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Lynda Steffens found her calling in accounting at a young age. She saw the impact of a good accountant early on through her family's farming business. In this episode, Lynda sits down with Stuart to look back at her journey from running her own practice to uplifting other accounting firm owners. They exchange thoughts on the image problem of the accounting industry today and share ideas on how we can make accounting sexy again.
Join Stuart McLeod as he interviews the world's top accounting leaders to understand their story, how they operate, their goals, mission, and top advice to help you run your accounting firm.
Stuart 00:00:06.152 [music] Hi, I'm Stuart Mcleod, CEO and co-founder of Karbon. Welcome to the Accounting Leaders Podcast, the show where I go behind the scenes with the world's top accounting leaders. [music]
Rachel 00:00:20.812 Today we are joined by Lynda Steffens, the author of Accounting Revolution and founder of the Small Business Project. With 20 years of industry experience, Lynda is transforming the way accountants connect with clients. She developed her advisory training as a result of seeing her peers overwhelmed, undervalued, and simply burnt out. The Small Business Project supports accountants in building the confidence and capabilities they need to lead successful practices. It's our pleasure to welcome to the Accounting Leaders Podcast, Lynda Steffens.
Stuart 00:00:54.647 Lynda Steffens, well, firstly, welcome to Accounting Leaders Podcast.
Lynda 00:00:58.095 Thank you very much, Stuart. Very glad to be here.
Stuart 00:01:01.264 I'm glad we could get this sorted finally. You live in one of the most wonderful places in the world, have you always been on the Gold Coast?
Lynda 00:01:11.698 No, I haven't always been on the Gold Coast. I spent many years in a more regional environment on the Darling Downs.
Stuart 00:01:21.264 Oh, wow.
Lynda 00:01:21.830 Yes. I grew up in a country area not far from there, and also spent a couple of years travelling the world and being based in London. So yeah. But I particularly love the Gold Coast and the water. The water really draws me. It calms me. It does a lot of things for me, so I'm very happy to be living here.
Stuart 00:01:45.183 When were you in London? What was that experience like?
Lynda 00:01:48.027 I was doing the traditional backpacker working holiday for a couple of years and doing some temp work in the accounting industry as well and had a fabulous time. Completely just young with no responsibility and really lived it up, Stuart.
Stuart 00:02:11.242 Ah, well, I'm jealous then. And so you've been an accountant-- or did you do a accounting degree at college? Was that the entrée?
Lynda 00:02:19.785 Yes. Yes. I've been in accounting for just over 30 years now and really, my accounting story, I suppose, started right back at the age of 14 years old. I already knew at the age of 14, that I wanted to be an accountant and it was the first time that I laid eyes on debits and credits and double-entry bookkeeping and the whole system. It just worked. It made the world a better place. I understood it, I was good at it, and I was sold right from the-- but of course, the journey had its peaks and troughs and ups and downs but still very much in love with accounting, accountants, and the accounting industry.
Stuart 00:03:11.366 Being that young, were your folks sort of-- did they expose you to the industry? Were they small business owners? What was that journey?
Lynda 00:03:20.202 Yeah. They were. And I reflect on it now; I can actually say I've had a lifetime in business because I grew up-- my parents are farmers. Primary producers. And so I grew up, not realising it at the time, of course, seeing, I suppose, the impact or the influence of business on a family environment. We could do some things and were afforded some great opportunity because of that business. But also too, there were times you couldn't do things because the business came first. So I just grew up just knowing that and that clearly helped me as I went into accounting. But yeah, I was influenced-- I suppose I would toddle along to the accountant once a year with Mum and Dad, and then sit into the meetings, and so I had an interest right from probably my teenage years around that. So that's how that all happened. But yeah.
Stuart 00:04:18.517 And being in agriculture's a hard life.
Lynda 00:04:21.898 It's a very hard life. Yeah. My family's still in agriculture. My brother and his family's still in agriculture.
Stuart 00:04:28.170 What are your earliest memories on the farm?
Lynda 00:04:30.647 Yeah. The earliest memory to me, I think, is waddling outside as a toddler and talking to the chickens and collecting eggs. Being chased by roosters. Talking to the cows. So I think it was really this freedom, this airiness, the space, is what I loved about it. But it was always a very busy environment and it was very obvious that my family worked very, very hard so I suppose, it instilled in me a very strong work ethic.
Stuart 00:05:03.496 I'm sure. I mean, you can't get more Australian than that, hey?
Lynda 00:05:08.191 No, that's right. So the hats and the boots and all of that goes with it.
Stuart 00:05:14.510 So farm life and animals, etc., and then sort of this vision of working with numbers. And how did that evolve? And what was your sort of journey to your first role as an accountant?
Lynda 00:05:28.013 Yeah. So I remember going off to university or college, doing my accounting degree. And as I was saying, my idea of what accounting was, was a public practice accountant, so the people that did tax returns and financials and things like that. That's what I understood it to be and that's what I wanted to be. And it was really at the time, a wonderful time for the accounting industry when talent was around. There was no shortage. Seriously. And I think people in the industry now can't even see a glimmer of hope in that side of things. But there were plenty of students, just like me, all filing out of university, looking for jobs. So to actually get a job was difficult because the market was flooded with candidates. So my first accounting role was back in the country town that I grew up in, for a regional firm there. And I spent a number of years there, learning the ropes, I suppose, before I travelled overseas.
Stuart 00:06:36.426 We'll come back to what's changed in the industry regarding the amount of talent and everything, but. So first job at a regional firm, and then did you go to the Big Smoke after that? Did you join a Big Four, and have your soul-sort-of-destroyed, slowly, or?
Lynda 00:06:52.555 No. I've never experienced the Big Four, Stuart. No, that's not something that appealed to me, I think once I started working. I certainly came out of university thinking, "I want to be part of this Big Four crowd," but I didn't secure a job there, it was in that regional firm. And I think looking back on it now, I'm quite happy for that experience and not necessarily have gone there, given some of the challenges that employees might find in those larger organisations, so. And what it was, I think, was it enabled me to connect very closely and quickly with business owners. In the smaller firms, you're connecting with clients very early in your career. And again, reflecting, that's what I love. I love connecting with people and being able to help them solve their problems. And so without that, I think I probably would've struggled to continue my career. But as luck would have it, that's how it worked out.
Stuart 00:07:57.334 I imagine in a regional firm, if you made it past the first week without sort of the client meetings or something is probably rare, right?
Lynda 00:08:05.161 They're very rare, yes. Look, there's some sizable regional firms and the one I was in, I think it was about 10 staff at the time. But still, it's a regional country environment where everybody says hello. You pass them in the street. I knew a lot of the clients. I'd gone to school with their children, so. I always talk about the first time I had to sit down in front of a farmer who I'd gone to school with, his youngest daughter or something like that, and attempt to give them advice. And it's getting there thinking that this gentleman thinking of me, "This young whippersnapper, how would she know anything?"
Stuart 00:08:50.500 Yeah, "What would she know?"
Lynda 00:08:52.028 Yeah. So I clearly remember that. And so when I'm talking to younger accountants and they may say things where they feel not confident to give advice, I certainly have some experience to draw on.
Stuart 00:09:08.397 And well, let's tap into it a little bit, Lynda. The industry and the world has come a long way since then. I'm hoping it wasn't a horrific experience for you. I'm hoping that he demonstrated some respect and was probably able to overcome, perhaps, his own prejudices at that stage of where the world was up to, right?
Lynda 00:09:31.224 Yes. He did. He was a very polite gentleman and a lovely man, I think. And this is the experience that I pass on to others is that it's our own expectation and our own thoughts and feelings that we project onto situations. Often the people that are listening to our advice, realise that we actually do have something to offer and a lot to offer, it's how we perceive ourselves. So that can be what's holding us back, not really the other way.
Stuart 00:10:05.850 And I'm sure the nature of that experience had you up late doing your homework and preparing and really understanding what that meeting was going to be all about.
Lynda 00:10:16.129 Exactly. I've always been a preparer, and in the accounting industry, we have a fair percentage of perfectionism hanging around. Yes, I didn't go into things on the fly, I always knew who was coming in, what I wanted to say, what we tried to get out of the meeting, and-- so yes, preparation was always key. And I would always be thinking about it the night before. Particularly when you're starting out, you're not used to that. You definitely get nervous about it.
Stuart 00:10:46.219 So let's circle back a bit. I mean, you talked about the volume of graduates and plenty of talent and even listening to the way you were describing that time, it was sort of a view or a perception of the industry that was revered. It was something to be an accountant. It was a thing and people looked up to you. Well, to the industry and to you, of course.
Lynda 00:11:13.434 Yes. Thank you.
Stuart 00:11:13.780 And people aspired to be an accountant or to be in and around the business graduate schools and things. What's changed?
Lynda 00:11:23.911 Perhaps it's been an industry-driven thing a little bit that perhaps we've not quite opened our minds to different things and changing attitudes and different ways of things. Smarter business practices. And it's become a bit all about the money, maybe not quite so client-centric as it could be. But yeah, I think from an industry perspective, from where I see it now and the future of accounting, is really-- and there's a bright future for accounting, Stuart. I would never be in this industry if I didn't have hope for that. And I absolutely love it and a really bright future for talented people. But as business owners in accounting, we need to look at things differently. We need to look at what else our employees are doing. The types of services we're offering. How we're interacting with our clients and market. To build businesses that people want to belong to and want to be a part of. And I don't know that we've done that over the last 20/30 years. We've been more about just doing what we do, rather than looking into the future and how do we continue to evolve, I think, is the thing.
Stuart 00:12:48.994 Yeah. Well, there's a lot there to unpack. But this is a global issue, it's not isolated to Labrador.
Lynda 00:12:58.421 No, it's certainly not.
Stuart 00:13:01.422 It's not bullshit here that there is a lot of sort of old white male that have held onto the way that they've done things because it's always worked and that's not that appealing to the next generation. What 22-year-old is going to work for the same firm and become partner 35 years later? I mean, that's not realistic any more.
Lynda 00:13:27.137 No. That's exactly right. And I think if we look at, really, the categorical shift that we've had just in the last two years, we know with everything going on in the world, it's just made this pace of change-- that we really need to open our eyes to this. And look, rightly so, I get why there is a demographic of accountants, perhaps male of a certain age, that don't want to change a lot of things. They're looking towards retirement. But the thing is if you're looking to retirement, you've got to have someone coming through to buy these practices or your assets from you. So how do you successfully do that? And again, I think we're just being so busy doing what we've had to do and all the work. And the compliance-type sides of things has kept us very busy and kept our heads down instead of being able to think about our businesses and plan for our businesses and even dream for what our businesses could be. So I don't think we've had that time or even made that time.
Stuart 00:14:39.634 We won't solve this today. But for me, there's a question about willing or able, right?
Lynda 00:14:45.067 Correct.
Stuart 00:14:46.004 In my experience, particularly the younger generations that are very willing to change and run their businesses differently and embrace technology-- but as I said, there's a massive irony here that is unrecognised that the more that the soon-to-be-retired generation embrace change and introduce technology and bring the younger generations through, the more multiples they're going to get. A lot of them think they're going to sell their businesses for, I don't know, a million bucks earnings or 1X or something. But who's going to take it, right?
Lynda 00:15:22.702 I have this saying, dichotomy, or argument with a lot of practitioners around outsourcing and this moral argument about keeping jobs in the country that you live and work in. But how can you keep jobs in a country where there are no people to fill them? So it's that same concept. But yes, I like what you said about willing and able. I think we are all able, it's whether we are willing. And accountancy, by its very nature, has been a very easy busy in that we haven't had to market. Our clients come to us because they need to.
Stuart 00:16:03.174 That's lucky. That's just lucky that they don't have to.
Lynda 00:16:06.525 Correct. They don't. They have to pay us to do things that they can't do on their own. And it's been a very profitable industry and remains so. But I really see it at a tipping point. And if we don't really look at it now and do something now about it, we can be in quite a bit of hot water, even more than we're in now. But I see the younger generation coming through, which is fabulous.
Stuart 00:16:34.471 Well, I was going to ask you, do you think the vendors are a little bit culpable here? Because I think maybe not so much right now, but pre-COVID, there was sort of this compliance is dead, long live compliance kind of mantra, right? The computer's going to do everything. Did that scare-- or not scare; did that put off a generation of accountants or at least a significant number, enough to dissuade them from perhaps entering the industry?
Lynda 00:17:06.765 I don't know that it put off people entering the industry. I would see that it-- and I still see it now that it certainly dissuades, internally, employees to want to change. Because whether they recognise it or not, job security is very important to them and even with just that noise around you, you go, "Well, if we're going to automate something that I used to spend 10 hours a week doing and now it's going to go back to 1 hour a week, well, all of a sudden, will I be redundant?" Now, someone from my perspective that sees so much more that accountants can be doing and very profitably so, I can't even fathom how they would think that, but that's where they do think. So I see that a version to change playing out because of some of those things. Look, compliance will never be dead. Our regulators are going nowhere, so.
Stuart 00:18:08.611 They're going everywhere, that's the problem.
Lynda 00:18:11.918 Exactly. They're not going to let that go and it's only going to get more complex, so business owners only need us more. What we need to do as smart business owners and professionals, is to work out the best way and the most efficient way that we can do that. And technology, AI, getting clients into the cloud, doing all of those things which will attract a younger market for you as far as team members go, is the smart thing to be looking at.
Stuart 00:18:43.588 No, definitely. I think a young accountant doesn't want to go to a-- I don't know if they do barbeques anymore, do they? They just-- doesn't want to hang out with their friends and so they hear, "Well, what are you being an accountant for? The computer's going to do it in five years, right?" Whereas if they go-- if they're having the same conversation they're curing cancer, well, that's a different story, isn't it? So. Although AI's coming into health as well.
Lynda 00:19:08.510 Correct. It's coming in everywhere. The robots are coming and they're going to take over. No, they're not. Okay, I take your point there, that's very good. I can see how that would happen. And I think that plays into what I would call this image problem that we have in public practice, that we've perpetuated and that is up to us, collectively, as in the industry, to start breaking down. And that's looking at what it is we're doing. What services we're providing? How are we engaging and relating with our clients? What relationships are we building? So that's up to all of us. Not one firm or even the top 10% of firms can't do that on their own. It's an industry-wide thing that we all need to get involved with.
Stuart 00:20:00.903 Yeah. Make accounting sexy again, you reckon?
Lynda 00:20:03.784 That's it. Oh, you stole my line.
Stuart 00:20:07.318 No, no. Sorry, I'm sorry. Have it back, please.
Lynda 00:20:10.533 No, no. No, I talk about it in a different way. I talk about an advisory, a business improvement advisory can make the unsexy side of business sexy. So accountants get to sell sexy. Yeah.
Stuart 00:20:24.453 There you go. There you go. There's a Justin Timberlake song that we can overlay later on. Well, just to round this topic out, out of 10, what do you give sort of the industry bodies in their contribution or culpability in the industry image?
Lynda 00:20:44.367 Out of 10, oh, now that's tricky. Oh, look, I think I'd give them-- their culpability as in 10, they're fully culpable for the image?
Stuart 00:20:53.833 Yeah. Well, I don't know. Let's make our own scale as we go, right?
Lynda 00:20:58.257 Well, look, I would them a 6 out of 10 for trying. i think they're doing their best. I certainly see the things that I read that they are talking about different topics and at least highlighting it. Are they helping with how to actually go about it, I'm not sure that that's happening. But again, I think there's always this issue that they too are business people, so then play to their target market. So is it really then the target market that needs to drive this? So is it the accountants? Is it the members that really need to say, "I want something else"?
Stuart 00:21:34.795 Which one's the chicken and which one's the egg?
Lynda 00:21:36.701 Yes. Exactly. Exactly.
Stuart 00:21:40.330 Well, tell me about your life's passion and the projects you're working on. Because you work with a lot of accountants across Australia, at least I'm not sure. But tell me about your progress through that journey.
Lynda 00:21:54.604 Yeah. So my passion really is-- throughout my whole career, if I look back, it's always been about helping others and using whatever skills I have to perhaps help. Initially, that was in the accounting and compliance areas for many years of my life. As I then proceeded into management roles, owning my own firms, becoming an employer, it then became more a, "How do I lift up my team? How do I lift up those around me? How do I make them the best that they can be?" which clearly helps me get done what I need to get done. It really has been about success of others that's what makes my heart sing when I see people do things they never thought they could. And particularly now in accounting in my journey, I have experience what I call the business improvement advisory side with clients, myself, and the really lovely warm and fuzzy feelings I get from working in that capacity with clients and the successes that we have. Well, the highs and lows that you go through with clients. I really enjoy that. I love that, actually. It's the most heartfelt work I've ever done in 30 years. And I want to share that with other accountants. That's my passion. Because if I can share that and get other accountants to see that that's what they will get, I'm 100% certain it will motivate them to do all the things we've just been talking about.
Stuart 00:23:36.436 You must have some wonderful stories over the years. Tell us about the best journey you've had with a client along the way.
Lynda 00:23:43.508 Well, I've just had one recently, actually. It was a business owner. She was in business for a little while before I met her and she was someone who also suffered from anxiety in her life. And so we talk a lot about what logically was the right thing to do with the business. So we looked at the numbers, "Here's what you need to do." But she would go away from these sessions and then come back the next time and go, "No, I didn't do that," and there'd be some sort of excuse around, "Why I didn't do that." It was then collaborating with others to break down, I suppose, the heart side, not the head side to help her achieve and break through these barriers. And now she's gone from, really, a one-man band, to having five employees, turning over three, four times what she was, and we're only just starting. And she cannot even believe that that's where she could've gone in just-- I think it's been about 18 months. So just breaking down those barriers. Looking at lots of things.
Stuart 00:24:53.402 Well, that's fascinating because that's not what you learn to college, right? How to help somebody with their anxiety. What was your process? How did you recognise and bring people in to sort of help her with your journey?
Lynda 00:25:08.127 I'm an accountant so anxiety and mental health and general well-being is certainly not where I practice. I was able to recognise that something was holding her back. And the important thing for me and something that I will always ask other accountants to do is the strength of your networks and strategic alliances. And so I have very good friends that I could recommend her to, to help her. And we talked as a collaborative group that we can see logically, "Here's what we need to do with the business." But then she would be open or felt trusting enough of our relationship, "So yeah, but I'm scared of this or this is the fear or this is the block," or whatever that was, and then our professional would help us with that. So it was a collaborative approach. I'm certainly not advocating to go practising in a whole lot of areas that are not your specialty. Very, very dangerous. Do not do that at home, anybody.
Stuart 00:26:08.966 Yeah. No, no don't prescribe the perks.
Lynda 00:26:11.877 But it's the strength in your strategic alliances and having relationships. Realising that business and a professional or personal journey is much more than the logic. We're complicated individuals, so there's a lot more to it.
Stuart 00:26:29.083 Yeah. It's probably worth mentioning at that juncture, the experience that our firms had and that I hear over and over and heard over and over is like, "COVID was just such a stressful time for accountants because not only were they accountants, they became therapists and friends and comforters and lenders of last resort." And I guess what you're sort of leaning on then is the accountant of today has capacity for resources that they never either did or had to in generations gone past.
Lynda 00:27:04.359 Absolutely. And I think as the professional of today, regardless of what service we are delivering, I think personally, there's a lot of personal development, awareness, objectivity, acceptance of who you are and your strengths and weaknesses, and playing to those strengths. You need to develop yourself. You need to understand that side of yourself because then and only then can you really see how you can help others or how you can support others and not be frightened by what might be presented to you. But yeah, I remember the starting of COVID, and I did a lot around the grief cycle to try to help accountants deal with-- because that's what clients were going through. And the rapid pace of change that-- we're okay with change, accountants, but we generally like time to think about it and to make it happen. And a lot of information's the other one. Information and time. We get both of those things, we're change champions. But fast, quick, no information? Awful and very stressful. So it was a very tough time. Really tough time.
Stuart 00:28:21.836 That's a really good analysis. But you're working more with accountants today than running a practice. Tell me more about that.
Lynda 00:28:30.663 Yeah. So what I do now-- again, you ask me about my vision. It was to share this heart-felt work with others, that they could do that too. So I do that through teaching advisory engagement to accountants. So we have a program that does that, and we are taking students through that. So it's not how to do the mechanics of advisory or the technical side of advisory, it's how to have the conversations and the client relationships around advisory. So that, I believe, is the real key. Probably 99% of accountants are already doing advisory in some shape or form, and whether it's been paid for or not, is a whole nother issue. I believe that the industry is lacking this client engagement/client relationship techniques or processes. We have a process we've built around that, based off of everything I've learnt over 30 years and the personal development that I've done. And out of that, often, then comes-- I will mentor and coach firms as well. A coach and an educator, I would say is where I hang around now. Mainly in the advisory space.
Stuart 00:29:45.604 And tell me, Lynda, do you have an example of somebody that you worked with that sort of had taken on-- you've taken under your wing and they've grown and developed their practice to help others?
Lynda 00:29:57.210 Yeah. Absolutely. So a student of ours that I think they went, about 12 months ago maybe, through the program. He has a firm in Melbourne. A couple of partners. I think about 15 staff. And he knew he was at the stage of his professional career that he was pretty much done with compliance. It was, "I'm good it, we did it, it's great, but I don't know if I can hang out for another 25 years doing this." And so he had picked up a copy of my book from somewhere and had read the process that is in the book and had started implementing some of that but needed the support and the guidance to take it further. To take it to its full extent. So what he did then after coming through the program, and the program takes 12 weeks and then we do 8 weeks an the implementation after that, he's already landed about 40, 50 thousand dollars worth of advisory work in under 6 to 8 weeks platform of implementing everything. And I just met with him yesterday, actually, in one of the follow-up calls and we're putting a budget in place for the next 12 months. And look, he has the capacity to do probably 120,000 more, but it's then about the resourcing and dealing with some of the internal components of the firm. So we will work on that. And his realisation that clients will pay for this. That they do want it if it's positioned in the right way. He has had no trouble converting his clients using our process. He will tell you that it's been very easy. He feels funnier about it than-- and the client's ready to jump in. It's been very successful for him, so he's very happy, we're very happy, and will continue to work together, so yeah.
Stuart 00:32:03.233 What was the light bulb moment for him, do you think?
Lynda 00:32:05.868 Oh gosh, putting me under the-- there's probably many. And that's something that we definitely focus on in our 12 weeks' worth of knowledge that we do in the course is this mindset shift. And I think he's still having them, is that we're taught to believe that our value is in the answers that we provide when really, it's in the questions that we compose. And his journey through breaking down his own mindset around that is still ongoing. But I think him looking at advice, we see definitely in all of our students, what they think advisory is and what they can achieve with advisory before they come into the course and the process and what they think afterwards is dramatically different. So it's that shifting of where we sit as a professional. So it's taking us away from the processes and how we dealt with compliance, which we've only always known, and that's fine. We're doing what everybody before us has done. That's exactly how we need to do that. But advisory or business improvement advisory I like to call it, it needs to be done differently. It's an entirely different process. And so switching that, changing up a mindset that's been instilled in us for many, many years, is a journey. So we see our students go on that journey.
Stuart 00:33:32.792 How's that playing out with his fellow partners?
Lynda 00:33:36.323 Yeah. So he has one other partner. Well, of course, the partner's loving to see the extra X come in and he's loving that our student is starting to do work that he loves again. But of course, the dynamics of the firm-- yeah, there's going to have to be some discussions about that. Absolutely.
Stuart 00:33:55.037 Accountants have this amazing ability to not run a business like a business, they're going to split their revenue and do all kinds of funny things. There's some irony there too.
Lynda 00:34:04.594 Yes. Luckily, I suppose in this case, it was really this particular partner was running the compliance accounting side. And they've got a wealth side. So the partners were dealing somewhat fairly in different areas of the practice, so yeah.
Stuart 00:34:21.297 As you've gone on your journey, how do you think about your succession plans and enjoying life and balancing all of that?
Lynda 00:34:30.511 Yeah. It's interesting. I never thought I'd become this entrepreneurial business junkie at 50 years of age.
Stuart 00:34:39.606 Ah, you look--
Lynda 00:34:42.169 Thank you.
Stuart 00:34:43.300 --nowhere near it. Nowhere near there.
Lynda 00:34:45.731 Thank you, but not true. So I'm loving, absolutely loving what I'm doing right now. And look, the business is still emerging, it's growing, and so it has its challenges. But I can see it being something that I will be very happily leading for a great many years yet because it gives me such--yeah, it's my purpose. I understand why I've been put on this earth and that's been my own personal journey. Now it's really helping accountants to just achieve personally what they want from life.
Stuart 00:35:25.790 I can see the joy that it brings and the energy that you gain from working with people like you describe, that it's sort of like unlocking a hidden secret, right?
Lynda 00:35:37.051 It's truly amazing, like you mentioned, to see those light bulb moments on your students' faces or your coaching clients' faces and they go, "Ah, that's what you've been talking about, Lynda." I always have a joke with them that my evil plan is coming together.
Stuart 00:35:56.982 Yeah. Yeah. You just never told them what it was.
Lynda 00:36:00.249 Yeah. I think you can't do that, Stuart. That's the thing, everyone has to go one their own journey. And I'm quite comfortable with what everyone tells me their particular individual journey is. It's their journey, not mine. I'm just there to facilitate and to help them. Support them. Guide them. We have a value in our organisation we call being emphatically pushy.
Stuart 00:36:24.441 Oh, nice. I like that.
Lynda 00:36:26.135 Yeah. So that's what we do; we are empathetically pushy.
Stuart 00:36:31.554 Well, Lynda, I mean, I'm just so thrilled and happy for you that you found this place in your journey. I feel so thrilled for the people that you're helping so that they can find their own purpose and a capacity to help their clients. I think accountants' capacity to further not only the economy but people's individual journeys is so important. The industry is so grateful for your efforts in everything that you do.
Lynda 00:37:02.946 Ah, well, you're very welcome. I love it. And look, we have the capacity, as accountants, to change world, Stuart. A lot of people ask me, "Well, why don't you just coach or run your practice anymore?" It's because I can make a greater impact if I spread and teach my knowledge to others who then go out and do the same thing. So that ripple effect is much greater, and I'd rather share it with others than keep it to myself, so.
Stuart 00:37:36.317 Spread the love. Spread the [crosstalk].
Lynda 00:37:37.537 Spread the love, yeah. Let's do that.
Stuart 00:37:41.129 Well, Lynda Steffens, I think what you're doing is amazing and thank you so much for being on the Accounting Leaders Podcast. You're absolutely a leader in accounting.
Lynda 00:37:51.683 Thank you so much, Stuart, it's been a pleasure and a joy talking to you. [music]
Lynda 00:38:01.545 Thanks for listening to this episode. If you found this discussion interesting, fun, you'll find lots more to help you run a successful accounting firm in Karbon Magazine. There are more than 1,000 free resources there, including guides, articles, templates, webinars, and more. Just head to karbonhq.com/resources. I'd also love it if you could leave us a five-star review wherever you listen to this podcast. Let us know you liked this session, we'll be able to keep bringing you more guests to learn from and get inspired by. Thanks for joining and see you in the next episode of the Accounting Leaders Podcast. [music]