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Welcome to Career Convos with Nikki, where I share my experiences as both a leader and an employee in corporate America. In these episodes, I cover everything from finding a job and landing that promotion to managing employees and navigating the unwritten rules as a black woman and disruptive millennial in the workplace. I also answer career questions from my audience, offering advice and insights to help you find professional clarity and pursue your career goals with confidence. I'll talk about accounting a lot as that's my area of expertise but this career advice you can apply regardless of what field you work in. You're in charge, and you deserve it!
Hey, y'all. So welcome back to Career Convos with Nikki. I was having a conversation with myself about some things, and I said, let me have this conversation with with my folks and see what they think or if they've been in a similar situation. So I'm I'm thinking back to episode 54 because that that episode has been getting a lot of play. It's the public accounting versus industry debate.
Nikki Winston, CPA:And I went into details about my decisions, about the public versus accounting, and the things I chose for my career, and just trying to figure out what what the pros and the cons are and whether or not it works for your career. Because everything is not for everybody. Right? And one of the things I talked about on episode 54 was, there was a there was a time there was a season in my career where I was wondering if I was missing out on something professionally because I chose to go industry versus going into public accounting. And it made me question.
Nikki Winston, CPA:Because when when I when I got out of school, when I graduated from the and as I would think about what my career would look like, and I had these visions of how it would look, public accounting was nowhere in that picture. And there was a time where there were jobs that were off limits to me because I didn't work in public accounting. There would be job descriptions where you can have all of the credentials and accolades and awards and everything. But if you didn't have public accounting experience, they would have MBA optional, CPA preferred. Public accounting experience is required.
Nikki Winston, CPA:And I was it had me thinking, like, what is going on in public accounting spaces that certain companies will only talk to you if you've been in the walls of these companies? And it made me think, I'm I'm curious. Do I need to hop into public accounting? And then I paused and said, okay. First of all, let me remember who I am, number 1.
Nikki Winston, CPA:Number 2, I want to build my fulfilling career the way that I want to. So, a lot of the moves that I've made in my career have been by design. They haven't been the best all the time. They haven't been the sexiest all the time, but they were by design. And so now, today, somebody sees my resume or they see my LinkedIn, and they talk about how impressive my background is.
Nikki Winston, CPA:And I always ask people when I talk to them, what stuck out to you about my background? And they start calling out specifics of, oh, you've done this, you've created this, you've led the so they start calling things out and that today is a reminder for me that back then when I was wondering if I needed to make that jump. It's like, no. Stick with your gut. Go with what you know and what you feel and what soothes your chakras.
Nikki Winston, CPA:So I say all of that to say what am I saying all of that to say? I'm saying all of that to say that choose to build your career the way that you want. Part of building a stellar career is enjoying the journey along the way. And for me, that thought was only in it was only in me for a season because I said, do I really have to stop doing something I enjoy and pivot to do something I know I don't enjoy to check some corporate box to say that I've worked in public accounting? And as the disruptive millennials that we are, I said, I'm not doing that.
Nikki Winston, CPA:I'm not going to make a pivot just because there's some corporate what's the word? Some unwritten corporate rule, some antiquated unwritten corporate rule that says you have to spend time in public accounting. The other side of that is and this is on episode 54. So if you haven't listened to it, please do, but I'll move on to what I wanted to talk about today in a second. But I didn't wanna do that and I felt like the things that I've done, the places I've been, the things I've created, led, seen the rooms I've been in, the access I've been granted over the course of my career.
Nikki Winston, CPA:Having the privilege of getting world class on the job training. It's one thing to sit in a conference room and listen to, a leadership expert tell you something. It's a it's a totally different experience when you get hands on experience from top tier people in your industry. And I had that for a long time at a point in my career, and it was a reminder of, no. I'm not missing out on anything.
Nikki Winston, CPA:I'm not running around with a shirt that says FOMO on the front, because that's not me. I knew that that wasn't for me. Shout out to the people who love public accounting because I have some friends and some peers who have worked in public accounting. They've done very well for themselves. I've heard some stories and, you know, if it works for you, it works for you.
Nikki Winston, CPA:And so I'm gonna put a pin in that because I don't wanna repeat episode 54. Because if you haven't listened to it, I think that you should absolutely go listen to it because it'll probably give this episode more context. But the thing that was on my mind today is talking about internships. And the way this came to my mind is that I was watching SportsCenter, and I'm just listening to all of the contract negotiations that have stalled out, the culture in the organizations, the players who were holding out. I mean, imagine holding out and you being fined $40 a day and you not even missing any sleep over losing $40 a day.
Nikki Winston, CPA:But it made me think about because I'm I'm going through my mind, like, the NFL really could be you could really take NFL teams and categorize them as as corporate organizations that many of us work for. And you go through some of the same things, The workplace issues, the personnel issues, whether or not you're smarter than the manager or the coach. It's so many similarities. And what popped into my mind is internships. So I know a lot of people that did internships, accounting internships at Big 4 and all these other places.
Nikki Winston, CPA:And I the other thing why that's important to me is because that's probably the other component. I'm just now thinking about this. Wow. All this time later. The other component of me not having an interest in public accounting could be because I never did accounting internships.
Nikki Winston, CPA:I didn't spend my summers at a big four firm or working at an industry job. My summers, when I was in school, I had a real job as a college student. I was a collector, and I worked at Discover Financial Services, their collections call center in New Albany, Ohio. And I didn't I didn't bat a eye about not doing internships, internships would reinforce the things that I was learning in the classroom, but there is so much that I learned as a collector working at Discover. Discover, not discovery.
Nikki Winston, CPA:I used to talk to people that would say, oh, this is Discovery. Like, it's not Discovery. It's Discover Card, Discover Financial Services. But, anyway, back back off the tangent. I learned so many things working in that job that I don't know that I would have gotten the same exposure to working in an internship.
Nikki Winston, CPA:I feel like when you're in an internship, they that you wear a sign that says I'm an intern. And so you get this intern level of treatment. It's how I feel. And you you always have this badge of junior being junior in the organization is is how it made me feel. That's not the reason I didn't do internships.
Nikki Winston, CPA:I didn't do internships because my jobs were permanent jobs, part time during school, full time in the summer. And so working at Discover Card taught me about negotiations, specifically in collections. It taught me about not asking people closed ended questions. Ask open ended questions to really expand the conversation. A You have a payment due on your account of $250.
Nikki Winston, CPA:Can you pay that today? Most likely, somebody's gonna say no. But if you say you have a payment due of $250 and I see that we have your checking account ending in xyz and 789 on file, can we do you authorize me to charge your checking account? Do you authorize me to take the payment? Or I'm happy to take a check by phone.
Nikki Winston, CPA:Something that not the do you authorize, because that's a closed ended question. But just giving them not not making it easy for them to back out. If if I take the the the PC out of it, not giving them a a reason or an opportunity to back out. If you owe a company money, they want they they definitely want their money, and they want it today. So if I'm asking you, can you make a payment?
Nikki Winston, CPA:And you say no, then that's more work that I have to do as opposed to saying, can we not can we, but do something about charging their account on file. Like, we can set up a check by phone, charge your account on file, whatever. Some people are probably likely to say, oh, yeah. Let's do that because I I have the money. I forgot.
Nikki Winston, CPA:It was an oversight. That was a good when you call people in collections and you say, what's the reason you're behind? We had to say what the reason was. And a lot of people were in collections because they forgot. Like, oh, it was an oversight.
Nikki Winston, CPA:Oh, I didn't get the bill. But there were people who really were going through things. So it taught me about negotiating and how to communicate effectively to come to a mutually beneficial resolution. It also it gave me firsthand experience about empathy. Working in collections mean you might get the nice people that I just mentioned that it was an oversight, and you can go ahead and take the whole payment out of their account today because they wanna get out of collections.
Nikki Winston, CPA:But then you have people who really, really go through hardships and spouses pass away or they have lost jobs and they just don't have the money to pay. And sometimes, they're angry, and so they take that anger out on you. Sometimes, they are just overwhelmed, and they need to vent or they're crying. And to sit there and listen to, wow, I'm a 19 year old, 20 year old college student. I don't know the realities of what these people are facing.
Nikki Winston, CPA:But I know it's something I don't wanna be I know it's a situation I don't ever wanna be in. So, it taught me about empathy. And then, there's so many other things. I was working at Discover. I loved that job too.
Nikki Winston, CPA:Like, I thought I was a balling ass college student when I would get my my paycheck and then my extra money for the money I collected. Like, I really thought I was the shit in that job, making the money I was making as a college student. So I'm I'm saying all of that to reiterate, don't feel like you have to chase somebody else's career path. You have the freedom to build your career the way that you want it to be, the way that you want it to look, so that you can pause and reflect back on your career and be proud of and celebrate what it is that you've done, what you've accomplished, what you've delivered, what you have impacted, what you have changed for the better. Whether you stuck around that job to see it through or not, you know that you put wheels in motion and you made shit happen.
Nikki Winston, CPA:So I didn't do internships. And that was another thing where I was like but I'm still not missing out on anything. I can go into an accounting job and know accounting. But working at Discover, I know how to deal with adults. I'm working with coworkers who have kids my age, and they have grandkids, and they're married with homes and mortgages, and they're telling me all about their lives.
Nikki Winston, CPA:And it was it was a different experience. I felt like I felt junior when I first started that role, but then when I'm like, I'm making the same amount of money as a college kid, as a working mama with 3 kids, how How are we making the same amount of money? And all I'm doing is taking care of me because I'm on scholarship, so I'm not paying tuition. My parents were paying my car note. I I didn't really have any bills.
Nikki Winston, CPA:It just made me think, let me make sure I learn what I need to learn so that I don't end up in collections one day. So the one takeaway the the the big takeaway if you take nothing else away from this conversation is, first of all, like I said, build a career that you want. Don't feel like you have to follow a corporate blueprint that probably needs to be changed anyway in this day and age. Don't feel like you have to go into something that won't fulfill you, something that you won't enjoy just because it you feel like it's gonna help you get ahead. And now, I'm speaking from public accounting, from internships, and I I don't even wanna say I had a non traditional career path because I guess you put the tradition stamp on working in public accounting, but I I feel like we need to throw those those those things away because it's not about adhering to tradition.
Nikki Winston, CPA:It's never been about that. It's about going after what makes you happy. And the other thing that I wanna talk about is millennial money moves, which is an online financial education portal. I I can't even call it financial literacy because when you're literate in something, it means that you have a basic understanding in terms of a foreign language. When you are fluent in something, it means that you are well versed in that language, that you understand the nouns versus verbs, the adjectives, where where the s's go and where they don't.
Nikki Winston, CPA:So it's a online platform filled with financial education that's designed to get people from a financially illiterate or a financially literate to a financially fluent mindset and trying to help them fix their credit. Break the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck. Know how to fill out the w four when you start a new job so you know how that impacts your paycheck and how it's gonna impact your taxes when you file your taxes. Looking at things like how to save money and not just putting money in a savings bond or just putting some money in the savings account at your bank that's probably paying you peanuts at best in interest. So have it open up the right account so that your money can work for you.
Nikki Winston, CPA:Talking about investing and why people need to stop being scared of losing their money. That's the only reason I could think of, the only reason I've heard that people don't invest. It's a great way to, again, make your money work for you. And so, the other thing about not ending up in collections is what what spurred the creation of millennial money moves. And so there's a a book in there, a workbook in there, digital book.
Nikki Winston, CPA:Well, I call it a workbook, because there's work that has to be done in the book to fix your credit. So, it's step by step how to fix your credit on your own. You do not have to pay a company and give them your personal information in order to fix your credit. It talks about really unlearning what you've learned about money so far. Because speaking from my perspective as a black girl growing up in Cincinnati, I thought my parents were living the life and I thought that they hadn't made until I got older.
Nikki Winston, CPA:And so, we see things growing up. We are around things, we hear things, and we take those to be the gospel when the reality is no. There's a whole another world of financial education that you haven't even unlocked yet. So it was very important to me early on to say if I'm going to school to learn how to manage the bank account for a $1,000,000,000 organization, I need to make sure I can manage my own bank account. So living on a budget, but living on a budget without giving up your life.
Nikki Winston, CPA:A budget should not be associated with deprivation. So people say, oh, no. I'm not doing that. I'm on a budget. Like, that that's not what that means.
Nikki Winston, CPA:So trying to undo some of these common generational things about money that aren't true or accurate, and we need to start really building up and flexing our financial muscle and keeping more of the money that we have. But it's it was so important for me to do that. I had a lot of people asking me questions about different things with credit. I've worked with people people who have reached out for my help. They say, oh, well, Nikki's a CPA, so, I'm a ask her to help me with my money.
Nikki Winston, CPA:And so, people that I've come across, people that I know that have referred me, have reached out to me, like, hey. I need to fix my credit. I need to get these collections off. I'm trying to buy a house. I wanna buy me a car.
Nikki Winston, CPA:So I it's just a it was a natural thing. Like, okay, let's look at your credit report. Let's see what's on there. See what we need to fix. Make some notes.
Nikki Winston, CPA:Send some letters. There's things it's not as hard as people make it seem. It's it's hard for the people who are unwilling to do the work. And it's, I don't wanna say it's hard to get great credit, because good credit is okay, but great credit is ideal. 760 or better is great credit to me.
Nikki Winston, CPA:And I don't wanna say it's hard to get, but it's very easy to lose a good credit rating. One false move, and you can go from a 760 to a 600, like, in a matter of days. So I I put that out there, because I want people to know. A lot of times, people mess up their money. They lose money because they don't know, and they're going off of what somebody told them, something they heard growing up.
Nikki Winston, CPA:They're not doing their diligence when they're investing. I I want us to keep more of our money because I know how hard we work to get it. So how long we've been going? 22 minutes. Okay.
Nikki Winston, CPA:I'm I'm a call this done at 22 minutes. I know we are all busy. There's a lot going on. I like to keep these short and sweet. For those of you who are listening for the first time, hello.
Nikki Winston, CPA:Thank you. I appreciate you for rocking with me. I look forward to you tuning in to more episodes for my regulars. I appreciate y'all as always. I get on here, and I say what I know and what I feel.
Nikki Winston, CPA:My podcast episodes are unedited. Again, by design, unfiltered. I'm not a fan of chasing perfection. I'm a fan of saying what's on my heart and what's top of mind. I actually was a guest on a podcast the other day, and the podcast host said the same thing.
Nikki Winston, CPA:We had a little blooper. It was so funny. It was so funny. We had a little blooper, and she said, I well, I don't edit my podcast, so I'm a keep that in. I said, please do because I think it adds to the richness of the conversation.
Nikki Winston, CPA:I'm not a fan of any of that. So you might hear me cough. You might hear me clear my throat. You might hear my kids knocking on the door or just walking in, starting a conversation even when they see me on the phone. But that's life.
Nikki Winston, CPA:That's life. So I appreciate y'all. Thank you for listening to Career Convos with Nikki. If you got something from this episode, leave a comment on the, wherever you listen on Spotify or Apple or Transyster or wherever you listen or get your podcast. Send me a note on IG or or really on threads.
Nikki Winston, CPA:I'm on threads a lot these days. At nickwinstoncp a, n I k k w I n s t o n c p a. Or hit me up on LinkedIn. I'm on there too. Let me know what y'all think.
Nikki Winston, CPA:But I just I had to get those things off of my chest today. It was really it really sparked a a a conversation in my head, and I felt like I can I wanna have this conversation with the people too? So if you're curious about millennial money moves, you can go to nickwinstoncp dot com forward slash money, and you can get the fix your credit guide there. You can access some of the tutorials about filling out your w four and having a tax plan regardless of how much money you make. Don't get confused thinking you gotta make $10,000,000 to have a tax plan.
Nikki Winston, CPA:If you have $1 of taxable income, you need to have a tax plan. So so much more I can talk about with the money, which probably needs to be a whole separate episode. Or just just go to millennial money moves, nickwistoncpa.comforward/money. Everything is there. All of my money rants, how to get your credit up, how to keep money in the bank, not be getting paid on Friday and broke by Monday kind of stuff.
Nikki Winston, CPA:But okay. That's it. Y'all be good. I'll talk to y'all soon.