safety’s knowing you can pay the bills. purpose is knowing there’s something more.
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the disruptors
with liz farr
amber setter, the chief enlightenment officer for conscious public accountants, started out as a type a overachiever cpa, but after a few busy seasons, she realized that she “didn’t want to be an accountant anymore.”
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today she’s an executive leadership coach for accountants, helping them transform their lives and careers.
the premise behind setter’s coaching is that the coachee, whether it’s an individual, a team or an organization, is the expert in their domain.
“the work of the coach is to pull that wisdom outside of them” setter said, adding that next steps include reflection and talking about goals and challenges. setter explained that coaches don’t tell people what to do, but instead ask open-ended questions to create a space for personal exploration of issues many are not giving thought to.
coaching can help resolve the tension between safety and purpose. safety is having a job that pays the bills, but purpose is a voice inside that tells you there’s something more available.
one example of an area that accountants may not be thinking about is how we responded to the pandemic. while setter applauds the quick pivot many firms made to a fully remote work environment at the peak of busy season, she said she fears most accountants aren’t asking themselves the “coaching questions, like ‘what were the gifts in this? what did i learn? what surprised me?’”
that quick pivot to a remote work, which previously seemed impossible, prompts setter to ask, “what else might be possible that you’re telling yourself is not, and actually could be?” the world won’t go back to where it was, so setter challenges firm leaders to consider “how do we build more resilient organizations? where do we see ourselves today? who do we need to be in five years?’”
11 more takeaways from amber setter
- job hopping won’t fix your problem if you’re unhappy at work. a better approach is to take the time to think about what you want to move toward instead of reacting to what you don’t want.
- coaching can help resolve the tension between safety and purpose. safety is having a job that pays the bills, but purpose is a voice inside that tells you there’s something more available.
- coaching can help bridge the gap between the technical skills we learn in college and the soft skills accountants need to be successful in working with clients.
- we won’t solve the pipeline problem by throwing more warm bodies at the profession. we need to be a better, more humane profession.
- investing in personal development can help us distinguish between fears and facts. fears can cause us to react in ways that are detrimental to our firms and to the profession. facts can help us hold steady to navigate through a world filled with volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.
- before the pandemic, setter’s coaching clients focused on external goals such as promotions or income. but today, the goal has shifted to meaning and purpose.
- with a never-ending busy season, many candidates are being discouraged from taking cpa exam sections because there is so much client work to do all year.
- if you have too much to do, ask yourself why you’re taking on so many things. is it an unconscious people-pleasing behavior? are you avoiding something else in your life? was this hard-wired into you from your parents?
- examining the “why” behind over-commitment is more helpful than just stopping activities.
- some of the qualities that are great for accounting – consistency, conservatism, skepticism, and perfectionism – are not great for life.
- expanding your comfort zone incrementally and consistently feels psychologically safer than making many drastic changes at once.
more about amber setter
amber setter is a different kind of coach; a blend of grace and warrior spirit that compels her to bring up the un-discussable and un-cover the undiscoverable. clients who choose to work with setter are the best at what they do, yet they still hunger for education. they choose her because of her intellect, authenticity, and drive to educate them in ways they’ve never experienced. setter works with a select number of clients and organizations through her private practice. beyond coaching, she delivers leadership training and keynote conversations for organizations that aspire to develop the whole person. setter holds a master’s in leadership studies and a bachelor’s in business administration. additionally, she is a graduate of accomplishment coaching – an icf accredited coaches training program where she completed their advanced leadership program.
transcript
(transcripts are made available as soon as possible. they are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.)
liz farr
welcome to accounting disrupter conversations. i’m your host, liz farr from 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间. my guest today is amber setter, founder, chief enlightenment officer, and executive leadership coach at conscious public accountants. how are you today? amber?
amber setter
good. i love accounting disruptors! i tried to identify as one i shouldn’t say i do identify as one. and so i’m delighted to have this conversation.
liz farr
well, you are definitely a cpa who has taken a different path in your career than most of us did. so i am really delighted to have you here. thank you. happy to be here. ya know, now i know you you’re an executive coach, most of us have only a vague understanding about what professional coaching is. can you explain what coaches do? and how is that different from the things that we’re more familiar with mentoring psychotherapy consulting? yeah, absolutely.
amber setter
so i think an important i believe an important place to start is to say that i’m i’m actually a credentialed coach. so that really kind of points to some, some bits here of how it’s distinct. but starting off your question, how is coaching maybe different or similar to other modalities that we already understand? so we are different than mentors. so mentors more often are someone who has been through what you’ve been through before, and they’re there to provide wisdom and advice from their own journey. psychotherapy, therapy counseling, more often, those kinds of types of conversations are okay, i go into therapy because something doesn’t feel good. i’m lacking clarity, you know, i’ve got pain i want to overcome and a lot of the conversations are looking towards the past, you know, why am i this way today? and why am i feeling this way, and let’s reconcile the past. whereas when we talking about coaching, and again, the credentialed coaching from the international coach federation, specifically, they define coaching as a thought provoking process that maximizes personal and professional potential. so in the coaching space, we’re really helping when a client comes in, where are you today? where do you find yourself what’s going on? and then where do you want to be in the future? and how do we have a plan that gets you there? the thought provoking part is really important, because when i coach people, i assume that they’re the expert on their life. so they know their goals better than i do. they know their aspirations, they know what keeps them up at night. they know their relationships with their colleagues or their family members. the coaching space is a space to come and actually stop and pause and give some thought to that. and what i’m noticing a lot lately, as most people aren’t giving pause and thought to that. maybe about a year ago, i authored an article about the great resignation and why job hopping is not going to fix your problem. because people were just like, i’m uncomfortable, boom, i’m gonna go get another job. but they didn’t really actually, i don’t think took enough time to do the soul searching and say, what am i moving toward? they just reacted out of what they didn’t want. and so that thought provoking space really helps people to go what what does today’s version of me need? and how do i go about getting there?
liz farr
that’s that’s a really good point. and i and i really liked that article that you wrote about job hopping. i recognize that myself. and that was one reason i stayed so long, at a firm that was really not interested in promoting me into leadership. because i knew that i didn’t want to stay in, in that firm, but i didn’t know where i wanted to go. but then when i figured out what i wanted to do, that’s when i left. yeah, yeah.
amber setter
it’s a very common thing. people get stuck where they’re like, i know i don’t like it here. i know it’s not working for me, but because they’re not maybe doing the adequate amount of soul searching investigation to figure out where they want to go. they get and i get it’s something i talk about often. and i love, i learned it from a group called the leadership circle profile. they do different assessments and leader development, and they have a beautiful model and framework and publications, but they talk about how inside of us we all have this tension that we hold between safety and purpose. and safety is i got bills to pay, you know, i need to have a roof over my head and eat and and i’ll hear it, you know, people like but i need benefits. it’s like, well, you could get benefits through the open market, through the aicpa, through your state society. he benefits is really saying, i need safety. and purpose is like, there’s there’s a voice inside of me telling me there’s something to do there’s something more available. i’m you know, this job doesn’t light me up. and that is how do you how do you be with both of them this calling for change and this desire to make sure that maslow’s hierarchy of needs, you know, you’ve got your basic needs met?
liz farr
exactly, exactly. now, as accountants, we tend to value technical skills over interpersonal skills, you know, the technical stuff is what’s on the cpa exam. and that’s when it was in our coursework. and a lot of us have worked with people who are promoted for their technical skills rather than leadership skills. how can coaching fill in that gap?
amber setter
yeah, so before i tell you how it can fill in the gap, i’ll just speak a little more to my personal experience and what’s been driving me for a really long time. so i did my undergraduate degree in accounting, you know, i saw that it offered a good career path, steady income, you know, lots of attractive things. and really quickly, i realized i didn’t want to be an accountant anymore. but i still was a type a overachiever. and so i had it in my mindset that i needed to earn a graduate degree. and as i looked into programs, i was like, well, i don’t want to do a master’s in tax anymore. like that idea is out of the park. and i looked at mba programs, and i saw an accounting and finance course, i was like, no, no more of that. i just did a couple of busy seasons, like no, no numbers. and i found a master’s in leadership program. and my mind was just blown at all of these really important topics on how to navigate the business world that were not taught in my accounting curriculum at all. things like organizational change, participatory models of leadership, i ended up taking classes in marital family therapy, because i didn’t know what coaching was yet coaching is a relatively new profession, i think it’s only 40 something years old. so i’ve really just been inspired by that program that i did way back in 2005, to 2007. and really just seeing in my experiences as an accountant, that i was a campus recruiter, learning and development manager then became a coach of how we, we as a profession, just put an overemphasis on the technical acumen to the detriment of what some people call non technical, soft skills, success, skills, whatever you might name it. but the reality is, is in accounting, you’re really in the business of people, right? you’re taking complex technical information that you need to break down and distill for some other person, right? whether it’s, you’re doing taxes, or you’re, you know, you’re auditing something or you’re you’re in the business, and you’re owning that function and need to take that complexity, and share it with the rest of the parts of the business. so back to like the example of the leadership circle profile group, they do something called the universal model of leadership. and it’s a quadrant model, and one half is all about task and technical, and the other half is relationship. so a lot of the stuff that i’m doing in coaching is really helping accountants in the domain of relationship, is it how to be more effective at delivering feedback? is it how to lead, you know, a team through change? how do we serve our clients better? you know, how do we communicate more effectively with different aspects of the business? it’s, yeah, like, the only stuff i’ll end up talking to clients about what the technical is like, how do i get so and so to understand the implications of this technical issue? right and uh, how do i communicate more effectively? how do i listen differently? how do i ask questions? so coaching is wildly helpful for accountants,
liz farr
for sure. yeah, i really wish that some of the leaders of firms that i’d been at had acknowledged that is something that would have benefited all of us. some of them gave a little bit of lip service to it. but when it came time to invest, no, they’re not doing that. now, accounting talent has been scarce for years. covid made it a lot worse. what are some ideas that you have on how to make it better? oh,
amber setter
well, lots of ideas. maybe i’ll start off being a naysayer, i don’t believe the solution to our pipeline problem is going to be found in recruiting high school students and just getting the bar lower and lower and lower. i don’t think throwing more warm bodies at it or trying to convince people that are you know, i mean, when i was in high school, i was not thinking about careers in accounting, you know, i was thinking about hanging out with my friends and playing on my sports team and, you know, living a teenage life, how we make it better how we make the pipeline better, or talent, i really think that it’s not just saying we have a good profession, it’s being a better profession, it’s being more humane. you know, when covid happened, i distinctly remember how seeing how firms reacted, and there was a oh, my gosh, things aren’t going to go well, right, like doom and gloom, you know, chicken, little the sky is falling. and what we saw firms do, some firms just decided to cut compensation, everybody gets a five to 10%, compensation cut, other places let people go. and sometimes what they’re doing is they’re letting people go that they probably should have had some different, more rigorous performance management conversation before, but they tend to avoid conflict. and so anyway, they let people go, and they really cued to their systems or to their organizations, that things aren’t safe. and what happened was, we ended up having as a profession more work than ever, right? like, do you know, you have first responders working at the hospitals and doctors and nurses and i see accountants is like, first responders to the business community with ppp loans and different things. so that is a signal to me that a lot of those firm leaders reacted to fears inside of their minds of what they thought was going to happen instead of actually, how do i hold steady, you know, how do i run my vision, my business judiciously, but not over arc and fear and make decisions that are actually are going to have a real detrimental impact to my firm culture or my company culture? so i’m always all about way more humanity in the firm’s, you know, just really having a more human experience. and in order to do that, i really think people need more personal development so they can start to distinguish like, oh, i’m noticing i’m scared. there’s a fear inside my mind, like, oh, that’s a fear. what do i want to do with that fear instead of reacting to that fear? i lived through covid to with fears, you know, i woke up in the middle of the night, like, oh, these companies are going to cut coaching. you know, like, i’m a nice to have, i’m not an essential thing. and i had to talk with my fears and say, it’s okay, like, amber, you’ve never missed a mortgage payment. you missed a rent payment one time, during your first busy season, you are working and you just like totally forgot about the task. you know, you have the money and amber you could do you could drive uber if you needed to, you could do different things like i could have a conversation and distinguish that’s a fear, and it’s not a fact. and i think the more what does the profession do for talent, invest in personal development. i’m not, you know, clearly i’m biased. but i just really, really believe that we are living in a time we hear about the vuca world there’s more volatility than ever uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity and when you can just hold steady and stay calm through that stuff. instead of getting your cage rattled instead of reacting and making decisions, maybe too hasty, i think it would just save a lot of stress a lot of money and make the profession a whole lot better.
liz farr
i agree with you on trying to understand the fear, and making decisions that are empowering and not just based on what might be the worst case scenario, but seeing the challenge as an opportunity. well, you know, because there are so many firms during covid, who said, wow, we’ve got all these new government programs. let’s develop some expertise in this. and let’s become a resource. so there’s so many other ways to look at it.
amber setter
yeah, yeah. so a lot of that stuff was quite preemptive, you know, the flip side of the coin, what was beautiful about it is how many organizations quickly shifted and pivoted to having a absolutely 100% remote work environment, right. i mean, they just did it so fast, because they had to. and i love that not just because it creates more flexibility. i’ve actually worked from home since 2005. and i’ll never go back into an office again. but i do like being with people in person, which is another conversation, but the way that they could be so agile when they had to be, and that’s the that that to me is just so beautiful. because anytime an organization says, well, we can’t do that that’s not possible. it’s like, well, did you think it was possible that you’re gonna take your whole organization remote? within two weeks? like during busy season? no, you would have told you no, that sounds crazy. but you did it. so what else might be possible that you’re telling yourself is not an actually could be?
liz farr
and what ideas do you have on ways to take the lessons that people learn during the pandemic, to create a more resilient workforce and work environment?
amber setter
the lessons people learn to become more resilient. the pessimist in me first goes to, i don’t know if people are present to the lessons that they’ve learned. i don’t know that people have actually stopped and said, you know, ask themselves some coaching questions like, what were the gifts in this? you know, experience? what did i learn? what surprised me? my pessimism slash maybe informed decision is that the profession did get very busy, right? like, there was a lot of work to do, and a lot was going on and life was still you know, different. i just this past weekend, went to a barbecue and was chatting with someone one second, like i got to pause this.
liz farr
all done, okay.
amber setter
i went to a barbecue this weekend with someone who was a schoolteacher, and i have a daughter who’s eight and i was saying, my daughter was going to go through covid in kindergarten, you know, doing remote learning. and this teacher was speaking about even how, after covid, you know, school was back in session, but they had really rigorous rules where if a student was somewhat exposed, they had to be gone for 10 days. and she was like, my ability to like teach, you know, like i had the students who were there and then some missed two weeks, i had to get them and then someone else was missing. it’s kind of like whack a mole. so that went on after the pandemic. right now. we’re just sort of getting back to some what of the normal. so i think first off, before we can look at resiliency, we have to say, what did we really learn? you know, i recently did some work with an organization and i do this on an individual level. but i do this at a firm level, where the leadership group spends time saying, what what do we perceive our collective leadership effectiveness? what do we see it as today? and what do we want it to be? and part of that conversation naturally is like, we used to have a culture like this, we used to have brick and mortar and people came in, and this is how we did stuff, right? and it’s not going to ever go back to that. so who are we? and i think that gets to like, well, how do we build more resilient organizations and resiliency in the organizations is just that idea of coaching? okay, where do we see ourselves today? and who do we need to be in five years, right? whether our business is evolving, whether the communities that we serve, or the clients we serve are evolving, or whether, which is another hot topic, we got a lot of retirement going on in the organization, and we can’t hire in the people that we need, you know, what do we need to do? what do we need to prioritize today, so that our business is in good shape three to five years from now.
liz farr
that’s gonna be a big challenge. and i am seeing hints of some of the leaders beginning to think about that, but i’m not sure that they’ve addressed it at the level that they really need to do.
amber setter
what are the hints that you’ve seen?
liz farr
um, you know, i’ve seen, you know, at a lot of the national conferences, the topics aren’t just the technical, but there are more in leadership, and how to help your team become more resilient, and how to find talent. and some of the other people that i work with, are also thinking about, well, what about the retiring people? what are they going to do? does this firm that they built have any value? is it the value that they thought it would be? are they really going to be able to retire? did they build something of value? will they be able to sell it? so there, there are some changes in the way things are we that people are thinking about accounting, but i think we have a lot more to do.
amber setter
yeah, i agree, we have a lot more to do. and while i do and i don’t the part of this is i don’t, it’s just that maybe we don’t have a lot, maybe we just need to be faster with the things that we already know, we should be doing. right. like this idea of having a tax practice that’s paperless. and everyone could work remote. like, how, how many years was that? probably an initiative of a firm like years and years and years, and it didn’t get done, and it didn’t get done and covid happened. it’s like, boom, two weeks, you know, it’s done. so that’s like, we hold the bolts. yeah, there’s a lot of change. but maybe there’s not maybe there’s just real key change. and if we did it faster, and just sort of took it on, that would make a big difference.
liz farr
i agree with you there. now. one of the other people that i work with, gave a talk at an aicpa event in 1998, about paperless auditing. so that notion has been out there for 25 years, that is a full generation.
amber setter
yeah, similar but different. i was delighted to see that nasba recently voted to expand the testing window for the cpa exam candidates where it was 18 months, and they’re proposing that it shifts to 30 months and i think it’s a fantastic change, and i’m very happy about it. but when you shared that it reminded me that the 18 month window was created when the exam shifted from paper to being on on the computer 20 years ago, you know, the profession has changed in 20 years. and this is, you know, i get to sit back in my day because that’s right when i started, you know, but i took the last paper cpa exam failed, all of them ended up doing the rest on computer. but when i started in accounting, and i was in tax, there was one busy season, right, february through april, i’d be busy. that’s not true anymore. it’s like there’s the spring busy season, there’s fall, there’s year end planning, and you’re like, well, how is a candidate supposed to take this exam when so many months out of the year, you know, the firm is strongly encouraging them don’t take sections, you got to work on, you know, your client work at this time. so, yeah, there’s some stuff that maybe we should be changing a little bit sooner and not waiting 20 years to just say, hmm, does this does this fit us anymore?
liz farr
exactly. exactly. now, we’ve talked about it a little bit. but what are some other changes in the post-covid world that you’ve seen accounting firms make in the way that they operate.
amber setter
and, truthfully, i don’t get a lot of in the depths of operations with people. i mean, it does come up if i’m coaching someone who might be in more of an operational role. but the mechanics not so much. but i can speak to observations from the post covid world in general, i would say, first and foremost, when we’re talking about the container of coaching and working with individuals, the goals for coaching have changed, right? it used to be a lot more of, i want to achieve something outside of me, right? i want that promotion, i want that, you know, letters after my name, i want x number of dollars in the bank. and now there’s a lot more like i want and i want meaning i want purpose. i want to like what i do. i want what i do to matter. and so that’s like at the individual level. my hope is what’s going to change more with firms in terms of operations is to have get rid of first and foremost this like fictitious class of citizens that they have and billable and non billable, right, like it’s just this way of operating, where it’s like, well, they’re not billable. so they’re not eligible for this benefit, or they’re paid less, or whatever. and it’s like, you need good people to run your practice so that you can serve your clients, right. so i my hope is that that is going to evolve more and more. what i noticed is maybe they’re hiring in those types of specialized roles, but they’re not actually empowering them, right? like those roles might not hold the purse strings or get to make the decisions. so it’s like it still rolls on up to the partner group who has no more capacity to be running their practice in that way. that’s i think that’s some of the stuff. i mean, you probably might know more than i that there’s, i think a big talk about private equity and maybe how it will save us. i don’t think that’s going to fix the profession. i think that’s maybe the booby prize, because you’re having these organizations come in that really don’t understand professional services, and they’re running it mechanically, and not huge with a humanistic approach. so i still think it kind of misses the mark. but i hope i hope we have more generosity and benevolence and less mechanics moving away from billable hours, thinking people are production and just managing tasks instead of just being with people.
liz farr
i agree. yeah. i think the people focus part of it is where we can really make a difference. yeah, it really is. now, we’ve already talked about becoming better as communicators. what are some other skills that accountants need to be successful?
amber setter
yeah, so i’ll just kind of defer straight over to the international coach federation’s core competencies that they have. so just taking a step back the international coach federation is different than cpa. so we’re not regulated, but we have a gold standard certification. and much like accounting, we have similar things, you know, agreed upon principles, so to speak. and so these are those core competencies. we and i actually just co taught with one of my colleagues on our team, i a communications and coaching class in an organization who came to us and said, hey, will you do some training for us on feedback and delegation? and i said, sure, but we need this baseline information. and first, which is coaching and communication skills. so along those lines, you know, really we’re looking at, first and foremost, and i think this is so beautiful in this distributed work environment, is starting conversation saying like, hey, you know, liz, what do you want to get out of our conversation? what’s gonna make this a meaningful conversation for you? instead of just diving into a task list? and hearing what that other person has to say, right, and then i get to share, and then we have a little consensus around well, what is the whole intention of why we’re getting together? and it’s simple, but powerful. the other ones that are really beautiful is learning about active listening, right? so not just listening for the words that someone says, but listening at different levels. and, you know, as we think about mental health, and really checking in with people, you say, well, you know, liz, how are you doing today? i’m good, i’m fine. it’s just an automatic response. right? so you listen in a different way? do you start listening for what people aren’t saying? are you noticing the tone or the energy, i can really hear, i distinctly remember a particular client who had come into coaching. and when they were talking really fast, i was like, ooh, anxiety is high, right? like, from the cadence of their voice. and the last place i would point to, i actually learned when i was doing my ethics training for my coaching credential, was it talked about how important it is for the other person to identify the action that they’re going to take. and it pointed to some research that was done in financial services. so it spoke about when we’re giving someone advice, right? and this is what an accountant is going to do people come to you for advice, right? like, what should i do? and it’s like, you give people advice. and when the advice is being given the other person, their brain just kind of goes into offload, like they’re just an autopilot. they’re not active in that conversation. they’re just sitting back. but how you activate them is say, what did you hear in what i just shared, you know, what do you think is important for you to do based off of the information you’ve been provided? and that might elicit the other person? oh, i need to do x, y, and z, right? like, these are the things that are going to actually, i heard the advice. now, how am i going to take the advice? what am i going to do with the advice?
liz farr
those are all really good ideas. and it’s such a different way of listening and responding than we traditionally have dealt with at cpa firms. where it’s, well, here’s what you’re going to do. go do it. i don’t have time for chitchat. so go do it. but just taking a few extra minutes to say so, amber, how are you today? what’s on your mind? and finding that out? can be so valuable? yeah, so yeah. now, accountants, we will frequently have too much going on in our lives. so what are some things that accountants should stop doing immediately?
amber setter
well, i think what the first thing to do is to start asking yourself why you’re taking too much on right, so this came up i was at my daughter’s school, there was a springtime celebration, and i saw another mom my daughter wants to do a playdate with and, and this, this mom has two children. and she, you know, well, we’ve got this, we’ve got this and in one week, my kids have 15 activities. and you know, my husband’s out of town. i have to do it all and and i said, why do you do that? and, you know, just wah. and so i think that’s really like, wait, what is driving my action? why am i taking too much? so? yeah, i could tell you things to stop doing. but i think a way richer place to look is going, why am i taking too much on? so some common like things that might be going on beneath the surface, is some people might get caught up in people pleasing behavior unconsciously. they’re always saying yes to other people, because they have fears of disappointment. they unconsciously want to be liked, you know, different things that they do that they’re people pleasing. people get in the busyness also as a way to avoid their feelings, right? maybe they’re struggling through something personally, relationships off. and so they throw themselves into work so as to actually not feel. sometimes it’s just hardwired into them, right? like there are people that might have grown up with environments where their parents worked really hard, right? or they were strongly encouraged to do lots and lots of activities. and so they’ve just always been doers, doers, doers. and they’ve never stopped to go like, does this actually serve me? so i don’t just looking at well, what should someone stop doing? i’m more curious about what is driving that type of behavior. and then the next thing is, what’s the cost? you know, like, accountants like to evaluate costs, opportunity costs, actual costs, but it’s probably costing you something. it might be costing you your health, it might be costing you your happiness, right? you know, you we kind of touched on an example earlier, and this wasn’t your scenario, but you’re like i was in a job i didn’t like, but i hadn’t thought about what’s next? well, sometimes, we don’t want to think about what’s next. it feels scary or foreign. so i’ll just get busy at work. and i’m just, you know, i got this stuff to do. and i don’t have time to find another job. oh, well, do you not have time to find another job? or is there something else going on that you’re scared to look at that like man i i’ve worked with a lot of people, self included, i earned this accounting degree, i did the cpa, all these things like i don’t want to give all that up. it took a lot of work. i don’t want to let that go and reinvent. and so i just again, get more curious about what’s driving that overcommitment that might have somebody feel misaligned in their life. and i don’t want to step over there certainly time to have a lot going on. you know, i’m very grateful that i was an overachiever early in life. and i was just go go go and the credentials and all the things because now i get to enjoy it, you know, now i get to sit back a little bit. there’s certainly times to put your foot on the gas and bring them back. but i get curious more about too much going on than just telling prescribing to people what they should stop doing.
liz farr
that’s really good advice. because as you and i know, there is no one size fits all, prescription that will fix everyone. every firm is different. and every firm is made up of different people, and they all serve different kinds of clients. so we can’t can’t find one solution that will fix everybody.
amber setter
right, exactly. and that’s why when i first learned about coaching, where i just love this premise that that the coachee, whether it’s an individual that i’m coaching, or a team or an organization that, that they’re the experts on their domain, right? the the work of the coach and the work of the space is coaching is to pull that wisdom outside of them, and to pull it out and to get them to stop and talk about that, right? because often they’re doing team meetings like, these are the things we need to do. and they’re not actually taking a step back and doing some reflection and some of the more strategic thinking of like, wait a minute, given everything that’s transpired. who are we? who do we want to become and then how do we build a path to that?
liz farr
exactly. you know, both of the firms where i spent most of my time at had these great mission statements and vision statements. but none of that was really integrated into the whole firm. it was just sort of something we put up on the wall and we look at it from time to time. but there was no discussion about, well, what does it mean? find your why, what is the why of why we exist? and what does it mean to be a holistic provider of services? what does that mean?
amber setter
that’s a good coaching question. what does that mean? right? like, that’s a beautiful coaching question. what is what does that mean?
liz farr
yeah, yeah, i wish i had been able to ask them that, you know, they might be in a different place than they are now. now, now, accountants, a lot of them know that they need to change. but what is it that keeps them from changing? we’ve already talked about some of the internal blocks, and just wanting to be busy, what are some other things that keep them from changing?
amber setter
so definitely, there’s the internal blog in terms of managing safety and risk, right? and you know, deeper beneath that i often just reflect and think like, well, i wonder how principles of a profession shaped mindsets of the people who work in it, right. so we have consistency and conservatism, awesome principles for revenue recognition, not so good when it comes to changing your life, right? similar professional skepticism, right? like, you want to be skeptical, but maybe you have your skepticism on and other parts of your life or it’s not healthy, or this is another one, like reviewing work, you know, you want the work to be perfect, and then you leave your office, and you’re nitpicking perfectionism and your relationship. and so this is like these things that are make great for accounting, but don’t make great for life. in a much broader brushstroke, i think it’s just the challenge of the human experience, which is this desire to want to stay safe and cozy in our comfort zone. and yet, knowing that when we step outside of our comfort zone, that’s when we can grow. and that’s where we experience new things. and there’s more, you know, sort of this vitality and newness that we desire. when i’m working with people, i, you know, i talk to them about how do we set up change, and i have to remind this for my own life, in a way where, you know, if you imagine your comfort zone, you’ll see sometimes these little these memes, where it’s like, here’s you in your comfort zone, and there’s a circle around it, it’s like, possibility are great things are outside of it. and i don’t want to take a coachee, who’s in the middle of their comfort zone, you know, maybe it’s a place they’ve worked out many years doing the same thing. and they haven’t knowing they need to change, but i don’t want them to thrust outside super fast. you know, we’re not like, welcome to coaching, i want you to quit your job right now, you know, move to another country, you know, break up with your significant other, you know, tell your sibling off that you’ve been holding for 20 years. and if we don’t do that, right, it’s more like when we drop a rock in the water, and you see how it ripples and ripples and ripples. and so that’s like, how do we instead expand someone’s comfort zone consistently in incrementally so that they are really, really expanding and growing, but in a way that feels psychologically safe for them and it’s not too disruptive.
liz farr
that’s, that’s probably a big thing. you know, as accountants, we’re taught to be conservative, as you said at the beginning. and change is very difficult for us. we’re afraid that we won’t make it through peer review, or something bad will happen. you know, our clients will sue us or something. something that we can’t anticipate will happen.
amber setter
yeah, and you know, part of it is accounting or some things might get exacerbated, but again, part of it is the human experience. there’s a, a show that i always recommend for accountants to watch. it’s on netflix, it’s called the mind explained. season one, i believe episode three, and it’s on anxiety. and the first five minutes, it’s just as beautiful, you know, cartoons and interviews and fun way of delivering what goes on inside of a human when they’re experiencing anxiety. so what happens is we have a thought, just a thought, and we get scared. and what it triggers in our body is we’re having like a biological response as if we’re a warthog, and our perceived threat is a lion that’s going to come eat us. and it goes through this example. and it says, you know, oh, no, what happens when i can’t pay my 30 year mortgage? and oh, no, what about the april 15? taxes? you know, these are the examples is netflix, gives and i’m like, oh, this is so great on anxiety for accountants, but that’s the humanity that we have, you know, we have our human experience that’s afraid of change. and what no one is teaching in accounting school or on the cpa exam is then our clients come in with that anxiety, like they think you’re the irs, you know, lion, and they’re a warthog and you’re going to eat and you’re like, but i’m just the messenger, right? but then the accountant makes up a story. that’s totally different. because i have to coach them through that stuff, like, oh, the client, whatever i’m like, it’s just their emotional experience about some data you provided. it’s not about you.
liz farr
exactly. and we can always choose, the way that we react can be hard.
amber setter
i would love to say that i always choose i react, but sometimes i react and go, oh, that wasn’t good. i gotta go clean that up.
liz farr
it’s very true. but at least you’re conscious of it.
amber setter
yeah, i try. i work at it.
liz farr
yeah. well, do you have any, any last words of wisdom for accountants who were seeking change, but don’t really know how to change? yeah, i,
amber setter
i absolutely would encourage the consideration of professional coaching, right. and i’m not just saying that i’m trying to get more business, like i in my own life, have hired numerous coaches to support me, and to help me. and i’ve got 1000s of coaching hours of experience, where i’ve helped people that are like, i don’t know what i need to do next. but i know i need some help. and in fact, i’m going to speak at the aicpa edge conference this summer with one of my past clients. and he sent me an email. so we’re going to put it i’m getting a little sneak preview to what we’re going to do, but he sent me an email, and we’re put it in our slide deck where it’s like, hi, i need to make some change. i don’t know what i’m going to do. but i know i need some help. and you know, fast forward a couple of years this person is thriving, loves his job, is you know, started off came to coaching as a tax partner was really unhappy with the environment and what was going on. and through coaching really discovered that this person wants to stay in accounting loves accounting, and wants to fix all the his perceived the you know, the perceived how he perceives problems in the profession. and so that’s what his role is today. and you know, he we’re going to speak about the journey, but these are the things you can’t do alone, you know, and i think when we have you know, when i used to get in sticky spots i call my grandma she was an awesome mentor, but she would give me advice you know, and sometimes you need someone to ask you some hard questions and hold you accountable for change your desire, and that’s what coaching is, it can absolutely help with change.
liz farr
well, i think that that is the perfect way to end our conversation. and such an empowering note also, i want to thank you so much amber for taking the time to talk to me today. now if listeners want to connect with you, where’s the best place to find you?
amber setter
yeah, so you can learn more about our company and you know, our approach to coaching at conscious dot cpa. i’m also pretty active on linkedin, you know, usually saying some things that are disruptive so i would love to be, you know, engage with people there. and i’m always open to conversations. you know, i have people who have a huge interest either in working with a coach or even going to coach training themselves to learn some of these things that we’ve talked about, and bring that into their organization. and i love those conversations as well. so, you know, i’m really, i will say, i’ve had a love hate relationship with the profession. sometimes i love it. other times, i’m like, oh, we need more change faster. i’m frustrated. but i’m here. and i’m here to unite with other disruptors and disruptors, from a place of love. just saying like, you know, we got to break this down so we can rebuild it into being a much stronger steadier future, where we’re not trying to go to a high school to get new people. we’re just being amazing and providing great opportunities for people and paying them well and doing meaningful work. that pipeline will sort itself out but we need more humanistic firms.