Change Your Mindset

My guest today is Kevin McCarthy, author of the bestselling book, Blind Spots: Why Good People Make Bad Choices. Kevin works globally with industry leaders to reveal blind spots to unleash the potential in organizations and teams.Kevin spent 33 months in a federal prison for a crime he didn't knowingly commit. His boss at the time was committing stock fraud, and when Kevin discovered this, he realized he had these severe blind spots. How did he wind up working for this boss, and how could he have possibly believed he was a good man doing good things? He became passionate about discovering that for himself.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: petermargaritis.comResources:Learn more at https://www.blindspots.comOrder an autographed copy of Blind Spots: https://ww3.blindspots.com/offers/cuGr2LVH/checkoutFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/kevinmccarthycspLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinmccarthycspTwitter: https://twitter.com/kevinmccarthy01Change Your Mindset is a production of Crate

My guest today is Dave Caperton. Dave is an author, speaker and thought leader on ways that joy drives success.Dave uses humor to teach corporations, associations, individuals, and groups how living and working with intentional joy is an act of leadership and a disciplined will. He has 20 years of real-world experience speaking, coaching, and writing about the benefits of a joyful mindset in a business context, including how to unleash creativity, improve health, increase engagement, supercharge learning, and provide legendary service and care while reducing stress and conflict. As a veteran educator, performance consultant, comedian, and comedy writer, Dave fuses entertaining stories, in-depth research, and proven learning strategies to provide conversations about joy to celebrate success, solve people's problems, and build a bridge between where you are now and where you want to be.Dave came out of education. He was a teacher, and grew up with a family of teachers, teaching high school English. He did that

My guests today are Bill and Don Tomoff, who are both CPAs who like to say they aren’t your typical accountants.Bill Tomoff is currently a CFO for InstallNET International and a consultant with Invenio Advisors, focusing on training and professional development. Bill volunteers with and is on the board of directors of Special Love, an organization serving children and families fighting childhood cancer.Don is the founder of Invenio Advisors LLC, a consulting firm specializing in information management, process improvement, reporting, and data analysis, as well as education and training. Since 2010, Don is focused on the identification of process improvement opportunities and leveraging readily available technology tools to drive that change. In addition to consulting, Don is an active instructor for the Maryland Association of CPA's Business Learning Institute.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: petermargaritis.comResources:Bill’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billtomoffBill’s Insta

Jay Sukow believes that the world will be a better place if everyone takes just one improv class - and I agree! Jay is trying to make that world a reality as the founder of Today Improv, where he teaches improv to actors, businesses, and everyone else around the world. He is currently on faculty at The Second City Hollywood and former faculty member at The Second City Chicago. Some of those he has trained with include Stephen Colbert, Stephen Carell, Dave Razowsky, Keith Johnstone, and Del Close.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: petermargaritis.comResources:Learn more about Today ImprovListen: ImprovCast with Jay and LandonInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/todayimprov/Twitter: https://twitter.com/todayimprovFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/todayimprovChange Your Mindset is a production of Crate MediaLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky is a disaster avoidance expert with over 20 years of experience dramatically empowering leaders and organizations to avoid business disasters by addressing potential threats, maximizing unexpected opportunities, and resolving persistent personnel problems.Gleb serves as the CEO of a boutique consulting and training firm, Disaster Avoidance Experts, whose clients range from Fortune 500 companies to mid-sized businesses and nonprofits. He's also the author of a national bestseller on avoiding disasters in business, The Truth-Seeker's Handbook: A Science-Based Guide, and an upcoming book, Never Go With Your Gut: How Pioneering Leaders Make the Best Decisions and Avoid Business Disasters, which is coming out November 2019.What’s Wrong With Going With Your Gut?Our emotions are short-term oriented because they evolved from the ancestral Savannah. And it really helped us survive in the wild because we didn't really have an opportunity to invest into the long term. We couldn't build a bank account.

My guest today is Brian Wagner, Founder and CEO of A Radical Vision, an organization with a powerful mission statement: "It took a crippling disease for us to understand that we have no vision. Losing our sight allowed us to gain vision. That was the greatest gift that's ever been given. We can't hide from our adversity. Our goal is to help others recognize their adversity, go blind, and gain vision. This happened to us. And now, we want to help others have that same focus.”A Radical VisionWhen Brian was 10, he started to develop some health problems due to a cavernous malformation, which is a malformed blood vessel that can form anywhere in your body. Brian’s just happened to have formed in his brain stem.So, as a result, Brian dealt with a variety of different issues throughout his life. Then, at the age of 43, it started to bleed, and bleed, and bleed. And when it bled, it put pressure on the nerves that control his vision, and he started to go blind. So Brian had to undergo a brain surgery in order to rem

My guest today is Robin Thieme, the Founder of KBS CFO, which is an outsourced CFO and accounting department solution for growing sustainable and profitable businesses. She has over 30 years of financial and accounting experience, a passion for the efficiencies that new technologies enable, and a dedication to small businesses.One of the things that really impresses me about Robin and KBS is that she was creating a virtual organization long before cloud computing was a mainstream term – and she takes the same innovative and thoughtful approach to establishing efficiencies and solutions that fit the current business environment for her clients.The old mindset – although many still use it – is that having a CFO is too much money for a small- to medium-sized business. As it turns out, Robin says, small businesses have some pretty big problems or big decisions, too! And they may not need a full-time CFO, but they do still need someone to help guide them financially. “We're really meeting a need of businesses that

My guest today is Phillip Lovegrove, who's a partner in the personal financial planning firm of Vorisek Financial Corporation. Now, many of the financial planners that I've interacted with in the past could not or would not adapt their conversation to meet the needs of their clients. Instead, many only seem to be serving their own needs and, at times, come across condescending. Phil is just the opposite.Phil believes in taking a needs-based approach and providing hands-on personal service for his clients – and I believe this is something that all professional service providers need to start doing, and soon. It helps your clients in the long term, and it’ll help your business, too.I've been a client of his for just over a year and, during this time, I've had more conversations about my financial position and pending retirement than ever before. Albeit, I'm a lot closer to retirement than I was five years ago, but this is the kind of service that really adds value and increases trust. He is doing a great job, a

My guest today is Amy Franko, who is a strategic sales expert, author, and keynote speaker. Amy had a successful business-to-business sales career with global technology companies like IBM and Lenovo before, in 2007, she pivoted into entrepreneurship and launched the training firm Impact Instruction Group. Now, Amy works with professional service firms, helping them grow business development results and build firm leaders. Amy also recently released a book, The Modern Seller, which is not a book about prospecting or negotiating skills. It's a book that explores the five skill sets that individuals and organizations need in order to become successful. In this episode, Amy explains each one of these skill sets in great detail, focusing on how they apply to the financial service industry. However, no matter what industry you're in, the ability for you to develop these five skill sets is crucial in the disruptive business environment that we are operating in today.So, let’s dig into the five skill sets of The Mod

My guest today is Samantha Bowling, who's an Audit Partner at the accounting firm of Garbelman Winslow in Maryland and the current Chair of the Executive Board of the Maryland Association of CPAs.This episode is focused on public accounting, but it also has great implications to business and industry accounting professionals. So, I encourage anyone in accounting – or just interested in how AI is going to change the nature of work – to listen to the interview and decide how these technologies might affect your organization.Now, in March of 2016, artificial intelligence was introduced to the accounting profession when IBM and KPMG signed an agreement to bring Watson into KPMG's audit practice. At the time (and still, really), many of the small- to middle-sized firms speculated that this technology was too expensive for their practices.Samantha, however, saw an opportunity. She felt that if the larger firms had this advantage, how long would it be until they started taking clients? She turned that question into

Today I have the pleasure of introducing you to Kimberly Ellison-Taylor, a powerhouse in the accounting profession whose drive, energy, and passion is unparallelled. Kimberly is currently a Global Strategy Leader at Oracle, and she has held positions at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Motorola, KPMG, as well as having a role in government in Prince George's County, Maryland.On top of that, from 2016 to 2018, Kimberly served as 104th Chairman of the American Institute of CPAs, where she received numerous awards and recognition. Notably, she was the youngest person, the fifth woman, and first person of color to serve as chairman in the AICPA's 130-year history. Kimberly was also the second Chairman for the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants, an organization founded in 2017 that has 667,000 members in 184 countries.Kimberly has been able to walk the fine line between technology and accounting throughout her career, but she’s been able to leverage her accounting and finance acumen

Cara North is a learning experience designer at THE Ohio State University and the President of the Central Ohio Chapter of the Association for Talent Development. However, I did not invite her to be a guest on this podcast because of her day job. I invited her to be a guest because, as she says, "I love connecting others to people and opportunities." She loves networking, making connections, and creating opportunities – and I know that is a big fear for a lot of people, but it’s also a necessary part of being a lifelong learning and, increasingly, growing your career.As Cara says, “If you work with me, you don't just get me – you get my network.” That's an extremely valuable thing you can offer employers and clients, and it’s a resource that will only get more valuable over time. “We're all in this together, we all want to do better, everybody wants to feel valued, everybody wants to be respected, and I feel like collaboration is the best way to do that.”So, why do so many people hate the word networking

I've been out of public accounting for a number of years, but one thing I remember vividly was the busy season 10: the additional 10 pounds I gained because of all the pizza, the fast food, and the lack of exercise. So today, I asked licensed and registered dietitian and nutritionist Lucy Hayhurst to be our guest and provide us with some strategic tips on how to avoid the busy season 10.Lucy is co-founder of Well Balanced Nutrition, where their goal is to help people worry less, love what they eat, and live their best life.Now, you don't have to be a CPA or an accountant to learn from this episode because all professionals, at some time during their work year, will have to put in the extra hours over an extended period of time. When this happens, most of us revert to fast food and no exercise to get through this high-stress timeframe.Often, when we talk about nutrition and wellness, people fall into the trap of thinking that they’re doing everything wrong, or that there’s too much they need to change to even

Jennifer Elder works with financial leaders to become more strategic, stay ahead of the competition, and be more successful. As a consultant and keynote speaker, Jennifer is known for being energetic and enthusiastic, and she has the natural talent for taking complicated topics and making them simple, practical, and immediately implementable.CPA Practice Advisor named Jennifer one of the Top 25 Women in Accounting in 2018. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Maryland Association of Certified Public Accountants named her a Woman to Watch in 2015. She has been awarded Outstanding Educator by the American Institute of CPAs five times. And in 2018, Jennifer earned the designation of Certified Speaking Professional, making her one of only 10 people worldwide who hold both the CPA and CSP designations (but maybe I can push that number from 10 to 11 in 2019).Becoming a Future-Ready CFO & AccountantIn the past, the role of the CFO was primarily looking in the rear-view mirror at the his

Bill Sheridan is the Chief Communications Officer at the Maryland Association of CPAs and the host of Future-Proof, a podcast in which Bill has interviewed a wide variety of leading thought leaders in the accounting profession and in corporate America.We discuss whether the profession is moving in the direction of becoming more future-proof, or future-ready, through the lens of the conversations he’s been having with his guests for nearly a year.So, let’s get right to it: is the profession future-proof?The short answer is no, we're not future-proof or future-ready yet – but we're getting there. However, we might be getting there a little slower than Bill and the other folks over at the MACPA hoped.“It seems like they're starting to realize that this stuff is real. It's not going away. In fact, it's starting to impact them right now, and they need to pay attention to it. So, that's encouraging that they are starting to pay attention,” Bill says.And in a way, this seeming reluctant to look forward makes sense f

We would like your feedback on today's podcast by answering this quick two-minute survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MS2T6P6. Thank you so much for your support.   My guest today is a gentleman who knows more about fraud than just about anyone else in the accounting and finance profession: Gary Zeune, CPA, Managing Director of The Pros & The Cons.   The Pros & The Cons is the only speaker bureau in the country specializing in white-collar criminals. His 40 plus ex-con speakers tell the stories of how and why they embezzled, took kickbacks, and cooked the books to the tune of up to $2.7 billion. His speakers include Mark Morse, a former CFO at ZZZZ Best; Paul Allen, an ex-bank CEO; and Dunlap Cannon, the largest real estate closing attorney in Memphis.   But regardless of what kind of entity they worked at, regardless of the dollar amount, there are several really common elements between everyone who commits fraud – the biggest one being that they don't think they're going to get caught. To put it simply,

Jennifer Briggs is the CEO of the Indiana CPA Society, and we talked about a year ago about the State of Indiana’s House Bill 1467, which allows competency-based learning through professional development opportunities to qualify accountants for accountant certificate renewal.   Today, we follow up on that conversation to check in on the progress that they have made, learn about any unforeseen challenges that they may have faced, and how they handle these challenges.   To recap, in 2010, the Indiana Society created a board-level task force on knowledge management. Jennifer worked with the task force on competency to examine how things have changed in education and everything snowballed from there.   Then, on July 1, 2017, the State of Indiana signed House Bill 1467 into law.   Following that, the Indiana CPA society created an all-online ethics course. It's interactive, and you have to actively participate in it by including comments or replying to other people's comments. Initially, it did count for a waiver

Happy New Year, everyone! As I thought about 2019, I wanted to get off on the right foot – and I wanted to try something a little different. So today, I interview three wonderful guests at the same time. And you know what? It was a blast!   Our guests are Allen Lloyd, CEO of the Montana Society of CPAs; Boyd Search, CEO of the Georgia Society of CPAs; and Chris Jenkins, CEO of the South Carolina Association of CPAs. All three are CEOs who used to work for the Ohio Society and are now running other state societies, so naturally, our discussion centers around the state of the CPA associations and the issues that members are facing in the accounting profession, both current and in the future.   This isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, which is why this isn’t a one-on-one conversation. These three highlight that each association needs the ability to recognize the idiosyncrasies or uniqueness of their membership and try to tailor their offerings to meet the membership’s needs.   For example, Chris Jenkins and the

We, as humans, are not wired to multitask – but we’re also addicted to it! So today, we’re going to learn about why multitasking doesn’t work and then some strategies we can use to be more productive. I thought this would be a perfect episode to end the year, as the accounting community’s busy season is lingering on the horizon.   We’re joined by third-time guest Karl Ahlrichs, a human capitalist consultant who knows a thing or two about how individuals and teams really get things done.   Why can’t we multitask?   You can think of multitasking as either the ability to perform multiple tasks at one time or switching back and forth from one thing to another – but neither is an effective way to do... well, just about anything.   If you think you can effectively perform multiple tasks at once, I’d like to present exhibit A: “If you've eaten at a quick service restaurant like Kentucky Fried Chicken, they will hand you a multitasking eating implement that is with a spoon and a fork – the spork. It fails at both tas

Stephanie Feger is a passionate communicator who believes that a shift in perspective can help people live truly fulfilling lives.   After working in the public relations and marketing industry for over 15 years, she realized that happiness isn't found in what society deems important and felt a calling to help others reach their fullest potential while embracing all that life has to offer. Now an author, professional speaker, motivational blogger, book publicist, and home decor business owner, Stephanie connects her passion for embracing creativity with her dedication to helping others live life in perspective.   In her recently published book, Color Today Pretty: An Inspirational Guide to Living a Life in Perspective, Stephanie invites others to change their lives by finding perspective from within.   She has a wonderful message to share with all of us as we begin to move into 2019, and for those in the accounting profession, as we move into that busy season (although I prefer to call it the opportunity seas