golf Tag

Welcome to Episode 507 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. And to put it in another way, it’s encouraging people to find their “and”, those things above and beyond your technical skills, the things that actually differentiate you when you’re at work.

And if you like what the show is about, be sure to check out the book. It’s on Amazon, Indigo, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, a few other websites. All the links are at whatsyourand.com. And if you want me to read it to you, that’s right, this voice reading the book, look for What’s Your “And”? on Audible or wherever you get your audiobooks. The book goes more in-depth with the research behind why this outside of work passions are so crucial culture. And I can’t say how much it means that everyone’s reading it, and now listening to it, and writing such great reviews on Amazon, and more importantly changing the cultures where they work because of it. And 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, Andrew Lassise. He’s the founder of Tech for Accountants out of West Palm beach, Florida, and the host of Tech Talk for Accountants Podcast. And now, he’s with me here today. Andrew, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?

Andrew: John, I’m so stoked to be here. It only took us like 4 months of rescheduling to like finally really knock it down.

John: Exactly. Well, we’re both busy people, man. We’re both busy people.

Andrew: Yeah. What am I gonna do? Book it the next day?

John: Right? Exactly. Exactly. But no, this is gonna be so much fun, and it was such a great time being on your show. And so, now to be back, return the favor. Now, I have some rapid fire questions though I like to ask you right out of the gate. Well, maybe this is an easy one. Favorite color?

Andrew: Well, go blue.

John: Yeah, mine too. Solid. All right. How about a least favorite color?

Andrew: Not just regular brown, but like dark brown. Like what were you thinking brown.

John: Right.

Andrew: I got toddlers, so—

John: Oh, there you go. Okay. Okay. Lot of just color overlap. How about a favorite actor or an actress?

Andrew: I’d have to go modern day Leonardo DiCaprio.

John: Oh! Okay. All right. So not like, yeah, the What’s Eating Gilbert Grape Leonard DiCaprio.

Andrew: Oh, no. Especially Eating Gilbert Grape version. I was thinking more Titanic.

John: Oh, Titanic. The middle there was weird. The Beach, like stuff like that.

Andrew: Yeah, The Beach.

John: Yeah. The Beach was terrible. Oh, my goodness.

Andrew: Definitely Gilbert Grape version though. That was my first Netflix movie random.

John: Oh, wow. Okay.

Andrew: First thing I watched on Netflix.

John: Yeah. When you probably ordered the disc and got it in the mail.

Andrew: Yeah. The streaming was just like “Oh, by the way, you can stream movies here.” And I was like “Huh?” And What’s Eating Gilbert Grape happened.

John: There you go. There you go. Are you more of a talk or text?

Andrew: Text.

John: Yeah, just getting it done. How about a favorite cereal of all time?

Andrew: You know, that’s a really good question. I’d say today it would be Magic Spoon. Are you familiar with Magic Spoon?

John: I am not.

Andrew: They’re literally cereal entrepreneurs. Right? Like play on words punt, but they do like keto, low sugar, but they do like rebrands of like Fruity Pebbles and stuff like that. But it’s like adult version and they have it as like a subscription model.

John: Okay.

Andrew: It’s pretty cool. It’s good.

John: I’m gonna have to check this out. I like it. I like it. How about a TV show that you would binge watch?

Andrew: Oh, man. Everything that’s out right now, but I’m currently loving The Dropout.

John: Okay.

Andrew: Oh, my gosh. So good.

John: So good. Right? There you go. How about puzzles? Sudoku, crossword, or a jigsaw puzzle?

Andrew: I’d go Sudoku.

John: There you go. That’s how I do my taxes actually. I just randomly guess numbers and then there we go. We’re done. I mean, the IRS is so busy. They’re not gonna find out anyway. They can’t even answer phone calls. Oh, here’s a fun one. Star Wars or Star Trek?

Andrew: Star Wars.

John: Yeah, me too. I’m the same. Yeah. Couldn’t quite get into Star Trek. I don’t know why. How about computers, PC or a Mac?

Andrew: PC.

John: PC. Okay. All right. I wasn’t sure if that would cross a line for you. I wasn’t sure how that would work.

Andrew: If you did like some weird like “Oh, like what flavor of Linux is your favorite”, it’s like “Well, you know, there’s a lot of conversations between like Mint and Ubuntu.”

John: Right. Exactly. I actually wouldn’t know what you’re talking about. I was like we’re just gonna go with what’s the logo on the outside of the box. How about your first concert?

Andrew: Jack Johnson.

John: Oh, okay. Nice. That’s solid.

Andrew: You’re gonna ask more security questions?

Mother’s maiden name. Street you grew up on and childhood best friend.

John: Blood type. Okay. Yeah, I guess that is a security question now that you bring it up. I never thought of that. This one is not though, and it should be a security question. Ice cream in a cup or a cone?

Andrew: A cup.

John: Cup. Yeah. I do the combo. I put the cone on top ’cause I still want the cone.

Andrew: You want the cone. You don’t want the mess.

John: Yeah. And my teeth are sensitive, so I can’t like just bite into ice cream. Like it weirds me out when I see people do that. I’m like “What are you? Are you an animal? Like what are you doing?” You’re in Florida, so this is an easy one. Oceans or mountains?

Andrew: I’m gonna go mountains actually.

John: Oh, okay.

Andrew: Yeah. You’d think ocean, but it’s like I take it for granted, you know. Like ocean’s right there. Like I don’t appreciate it ’cause it’s there.

John: Yeah. I’m the inverse in Colorado. Like they’re right there. I just stand in my backyard. I see the mountains. They’re right there, you know, but I have to get on an airplane to go to the ocean, so it seems special. Okay. How about a favorite adult beverage?

Andrew: Ah, well, the State of Maryland took away my privilege to answer Yuengling was my pre-2013 answer.

John: Okay.

Andrew: Well, I’ll have to go with White Monster. Would be the next answer.

John: Oh, yeah. Okay. All right. There you go. I mean, there are all kinds. So you know, who knows? How about are you more of an early bird or a night owl?

Andrew: Definite early bird.

John: Early bird. Okay. All right. We got three more. Did you have a favorite number?

Andrew: Number 1.

John: Oh, yeah. Is there a reason?

Andrew: ‘Cause it’s the best.

John: It’s the best. Why did you ask me this? What?

Andrew: Yeah.

John: Right? How about when it comes to books? Audio version, e-Book, or real book?

Andrew: Audio version.

John: Audio. Okay. Yeah. I didn’t realize how popular that was until people kept asking me for that. And I guess Audible has a whisper sync, so you can listen and e-Book, and it will bounce back and forth based on wherever you paused, which is kind of crazy.

Andrew: That’s cool. I didn’t realize that.

John: So I have to up-level my game on that too when someone asked. It’s like “What? What are you talking about?” And the last one, the favorite thing you have or the favorite thing you own.

Andrew: Well, I own my children, so I’d have to pick them, and I own the dogs too. I’ve got receipts to prove it.

John: Right. All right. What kind of dogs do you have?

Andrew: We’ve got two Terriers. They’re yappy, but they’re great.

John: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve got a Terrier mix as well. When we did the dog DNA thing, it came back like Rottweiler, Chihuahua mix.

Andrew: That’s not right.

John: And I’m like I would like my money back. Like did you guys just pick names out of a hat? Like this is like what? It’s crazy. He’s clearly a Terrier mix, but whatever. It’s all good. So let’s talk the Sobriety, which I know is a big thing. I guess, how did that get started?

Andrew: Yeah. Like I used to think that like if someone is like a sober person, I don’t know, just in my head, I was like “Oh, you’re like that guy that’s like in high school or college that was not drinking then and continued to live his life being that guy that doesn’t drink.” Right? So that was kind of like the perception that I had in my head. And then what I discovered ’cause like I started drinking at 16 and like I really liked it, and I liked it so much that I did it all the time, some people would call that being an alcoholic.

John: Right. Right.

Andrew: Like “Okay. Big deal.” Like I blacked out like life. So it’s frowned upon. Right?

John: Yeah.

Andrew: So basically, like the thing that like really it sucked, but then turned around to be a big blessing was at January of 2013, I made the stupid decision to drive home in a blackout from a hockey game.

John: Oh, wow.

Andrew: And I recall I came out of the blackout and I see in my rear view mirror the red and blue lights flashing. And it’s like “Oh, okay. Let’s see.” So I’m getting arrested right now. And then I had in my passenger seat— I had a bottle of Fireball whiskey. So I knew I was gonna get arrested. And I was like but I don’t wanna also get an open container charge. So I decided to start chugging—

John: Oh, my goodness.

Andrew: …the Fireball.

John: Right. ‘Cause it’s an empty bottle then by the time they get to the car.

Andrew: Right? So I got an additional charge of consuming an alcoholic beverage while operating a vehicle, plus all these different DUIs and yeah. So that day, ask me then, like the worst day of my life like hands down then. And thankfully, nobody got injured or anything. It was just I was an idiot and reckless. And so, basically, then I got a lawyer. It was the first law office I’d ever been into. But like I’d imagined like when you go to a law office, it would be like the leather-bound books and the nice like very fancy— Like now that I’ve been to other lawyer offices, like what you expect? Right?

John: But not this guy.

Andrew: Yeah. ‘Cause this guy think more like a Hogwartz kind of like trinkets, like stuff all over the place floating.

John: Oh, wow. Okay.

Andrew: Like didn’t make any sense. And so, the guy, he’s like— I don’t know— like 180 years old, and he’s got this polka dot bowtie. His name is Gil. And he’s like “All right, Andrew, like you’ve got this DUI. Like this is really serious. You know, I’m glad you’re here, but I’ve got one question. I need you to answer me honestly on this.” Like “Okay.” He takes out a like a quarter. Right? He’s like “All right, now tell me, do you like magic? ‘Cause I take DUIs and make—” He does like this hand motion. “And I make them disappear.”

John: What?

Andrew: Yeah. So that was my first experience with a lawyer.

John: At least he didn’t take your quarter. Like he was charging you way more than that.

Andrew: Yeah.

John: But that’s wild.

Andrew: So he like put together like this whole strategy for like how we’re gonna beat this thing. Right? He’s like “You’re gonna preemptively put a breathalyzer in your car so that when we go to court, we show them it was a one-time thing. It was a mistake. You’re a good person.” Just obviously, I mean, you’ve got a breathalyzer in your car. You’re like “Don’t keep drinking.” Like if you do that, you know, that will really hurt our case. So I go to court with three self-imposed DUIs on top of the one that I got the breathalyzer on. And they were like “You have the choice, Mr. Lassise, of jail or maybe some time in rehab may do you well.” So I took the latter and really didn’t have any intention of actually getting sober or anything like that.

John: Sure.

Andrew: But actually, just what ended up happening though was like I was just playing the role of like a good sober person, right, just so I could like check the boxes. And they kept saying at like 12-Step meetings and stuff like “Oh, you know, just keep doing this and like your life will get better. It’s like life beyond your wildest dreams.” And it’s like but life sucks if I’m not drinking. So like, no, that’s not how it works.

John: Yeah. It’s tough.

Andrew: Yeah. But like what ended up happening, like kind of backfire of the century, was I was so convinced that like the whole sobriety/sober thing like was made up and that people weren’t actually like sober and happy. So I was like I’ll do everything you guys tell me to do in rehab, and meetings, and stuff. I’ll do everything. I’ll do the whole shebang.

John: ‘Cause you didn’t think it was gonna work.

Andrew: I know it’s not gonna work. It’s not gonna work because life sucks if you’re not drinking.

John: Right. Right.

Andrew: And then like 3 months into faking being sober, it like kind of hit me. It was like, you know, this whole faking sober is getting me like such a better life than like the one where like I gave myself DUIs before going to court for my DUI. Like maybe there’s something to this and just things just started getting better and eventually just came to conclusion. I was like, even if this is like BS and not real, like I am like objectively way happier faking life as a sober person than I was just doing everything that I was before. And so, yeah, just recently, I celebrated 9 years of—

John: Congrats, man.

Andrew: …not giving myself DUIs or anything even on weekends.

John: No. I mean, that’s super impressive, you know. And so, kudos to you, man. I love that, how they like Jedi mind tricked you into you were like “Yeah, sure, whatever. I’ll just go through the motions and whatever.” And then all of a sudden, you’re like “Oh, wait, I actually am a sober person. Look at that. Like that’s awesome. They got me.”

Andrew: Yeah. Like I drank the Kool-Aid. I definitely do.

John: No. I mean, kudos to you ’cause, I mean, everyone’s got something. And to be able to get your arms around it is not easy. And especially when it’s so pervasive and it shows up everywhere, I mean, you’re a golfer too, so it’s like people on the golf course. It’s like whether it’s during the rounds. It’s after the rounds. It’s “Hey, you wanna go for a drink?” And “Yeah, sure, I’ll get a White Monster.” There we go.

Andrew: Yeah. I think I’ve had literally every good reason to drink happen to me. My wife and I got engaged on St. Patrick’s Day at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. And like if you wanna pick like a good time to be like drinking, St. Patrick’s Day at St. Patrick’s Cathedral right after you get engaged and everyone is like “Shot, shot, shot, shot, shot” that would have been a good time to do it. And we didn’t drink then. I’ve been at the table at like multimillion-dollar deals where everyone else was drinking and like peer pressure. It’d be like, I mean, now’s a decent time to like not try to rock the boat.

John: Good for you, man. Good for you.

Andrew: Yeah. But it just kinda becomes like— I think of it like an allergy like if someone’s allergic to peanut butter, which we were talking about earlier, which now I apparently am.

John: Right. Yeah. It’s like “Come on! You’re gonna take all of this away from me? Like good Lord.” You know, it’s like you still got cheeseburgers, so we’re good.

Andrew: Yeah. Yeah. And they do still taste good too, so that’s—

John: Nice. Nice. But yeah. But if somebody’s got an allergy, yeah, it’s all good.

Andrew: Right. Well, I was like so focused on myself. I was like “Dude, if I’m not drinking, like everyone’s gonna be like paying attention and like questioning it and all stuff.” And like just everyone kept living their life ’cause no one cares.

John: Right. Right. And I feel like that’s a lot of our hands or we think that people are gonna care more or less or whatever. And it’s like, no, like they got their own thing, you know. And we’re all worried about whatever each of us are gonna think that no one’s actually genuinely caring. Like we’re all just worried about our own thing to actually care about someone else, and it’s weird like that.

Andrew: Right. I’m the extra in everybody else’s movie.

John: There you go.

Andrew: And in everyone else’s movie, they’re the main character. So like I may have like a stronger role than other people, but like I am only the star in my own movie. And that’s the only movie where anyone really cares what’s like happening or like noticing.

John: Exactly.

Andrew: I can’t even recall like when someone was like “Andrew, you’re usually blacked out drunk and you’re sober right now. What’s going on?” Like I think I just was living my life and just no one cares. No one cares.

John: Right. But I mean, kudos, you know. And then somebody asks and then you can share. And is this something that comes up? I mean, you’re at these deals. You’re at these events. You’re at these things. And it’s like “No, I’m good.” You know? But does it turn to talking more about it?

Andrew: No.

John: Or is it more of just a past?

Andrew: No. Never.

John: Yeah. It’s just a past.

Andrew: No one cares.

John: We’re good. Right. There you go.

Andrew: It’s like “Oh, hey, you want a drink?” It’s like “Oh, no thanks.” It’s like “All right.” Like in my head, it’s like “What’s he gonna think about me? Maybe I can like position it where I time it to where I go to the bathroom when he is ordering drinks and then be like, oh, you forgot about me?” I’ll just be like “Nah, I don’t do it.” And they’re like “Cool I’ll keep living my life ’cause it doesn’t—” If anything, like it’s better. I like lost all drinking privileges because I was making everyone else’s life way worse. So like by doing that, it’s like I can just like participate in society and like not have to like wake up the next day and like look through my phone. It’s like “Huh, an hour and a half phone call with my ex-girlfriend. So that happened, huh?” It’s like text messages from people that are just like “F you. You suck.”

John: Yeah. How did I get to where I was going? Like all those things. Yeah, man.

Andrew: Yeah.

John: Well, kudos to you, man. That’s super hard and that’s impressive for sure. And so, I guess golf is maybe more of the thing that comes up talking with others?

Andrew: Yeah. So like the golf thing, I was maybe like 12-ish, maybe a little younger. And my dad, he was like “You have to learn how to golf if you wanna like be a professional.” And so, I was just like “Yes, sir” like as any good 12-year-old will do. Right? And so, I just started playing and it was something where it was just kind of like “All right, yeah, like I play and like I learn a couple things” and just kind of whatever I do with my dad. And then like some bosses down the road, They’re like “Oh, do you golf?” And it was like “Yeah, yeah, sure” and then just like networking opportunities. I mean, we’ve had some giant deals happen on the golf course. And so like just being like mediocrely okay at golf has had like a way bigger impact on like my professional life than the not drinking piece of it.

John: Right. Yeah. I’m sure that they go hand in hand ’cause I’m sure that the being sober while playing golf helps. I would feel like the old Andrew maybe wouldn’t have been part of deals, or invited back out to golf, or things like that. That’s cool that, yeah, there’s other parts to you as well. There’s not just the IT work side of Andrew. There’s other dimensions to you and you unlock them depending on if they ask, like if somebody cares, if somebody’s also sober, if somebody also plays golf, if somebody also does something else, then you have different ways to create those connections, which I think is fantastic.

John: Yeah. I mean, literally, like your entire platform, it’s like IT. It’s like “Oh, can you build an app?” And it’s like “Yes, we do ’em at computers.” And like that’s the extent of like where that is. It’s like “Oh, IT. That means computers, and you’re a programmer, and you’re a network engineer at Amazon, and all these things.”

But you know, like that curve ball and not like a raging alcoholic, which I don’t know if you he knows about IT people love to drink.

John: Sure. It’s the hard work, party harder kind of mentality.

Andrew: Yeah. It’s kind of like life on earth. I think everyone it’s just like “Oh, like no one parties like an accountant?”

John: Right. Yeah. Everyone’s got the extreme and then everyone’s trying to keep up with everyone around them. And they think that this is what they have to do to be successful and all of those things. None of it you really— You just have to be good at your job, and a good person, and responsible and then everything else is fine.

Andrew: As long as no one’s life is worse because of your existence, like you’re at least like doing good enough.

John: Yeah. Totally. I mean, we’re all trying hard, you know. We’re all trying hard here. And so, yeah, I mean, I guess do you have any words of encouragement to people listening that maybe feel like they have an and or a part of their story that they feel like no one’s gonna care about or it has nothing to do with my job, so why even talk about it?

Andrew: I mean, I think the idea of not just being characterized by just the type of work that you do and having those outside things and those outside connections, it also differentiates you. It’s not just the “Oh, I met this it guy.” Most IT people don’t golf and most of them do drink. So like the IT professional that specializes with accountants, so it’s like that twist right there is like “Oh, that’s different than Joe, everybody that does everything for everybody” and peeling back the layers. Yeah. But sharing that with people, I mean, that’s just connecting with humans in general, you know.

It’s having like the shared experiences and like sharing the vulnerabilities and stuff. 9-1/2 years ago, I probably wouldn’t be like “Oh, yeah.” Like I drink so much especially at work. Like that wasn’t a good look, right? Or even like 8 years ago where it was like “Ah, like I’m still kind of new in this sobriety thing, but it’s not really like—” Like if someone is like “Andrew, like I was really excited to like do business with you, but I heard about what happened in your life in 2013 and now everything is different”, like what happened happened. Like maybe you could Google it. I haven’t checked in a while.

John: We’ve all got something. And you were able to get your arms around it and become a better version of Andrew. That’s fantastic. And I mean, not everybody’s is open about those things, so kudos to you, man, and anyone listening. I mean, we’ve all had something that we’ve worked through and that we’ve had to get our arms around. And it’s not easy being human for sure. And so, we try to hide those things because we think everyone else is super human. It’s like, no, no, we’re all human. We’ve all got flaws. We’ve all got these things. And so, kudos to you, man. So I appreciate you coming on and sharing it.

Andrew: Yeah. You know, it’s been a journey for sure. And you know, it’s not all magic, everything’s perfect.

John: Right. Going back to the lawyer guy like there’s quarters everywhere. Quarters are falling out of my pockets. No, but you’re right. It takes work, man, and kudos to you. Absolutely. And you know, I think it’s fantastic, and I appreciate you sharing it for sure.

Andrew: And I’m curious, flipping it around, excluding mine, what is like the most memorable podcast that you’ve been on?

John: Oh, that I’ve been on excluding yours. Okay.

Andrew: Excluding mine. And I know it’s coming out of nowhere.

John: Yeah. That’s a really good one. Well, probably Indeed had me on. That’s a human resources Indeed. You see the commercials? They had booked me for their huge Indeed interactive conference in 2020 that unfortunately got canceled altogether ’cause it’s huge HR conference. So they had me be a part of like an exclusive podcast thing that they invite people to. And so, that was really awesome because that was my first foray into the human resources world. And it’s Indeed, which is like the Super Bowl of HR. So it was pretty awesome.

And then to the woman who interviewed me, when we were done, she said that she actually has a PhD in behavioral science and that she’s never read anything that puts it so clearly as my book does in that way of like it’s the people. It’s not the hierarchy. It’s not the structure. It’s not all these other things that we try to do to people. It’s what’s inside the people is what makes your organization’s culture.

And she’s like “I’ve never heard it like that. And the way your book does it is so clean and—” And I was like “Wow, that’s really, really high praise from someone who has a PhD and clearly read a lot of stuff.”

Andrew: Right.

John: So that was very encouraging to me to know that “Oh, I’m doing something that’s good and different, and people need to hear it more.” You know? And so, that one was probably one of the cooler ones that I’ve been a part of for sure ’cause it was just a big deal for me in a different space than I’ve been mostly.

Andrew: Yeah. Those cool ones are always like the standout.

John: Yeah, man. But no, I appreciate you taking time to be a part of this and thanks for, yeah, just shattering the stereotype. So it was awesome having you on, Andrew.

Andrew: Awesome. John, thank you so much for having me, man.

John: Everybody listening, if you wanna see some pictures of Andrew out on the golf course or maybe connect with him on social media, be sure to go to whatsyourand.com. All the links are there, as well to his podcast, The Tech Talk for Accountants. And while you’re on the page, please click that big button. Do the anonymous research survey about corporate culture, and don’t forget to read the book.

So thanks again for subscribing on Apple podcast 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.

Welcome to Episode 439 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 in another way, it’s encouraging people to find their “and”, those things above and beyond your technical skills, the things that actually differentiate you when you’re at work.

If you like what the show is about, be sure to check out the book. It’s on Amazon, Indigo, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop, a few other websites. All the links are at whatsyourand.com. If you want me to read it to you, that’s right, this voice reading the book, look for What’s Your “And”? on Audible or wherever you get your audio books. It goes more in depth with the research behind why these outside-of-work passions are so crucial to your corporate culture, and I can’t say how much it means that everyone’s reading it and listening to it and 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, Chris Hervochon. He’s a virtual CFO for marketing and creative agencies and was listed as a 40 Under 40 by CPA Practice Advisor, and now he’s with me here today. Chris, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?

Chris: Absolutely. Thanks for having me on.

John: Yeah, this is going to be awesome, so much fun. I play golf too, so this is going to be super sweet. You’re way better than me, but so is everybody else.

Chris: I don’t know about that.

John: Well, we’ll see. We’ll see. I have some rapid-fire questions for you though. Get to know Chris on a new level here. Maybe start you out with Star Wars or Star Trek.

Chris: Star Wars.

John: Star Wars. Yeah, me too. How about your computer, more of a PC or a Mac?

Chris: PC.

John: PC. Yeah, me too. Yeah, I don’t even know how Macs work. I’m not even going to lie.

Chris: Neither do I.

John: If you put me in front of them, I would feel Amish.

Chris: I know. I feel ashamed to say it though.

John: Right? They have this cool club or something, this perception thing.

Chris: Yep, and I’m not in it.

John: Right. Well, me, either. How about jeans or khakis?

Chris: Jeans.

John: Jeans. Yeah, yeah. How about a favorite ice cream flavor?

Chris: Probably gotta go cake batter, I think.

John: Oh, okay. Nice. That’s a good one. Because it’s ice cream, but your brain thinks it tastes like cake. It’s like all the desserts. That’s a good one. How about more talk or text?

Chris: Text.

John: Text. Okay, all right. How about, ooh, this is a good one, balance sheet or income statement?

Chris: Balance sheet. That’s where the bodies get buried.

John: That’s awesome. Ooh, this is a fun one. How about a first concert?

Chris: Cold, the rock band.

John: Nice. Okay. Very cool. How about a favorite number?

Chris: Four.

John: Four. Is there a reason?

Chris: Yeah. When I started, I think, it was tee-ball, we were picking out jerseys out of the box. This was back in the ‘80s. We were picking the jerseys out of the box. My dad goes, “When I was — I think he said he played little league or whatever. He said, “I was number four.” I said, “Well, I want to be number four,” and then I was always number four.

John: There you go. That’s awesome. Very cool. How about books, audio version, e-book or real book?

Chris: Real book but I mostly consume the audio version.

John: Yeah, I didn’t realize how many people do the audio version until when my book came out last year. People are like, when’s the audio version? I’m like, oh, I didn’t realize that there was a demand for this. It’s out now. It’s out now. How about a favorite day of the week?

Chris: Friday.

John: Friday. All right. Nice. How about puzzles, Sudoku, crossword or jigsaw?

Chris: Sudoku, crossword or jigsaw. I think crossword.

John: Crossword. Okay. All right. There you go.

Chris: Tough call.

John: Yeah, it’s a tough call. Yeah. You could probably do them all at the same time. How about a favorite color?

Chris: Blue.

John: Blue. Yeah, me too. How about a least favorite color?

Chris: Brown.

John: Brown. Yeah, that’s a good one. It just sounds sad.

Chris: Yeah, there’s nothing really fun about brown, my opinion.

John: Right. It’s only there so then the color looks good, better.

Chris: Exactly.

John: Ooh, this is a good one. Since you’re a golfer, irons or woods.

Chris: Irons.

John: Irons. There you go.

Chris: You should have asked me 15 years ago. That would have been different.

John: Right. There you go. A favorite actor or actress.

Chris: Favorite actor, probably Brad Pitt.

John: Brad Pitt.

Chris: Fight Club’s my favorite movie.

John: Oh, yeah. There you go. First rule, there you go.

Chris: That’s right.

John: That’s exactly it. That’s a great movie. Two more. Chocolate or vanilla.

Chris: Vanilla.

John: Vanilla. There you go. The last one, the favorite thing you have or the favorite thing you own.

Chris: Favorite thing that I have is probably my book collection.

John: Oh, really? Okay. You have lots and lots of books.

Chris: I’ve got a lot of books. I’m one of those guys that’s got a stock in the nightstand that’s three feet tall that I just pick at, from time to time, that sort of thing.

John: Okay.

Chris: That’s probably my favorite thing. Close second would be my truck.

John: Oh, okay, there you go. What kind of books? Are they mostly self-help business kind of books or fiction, or what kind?

Chris: Either self-help business type books or golf books.

John: Oh, okay. There you go. That’s awesome. Either way, it’s helping something.

Chris: It’s trying to. I don’t know how successful it’s been.

John: Right? That’s true. I’m sure the next book will help even more. That’ll be the one that puts you over the top. That’ll be… Right?

Chris: Guaranteed.

John: That’s incredible. That leads right into golf. How did you get started with that? Is it something that you were playing since you were little?

Chris: I started when I was, I want to say I was 11, yeah, 11. I was born in ‘84. Tiger Woods turned pro in ‘96 when I turned 12. That’s the frame of reference there.

John: Right. Okay.

Chris: I was 11, and we had a new driving range open that was down the street from my house where I grew up in New Jersey. My grandmother and my mom took me there. It was my grandmother’s idea. Took me there one day, hit a bucket of balls, loved it. My grandfather played golf ball when I was growing up, and my dad played a little bit. He dabbled, I would say, and just went from there. I spent a lot of time at the range, got some lessons and played a little bit with my dad. The guy who was the head pro at the driving range, he just really liked to help kids out. If you showed up at the range, and you wanted to hit balls, he would give you as many golf balls as you were willing to hit, one of those —

John: That’s awesome.

Chris: Yeah, it was awesome because it was six or seven bucks a bucket at that point. I was 11 or 12. I didn’t have any money. He was just really good to a lot of kids, a lot of my friends. You just got to hang out there, one of those keep you out of trouble type deals. Theoretically, it worked, I guess. Right?

John: Right. We’re talking.

Chris: Yeah, we’re talking, so I guess it worked.

John: Yeah, that’s similar when I started. Because my dad was in the military, all the bases have awesome golf courses. It’s, I guess, just what they do. That’s where our tax dollars are going, in case anyone wonders. Luckily, I had that resource, but, yeah, my grandpa played a lot more. Whenever we’d visit there, he was a member of a small country club sort of thing, and it was fun to — yeah, because these are people you look up to, and it’s something they enjoy, so then it’s cool to do something that they enjoy too.

Chris: Absolutely.

John: Yeah, that’s awesome.

Chris: It wasn’t cool when I started. I was like this closet golf nerd a little bit. Then Tiger Woods turns pro. Tiger Woods is cool. Golf is cool now. Now my friends are playing.

John: Oh, okay.

Chris: Yeah, it was a perfect storm. It kind of snowballed from there.

John: Yeah, well, Tiger, certainly, he made it awesome. It was fun to watch. He was young and energetic and had some attitude and some swagger, for sure. It’s amazing to watch one person just dominate. It’s crazy because everyone else that he’s beating is really, really good.

Chris: For sure.

John: Yeah. It’s hard to remember that sometimes, when you watch a Michael Jordan or Tiger or something like that, where it’s like, wow, that is crazy amazing. Then it went on. You played in college even, so obviously, you stayed with it.

Chris: I did. Played in high school, all four years, started on varsity, my last three years, and then I decided I wanted to play Division One golf and didn’t really get recruited to play Division One golf, so I went to a school that had walk-ons, open tryouts for golf. That’s Elon in North Carolina. Didn’t make it my freshman year, made it my sophomore year, and I played briefly. I played my sophomore year, and I red-shirted my junior year. When I got out of college, I turned pro, had no business turning pro. It was a brief moment in time as well. Now here I am.

John: Yeah, that’s super cool though, just to give it a shot. Why not? That’s incredible, man. Congrats. That’s really cool, the dedication and the work. The swing’s one thing, but the mindset has got to be something that’s the biggest differentiator for a lot of those players, I would imagine.

Chris: Yeah, that’s the biggest thing, right? Everybody can hit it really good. Everybody can putt it pretty good. It’s just whether or not you’ve got it between the ears to be able to shoot really low scores when you really have to.

John: Yeah, which is amazing. Plus, when you play in college, you get some pretty sweet free gear. There’s that.

Chris: It’s amazing how that works. Yeah, I remember getting my duffel bag just full, clothes and all that stuff. I always had really good deals on equipment. Now I’m paying retail, and it’s awful. Free golf balls. Now you’re buying them. Four bucks a ball, you hit it in the water. Well, there goes four bucks. It’s a totally different mindset.

John: Yeah, the accountant in you comes out there. It’s like, no, I don’t want to be — I should have done a Literature major or something that isn’t good at Math.

Chris: I guess I better lay this one up.

John: Right. I’d like to get lunch after this. That’s hilarious. That’s awesome, man. Do you have any really cool, rewarding stories that when you think back of your golf play, or even now, obviously you play now, some of your favorite courses or a fun memory?

Chris: I’ve got a lot of fun memories, so that’s really hard. Best memory is probably making the team in college because I didn’t make it my freshman year. I was in no man’s land, from a golf perspective. Just being able to prove myself, hey, I can go out, and I can play Division One college golf, whether it was briefly, super brief or not, that was an accomplishment unto itself. When I graduated college, I couldn’t break 80, which was totally crazy. My dad did not tell me I was crazy. He told me, you’ll know when you go broke, and you’ve got that Accounting degree. Here we are. I went from not being able to break 80, to being a +2 handicap in the span of a summer. I made a very, very small amount of money, but it was not zero. That’s an accomplishment unto itself. It’s not the PGA Tour or anything like that, but it was a small win.

John: That’s the thing is a lot of us, we compare to others, a lot of times. It’s like, just in your own lane. That’s amazing, man. You made money playing golf. That’s crazy. Everyone listening would cut off an arm to do that, and then they wouldn’t play any more golf. It’s just so cool to do that, and even, it just brings you joy. Even today, it does, so it’s all good. That’s awesome. I would imagine that you’ve gotten to play some pretty cool courses, over the years. Do you have a go-to favorite?

Chris: My favorite is The Ocean Course at Kiawah. In fact, I’m playing there in three weeks. Yeah, that’s a great spot, an absolutely great spot. I live in Hilton Head, which is not that far from Kiawah, and I was able to go to the PGA Championship this year. Took my son, and we were staying there on the 18th Green when Phil won. He was sitting on my shoulders. He got to see the whole thing.

John: That’s awesome.

Chris: Yeah. That’s just one of those cool experiences that you get from being involved in that world. It was really cool stuff.

John: Yeah. Plus, now, you’re sharing it with your son, the same way that your grandfather and father shared it with you. That’s pretty special, man. That’s pretty special. That’s awesome. Do you feel like, from playing golf or all the adversity that you’ve overcome to continue playing in college and pro and whatever, do you feel like that gives you a skill set the translates to your career?

Chris: I do, shockingly enough. Part of it is just that entrepreneurial endeavor of being used to just putting yourself out there and trying to figure out a way to make money, which, I started my own firm and started from nothing. That’s that same mindset. There’s certainly a skill set that goes along with that. When I was playing golf competitively, I was one of these guys that really had to hit 600 golf balls a day. I was the one out there with all the training aids and trying to perfect my golf swing and figure things out and do it in the most efficient way possible. I’ve been doing that for 25 years, but that has definitely translated over into the accounting world where I started building ways to automate things and putting controls in place, to put quality control guardrails around the work that we put out. It’s always trying to be more efficient. Those two things have definitely correlated over, and just that mindset that came from golf and applying that to my firm, that’s been a direct correlation.

John: Yeah, and that mental toughness. When times get hard, and it’s a busy season or a big project, there’s overtime or whatever; you’re able to buckle down and dig a little deeper because you’ve been through that before on the golf course. It’s just a different muscle set, but you’re like, well, I’ve done this before in a different way. It’s amazing because I’m sure that at no point at Elon did anyone tell you, go practice golf a lot because it’ll make you a better virtual CFO and accountant. It’s just cool to see how much our “ands” translate to our work even accidentally.

Chris: For sure.

John: Is this something that you talk about through your career, your golf, how excited you are when you’re taking a golf trip or things like that?

Chris: Through my career, I have, for sure, especially my last job. My boss played. He’s still a friend. We go out, and we play golf every once in a while. The first accounting job I got, I got because I was a good golfer, not because I had any sort of accounting skill set.

John: There you go.

Chris: Yeah, I went to the interview, and they’re like you, “You have no experience. You didn’t do any internships in college.” The partner of the firm walks in. He goes, “So you’re a golfer.” I said, “Yep.” He goes, “Okay. Did they talk salary with you yet?”

John: Nice.

Chris: Yeah.

John: Nice. Right?

Chris: Yeah. He really likes golf. From his perspective, he’s like, well, this is somebody who can go and take — because we had a client base who, a lot of golfers, right?

John: Sure.

Chris: It didn’t seem like it to me at the time. I didn’t understand it at the time, but looking back, oh, this is somebody who can go take clients out to go play golf, go bring extra work in, and it’ll basically pay for himself. It’s the way that it worked out. That’s how I got, basically, my start in accounting was just because I was a good golfer.

John: I’ve heard that from so many people on that’s how I got my first job or my first internship was because of my “and”, whether it was somebody I met doing it, or during the interview, it came up, it was on my resume, whatever. That’s why when I hear from people, they’re like, oh, I don’t want to share it; I’m like, well, you’re missing out. I’m telling you. I have so many stories of people that — because they can teach you the technical side of things, but your personality and who you are and the other dimensions to Chris, you can’t teach that stuff.

Chris: 100%.

John: Yeah, and we forget that so much. It’s cool to hear that you’re also one of those. That’s great. Yeah, that’s awesome. I imagine that coworkers or people like your old boss, you have a relationship with them that’s maybe a little bit different than everybody else that worked in the office because you shared that passion.

Chris: 100%. Absolutely. When you get to go spend four hours, four or five hours, with somebody in a golf course, and it’s not in a professional setting, and it’s just a little bit more relaxed, and you can be a little bit more candid with what you’re talking about and how you’re talking and things like that; it’s a totally different relationship than when it’s just you walk into the boss’s office and you’re presenting something, or you’re going there with a problem or whatever. It’s just a totally different relationship.

John: Yeah, that’s a great point. Because it’s such a big deal to get out of the office because then you just become a different person. When you’re doing your “and” and they love it too, then, yeah, you just get into the real who you are mode. That’s when magic happens. That’s a good point, man.

Chris: That’s how you relate. If you work in a workspace where nobody has the same “and”, and it’s all different, and you can’t relate to those people; it’s just one more thing that you have to overcome. It just makes it more difficult because I’ve been in that position too.

John: Yeah, or places where they don’t even allow you to share it, or they don’t care, or they really stifle it. Because I found, no one else I knew did comedy, that’s for sure, but yet, people still asked about it and wanted to hear about it. Even if it’s not exactly the same thing as you, at least, it’s cool and interesting. If there’s nothing, there’s just nothing, then that’s when it’s just, woo. I’ve walked into some clients when I’m doing some consulting work to help them with the culture. I’ll walk in and be like, wow, this is crazy. No one looks you in the eye, and it’s gray. There’s not even color. There’s no air. Oh, my gosh, we’ve got some work to do here.

Chris: Crazy that places like that still exist.

John: Right? People come here voluntarily and work.

Chris: On purpose, yeah, every day.

John: It’s crazy. It really is. You’re there more waking hours than you are with your family. Why would you not want to make it a pleasant experience? It’s really, really crazy. How much do you feel like it’s on an organization to create that space, to we want to know about your “and” and we want to know and share it; versus, how much is it on the individual to maybe just start in their little circle or what have you?

Chris: I think it’s got to be on the organization because if you’re not creating that environment, where it’s okay to share and where it’s okay to be yourself, then you’re creating something else that’s toxic. If you have a small group of people, and it’s just this little group, and then they’re seen as outsiders, we can’t talk to them because we’re not the same or whatever, and it gets very cliquish; that’s a problem too. I think it’s on the organization. That’s just my opinion. I think it’s on the organization to create an environment where that’s okay. You can bring your whole self to work.

John: Yeah. I agree totally. It makes it a whole lot easier, a whole lot easier. It’s not impossible, the other way, but it can get weird.

Chris: Yeah, for sure.

John: Back on my career, I guess I’ve been living this on accident since I started. Because when people say to you, what did you do this weekend, I didn’t know you were supposed to say nothing.

Chris: Yeah.

John: It’s like, yeah, I did nothing. It’s like, well, I drove to the city and did a comedy show. Or I went here and played this awesome golf course. There are follow-up questions to that. It’s cool, and it’s fun, and I’ll talk about this all day, type of thing. If they create that sandbox for you to play in, then, like you said, put up the guardrails and then go nuts, everybody. We live in such a permission-based profession, I guess, and world that we’re waiting for them to tell us we’re allowed to, instead of just go do it, man. What are you waiting for?

Chris: Absolutely. What do you do if you don’t understand where your coworkers are coming from, and you’ve got a work problem that you’ve got to solve together? You don’t understand their perspective. How do you work together collaboratively and do a good job? I don’t get it.

John: Right? No, you’re exactly right. Because when you hear people’s stories, how they got here, even some of their why, that, it’s amazing. You’re like, leave early, get the hell out of here, go help your family or your kid or whatever it is that’s going on in your life. Yet, we put up these facades, I guess, of acting like we’re — which, in the last year and a half, has been blown up because we’re all at our own homes now. For the most part now, obviously, it’s shifting. Yeah. A lot of your work has to be virtual, I would imagine, with some of your clients.

Chris: 100%, virtual.

John: Is relying on that “and” how you create that connection?

Chris: Yeah. I’ve been doing Zoom calls since I went full time with my firm. It’s been a little bit over three years at this point. Just ask people, how are you doing? What’s new? What’s up?

John: Yeah. Right?

Chris: Yeah, just start there. It’s really simple. Then, like you said, the follow-up questions come from that.

John: Yeah, it really is, it’s so simple, and yet we don’t think of doing that. Genuinely asking it. Obviously, that’s what you meant. Don’t check a box. Well, I’m supposed to ask you how you’re doing. Okay. Anyway.

Chris: No, no, no, no, no, no. Ask the question and then actively listen, and shut up and pay attention.

John: Right. Right. It’s really that simple. It really is.

Chris: Yeah, it doesn’t have to be any harder than that. Over time, you create these relationships. It’s not going to happen in one-hour Zoom call, and just automatically, you’re besties now. You’ve got to show up consistently. You’ve got to ask the question consistently. You’ve got to ask really good, solid questions that show that you’re listening and show yourself that you’re listening, and then it just develops over time. When you get a chance to go visit with somebody, make it a point to go visit with them. When you get a chance to do something with your team somewhere else — my team is totally distributed. We went to engage a couple of months ago.

John: Oh, yeah.

Chris: Make sure that you’re having those times when you can be present and together because that is different, too. That’s important too, but you can develop relationships over a video conference.

John: Yeah, you just have to set time aside for the relationship part of it.

Chris: Yep, just be intentional.

John: Yeah, that’s exactly it, man. That’s awesome. That’s so good and such great advice for everybody listening, a perfect way to wrap it up actually. It’s only fair though, before I do close the show, that I rudely peppered you with questions at the beginning, so I feel like it’s only fair that we turn the tables and make this the first episode of the Chris Hervochon podcast. Thanks for having me on. I’m all yours. Whatever you’ve got for me, fire away.

Chris: All right, I’ve got three for you, easy ones.

John: Okay.

Chris: Hot or cold.

John: I’m going to say cold only because hot just gets gross. You can put more layers on, but you can’t remove more. Once you’re down to nothing, and it’s still gross, man.

Chris: You’re probably in jail, in most places.

John: Right. Right. I guess maybe it’s humidity. That’s what I figured out. It’s humidity is the curse for me, so I’ll say cold.

Chris: Fair enough. Favorite sport that isn’t college football.

John: Oh, wow. That’s a hard one. I’ll probably say soccer.

Chris: Okay.

John: Yeah, I grew up playing soccer a lot, and I still enjoy watching.

Chris: Oh, no.

John: — HBO or whatever you’ve got to pay for, or Apple something. Yeah, which we touched on earlier, I’m not cool enough to do anything Apple. I’m going to have to wait till it’s on some bootleg something or whatever, Netflix.

Chris: Not that you would ever bootleg.

John: Right, right. Well, I’ve heard it’s hilarious.

Chris: Now the last one, favorite non-major holiday.

John: Favorite non-major holiday, I’m going to go Tax Day because it’s also my birthday, April 15th, so be a little selfish there on that one.

Chris: Fair enough.

John: Yeah, when you’re born on April 15th, I think being a CPA is your destiny on accident. Although, similar to your pro-golf, I had no business being a CPA. No, just kidding. No, no. It was all good, all good. Thank you so much, Chris. It’s been so much fun to have you be a part of What’s Your “And”?

Chris: Likewise. Thanks for having me on. This was a really fun time.

John: Absolutely, and everybody listening, if you want to see some pictures of Chris out on the links or maybe connect with him on social media, be sure to go to whatsyourand.com. Everything’s there. While you’re on the page, please click that big button, do the anonymous research survey about corporate culture, and don’t forget to check out the book.

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.

Welcome to Episode 280 of What’s Your “And”? Follow-up Friday Edition. This is John Garrett. Each Friday, I’m following-up with a guest who had been on the show a few years ago to hear what’s new with their passions outside of work and also hear how this message might’ve impacted them since we last talked.

I’m so excited to let everyone know my books’ being published very soon. It’ll be available on Amazon and a few other websites, so check out whatsyourand.com for all the details or sign-up for the exclusive list and you’ll be the first to know when it’s being published. Please, don’t forget to hit subscribe so you don’t miss any of the future episodes because I love sharing such interesting stories each and every week.

This Follow-up Friday is no different with my guest, Eric Johnson. He’s the CEO of Nintex in Seattle, and now, he’s with me here today. Eric, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?

Eric: Hey, great to be here, John. Thanks for having me back.

John: Oh, absolutely, man. Episode 49. I mean that was so long ago. I just appreciate you remembering who I am. But no, this is awesome. I’m excited to have you be a part of it again, but I’ve mixed it up where it’s rapid fire questions out of the gate now.

So here we go. First one. Harry Potter or Game of Thrones?

Eric: I’m going to go Harry Potter on that one.

John: Okay. How about a favorite TV show of all time?

Eric: I think I’m going to go with Cheers.

John: Oh, solid answer. Solid answer. How about jeans or khakis?

Eric: Oh, jeans.

John: Yeah, all right. Brownie or ice cream?

Eric: Ice cream.

John: Okay. How about more oceans or mountains?

Eric: I’m going to go with ocean on that.

John: Okay, all right. We got two more. More Kindle or real books?

Eric: Real books.

John: Yeah, totally. The last one. This one’s really important. Toilet paper roll. Over or under?

Eric: I’m going over.

John: Yeah, yeah. All right. For some people, it’s a deal breaker and I think it’s hilarious.

Yeah, but last time we chatted on Episode 49 was so much fun. We talked about golf and how much you were golfing and is that still something that you’re involved in or you got some other things going as well?

Eric: Well, I still like to golf for sure. I would say honestly, I had not played a lot anymore just for a whole variety of reasons, but the main one is that I’d say my “and” at this point is shifted more to some of the coaching of our kids. My wife and I both have a 12-year-old son and an eight-year-old-daughter, so we have a 7th grader and a 3rd grader. They’re at those great ages where they’re just really busy.

In our specific case, both of the kids play basketball. Our daughter is just starting to play. Our son’s been doing it for a few years. I ended up doing coaching with both of them. I’m the assistant coach for our son’s youth kind of travel basketball team, and then I’m the assistant coach for our daughter’s kind of Parks and Recreation team. The coaching right now is definitely putting a lot of time in there and having a great time doing it.

John: That’s awesome, man. Did you grow up playing basketball?

Eric: Yeah. I would play basketball. I would say, you know, from a fairly young age, I liked it. I was a kid that kind of grew late. I was kind of a late bloomer and ended up playing through high school pretty competitively, I went to a pretty large high school and really, enjoyed basketball. Yeah, so it’s great to be able to take some of those experiences and now, help the kids with it.

John: That’s awesome, man. Yeah, I was a late grower as well. I graduated high school at 5’10”, and then within the next two years, I grew like five inches. I would go back, and the high school basketball coach is like, where were you? I was like, I was playing soccer with all the other short kids.

Eric: That was like me. I think freshman year, I was 5’9”, 104, so I was still lightweight. I just had no strength and basketball’s a pretty physical sport. My senior year, I was 6’2”, 180, and then I grew another inch in college and gained ten pounds more than that, so the reality of it is I had a good basketball body at the very end, and I wish I could’ve had it earlier.

John: Yeah, but you know what? Peak at the end, man. If you went the other way, then it would’ve been really bad.

Eric: That’s the truth.

John: Well, that’s awesome, man. I mean coaching your kids has to be pretty rewarding as well. I mean just teaching them what you know but also having the patience to be able to teach all the other kids the same way, I guess, would be probably pretty hard for me to do.

Eric: I would say coaching kids is a lot like leadership over all. All kids are a little bit different. There’s commonalities but then there’s unique subtleties to each person, and it’s been a ton of fun to be able to, I’d say, apply both my knowledge of basketball.

At the end of my basketball career, I got to play on a pretty competitive travel team and played with some folks who went on to play professionally, and I got a lot out of that, so there’s a lot of knowledge I have around basketball, and I continued to learn more as I coached more, but then it’s also some of the things I’ve learned from being a leader in the business world, you know, some of the focus on positive thinking, how to influence people, how to make connection. Those same skills, they apply when you’re working with kids.

I think one of the things that’s super satisfying about coaching is you’re not only spending time with your own kids, but you’re having an opportunity to impact positively a bunch of other kids, and it really you know, extends your impact. It’s the same reason I love leadership at work, I love working with people, I love seeing people do great things, I love that kind of spider effect of like you help them here, then it makes a difference in their personal life then they go to some other company to make a difference. It’s that ability to put a little bit of positivity and impact on a much larger range of people. It’s super fun, and seeing that impact on kids and what it does in their life is huge, and so that’s one of the things I enjoy so much about it.

John: That’s awesome. It’s interesting to see how they overlap like that, how one hand helps the other side type of a thing.

Eric: Yeah. I mean positive leadership stuff like I’ve learned over the years, people really respond. I mean you’re trying to push kids to get better and especially as you get into the more competitive levels, but you’re trying to do it in a way that keeps their energy high and keeps them wanting to do it.

When you see a kid work on something that you’ve been trying to help them with and you see it manifest in the game successfully and you know, they get that energy and their smile and they’re just that much more into it, that is just super satisfying. That’s when you know it worked.

John: Right, yeah. If only that happened more in the corporate setting, if only that was more regular, I guess. Imagine that like somebody does good work and they’re smiling and the manager/coach high-fives them as they’re going down the hallway, I mean you know, what’s the difference? Why not? Type of a thing.

Eric: That’s actually a great point. I mean I went to some little leadership week last year with some other CEOs, and one of the things we spent some time n on was this whole notion of positive leadership, really some couple of thought leaders out at University of Michigan, you know, really powerful proof behind what they’ve tried to help leaders learn and companies do.

I mean it’s absolutely true that when people, they get that boost, the more their mind opens up, they work faster, they do more, it’s more fun. The whole thing goes better. That’s definitely something we try to do here. I mean it’s like anything, right? Not everything we do works, so you can’t have all of it. Be positive, even in those things that don’t work, you try to figure out how you’re going to make them work, and then you turn them into a positive. That’s what we’re constantly doing and that applies both in the business world and then youth activities.

John: That’s fantastic, man. That’s really fantastic. I guess since we’ve talked, have you seen people sharing more hobbies and passions and interests outside of work? Or is it still I have work to be done, probably?

Eric: Well, I’d say at Nintex, the company that I’m part of, I actually think we do a pretty good job people sharing their interest and connecting. We have a 500 plus person global workforce. I would say people, in general, are really proud of what we do. They love their fellow team members, and there’s a high degree of personal connection and I think it’s part of the reason that we’re successful and we’re able to give an experience to our customers and partners because our people feel good about what they’re doing and who they’re doing it with.

Part of that is sharing a bit about who you are. I mean who you are as a person is a composite of some things you do at work, other interests you have outside of work, who your family is, it’s all these other things. Each individual, being able to share that, being able to connect with their fellow team members, I mean we think it’s a huge part of why we’re successful because our team members like being together and they care about each other. If you care about each other, and you like to be together, you just ultimately, you do better work.

John: Totally. I couldn’t agree more. For some reason, for a lot of people, our default is the opposite of that where professionalism tells us no one cares or don’t share that, or anything but work at work is a distraction sort of a thing. We’re not talking about drama or everyone’s got a problem every day. It’s just what are your real passions? What really make you up in sharing those. That’s awesome that you guys have that there and that you’re seeing it benefit is encouraging to me, anyway.

Eric: It’s a real benefit. I mean I personally have a lot of passion around, and you’re connected with people and they know you care, then when you hit the hard spot, maybe you got to have a difficult conversation or you’re in a more challenging time, it’s a lot easier to get through that when you got that connection with each other.

I think it works better when it’s hard, and then there’s the other side of it which is just heck of a lot more enjoyable. If you’re in a better spirit, that’s just stuff we talked about earlier on being positive, that you’re in a better spirit and you’re feeling more positive, you’re more creative, and you got more energy. It’s just a fact.

John: That’s awesome. The oxytocin in your brain, it’s science. It’s not just a make-believe thing. It’s legit. I love what you said earlier of there’s a whole bunch of other things that make you up. The amount of our identity that work really is, is a small percentage, but we allow it to be such a greater percentage than that. For some people, it’s 100%. There’s so much more to people around us if we just take the time to ask and find out and it could be really powerful. It’s cool to hear that with you guys.

Is there anything you guys do specifically top encourage that or is it kind of this is just how it is here, tone of the top sort of a thing?

Eric: I’d say there’s one thing that we do that I think sets the tone for this, I’d say two. Number one, we have three core tenets that we operate on, so a lot of companies have a notion of values, we call them core tenets, but there’s three basic principles that kind of guide the how we operate. Two of them are things that would make a lot of sense from executing the first one is deliver on commitments, right? Do what you say.

The second is don’t wait which is about operating quickly like where you see a challenge, you see an opportunity, go take action. But the third one is I think it gets into think it gets into what we’ve been talking about which was yeah, this notion of operate but respecting consideration, and part of having respect of people and having consideration is understanding them. And so I think that’s a zone where in order to do that and in order to show you care about people, you got to know a little bit about them. I think that’s one thing we do that I think sets a good tone in it.

I think to be fair in all these things, a lot of it goes back to how you start a business, you know, our founders had a certain culture, very connected, a lot of people were friends and so that started really early in the business and it’s continued on and it evolved as the years have gone on, I mean we were basically started in 2006, so we’re kind of you know, getting close to 15 years.

I’d say the second thing though is the tone from the top and kind of the way we operate as leaders, the most senior people in the company. I would say that our senior team here, A, we exhibit that we enjoy each other. It’s I think pretty clear to our team members globally that the executive team is well aligned, likes each other, have a high degree of personal connection.

Then I think if you look at how each of the leaders operate, they’re the type of folks who generally care about the team, ask questions, want to understand folks, create opportunities to do things beyond work. I do think it’s a combination of some history, our core tenets, and then the tone that gets set from the top of the company.

John: That’s really great because yeah, I mean some organizations, the executive group or partner group, if you will, they all get along or they’re all you know, but then as soon as someone from a lower level walks in or sees you then everyone’s all buttoned up and whatever, and it’s cool that you bring the human side to it as well and we genuinely like each other. It’s like, why not? You’re around them for so long.

Eric: We spend a lot of time together. We love what we do. I mean I’ve got a team of people who are really passionate about the business. We have people who are passionate about the business at all levels and in every different pocket and corner of the company. That’s awesome, we’re passionate about the business, and then it’s I think really positively impacted by the fact that people have such great personal connections.

What we’ve done too is when we’ve had occasionally someone who really didn’t fit and was really negative on all that, we try to give them an opportunity to modify and try to become a more positive team member who fits what we try to do. But if they can’t, then we help them move on outside the business because we aren’t going to allow what is part of what makes this so successful, get damaged by people who want to operate a different way. We just take it really serious on how the environment is and we love having a positive place that people want to be.

John: That’s awesome, man. That’s really great because yeah, I mean the technical skills for the most part, you can find somebody that can do that, or you can train them up to do that, but the culture piece, you really can’t. That’s really important. That’s awesome, man. Really cool. Well, this has been so great, Eric, catching up. I’m so encouraged just to hear this, what’s going on at Nintex. It’s really awesome.

It’s only fair that I allow you to rapid fire question me if you’d like since I started out the episode firing away at you, so you’re the host now. Tables are turned if you have anything to ask.

Eric: Yeah, no. I guess something I’d love to ask, because we’re always looking here to do our best, what are some of the things you’re seeing from other organizations that you’ve been working with or talking with that you think we ought to consider applying here? Is there anything that you’re seeing common that you think we ought to be thinking about?

John: Well, I think — I mean it sounds like what you guys are doing is awesome, setting the tone at the top. I think it’s just maybe thinking about you know, shining a light on people’s hobbies and passions. I mean something that’s really simple.

That’ll be in the book for instance is if you have a newsletter that goes out or an internet page or whatever where once a week, here’s the What’s Your “And”? Section and it’s a different person each week or maybe a couple of people. This person loves to mountain bike or this person loves to paint, or this person loves to whatever, and showing pictures of that, and then if you can take it to the next level of and here’s how it makes me better at my job. Maybe it’s connection-wise or it’s thinking about it wise.

Another thing that’s really great too is organizations that have like you can take so many days to go volunteer or you can whatever, come back and present five minutes to the group, it doesn’t have to be an all-staff, but your department, because that’s the real important thing is people are going out and doing these things but we have to boomerang it. You got to bring it back. You have to tell us, why did you pick this charity or why did you do this? Because then emotion is brought into the workplace, and that’s what’s going to bring people closer together like what you guys are doing there.

I think we miss out on that piece of it where organizations will have to go out and do good sort of day, but what group did you go and contribute your time too and bring it back and present? Because then, all of a sudden, you find out some people’s stories and you’re like wow, that’s amazing. It’s really powerful.

Eric: It helps you see them differently. I mean I think one of the things we find, and we think about is that whole notion of empathy, and when you understand someone, you tend to be more empathetic. It helps you actually make a better connection and get to a better outcome of what you’re trying to do. I love those ideas.

I think we’ve got a couple variants to that one, the things we’ve done for a long time is we have these kinds of launch series at different locations where people can do in the know. Sometimes, they’re business related but sometimes, they’re not. We’ve had people literally do like a gardening in the know, and share some of their tips and secrets on how they built their vegetable garden, stuff like that. It’s still different and maybe it’s ten or 15 minutes, everybody brings their own lunch, and they’re going to eat lunch anyways, so it’s not taking away from the business, but it brings people together.

John: Yeah. I mean that is awesome because I mean that person that’s presenting about gardening is probably the most lit up, they’ve been in a long time. If you let people share their outside of work interests and passions, I mean you can see them, how they light up and you know, their eyes are bigger, they’re excited, and they’re really engaged, and people can feel that energy. I mean maybe someone’s not a gardener but man, that lady is so jacked up about it that I have to pay attention. You feed off of that energy.

Eric: The thing I’ve always been on the hook for, because I’ve been in on levels and working over 20 years now, and when I started, right? You’re the entry-level person. Now, I’ve got a different role. The reality of it is there is this concept, especially when you start, a long ways from the top is you have this amorphous concept of the company, the corporation.

The reality of it is the company is all of us. We make up the company. We are the company. If we all have a high degree of connection, and we have a great way of treating each other, then we’ve got a great company, then we go do great things for our customers and our partners, now, we really have something. That’s a sustainable group of people that are going to accomplish great things. That’s what we believe in. I love hearing about your work and what you’re doing, and I wish you all the best with your book. I hope it does really well.

John: Thank you so much, man. This has been so much fun, Eric. Thanks for being a part of What’s Your “And”?

Eric: Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

John: Yeah, and everybody listening, if you want to see some pictures of Eric in action or connect with him on social media, be sure to go to whatsyourand.com. All the links are there. While you’re on the page, please click that big button and 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.

Welcome to Episode 272 of What’s Your “And”?Follow-Up Friday edition. This is John Garrett. Each Friday, I’m following up with a guest who had been on the show a few years ago to hear what’s new with their passions outside of work and also to hear how this message might’ve impacted them since we last talked.

I’m so excited to let everyone know that my book’s being published very, very soon. It’ll be available on Amazon and a few other websites. So check out whatsyourand.com for all the details or sign up for my exclusive list and you’ll be the first to know when it’s coming out. Please don’t forget to hit subscribe so you don’t miss any of the future episodes because I love sharing such interesting stories each and every week. And if you or someone you know has a hobby or a passion outside of work, I’d love to showcase you on the show as well.

This Follow-up Friday is going to be so much fun with my guest, Paul Meissner. He’s the Director at 5ways Group Chartered Accountants in Melbourne, Australia, the co-host of From the Trenches Podcast and the founder of Freedom Mentoring. And now, he’s with me here today. Paul, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?

Paul: Thanks very much, John. Absolute pleasure to be here. I’m looking forward to a great chat again.

John: Absolutely, man. Episode 88 was so much fun and still the only curler that I’ve had on the show, which is amazing because I was hoping we’d have another four so you could have a team by now.

Paul: I keep trying to get a team down here. I keep trying to get an accountant’s team so maybe this will help.

John: Right. We’ll see. But I mixed up the format so I do the rapid-fire questions up front now. So here we go. If you had to choose, Harry Potter or Game of Thrones?

Paul: Harry Potter only because my son is Harry but I don’t really care for either.

John: Okay. No, honest answer, honest answer. How about a favorite adult beverage?

Paul: Beer. Beer, beer, beer, and beer.

John: Right. Okay. All right. If you had to choose, planes, trains or automobiles?

Paul: Trains. Again, my son just loves them. Seeing his enjoyment is my enjoyment.

John: Yeah. Totally. This is a tough one, brownie or ice cream?

Paul: Ice cream. So a proper gelato.

John: Okay. Do you prefer more hot or cold?

Paul: Okay. It got to be cold, doesn’t it?

John: Right. I was thinking so but you never know. That’s on the inside. Two more, two more. Do you have a favorite band or musician?

Paul: Dave Matthews Band.

John: Oh, okay. Nice. And last one, toilet paper roll, over or under?

Paul: Ooh, whichever way. I just chuck it on.

John: It doesn’t matter. There you go. All right. I like it. Yeah. When we talked on Episode 88 almost three years ago, we talked, yeah, curling, umpiring baseball, all kinds of fun stuff. But the curling especially, are you still doing that?

Paul: Absolutely. Yeah. I was still in a league. We have two leagues a year. It’s a very short season unfortunately compared to Canada and America, but we still get it, still love it.

John: That’s great. So it’s not only just for fun. I mean you’re in a league, like straight up.

Paul: Absolutely. Yeah. I made the grand final. I do have a story about that when we get to it, but, yeah, I made the grand final. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the chocolates.

John: Oh, okay. Right. Was the surprise actual chocolates?

Paul: I don’t know.

John: Right. I’m like, “Man, I’ll join your league if there’s chocolate at the end.” And we’ll win. Was that last year or recently?

Paul: Yeah. It was interesting. It was this season. We’ve been at it the longest, I think, about league teams, as a couple of good teams. Our team particularly takes it probably a little bit too seriously.

We’re all quite competitive people. It’s really interesting. I guess I’m still constantly amazed. I mean even three years ago nearly that we chatted about the way that managing a team and managing relationships and communication on a sporting team is equal to business and just has that similar aspect. It’s always astounding.

John: It really is amazing. When I’ll tell people that there’s expertise to be had from your hobbies and passions outside of work, a lot of them are looking skeptical. And I’ll use you as one of the example. I’ll be like, “For instance, curling, you have a stone going down the ice in about ten to 15 seconds. And you need to be very clear where you want that to end up.”

Paul: And it’s really interesting. I mean a recent passion since we last spoke has been golf. Again, I do see a lot of similarities in the way I approach making a shot in golf to making a shot in curling. It’s been something that’s interesting. My coach is like, “That is such an obscure reference. But whatever helps you play your golf, go for it.”

John: Right. That’s very funny. Yeah. There’s a lot less yelling for in curling, but either way, it’s all good. That’s incredible though. But the grand finals, I mean that’s pretty awesome. I mean if you’re going to do it, you might as well take it a little bit seriously.

Paul: It is good to win certainly.

John: Yeah, right. And then the umpiring, is that something that you’re still doing as well?

Paul: No. That’s something I gave up a few years back now. I think it’s a sad reflection on, I think, society at the moment. An umpiring in every rank, I think we see it globally. There’s constant stories about umpires and like kids themselves who are umpiring, getting yelled at by parents and getting yelled at by players. And what annoys me is in the big leagues, when there’s massive money on it, then you understand the passion. But all these heroes who are down in the beer leagues trying to do the same thing, it just got to me. And it’s no longer fun. If something like that isn’t fun, it was a wonderful challenge. But I think when batters themselves can only hit one out of every ten bowls, as an umpire, you’re supposed to get 250 odd calls, right, a day. I think society’s got a real problem with that respect for umpires.

John: No, absolutely. I mean, gosh, I mean we’re going back a long time ago. I umpired in high school and even tee-ball games. I mean these kids don’t even know where to run when they hit the ball off the tee. And parents were the worst. I mean just yelling and screaming. We’re not even keeping score. Like what matters; it’s just terrible. And you’re trying your best. It’s a town league for toddlers. So half of them might be wearing diapers. I don’t know. But it’s just like golly. But it is funny. Like you said, the heroes in the beer leagues that are trying to relive those glory days.

Paul: It’s crazy. And I’m coming up on it now in the next generation. My six-year-old just started basketball. It’s really interesting. I’m really trying to be aware and be really aware of the environment that these kids are being introduced to sporting and being respectful and respecting a win and respecting a loss. It was quite interesting that bringing it back to curling, my six year old lost his first basketball game. We’re talking about these kids who never played a game before. They lost their first game and there were tears. It was really interesting. Actually, how do you explain to a six-year-old that you’re not going to win all the time? I actually used the concept that we lost our curling grand final and that, “Daddy doesn’t win every game. Daddy gets upset, but you train and you play better next week.” It’s quite interesting the way you listen to yourself explain it to a six-year-old and how that helps put it a little bit in perspective.

John: It’s amazing how much kids are looking up to us when we don’t even realize it and what they’re being influenced by and things like that. So I don’t blame you for giving that up. Man, I gave it up way before you did. But it’s cool that the curling is going and not only going but you’re in championship games. So that’s really great.

Paul: Yeah, enjoying it.

John: Yeah, for sure. Are you finding that others are sharing hobbies and passions that they have or maybe you’re more aware of it now?

Paul: To a point. I think that it’s not necessarily much has changed. I’ve always been quite open with the passion. Certainly taking on golf, I think it’s a more relatable passion to many people. It doesn’t have quite the kitsch factor that curling does, but certainly, golf has been a good way to share different professional networks.

John: Yeah, definitely. I mean golf is definitely more common. But I mean what’s the difference? Actually, curling is more interesting because not everyone else is doing it type of a thing. Do you think that having a hobby that everyone else does matters or being a little bit unique might actually be a benefit?

Paul: I think you can apply it with more people.

John: Oh, there you go. That’s true. It’s hard to do curling by yourself.

Paul: Exactly. Yeah. And you’ve got more opportunity. If I have a couple of free hours, I can’t just duck down and go curling. I have to wait for the league game. It’s funny. I had two kids out. My wife was with my daughter. My son was over for dinner. And I thought, I just got this. I’ve got an hour and a half. I snuck down to the golf course. My son comes home from dinner early and ends up having to get delivered to the golf course. So it’s easier to get there, but you can’t get away as much.

John: That’s an excellent point. I guess have you seen examples of companies that are maybe the tone at the top is a cool thing that they have going where the culture is people are multidimensional and, “Let’s celebrate these sides of people.”

Paul: Absolutely. And I’ve got a really recent example. I’ve been lucky enough over the years to work quite closely with the zero team, especially here in Australia. And look, I’m sure many other companies do it. I guess this is the one that I’ve just seen it. Without giving away too much of the detail of how they do it, they really do go to great effort to explore, highlight and certainly promote the individual staff hobbies, including it in team meetings and letting people really bring themselves to work. I think it’s something that I’ve seen firsthand and really impressed me. And that was from the top all the way through the organization. And there are some obscure hobbies, too, that everyone has a laugh.

In an organization that’s growing in that size, you’re always going to find someone who also is this rock guitarist in rock bands, who looking at them you wouldn’t otherwise think. Then of course, other people in the organization, “Oh, well, I’m a drummer,” or, “I’m this…” or, “Let’s practice after work.” Yeah, it’s just been a really interesting example. But to me, they seem to do it really well.

John: No, that’s great. I mean, yeah, it’s what you’re seeing. So that’s fantastic. It’s cool to hear that it’s out there anyway. That’s obviously a company that’s doing okay for themselves. It’s not like it’s a detriment to the business.

Paul: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

John: If anything, it’s an enhancer, I would say. Do you have any words of encouragement for anyone listening that might think that their hobby or passion has nothing to do with their job/

Paul: That’s really interesting to me because small accounting firms, that’s my passion. There is much about who you are as what you do. I think that a small accounting firm who looks after micro business clients or individual tax returns, your difference or your niche, to call it one, is who you are. It’s your personality. It’s the ability to talk to you. So it’s not finding a difference. It’s just sharing more about yourself. I’ve always said people do business with people. I think that you don’t need to differentiate on the range of services. There’s only so many ways you can do a tax return, but it’s their relationship, the clients’ relationship with you. And I think hobbies and those sorts of things about you, family stories and relatable, becomes your — it can be really used powerfully as a bit of difference to a lot of success. Plus, you can learn interesting things and build relationships. It is all about relationships. And I think by sharing those stories, you can have a laugh and get to know people more.

John: Yeah. Absolutely. Because I mean when you get down to it, accounting is pretty much a commodity. Doing it faster or better, I mean the last person that came in also said they would do it faster and better. So that’s not really a place to hang your hat. I mean we’re all good at our jobs.

Paul: And I think certainly, parts of it are commoditized. I think there’s a far deeper question for a very short podcast, but I think there’s certain parts that are commoditized. But the bit we miss, the bit that the market often misses is the real value in all accounting services is that relationship with the client. It’s delivering the news. It’s having them on the end of the phone and being able to explain that isn’t a computer result, that isn’t — in their best times and their worst times.

I think we often forget as an industry, I don’t, but people who talk about it seem to think that all we do is the data entry and forgetting that very thick relationship side of the role. Certainly, when you look at automation, one is being — can be commoditized at that bookkeeping end but certainly not at the relationship and the high level tax end. And that’s something that whenever I hear commoditization, it’s just like a Pavlovian response. I just have to defend the industry.

John: Yeah. No, you’re exactly right. It’s just that the work itself can be done by any firm anywhere. How you do it and how you deliver it is your differentiator. But professionalism tells us to not do that part of it. That’s actually the differentiator. It’s like, “What?”

Paul: I wrote an article for a professional body magazine in the UK. And I had a line that seems to have resonated. It was, “Large companies have an accounting firm,” or, “Large accounting clients have an accounting firm, but small accounting clients have an accountant.” When they reference it, it’s always a person. “Paul’s my accountant. John’s my accountant. Susie’s my accountant.” It’s not 5ways Group. It comes down to those personal relationships. And I think they are — because we’re all doing tax returns, right, exactly as you said.

John: That’s such a great observation. I would think that it even matters on the larger scale because if a new CFO comes into a company or if a partner retires, I mean things change. All of a sudden, the relationship is different. And it all comes down to the relationship again, which is the human side to us and the personality and sharing those hobbies and passions. That’s awesome, man, very cool. Yeah. This has been so much fun, Paul. But before I wrap it up, it’s only fair that I allow you to rapid-fire question me if you’d like.

Paul: Fair enough. All right. Let’s see whether you are ready. These are the questions for you, John. Comedian or accountant?

John: That’s actually a harder question than you would think because one of them has a steady paycheck and health benefits. And the other one does not. But I’ll go comedian.

Paul: Oh, fair enough. Interviewer or guest?

John: I’m going to go interviewer only because I’ve been the guest on a couple of podcasts that are not very fun from the guest side.

Paul: Fair enough. I have saved the hottest one for last, Vegemite or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?

John: Peanut butter and jelly sandwich all day long.

Paul: Have you ever had Vegemite?

John: I have and maybe I was doing it wrong. I don’t know if you can do it wrong.

Paul: Fair enough.

John: But I’ve been to Australia and I had it. But when I come down and I get to Melbourne, we can Vegemite it up and beers to follow. Thanks so much, Paul, for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”? This was so fun.

Paul: You’re welcome. Have a great day.

John: Everyone listening, if you want to see some pictures of Paul in action or connect with him on social media, be sure to go to whatsyourand.com. 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.

Welcome to Episode 264 of What’s Your “And”? Follow-Up Friday Edition. This is John Garrett. Each Friday, I’m following up with a guest who’d been on the show a few years ago to hear what’s new with their passions outside of work and also hear how this message might’ve impacted them since we last talked.

I’m so excited to let everyone know my book’s being published very soon. It’ll be available on Amazon and a few other websites. So check out whatsyourand.com for all the details or sign up for my exclusive list. You’ll be the first to know when it’s coming out. And 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 Follow-up Friday is no different with my guest, Scott Duda. He’s an Audit Partner in the Raleigh Office of Cherry Bekaert. We’ve hung out a couple of times and now, he’s with me here today. Scott, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?

Scott: Back from Episode 78. Can you believe that? How long it’s been?

John: I know. That’s crazy. I mean it’s completely insane. It doesn’t even feel like it’s that long ago. I don’t know if it’s because you pop up on my social media all the time now that it’s — during college football season especially, but yeah, it’s always fun. But I have my rapid-fire questions up front that I like to do. So here we go. If you had to choose, Harry Potter or Game of Thrones?

Scott: Game of Thrones, no question.

John: Oh, wow. Okay. How about when you were a kid, favorite activity in gym class?

Scott: Oh, basketball.

John: Oh, okay. All right. What’s a typical breakfast?

Scott: I haven’t eaten breakfast since I was 12 years old.

John: Oh my goodness, man. You’re like a robot. That’s impressive. All right. How about more pens or pencils?

Scott: Pens. Don’t make mistake.

John: There you go. I like it. How about more hot or cold?

Scott: Oh, I’d much rather be hot.

John: Yeah. Okay, two more. Do you have a favorite band or musician?

Scott: Guns N’ Roses.

John: Oh, nice. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. And the last one, toilet paper roll, over or under?

Scott: Over. The people that are under need to be banned from ever doing that.

John: From ever anything. Yeah. That’s hilarious.

Scott: They should not be able to make adult decisions.

John: Right? That’s awesome. Yeah. Well, when we chatted on episode 78 a couple of years ago, of course, we talked golf and how much that impacted you and then the Ohio State Buckeyes football especially. Are these still things going on?

Scott: They are, absolutely. Golf is a way that I network. It’s a way I stay connected to my clients. Then Buckeye football is still the one thing that I’m irrationally, emotionally attached to.

John: Right. I’m with you, man. I mean college football is definitely my thing as well. And it’s so crazy that these 18 to 21-year-olds can have such an impact on our attitude for four hours.

Scott: It’s not just four hours, I’m telling you. If we ever lose to Michigan, I can tell for the next 364 days that I’m just a little bit less happy. If we win, I’m skipping all through the next year.

John: Yeah. Because I mean you haven’t lost in them in so many years.

Scott: Hey, knock on wood. Don’t jinx us. We’re recording two weeks before that game.

John: Right. That’s very true. And it was funny when we chatted before that we were actually both at the game when Notre Dame played at Ohio State.

Scott: That’s right.

John: I feel like in the mid-’90s. You were an alum, I’d like to point out. I was still a student, but no. But that’s definitely a thing that both of us share, which is really cool when we meet up or whenever we talk. It’s something that we’re able to bring up.

Scott: Nobody’s going to look at the pictures that we have associated with this podcast and not think that I’m older than you, so you don’t need to make that point.

John: That’s a good point. I got the grades going on, for sure. I mean have you been able to get back to any games?

Scott: Yeah. I go back quite a bit. It used to be that — people used to ask me if I was a season ticket holder. It’s not quite that much anymore. Like I said, I’m getting older. I like the hot; I don’t like the cold. So I’ve drawn the line on going back for home games after about the middle of October, especially if it’s a big game that I want to get to. It’s probably a night game. Then you’re talking about temperatures in the 40s or maybe the 30s. So unless it’s a Michigan home game, I’ll go back for that. But usually, for me, it shuts down probably about the middle of October. The last game I was back for this year was the Wisconsin game.

John: That was a really good game, for sure, especially for you. The excitement around it was there. Then Ohio State quickly squandered that. So that was an impressive one for sure. Is this something that you share with others around you? I mean they’re probably also cheering for Ohio State in the Michigan game because they want you to be in a better mood.

Scott: A lot of my partners are graduates of SEC schools, so they want the Buckeyes to lose. I’ve got Alabama. I’ve got Georgia. I’ve got Auburn. They’re rooting for the Buckeyes to lose early and often in general.

John: They prefer grumpy Scott. I like that. All right. I see what’s up. For selfish reasons on their part, of course. But it is something that you’re able to talk about besides work.

Scott: Oh, yeah, absolutely. We mentioned golf. That’s something I can talk to the staff about or take the staff out. Football is the same way. Especially this time of year, I mean it starts up latter half of the summer. We start talking about the season already. And that carries us all the way through the middle of January these days. So that’s something that we’ve always got going. There’s Fantasy Football Leagues around here. I’ve got two partners at Cherry Bekaert that both think as highly of Guns N’ Roses as I do. We go to several concerts throughout the year. Then I’m sharing those pictures on social media and staff in the Tampa office was like, “What are you two doing?” It’s just this like, “Oh, they’re real people too.”

Anyway, it’s a different world. When I started, it was like you had to be a certain type of person. I mean I will tell you, I probably wouldn’t have admitted that Guns N’ Roses was my favorite band to a partner that was asking me 20 years ago. And I certainly wouldn’t have shared pictures of me at the concert with somebody back then because you had to be a certain way. The profession has changed now. It’s really nice that you can just be yourself, be authentic and everybody is so accepting of it.

John: Speaking at the partner retreat for Cherry Bekaert, it was so cool as well just to see that room go from a roomful of partners to a roomful of people that I would all hang out with. These are actually cool, interesting people. There was the guy that raises cattle or something like that in Texas.

Scott: That’s right. You remember that. Yeah.

John: Yeah. Then the guy that builds his own fly fishing rods. Really fascinating group of people. All of a sudden, once you get down below that surface level, it becomes really neat. How much do you feel like that matters to the work product in the end?

Scott: I mean it’s all about connections, right? You work better with the team that you have connections with. And you work better with the clients that you have connections with. Then you just feel like you’re all a part of a team and you’re all working toward a consistent goal. It’s just a matter of finding those. Usually, you ask enough questions and you spend enough time together. You’ll find some things that you have in common. Everybody doesn’t have to love college football, although they should. There’s something that I’ve got that I can connect with somebody. And there’s something that they’ve got that we can connect over. Then that’s going to allow us to have a better relationship and then allow us to work better together. Being able to find those things is really cool.

John: That’s fantastic because even if it isn’t the exact same thing, at least you better understand that person and what drives them. Then, yeah, if somebody stumbles across, “Hey, I saw Guns N’ Roses performing somewhere,” they make a mention of it type of a thing instead of starting the conversation with work stuff and only work stuff.

Scott: Exactly.

John: That’s really cool, man. As a partner, I mean especially somebody that a lot of people look up to especially in your office, how much do you look at these outside-of-work passions and interests? In the old days, they were distractions or weaknesses? How do you look at them now?

Scott: It’s all about being comfortable. You can’t work 24/7 and only focus on this. And if somebody does, then you almost wonder what’s wrong, right? So to have something — I know for me, the things that I do outside of the office, they relaxed me, they distract me, they allow me to come back refreshed. And I’m sure it’s the same for everybody. So you want them to have those things. The profession in general is much more receptive to those things being not only something that you do and pursue but working around them as opposed to those things working around your work life. It’s give and take, whatever you want to call it, that the profession is going through. It seems like we’re settling in to a good mix of just trying to manage the two and be receptive to it while making sure that the work gets done and the clients are served.

John: Yeah. I mean there’s still work to be done, but there’s also so much more to the people around you that you hired. So it’s cool. And I know Cherry Bekaert definitely thinks that way as a firm. And it’s cool because I had on the three rappers that created that Cherry Bekaert rap and the video and everything. That was really cool.

Scott: I remember recruiting them.

John: Yeah. That’s awesome.

Scott: And it was the same thing. If you gave us a list of ten things — or not even that. If you just looked on its face, at that time, I was probably 20 plus years their senior. I’m recruiting them and you say, “What do they have in common?” And after a few questions during the recruiting process, one of them ran track and I had that in common with him. We started bonding over that. Then you see him and all of our additional CPEs or we’re just in an event throughout the year. You can connect over that. Then I found out about the rap and I was like, “John needs to talk to these folks.”

John: Yeah, for sure. They were so great on there. And it’s something where now, the CEO or the managing partner of the firm knows them by name. I mean that’s crazy. As an associate in senior associate level, forget about it. If they know your name, it’s because it’s something bad and they’re not going to know it for very long. So that’s such a cool thing that the Cherry Bekaert did. And I love that. I think it’s a great example of what to do. Is there anything that you do specifically like within your office to encourage this sharing? Obviously, setting the tone at the top is a great start.

Scott: We’re always looking for ways to get people connected. We’ve got a task force here that does that. What they’re doing, when we onboard folks, they’re making them aware that this is something that we encourage and that we want them to take advantage of. We’ve got enough people in this office now, hundred plus, that if you’ve got an interest, it’s likely that there’s somebody else in the office that has the same interest, right? So you name it and you can probably find somebody here who does it and then you build a group around that. And it’s not exclusive where only certain people are allowed in Fantasy Football League or whatever. We’ll just have three or four of them and for various levels and how serious you are about it or whatever the case may be.

You know Jonathan Kraftchick in our office. He went for the North Carolina Funniest CPA or whatever. Well, then there were others that were interested in that over the years that were like they would never do it. Then they heard that he did it and they were like, “You know what? I’d like to do that.” And I think over the last probably five plus years, I think we’ve had three or four others get on stage and try stand-up. They’ve got that in common now. And that’s really cool that they may otherwise have not done.

John: Right. Absolutely. Or they would never talk because, “I probably don’t have anything in common with you. And maybe I talk about something work-related, but that’s very surface level and very forgettable.” Yeah. I mean they’re all funnier than Kraftchick too, so that’s even better. That just makes it so much better.

Scott: There is one that — I mean Jonathan’s excellent. We joke, but there’s one that I think actually is better than him.

John: Then now, Kraftchick listening, he’s like, “I don’t know which one it is.”

Scott: Oh, he knows.

John: That’s awesome. Very cool, very cool. Well, this has been so much fun catching up with you and hearing what you got going on there at Cherry Bekaert. Yeah. But before we wrap it up, it’s only fair that I allow you to question me since I came out of the gate firing. So if you have anything, fire away.

Scott: I’ve got a serious one and I’ve got a less serious one. I’ll start with the less serious one. How many points would Ohio State beat Notre Dame by in a hypothetical bowl game this year?

John: That would probably be — I don’t know. It will say ten. Even though — I gave you double digits. I gave you double digits. Depending on injuries and what have you, there’s a lot of points being scored by Ohio State. That’s for sure.

Scott: Okay. Then the more serious one — and I’m curious about this answer — you were early in on this movement of “Be yourself. Be authentic,” within the profession. Looking back on that, is there something that you would change as you went through that transition of, “I’m going to be a partner in a CPA firm,” to, “I’m going to do what I do now.” It’s obviously been very successful for you. Would you change anything through that process?

John: I like to be explicit and tell people not to follow in what I did exactly. The piece that I focus on is the sharing of I did stand-up. Then I had a partner that I never worked with and never met remember me 12 years later out of nowhere at a conference. That’s the guy who did comedy at night. So that’s the piece that I really want people to take away. I was doing well. I enjoyed what I was doing and the work I was doing. I just felt like there was this other thing that I needed to go explore. So I guess in my personal career, the one thing that I would change is probably just be more fearless. The accountant in me is strong. The risk-averse accountant to me is very strong.

Scott: Same as last year.

John: Yeah, exactly. Just do the same as last year and the CYA file is monstrous. But yeah, it’s just, “Get out of my own way,” and actually let it rip and that we all have something to offer no matter what our profession is. So take the gloves off and offer it instead of tiptoeing and being reluctant or that risk-averseness. And it’s something that I’m getting better at now. The podcast and talking to people and sharing people’s stories is great. Then every time I speak, talking to people after, it’s really cool.

The feedback after that Cherry Bekaert partner retreat was just amazing, people talking afterwards and then messaging me as well. Yeah, it really means a lot, so it’s cool. No matter what it is that we do, just do it. Be that. You don’t have to pretend to be an accountant or a lawyer or whatever you are. You are it. I went through it writing my book. Man, brutal. I always thought that authors were these super smart, all-knowing, people that we all look up to and I’m not that. And it’s like, “No, I’m writing a book. I’m an author. That’s the definition of it. That’s all you got to do.” So I needed to take my own medicine there.

There you go. So there’s some deep wisdom I get. Man, you make my brain hurt. Good lord. No, but it was so fun, Scott, catching up. Thanks again for a being part of What’s Your “And”?

Scott: Same, I’m very happy. Thanks for having me back.

John: Absolutely. Everyone listening, if you want to see some pictures of Scott in action or maybe connect with him on social media, be sure to go to whatsyourand.com. 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.

Welcome to Episode 220 of What’s Your “And”? Follow-Up Friday edition. This is john Garrett. Each Friday I follow up with a guest who’s been on the show a few years ago to hear what’s new with their passions outside of work and also hear how this message has impacted them since we last talked.

I’m so excited to let everyone know that my book is being published very soon. It’ll be available on Amazon and a few other websites. So check out whatsyourand.com for all the details, or sign up for my exclusive list and you’ll be the first to know. Please don’t forget to hit Subscribe so you don’t miss any of the future episodes because I love sharing such interesting stories each and every week.

This Follow-Up Friday is no different with my guest, Greg Papineau. He’s the Director of Audit and Assurance at BiggsKofford in Colorado Springs, and now he’s with me here today in his office in Colorado Springs.

Greg, thanks so much for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”?

Greg: Oh, John, it’s great to be here. It’s good to see you again.

John: Oh, absolutely, man. This is so awesome to be in your office and hanging out and go to lunch together. Yes. So thanks, man.

Greg: Yeah, you got to see a little bit of Colorado Springs, the Broadmoor, and tour the city.

John: Yeah. It was really great. But maybe before we did that, I should have done the rapid-fire questions just to make sure.

Greg: That’s fine. Go for it.

John: Here we go. Here we go. If you had to choose, Harry Potter or Game of Thrones?

Greg: Game of Thrones.

John: Okay, okay. What’s a typical breakfast?

Greg: A green smoothie.

John: Wow, like kale green?

Greg: Yeah, like kale green with spinach, lettuce, avocado, mint.

John: So anything green?

Greg: Anything green.

John: Nice. I like it. Okay, awesome and healthy.

Greg: And healthy.

John: Good for you, man. More jeans or khakis?

Greg: Khakis,

John: Khakis. Okay. All right.

Greg: Actually, shorts.

John: Shorts. Khaki shorts.

Greg: Shorts and flip flops.

John: There you go. There you go. Cats or dogs?

Greg: Dogs.

John: Dogs, nice. How about if you had to choose brownie or ice cream?

Greg: Ice cream.

John: Ice cream. Good answer, man. Good answer. Favorite sports team?

Greg: Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks.

John: Oh, interesting choices.

Greg: I lived in Seattle for all my life until I moved to Colorado, and my wife converted me to a Broncos fan. So when the Broncos and Seahawks played in the Super Bowl a couple years back, I couldn’t lose.

John: That’s tough. Right, exactly.

Greg: I couldn’t lose.

John: Exactly. And the last one, this is maybe the most important one, toilet paper, roll over or under?

Greg: Over.

John: Over.

Greg: I used to didn’t care then I started seeing that over all the time, so now it’s over. You’re taking off the roll too when it’s over.

John: You flip it around. Nice. That’s awesome. So last time we talked, Episode 43, you were a deacon in the Catholic Church which is so unique. I don’t know. Have you come across any other CPA/deacons?

Greg: A couple of them.

John: Really?

Greg: I had a client in Denver who on their finance council is a CPA, and he’s also a deacon with the Catholic Church. Their organization is a Catholic organizations.

John: Oh, that’s awesome.

Greg: The Augustine Institute but —

John: So there are more.

Greg: There are more. There are more of us crazy guys.

John: Sounds like we need to get that person on the podcast, but until then, it’s you, man. It’s all you. So you’re still doing that and still actively involved in the church.

Greg: Oh, yeah, very active. You know, just for the refresher, I was ordained in June of 2011 as a permanent deacon in the Catholic Church. And so it is permanent, something I can’t change. I basically, as I say, as a deacon, we can marry, bury and baptize. So most fun thing I’ve done the last couple of years, I’ve had a chance to baptize my three granddaughters.

John: Awesome.

Greg: That was the best.

John: That’s really cool.

Greg: They’re now seven, five, and almost three. So the five-year-old and the three-year-old, I baptized since the last time we talked.

John: That’s fantastic.

Greg: That’s just great. And you get a chance to witness marriages, preside at wakes and funerals, and then you serve at mass. But primarily, it’s just ministry service. You get to go out and meet people out in the outer fringes of our parish, go to people who are homebound, maybe because they’re sick or they had a surgery and they couldn’t make it to church. So we’ll go visit them, bring communion to them or just to come visit.

John: That’s awesome, man.

Greg: One of the most fun things I do now is I have a men’s group that meets every Friday morning. So we meet at six o’clock in the morning. Time for men to get together and talk. I mean kind of a novel concept, men to talk about their feelings, but we try to get men to do that and so I do that. I just love doing it. It’s been the passion of my life.

John: But it’s great, man.

Greg: Things that give me joy in life and gets me up every day.

John: Yeah, this translates to your career. I know we talked about it before, but your level of service is way more than what mine was when I was a CPA, that’s for sure.

Greg: All of us accountants, a lot of us like to sit at our office desk a lot, but I think this is really a profession of serving people. You need to enjoy doing that. And so really deacon is a derivative of a Greek word called diakonos which means servant.

John: Oh, there you go.

Greg: It’s really fit into my lifestyle becoming a deacon, but being a deacon really complements me as a CPA because I love serving people. I love helping people. And that’s what makes this profession a lot of fun, as you and I talked about today. Just going out there helping people and helping them achieve their goals and building relationships with people.

John: Yeah, that go way deeper than just the numbers and the financial statements.

Greg: Way deeper than the numbers, yeah. And that could be golf to drinking fine wine to sharing a good meal, and maybe it’s just getting together for a nice lunch and asking people what’s going on in their lives. That’s the fun part. What’s new in your life? I always ask my clients that question all the time. So just to find out more what’s going on and how I can connect with that.

John: Plus, then maybe you can be steps ahead and serving them as the trusted advisor that everyone wants to be is you’re actually an advisor because you’re like, “Oh, well, if that’s what you want to do, then you might want to know that there’s these tax implications” or whatever it is. We want to buy a house in Europe. It’s like, oh, well, here’s how this is going to matter.

Greg: Exactly.

John: And that way then you can actually care for them above and beyond just what do you need right now?

Greg: Well, I think that’s the whole role of a CPA is you want to be that trusted advisor, and they want you to help come alongside them and give them advice. That’s what they pay you for. They pay you for advice. They don’t pay you because you do a tax return. My tax return looks just like the same as anybody else’s tax return does, but it’s the advice you have and the advice you give them and how you help them to achieve their goals. And understanding what they’re passionate about helps you to hopefully help them at the same time.

John: Yeah, absolutely.

Greg: Whether that’s been from a tax perspective, from a consulting perspective, whatever the case might be.

John: Yeah, or just caring.

Greg: And just caring.

John: Just caring about you as a person, which is awesome.

Greg: I think it brings the clients back, at least it has for me.

John: Just looking around your office too, clearly golf is also a passion of yours. There are some giant framed pictures of beautiful golf course that I thought was Ireland but apparently is Colorado.

Greg: Yeah, it’s up in the northeast corner of Colorado with the top hundred golf course in the world that I play and a member of. I just got back there from this past weekend, and it’s a lot of fun. Golf is something I’m very passionate about. In fact, last summer in 2018, we got the USGA Senior Open here at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, I was the chair of the scoring division.

John: Wow, that’s intense.

Greg: That was intense.

John: Like that’s all of it.

Greg: That’s all of it. All the scoring. So you think of all the leaderboards that are around the golf course, all the walking scores, there were lasers set up so they can measure distances to the hole, how long a drive was. There were standard bearers. They’re the guys that walk along behind the groups here with the names and what their score was.

John: You’re in charge of all of that?

Greg: I’m in charge of all the scoring.

John: Oh, my Lord.

Greg: That was a great event. Started Monday morning at six o’clock and ended Sunday night about eight o’clock.

John: And you had zero sleep in between there.

Greg: It felt like that. But that was a great event. It was a great community event here in Colorado Springs.

John: That’s awesome.

Greg: And took the week off and did a little community service. And didn’t take a vacation day for that. I don’t know if I should tell everybody that. I did code it on my time sheet as community service.

John: Yeah. But it’s a passion of yours. So it’s not even like, I mean, it’s super fun exponentially.

Greg: It was so much fun.

John: That’s awesome.

Greg: I had a buddy mine from Oregon came out here to help me. It happened the very first day. I met a guy, he was trying to find the 10th tee in the 10th tee at the Broadmoor is way out on the other end of the property. So I gave him a ride out. I was talking to him about that. He knew people I knew in Des Moines, Iowa.

John: Amazing.

Greg: Yeah, amazing. Another guy talked to his son and found out he was a wine broker in Atlanta, Georgia. During the competition, he walks over to me says, “My son says, you’re a wine guy.” We started talking about wine as we’re walking down another fairway.

John: Those are good friends to have, man.

Greg: It was great. The senior players are much more approachable and much less intense. Now, don’t get me wrong. There are some intense guys that are out there, but for a lot of them out there, it’s a second career for them.

John: Yeah, they’re just having fun.

Greg: Yeah, in fact, one guy played. I went to shake his hand. He didn’t shake my hand. He gave me a big hug.

John: Wow.

Greg: So it was great. It was fun.

John: That’s cool, man.

Greg: It’s a fun way to meet a lot of people.

John: Yeah, but also to be a part of USGA Senior Open, that’s a big deal.

Greg: It was impressive. We had a Senior Open at the Broadmoor in 2008 and then a Women’s Open in 2011. I was in charge for walking scores. But this time, I was in charge of all the scoring and so that was fun.

John: That’s really cool.

Greg: A free access to everything and walking out of any place I wanted to. That was fun. But that wasn’t the most important thing. We had some great players. I got to pitch with John Smoltz.

John: Oh, there you go.

Greg: He qualified in playing the Senior Open.

John: That’s cool.

Greg: That was cool.

John: Yeah, yeah. And it’s one of those things where you don’t even think that that’s a job until somebody messes up and then it’s like, ah. You have nothing to gain and everything to lose which is probably very similar to being an auditor.

Greg: Yep, exactly.

John: Nobody even knows who the auditor is and then all of a sudden, a big thing hits and it’s like, ah, shoot. That’s really cool, though, man. That’s it awesome thing.

Greg: It was a fun week. It was a great week. The weather was incredible. It was hot. But we had to keep all the volunteers well hydrated. And some of the volunteers up on the scoreboards, we had to make sure they had water. All the numbers are up there. All the names were all rubber. We have a meeting every day and one time they requested we go get some gloves. So we had to go to Home Depot to get gloves. All the letters and all the numbers were just hot. They couldn’t handle.

John: Yeah, because there’s so much sun here in Colorado too.

Greg: Unbelievable.

John: Yeah, and so is this idea of sharing passions outside of work something that you’ve seen more of since you were on the podcast, or is anything different?

Greg: It is. I think it’s very important. I think people need to have a life outside of work, number one. And I know as a firm we work really hard to try to get people involved in outside activities.

John: Right, just out of the out of the office.

Greg: Oh, get out of the office. In fact, we have a team meeting once a month. We have a different team member that leads the meeting and usually put some photos or videos up on the screen to talk about themselves, their families, what they do outside of work, not to do with inside of work, who their kids are, their dogs or cats or animals, what their passions are.

John: That’s huge. Do you find that that leads to some conversation or at least a different context of who that person is?

Greg: Well, we hope it does. Maybe not all the time. We’re accountants, nevertheless. But I think it does lead to some conversation, at least you can try to have a connection with people. Living in Colorado Springs, it’s a very outdoors place. People are actively involved in the outdoors, and so we promote that. And so when people do things, we try to celebrate that as a firm. We had one lady that worked here, and her husband was an Olympic athlete. And he qualified for the finals of the 3,000-meter steeplechase. That was in Rio de Janeiro. So at the end of the team meeting, it was coming on live. So we stayed and watched him race his race right on television. So when he came back in the States, we all congratulated him and congratulated her, asked how were the Olympics, did you have fun, and just a nice passion in that regard.

John: Yeah, yeah, because you hired the whole person. Clearly, her husband being an Olympic athlete is a big piece of who she is as a person.

Greg: Oh, it’s unbelievable. We have a manager here whose son is probably one of the top cross-country high schoolers in the nation. His son went back to Florida and won the National High School cross-country championships for high school as a freshman. So he came back and taken videos of it. We all sat around and watched the video. He was commentating. But we tried to get into what he’s doing and send some text to him during the day of the race. “Hey, Eric, do a great job.” It’s just fun to just get engaged in other people’s lives.

John: It’s just fun. It makes work more enjoyable.

Greg: More enjoyable. And then when the kids come in, I was always high fiving them. How are you guys doing? How’s racing going? How’s your training going? Whatever the case might be, we can always have a connection with the family members as well, I think not only with the team members but with the family members. It’s so important to understand the kids and get to know them as well.

John: Yeah, that’s such a big piece of who they are.

Greg: Exactly. You get outside of work, work is important and what we do is important, it helps our clients financially, but there’s more to life than tax returns and financial statements and all the things that go along with what we’re doing. But same point in time, you need to have a fun time and you need to enjoy your job. I always say, get jazzed up, come to work every day.

John: People are typically more jazzed up about the outside of work than the inside of work, stereotypically.

Greg: They are, but they enjoy coming to work more when they know the people inside care for them, without a doubt.

John: Exactly. If you can talk about those outside of work things inside work, now you’re equally jazzed. You can bring that stuff inside. You can have those conversations. You can watch the videos. You can follow up question, like how’s that going? Because then it shows people that you care about them as a person.

Greg: Oh, without a doubt. You talk about golf, even during the Masters week, we got computers have the Masters going on internally all the time. I walk over, “Who’s leading? What happened?” It’s not like, “What are you guys doing? Get back to work.” We’re all trying to, no. People are working hard and everybody knows they got to get the job done, but we’re trying to have fun at the same time.

John: Provided the outputs there, then yeah, then that’s great. So do you have any words of encouragement for people listening that think, I mean, you’re a deacon in a Catholic Church, which clearly no business school told me to go do that. I went to Notre Dame, for crying out loud. So you would think if anywhere did —

Greg: There was a few clergy running around there.

John: Right. But any words of encouragement to anyone listening that has a passion that they think is unrelated to their career?

Greg: Well, pursue it, number one, then do it 110%. Don’t do it half-heartedly in what you’re doing, but pursue it. And then don’t be afraid to talk about it. Share your passions with your teammates, with your coworkers, with your clients. You never know by sharing that with other people what impact that could have with them, whatever that might be, whatever your passion is. Maybe they have the same interest that you do, and therefore, all of a sudden, you’re now connected with them in a different way besides the numbers.

John: Because that’s the thing that we forget is clients also have passions that are outside of their work. So just talking about them about law or accounting or engineering or IT or whatever your career is, yeah, that’s great, but you can connect —

Greg: Well, it’s about building relationships in this profession. If I build relationships, you got to have some things in common with people and having a passion outside of work and connecting with other people regarding that helps build that relationship.

John: Yeah, I love that.

Greg: And that’s what makes it fun. This profession is all about is helping people and having a good time doing it.

John: That’s it, and you’re nailing both. I think you’re doing great, and that’s cool to see it in person and to be here at the big Skofford office and hang out. Before I bring this in for a landing, it’s only fair that I rudely rapid-fire question to you right out of the gate. So you can fire away at me. I’m ready. Here we go. And I have to look you in the eye as I answer, so I’m extra nervous.

Greg: All right, what’s your favorite color?

John: Favorite color, blue.

Greg: Okay, what’s your favorite movie?

John: Favorite movie? I would probably have to say Dumb and Dumber is a pretty good movie. It’s very well written and absolutely hilarious. And you can watch at any point in the movie and be just fine. So that’s always a pick me up, or Rudy if you want me to cry.

Greg: I think you asked me that question three years ago, what movie makes you cry? My first response was Rudy.

John: Yeah, Rudy is immediate. But I’ll watch that movie all day.

Greg: Actually, every day.

John: Oh, yeah. The real Rudy.

Greg: The real Rudy. A lot of big people that I know here in Colorado Springs were at Notre Dame went to college with him and were his fraternity brothers.

John: Yeah, he’s a very persistent individual.

Greg: Yeah, exactly. What kind of car do you drive?

John: What kind of car do I drive? So we have an Audi A3.

Greg: Okay, do you ski?

John: Snowboard. So fun fact on that, I hadn’t done anything on the snow since I was in third grade and that was in Ohio. So those are hills. Those aren’t mountains. And so I skateboarded a little bit in like late elementary school. So I was like, “All right, I’m going to try snowboarding.” So I hadn’t done anything since third grade until two years ago when I moved here. So now I’m snowboarding. I’m actually okay. I’m actually not embarrassing. So that’s good. I haven’t hurt myself or anyone else, more importantly.

Greg: So left foot or right foot forward?

John: Left foot forward.

Greg: What do they call that? Freaky?

John: No, no, I’m the regular whatever it’s called. Not goofy. I think goofy is the other one.

Greg: The either one, is that what it is?

John: But either way, I think just looking at me, you were like, it’s got to be freaky.

Greg: I see. So I don’t snowboard.

John: Right, right. So that’s awesome, man. Well, thanks so much, Greg, for taking time to be with me on What’s Your “And”? This was so much fun.

Greg: Awesome. Thank you, John. I enjoyed it very much.

John: Very cool. And everyone listening, if you want to see some pictures of Greg in action or maybe connect with him on social media, be sure to go to whatsyourandnd.com. All the links are there. And 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.