022 More of My Story
I’m sharing more of why I quit my job, my work experience for the last several years, and why PTO is so important to take!
Financial empowerment and agency could look like you taking your PTO even if it stresses other people out. Or it could be starting your own business so that you get paid on your terms.
Resources:
Want to get your business organized? This is the first step: getting those receipts under control! Download Chaos to Calm, my free receipt organization guide.
Other episodes you'll enjoy:
019 Do You Hate Your Money Goal?
Connect with me:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alleaseaccounting
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/accountingwithease
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/all-ease-accounting-llc/
Website: alleaseaccounting.com/podcast
Loved this episode? Leave us a review and rating!
00:00:00
All right, everybody, coming on to record this podcast and this is unscripted.
00:00:08
I don't even have show notes.
00:00:10
And I just really felt called to talk about.
00:00:15
This exact topic these subjects because recently I have been doing a.
00:00:20
Lot of work.
00:00:21
On things that happened in my past and the decisions that I made.
00:00:26
To change my life and like a lot of stuff has been coming up for me and I think it's important that I share that with you because the whole point of me having a podcast is really not to get like more clients.
00:00:39
It's really to just help people who maybe are in the same position that I was in two to three years ago.
00:00:47
Or people who want to start a business and all they see is obstacles.
00:00:52
And all they've been.
00:00:53
Told is that it's.
00:00:55
Hard and that you have to overcome so much and that you need to have financing and you need to have this, this and that and you need to be good at time management.
00:01:05
Like all of the things that we're told about running a business and we're socialized, especially as women to not think that that we're capable or that we're smart enough to do it.
00:01:17
And so this all.
00:01:19
Has been coming up for me because I have been diving deep into.
00:01:22
The way that I've structured my business, what I want for my business.
00:01:26
So I want to talk about it today.
00:01:28
The point of me owning a business and running an accounting firm.
00:01:33
Is #1.
00:01:34
To provide me with an income, right?
00:01:36
Like I quit my full time job last May.
00:01:40
So we're coming up on just about.
00:01:42
A year of.
00:01:42
Me having officially being in.
00:01:45
I quit my job and my husband.
00:01:48
Does not make enough money to support both of us just off of his salary.
00:01:53
And so I had to work like I have to have some sort of income for myself too to support.
00:02:00
Our life together, so I quit my job.
00:02:03
I started my business, which is something that I had wanted to do for so long.
00:02:07
Why did I take so long to get to the point of actually doing it?
00:02:11
Well, just like I said mentioned earlier, it's the socialization, the things that we're told explicitly, and then the stories that.
00:02:20
We're told that implicitly tell us that we're not capable of.
00:02:25
Doing the things that we.
00:02:26
Want to do?
00:02:27
We're not capable.
00:02:28
Building something ourselves that we have to do things by picking ourselves.
00:02:34
Up by the.
00:02:34
Bootstraps and that it can't be done in community with other people and then it can't be done with the support system.
00:02:41
All of these things like I maybe knew you know deep down but I wasn't able to access.
00:02:48
Until I really started to develop and exercise my own self respect and telling myself.
00:02:55
I'm not willing to be treated the way I was being treated anymore, and I'm not willing to work for somebody else or work with other people whose values are so out of alignment with what I believe and what I think is precious and important in life and.
00:03:11
It took me I don't want to say a long time because in the span of my lifetime it wasn't that long.
00:03:17
But it did.
00:03:18
Take a while for me to get to that point just because of the years of programming of the socialization of receiving the messages that I wasn't good enough to do this on my own and.
00:03:30
It just had to be like a kernel of a seed of a thought in my mind that I was willing to believe that I could do it, that I was willing to believe that I was good enough and smart enough and capable and experienced enough to do this myself.
00:03:45
And it's OK if you were at the point of your journey that you don't yet believe that you can.
00:03:51
You don't yet think that you're smart.
00:03:53
Are capable enough or good enough, or experienced enough?
00:03:56
It's OK if you're there, but I just want you to know that it is possible.
00:04:00
Of course, for you to do anything that you want, but that it's possible for you to believe that you're capable and that you have what you need.
00:04:10
To get started and to change your career to change your position, to quit your job, to start a business, whatever it is that you want to do, I want you to know that it's possible for you to believe that that is already available to you, but it's OK if you're not there yet.
00:04:27
So recently there has been.
00:04:30
A lot of media stories and news and people sharing things and talking about things online that scares me and.
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I want to.
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Talk about the way.
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I infuse my activism into my business.
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Because like I've.
00:04:49
Said before I run a values based business.
00:04:53
I will not compromise my beliefs in order to just make a dollar.
00:04:58
What does that mean?
00:04:59
That means that I'm not working for people.
00:05:02
Who are so?
00:05:04
Out of alignment with what I believe to be true.
00:05:07
What I believe.
00:05:08
To be important anymore, and that can include people who may or may not want to be my clients.
00:05:14
If somebody came to me and wanted to be my client and then they found out.
00:05:20
What my values?
00:05:21
Are that I believe Black Lives Matter, that I believe transgender people are human beings who deserve basic rights.
00:05:29
To access to healthcare and housing and employment that all of these ways that our government is trying to suppress and disenfranchise and criminalize people just for their identities, if somebody came to me, wanted to work with me, and then they found out that those are the things that I believe and I'm not going.
00:05:51
To put a label on it.
00:05:52
But you could probably guess.
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What the label would be?
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If they came to me and they found that out.
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And they were like well.
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I just can't work with somebody who believes that or like, you know, you're so far out there quote UN quote.
00:06:04
That's what I have heard from people recently saying about me.
00:06:08
Like I've seen it in writing.
00:06:10
Wow, she's so far out there.
00:06:11
Wow, she's really, you know, far gone.
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I just can't believe people actually think like this.
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This flash.
00:06:19
There's the ******* door, *****.
00:06:20
You can go.
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I don't care.
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I don't need your ******* money either.
00:06:24
Like if you think you're doing something by telling me that you're not gonna work with me because.
00:06:32
Of what I believe.
00:06:36
I'm so excited for both of us to be in a place where that's what decisions are being made on because guess what, I make those decisions in my life every day based on what I believe and based on my values.
00:06:51
So props to you for doing the same thing.
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You're going to make a decision based on your beliefs.
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I love that for you.
00:06:59
If your beliefs are out of alignment with my beliefs.
00:07:01
And that's why you don't want to work with me.
00:07:03
Wonderful, because here is the thing the people who are in alignment with my beliefs, the people who do not even just agree with me, but.
00:07:13
The people that see the work that I'm doing and know what I stand for and they're like, yeah, that's awesome.
00:07:20
Like I want to be a part of.
00:07:21
That too like.
00:07:23
Those are the people that I want to work with.
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It's not the people who are necessarily straddling the fence middle of the road, people.
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I hate that.
00:07:32
The middle of the.
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Road you are.
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Indecisive or you're lying is one of those two things.
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Either you are indecisive or you're.
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Straight up lying.
00:07:42
About what your beliefs actually are, get out of here with the middle of the road.
00:07:50
Want anybody in my community to be confused?
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About where I stand on certain issues and that is why I am loudly proclaiming them when and where I can.
00:08:03
Because what's more important to me than upsetting the feelings of people who are snowflakes or just want to be upset about something upsetting the feelings of people who are trying to take away other people's rights and disenfranchise them, I don't care about their feelings. I care about the people who are being disenfranchised.
00:08:23
I care about the people who are under attack.
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I care about the people who are being grouped together and forced.
00:08:32
To live in bodies that they don't want to live in, who are forced to be incarcerated, who are forced to be subjugated and marginalized in society because they don't fit into the box, that the overarching white supremacist society wants them to fit into.
00:08:52
I care about those.
00:08:53
People and I want to help those people and when I talk about financial empowerment and when I talk about taking back your agency, those are the people that I'm talking to.
00:09:03
It's not the people who already have power and privilege and money and access.
00:09:09
It's the people who are under attack.
00:09:11
It's the people who are being told.
00:09:14
With their identity and their body.
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And their beliefs make them subject to incarceration, to violence, to murder, to marginalization, disenfranchisement, all of those things.
00:09:30
Those are the people that I, when I say, I want to help you be empowered.
00:09:35
And I want to help you reclaim your financial agency.
00:09:38
That is who I'm talking to.
00:09:39
If you're like that sounds great.
00:09:41
I love that.
00:09:42
Perfect.
00:09:43
I'm so glad you're here.
00:09:44
If you're like, wow, this woman is really far out there.
00:09:48
She's too far gone.
00:09:49
Yes, agreed.
00:09:51
I am too far gone.
00:09:53
And also like you're welcome to sit here and listen and get mad about it.
00:09:57
I guess I.
00:09:58
Don't know if that's like your thing.
00:09:59
You just like to get mad about stuff that you could easily just.
00:10:02
Stop listening.
00:10:03
To welcome, I guess.
00:10:05
Like sure, you can sit here and listen and argue with me in your head or.
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Go on social.
00:10:09
Media and argue with me, like that's fine.
00:10:11
Do you?
00:10:13
Meanwhile, I am working with organizations who are aligned with my beliefs.
00:10:19
I am working doing the work that I know how to do, which is accounting, bookkeeping, payroll, helping people understand and become financially literate about their businesses.
00:10:30
Those are the people that I'm helping.
00:10:31
That's the community that I'm building.
00:10:34
So anybody is welcome to participate.
00:10:38
I mean, even you're welcome to come on and argue with me.
00:10:41
Like I will.
00:10:42
I do have time, but I'm not trying to change your mind.
00:10:45
I'm just standing up for what I believe in.
00:10:48
I'm just speaking for the people who often don't have.
00:10:52
The voice or the platform?
00:10:54
Or the agency to speak on that.
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That's why I'm doing this.
00:10:58
Is so that we can have a different community.
00:11:01
It's so that we can have a more robust and connected group of people.
00:11:06
And I think in this country, a lot of people won't get to realize that financial agency until they start their own business.
00:11:15
Because we do not have.
00:11:17
A livable minimum wage.
00:11:19
It is legal for business owners to choose to just pay their people slave wages.
00:11:25
It is their like no one is stopping them from paying less than a livable wage.
00:11:30
No one is saying that they have to provide health care to their workforce.
00:11:34
Nobody is saying that they have to pay for paid time off.
00:11:38
If you have a.
00:11:38
Family member that dies.
00:11:40
Sucks to be you if you don't have PTO, go deal with it, but you're not getting paid in the mean time.
00:11:45
If you lose your job and you did have healthcare with your job.
00:11:49
Sucks to be.
00:11:50
You if you want healthcare after you lose your job, that is the reality of the United States.
00:11:56
Is our laws, or lack of laws, lack of legislation that's protecting people?
00:12:02
If you want to have financial agency in this country, one of the ways to do that is to start your own business and that is why I started my business.
00:12:10
I wanted to be empowered.
00:12:12
I wanted to be financially independent of somebody else whose.
00:12:17
Beliefs are not in line with my own.
00:12:19
I wanted to be able to say the kinds of things that I'm saying to you right now on this podcast in a public forum anywhere, and not go to work the next day and be chided for what I.
00:12:29
But it is nobody's business that is paying me money or buys a client. Whoever what I do with my life, the words that I say what I do with my body, what I do with my time outside of work, it is nobody else's business and I will not be told that what I say is too far out there.
00:12:49
And then have that be something that's told to me by somebody who is in a position of power over me who controls my employment, AKA my livelihood, and then make myself smaller to appease them.
00:13:01
That is an abusive relationship.
00:13:03
I decided that I wasn't going to put up with that anymore and that's why I ******* quit.
00:13:07
I want to help people who are still in that.
00:13:10
Who are still being told that their beliefs and their values and the things that they say online in public and private, wherever are things that shouldn't be said because we need to maintain decorum and we need to.
00:13:25
Maintain nice politics and we don't talk about politics and religion at the family, dinner, etc.
00:13:33
Off the people who benefit from not talking about politics are the people who are already in position of privilege and power according to our politics, our national politics, the people that are.
00:13:45
That are not being affected by this legislation that's coming out that is harming transgender children and adults and everybody.
00:13:52
Those people aren't affected by that ****, so of course they can say I'm not going to talk about politics because it's literally not affecting them at this time.
00:14:00
It will down the.
00:14:01
Road, but it's valuable for me.
00:14:04
To go through the struggle of being a business owner, it's valuable to me to be challenged with a new thing.
00:14:10
Running a business is a new thing for me.
00:14:12
Even though I have turned around and helped all these small business owners at all walks of their business life.
00:14:18
I know what?
00:14:18
It's like because I've observed it, but now I'm actually going through it and the challenge and that struggle.
00:14:24
Is valuable because the whole point of me doing this is so I can turn around and help you help you when you're in that position and you're being told that your politics are too far out.
00:14:35
There and your politics are simply that, every human being should have access to housing, food and health care shouldn't be criminalized for any job that they do.
00:14:44
They shouldn't be criminalized or segregated or treated as less than because of the body that they show up in because of their identity.
00:14:52
If those are the things you believe but you feel like you have to play.
00:14:55
Small just to appease somebody who holds your livelihood in their hands.
00:14:59
Just because you have to appease them, you have to make it so that you fly under the radar.
00:15:05
You have to make it so that you hide parts of yourself so that you can stay safe and employed.
00:15:11
And pay your rent and buy groceries, and then at the same time you either don't have health care from your employer and can't afford it.
00:15:20
Otherwise you don't have paid time off.
00:15:23
**** goes down, you get sick, your family members get sick and die.
00:15:26
Or if you just want to take a *** **** vacation because not everything is about working.
00:15:30
All the time.
00:15:31
And you're being.
00:15:32
Told that you should feel guilty for taking time.
00:15:35
Off or that?
00:15:36
You put other people in a bind.
00:15:37
You put other people in a position to where things are too hectic.
00:15:42
There's too much workload that is offloaded from you to other people.
00:15:46
When you take time off, and then you feel guilty about that.
00:15:49
That's the people that I'm talking to, and if you just want to be here and listen to what I'm saying on the podcast and just follow me.
00:15:57
That's wonderful.
00:15:58
And I love that.
00:15:58
And I'm so glad that you're here and I want to be in community with you, and if you're.
00:16:04
Here are getting pisssed off about the things that I believe and the stuff that I'm saying.
00:16:08
Welcome.
00:16:09
You should be pisssed off.
00:16:10
**** is ****** **.
00:16:12
This country is ****** **.
00:16:13
Glad you're pisssed off.
00:16:14
We share that, but I'm not your target.
00:16:16
And I'm not your enemy.
00:16:17
We're all in this together.
00:16:19
The working class can become the owners of the means of production by becoming.
00:16:25
Employers themselves, or just by owning their own business and not employing anybody owning the means of production, owning everything that you do instead of just receiving a small amount of what you produce.
00:16:37
Based on what somebody else wants to give.
00:16:40
I worked in a position where it wasn't OK for me to take time off, even though every year I accrued hundreds of hours of PTO they were given to me as part of the benefit of working in that position.
00:16:54
I developed a lot of scarcity about taking time off, but even more so money.
00:16:59
I would often get paid late.
00:17:04
It would be a couple of days or the next day after what was supposed to be.
00:17:08
The day I got my direct deposit that it would actually get paid.
00:17:11
This caused me to make late payments on bills a lot of times it caused my account to get overdrafted a lot of the time because I was expecting under the terms of an employment agreement that I was going to be paid on a certain day for work.
00:17:26
That I had already done.
00:17:28
Was that I?
00:17:28
Had already put in and then the payment came late and one time the PTO thing and the payment and be getting paid came into play.
00:17:38
At the same time.
00:17:39
And so I want to tell you this story because this was five years before I decided to quit.
00:17:45
And I look back and I just cannot even believe that I lasted that long, honestly.
00:17:49
OK.
00:17:50
But man, was I really in it.
00:17:52
I went on a vacation with my husband.
00:17:56
I went on a cruise and it was a week long.
00:17:59
Because it was like Sunday to Sunday or whatever.
00:18:01
And during that.
00:18:03
Week was supposed to be my payday was supposed to be the direct deposit day that money showed up in my account.
00:18:09
From what I had already worked when I got back into the country because we had been on a cruise and you don't have cell service and when you were in a different country back then I didn't have like roaming and stuff.
00:18:19
So I didn't have cell service.
00:18:21
I couldn't check my account or anything.
00:18:23
Got back into the country from the.
00:18:24
Crews went to pull money out of the ATM, saw that I had $3 in my bank account, and I'm freaking out cause I'm like what happened.
00:18:34
Like I was supposed to get paid and I didn't have other things coming out, so I'm confused.
00:18:39
Like, where is my money?
00:18:41
And I was really upset, thinking like something happened.
00:18:44
I had no messages.
00:18:45
No emails from my boss, nothing.
00:18:48
Something catastrophic happened, right? I texted my boss and I said hey, just making sure everything's OK. I didn't get paid last week.
00:18:57
She responded almost immediately to tell me that she had had a busy week because I was gone and she had, I don't know, 20 or something.
00:19:06
Plate spitting in the air at the same time, which is.
00:19:08
Her favorite analogy?
00:19:11
That my absence, which was a vacation that she approved in advance for me to take my absence, had caused her so much stress and extra work that she didn't get around to paying me.
00:19:26
But as she's texting me this, I get the notification that my direct deposit.
00:19:31
So turns out that she did run payroll on time.
00:19:37
She paid the tax deposit on time, but she didn't actually send me my direct deposit.
00:19:43
She was just holding on to the money.
00:19:45
And this was from what she told me because of me, because of my absence that I had created by choosing to go on vacation which, like, if she hadn't approved it, I'd already paid for it.
00:20:00
So like I still.
00:20:01
Would have gone.
00:20:03
But she did approve it, so my absence.
00:20:06
Which she approved caused her to have a lot of extra work to do.
00:20:09
She did actually run payroll, but she didn't pay me.
00:20:13
She just processed it, you know, calculated it, made the tax deposit, didn't pay me, paid the government, didn't pay me and.
00:20:20
I was so upset by this, but not in the way that was like, angry at her for her trying to make me feel guilty.
00:20:28
It was upset because I internalized all of that.
00:20:32
I believed that it was my fault and I it was like a traumatic experience for me to come back into the country and realize I had three dollars.
00:20:41
My bank account and.
00:20:43
I was like, I can't even afford to *******.
00:20:46
Fill the gas tank to get home.
00:20:48
What am I supposed to do?
00:20:50
And I internalized 100% of that guilt, and that shame and the responsibility when none of it was mine to take on it took years, obviously.
00:21:03
To undo that and to turn it around and to stop taking responsibility, more examples of this would be when I had two.
00:21:12
Members of my immediate family pass away in 2021 and I needed to take time, obviously, to take care of my family, to deal with arrangements and all of that, and she had planned a work trip. She was going to fly us out to a retreat.
00:21:32
Kind of thing.
00:21:33
We're going to stay in an Airbnb, go hiking, blah, blah blah.
00:21:36
Which I.
00:21:36
Was stoked for stoked to go do.
00:21:38
Up until you know, people died very close to me and the one of the funerals had been scheduled for the weekend that we were supposed to go on the work retreat.
00:21:48
And so I told her, like, I can't go to the work retreat anymore.
00:21:53
Now I have a funeral, like I have my family stuff to deal with now.
00:21:56
And I don't even want to go.
00:21:58
On the work or.
00:21:59
Need anymore?
00:22:00
I'm grieving and she asked me if I would ask the person the deceased person's surviving spouse if they could rearrange the funeral date so that I could still go on the work retreat.
00:22:14
Maybe they would move it around so that I could still go do the thing.
00:22:19
Yeah, that's that.
00:22:19
Was a legit.
00:22:20
Question that she asked and I was like, no, I'm not going and I'm not going to ask that.
00:22:27
This is when the arrangements have been made.
00:22:29
This is what I'm doing because it's my family.
00:22:32
I'm not work.
00:22:35
Secondary to that, so just thinking about the whole PTO thing, just thinking about getting paid late many times over my work experience, all of these things definitely snowballed and came to a giant crescendo in 2021. And that's when I decided that it was truly done.
00:22:57
Starting a business was the scary part.
00:22:59
On the other side of that.
00:23:01
And I not only had to do that work to overcome that fear and anxiety and like, start believing that I could run my own business and be successful and, like have an income that supported my life, that took a little bit of time.
00:23:16
And I still have some things to work through with that, but I'm just telling you this because it has been coming up for me recently and.
00:23:23
I have realized that the benefit of me struggling and being challenged with this right now is because there are still people who are in those kinds of positions that I was in.
00:23:34
There are still people who are being exploited and taken advantage of and absurd of abused, and I want them to know that there's something on the other.
00:23:42
Side of that.
00:23:43
And whether that's a different job working for a business that is in line with your values and that is an equitable business, especially when it comes to their workforce or whether it's starting your own business.
00:23:53
Self which I can help you with me struggling through that and overcoming my fears and rising to the challenge and figuring it out right now is how I turn around and help the people who are still in those positions and that is really important to me.
00:24:09
That's what I wanted to share today.
00:24:10
Thank you for listening.
00:24:12
I greatly appreciate you being here.
00:24:13
Community with me.
00:24:14
I greatly appreciate your support and your messages.
00:24:18
It means so much to me and that's why I get on here and just talk like that's all.
00:24:26
Podcast is right.
00:24:27
I'm just sharing my thoughts but.
00:24:30
It's so awesome that you're here listening to my thoughts and that you share those values with me.
00:24:36
If you do, if you don't share all my values like that's totally OK.
00:24:39
I hope that we can continue to be in Community together and I want you to know that if you're in that experience right now in a job that is trading.
00:24:50
You like crap.
00:24:52
Which is probably a lot of people that I see you and I understand.
00:24:57
And I've been there, I've done that.
00:25:01
I have several T-shirts from it and it's not forever and you are capable of deciding and having agency over your life and choosing.
00:25:12
Something different.
00:25:13
And when you're ready to make the step forward, I'll be here.
00:25:18
There are many other professionals that can support you on that journey, and it's just about finding the right person.
00:25:24
Thank you for listening.
00:25:25
I hope you have a great rest of your week.
00:25:28
Talk to you later.