The One About Misery

The antidote is Company

TL;DR

They say misery loves company, right?

I had a real life case study of that truth last weekend when my middlest one ran her first 6th grade cross country meet. Talk about miserable.

2 miles was farther than she had run in her entire life up to that point. The course had a huge hill. The heat index was over 100 degrees (there were 3 middle schoolers that dropped during the race from the heat and had to be carted off!).

But, she pushed through the misery and accomplished her goal…which was just not to walk at all. (She ran a 21:45 btw✌️).

And you know how she did it? She had a little running bestie that has been a friend at practice, and they ran Every.Single.Step side by side. No lie, they clocked the exact same time.

No other pairs of athletes ran the race like that. And my guess is that these girls won’t always compete like that in their running careers. They will eventually want to compete against each other.

But she and this sweet friend decided that this “buddy strategy” was the best way for them to do this big, scary thing and live to talk about it.

My daughter is glad she is on the other side of the hard, unknown thing called “First XC Meet”. She knows that the next race will be easier than her first.

So I thought, if she can do miserable things that she knows will have good outcomes, then I (the grown up) can, too.

So this week, I decided to adopt my wise daughter’s strategy of finding good company when I had to do something miserable.

I’ll tell you all about my cringy, miserable business endeavor down below in the “Kate Builds In Public” Section. I’ve been putting it off for years, frankly.

And it has to do with marketing.

Perhaps if certain marketing/advertising/self-promo activities make you feel as miserable as running 2 miles in the Texas heat, then you just need to find good company, too.

So check out the Labor Day sale from our sponsor Marketing Academy by MediaBooks. Let that course led by friendly marketing expert Kristen Corey be your trusted companion to keep pushing you through the marketing stuff that many accounting-minded people are not great at.

Friends don’t let friends do marketing alone. 👇

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Deals Deals Deals

💰 Alicia Katz-Pollock is offering $300 off her Great QBO Refresh program to help more people understand the new QBO Interface (talk about nuclear meltdown!). Visit the Royalwise course website* and click “QBO Training” and then “Great QBO Refresh” to access it and get your QuickBooks Online productivity back!

💰 The Bookkeeping Cleanup Course* from Akadian is $700 off with code laborday700. We're about to enter a busy season for cleanups. If you need to increase your confidence or your efficiency inside QBO, this course addresses both of those issues. A single cleanup project more than covers the cost of a training like this.

💰September discount of 30% off full-pay or 12-month pay options for the Bookkeeper Launch course* with code liberty30.

💰Don’t miss that discount code for the Labor Day sale for the Marketing Academy from MediaBooks. 20% off with BSH20. Be sure to enroll by midnight September 1.

💰 Get 15% off all 5MB Academy Courses from Veronica Wasek* with code 5mblaborday.

💰 WAVE-Seattle conference pre-sale ticket price through 9/3. Then the price goes up to $425. If you are looking for a one-day, intimate conference, then this is for you.

Please always send me any news of deals that you hear of that others might benefit from.

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Be There or Be Square

Items with a “+” are hosted by me. All these events can be viewed and registered for in the DESCRIPTIONS of each event on the Bookkeeping Side Hustle Calendar.

📅+September 3: Behind The Hustle: Yehuda Tenenbaum. The fifth installment of the Behind The Hustle Series is with Yehuda Tehebaum. This series highlights bookkeepers and how they build a successful business. Watch the Behind The Hustle playlist and subscribe to the YouTube channel so you don’t miss it!

📅+September 10: The 4S Framework Every Bookkeeper Needs to Build Their Modern Firm. Justine Lackey is doing a mini-training based on the 4S Framework: Sales, Skills, Systems and Service. RSVP so you don’t miss it!

📅 September 15: Modern Firm Challenge*. This is a free 5 day challenge for folks who are ready to trade client chaos for a business that runs like clockwork.

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Featured Posts

🌶️ You know how I feel about setting goals and sharing them…well Anoo M. shared a business win and then shared a goal! My bet is that in 1 year, she will have an even better story to share. Go post your encouragement in the comment section.

🌶️ Sarah L. just started living abroad and just starting her career and worried about finding clients and jobs living outside the US.

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Help You Hustle

💪 Interview #4 of the Behind The Hustle series. Shaan Rizvi was the guest. One of the coolest parts about these behind the hustle interviews is that I don't talk to the guest about their answers to the questions beforehand. I provide the questions that I will ask, but then I'm going in totally blind. It's such a thrill. Here are some parts that hit me between the eyes.

• Shaan got into this business after an intense personal finance journey that included a debt-free scream on the Dave Ramsey show.

• He shared his year 1, 2, and 3 revenue numbers, which were respectable in their own right. But then I had to pick my jaw up off the floor when my gut instinct was to ask if he also had a 9:00 to 5:00 job, and he said he did.

Do note how he describes the terribleness of his first year in business. His story would not be impressive if things hadn't improved. I won’t judge you for miserable hours at the start, but it is on you if you stay in that spot. You can do this type of work in a peaceful way.

💪 You want to go to Vegas in November? Uncat is giving away a ticket to the Intuit Connect conference to someone reading this newsletter who fills out this form to enter the random drawing.

💪 If you don’t know accounting fundamentals yet (Debits, Credits, T-accounts, JEs, etc), and studying lots of long hours sounds a bit miserable, then put together a tiny study group like this community member did to have accountability to pass the free bookkeeping exams at Intuit Academy!

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Jobs

💼 Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! Firms must be preparing for bookkeeping busy season! So many jobs have been added to the Job Guide! Check it out.

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My Family Circus (43F, 40M, 13M, 11F, 10M)

🎪 Hard things today for good things tomorrow

My oldest turned 14.

I decided it was time for him to plan his own birthday party. He wanted to take some buddies to this cool rock climbing gym here in Fort Worth.

Here are the things he did:

• First, he had to call and talk on the phone to the manager to make sure that a group of 8th grade boys was allowed to come as a group and to get the pricing details.

• Then he shifted to email communication. I think there were about 3 total back-and-forths with the manager about the date/time, the final price, liability waivers, etc. He did a great job there, but still needed a little coaching. He would always read his typed emails to us. “Mom and dad, is this good?”

• Then the last thing that I deliberately did was that on the day of the party, I left him up front so he could greet and instruct his guests all on his own. He had to say hello and ask if they had signed the waiver and tell the boys to find the right size of climbing shoe. I waved at the parents from where I was sitting in the back of the building and kind of kept fiddling with the cupcakes and gatorades so I looked busy, not rude. Then the parents wandered back to where I was for us to do the normal adult pleasantries. But I am certain that if I had stayed up front to greet people, I would have talked and my son would have said very little. I knew I had to be absent to give him space to grow.

• He had to pay us $24 dollars because his guest list exceeded the budget. I really liked watching him noodle through that hard choice.

The only thing that I did leading up to the party was texting the parents of his written list of friends to give them the date/time and the link to the liability waiver. And I did bring cupcakes and gatorade, which is the food he asked for.

In many ways, it was more “work” for me and my husband to let my son plan this because it required a lot more conversation and guidance (prepping for the phone call, for instance). But it was rewarding.

I wanted him to do these hard things today so that he can do things like figure out how to rent an apartment for a study abroad semester tomorrow. Or take himself to the doctor when he busts his forehead open playing pickup sports with his friends after work. Or plan a 50th birthday party for me one day. Or ask for a meeting with his boss when he wants a raise. Or speak up and organize something when he sees an injustice somewhere.

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Kate Builds In Public

🎢 Well, I told you in last edition that I would explain something really strange that I had been doing lately.

Well, I am now 1 full week on the other side of this stressful adventure and my business doesn't seem to have burned down, so I'll take the W and tell you about it.

Remember about a year ago I shared my reasons why I had formally applied to be a substitute teacher at my children's school? And my goal was to sub once a month? It was a great experience last school year. I highly recommend it if you can get on as a sub at your children’s school.

Well, a few weeks ago, our headmaster sent me an alarming text asking if I could step in to teach 8th grade Algebra I because the person she hired just quit.

With less than a week until the scholars arrived back on campus, I told her I could help, though I did set some clear boundaries.

• I told her I could only do two weeks. Hard stop. I needed her to hustle to hire a real teacher.

• I said that I could only do the 4 morning classes (a Dean took the single afternoon section).

• I needed some sort of spare closet/office/room with a door and a table to sit at so I could continue to run my business in the afternoons on the school’s wifi.

• And I told her that I needed to clock all my hours that I was going to work as a teacher, not just the in-class time. The pay is only like $16 bucks an hour, so it was not about the money. It was more about the fact that I didn't want to grow to resent the school or the administration. I wanted it to be a very professional exchange, because I value the relationship I have with her and the whole school.

For those 2 weeks, I clocked 29 and 31 hours because there was a lot of administrative work. I had to organize the room, make seating charts, study the material (remember Y-intercepts and y=mx+b 🤓) grade papers, attend a faculty meeting about special education accommodations. It was the real deal. I was not a warm body.

In case you don’t know, I started my business as a side-hustle to being a SAHM, not as a side hustle to a 9-5. So, I got a tiny taste of what it is like to work a job, and then go try to build a business. Those of you doing that, I salute you!

🎢 OK…you’ve read this far. I’ll tell you about my miserable task.

The miserable thing that I did last week was do a photo shoot for YouTube thumbnails. I really want to be a successful YouTube instructor. My stated goal is to “be the Hector Garcia of FreshBooks". I’ve been putting off doing goofy faces for thumbnails to get clicks for years. So I asked ChatGPT for a list of 100 poses that could be used in future thumbnails. Then I enlisted the members of my household to be my photographer, moved some furniture, situated some lamps, and we had a big ol’ awkward photo shoot.

I still felt like I needed a shower afterwards to get the ick off me, but the memories we made are going to stick. We were laughing a lot during the shoot. And then we were HOWLING at some of these photos afterwards. It is so embarrassing to do this kind of thing well.

If I can survive doing “Finger pointing up with ‘aha!’ face” and “Covering mouth with one hand, gasping” photos, you can find someone to be your company doing whatever miserable thing is on your list of things you need to do to grown your business and change your life.

Should I share some photo outtakes in the Facebook group?

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From The Vault

⚡Anyone else on the move now that school is back in session? Picking up, dropping off, waiting for games? (Or in my case “teaching Algebra I every morning for 2 weeks ^👆). My “mobile office” helps keep me on schedule during times like this. Do you work on the go?

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Letters To The Editor

✉️Honored to be in the same league as Ben Stein from Keeper! And to be worthy of an having an app on your phone!

Your newsletter is my favorite!! Your newsletter and Ben Stein's Keeper updates are the only industry news in my Always Read list. Thanks for all you do!! - Kristi R.

Always enjoy your newsletters! It’s the only reason I have Substack on my phone! - Kelli M .

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Classifieds (Clickable)

Keep hustling!

Kate

-Chief Hustler-

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