Episode 187 – Lorilyn Crum

Hello, this is John Garrett and welcome to Episode 187 of the Green Apple Podcast where each Wednesday I interview a professional who, just like me, was known for a hobby or a passion or an interest outside of work and by sharing it makes them stand out like a green apple in kind of a boring red apple world. I’m always so fascinated how we usually try to stand out with our technical expertise. I’m here to shine a light each week on somebody who understands that expertise isn’t always earned in degrees and certifications. Sometimes it’s experiences from your passions outside of work that will make you better at your job, but only if you share them.

Really quickly, I’m doing some research. It’s a super short one-minute anonymous survey about corporate culture and how the green apple message might apply in your world. So if you’ve got just 60 seconds, please head to greenapplepodcast.com. Click that big green button there and answer a few quick questions. Again, it’s totally anonymous. I really appreciate the help for the book that I’m launching very soon.

Thanks so much to everyone for subscribing to the show so you don’t miss any of the cool guests like this week’s Lorilyn Crum. She’s a CPA and one of the owners at Collective PC in Portland, Oregon. Lorilyn, thanks so much for taking time to be with me today on the Green Apple Podcast.

Lorilyn: Yeah, absolutely.

John: I was just so excited. I reached out on Twitter. I saw your tweet about being a former college athlete and looking for other former college athletes that are in the professional world. I was like, “Hey, you should be on the Green Apple Podcast.” You actually responded. So that was awesome. So thank you so much.

Lorilyn: It was funny, after I tweeted that, I realized my business partner is actually a former college athlete.

John: That’s so great.

Lorilyn: I was like, “Oh, yeah,” but he doesn’t like to talk about it. It was a college. He kind of doesn’t count, in a way.

John: Oh, man. Right out of the gate. Throwing jabs. That’s awesome. So let me read you the intro. Lorilyn was an owner of Collective PC until the Green Apple — no, I’m just teasing. No, but that’s fantastic. But as you know, I started out every episode with theses 17 rapid-fire questions to get to know Lorilyn on another level. So let me just fire away here, and we’ll have some fun. This should be an easy one. How about do you have a favorite color?

Lorilyn: Blue.

John: Blue. There you go. There you go. How about a least favorite color?

Lorilyn: Red.

John: Red. Gee, I didn’t see that one coming from a mile away. Like Ohio State Jersey red? How about would you say more chocolate or vanilla?

Lorilyn: Chocolate.

John: Oh, yeah, yeah. How about do you have a favorite actor or actress?

Lorilyn: Oh, Chris Hemsworth, Thor, and his impression.

John: Yeah, I don’t even need to ask why on that one. He was Thor, and we’re done. How about more pens or pencils?

Lorilyn: Oh, pens.

John: Pens, no mistakes. I like it. Impressive.

Lorilyn: Yes. Tear it up and start over. It’s fine.

John: There you go. All right. All right. Do you prefer things more hot or cold?

Lorilyn: Oh, hot. I am perpetually freezing. So definitely hot.

John: Interesting. Okay. How about when it comes to puzzles, more Sudoku or crossword?

Lorilyn: Sudoku, numbers. Come on.

John: Right. Okay. All right. There you go. There you go. I have to ask as an accountant, do you have a favorite number?

Lorilyn: 1.

John: 1 and why is that?

Lorilyn: Well, being an athlete, you’re always trying to be number one.

John: Okay, there you go.

Lorilyn: That was your jersey number in college.

John: Oh, wow! That was your jersey number. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Very cool. Very cool. How about more Star Wars or Star Trek?

Lorilyn: Star Trek Generations. I’m a Generations kid.

John: Oh, wow. Okay. Okay. How about when it comes to your computer, more of a PC or a Mac?

Lorilyn: You know what? So total side tangent, when I’m DJ’ing, that’s a whole nother map, PCs not PC.

John: Okay, it depends on if your DJ’ing or not, like the CEO of Goldman Sachs over here. Do you have a favorite ice cream flavor?

Lorilyn: You know what? I’m lactose intolerant, so no ice cream.

John: Oh, man, look at me just rubbing it in. That was on behalf of your business partner that I asked that question.

Lorilyn: Yes.

John: Do you have a favorite animal? Any animal?

Lorilyn: Oh, lions.

John: Okay.

Lorilyn: Get all your work done before noon. Go to bed early. Totally.

John: Right. I like it. Okay. Would you say more heels or flats?

Lorilyn: You know what? I’m pretty tall and I don’t like towering over everyone so flats.

John: That’s a good call. Because then everyone says like, “Oh, you look taller than in your headshot.” And it’s like, “What do you mean? Like an inch and a half? What did you expect?”

Lorilyn: Yes.

John: I get the same thing. It’s hilarious. And by hilarious, I mean annoying. So everyone, stop it. When it comes to financials, more balance sheet or income statement?

Lorilyn: Balance sheet. That’s where the bodies are heading.

John: There you go. Everyone put it in goodwill. There we go. Three more, three more. Do you have a favorite band or musician?

Lorilyn: Oh, gosh! You know what? I’m very eclectic in my taste. You know, as a DJ, you have to play a variety of music. But I’m kind of impartial to the ’80s era in general. I do love ’80s music.

John: Totally. How about paper roll, over or under?

Lorilyn: Over. People who do it under are monsters.

John: Monsters. That’s awesome. And the last one, the favorite thing you own or the favorite thing you have?

Lorilyn: My Nespresso coffee maker. No question.

John: Okay. No question.

Lorilyn: recently, someone had tweeted about theirs and I was like, “Oh, my house was burning down. That’s the one I would grab on the way out.” I’m like, “They have legs. They’re fine. Nespresso doesn’t have legs.”

John: Right. As matter of fact, one of them can grab the coffee maker for me in case I forgot it.

Lorilyn: Yes.

John: Well, that’s fantastic. Very cool. That was super fun. And it kind of leads into, I guess, a little bit of hobby, passion, what you love to do outside of work, when you’re not being an accountant, what is that?

Lorilyn: Yeah. So I mean, I guess the best way to describe it is wellness because I think a lot of times people get fixated on the certain aspects of health, when in reality, like our bodies, one functioning unit, everything affects another thing. So being able to focus kind of on all those things and bring them together to kind of just be the best version of yourself.

John: That’s fantastic. So it’s, I assume, physical and mental and emotional?

Lorilyn: It’s physical and mental, all of it. I mean, more so on the physical side of it because, obviously, that carries that into the mental side of it. But just like getting the diet, and I don’t even like the word diet, but just eating like a regular human is supposed to eat, getting exercise, sleeping, drinking enough water, kind of these basic things that there’s so much information out there and you totally get information overload. Google best diet, you’re going to get a hundred different things, a hundred different people saying how it worked for them. So it’s really hard to kind of filter through the BS. Especially coming out of college, you think college athlete like, “Oh, she knows what she’s doing.”

The reality was I had no idea what I was doing. We have our program, weight program, and then we are eating everything because we have to get big and strong. So just eat this really crappy food. We’re going to feed you bagels and peanut butter between games. You have no idea, like you don’t know anything about nutrition. You actually don’t really know anything about lifting or any of that. You are sleep deprived. I’m convinced, like for all college, is averaging like six or less hours of sleep. So you’re kind of starting back at ground zero and you have no one guiding you. I graduated college 12 years ago now. So it’s kind of been this journey of figuring out like, what the heck am I supposed to be doing?

John: Right, right. You say college athlete, I’ll let you tell everyone, what you played and where.

Lorilyn: Yep, so I’m originally from Oregon, and I played softball. I was recruited to Michigan. A funny thing, I was actually recruited at Ohio State. I had my visits lined up. I went to Michigan before I went to my Ohio State visit. And after going to Michigan, I was like, done, this is where I’m going. and be like, “Oh, I’m not coming next weekend. I’ve committed to Michigan.” They were like, “Oh, we didn’t know they were recruiting.” I’m like, “Sorry.” But yeah, I was recruited in Michigan. So I moved out there. In 2005, we won a championship through this team east of the Mississippi to win a national championship.

John: Wow. Yeah, a lot of those California teams in the Pac-12 and Arizona and all that.

Lorilyn: And the only other non-Pac-10 to win it had been Oklahoma in like 2000. So it was like a big freakin’ deal.

John: That’s fantastic. I mean, that’s a lot of commitments and a lot of time, just to be on the team, let alone an active participant of a national championship team. That’s impressive. Really cool. You’re just basically eating and doing whatever they tell you to do. And then all of a sudden, you get out into the real world and you’re like, “Ah, who’s going to give me the peanut butter and bagels?”

Lorilyn: Yes. And who’s going to tell me how many lifts to do? Because literally like you would show up and print off your workout. That’s what you would go do. It was mindless. You didn’t have to think about it. And then you remove yourself and then it is. It’s like, wellyou start working out. What am I going to do? And then it’s like, I fell into the trap of like, “Oh, I don’t want to get too big, so I’m going to do really light weights and really high reps.” That doesn’t do anything. That doesn’t build anything. That doesn’t make you lean. It wasn’t until a couple of years, I think when I was maybe 26, I met a trainer who owned a gym who was a former University of Tennessee track athlete. I’m already going to his gym because I’m like, you know what, it would be great not to have to time program my own workouts. So that was at that point I started doing more of the heavy lifting, and ladies heavy lifting will not make you big. So let’s just clear the air on that. It won’t make you big. It make you lean if you’re supplementing that with a healthy diet. But it was there I actually started you know lifting, lifting heavy. Consequently, I am stronger now than I was in college.

John: Wow, look at that.

Lorilyn: Yeah, the weight program is a lot better. Since then, I’ve left that gym and now there’s a trainer I work with online, but it’s been this kind of evolution going from coming out of college and being like, “Well, I don’t want to get too big and strong” to like, “Okay, I’m going to lift as heavy as I can but in a way that’s healthy.”

John: Right yeah, that’s another good factor.

Lorilyn: Yeah. And then also during that time, I’ve had two kids.

John: Oh, wow. Look at you. You’re just like on the go.

Lorilyn: So it’s also been trying to figure out nutrition and being like, well, what should I be eating? A lot of it was, I remember reading a guy who’s like, if you eat something and it makes you feel like crap, you shouldn’t be eating it. So you need to have kind of this biofeedback awareness. That struck such a chord with me because I’d never thought about that because it’s just like, oh, you feel bloated and gross and that’s just how it is. And then kind of like, wait, that’s not the normal. That’s your body saying, “I don’t like this. You should eat something else.” I’ve kind of done the full circle of like, “Oh, I’m going to do the whole 30. I’m going to do the Paleo and all that.” So within that, things of me figuring out like, just eat whole foods that are minimally, if not at all, processed. If you do that, it’s incredibly hard to overeat.

John: Yeah, yeah. I actually saw a comedian recently, and I can’t remember his name, but he was on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. He was doing a joke about how there’s, like in the old days, it was just food and now it’s organic food, and then the processed food is now called food. What the hell? Like why isn’t that called food and then the other stuff is called processed food or like whatever? So then it would sound worse, because I’m as guilty as anybody else. And especially the accountant in me is like, ooh, an extra dollar. I’m not paying that. It’s the same stuff. You don’t have an extra dollar.

Lorilyn: Yeah, exactly. I have this rule of thumb with myself as if it wasn’t around 200 years ago, my body probably does not know how to process it.

John: Oh, wow. Yeah, that’s some deep stuff.

Lorilyn: Once I hit the accounting world, starting to go to the accounting conferences and showing up and being like, holy crap! I can’t eat, like I don’t know where any of this is. I can’t eat this because I also have food sensitivities. It just got to the point where I’m like, well, I’ll just pack a bunch of beef jerky nuts and hope for the best.

John: I’m either going to a conference or I’m hiking. Either way, I got my food.

Lorilyn: And when I feel like after talking with other people about, a lot of people feel the same way I do about it. Like, okay, there’s a market there to kind of launch this like if you will gourmet snack box, which is like this really high-quality organic, non-GMO,none of these allergens that people can preorder online and shipped to their hotel, and then once they get there, they’re like, “Well, at least I won’t start.”

John: That’s a good idea right there.

Lorilyn: I know. I’m definitely going to explore it, but it’s hard because it’s just everything, especially it’s like breakfast so sets the tone for the day. That’s one thing I found is people think like, we’ve heard this thing that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It’s really not true. Like you don’t have to eat breakfast, or you don’t have to eat this huge gargantuan breakfast cereal. You’ll be starving. I found for me personally, and I think everyone needs to explore because everyone’s bodies are different, but I can actually have two cups of coffee and that’ll push me through till lunchtime, and that’s fine.

John: Interesting.

Lorilyn: Or on the the flip side, if I’m hungry, I’ll just do a high protein, high fat, but I try and keep my carbs lower because what happens is, for myself, if I eat my carbs too early, then I have the crash and then I actually get hungrier throughout the day because carbs are less and quicker. But everyone’s so different so it’s like, I never want to say, “Do it this way and you’ll feel this way” because you can’t. It’s all about experimentation.

John: That’s fantastic. That’s really fascinating.

Lorilyn: Then what I found too, especially that feeds into the fitness and exercise, I think everyone needs to move, but it’s like, what’s the ideal exercise? Like, obviously, I’m in personal lifting because I think it regulates your metabolism good. It creates a strong body to support your joints, but ultimately how often you should do it, what type you should do it. It’s just experimentation. You need to figure out what makes you feel your best. That’s what it’s really all about. It’s really all about what we feel your best in doing those things consistent.

John: That’s impressive. And is this something that you talk about at work?

Lorilyn: Yes. People are like, “Oh, Lorilyn, just doing her thing, doing her workout, eating her foods.”

John: They’re like hiding all their bad foods from you, like there’s shame eating in the corner.

Lorilyn: Yeah. Well, they’ll be eating something like, “I can’t eat for X, Y or Z.” I don’t like describe it. It’s really good. But I mean, they’re very sweet about it. It’s like when we do office events, like our office manager is so nice. She’ll always make sure that get me the treat that I can eat. Obviously, I don’t want to inconvenience other people with it. This is my decision. This is what I’m doing. So like one of the things we do first off is we buy lunch for them three times a week. I always tell them, I’m like, “Honestly, you guys, pick wherever you want. Don’t take me into consideration. I will figure it out.” So I try not to inconvenience anyone else and be like, “No, it has to be organic, non-GMO, Paleo,” any of that.

John: Yeah, because if you are that way, I’ve been around those people and it makes me want to hate whatever diet you’re on more than ever. I’ll never try it ever, and I probably don’t want to talk to you either. This is your choice. This is on you. So good for you, kudos. How does it come up? Have you always been forthcoming about being a college athlete and the wellness, holistic type of education that you’re on, that you’re doing for yourself? Have you been always open and sharing about it, or was it more recently?

Lorilyn: You know what? I found that people, they see what I’m doing and they ask. If they ask, then I share, bringing a certain type of food and eating it all up or not eating. That’s the thing I noticed is people don’t so much notice what you’re eating. They notice what you’re not eating. Or if you’re not drinking, they’ll be like, “Oh, why aren’t you doing this?” It’s kind of weird. Things you’re doing, it’s the things you’re not doing. I’m doing this and this is why I’m doing it. It makes me feel like this.

John: Yeah, and then if they open the door, it’s like, “Well, you asked. What do you want?” type of a thing. I think that’s great. Do you feel like any of this makes you better at your job in any way? Is there a skill set that you’re bringing to the table that maybe is a little bit different?

Lorilyn: I think actually probably how it helps me the most is my energy and my mood because it’s like, especially during tax season, that can really drain your soul out of you. Tax season is really when I really button things up. I’m so mindful about, okay, am I sleeping? Am I drinking water? How much caffeine am I having? When am I having it? Am I making sure to work out? Because I find if I can control those variables, then I can really maximize my energy and focus at work. When I feel my energy or focus go down, like the first three things are it’s like, how have I been working out? What have I been eating? Am I maybe deficient in something? Am I sleeping? I found that if something’s not being addressed there and I can address it, then that’ll kind of cascade down and fix what else is going on. But yeah, definitely, I find that if I’m really dialed in, I don’t get that afternoon slump. I need the afternoon caffeine. So definitely, it’s like energy and mood.

John: Yeah. Which is great for everybody really.

Lorilyn: Totally.

John: That’s fascinating. That’s really fascinating because I don’t think that, you know, anywhere in the University of Michigan business program did they ever tell you, “Hey, learn how to eat and take care of yourself because it’ll make you a better accountant.”

Lorilyn: I was even smart enough to get into the business school.

John: Oh, you know, that’s right. My bad.

Lorilyn: I was like, “What is this?” You’re like, “Oh, crap, I’m not going to law school.” So I literally decided to become a CPA. I was 26 was when I decided okay, I need to do something else. This is getting me nowhere. And without taking like one accounting course. I was like, “I’m going to be a CPA.”

John: There you go.

John: Good for you. Do they ever tell you? Yeah, you better learn how to eat right and exercise properly. No, like they don’t tell you any of that. It’s crazy that they don’t.

Lorilyn: What’s so funny is these types of things, like exercising, eating right, and even like financial, mindset, wellness, these are all things that they should be teaching you in high school.

John: That’s true.

Lorilyn: It’s like, no, no, no, we’ll learn about this really obscure war that happened in the late 1700s. It’s just like, classes.

John: More now than ever, that’s for sure. That’s fantastic. I just love this. and I love how much it impacts you and to the point where you’re sharing — I mean, have you gotten other people eating a little healthier or asking you for exercise tips or things like that?

Lorilyn: I have and it makes me so happy when they do because it feels like, oh, they’re seeing that it’s having a positive effect on my life and being able to share that with them. But then also you get feedback in being like, “How’s that working for you? Is it going well?” And then being like, “Yes, it’s awesome.” I’m trying on Twitter to create #AccountantsWhoHealth and kind of create this community within it to be like, “Hey, this is important. Let’s pay attention to this.”

John: That’s fantastic. That just has to create a little bit of a different relationship with those colleagues or clients than it does with the other ones, I would imagine, the ones that you’re sharing tips with and talking about this with.

Lorilyn: I mean, yeah, it’s definitely tribalism is what it is. This is a common thing that we can connect and bond over.

John: Yeah. How important is it to have a common thing to connect and bond over besides the work itself?

Lorilyn: It is really important to keep us all sane because it’s like all of us. We are all drowning in it every day. This is all we do. To be able to meet someone who’s another professional, so it’s like cool, you have that connection, but then to be able to establish connections underneath that I think is super cool because that’s something you find with a college athlete. You meet other former athletes out in the world. It’s like that’s your initial connection. You can relate on some level because of that because you’ve experienced that.

John: No, I agree totally because as an auditor, as a tax repair, or as a co-worker, the other person is a person. So you connect as a human first, and then you connect as an expert or whatever second. Yet I find that most professionals were taught to go straight to the second one and completely skipping over the first one, and it makes it such a shallow relationship.

Lorilyn: They only talk about taxing crappy clients so much.

John: Right.

Lorilyn: Something that’s a lot more positive to bond over me. It’s like most business owners and stuff and we face, you know, we have the same stresses. We’re all in it together. But it’s like being able to kind of focus on something else that’s positive.

John: Yeah, that’s an excellent point as well. I guess the organization you’re with now is a little bit smaller so it’s more nimble, I would imagine. And it’s easier for people to get to know each other. So have you always worked at a smaller firm, or have you been in bigger organizations as well and was it different?

Lorilyn: So this is only my second firm I’ve been at. My other firm was about 10 people, but because of, you know, it was very much a traditional firm, older partner. This is the way we do things, not thinking at all. So I lasted there about 10 months, and I was like, “This is not my best self.” So then my business partner, we’ve known each other since we were 18. He’s married to one of my best friends from high school. So we met when we were really young, and then he had started this firm about six years ago. So about four and a half years ago, when I was leaving the other firm, I reached out to him. I was like, “Hey, do you know anyone who’s hiring?” He’s like, “Come work with me.” I was like, “Cool.” We’re the same age. We’re both in our early 30s. So he was one of the early adopters, if you know that, kind of that billing fixed fee. And then also like in my other firm, I wasn’t allowed to talk to the clients. I had to go through the partner who would — it was just like all these inefficiencies of being able to come in and being trusted like these are your clients, you are responsible for the work relationship.

John: Yeah, because it’s like you’re an educated adult and we hired you on purpose. So go be an educated adult.

Lorilyn: Absolutely.

John: It frustrates me to no end when you get out of college and you work so hard to build up this resume and get the job and then you go in and then they’re like, “Okay, you’re a five-year-old.” You’re like, “Wait, what? No, I’m not. I wasn’t the last one. I was picked first. What the hell? Come on.” It’s crazy. It’s so crazy. How much do you feel like it’s on the organization to create that culture? How much is it on an individual to maybe create a small little circle amongst themselves?

Lorilyn: I mean tone always comes from the top. It’s definitely whoever is at the top of the organization that kind of set that example and tone and then it comes down. You can’t fake it. The people at the top have to live it and mean it.

John: No, I agree totally, because there’s sometimes those “Oh, I have to talk to some staff today.” Then they just walk around, “Hey, what are you doing? Okay, where the hell are you? Okay. Check, check, check, and then back to their hole in the wall, their office in the corner.

Lorilyn: That is so true. It comes across as that.

John: Oh, totally. It’s worse than doing nothing. It’s just terrible. Is there anything that you guys do? I heard that buying lunch three times a week, that’s awesome. Are there other things that you guys do to foster a great culture or maybe encourage other people’s passions and interests?

Lorilyn: In terms of culture is we have a remote work environment should people choose, and we have the flexible, the PTO, we don’t track it. And so we try and create a lot of flexibility for them. And then also we give a lot of people ownership in their work. A little bit we’ve been burned because we didn’t have necessarily the systems and processes in place, like the outline for them to follow, and then everyone just starts kind of be in their own way. So we’re like, okay, okay, let’s bring it back. Take ownership but just kind of follow this guideline because everything is scattered. This is growing pains, but you don’t know till you know.

John: No, that’s exactly it.

Lorilyn: One of our offices, we have a couple of offices, one of our offices is right by the movie theater. So we’re like, “Hey, let’s go midday and just break and all go to a movie together.”

John: Nice.

Lorilyn: And then we also do all celebrating birthdays and staff anniversaries and baby showers. We even promote. We try and at least come together. We found with the meals that usually gets people in the office, but it’s easy to get disconnected. We try and do these events to kind of bring everyone back and bring the room back. It is really easy to get your blinders on and get so focused on your work and kind of move with it. So we’ve tried two different things to keep that connection going without though the like, this group is not a group that would go out and get happy hour together. That’s just not the vibe. So we don’t try and do things and force it like, “Hey, we’re all going mini golf.” So like, okay, kind of do in the middle of the workday that people will appreciate.

John: That’s a huge point right there is don’t just put up a ping pong table if no one likes to play ping pong. That’s dumb.

Lorilyn: It’s like know your employee is a little better than that.

John: Yeah, just ask them. It’s not that hard. “Hey, if we do this, would you be interested? No. Okay, great. We’ll come back with a new idea.” It’s just amazing how some places operate where, well, we’ve tried doing all these things. No one does that stuff.

Lorilyn: The IT company over here.

John: Totally. And maybe if it does work, then great. But you know, if it doesn’t, then it makes sense. This has been fantastic. So do you have any words of encouragement to anyone listening that’s like, “Hey, I’m really into something, but there isn’t a charge code for it and no one’s going to really care what I like to do outside of work”?

Lorilyn: Blaze your own trail. You’re ultimately in control of your own happiness and your life. I think it’s important to grab it by the reins and do the things you need to do to make it the best life possible for yourself. Whether that means taking up a hobby you love, leaving a job you hate, bringing new friends into your life, cutting out toxic friends. I think it’s important to kind of do an assessment, see what brings you energy and what drains your energy, and try and do more of the things that bring you energy.

John: That’s so perfect: blaze your own trail. I love it. Because we’re all trying to fall into line with something that we think is what we’re supposed to be doing, and then you find out 10 years in like, this is dumb. Why are we all doing this? Nobody did this voluntarily. Somewhere along 100 years ago, there’s some nerd that everyone started to acting like, and then other people acted like that person, and then you’re mimicking someone who’s mimicking someone else and no one’s being authentic. It inhibits your ability to bring all your skills to work. You could be like really, really, really amazing. Instead, you’re coming to work with one arm tied behind your back. It’s nutty.

Lorilyn: Yeah. I think the world needs the best version of ourselves, whatever that looks like. The world is hungry for that. It’s not hungry for a lot of clones. It’s hungry for unique individuals who are full of energy and full of life.

John: No, that’s so perfect. So perfect. Well, before I bring it in for a landing, it’s only fair that I turn the tables and let you rapid-fire question me, if you’d like. Do you have two or three? We can do that.

Lorilyn: What is something you learned from accounting that you carried over into comedy?

John: Oh, how to get paid in cash and not claim it.

Lorilyn: Have you met any other accountants you’ve kind of gotten on this route, or you the only one?

John: Oh, no, no, there are. Well, Bob Newhart, of course, is the godfather of all of this. But Greg Kite is another really funny guy that does comedy. He’s a CFO in Utah. He’s been on the Green Apple Podcast. Another guy that I’ve had on the Green Apple Podcast, Ted Barton. He lives in New York City now, making this ways early 20s so he’s got time to make a mark. And then there’s another guy, Stuart Hack, who does a little bit of open mics down in Florida. He has been on the podcast. So there’s a couple. I believe Gary Gulman was an accounting major at Boston College as well. And then Greg Giraldo was a Harvard Law graduate. So there’s a lot of lawyer types as well which probably makes more sense because they argue more. But, yeah, there’s a handful of accountants that have paid their student loans as slowly as possible through doing comedy. But to go full time, yeah, maybe you know what? Yeah, I guess it’s me and Bob Newhart, I guess that’s pretty much it that made the jump.

Lorilyn: That’s awesome. Here’s one circling back on the wellness theme, did you set any wellness goals for 2019, and are you following them?

John: Oh, boy. Yeah, of course, I’m following all of them. My wellness goal was to not eat any kale, and I am nailing it. So yeah, I’m trying to exercise more and eat healthier. So my fiancée is also in on this. She is a very good cook, so that makes it a lot easier to be healthier. I used to be peanut butter and jelly king. I haven’t had one all year.

Lorilyn: That’s not necessarily bad. It’s good to also venture out, try new things.

John: Well, yeah, and it’s just eating a little bit differently and, like you said, the whole foods and the non-processed foods and things like that. It’s been great and definitely feel healthier and eating less. Yeah, I’m eating less. I’m definitely losing weight. I’m just like that tall, skinny, fat guy. It gets the skinny fat where you’re like, I was 6’3′ and why don’t these pants fit? I’m not a giant, but it’s been good. So cool.

Lorilyn: Cool.

John: Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Lorilyn, for taking the time to be with me on the Green Apple Podcast. This was so, so much fun.

Lorilyn: Thank you so much.

John: So if you’d like to see some pictures from Lorilyn’s college softball days or maybe connect with her on social media, #AccountantsWhoHealth. Be sure to go to greenapplepodcast.com and while you’re on the page, please click that big green button, do the anonymous research survey about corporate culture. So thanks again for subscribing to the show and for sharing this with your friends so they get the message that we’re all trying to spread which is to go out and be a green apple.