
Mariette is a Financial Educator & Salsa Dancer
Mariette Martinez talks about her early days dancing at rave parties, putting together the salsa popup dance party at a conference, and what it takes to build a great culture at the workplace!
Episode Highlights
âą Getting into dancing
âą Salsa popup party on YouTube
âą How finding joy in your life can lead to professional success
âą What holds people back from being open
âą Building a great culture in the workplace
Please take 2 minutes
to do John’s anonymous survey
about Corporate Culture!
Mariette’s Pictures
(click to enlarge)
â
![]() | ![]() Mariette hanging out at Quickbooks Connect | ![]() Mariette getting ready for a Facebook live |
Mariette’s Links
LinkedIn
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
YouTube
Mariette Martinez
Master Your Books
Salsa Popup Party at 2017 Scaling New Heights
Transcript
- Read Full TranscriptOpen or Close
Welcome to Episode 283 of Whatâs Your “And”? This is John Garrett. Each Wednesday, I interview a professional who, just like me, is known for a hobby or a passion or an interest outside of work. To put it another way, itâs encouraging people to find their âAndâ, those things above and beyond your technical skills, the things that actually differentiates you when youâre at work.
Iâm so excited to let everyone know that my bookâs being published very, very soon, and itâll be available on Amazon and a few other websites. Check out whatsyourand.com for all the details. I canât say how much it means that everyone thatâs listening on the show and changing the cultures where they work because of it, and the book will really help to spread this message.
Please donât forget to hit subscribe so you donât miss any of the future episodes of the podcast. I love sharing such interesting stories each and every week. This week is no different with my guest, Mariette Martinez. Sheâs a financial educator and accountant near Los Angeles, California, and her birthday is in two days. Oh, my goodness, and now sheâs with me on Whatâs Your “And”? Mariette, thank you so much for taking the time to be with me here today.
Mariette: Thank you so much for having me, and right before my birthday. Iâm super pumped.
John: No, Iâm so excited to have you be a part this. I know a lot of your friends, and youâve been a long-time listener as well, so thank you for reaching out and being like, âHey, I want to be on too.â This is so perfect.
Mariette: You know what? You have so many cool kids, I just have to be part of it. Iâm feeling a little left out, so thank you for bringing me in.
John: Youâre the president now. Youâre the president. All right. So you know, 17 rapid-fire questions, get to know Mariette at a new level here.
Mariette: Iâm a little worried about these because every time Iâve heard them, I donât know how these people answer them. So, letâs go. Letâs do it.
John: Okay, Iâll do an easy one. Iâll do an easy one. Cats or dogs.
Mariette: Iâm not really a pet person.
John: Okay, people, people?
Mariette: People person, yeah, I have a lot of people in my life, so, people, yeah.
John: All right, how about a favorite number?
Mariette: Yeah, seven.
John: Okay, is there a reason?
Mariette: Yes, because it took seven days to make our life, this earth and everything that we breathe, so, seven days, seven life, my favorite number.
John: No, thatâs most popular number, for sure, but Iâve never had that reason. Thatâs really great, really great. Okay, how about least favorite vegetable?
Mariette: I think anyone I canât pronounce usually.
John: Thatâs great. I love that. Because then you donât have to order it because you donât even know how to say it.
Mariette: Exactly. I donât know how to say it, so I donât feel bad that Iâm not eating it. There you go.
John: I love that answer. Thatâs so good, so good. How about Star Wars or Star Trek?
Mariette: Iâve never watched either of them, sorry, guys.
John: Okay, no worries. Fair enough. How about your computer, PC or a Mac?
Mariette: PC, for sure.
John: PC. Yeah, me too, me too. How about on your mouse, right click or left click?
Mariette: Iâve never really understood that question. Itâs just my finger goes where itâs supposed to, so I guess, left, I think.
John: Left. You just make a decision. I can click on that. Bang. There you go. I love it. Oceans or mountains.
Mariette: Definitely, oceans that have mountains around it because I like hiking.
John: There you go. Okay, but do you like to look at the ocean while youâre in the mountain?
Mariette: Yeah.
John: Okay. No, that works. California is good for that. How about a favorite adult beverage? And donât even tell me you donât do adult beverages.
Mariette: Yeah, I do do adult beverages. I feel really fancy when I order a martini.
John: Yeah, it does sound fancy, doesnât it? Thatâs great. How about balance sheet or income statement?
Mariette: Oh, well I need to love both, so, both. Can I say both?
John: Okay, trial balance? You need everything?
Mariette: Letâs just say TB. Yeah, weâll go with that.
John: All right. Pens or pencils.
Mariette: If itâs a really good pen, pen; but I love being able to erase and restart, so, pencil. Iâm making this really difficult. Iâm choosing both.
John: No, thatâs fine. It sounds like an enrolled agent to me.
Mariette: Exactly.
John: Well, it depends.
Mariette: It depends. Yeah, let me go back and look at that.
John: How about puzzles, sudoku or crossword?
Mariette: I like it much more simpler, just something you can buy in a box and put it on your table and make it.
John: Jigsaw. Okay, all right, jigsaw.
Mariette: Yeah, Iâm a jigsaw kind of girl.
John: All right, this is super easy. Favorite color.
Mariette: Definitely, and I know some of your guests are going to be irked, I love hot pink actually.
John: Okay, okay. Fair enough. How about least favorite color?
Mariette: If I had to choose, it would probably be black because I love color.
John: Interesting. All right, okay. How about chocolate or vanilla?
Mariette: Can I mix it together and have a swirl?
John: Oh, fancy.
Mariette: I like to swirl it up.
John: Okay. All right, I see where youâre going here. How about a favorite actor or actress?
Mariette: Ooh, thatâs a great one. Letâs go back to Al Pacino.
John: Solid answer, solid answer. Weâve got two more, two more. Early bird or night owl.
Mariette: Both. I get up about five in the morning and I stay up until close to 12-ish.
John: Wow, you are a robot. That is amazing.
Mariette: I like to think Energizer bunny actually, but.
John: Okay. Yeah, if I did that, I would just sleep during the day and then be like, yeah. Iâm up at six. Iâm awake at midnight. Because youâre awake at night.
Mariette: Yeah, Iâm awake at night pretty much. This is saying that.
John: Excellent. Favorite thing you own or a favorite thing you have.
Mariette: A favorite thing I own is my own life, and a favorite thing I have is my family.
John: Thatâs very good. Just in case theyâre listening as well then they donât kick you out. And especially you, I mean, it sounds like, with all your aunts and uncles and cousins, how many?
Mariette: Well, my mom immigrated with 14 siblings, so I have 14 aunts and uncles, and we have over 500 cousins. Thatâs first, second and already third generation.
John: Holy cow. Wow.
Mariette: Yeah, pretty much I have my life set with my family.
John: Very cool, very cool. Yeah, that would be pretty awesome to have as well. So letâs start dancing.
Mariette: Yeah, letâs start dancing. We were talking about it earlier that what brings me joy or what brings joy around other people with so much family members when thereâs really not too much more to do, you dance. You just put the music on, or you bring a mariachi in or a big band. We love to bring the bands to our party, and we just dance. We just jam it out, and thatâs it.
I dance for fun. I danced when I was younger. My daughter dances now. Sheâs 14. Honestly I love dancing wherever Iâm at. I was a club kid in the â90s, so I used to go to raves, and Iâd dance at the raves. Iâd get there at two in the morning and danced until 11 in the morning. I danced at conferences. One of your guests, Byron Patrick, heâs my dance partner, so if heâs listening, Byron, see you at the next conference.
John: I would pay good money to watch Byron Patrick dance.
Mariette: Heâs a pretty good dancer. Heâs a lot of fun.
John: He seems more like a stand and clapper there guy.
Mariette: Yeah, heâs a clapper, but heâs putting his arms up.
John: Oh, man, this is so good.
Mariette: It just brings a lot of joy to people. One time, with my partners, I have a bilingual platform called âTu Tres Maestras,â we had a pop-up salsa party at Scaling New Heights in 2018. Itâs on YouTube if you want to watch it.
John: Very cool. Is it just like, hey, weâre doing this salsa party and everybody come?
Mariette: You know what? It was a super — I donât know if you guys ever seen The Simpsons where they actually had a pop-up party. Itâs this really funny episode where the whole episode was about how he wanted to have a party, so he started sending messages. At the end, they had this pop-up party at this random place. It was pretty much like that.
Since the day of the conference started, we started texting people and putting things on Twitter and on social. Then on the second day of the conference, at 6:00, in an actual, one of the rooms where we taught, we moved the tables and the chairs. We put on Despacito on the video, and we actually had a salsa party. We had over 100 people in there, and it was really amazing. That was one of those times when you ask for forgiveness, not for permission.
John: Oh, totally, yeah, which is very un-accountant of you.
Mariette: Yeah, it was very un-accountant of me, but there was a lot of accountants, a lot of partners in there, half partners. It was a lot of fun. Again the footage is on YouTube if you want to go search for it.
John: Thatâs awesome. Weâll definitely have a link from whatsyourand.com. People can go and just click the link there, for sure. Thatâs so great.
You just grew up from going to family gatherings and the mariachis and the bands and just everyone dancing and just getting into it. Did you ever do formal dance as well like what your daughterâs doing now?
Mariette: I never did formal dance. My parents, they actually were competitive in salsa dancing. One of my nieces, my sisterâs daughter was also competitive, she still is, in salsa dancing. I never went competitive. I just honestly did it for a lot of fun. Now my daughter, she also does it for fun. Sheâs been in hip-hop now for a year. I donât think she ever wants to really go competitive. It also brings her joy, so thatâs why we do it.
John: No, thatâs exactly it. I mean, it doesnât have to be competitive. It doesnât have to be for money. It doesnât have to be anything like that. Itâs just, youâre taking lessons so you become better. Thatâs great. Even if you donât do lessons, itâs like, I just love to dance, and I should be teaching the lessons. Pretty much, thatâs…
Mariette: You know what? If you bring me on for a Follow-Up Friday, letâs say, two, three years from now, my dreams or passions is not to teach dancing but to teach Zumba because I like crazy dancing. Thatâs one of my goals, so letâs see if I meet them in a couple of years. I do want to become a Zumba instructor, so weâll see.
John: No, that sounds very awesome. Itâs something that, like you said, brings you joy. How important is it, do you think, for professionals to have something that brings them joy, whether itâs work or, more than likely, something outside of work?
Mariette: Yeah. I would say more than likely, something outside of work, but eventually you can bring it into work. I think itâs critical. I think itâs critical for sustainability in yourself and believing in yourself and growing yourself. Iâll just give you an example.
About five years ago, Iâve already had my business for seven years, and I was just burned out, been in the accounting industry for 15 years, had my own practice for seven years, and Iâm like, whatâs up with this? Iâm a pretty joyful person. Again, Iâm a dancer. I jam it up. Iâm just not feeling like dancing.
So, I started learning more about how to bring more joy, how to transform your life, how to focus more on your why and your purpose. That was critical to me being where Iâm at now. So I think itâs critical for you to actually continue being an entrepreneur, being successful is to make sure joy is a huge part of it.
John: Yeah. Thatâs really powerful, and just to hear your story from that. Because itâs so easy to let professionalism just suffocate what we love and what we want to do and who we really are because we think we have to act a certain way or do certain things or whatever. We forget about those things that bring us joy, which is so powerful to hear. Joy is deep. Thatâs a big thing.
Mariette: I think it is a big thing. I think thatâs what it is too, is I think that this idea of a professional and a personal life — you actually recently put a tweet on there, and I said I kindly have to give you some push back. I donât think there’s such thing as a personal and professional life. We live blended lives every day, more every day.
When we have to work with so many different people and we have to believe in inclusion and really opening ourselves up to a bigger world, it blends everything that we believe in. It blends our beliefs, our values. We have to align more with that, and thatâs very personal, like you said. Thatâs deep. Weâre talking about deep connections.
So, yeah, I think that we need to be more open, to understand itâs okay to be professional, but to bring that personal uniqueness into your world is what brings the joy into your world.
John: Thatâs huge. Itâs also what differentiates you. When youâre an accountant, letâs be honest, thereâs another accountant within a block that does the same work you do pretty much. When clients are looking for work or when youâre looking to attract and retain talent as you grow, whatâs the difference between your firm and the next one? Well, if you have no answer there, and itâs not the work that you do.
On the rare one-tenth of 1%, a person thatâs a wizard at something, okay, Iâll give that to you, but for the other 99.9% of us, no. There are other things to us, but even if you do have that thing, what is the joy, and where are you getting the joy in your life?
Mariette: I love when you mention, letâs say you put ten accountants in a room and you ask them to tell you about themselves, the people that say, âI am an accountant, and I do this,â you lose those people. The people that say, âI believe in this, I am helping this community,â those are the people that youâre going to pull towards because you want to work with people that have a belief, that are passionate, that have a purpose.
Everybody could do anything, honestly. Letâs be honest. But do you believe in it so much that you are just that green apple? That was your first name of your podcast. How are you really differentiating yourself? How are you that — the other one is the purple cow. How are you the purple cow? How are you sticking out? So, donât be afraid to say, âI believe.â Truly, what do you believe in? Because I want to follow someone that has beliefs.
John: Thatâs great. Yeah, that Seth Godin book is so awesome. In there, he says, âIf youâre not standing out then youâre completely invisible,â which is so good. What do you think it is that holds people back from wanting to share that or wanting to open up like that?
Mariette: Yeah, I love that question. Honestly I think it is that disbelief or that limited belief that as soon as you get personal, people are going to pull back. Actually itâs the complete opposite. Itâs as soon as you get personal, you actually draw people in. We have to share that.
Thatâs actually one of my biggest passions is sharing that when you actually share what youâre about, that draws the right people in, but you need to be open to do that. Thatâs why, again, Iâm so honored and thankful to be here, John, because you gave me the opportunity to share what I believe, and those people that like it or are drawn to it or resonate with it, theyâre going to now connect with me. Right?
John: Absolutely, because you could help or be around anyone but you want to be around the right people. The other people are going to drag you down. Theyâre going to suck the joy out. Itâs going to be exhausting. Itâs going to be frustrating and all that. Going back to the dancing, do you feel like thereâs a skill set or a mindset there that you bring to the accounting work that you do?
Mariette: Yeah. Itâs funny you bring back the dancing because just think about dancing. For instance, I teach a lot. I am part of the Intuit Trainer/Writer Network, so I create a lot of content for them, write for them and teach a lot of their courses, both live and at their conferences. If you see the feedback, people will say, âOh, my God, sheâs so enthusiastic. It sounds like sheâs dancing. She has so much joy when sheâs speaking. I can connect with her.â To be honest with you, ladies and gentlemen, I actually have a standing desk. I stand and dance all day long.
John: Okay.
Mariette: So, if you are watching or listening to one of my trainings, I am probably dancing or at least moving around in the background. Obviously that can help. So, yeah, I definitely think itâs that mindset that, itâs okay. You can be happy and excited about what youâre doing, but more importantly, if youâre not happy or excited about what youâre doing, whatâs wrong? Whatâs going on? How can you change that? Because you can change that too. You donât have to be stuck in misery.
How do you change that mindset and be open to, now, having a happier, joyful, abundant life? Absolutely. I think dancing gives that to you. If you want to bring some kind of joy, even if itâs something small, just start moving around. Get that blood moving. Let that blood flow.
John: Yeah. Even if youâre not good at it, if youâre having fun, who cares? Thatâs the thing. Weâre so worried that weâre still in sixth grade, and everyoneâs judging each other and going to shove you in a locker or whatever, just pass notes around about you or whatever. Itâs like, yeah, Iâm not a good dancer, and I donât care.
I love how you said that where if you donât have joy, then find something that does and then bring it to other source. Work can bring joy, for sure, but there are times where it sucks. Itâs hard and busy season or whatever. If youâre able to bring that dance to it, then itâs not as painful for you and also everyone around you.
Mariette: Exactly. You know what? When youâre working with people that bring you joy too, for instance, I love the fact that we were talking about dance and talking about dance and work at the same time. That could be a great conversation starter. Hey, what do I like to do? What do you like to do? Now you have an opening.
Sometimes also, when you said, what will draw people back to get more personal, they donât have an opening. They donât know how to start. Theyâre like, well, where do I start? Start with something you like to do. Then ask the next person, âWell, what do you like to do?â Right?
John: Thatâs a great tip. Yeah, because the reciprocity, they feel like they have to share then.
Mariette: Exactly.
John: And itâs also you being a little bit vulnerable first. Itâs not like youâre going to ask them, theyâre going to answer, and then youâre going to laugh and point fingers and run away. Itâs like, no. Itâs amazing sometimes what our subconscious does to us to sabotage cool things, which is really, really a shame. Is this something that you do talk about? I mean, clearly, you do because you started a pop-up too.
Mariette: Yeah, I do. I do talk about that a lot. Iâm in a few groups really deep into my heart. Iâm in a women entrepreneur group with over 60 women, and we talk a lot about mindset and joy and being in our zone of genius and our zone of excellence and our zone of joy. We talk a lot about that. I like to share about it through all my social media. If you follow me, youâll hear me say that a lot.
I even talk about it daily to my family, to my kids. They get home, and Iâm like, so, what was cool about today? Not, what happened? What was cool about today? I try to bring that happiness out because nothing is cool when youâre a teenager sometimes.
John: Right, right.
Mariette: I try to pull it out of them. Donât tell me the bummer stuff. Tell me what was cool. Thatâs where the conversation starts.
John: Yeah. Wouldnât it be awesome if a public accounting firm or a professional organization, whatever, an office, at the end of the day, the manager is like, âOkay, what was cool about today?â
Mariette: Isnât that cool?
John: How great would that be if people did that, and how simple is that?
Mariette: Yeah.
John: What was cool about today? Someone is like, âWell, we didnât kill each other.â Okay, well.
Mariette: Well, John, you just gave me an idea. Imagine if youâre trying to bring that to your culture because company culture is so big. Youâre talking about, how do we keep working on the mindset from a company perspective? Itâs building your culture. But just imagine walking outside of the door, every time you walk and leave, thereâs a big sign that says, âWhat was cool about today?â
John: Yeah, yeah.
Mariette: You leave with that in your mind. You leave with that, driving home to your kids or to your families. If you see that — or put it on a Post-It on your rear view. What was cool about today?
John: Yeah, exactly. Then cover up the whole rear-view mirror so that when you get pulled over, youâre like, âBut, officer, you donât understand. I did this macro, and it was amazing.â
Mariette: Put it up. Put it on your rear-view mirror right now. Put it on your radio. Put it somewhere.
John: Yeah, yeah. No, but thatâs such a great idea. I love that because what if? What if? That would be a cool place to work. How much do you feel like itâs on that organization to create that culture and maybe have these signs or whatever, where itâs cool for people to share outside-of-work passions, or how much is it on the individual?
Mariette: Honestly, at this point, I think itâs probably 90% on the culture. If you want to build that culture, you do need to go over and beyond to bring that to them every day. I think, little by little, youâre going to gradually see that the team is going to just incorporate it, whether theyâre going to just start asking the questions back or whether theyâre going to start doing some organic just collaborations. Hey, I hung out with John today after work. We were talking about what was cool about whatâs going on with our culture.
It will happen. If you build it, they will go. They will get to it, and it will start becoming something natural to them, but absolutely itâs on the company to do it. Go back to the example, walking out and seeing a big, ugly, white wall or walking out and seeing this whole message saying, âWhat was cool today?â So, I think the company would do it, and theyâre going to feel it. The people will feel it.
John: Yeah, I believe what youâre saying, for sure. Because, like you were saying about the asking for forgiveness instead of permission, so many of us operate in a permission-based world where, well, they didnât say we could. Yeah, but they didnât say we couldnât. At no point was there, you canât use a conference base for a pop-up salsa dancing. You never told me. What do you want from me? Did we break anything? No. Whatâs the damage here? Nothing. If anything, itâs the opposite.
Now, itâs cool. Itâs on YouTube. Everybody knows. They know the name of the conference where it happened. Thatâs where cool stuff goes down. So many of us operate in asking for permission, but if you give them the permission, if you build the sandbox, if you will, then itâs like, okay, anything in here, go nuts, play.
Mariette: I think you closed it perfectly when youâre like, thatâs where cool things go down. So, someone needs to do it. In the case of me, yeah, I did a pop-up party, but now people are going to be like, thatâs where the cool people are. Thatâs where people can get away with having salsa parties. So, now, theyâre going to attend that conference.
Even if the host didnât necessarily give you permission to do it, I probably brought more people to the conference for the following year without really intentionally doing it. Thatâs exactly what that does. It brings in people you want to align with your business, with your culture, with your long-term plans and goals.
John: Yeah, and I mean whether itâs a conference, whether itâs an organization thatâs every day. Yeah, and if somebodyâs out there and theyâre like, I hate salsa dancing, well then donât come. I donât care. Donât work here because if you work here, youâre not going to be a right fit anyway because if you donât like salsa dancing, then youâre not going to like Mariette; and if you donât like Mariette, then you donât like these other 99 people. Youâre eventually going to get angry anyway, so we might as well filter you out now. Instead of being for everybody, letâs just figure out who weâre actually for and then go love them even more.
Mariette: I love that. Oh, my gosh, Iâm so into that. Yes, love even more the ones that are your people. Absolutely.
John: No, no, thatâs awesome. Do you have any words of encouragement to anyone listening before salsa pop-ups start happening in all the conferences everywhere?
Mariette: I would say the words of encouragement is just to break down really what we were talking about, is that everybody has something in them that they love doing, and I think sometimes we forget. We havenât done it for a long time. Youâve had some guests here that have talked about things that they havenât done in years or even decades, but when they start doing it again, they feel alive.
Iâll just give you an example of Kristen DiFolco. You had her, and I was so touched by her interview when she started talking about singing. It really brought me in because it helped me to remember. Am I still doing things that bring me joy, that I love doing, that I can bring in to my, both, personal and professional life, which I call the blended life?
You all have it. Every single one of you guys have it. You just have to go back and sometimes go real far back and remember what it is. John made me go back to the â90s when I was raving and dancing. He said âReally tell me what brings you joy, what makes you get on fire.â Iâm like, well I used to be a raver, a club kid in the â90s. Is that cool?
John: But it leads out to so many other things today even, your love of dancing even in your home and then sharing that with your daughter and going to see her perform and living vicariously through that and your family events and all that.
This has been awesome and so much fun. Itâs only fair that since I started out rapid fire questioning you with all these hard questions, now youâre the host, and itâs your birthday. Why not? So, two or three questions, anything you want to ask me, and Iâll let you be in charge.
Mariette: I did have a question for you, and I want to find it because I — oh, yes. The first one was this one. First, I wanted to ask you, why do you do rapid fire questions?
John: Oh, okay. I do it because I think itâs a really fun way to just get to know someone, off the bat, with just some mostly surface level questions that might lead to something where youâre like, I would have never guessed that. Somebody, whatâs your favorite band? Theyâre like, Slipknot or some heavy def, metal, whatever. Youâre like, what? Youâre a managing partner of a law firm. I would have never guessed that. Or something where youâre just like, thatâs cool. You just get to see different sides of people.
I think it also loosens people up where itâs like, okay, weâre just talking about silly stuff, but itâs actually who you are. I try not to have my questions be super, super deep because thatâs not the purpose for this podcast, but certainly, you can have questions that are like that, that are –plus, those would you rather sort of questions are super fun too.
Mariette: Yeah, and I love that. Actually, I love your answer because especially, Iâve heard you say, when people say something, youâre like, âThatâs cool.â I love that. Youâre kind of shocked, but then at the same time, youâre impressed. Oh, I would have never thought that about you. Thatâs awesome.
John: Well every answer is cool. Itâs like, oh. Especially when, pens or pencils, and people are really particular about, well, itâs got to be this kind of pen and this kind of thing. Iâm like, wow, you really love your pens. Itâs cool.
Mariette: The next one was, what is the craziest response youâve ever gotten to a rapid question?
John: Oh, craziest. Yeah, I guess it would probably be like a band or musician kind of question. Iâm trying to remember. It was something like that where it was like a very heavy def metal sort of band that you wouldnât expect any professional type person to be, just stereotypically. Oh, I didnât see that one coming.
Or sometimes too, the favorite thing you have or the favorite thing you own, those are really touching. Itâs something that someoneâs grandfather passed down type of a thing, or grandparents gave me when, whatever. Those are pretty cool answers as well.
Mariette: This is one that I really wanted to know. Since you started the podcast, how, or if, has this happened, has your âAndâ changed, has it evolved, and how?
John: Mine is definitely college football and ice cream and music. Those have definitely always been there even when I was a kid and to now. I would say mine hasnât changed, but my confidence and my message has definitely gotten stronger because I see that Iâm not the only one. There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of us.
My own research has showed that itâs like 92% of us that have something, so weâre actually the stereotype. Weâre the norm. Itâs by far, the most — I mean, itâs not even close. Itâs not a 50-50. Itâs 92 to 8. For too long, that 8% has bullied the 92 to think that if you donât have something, or if you do have something outside of work, then youâre less dedicated to your job. Youâre probably not very good at it. Youâre less professional and whatever.
In my research and other studies that Iâve done that when I speak, itâs the opposite. Like you were saying, you think people are going to run away. They donât. They run to you. If anything, itâs just my confidence has gotten stronger, and hearing your story today, it just helps that, to hear, when you were burned out and all that, what did you turn to? More accounting? No. You turned to dance.
Mariette: Right.
John: You still did the accounting just fine, but you donât double down on the thing thatâs not maybe the source of total joy at the moment. Dance always brings you joy. Youâve never once danced and be like, I probably should — well, maybe in those raves — youâre probably like, well, maybe I shouldnât. Youâre like, oh, itâs noon, and Iâm now just going to bed. Youâve never danced and once regretted it, or been like, that didnât bring me joy.
Mariette: Exactly. I love that. I love the confidence that thatâs brought you. I agree. I love how we can evolve in our âAndâ or even strengthen our âAndâ based on learning from others or hearing other stories. I think thatâs awesome. Thank you. I love it.
John: Yeah, and it can definitely change. It can definitely change for people. Itâs just mine are pretty generic, so itâs easy. So, thatâs cool. This has been so much fun, Mariette. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with me on Whatâs Your âAndâ?
Mariette: Thank you so much. I had so much fun. Talk to you soon.
John: Awesome. Yeah. Everyone, if youâd like to see some pictures of Mariette or maybe catch that YouTube link or maybe connect with her on social media, be sure to go to whatsyourand.com. All the links are there, and while youâre on that page, please click that big button. Do the anonymous research survey about corporate culture.
Thanks again for subscribing on iTunes or whatever app you use and for sharing this with your friends so they get the message that weâre all trying to spread, that who you are is so much more than what you do.
Related Posts

Episode 377 – Adrian L Mayse
Adrian is an Accounting Dept Chair & Childrenâs Book AuthorAdrian Mayse talks about what inspired him to...

Episode 375 – Ben R Loggins
Ben is an Accountant & Roswell UFO ResearcherBen Loggins talks about how he first became interested in...