Money isn’t Everything: How to Find Fulfillment in Business and Parenting

Hello, my friend, I am so excited for you to have a chance to listen to this episode today with my amazing guests that Kimberly Tara. She is a CPA and a certified tax coach, a wife, a mom to four little kids and a multi passionate entrepreneur. And as a tax strategist and Business Growth advisor, Kimberly and her team partner with CEO mom's service providers to maximize revenues, reduce taxes, and build wealth and create a legacy. But we don't talk about that stuff at all. Welcome to dev zone here, we do not talk about tax strategy. We don't talk about how to like, change your bottom line, build your revenue, maximize your profits, none of those things. It really is amazing, all those things, but she's also amazing at mindset and just talking about a wealth mindset and what it means to really understand your own value and worth and how that plays into how you prioritize yourself and how you're spending your time in your business. So this was truly such a great conversation and I can't wait for you to listen. You can also check out Kimberly over on the CEO moms building wealth podcast where I am also a guest this theme week. So check us out over there and give her a follow. And just a couple more things about Kimberly. She believes in fostering a supportive community where CEO moms are proactively encouraged to learn and ask the difficult tax and financial questions so they can understand their numbers and confidently make better business decisions. through proactive tax strategy and ongoing trusting relationship. Kimberly and her team believe in putting more money back in their clients pockets, and helping them sustainably grow their business while putting family first Kimberly is all about finding the balance to live your dream life and to be successful on what matters most. And then it absolutely what we cover in this conversation today and I can't wait for you to hear it.

This is the Entrepreneur School Podcast where we believe you can run a thriving business and still make your family a priority. This show is all about supporting you the emerging or early stage Entrepreneur on your journey from solopreneur to CEO while wearing all of the other hats in your life. My name is Kelly Sinclair and I'm a brand and marketing strategist who started a business with two kids under 3am, a corporate PR girl turned entrepreneur after I learned the hard way that life is too short to waste to doing things that burn you out. On this show. You'll hear inspiring stories from other business owners on their journey, and learn strategies to help you grow a profitable business while making it all fit into the life that you want. Welcome to Entrepreneur School.

Hey, hey, Kimberly, I'm so excited to have you on entrepreneur school today. Thank you for being here.

Yes, I am so excited. Thank you for having me.

Absolutely. We're gonna talk all things that so many people don't want to talk about, which is numbers, CEO mindset, money's stuff. Because you are a CPA and you deal with all those pieces. And I respect the heck up view that immediately let's see,

I respect you because I don't love the marketing, right? Like, that is not my jam. That is something that I've been having to learn over the last year, right. So like, I think that that's important for the listeners to know is you know, they're like, Oh, you're so good at this, you're so good at all these numbers. But remember that we all can't be good at everything. We can't all like everything. And so for me, that's the marketing. So just know that as good as I am at the numbers side of things. That's how bad I am at the marketing side of things. And that's something

Yes, absolutely. We all have our strengths. And that's sort of the whole point, when you run a business is identifying what those are, and leaning into the things that really bring you joy and that you're great at and then finding support with the rest of it. Right, exactly. Mm hmm. So can we start with sort of your co story, because I know that you're a mom, and you have young kids and like where did it all start for you? And how did this entrepreneurial journey happen?

Yeah, so I'm the child of two entrepreneurs. And I think that that's important because i i If you look at the statistics and studies that have been done, most entrepreneurs are children of entrepreneurs. It's just kind of like a, I don't know if that whole nature versus nurture thing. So I think it's important to know that growing up, I was the child of two entrepreneurs. And so I knew at some point that I always wanted to be a business owner myself. I was actually an engineering major a chemical engine. during major before I switched to accounting, so it was kind of this funny dance that I did, trying to switch from engineering to accounting, I was a little delayed in starting my career because I had to go back and do more accounting and business classes. So when I, when it was time to graduate, get a job, I decided to go with a medium sized public accounting firm here in the US instead of a big four, because I had done internships with the largest chemical company in the world. And I didn't want that corporate culture. And I'm really glad that I made the decision that I did. Because when I started out in accounting, and public accounting actually started in the audit department, I didn't start in the tax world, and you'll hear that I do pretty much all tax work now. So in in a long, roundabout way, I made it from the Audit Department to the forensic and special matters group and litigation support into the tax department. And that was where I really figured out that I love tax. And I know that most people when they hear the word, tax, love does not come into play for them. But for me, it does. And I just, I found what I love, I found what I'm passionate about. So I wanted to make partner in nine years because I had been I had heard that the youngest person to make partner or I guess the quickest person to make partner had done it in 10 years. So my Enneagram three self was going to make it in nine years. And I think that would have been, that would have been like right around like 3031, and for me based on like my age at the time. But I also wanted to have my first child at 28 And my second child at 30. And then I was gonna be done. I'm kind of a planner, you know, makes me a really good CPA that I'm that I'm a planner. And so at some point, I realized that that wasn't gonna work that making partner in nine years, but also having two children in that timeframe. Like those goals, my personal goals, and my professional goals were not aligned, and it just wasn't gonna happen, where I could have both of those at the same time. And then I remember in my last tax season, my last busy season, watching this manager, we had moved to all of our offices were like open and clear windows and everything. And I remember watching her FaceTime her three year old four nights in a row, putting him to bed, she was pregnant with her second child at the time pretty pregnant, and FaceTiming him every night to go to bed. And I just sat there and I thought, I don't want to do that. That is not what I envision for my life as a mom. And for me, that was like, you know, we all have those moments like we have that moment. And for me, that was the moment when I realized that being a partner in public accounting wasn't really my end goal goal, and that I needed to find a different professional goal that felt really big and really awesome and really fulfilling for me, but was more in line with what I wanted my personal life to also look like. So my husband and I had the opportunity to move back from Atlanta, Georgia to New Orleans, Louisiana, which is where I'm from originally. And I was like, You know what, now's a great time to, you know, go out on my own, figure it out. It's scary. But I can always go back and get a corporate accounting or public accounting job. If it doesn't work out, let's give it a shot. I didn't know that I was 10 weeks pregnant at the time, when I had already given my resignation. We were already our house was in escrow being sold. And so I was like, Okay, well, do I keep going with my own business? Or do I just go find a nice paying salary job. And so you know, I as scary as it was, I reminded myself that a big reason that I wanted to be a business owner was so that I could have more flexibility and freedom as a mom. The other reason was, I really wanted to be able to have more communication and conversations with my clients, because you don't get that when you're at like a low level at a big firm. And I really love the one on one communication that I have with my clients. And so I took the leap of faith and I kept going with it. And within our first 12 months, we hit six figures, but within 18 months, I was completely burnt out. And I was like I'm doing no better in life timewise and freedom wise and flexibility wise and money wise, that I would have if I would have just stayed in public accounting. And so that was when I really realized that I needed to make a shift in so that was 2016 was when I started my business 2018 was when I realized something's got to change. I can't keep going like this. And we were set. Go ahead.

Sorry. I wanted to interject because they feel like this is like a pattern story that so many of us have when we first get started

Oh yeah, doing all the things wrong like if you feel like you started your business and you didn't do all the right things like I promise you are so not alone. Even though like I'm a numbers person and I work with businesses, I still made so many mistakes right in the beginning that I wish I would have known better but I just didn't know

Right. And so why do you think it is that we get ourselves into that situation?

So I can tell you, for me, it was taking what I thought I was supposed to do and what I had seen growing up and what I had learned from my public accounting time. So for me it was, if it even breathe the word of accounting, if it was payroll, tax preparation, bookkeeping, if it was something that fell under the accounting umbrella, I said, Guess we can do it because I was so afraid of not making enough money of not having enough clients, right? So I said yes, to everyone and everything. That was one big mistake to everything was customized because of this. Everything was customized. There were no systems, there were no specific offers or services or products, right. So everything was I had to recode it, I had to think about okay, what am I doing for them? That was another mistake. And the third mistake I made was under charging, and over delivery, right? And charging hourly. Because that's that's how we do it in public accounting, everything is on the billable hour model. So I was taking that with me and applying that my business. And then the fourth big mistake was driving all over creation, right. So back in 2016, we weren't really like in this virtual world yet as much as we are now. And so I was driving, I added it up in 2018. When I had my mentor, tell me like, I think you're driving a lot. And you're not even charging clients for this. I was driving 12 hours a week to go all over. And I wasn't even charging them for it. Right. So that's a day and a half if you look at a typical eight hour workday, right? So those are my four big mistakes that I would say. And the fifth one, if I had to add it in there is just this notion that if you're not working, you're not making money, and you need to be working. And you should always be working and work more and more, more working time equals more money, and not as much of that like work smarter, not harder.

Yes, I think a lot of that, too, can get tied to that hourly billing. And I was a consultant for several years before I started my business. So I started the same way because it was the model that I knew. Yeah, even though I knew it wasn't really the best model. But it when you just say, I'll work for you know, when I worked for x hours, I will charge you X. But then I thought if I wasn't working, like I wasn't working for a client, I wasn't doing anything valuable either. So Apple idea of you know, could I take, go to a workout class in the middle of the day, you're taking my dog for a walk, I just didn't even couldn't even mentally get my head around it

Because you need it to you. And that's this whole concept of should, right, which that's like a whole thing that we could go into, you should be working. But what I've really learned is that as CEOs, we need that whitespace we need that's like when our brains do the best work, right. And so I would always joke that, like, my best ideas come to me in the shower, or when I'm out for a run or if I'm just riding in the car. And that's true. But you need more white space than that, because my brain is thinking about what my business needs to move the needle forward, right. But my brain is also thinking about what my clients need from a strategy perspective and a consulting perspective. And so I need a lot of whitespace to just mull on all of that. And so, it's just so interesting to look back and think about what my time looked like back from like, 2016 through 2018, versus what it looks like. Now, it's it's so incredibly different, right? So what shifted for you. So in 2018, that was when I became a certified tax coach. So I'm licensed, I'm a licensed CPA here in the US. And then I'm also a certified tax coach now as of 2018. And that was when I just I knew something needed to change and why I became a certified tax coach is because that really taught me how to do advanced tax strategy, proactive tax planning, and help our clients save tax dollars and keep more money in their pocket. And so I'm so passionate about that, because we work so hard as business owners, especially as CEO, moms, and if we can help our clients save $24,000 a year in taxes, that's $2,000 a month that they don't have to bring in as income. And that's more time with their kids, their families, right. And so that's how I look at it. And it's just, it's such a joy for me to save our clients tax dollars versus just like preparing a tax return for them, which doesn't really benefit them in any way. It also taught me that was the first time that I would ever say I had like business coaching not just like tax or accounting type coaching. And that was when I learned more about value based pricing and not trading time for dollars and saying that, you know, okay, what, what are you giving this person by by preparing this tax strategy for them? What are you giving them and So that was when I really learned that it doesn't matter if it takes me five hours or 50 hours to prepare this report for them, what I'm saving them, the service that I'm providing the value I'm delivering is the same, right? If I'm learning to work faster, because I'm becoming better and more skilled at my trade. And so honestly, that is the biggest shift that really changed the trajectory of my business was moving to value based pricing and fixed fee pricing and moving away from that, that hourly model. And I do think that there are still times that the hourly model applies. And if we're doing a project for someone, and there's just no way that I, it could be two hours, it could be 20 hours, and I have no idea until we dig in. We will, on the rare occasion, charge hourly for that. But that was a huge, huge shift. And what that did was from 2018, through about 2021, it was more about getting my time back my time freedom back keeping my gross revenues, and my profit margins where they were, but not working so hard all the time, because it was moving away from that billable hour, and just getting my life back and spending time with my kids. And in 2018, we had baby number two, and in 2020, we have baby number three. And I'll just throw in there that in 2022, we have baby number four, right? So it was more important for me to get my time back as a human and especially as a mom to young kids. That was really such a shift in my business for me.

Yeah, absolutely. I found the exact same like myself when I made that shift. And I helped some clients as well to see that because there's so much stress. Sometimes they're like, Oh, I committed X hours, and I'm charging them X hours. And even if you do it on a retainer basis, but you're still attaching it to the hours, you're feeling like you're scrambling at that invoicing time where it's like, Oh, I haven't completed it. But like, Did you add the value that you said your ad, right, you're burning yourself out trying to over deliver? And the truth is, the client doesn't even care, the client, just the result or the deliverable. And you provide that regardless of how long it takes you. And the more that you do it, the better you get, the faster you get at it. Right. Was that setting you up for?

Right, exactly. And so that's why I say like, you know, I think that a lot of times at the beginning, especially if you're learning, I think that sometimes the hourly model does make sense, right? Because you don't know how long it's going to take you you're still learning your craft. But once you've really learned your craft, and you do become an expert, that is when it needs to for sure switch to value based pricing. Because my clients do not care if it takes me three hours or 30 hours, if I'm going to save them $60,000 A year, they are willing to pay me what our fees are, because they want to save $60,000 a year for the next five years, every single year. And that's well worth it to them. And they honestly don't care how long it takes me to come up with that for them. They absolutely don't want to do it right now, especially tax strategy. Nobody wants to do tax strategy. No, yeah, but you do they love that do and I love it.

I just get so excited when anybody's excited about what they do like to me, it doesn't matter your your expertise, as long as you know, your passion, then it really becomes something that you're able to use through everything that you do. And I believe that that is the core of what your brand is. And that's what attracts people to you. Yes. So I feel like we should go into the mindset piece around all of this, like around being a CEO and like how, obviously, like, I love that you're already acknowledging the shifts that happen as you get more experience. And you know, as you get some practice under your belt with clients, and and you learn from the ways that you're delivering and setting up your business. And you have to go through that like, Well, I was having a conversation with somebody yesterday about the unrealistic expectations that we set for ourselves. And that's so often because of what we see on social media, right? There's such a disconnect between what people are putting out there, and then what we believe that we should be able to do not knowing any or all of the contexts around their own situations.

Yes. Oh, my goodness, so much. So much. Yes. I don't even know where to start with this.

I know. Right? I like there's a question in there. But like, I think you know, one of the things when it comes to money and running a business and how we feel like what success looks like there's still it's very difficult to disassociate with the actual income, right? As much as we can. And I personally can like tell myself that success is that I have this flexibility. I can you know end my day when my kids are home from school. I can take them to school every day I can take them to their activities at four o'clock. All of the things, and yet the moving thing of like how much but how much money are you making? Or you go to a family event and someone says, How's business? And you immediately assume that means are you making any money and like it just carries with you, right? And so we believe that we need to be making money, however much money we think we need to make. And then we're seeing all these other people quote, doing it. Yes.

Oh, my gosh, so much to unpack here. As an Enneagram, three, high achiever, I feel everything that you just said, and I am constantly we're actually in a season in the last month or so, where so I should say, so I've never marketed my business until last December. So December of 2022, was when I first started marketing my business. And it was because we have a 97% client retention rate, I was happy, supporting, you know, our small but mighty clients quality over quantity. But I realized that I wanted more, right, I kept saying, oh, when all the kids go to school, I'll grow my practice. But for kids later, I was only going to have two y'all remember 28 and 30. And that's not how it went. And now I have four, and I love them. And it's wonderful. But I was like, I'm never gonna get all these kids in school. And so I I'm tired of waiting, right. And so I will say another shift that I made was hiring help and leaning into to help and support right for support for me support for our clients, that was a big shift in 2022, and 2023, as well. But, you know, just a month ago, we've been moving and grooving this year, we have doubled our revenue, I was ready to grow. And in the last month I have come I've had to come to a screeching halt. Basically, the only thing that hasn't really brought us to a complete halt is because I have team now and so I have other people that can help me support the clients and can help some of our marketing efforts. But we have had sick kids constantly, constantly. And I now have to pick our three year old up half day from school when he's supposed to go all day. And that is for the foreseeable future. So when the school told me that I basically had to come home and block off my entire afternoons for the foreseeable future. And so it's really hard to remind myself that this is why I have my own business, right. And then also the, I don't want to say the image, the perception of other moms when I tell them right now that I have to go pick up our child half day, they're like, well, at least you work for yourself. And like, yeah, at least I do. However, that negatively indirectly impacts my income, because that just chopped my console call time in half, right, my client call time in half, because I can't get on console calls, which is what we call our sales calls, I can't get on that, well, my three year old is all female, you know, like, there's only so much of that, that you can do when a three year olds walking into your office five times a day. And so, you know, it's, it's reminding myself that, okay, Kimberly, this is this is just something it is what it is right now, this is a nudge from the universe, that he needs me in some capacity right? Now, he needs me to pay more attention to him. And we're going we're about to start his autism evaluation, our oldest has autism, and I'm seeing some of the, we're having him having a lot of triggers from what we went through when he was three, we're seeing a lot of that with him. And so it is a loving nudge from the universe that, that he needs me in some capacity that I need to work less, and he needs me more. But that's really hard when you have professional ambitions as well. And you just, I felt like I was really just getting some momentum going. And so that is success, right? It's going to directly impact my financial success for the remainder of 2023. But there is no success greater than that of being a mom who has the freedom and flexibility to be there for her kids when she needs them. And my business will still provide an income for us. It won't provide as big of an income for us as I would like. But we have everything that we need. And I think that sometimes, we have to remember that. And it's really hard. And I have to tell myself daily that you know, don't work this whole afternoon, spend the time with him, take him outside in the backyard, work with him on his reading, do all that just just enjoy being with him while he's three, because there is something going on right now that he needs me and what a blessing that I can do that for him and not worry about losing my job or not making any money at all right? So I might make less, but I do still have my business and I can work late at night and I can work early in the morning. And so it's really really hard. It's really been a struggle the last six weeks here for us personally, but reminding ourselves that that that is a blessing of being a business owner and that is success. Success is still being able to make money but also be there for my kids even if it doesn't, even if my life doesn't look exactly what like what I want it to look like right now,

You know, thank you so much for sharing that, because what I'm hearing underlying there as well is that we have these battles. I feel this way too, like when you're ambitious. And I think that this is the like, the big question to be trying to figure out is how do we allow and like, live in harmony with ambition, and presence at the same time, like, because you can have, you can do all the meditating, you can hear all of the people saying that, you know, you just have to be present in the moment and enjoy it and everything, but you live, but I got goals. And I want to Yes, and like,

I'm feeling torn about this all day, every day. I feel torn literally all day every day.

Yes, yeah, me too.

I have no, I have no suggestions for how to get rid of that feeling. Because I literally feel it all the time. And then, and then you feel guilty, because you shouldn't feel torn? Like, well, of course, you should pick a kid. Right? And so then, so then the guilt comes in, because you're like, Why do I feel torn? Well, you know, why do I feel it's just, it's, it's a real, it's a whole thing. It's a whole thing.

You know, and I think just saying it out loud, is really important that we're validating anybody else? Who's having those same feelings, where it's like, yeah, I want to, like, Be ambitious and, and try and grow my business and do all these things and hit my goals that I also want to be around to be able to go do a kid's assembly in the middle of the day and watch them saying or, you know, do their Halloween makeup or whatever it is. And like, I also live in a constant battle of wanting both of these things.

Yeah. And it's really hard. Because, you know, I think sometimes I tell myself from a professional aspect to justify how much I work. And the things that I'm doing is, will, you know, I'm working hard now so that it can have more freedom later. But at what expense, right, because I don't want to miss these little years, my kids are 653 and 16 months, I don't get these years back. So me working more now to set us up for more freedom down the road, but at what costs at the cost of missing them right now. And so that's kind of that's the justification for me personally, that's what works for me, that's what I tell myself is, you know, working hard now to have freedom down the road, I'm not going to get to go back and have them when they're 16 months. And when they're three and when they're five. And when they're doing their fair dance practices to be on stage or when they're begging me to be room up. I'm room mom this year, and I needed to be room mom, like I needed a hole in my head, y'all. I did not need one more thing on my plate. But my first grader who is in first grade right now, he asked me last year, he asked me the year before he's like, Well, when are you going to be my room? Mama? When are you going to be my room? Mom? So that's the priority, right? All the work stuff can wait. Because there's gonna come a point where he's 13. He's like, Mom, why are you at school, don't come by me don't come like I know those days. I mean, I hope that they don't. But I know that that's the reality that at some point, they're not going to be begging me to come to school and do art projects with them and do fair dances with them. But for right now, in this moment, in this year, in this season of life, they want me there, and I want to be there. And that means you know that that is what drives me to say, I will have the business for the rest of my life, I have the opportunity to make money for the rest of my life, I do not, I do not have the opportunity for the rest of my life, to enjoy the first eight years of my kids lives where they really want me to be there. And they really want me to be present. And it's still a battle with my personal and professional goals. But that is what I use personally, to keep me motivated to say, work can wait, my kids need me now. Because they're not going to wait time is not going to stop them from having a birthday every single year. And growing older and growing up. There's nothing that's going to stop that that that's not always going to be there by business, the opportunity to make money that's always going to be there.

Mm hmm. That's beautiful perspective. And I think it kind of goes into the other half of what we were talking about before that we were starting to unpack around these expectations, like the guilt and the that battle is coming from wanting something to happen faster, generally, in our business, right. And actually, before we got on here we were starting to talk about like what were shown online and it's a very difficult to not feel like to feel okay with setting your own goals and having like allowing things to happen more in their own time. In a world where we're constantly seeing like, my six figure launch and my like all this money I made in five minutes while I was you know, on an airplane or whatever very important thing to say around like financial disclosure, basically

I do I have a lot I have things to say around this. So, you know, when somebody on Instagram or Tiktok, or whatever the social media platform is touting their seven figure business or their six figure launch, right? They're not telling you all of the expenses that they incurred to make that money. Number one, right. And I get to see the back end of a lot of businesses, people share a lot of the money insights with me. And so I know, I've learned and I've seen with my own two eyes, someone who has a seven figure business, but they're in the red, right, they're not actually even they don't even have a profit, or they're only paying themselves $2,000 a month. And I don't know about you, Kelly, but I will not have a seven, I don't have a seven figure business and my profit margins. But my multi six figure business is actually much more profitable and much more beneficial to me than a lot of the seven figure businesses out there because their profit margins are either 5% or negative 5%. And so don't fall prey to the marketing media that they are doing to say, Oh, I'm so successful, but you have no idea what they're actually keeping in their pocket. And that's what I want to know is I want to know, how much are you taking home because I don't care how much you actually brought in, if you brought a million dollars in, but you spent 600,000 on Facebook and Instagram ads to do that, and you spent 300,000 on contractors to help you make that money. And then you spent another 200,000 on all your other costs, you've made no money. And I do not care that your business brought in seven figures, I don't care. And the other thing too with that Kelly, like that's the money side. But then on the flip side to is, you know, I know how those people who say, Oh, I made this in five days or five minutes while doing nothing. You don't know how many years they've spent getting set up for that, or they're probably lying to you, or they're spending exorbitant amounts of money on contractors who are doing the work for them, right. And look, I've started outsourcing more, that is something that I've had to learn to lean into is that I'm only one person who has ambitious goals, who also wants to be a present mom. So I need help, I need support. But if you bring in support, that means you're taking home less money. And that's okay. If time is more important to you, and presence with your children is more important to you. Great, outsource it, you should but know that that's money that's not coming into your pocket. And so just I really think that we need to stop comparing ourselves to everyone else out there, because you have no idea what their profits look like, what their support looks like, what their personal life looks like. Maybe they don't have any kids. You know, I can tell you, I would absolutely have a seven multi seven figure business right now, if I didn't have these four children that are out hours upon hours a day. Yeah. I mean, I'd work 12 hours a day, six days a week. If I if I didn't have kids, I'd always be working. I love what I do. Yeah.

You know, and and why do we even make decisions about who we want to work with or whatnot? Why are we so impressed by people's things there when we start feeling like we don't have anything to share about ourselves in our own businesses, if we don't have like screenshots of our clients telling us how much money they make or right. Like, why is that the Oh, it's despite as constantly having this conversation, I think in trying to reframe success, we are still victim to it, we still look at it as money. Yeah, absolutely.

And, you know, what, what a lot of, you know, and I don't, I don't want to use the word naive, but but a lot of us will, you know, go back to the beginning of our conversation, right? We all, we all have to start somewhere. And so when you're new and you don't know what you don't know, right, which is so applicable to business and finances, like you don't know what you don't know. And so what you're not realizing a lot of times is that one client win that they're sharing, that's one out of like, 10,000 clients, and they're picking though, one success story, and there could have been a lot of outside factors that led to that client one success story, you know, because you notice it in marketing. It's like you're seeing the same Client Testimonial over and over again, or the same, you know, the same outcome over and over again. And it's like, well, yeah, there's always that outlier that that does really well, but you know, I don't know I agree with you, Kelly. I don't know why we all keep going back to this even though we know we shouldn't it's like, but we have to and that's where that should work comes in and I really don't like that should worry that like we do something because we should

Totally and you know, I think well, maybe I'm just making everyone super cynical and skeptical that up out. And that is not the goal of this. That's not what we mean. Yeah, right, it was more like to empower you to, to not feel like you have to behave in a certain way or to compare your business. Because you know, the insides and outs of it, and you don't know the insides and outs of other people's businesses that they're sharing about online.

Yeah, and or for solidarity, right? We want you to like, I want everyone to know and feel like they're not alone, that all of the challenges that we're going through, like, we're all feeling that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's important. That's like a big, it's one of my big passions, right? It's just making sure that you know that you're not alone. Because I think that it's so easy for us to fall into that trap of the glamour and the big flashy numbers and the successes of others. And so sometimes, you know, back to what you were saying, Kelly, what is success? And what can be enough, and my husband, thankfully, is so good about that. He keeps me so grounded with, you know, he's like, Well, if you hit that goal, are you going to stop? Are you just going to move on to the next goal? He's like, I know you and you're just going to move on. He's like, so what, what is the urgency to hit this goal? You know, because you say, oh, because then you'll have more time he's like, but I know you're gonna fill it with something else. Right. And so that's very sobering sometimes to hear that and to say, I am guilty of that, I do do that, right. And so maybe I do just slow down so that I can be more present in the here. And now because he's right. I'm not just a person who's going to sit by idly right now know that about myself

more than nobody does, like we did something called the hedonic treadmill, where we have this belief, I write about this in a book recently, we have this belief that when we get to a certain different state, we're going to think, believe and act differently, when the truth is that that reset just keeps happening. And you're just constantly like, you know, like, the the mouse on the little wheel spinning, because you're you keep going, and it's just all victim ruse, right, basically. Yeah. So, you know, I feel like we need to find a way to equate the value of the other things that we have going on. Yeah, like that flexibility and the time freedom and all of that, like, we need to either put it into the same spreadsheet in some way to allow us to see that what we're doing has value beyond the income that we're bringing in. And it's not directly like, all time was created equal. It's not. It's not like only the money making stuff is worth something and everything else falls by the wayside.

Yeah. And I think people always think it's so funny, because like, I'm the CPA, I'm the money and financial person, and I quite, quite often am reminding my clients or my friends or my business, you know, my entrepreneur appears like, money isn't everything, and money. You know, no one ever wishes. No one ever says that they wish they would have had more money or died with more money, right? You know, and so I think that people always kind of laugh because they, they see the irony in the fact that I'm the one telling them like, it's not all about the money, you don't necessarily need to make more money, spend more time with your family, enjoy, enjoy the ride, right. And I know that as I'm telling you, I think sometimes I'm telling my clients that are my peers that because I'm reminding myself of that too, right? Because I know that it's not all about the money. I know, it's not about the professional success. I don't even I don't even talk I don't even know why sometimes this is we're not going to go far into this because it's that would be turned into like therapy, but sometimes I wonder like, I don't share it. You know, my my friends will be like, Well, why didn't you share that on your Instagram that you, you know, got an award or that you, you know, save this client? $60,000? Like, why don't you talk about it? And it's, I don't know, because I don't do it so that I can talk about it's really literally just for my own self satisfaction to hit these goals and hit these accomplishments and these metrics, because I don't even share them. Like my parents didn't even know that I was chosen his powerhouse of the year until something arrived and like, well, that's what's that for. And I was like, oh, you know this and that. They're like, You didn't come home and share that with us. You know, that kind of thing. So it's, it's not even for others. It's for myself. And so sometimes I sit back and it's like, But why, like, why do you why do you need that? Kimberly, if you're not even sharing it with the rest of the world? Is it that important? I don't know. I don't know the answer. That's why I say like, we're getting into therapy terror. Yeah,

Yeah. But thank you so much for sharing, like the insides of the way that you're thinking about things because I feel that knowing other people's perspectives is always really helpful to ground, whoever's listening to this in that it's okay to be making the choices that you need to make and why Want to make and choose to make for your own life and your own goals and your own family, and you will get where you want to go? At some point. If you don't stop, and you have no intention of stopping, you're going to get there. And I know that sometimes I feel like it's been forever, like, when is it going to happen? It doesn't even matter. Like it really doesn't. Like and I loved it mean, I don't care and it doesn't mean that you're not like goal oriented or whatever, it just means that you're working through it, and,

And that we all have different priorities, right, we all have different priorities. And I also remind myself that everything is seasonal, it's a you know, business of them, babies are really similar, right? And, you know, so reminding myself that it's a season right now that I'm not able to work as much as I want to. And, you know, I've done the whole roller coaster over the last eight years, I've had seasons where I am, you know, head down, focus more on work than my kids. And I've had times are more focused on my kids than my work, and it's okay. And it's, you know, I know that this season right now of not getting to work a lot, it's gonna pass and I might miss it, you know, there's going to come a day where I really wish I could go pick up the kids half day, every day and spend more time with them. Right. So trying to remind myself what an opportunity that that is to spend time with our three year old and say, You know what I've got, you know, and the thing that I tell myself too, is, you know, everybody likes to talk about retiring. I just don't see myself doing that, like, I just don't sit, do I not want to have to work 3540 hours a week? Yes. However, I do not see myself, quote, unquote, retiring and sitting and doing nothing. That is not who Kimberly is. So I know that realistically, I'm gonna work for the next 40 years until I'm in my 70s. Right, like, again, five hours a week, maybe by the time I get to my 60s and 70s. But I still fully intend to have my business and be doing something in it for a couple of hours a week into my 60s and 70s. I literally have the rest of my life to work if I want to. I do not have the rest of my life to have little kids.

No, yeah, I mean, the perspective of time and how precious it is, is such an important one to hold. And, and like for me, having lost my mom, I have that very front of mind all the time. Like I just don't even I know that tomorrow isn't even promised for any anybody. So

anyone know, I mean, we, one of my three year olds, his little friends was diagnosed with neuroblastoma about a month ago, right? You just, you know, so when you're sitting there dealing with a stomach bug, and you're tired, and it's deadline week, and all the things right, and it's like, you put it in perspective, right? It's like, this is just a, this isn't a chronic illness, this isn't something that could take my child's life, right. And so I think that that was it, that happened, I found out about that, probably two weeks before, we were told that we were gonna have to pick him up every day at 1215, and spend all afternoon with him. And so like, you know, what, Kimberly, you're not in the hospital, you're not fighting for his life, you can still work, you're not at risk of losing your job, maybe you're at risk of losing a few clients, if you can't get on a call with him fast enough. But you're still gonna have some income, just go be with him and go enjoy and be grateful for the things that you have. And don't focus on the things that you can't have right now. And I think that sometimes we just need those moments to be reminders of what we do have, because I think sometimes it is easier to focus on the things that we want, or the things that we don't have, instead of focusing on the things that we do have in the here and now in the good things.

yeah, yes, and there's so much, you know, research as well, that goes into that abundance versus scarcity mindset. And that's what you're talking about. And that's like, acknowledging what you do have and being grateful for it and showing that gratitude and, and that when you step into that, you become the attraction for what you want, as well. Like,

for money, right? Like I've like we talked about that with our clients from a mindset perspective, right? Really living in that abundance mindset monetarily, as well. And even the you know, I've, I've personally seen the benefits of that, you know, like, and I understand if you're, if you're newer to business, you maybe are in a little bit more of a hustle mode and you're worried but like, at some point, you have to shift your mindset and say, you know, I need to believe that I know what I do is good work. I know that clients want to work with me and really lean into that abundance mindset from a monetary perspective as well.

Well, there's been so many good gold nuggets in this conversation. I loved it. Thank you so much for sharing all of this and I hope that listeners will reach out to you as especially if you actually we didn't even talk about. We mentioned a few times, you know, Kimberly is a tax strategist and a CPA. So if you need any support in any of those areas, please connect with her. Let everybody know where to find you and how to stay in touch.

Yeah. So if you love listening to podcasts, I invite you to come listen to the CEO moms building wealth podcast, Kelly is actually a guest over there as well. And we had a different conversation, but equally good and important. So if you like podcasts, I invite you to come listen to the CEO moms building wealth podcast. You can also find me on Instagram at Tara CPA firm. I like to call it my landing page. I don't post a lot. But I love connecting in the voice DMS with a voice DM and then we also have a resource. And this is really applicable whether you're in the US or you're in Canada or somewhere else in the world. But we have our 12 most missed tax deductions. And so if you're in the US, they will explicitly apply to you. But even if you're in Canada or somewhere else, I want you to use it to really get the conversation going with your professional to say, Where am I missing deductions, where can I be saving money? Where can I be putting more cash back in my pocket from the work that I'm doing in my business? And so I'm sure Kelly will include the link to that resource for you.

Yes, absolutely. And thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me.

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