding was right. But you start doing financial statements
and you start you start realizing from a higher level
(32:27):
you're going, if you put that in here, it pops
out there. Oh I get it, I see, and so
I try. I'm like known as like the training guru
where I work. I'll like, I'll train you. Come on,
I'll show you what's what. And it's funny because I'll
just be rambling on making videos and cracking jokes or whatever.
But I make people understand what they're doing and more importantly,
(32:49):
why you're doing it. What are we doing, Why are
we doing what we're doing, What are we trying to
get to? What are we trying to accomplish? And then
I start getting them immediately. I start running the financial
statements with them and make them understand. And I like
to do little popcorns and go, well, we're looking at
this unrestricted donation account where are we going to find that?
What statement are we going to find that on? Oh,
(33:10):
it's okay, all right, how do we get there? We
need that unearned revenue account? Where's that at?
Speaker 2 (33:15):
What?
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Where's? Where are you going to find that? And then
just sit there for a second. Do you not know?
It's okay if you don't know, I'm just you know,
I'm quizy a popcorn yet and it keeps them on
their toes and they learn. But you gotta see it,
and you got to do it, and you got to
get in there, and you got to make some mistakes
because I people need that. They need to see if
you put the quarter in here, where does the quarter
pop out? What's the what is the equal and opposite
(33:38):
reaction or the action of what's gonna happen? What's going
to happen if I do this? And if you don't know,
you'll never know. So you got to get in there.
You got got to get in there. And that's you know,
school music anything jump in I mean, don't just jump
out of a plane. You should probably trank for that.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Well, glad that you've got some guidelines.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
There, We'll just go swimming with sharks. I'm not saying that,
I think you need to put out disclaimer on this podcast.
But if you want to do something in life, just
do it. You're just gonna be disappointed you didn't do
it later. So while you got the time and the
energy and the and the get along, the hitching your
get along, just do it. Learn a language, go to school,
fight your bully, do something, Just do something. I think
(34:18):
that's good.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
I think that. I think that's good. I think we
should probably end it with that, unless you've got some
other wisdom to part with us. You account whisper you.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Well make sure you check your prepaid threshold. Don't put
a twenty dollars box of bandages in prepaids. It just
upsets people. It's not worth.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Are you sure you're not gonna like depreciate them.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
It's not worth. It's not a capitalize at they're not
capital bandages. They're just Spiderman band aids. We're not do it.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
You've got spider Man band aids.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
No, if I did, i'd capitalize them. Okay, Okay, nope,
I got nothing else. I'm really glad that you asked
me to be on here to ramble. I'll ramble anytime.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Well, I think I think it's so important to see that. Okay,
you had this idea I was gonna go right to school,
you started school and says, yeah, I'm not gonna go
right to school. And then here you are working and
you said, okay, now I'm ready to go to school
and you went. And that was that was really hard
because of everything you had going on, and you were
(35:17):
able to do it and keep everything up there, you know,
keep everything moving forward. Here you are, Yes, that's behind
you because time passed and you got older. Look at
where you've come when we first met, Look where you were,
and look where you are now. And you put in
the time and you put in the effort, and you
should be Hella proud. I mean, it's insane what you
(35:40):
did and what you balanced to get there.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
I'm not gonna lie. There are still days where I
audibly say out loud, I wish I was still a janitor,
but they're few and far between. I wish I was
watching windows right now.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Well, no, and I get that. I get that because
you are are the guy who makes the decisions. And
there are times it would be nice to come into work,
do your go home and not bring it home with you.
But there's a lot of opportunities coming from being the
guy that makes decisions, from being the guy that spends
two years unwinding someone's account because you keep getting those
(36:14):
skeleton surprises, and a lot of pride in that as well,
I'm sure being the guy that was able to take
care of that when other people got too frustrated and
couldn't keep doing it.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
You're absolutely right, and I'm so proud of how far
I have come. You're absolutely right, Like nail on the head,
you know. I think back to it all the time,
and I think what spurred this whole thing is somebody
had commented on a post where I had just gotten
hired at the firm I'm at now, and this was
a Facebook post somebody commented on itor liked it, so
(36:46):
pop back up in my feed, and it kind of
brought a tear to my eye. Like I was like
eighty eight days I had been unemployed and it was toffee.
It was like this heart pounding all the time. Wasn't sleeping.
I had literally just bought I just bought a house,
and I just leased a car, and I lost my
job and then COVID happened. I wasn't getting unemployment money
(37:06):
because it was it got messed up and then you
couldn't call or contact him, and so it's like eighty
eight days. After eighty days, I got hired into the
firm I'm at now, and I commented on the post.
I was like, you know, and it just so happens.
I'm celebrating five years at the same company that hired me.
And if nobody realized that the post was from five
years ago, I must have gotten thirty five phone calls
(37:26):
of people asking if I wanted a job. And I
love that.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
I appreciated that so much, but it was just so
funny because I'd have to be like, no, like, I've
been gainfully employed for five years. I'm happy where I'm at,
and they're like, well, you had that post, and I'm like,
the post was from twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Yeah, no, I when I saw it, I did see that,
but I was like, oh my god, I gotta get
Frank to come on my podcast because he's been through
so much.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Life's Little Ringer.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Life's Little Ringer. Okay, well, thank you for coming on.
Marcie talks money in Life. I am Money Marcie. Thank
you listeners for tuning in and uh, you got this yeah,
Powered by Riverside at M.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hello, Welcome to Marcie talks money in life. I am money, Marcy,
and if you think you don't have time to do
the things you really want to do, you need to
stay for this conversation. I am very fortunate to know
interesting people that are willing to share their stories. My
guest today is Frank Grimaldi. I met Frank over a
decade ago. He was working full time and maintenance while
(00:29):
going to school to get his associate's degree with plans
to go to Walsh College for a degree and accountancy.
In addition to that, he was playing and performing with
at least three bands, as well as hosting open mic
nights at various venues around town. Welcome Frank. Did I
miss anything?
Speaker 1 (00:45):
No, I'm an avid gardener, so that's important. You missed that.
But I think that's the nicest introduction I've ever had,
So thank you for having him. Glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Well, I'm so glad to have you. And then since then,
of course, since I said I met him over a
decade ago, he has since completely all of his schooling.
He is an accountant, he is practicing accounting. He's I
don't know how many bands are you in now.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
I'm only in one band full time. So my band's
name is slow Foot, But I have another band that
I play around with, a called Fixation, with some good players.
My host open mic nights still from time to time.
And the fun thing about music, and like you said,
have the honor to know interesting people, and when your
friends are high caliber musicians. I'm not saying I'm a
(01:27):
high caliber musician, but my friends are. I find a
lot of fun in just throwing something together with you know,
X drummer, wide bass player and a percussionist or whatever,
and a lot of fun stuff comes out of that
that you might not have had with your per practiced group,
your rehearsed group. So you know, music is the language
of love and celebration, and I think that I don't
know what I would do without music. You know, I
(01:49):
like it almost as much as accounting.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Oh good, I'm glad you threw that in. So I
got tired just listening to all the things that I
was listening about the things that you were doing when
we first met, because you were effectively doing at least
three full time jobs, and with your band you were
sometimes touring. I mean, you were playing on different parts
of the state. You went over the country. I think
at one point in time you even left the country.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
So we never left the country. We had a chance
the Bato's and at the time was called Dirty Basement
Blues one of them, and that was maybe one of
the more successful groups I was ever in. We did
a small thing outside of Michigan, nothing major, So we
put a record out and it was getting all sorts
of airplay and attention in like Germany, the Scandinavian countries,
and we had people reaching out and they're like, you
(02:33):
guys are played on our FM stations, Like like you
guys over here like a lot. You know, if you
guys can get over here, we'll provide you a backline
and book you a tour and all that. But no,
you know how life is. You know, if there's six
people in a band, you have six sets of schedules,
and some of them are married and some have kids,
some are going to school, some have jobs, some don't
have jobs, so they don't have any money. If I mean,
(02:54):
it just it is what it is. There was there
was one time, and I'll be brief with this, but
a lady reach out to us and she was allegedly
the Blues Society leader of the Alaska and Blues Society,
and we were like, wow, that's really cool, and they
wanted us to come up and play at the Alaska
Blues Festival. We googled the Alaska Blues Festival. It looked
(03:16):
really cool. They had some really great headliners that we
had we had known, and some of them we'd even
played with. We saw the schedule, everything looked everything looked good,
and then so we like signed on to do it.
They were gonna fly us up to Alaska. They had
like four or five gigs for us to do. We
were so excited. It was summertime in Alaska, so it's
getting closer and closer and closer, and we still don't
(03:36):
have a contract. The person that we were doing the
booking with kind of went radio silent. So I started
going into these Reddit forums, you know, and kind of
just poking around seeing what people were saying, and I
finally reached out to I think it was Devin Allman
at the time. He was supposed to be like one
of the headliners, and I had saying and played with
him a few times at a local club called Callahan's
(03:57):
in Auburn, Hills, so I had his know where. I
called them and I was like, hey, you're headlining the
Alaska Blues Festival. Who's like, no, dude, that's not real.
That's fake. They're not really doing it. And it turned
out that this lady had been raising funds. I think
she had gotten some grant money and she was like
just absconding with it. I don't know whatever happened with
all of that, but needless to say, we didn't go
(04:19):
to Alaska that summer.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
No, but you did go to Nashville for a I
don't know what competition.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
We went to Memphis. It was Memphis the International International
Blues Challenge IBC. That's a relatively large one. So we
did win the Detroit Blue Society Blues Challenge and we
got to go down to Memphis. It was a really
great time. There was so many great bands and there
was just music everywhere. You know. I don't know if
you've ever been to Memphis. It's a really cool little town.
(04:46):
Great ribs, great barbecue everywhere. We ended up getting bounced
out of the contest in the first round, but we
were there for like four or five days. We got
to rub elbows with some people and We played at
the Rumbugie Cafe in the first round of this contest
with the eventual winner. A Mister Sip was the name
of the band, and they were just lights out. He's
still tours. Castro Coleman, I think is his name. It
(05:10):
was humbling to see, like how good a band could
be on tight it could be. There were bands from Australia,
there were bands from Korea, there were bands from Japan,
all over the world, so it truly was an international
contest that was truly representative of the entire world. It
was pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
During all this. You were still going to school and
working full time.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
But I was recording our first album. I was sitting
there as the band. I was just a singer in
this band. I didn't play guitar or anything. But I
was sitting there at the sound shop sound Shop Studios
of McComb with Josh Ford MotorCity Josh, and he's recording
the band, putting down bedtracks, and I'm sitting there putting
together financial statements for a fake sporting goods company. They're
all making fun sitting there doing homework, and I'm sitting
(05:52):
there for six seven hours, so I'm just like running
through running through this stuff, you know, and that was
at the very beginning you do with a pre paid expense,
you know, like stuff like that. It was it was.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Interesting I made it at some point. Were there times
where you said, why am I going to school for accounting?
Speaker 1 (06:08):
I knew I was going to school for accounting when
I graduated high school. I decided that I was going
to go to school for accounting. Ask me why, and
I'll tell you I have no idea. I think I
figured that it was a solid job. It was a
steady job, and it was it was always good at school.
I never had to try very hard, and I passed,
you know, all my classes. I graduated high school at
(06:28):
three point seven, and I don't think I really even
went senior year. I just kind of came naturally to me,
and coming out of school, I was like, I'm just
going to go get my degree, you know, I'll be
done in four years. I'll go get my CPA and
and I'll start work as an accountant. So I take
one year at OCC and I was so sick of
school that I just didn't pay attention. I kind of
(06:50):
blew it off. I think I failed two of my
first four classes. And I was like, you know what,
I don't need it. I'm just going to go get
a job. I'm just going to start working. I was
working at a go kart track track technician, check the
oil and the go karts and fix the batting cage
machine and try not to get hit by a baseball whatever.
And then I remember when I got my job at
(07:10):
Temple where I eventually met you. I like, how used
that maintenance we call ourself janitors now now? I think
I worked at Temple for about five or six years,
you know, moving recks of chairs and tables and building
stages and emptying trash. And after a while, I was
just like I was sick of working with my back
and I was sick of working as hard as I
was working and as much as I was working, and
(07:32):
you know, not really it was a great job, but
it wasn't where I wanted to be financially, within my life,
personally anything like that. I think I was twenty five
or twenty six when I decided to go back to school,
and I get really excited at the beginnings of things,
you know, So I'm like going back to school and
get all my books and get my supplies ready, and
I start going and it's like halfway through the first
(07:52):
first term at OCC, and I'm really just giving it
the old the old college try. I'm really paying attention,
I'm doing the work, I'm paying a class participating. I
was like, you know, I think I really can do this.
So fast forward five years later, because like you said,
I was working full time. By the end of it all,
I had been taking two classes a semester, spring, fall, winter,
(08:14):
summer for five straight years. I did that, and by
the end I was just so burnt out with everything job, school, band, work, whatever,
family time. People need things, you know, and life goes on.
So I guess to cut back to the point, there
were plenty of times where I wanted to quit school.
There was so many times where I was like, I think,
(08:35):
what's interesting. So my girlfriend Brittany, her friend Sarah, was
asking me earlier today just so happens. She goes, you
went to Walsh College, didn't you. I said, yeah, I
went to wa Wassh College. She goes, I'm thinking about
going there. I said, what are you thinking about studying?
She goes, oh, I'm going to get my bachelor's an accountancy.
And I think that you said this exact same thing
to me. Why she goes, well, I've been studying for it,
(08:58):
and I was like, no, well, Walsh is a great school.
And I kind of just gave her the rundown. But
it's like, are you doing pretty good at OCC it's
Oakland Community College for those that aren't in the know.
And she said yeah, And I said, well take your
effort and triple it. At Walsh, they really beat you
up pretty good. You come out knowing, you come out
knowing your stuff, whether you want to or not, kicking
(09:19):
in screaming, You're gonna learn it, you know. I think
back to when I first started at Walsh, and I
had to keep a three point six or three point
seven to keep my IDA scholarship. It covered like twenty
five percent of my tuition if I kept a B
plus average. So I start like B plus average, I
can keep a B plus average. My first two tests
(09:39):
comeback and I think I got like a sixty seven
on them. I would like and that's with trying, you know,
And I'm like, okay, well, well, partner, you're gonna have
to double down and really dig into it. Like I said,
you know, school always came naturally to me. I think
that was a really character defining moment for myself, kind
of getting humbled a little bit and like, all right, dude,
you gotta you're gonna have to sit down and really
(10:01):
get into it. And I just made myself a promise
that one hour a day, I would study one hour
a day Monday through Sunday. At the very least, I
would either do some readings, take some notes, run through
some problems, do something every single day. And that's how
I graduated college. And I'm so glad that I did.
I'm really glad that I that I stuck to it.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
That had to be hard because you were the busy
days man in showbiz, and you were the hardest working
men in Waterford. And if I ran into any musician
in Waterford or I'd say something and oh yeah, you
know Frank, and it's like, oh yeah, all of a sudden,
I must be a somebody. You would go and do
these open mics and you say, oh yeah, I'm not
as talented or not as skilled as my friends work.
(10:43):
And at an open mic, if someone said hey, I
want to play, you know, will you play with me?
You would get up there and play. No one told
you the song ahead of time, and you're so talented
you would just whether you knew the music or you
just heard the notes or whatever it was. I mean,
truly watching you with these oh and Mike Knights was
very impressive to see what you did with the people
(11:03):
that weren't your band, just supporting the other musicians that
were there.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Songs, songs behave a certain way, Chord structures behave a
certain way, and after a while you kind of understand,
you know what's kind of coming, and you can be
ready for it and anticipate it. And that just comes
with repetition, time on task. And that's the same for anything,
for accounting for music, for digging a ditch, for riding
a motorcycle. I mean, if you work on it, you're
(11:29):
gonna kind of get the nuances of it. My friend
and bass player Dan McCaslin, I think you know Dan anyway.
He told me one time because he's like, worlds above
me as far as that goes, he doesn't even know
the song. By the end of the first verse, he's
got the whole thing. I was like, how do you
do that? And he goes, because they're just chords, buddy,
And that kind of opened my eyes up a lot,
you know, don't be scared, just jump in. I mean,
(11:50):
worst thing that's gonna happen as you screwed the song
up completely and everybody laughs at you and it's not.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
A big deal, but that's huge. So many people are
afraid to try new things, are afraid to dig in
that way because yes, chords and songs behave a certain
way and after you have enough repetition, but you have
to put in the work to get to that repetition.
School may have seemed easy, but you were probably doing
more work than you realize just by paying attention. Showing
(12:17):
up is hard of it.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
That was. It's funny you say that because I always
say that The best advice my father ever gave me
my entire life was to pay attention to what to everything,
how people are driving, what they're saying, how they're saying it,
who's doing what, what, how they're doing it. You know,
just if you pay attention to something and sit back
for a second and just kind of take in your surroundings,
(12:42):
you'll be way better off moving forward, and you can
be proactive instead of reactive. Try to I try to
be like that in my life now. My dad's crazy
so that, but he is. He gives good advice, sometimes
very sage wisdom.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
I don't know how to go from that. But you've
got your band. You're still playing with slow Foot, right,
that's your regular band.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Yeah, we're playing. We're playing pretty frequently so Bowfoot. We're
a six piece band. We have two guitars, a bass,
a guitar, a drummer, a Hammond organ, and a percussionist.
Is that six people? Yeah, that's six people.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
So that's the accountancy showing you were able to count
the people.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Do the debits match the credits? Yes? They do. Yes.
So we put an album out called Something Good I
think two years ago, three years ago, and we put
that out at Otis Supply in Ferndale, which was since closed.
It was a great music venue and we kind of
rode that success for a little bit there. We got
on some cool festivals. Even now we go we go
(13:41):
all around the state, you know, in the summertime, Alpina, Marquette, Muskegan,
Grand Rapids, we play all around the Detroit area. So
this summer I was like, I'm not gonna book us
that much. The last two or three summers we've had
five six gigs a week, or at least I have.
If it's not the full band, it's me and another
(14:02):
guy or whatever. So at least two three gigs a weekend.
And it's summertime in Michigan. You only get two months
of summer in Michigan. You know, everybody's on the boat
and you're loading up gear and I so I was like,
I'm not gonna do that this summer. I'm gonna I'm
gonna relax a little bit. I looked at my calendar
(14:22):
the other day and I was like, well, you did.
You failed to do that? You have a gig at
least two every week all summer long, all summer. What
are you gonna do? I I can't. I can't help myself.
It's funny because it's not even it's not even about money.
You know, that's not what it's like what it is
about for me. It's at certain points it was, but
(14:43):
it seems like now that that's not a main focus.
Like we're getting paid better than ever, and the gigs
are better and they're more frequent, and when you're not
even looking for them is when you get them the most.
And it's it's crazy because there was a time where
I'd be like hunting for gigs and couldn't find them,
and then you know, it's it's just funny how life
works out that way sometimes.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Well, you know, you probably paid a little bit more
for accounting than you were, you know, as a janitor, I.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Won Best Janitor of the Year like four years in
a row.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Though, but you were the one who gave out the awards,
so I'm not sure if that counts.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah, but there were sweet awards, and.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
You probably had a theme song as well.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
No, no theme song. I wanted to have something cute
up there. I fail.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
How did you balance your schedule because once you got
back on track for school, once you realized how much
you had to put into it, you know, you still
were working full time. You were still in the bands,
which is more than just performing, because especially if you
were working on new music, you had to work on
new music the standards. The stuff you already had in
your repertoire didn't require a whole lot of practice because
(15:43):
you'd get that just playing the gigs, but you had
to spend time there. And you have a girlfriend, so
you had to spend time on your relationship, and you know,
I know, kickball is a big part of your life
in the summer, so huge.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
I'm fisher retired from kickball my back and he's no
longer or allow me to play. Maybe once a year
we'll dust off the old kickball.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Okay, So I guess that's one less strain on your time.
But I mean, what you're doing and to have a
relationship and to do all of these things, that's a
lot of time.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Well, first of all, Google Calendar is a godsend. I
think without it, I would probably drive into the ocean
not knowing where I needed to be. And the ocean
is far from here, so that's saying something. So I
make sure that if I book something, I put it
in my calendar. I have a shared calendar with all
my guys. When I was going to school, I had
my set days for school, so say I had Tuesday
(16:33):
and Thursday I had class, so we would have to
practice Wednesday, Monday or Friday something like that. If we
had gigs, you just got to do it. But like
I said, one hour a day, one hour a day,
I would study no matter what. So a lot of
times and my lunch break looked like listening to a
financial accounting lecture about discount coupons and how to account
(16:54):
for them, or you know how to account for a
trust tax return, how to do those forms or something
like that, and you just find little pockets of time
that you didn't even know you had. No there's twenty
four hours in a day. If you sleep six hours
a night and you do this for two hours, you
just but you have to budget your time. But I
think most of what came out of all that is
(17:17):
if you want to do something, you'll do it. If
you want to do something, if you want to succeed,
you'll find a way to do it. And those like
two week breaks between like between Christmas and New Year's
or whatever you would get were like heaven, well you
finally get a little time off, but they'd be over
dam that quick. I'll never forget. It was the last
test I had to take. It was an online test
(17:37):
and it was for business technology or song. We had
to build a website. It wasn't a hard class at all,
but it was my last class and I had to
take to take the final online between a certain time
on like a Saturday, And I go to take this
test and my internet's down. I'm like, you gotta be
kidding me. So I call up my guitar player Mike.
I'm like, I gotta take this exam at your house.
(17:58):
He goes, sure, come over, and I'll never get clicking
the last button, the last answer, and I needed like
a D plus to pass the class or some like.
There was like no pressure at all, but I'm like
taking this test and I clicked the last answer and
it was just like the weight of ten million sons
being lifted off of your shoulders. Like I'm done, I'm done.
I'm not going back in three weeks. I'm not. You know,
(18:20):
this isn't a small break, It's not summer Vaca. I'm done.
I'm gonna I'm right, I'm gonna walk across the stage
at commencements. I was twenty eight years old. I think
when I graduated that it was like the biggest accomplishment
I had ever done in my life. And I'm still
very very proud of myself for doing it. Now going
back to get my extra credits and taking my CPA
exam that has eluded me to this point. It's been
(18:43):
six seven years.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
But at the firm you're in, are you doing public accounting?
Do you need the CPA? Do they do they care
if you get it.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
We do do public accounting, but if we lead our clients,
it's almost more like consulting. We do like their whole
back end process. And then they're all nonprofits, so they're
all audited by a third party outside of US. So
we helped them budget, We help them do their day
to day We have an AP department. We help them
work through their grants, how to budget that stuff out.
(19:11):
We help them with grant writing, everything stem to stern
through financial statements and budgeting. And then at the end
of the year, we have another audit firm come audit US.
So the CPA wouldn't hurt, but it's not required where
I'm at. There's a couple of the managers where I
work that don't have their CPA. Now, I don't think
an extra licensure or extra certifications will ever hurt you.
(19:33):
You know, life is a many faceted things. Who knows
what's going to happen in ten years or whatever. So
I think that for me, it was a personal goal.
When I started going to college, I was like, you'll
be graduated by twenty seven or twenty eight, and you
could have your CPA by thirty Well thirty came and went,
and I don't know if you feel the same way,
(19:53):
but time just good.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Thirty went way farther for me. It's best way god.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
And it just beats up every year. And yeah, I
tell this to people all the time. If you want
time to go by really fast, get into an accounting cycle,
because as soon as you're done closing, it's the fifteenth.
I'm almost done with my six clients sets of financials.
So by the time I'm done with all of that
and presenting everything, it'll be time to start again. It
(20:22):
was just January like two days ago. It just goes
by so quick, especially when you're on when you're working
in a repetitious cycle. That's something I talk with my
dad about too. He's a mechanics We have interesting conversations
about accounting. Sometimes it's just like he's like, well, aren't
you done? Is it? You know, when are you going
to finish? And I'm like, there's not really a finish line.
(20:44):
There's a finish line every month, but then there's just
another month. It's not like working on a motor like
the car never drives down the road, you know, there's
just another car that pulls into the shop.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
When I got my CPA. That was before the master's
degree was required. I know a lot of people, rather
than getting a bachelor's an accountancy, just dig right in
to go for the masters, so that that's just part
of the process. That the CPA is essentially inevitable because
you've already done that. But I can understand the thought
of going back for a master's after I graduated. I
(21:16):
had thought about it for a lot of different courses.
Once upon a time, I had thought about going to
law school, but I was like, yeah, I don't really
want to go back to school. So I imagine if you
don't get your masters right off, it's it's got to
be hard to go back to school to get your CPA.
But there's so many other licenses, licensures you can get.
I'm not sure if all of them require the CPA
(21:38):
to do that.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
What would be you know, beneficial to me would be
like a grant writing class or just further training. You know,
there's so much more to accounting than debits and credits,
and you know, you'll never never forget getting out of
college and getting your first actual accounting job and realizing
that you know nothing, like it's so good in school. Well,
(22:00):
I guess, well, you're not in school. I always said
there should be a class where you have to answer
seven emails and get a financial statement out while your
phone is ringing the entire time and your coworker's trying
to tell you a joke, and you're just like, dude,
everybody shut up for one second. Everybody just stop. I
remember watching you going through the budget process, and it's
(22:20):
so funny how everything kind of came full circle because
I end up working for in almost the exact same
vein in respect that you were working when I met you.
You were the controller. Now, yeah, you were the controller
and you were dealing with Razor's Edge and people donating money.
The school, the whole temple underwent major construction and renovations.
With all that stuff, all the capital ins and outs
(22:42):
and restrictions and endowments. People don't understand how in depth
that stuff can be. We gravitate towards each other. I
think it's just a kindred spirit or musician thing, you know,
but also accountants and we're cool. You know, you're cool,
I'm cool.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
We're probably cool.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
So I'll never forget. I was in the lunch room
and I was like like my first accounting like principles
of accounting, and I'm like, well, they spent money and
they got supplies and then they used the supplies. So
I was like, the asset goes down, but like, what's
the debit And You're like, it's supplies expense and I
was like, no, it's not, Marcie. They already bought the
(23:19):
supplies and you're like, Frank, yes, and I was like,
and you just kind of click, you know. So I
ended up coming to you with a lot of At
the time for me, it was like really difficult stuff
and for you you're probably giggling about it. And I
see it come full circle because now I'm working in
the capacity at my firm that I'm in and people
come to me with questions and I'm like, I remember
(23:40):
when that was a problem for me. I remember not
understanding that, and it's just life, you know. You get
I don't want to say I'm wise, but you gain wisdom.
And you've seen it a couple of times, right, You've
been around that block, you've chopped that tree down before,
and it's not so daunting the second time around. It's
easy when you know how well.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
And it's that that repetition, that muscle memory, that chords
are gonna do what they're gonna do. There's only so
many chord structures, and especially if you're in blues. I mean,
there's there's certain blues patterns, but we're not gonna all
of a sudden throw an augmented seventh's Sir John Lennon, Well,
that's totally different.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
He's just a goofball. The other thing is, so chord
progressions might behave a certain way, but so do certain clients.
And so I think I was somewhere on a point
there where you know, accounting it's not just numbers, debit
and credit. There's so much psychology involved. You have to
deal with people, not just your coworkers, but your clients,
the CEO, everybody's everybody's different. Not everybody's easy going. Not
(24:40):
everybody accepts mistakes easily, and that's internal an external, and
people are going to make mistakes. I mean, there's no
way around that. People are gonna mess up. You have
to afford grace to people. One way or another. Mistakes
or the way that people learn the most and probably
the best if they're smart. If you make the same
(25:00):
mistakes six times in a row, you're probably not gonna
have a job anymore. You got to learn. And uh,
there's just so much. There's so much to it from
a people aspect, and I think that being easy going
and you know, just kind of listening to people and
understanding where they're coming from and turning them into people,
turning it making it not personal. I don't want to
(25:22):
say make it make it personal. That's a bad connotation.
But you know, I've I've worked on clients where they're
they're leadership team, they're they're all tough, and everything's yes
or no answer, and they have all these hard questions
and then get them to giggle a little bit, or
you get them to laugh, You get them and they
they ease out a little bit, and now you're talking
on a personal level and you can get more done
(25:43):
that way. You're not gonna get a lot done if
everybody's hard nosed. So again, metaphor for life, maybe just
take a step back and relax. And I don't I
don't see a lot of accountants with that, with that approach.
I think I think I have something something kind of
unique bruin there.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Well, you know, it's hard for me to put the
word relax in with you, because the things you did
to me are anything but relaxing. But you were always
you kind of carried that with you. Okay, we'll get
it done. Okay, you know, we'll take care of it.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Oh, I have my freakouts, you know, I saw a
few of them. I have some freakouts every here and there,
you know, now and again.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
But we all do. We all have those times where
you would see that problem you were like, I don't
I don't even know. There were a couple of times
when you came to me it was like, Okay, that's fine,
it's a real problem. They didn't put this in here
just to mess up your head. We all go through
that in accounting, I mean, and especially as you said,
that transition from the class to the real world, and
(26:42):
all of a sudden it's a different animal because you
don't get it in a nice story problem. You get
a box of receipts, you figure out the story. Good
luck with that.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
New client implementations are always fun. They're from a different
accounting system completely, and everything's just a debit and a credit.
They're all wash accounts and there's no You're like, what's
what's happening right now? Do you guys have any paper files. No.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Anytime you inherit a client, you are you are at
the mercy of the quality and the quantity of the
prior records that they give you to try and figure
out what their real story is.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
I had a client. They were implemented like three or
four years ago, and they were on green bar. It
was like they had binders of ledger paper. Yeah, it was.
It was a pretty big outfit, you know, and we're like, okay,
so we get this client transition. They weren't mine. They
weren't my client at all. I think I helped build
a payroll import or something, and they just they proved
(27:38):
to be a little bit difficult, you know. It was
just kind of hard to work with them a little bit.
And they were like chewing through our staff. They just
chewed through a manager here, chew through a staff there.
And they were like, we need you to go on
this client. I was like, all right, we're gonna we're
gonna make this thing work. And you could see, like
you could see the process of breakdowns and where they
(28:00):
were and how they were happening. After after a second,
I was just like, guys, full stop, just we're gonna
have a meeting. We're gonna talk about all of this.
I can see where it's going wrong, but we're not
gonna point fingers. All we're gonna do is we're gonna
we're all gonna stop. We're all gonna take a breath,
and we're gonna fix the processes and we're gonna make
it better moving forward. I said, I guarantee you every
(28:23):
single month, it's gonna get a little bit better, and
it's gonna get a little bit quicker, and it's gonna
get a little bit cleaner. And I've been on the
client for two years now, I've gone through two audits
with them in a couple budgets. And the CEO, who
actually i'm pretty close with now at this point, it's funny.
She was like, do you know what you said it?
You said you were gonna get us turned around, and
she goes, I can't believe how far we've come and
(28:44):
how clean and easy everything is. All our processes are working.
You gotta get them to trust you a little bit.
You gotta fix it and don't just treat the symptom.
You gotta find out where it's coming from. I think
that that particular client is probably my most memorable professional
accomplishment getting them back on the track. I'm not telling
you anything. You don't know, basket case, and you get
(29:06):
them back on the track and get them back working,
and my firm was impressed. They were impressed, and I
was impressed. There were times where I wasn't so cool
and calm and collected.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Well, you know, it all comes down to you put
the work in, and you spend the time, and every
month you pull out another loose thread, you untie a knot,
you do whatever it is and get it a little
bit cleaner. I love that you said, you know, every month,
we're just gonna get a little better. So you gave
them the knowledge going in, Okay, we're not going to
(29:37):
fix this overnight. This is gonna take time. We're gonna
invest that time in working together to get from here
to there.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
I must have told them thirty five times. Well, I
think that that was the last the skeletons in the closet,
because every now and then something comes out and bites
you in the ass. You know you're not doing something right,
or you find a stack of ar receipts that you
didn't know ever happen, and they're from three years ago,
and you're like, are we with this money? Does anybody know?
But that must have said that thirty five different times,
(30:05):
and the CEO goes, you know, you've said that like
twenty times. I'm like, well, I mean it every time?
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Right?
Speaker 1 (30:10):
No? Right?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
You think it's the last one.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
And it's your closet, sister. I don't know nothing why
I got so many skeletons in there.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
I tell people when they're starting new at a job,
whether it's a new client or a new position, totally
at the beginning is when you're first going to see
a lot of things, but you don't know enough about
the whole process to know exactly what you need to
do or where you're going from. And it's a process.
You see the things as you see them, and you
deal with them, and each time you pull something out,
(30:38):
you see something else. It's nice to start fresh because
then and you're not married to any of the processes,
you're not married to any of the results. So you
have a great perspective when you knew it's something. But
then as you get more familiar, you're able to keep
cleaning things up a little bit better.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
I think back to the first job that I had,
like accounting. It was at the roofing company, and I
didn't know anything about anything. I was working at International
Automotive Components as like an intern right out of college,
and I got a call from the roofing company and
they're like, we can pay you better, you know, come over.
I was like cool. So I go over there and
(31:19):
I start working, and I immediately realized. I was like,
I have no idea what I'm doing. And I think
back to that stuff now and it's like, wow, I
could have been doing I could have done so much
more and so much better, but I just didn't know,
and there was no one there to ask, Like I
was the accounting department, and it was like having a
four year old watch your two year old.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Well, that's that's the problem with anything, even with an internship,
even with whatever. You didn't have the breadth of experience
at that point in time to really offer possibly what
that position needed, and probably added stress to your life
because you'd come in and you'd know you didn't know
what you were doing and you'd be trying to figure
it out. You probably did a lot of things well,
(32:02):
but you didn't understand how you were doing them. Or
why you were doing them.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
I think what was the biggest like step for me
at my position now is when I started running financial statements.
I had done all of the accounting all month long.
I put in all the credit card transactions. I wouldn't
do the ap but I would oversee it, make sure
the coding was right. But you start doing financial statements
and you start you start realizing from a higher level
(32:27):
you're going, if you put that in here, it pops
out there. Oh I get it, I see, and so
I try. I'm like known as like the training guru
where I work. I'll like, I'll train you. Come on,
I'll show you what's what. And it's funny because I'll
just be rambling on making videos and cracking jokes or whatever.
But I make people understand what they're doing and more importantly,
(32:49):
why you're doing it. What are we doing, Why are
we doing what we're doing, What are we trying to
get to? What are we trying to accomplish? And then
I start getting them immediately. I start running the financial
statements with them and make them understand. And I like
to do little popcorns and go, well, we're looking at
this unrestricted donation account where are we going to find that?
What statement are we going to find that on? Oh,
(33:10):
it's okay, all right, how do we get there? We
need that unearned revenue account? Where's that at?
Speaker 2 (33:15):
What?
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Where's? Where are you going to find that? And then
just sit there for a second. Do you not know?
It's okay if you don't know, I'm just you know,
I'm quizy a popcorn yet and it keeps them on
their toes and they learn. But you gotta see it,
and you got to do it, and you got to
get in there, and you got to make some mistakes
because I people need that. They need to see if
you put the quarter in here, where does the quarter
pop out? What's the what is the equal and opposite
(33:38):
reaction or the action of what's gonna happen? What's going
to happen if I do this? And if you don't know,
you'll never know. So you got to get in there.
You got got to get in there. And that's you know,
school music anything jump in I mean, don't just jump
out of a plane. You should probably trank for that.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Well, glad that you've got some guidelines.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
There, We'll just go swimming with sharks. I'm not saying that,
I think you need to put out disclaimer on this podcast.
But if you want to do something in life, just
do it. You're just gonna be disappointed you didn't do
it later. So while you got the time and the
energy and the and the get along, the hitching your
get along, just do it. Learn a language, go to school,
fight your bully, do something, Just do something. I think
(34:18):
that's good.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
I think that. I think that's good. I think we
should probably end it with that, unless you've got some
other wisdom to part with us. You account whisper you.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Well make sure you check your prepaid threshold. Don't put
a twenty dollars box of bandages in prepaids. It just
upsets people. It's not worth.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Are you sure you're not gonna like depreciate them.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
It's not worth. It's not a capitalize at they're not
capital bandages. They're just Spiderman band aids. We're not do it.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
You've got spider Man band aids.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
No, if I did, i'd capitalize them. Okay, Okay, nope,
I got nothing else. I'm really glad that you asked
me to be on here to ramble. I'll ramble anytime.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Well, I think I think it's so important to see that. Okay,
you had this idea I was gonna go right to school,
you started school and says, yeah, I'm not gonna go
right to school. And then here you are working and
you said, okay, now I'm ready to go to school
and you went. And that was that was really hard
because of everything you had going on, and you were
(35:17):
able to do it and keep everything up there, you know,
keep everything moving forward. Here you are, Yes, that's behind
you because time passed and you got older. Look at
where you've come when we first met, Look where you were,
and look where you are now. And you put in
the time and you put in the effort, and you
should be Hella proud. I mean, it's insane what you
(35:40):
did and what you balanced to get there.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
I'm not gonna lie. There are still days where I
audibly say out loud, I wish I was still a janitor,
but they're few and far between. I wish I was
watching windows right now.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Well, no, and I get that. I get that because
you are are the guy who makes the decisions. And
there are times it would be nice to come into work,
do your go home and not bring it home with you.
But there's a lot of opportunities coming from being the
guy that makes decisions, from being the guy that spends
two years unwinding someone's account because you keep getting those
(36:14):
skeleton surprises, and a lot of pride in that as well,
I'm sure being the guy that was able to take
care of that when other people got too frustrated and
couldn't keep doing it.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
You're absolutely right, and I'm so proud of how far
I have come. You're absolutely right, Like nail on the head,
you know. I think back to it all the time,
and I think what spurred this whole thing is somebody
had commented on a post where I had just gotten
hired at the firm I'm at now, and this was
a Facebook post somebody commented on itor liked it, so
(36:46):
pop back up in my feed, and it kind of
brought a tear to my eye. Like I was like
eighty eight days I had been unemployed and it was toffee.
It was like this heart pounding all the time. Wasn't sleeping.
I had literally just bought I just bought a house,
and I just leased a car, and I lost my
job and then COVID happened. I wasn't getting unemployment money
(37:06):
because it was it got messed up and then you
couldn't call or contact him, and so it's like eighty
eight days. After eighty days, I got hired into the
firm I'm at now, and I commented on the post.
I was like, you know, and it just so happens.
I'm celebrating five years at the same company that hired me.
And if nobody realized that the post was from five
years ago, I must have gotten thirty five phone calls
(37:26):
of people asking if I wanted a job. And I
love that.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
I appreciated that so much, but it was just so
funny because I'd have to be like, no, like, I've
been gainfully employed for five years. I'm happy where I'm at,
and they're like, well, you had that post, and I'm like,
the post was from twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Yeah, no, I when I saw it, I did see that,
but I was like, oh my god, I gotta get
Frank to come on my podcast because he's been through
so much.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
Life's Little Ringer.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Life's Little Ringer. Okay, well, thank you for coming on.
Marcie talks money in Life. I am Money Marcie. Thank
you listeners for tuning in and uh, you got this yeah,
Host
Marci Grossman
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