Episode 333 – Tosha Anderson

Welcome to Episode 333 of What’s Your “And”? This is John Garrett, and 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, it’s encouraging people to find their “And”, those things above and beyond your technical skills, the things that actually differentiates you when you’re at work.

I’m so excited to let everyone know that my book is published. It’s available on Amazon, Indigo, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop, all the websites, so check out whatsyourand.com for all the details. I can’t say how much it means that everyone’s reading it, writing such great reviews on Amazon, and more importantly, changing the cultures where they work because of it.

Please don’t forget to hit subscribe to the podcast, so you don’t miss any of the future episodes. I love sharing such interesting stories each and every week, and this week is no different with my guest, Tosha Anderson. She’s the founder and CEO of The Charity CFO in St. Louis, Missouri, and now she’s with me here today. Tosha, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?

Tosha: Thanks so much for having me.

John: Oh, this is going to be so much fun. You’re in St. Louis, so you’re already near and dear to my heart. We’re all good. This is going to be a blast. I have my rapid-fire questions here though.

Tosha: Fire away.

John: Get to know Tosha on a new level right out of the gate. Okay, easy one, favorite color.

Tosha: Red.

John: Red, okay. How about a least favorite color?

Tosha: Probably a brown, something a little dull.

John: Yeah, that’s a solid answer. That’s a good answer. How about a favorite place you’ve been on vacation?

Tosha: Favorite place I’ve been in the United States is probably San Diego.

John: Oh, yeah, that’s a good answer. That’s a good answer. How about puzzles, Sudoku or crossword?

Tosha: Sudoku probably.

John: Okay, that’s actually how I do my taxes.

Tosha: That’s how so many people do their taxes.

John: Would you say you’re more of an early bird or a night owl?

Tosha: Definitely an early bird. I’ve been accused of being a shot out of a cannon in the morning.

John: By accused, by everyone?

Tosha: It’s probably valid.

John: It’s probably valid. All right, how about a favorite actor or actress?

Tosha: Let’s see. I have to confess, I’m horrible at watching movies. I would probably say something like a classic, like a Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, any classic movies that you just know it’s going to be good because they’re in it.

John: You just know it’s going to be good. Yeah, absolutely. All right, this is a tricky one, brownie or ice cream.

Tosha: Brownie, for sure.

John: Brownie. Okay, okay, all right. Since my book is out, got to know, Kindle or real books.

Tosha: Wow. I do a lot of both, and I do audiobooks. It depends. If I’m on vacation on the beach, I need a real book. If I’m just reading on an airplane or at home, usually Kindle, good mix of both.

John: Yeah, yeah, and the audiobook, I should throw that in the mix too. Yeah, absolutely. How about a favorite number?

Tosha: 10.

John: 10. Is there a reason?

Tosha: Not particularly, I just like the… It’s a nice balanced number. I don’t know.

John: It’s a solid number. I was just curious. Yeah. No, absolutely. How about, oceans or mountains?

Tosha: Oh, that’s a tough one. Both, which is probably why I like California.

John: There you go. The mountains could go into the ocean.

Tosha: Exactly. Or the Pacific Northwest which is where I just came from, so, absolutely both.

John: Yeah. Cliffs, that’s the answer, cliffs. There you go. How about, this is a good one, balance sheet or income statement?

Tosha: I like the income statement. On a technical accountant would probably, an auditor that I used to be with would probably say balance sheet, but I’ll go with income statement.

John: Yeah. No, good for you. Way to rebel. I like that. How about a favorite TV show of all time?

Tosha: Probably The Office.

John: Yes. There you go.

Tosha: It’s just so relatable.

John: For all the reasons, all the reasons, yeah, yeah. How about Star Wars or Star Trek?

Tosha: Oh, I don’t do sci-fi so much. I think that’s the practical-minded me. It has to be something I can envision, that I could empathize with, and sci-fi is not something I’ve been able to get there.

John: I can understand that, for sure, for sure. All right, heels or flats.

Tosha: Heels.

John: Heels. Fancy, all right. Three more. Your computer, more of a PC or a Mac?

Tosha: Oh, 100% Mac.

John: Oh, wow. Okay, all right.

Tosha: Yes. I told you I’m not a normal accountant.

John: Yeah. I’m not allowed even to go into a Mac store. I am not cool enough.

Tosha: My whole company is on Macs. Everything in my life is Mac.

John: Good for you. All right, how about a favorite ice cream flavor?

Tosha: Probably a butter pecan or something chocolate and coconut.

John: Oh, okay, all right. That’s a good mix. Okay, and the last one, favorite thing you have or favorite thing you own.

Tosha: Well, I would probably say my four-pound Chihuahua named Einstein, but if I had to pick an actual physical good, it would definitely be one of my Apple products, either my MacBook or my phone or my Apple Watch.

John: All right, you have all of the things. That’s impressive.

Tosha: I really do.

John: I think that’s why their valuation is so high. Thanks to Tosha Anderson. That should be in the press release.

Tosha: Exactly.

John: That’s awesome. Well, cool. Let’s talk travel. Is that something that you grew up doing or something you got into later in life?

Tosha: Yeah, it’s definitely something I did not grow up with, and I really wanted to create a life that allowed me to travel more. I just didn’t know when, how, where. Really, it hasn’t been for, but the last couple years, I started traveling more and more. I did a little bit in high school. I spent about three weeks abroad. Frankly, I was just a poor college student and a poor high school student. My parents were both blue collar working people that just didn’t have an opportunity to allow us kids to travel with them quite a bit. It’s definitely something that, now that I’m a little bit older and have a little bit more disposable income, that we’re able to do more and more. So, it’s definitely something I’ve always wanted to do. It’s just now actually have an opportunity to do it.

John: No, I can completely understand that. I grew up, my dad was in the military, so luckily, we just moved, and that was kind of vacationing. There was that, so I got fortunate that way. Otherwise, yeah, very similar, for sure. Is it mostly within the US where you travel, or have you been also going abroad as well?

Tosha: It’s funny, up until this year, I would say, over the last couple years, most of my travels have been abroad, certainly Europe, lots of islands. I love the beach, as I mentioned, but I also can appreciate mountains. We’ve done a lot of travel, my husband and I, around the Caribbean and those sort of things.

Over the last couple years, we’ve really decided to explore more of our own country, so we’ve been really focused on doing a lot of travel here within the United States. We’ve been doing a lot of traveling up until this COVID-19 situation. We’ve been able to travel quite extensively last year and the year before, a little bit of a slowdown this year, of course, but hoping to continue and pick it back up, once things are a little bit more stable.

John: No, that’s fantastic. You mentioned San Diego, of course, but are there some of the other cool stories or experiences that you’ve had from travel?

Tosha: Yeah, so really dovetails into my “and”. My “and” was really, I wanted to — honestly, I’d left my job without a plan. I just assumed I would get another job that was a better fit for me. I’m a very practical person. I’m an accountant. All calculated risks and all of my decisions have multiple contingency plans, so when I left my full-time job as a CFO, I resigned, and I had no idea what I was going to do, but I knew I had to find something better. My husband’s a nurse. He worked nights in the hospital, and I worked all the time in this really high-stress job. I just knew, whatever I was going to do, wasn’t going to be that.

I left my job and then I just decided — I actually got a couple interviews lined up for another CFO position, and I decided to cancel them, withdraw my name from consideration, and I went ahead and just decided to start my own consulting firm. I thought I was just going to find a couple clients, work part-time, but maybe we can live abroad for chunks of time. Maybe we can go on multi-week vacations. I’m starting to think all of these things that we can now do if I wasn’t chained to my job.

John: Right.

Tosha: It took off from there. That’s really what started everything, but after four and a half years, which is how long the firm has been in existence now, we just took one of our first longer vacations, and we actually — so we were in St. Louis. We ended up hitting nine different states. We actually went to Idaho, stayed there for a few days, went whitewater rafting. We then rented an RV, and we took an RV out to Yellowstone and many spots in Yellowstone, so, seeing parts of Montana. We went out the Grand Tetons, down to Wyoming and Jackson Hole, circled back and then got rid of the RV, rented a car and then drove out to the Pacific Northwest and along the coast there. Yeah, we were gone for a good two and a half weeks. That was an incredible trip, the longest one in my adult life. Next we’re hoping, if all works well this winter, I would love to do two weeks in Hawaii.

John: Oh, nice.

Tosha: A couple different islands. Winter is cold here. We’ll be trying to go somewhere warmer.

John: Right. Well, especially in winter, yeah, that’s very strategic. That’s for sure. It’s just cool how much there is — I mean, in our own country, in the US, and no matter what country we live in, I think we usually take it for granted because it’s like, well, I’ll get to it someday, and then you never do. That’s great that you were intentional about it.

Tosha: Oh, and that’s really my focus now at the particular age that I’m at. I had some amazing wisdom shared with me when I was contemplating starting this firm. At the time, my daughter was a year old, and someone said to me, “Your kid’s going to need you when they’re older. They notice more when you’re not there when they’re older.” At one year old, she’s just not going to see that you’re gone so much, or you’re busy, or you’re preoccupied with business. Now that she’s six, she absolutely knows when I’m not available to work, or she doesn’t perceive me to be spending enough time with her.

John: Right.

Tosha: Now she’s at a school age and she gets summers off, my goal is, every summer, to go somewhere for two or three weeks, every single summer.

John: Nice.

Tosha: Until she’s old enough where she doesn’t want to hang out with me anymore. I’ve only got a few more years, but —

John: There is that window where it goes by quickly, I’d imagine, but that’s great. Because I remember, as a kid, that’s one thing my parents were good about, was taking advantage of where we were around because we were only going to live here for two or three years, so you have to. I remember moving to St. Louis for high school, and there were kids that hadn’t been to the Arch. I’m like, wait, what? You’re 14. How’s that possible? It’s just right there. Yeah, so that’s really cool.

Tosha: Yeah. She’s probably been more places and been on more airplanes than most adults I grew up with, for sure.

John: Yeah, yeah. Do you feel like traveling gives you a skill that makes you better at your job?

Tosha: I think, by traveling, that’s my motivator. What do I have to develop in order to do that? If I could reword the question a little bit, what have I developed because of my love for travel, because of my love for flexibility and freedom? That’s really this overall obsession with systemizing my entire business. Every single process, every single function, every single task in my entire company has been documented, trained. There’s a succession plan, not just for all the things that I’m responsible for, but for what everybody else is responsible for. This has been a year in the making that I’ve really become intentional about doing this so that everybody knows where to go if an issue or a question arises from a client or from anybody.

I’ve developed this skill of really developing whole logistical systemic process for every, and training my team how to do that to really make the business not dependent on me, which if you would have asked me a year and a half ago, I never thought that was possible. In fact, probably two years ago, I realized I’ve now committed to having the worst job for the worst boss, and that was me and my —

John: Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah.

Tosha: Because I never take a day off. Not only am I an accountant, but I have my own practice. I have a team of eight people that report to me, and I have about 65 clients that are always –somebody is going to need something at any given time. So, how to create that barrier for me to be able to unplug and truly spend time with my family, which was a little bit different than even a year ago. About a year ago, in September, we took our daughter to Disney World. I had not even gotten my laptop out. I just had it with me. I wasn’t working. She said, “Mom, you can’t work at Disney World.” So, my plan was to work before she woke up, but —

John: She was also a shot out of a cannon.

Tosha: She is. I had to bring my laptop with me just because I was afraid, and I was very anxious, and I was a little uneasy. This year, to be able to be gone twice as long, without even needing my laptop and the team — not only did the business survive, but it actually had a record-breaking month, and I was gone for over half of it.

John: Wow. That’s incredible. How important is it, do you feel like, to have that unplug, to not be all work all the time? Now that you’ve experienced both sides, how important is that?

Tosha: One of the things that I realized that I always thought a seven-day vacation was too long for me because I’m just naturally high-energy person. I’m always thinking of new ideas. I’m coming up with new thoughts for the business. I realized that two weeks was long enough for me to decompress and to actually create some headspace so that I could really enjoy where I’m at, take it all in, not worry about, okay, we’ve been here for a few days, settled in. Now, we only have a few days to really enjoy. Now we’ve got to get ourselves back to going home and back to work.

By having such a long period of time, it really helped me create enough headspace to truly unwind and decompress, which I think was really good just for overall mental health. Interestingly enough, it really helped me stop thinking about the day-to-day stuff that I would normally focus on while I’m at work or even if I’m on a long weekend trip. It allowed me to think more intentional and strategic and creative about my business beyond, like I said, the day-to-day stuff. It was really good for business, but it was also really good for me. Now I realized I need to probably do this a couple times a year.

John: Wow. Okay.

Tosha: Maybe one in the summer, one in the winter.

John: Yeah. Because when you’re in college or when you’re a kid or whatever, you just think, well, if you work more then it’s better. It sounds like it’s actually almost the opposite, where you had a record-breaking month, and you weren’t even there for half of it.

Tosha: Yeah, it’s incredible. Now I’m so excited to share it with other people that are in a similar situation to me, whether they own their own practices, or they own their own businesses, or maybe they run a department within a large corporation or something to that effect. It is possible. I would have never thought it was possible, but I’ve somehow managed to make it happen. This is now a whole company culture idea for everyone.

John: What do you mean by that? Is it something that you’re intentional about with everyone?

Tosha: Yeah. So, interestingly enough, I started the firm, I was very transparent with everybody about why I started the firm, I wanted to create a company that was of high-performers. Because I knew if my vision was to create flexibility and freedom for myself and for my team members, we needed to have high-performers. It’s a company culture that everybody knows that we work really hard. We try to work smarter and hard, but work less hard, and continuing to train, document, create systems and processes for everybody to do what they need to do, and for everybody to be accountable to it.

By doing that, everybody knows that there is an opportunity to take parental leave if they need to, to take vacation when they need to. Right after I finished with my two-and-a-half week vacation, my Chief Operating Officer went on a two-week vacation. I’ve had other staff people that have taken long periods of time away. We’re able to do that and easily transition our client work onto someone else, while the team’s able to take those breaks. Sometimes it’s planned, for pleasure, for vacation, and sometimes it’s not planned. Or it’s not necessarily a vacation, but it’s something that’s important for their families or their lives.

So, really, the culture is making sure that work’s handled but in a way that’s easily delegated and there’s succession plan so that we can take care of our lives and ourselves in a way that’s sustainable, that hopefully prevents burnout.

John: Yeah, I love that so much because it just shows that there’s a genuine interest in all of the person. It sounds like it almost starts with taking a genuine interest in yourself. Because if you just think, well, it’s all work all the time, then you’re going to think everyone else is all work all the time; but if you really dig down, and you’re like, well, maybe it’s not all work all the time. Maybe there are other things that I have an interest in. There are other dimensions to your life. That’s where the “and” comes in because it doesn’t have to be an or. You can be both or three things or four things and still — and it’s probably more successful.

Tosha: That’s why I love the idea of your podcast really because to me, it is an “and”. It’s funny, I have a team now, but I kicked and screamed and fought against the idea of getting an office, against getting team members. I’m only going to work part-time. I’m only going to have me. Then the business kept growing and growing, and I realized, just because it’s just me, does not mean it’s easier. In fact, it’s much harder when it’s just you, and by creating that environment, my “and” was lost. I felt like a fraud.

I started this journey with the intention of having flexibility, freedom and ability to spend time with my family and travel and experience things that we always wanted to experience, but I don’t want to wait until my daughter’s grown or retirement or any of that. I want to do it now. By locking myself into that kind of business structure, that kind of environment was just completely hypocritical and contradictory to why I started it in the first place. So, I try to put that first and foremost and front and center of everything that we do, and the entire way that the company is designed.

One of my staff actually worked for three weeks in Hawaii last year. So, not only just the ability to take time, but by nature of the firm being virtual, that we could truly pick up our laptops and take up anywhere we are and still be business as usual.

John: No, that’s great. Yeah, it’s funny how you realized you were accidentally creating the thing that you would run away from because that’s all we know. It’s so easy to just fall into that rut of, well, this is what normal is. It’s like, no, no, you don’t have to be one thing to be successful. Whether it’s as an individual, whatever you think the stereotype is, it’s not. There’s a million kinds of accountants or lawyers or engineers that are all good and successful. Or as an organization, whether it’s a company or a firm or what have you, you can make it what you want. Especially when you’re in leadership, it’s make it what you want. I think that’s awesome. That’s really cool to hear, and it’s encouraging to hear that people care.

Tosha: It’s interesting breaking the stigma of what an accountant is but also breaking the stigma that if you want to take a long period of time away to be with your family that that’s okay. You shouldn’t be apologetic about that. Very often, I think, as parents with young children, that’s very front and center and near and dear to those people, but even not, people with aging parents or people with families across the world or just because you want to explore.

I had another staff person had an amazing opportunity with her church to do a program in Washington, DC, but she was going to have to leave the company in order to pursue this opportunity with her church. It was an extracurricular thing, but it required her to be in DC. I said, the business owner of The Charity CFO, you have to work around that, rather than you being in the office. But the 38-year-old woman that didn’t travel enough as a young person, says, absolutely, take that opportunity, and we’ll work it out. It’s only six months of your life. It’s going to be fine.

It’s absolutely breaking that stigma of doing the “and”. Doing both. It doesn’t have to be either-or. It doesn’t have to be the traditional way we’ve always done it.

John: That’s really cool to hear. Living it as an example, as a leader is super great because then people know that it’s not just lip service. How much do you feel like it’s on the organization to create that culture to say, hey, it’s okay to share? Or how much is it on the individual to maybe just create their little circle themselves and start from there?

Tosha: I think it’s a little bit of both. I think it’s on the organization, whatever their culture, whatever their vision is, to be radically transparent with the people that they’re bringing on. I know a lot of organizations I think, require an element of self-awareness. What is your culture? What are you trying to — what do you believe in? You say you don’t care about FaceTime, and people grinding out the hours, but nothing indicates the opposite. Or if you do value people that work really hard, are you willing to make difficult decisions and get rid of under-performers so the rest of it doesn’t suffer?

Being aware of what’s going on and also taking action when things are out of line with a culture that you want to create and then be really intentional with the recruiting to make sure it is a good match. Here’s an example. I met this guy. I was interviewing for a new accounting manager position we were creating, and he seemed really great. I found myself in jobs that weren’t good fits for me. Obviously, I’m a highly motivated individual. Obviously, I like to be smart. I’ve been successful with my firm. So, it’s not that I wasn’t a good employee or what have you.

John: Or didn’t know how to do the job.

Tosha: Right.

John: You have the skills.

Tosha: The right roles, I like to think that every human wants to do a really great job and will exceed their own expectations, if given the right opportunity and the right role. I really evaluate their personality, and I do some assessments. I really like to ask them very specific questions to make sure that this is going to be a job and a company they really want to work for. This guy, I noticed he had changed his jobs a couple of times in different public accounting firms, and he kept going back to doing the same things, over and over again. He didn’t want to keep doing that. A lot of accounting is very cyclical. Sometimes it’s daily tasks. Sometimes it’s weekly or monthly tasks, annual. It’s all a process.

I thought that was kind of interesting, and I asked him, “What is the thing you like to do outside of work?” That’s always an interview question. He said, “I actually like to paint. I did this whole mural at a new place.” I said, “Listen, I hate to be the one to tell you this.” This is what I suspected. I figured he was a creative type. I said, “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you’re not an accountant. I don’t know how you ended up here, but I suspect that you really like the creative side of life. Somehow you’re in accounting.” He said, “Well, I wouldn’t have chosen accounting. My dad wanted me to do accounting, so I just picked it.” I’m like, that’s what I thought. I said, “That’s why you’re restless in these roles. You may find a way to use your accounting background, but it needs to be in a different way than this cyclical repetitive work. It needs to be some good projects. It needs to be something different.”

That’s what I mean by companies and organizations have a responsibility to know who they are, know who they’re hiring, have a level of awareness of themselves. Of course, the individuals, when they’re radically transparent about that, like I was in that interview. This isn’t going to work for you, I promise you. It’s not that I don’t like you. It’s not that I don’t think you’re smart. It’s not the fit. By me sharing that, it allows him to decide, maybe I need to create some awareness of myself and figure out what makes sense for me.

John: Yeah. No, that’s a great point. It’s one of those things where, unfortunately, sometimes those people feel like it is an or. I can’t be a creative painter and an accountant. I have to be one or the other. It’s like, no, you really don’t. What if you did the accounting for an art studio or for an art museum or for a painter that’s loaded? Whatever it is, you can bring that in. Or if a firm brought him in, it’s, hey, paint the wall here, go nuts, use that creative outlet in the office somehow. You can weave them together, sort of a thing, sometimes. That’s so cool to hear that, yeah, just being radically transparent. I love that phrase.

Tosha: I like to ask that question about the “and”. For example, my chief operating officer, I hired him as an intern. I asked him, “What is your secret talent that if you could find some way to incorporate it in your work life, what would that be?” He said, “I like to code my own software and websites.” I said, “You’re hired,” because so much of modern accounting is computer, technology. He’s now my chief operating officer. Or I have an accountant that loves graphic design, so she does different things for me, for fun, sometimes. It’s really cool to see how you can incorporate that.

Also, how can you find the right role, like you were saying. Creative minds, which I’m kind of a creative mind, I get restless doing the same thing over and over again. What I like to do is have more relationship management with my clients, and I like to work on projects. So, give me the messy set of books, I’m going to clean it up, and I’m going to pass it on. Those are the kind of things that I realized with my creative mind that I need to do, but I need to find a role that complements that and allow me the opportunity and the lifestyle to do some of those other things that are not at all related to.

John: Yeah, that’s exactly — that’s what I have in the book as well. It’s just about how there’s this untapped well of skills that people don’t go to, that companies and organizations and firms don’t tap into because we define expertise too narrowly. Our expertise is our college degree and our certifications. It’s not. You have skills from your traveling. Your COO has skills from all of this coding fun. The creative artist has skills that you and I maybe don’t have. When you bring those into the firm, yeah, do you know debits on the left, credits on the right? Absolutely, but I know other things as well. It’s just using them in the right role, whether it’s what clients you put them on, or it’s what projects you put them on, or what kind of work. That’s really cool to hear that you do that just subconsciously. It’s just is happening.

Tosha: Yeah. I always ask the question, what is your hidden talent? Also, if you couldn’t do accounting as a career, what would you choose? It’s always interesting to see, if I couldn’t do accounting, what would I end up doing? Interestingly, I’ve thought of like, I would be an educator somewhere, probably in academia somewhere, either university level. Initially, I was going to be a special ed teacher which is completely different. It’s always interesting, in the interview process, to hear what people say.

John: Yeah. No, that’s awesome. That’s really cool to hear, and it’s so encouraging. Do you have any words for people that maybe have an outside of work hobby or interest, but they feel like it has nothing to do with my job and no one’s going to care?

Tosha: I guess my words would be, it’s okay to do that. Because people look at me as an accountant and assume I love numbers. I love business. I understand numbers. I use the talent to understand them to make a living that is fairly lucrative and allows my family a lifestyle that we get to do the things that we enjoy. Sometimes, if your passion or your hobbies become your work, sometimes it loses some of that appeal. I think it’s really fine to have separate, but also to know that, is your work hindering your ability to, if you don’t have an “and”, is your work hindering your ability to create an “and”? That was something for me. People would always ask me, “What are your hobbies?” I have a job. I don’t know.

John: Commuting.

Tosha: Yeah, podcasting on my commute, I don’t know.

John: Yeah, right.

Tosha: It’s totally fine to have a hobby, and your hobby doesn’t necessarily need to be your career. Making sure that you’re not losing sight of your “and” because of your career, is my path and my wisdom, if I could share that with people.

John: That’s so perfect, so perfect. This has been so much fun. It’s been so cool getting to know you and and just hearing what you’ve created there at Charity CFO. Before I wrap it up, it’s only fair that I turn the tables since I so rudely peppered you with questions at the beginning. This is now the Tosha Anderson show. I’m happy to be the first guest. Thanks for having me on. Do you have any questions? Fire away.

Tosha: My question would be, if you could be any animal, what would you be and why?

John: Dolphin, and everyone makes fun of me all the time. I do not care. They’re like, “What are you, a nine-year-old girl?” I’m like, maybe, but I don’t care. Dolphins are awesome. They’re wicked smart. They’re super funny. They can do all kinds of cool stuff. So, yeah, dolphin for sure.

Tosha: What’s your favorite book?

John: My favorite book is The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. It’s a book mostly for creatives, but it just talks about overcoming the inner critic, I guess, if you will, and just create big, build bigger.

Tosha: What’s the favorite place you visited and why?

John: Favorite place I visited. I’d probably say Cape Town, South Africa is probably my favorite. It’s this weird mix of, because of apartheid, which, of course, wasn’t good, but it provided this infrastructure. It’s still got that Western city kind of feel, but it’s got that underlying raw African vibe to it. Plus, there are amazing wineries about 45 minutes away and Cape of Good Hope down at the bottom. It’s just cool nature and city and food and people all in one.

Tosha: I’ll wrap it up with one of my favorite interview questions, like I mentioned. If you couldn’t do your current profession, what would you do?

John: Wow, I feel like — are you going to hire me? This is going to be awesome. Maybe so, maybe so.

Tosha: I’ll create a job.

John: I’m just glad you didn’t ask me what kind of tree I would be because I never knew how to say that one. Yeah, so if I wasn’t doing this, yeah, I think it would be awesome to be a college football sports announcer, reporter sort of a thing, or maybe even a coach, I don’t know but, yeah, something like that. Just something college football-related would be super awesome.

Tosha: Cool.

John: Yeah. Well, thanks so much, Tosha. It’s been so much fun getting to know you. Thanks for being a part of What’s Your “And”?

Tosha: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It’s been great.

John: Everybody, if you want to see some pictures of Tosha on vacation or maybe connect with her on social media and get a link to The Charity CFO, be sure to go to whatsyourand.com. All the links are there. While you’re on the 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 we’re all trying to spread that who you are is so much more than what you do.