Today is April 20, 2018, 10 days away from the end of 2018’s tax season.
Instead of talking about tax and accounting (which I am getting a bit sick of at this point ? ), I want to take this opportunity to thank my team, who’s the most dedicated team I can ask for.
A couple came in yesterday asking me for tips and advice on quitting their job and starting on their own business.
I couldn’t truly explain how much of an obstacle I had to go through to get to where I am today. And I am far from being a successful entrepreneur. I am still learning every single day.
One weakness I have is team management/coaching. Things that I thought it could be done without intervention would turn out to be completely different from what I expected.
Turns out, everyone’s different. Their perception and understanding of the same issue can be very different from mine. If I had never communicated or demonstrated, how could I have expected the result I wanted?
Sounds so cliché, isn’t it? Yet, it took me a couple of years to recognize my weakness.
It also took me a year to recognize that I can’t really improve on this weakness. It’s better to have someone with this skillset to do that job instead.
I am extremely grateful for my team who came together to plow thru this tax season with me.
I am extremely grateful that they tolerate my flaw and find a way to work together.
Together, we have a “Growth Opportunities” list. We make sure that we have a place to document all the opportunities for improvements. So next year, we can avoid the same frustration as much as possible.
Being a solo-preneur is very different from being an true entrepreneur. You take on more responsibility, more risk, more systems, more clients and more staff.
I picked up a few principles along the way to keep myself going. Many of them are from my long time mentors Tom & Nick Karadza. These are straight from their blog post here.
“You don’t have to get it right, you just have to get it going.”
– Mike Litman & Others
When I first started my business, I had no ideas. I thought that having a CA license means that people would approach me to give me business. Man I was so wrong! A CA license and getting on honour roll can only get you a job interview. Not clients and/or a business.
I scrambled off to start my own website, copying exactly what my husband had at the time. Only Blog Posts, nothing else. No fancy pictures, nothing!
It was not a pretty website, but it did its job.
When I got my very first speaking opportunity, I was so nervous. I stumbled so many times and I put so much complicated numbers and charts that people could barely understand me.
I somehow did it. It wasn’t perfect, but it did the job!
“You have two doors in life: one door is marked security and the other is marked freedom. If you choose the door marked security, you lose both.”
– Robert G. Allen
This week is the first week of our gym’s 12 week challenge, which requires us to workout 4x a week and a straight diet. Today is also April 20, 10 days away from completion of our 2018 tax season.
I have the “freedom” to dedicate the times to workout 4x a week because I am willing to sacrifice the “security” that I have from a job. It’s hard for someone who has a 9-5 job to make such a commitment.
For that, I am always grateful for.
Just for the record, I do work morning hours and weekends to make up for the time lost, but hey, without the sacrifice of security, how could I have the flexibility that I have for today?
“Poor people have big TVs. Rich people have big libraries.”
– Jim Rohn
I used to have big TVs at home when I was alone. I had 3 TVs at one point, all by myself! I had one in the living room, one in my bedroom, and one in the guest room. Why the heck did I need so many TVs?
I watched the sitcoms and basketball every night. I would fall asleep in front of the TV. And Jim Rohn is probably right, I was living pay check by pay check at the time.
Today, I still had the same TVs, but we rarely turn them on.
We get up at 6am in the morning and start our work early. We traded the non-productive hours with sleep. We traded the early sleep with productive mornings.
The rumour is that Tom Karadza reads one to two books every week. I can’t keep up with the speed for sure, but I do have my library of audiobooks with me.
I can’t tell you how much I have learned from these audiobooks over the years.
Marketing, life, learning about myself. You name it!
Thank you for reading this motivational blog post till now. I am going to get back to my heavy tax/accounting tips next week!
Enjoy the sunshine today!
Until next time, happy Canadian Real Estate Investing.
Cherry Chan, CPA, CA
Your Real Estate Accountant
