The One With Green

Because envy and jealousy never end.

TL;DR

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So, my 12 year old just tried out for our school’s junior high flag football team. He made the cut, but made the B-Team. He was perfectly happy with the results.Thrilled actually. To be honest, I think we all knew it wasn’t certain he’d make the team at all.

But when I saw the results, my initial gut reaction was turning green with envy for those families who had boys who made the A-Team. “I wish we were an A-Team family” was the sickening refrain that ran through my mind. 

I’m not proud of this. I didn't tell my son my feelings. I quickly told myself to quit being such an absolutely awful person. 

Being green with envy is one of the worst feelings in the world. It can eat you alive if you don’t shut it down.

Contentment coupled with healthy, continuous improvement is a much better mental place to be. Is my son having fun? Is he getting better at football compared to last week? That is all that I should want. In my heart, I know that. And I want him to believe that is truly what I want for him.

And I remembered one of the most important things I ever learned in business school was that we have to be vigilant about fighting envy. We can’t let it take a foothold inside us. One of my professors frequently emphasized that there will always be someone smarter, wealthier, prettier, more athletic, with a better job, better house, etc. He was wise enough to realize that a lot of us just live in a hamster wheel of never being satisfied.

Let’s say you let yourself be jealous of someone else and focus on having what they have and you get it. You succeed in besting them. Well, the bad news is, that nasty part of yourself will just fill itself with the next person to be jealous of.

Because envy and jealousy never end. 

• I wish we were an A-Team family

• I wish we were a Varsity family

• I wish we were a championship family

• I wish we were a DI family, not a DIII family.

• He’s playing DI, but so-and-so has more NIL deals. Ugh.

(to be clear…when it comes to athletics, every single one of us in my family is like B-Team abilities through and through!...I’m just using sports as an example)

In my business, it sure is easy to look around at other bookkeeping firm owners who seem to be doing so much better than me. 

Their websites are better. They say they don't work as many hours. They say they price higher. Their social media posts get way more views. 

But my goals should be my goals. Your goals should be your goals. Not based on someone else’s achievements. 

But if we don't know what our goals are, and if we don't know which problems to focus on, we might strive for someone else’s goal because our envy is our motivator.

The Workflow Queen wants to help businesses owners get clarity on what they need to do to identify their main business problems and achieve their business goals. The free Power To Breakthrough Bootcamp is for business owners who are feeling stuck in their business, feeling like everyone else is successfully accomplishing their goals, feeling like this dream of business ownership has become more of a nightmare. The goal is to equip students to breakthrough to YOUR next level, whatever that looks like to YOU.

Check out the teaching schedule. 👇

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Deals Deals Deals

💰 The Bookkeeping Biz Workshops* start on August 26 and feature daily workshops on topics to help you get your business off the ground. Featuring topics like tech, confidence, sales, and more. Serena Shoup knows her stuff- for $27 this is a deal!

💰 Financial Cents, the workflow and practice management software, just announced a solo-preneur plan for only $9 per month. Even solos need a practice management tool to maintain their sanity and communicate with clients, and this one is priced right.

💰 The CFO Accelerator* (remember I told y’all a lot about them in the spring when I went to their conference in Dallas) is having a big promotion this month. I think that means they will be raising prices in the near future.

💰 Reminder: QBO users get 20% off RightTool with code hustle20. But I think most people are plenty satisfied with the free plan. The biggest bookkeeping nerds on the planet say they can’t live without RightTool.

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.

📅 August 19-23: I’m signed up for the Power To Breakthrough Bootcamp. This is a FREE bootcamp for bookkeepers who are ready to solve problems as they are scaling their business and breakthrough to the next level. I’m not trying to build a huge business, but I am feeling so stuck in a rut and very listless in my business. I’m hoping this bootcamp will help me.

📅 + August 20: Bookkeepers MUST Do This To Get Clients on LinkedIn. Isiah King from the CFO Accelerator will be sharing tips on how to get clients on LinkedIn. RSVP for this live stream and be sure to leave questions there, too.

• If you want to know more about The CFO Accelerator, their Inner Circle community might be a great intro.

📅 August 26-30: Bookkeeping Biz Workshops. The Ambitious Bookkeeper is hosting this workshop to help you get your business started. Sign up HERE*.

📅 August 29: Intro to Xero. Want to learn more about Xero? Register for Intro to Xero and get a demo of the platform and discover all Xero has to offer. Sign up now!

📅 +September 9: Co-working Hours. Save the date - BSH Co-working Hour is BACK after a summer hiatus. Be on the lookout in the Facebook group for an event with the zoom link. Hope to see you there!

📅 September 16: 3-Day Business Booster hosted by Justine Lackey for bookkeepers who are ready to grow & scale

📅 October 16-19: I’ll be in Florida attending the Reframe Conference put on by Hector Garcia. I’m pretty excited about all the “Group Exercise” sessions listed in the agenda. That seems like the opposite of my least favorite part of WFH solo-preneurship which is the ALONE part.

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Featured Posts

🌶️ A post on using Reddit to get clients. What do you think?

🌶️ Be diligent and don’t fall for scams - even the ones that seem legit, so do your homework. Doug L. asked about a trademark email and y’all gave good feedback.

🌶️ Alyssa F is trying to get an in-person group together in Colorado. I want more Coloradoans to chime in and make friends. And feel free to try to make a new post for your area, too!

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Help You Hustle

💪 Scaling New Heights is taking applications for presenters. Deadline is September 30. I’m going to submit at least 2 sessions. I want to do some kind of technical session on FreshBooks. And I want to moderate a panel with a few other people who have tried to create membership programs to their firms, like I’ve done with my FreshBooks Office Hours group. What great idea do you have to teach on? You do get compensated if you are selected as a presenter.

💪 God bless those people who love tax! Nancy McClelland, award winning CPA has been supporting bookkeepers who have tax questions for years. Now she has made an even easier way for bookkeepers to have access to a tax expert via the Ask A CPA community she has started.

💪  Justine Lackey is hosting a FREE masterclass to help you scale your business. Save your spot HERE.

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For Fun

😹 Joanna L. serves up another funny post - Winner of Remote Work - and it seems like some of you also work in/around the water. The comments on the original post are 🔥.

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Jobs

💼 Anyone in Greensboro, SC? An in-house QB Desktop expert is needed. Get the details in the BSH Job Opportunities spreadsheet.

💼 If you vibe with the likes of Jason Staats, it looks like he is rolling out a job search/match service. Kinda mysterious. One to watch.

Don’t forget the standing opps on my Find A Freelance Job article. 1099 and W-2 opps.

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My Family Circus

New section of this newsletter for 2024. Completely non-bookkeeping related.

🎪 We started school this past week! Such an exciting time of year!

And one of my favorite parts of our school day routine is watching a brief 8-10 minute news program called World Watch while we drive to school and wait in car line. It is the perfect length of time. I’d say 80% is current affairs and 20% is really interesting human interest stories. It is for school-aged children.

Because we listen to this news show, my 12, 11, and 10 year old can talk about the real estate market, international trade, North Korean trash balloons, all those college student protestors this past spring that shut down so many graduations, Ukraine and Russia, who Donald Trump and Kamala Harris picked for their Veeps, political prisoner swaps, Venezuela's messy election, and a lot of fun stuff like the latest discoveries NASA makes, exciting new archaeological finds, why pickleball is becoming so popular, the aurora borealis, coral reefs, and Banksy’s art.

I highly recommend it for the whole family. It is basically where I get my news, too. So much better than the dumpster fires of the Fox News or CNN and that ilk. 

How do you work global events and current affairs into your family’s life?

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Kate Builds In Public

🎢 So, I officially had my first day at my new paid job yesterday. Substitute teacher at my children's school. I will make $16 dollars per hour. You may now call me by my new callsign, Ruby Rich. Thank you very much. Proceed with reading.

My school needs good subs, and I want to support our school. My goal is to sub at least 1x per month. I told the Assistant Headmaster that I have my business calendar blocked off from client meetings for Fridays and that I can also do just about any day that a teacher has a planned absence as long as I have notice.

Yesterday I had 8th grade science. These are my own children’s “upper classman”. They will exert influence on my family, right? Even just one day in the classroom allowed me to know the students and school better.

I was pretty apprehensive as I was walking into the school, but overall, it was a pretty great experience! Though to be honest, I don't really care if it was a great experience or not. And I fully expect some days to be tough. But I don’t live my life trying to avoid discomfort, anyway. I am not doing the job because I feel born to be a substitute teacher. I am doing it because I want to support the people who are educating my children, and I want to be very intimately involved in my children’s lives. They are not going to be small forever. 

And best of all, yesterday just happened to be the day the school hosted a brief 20 minute back-to–school assembly. What a priceless gift to be a fly on the wall for that! Sure, I’ll take the $16 per hour, but listening to the Headmaster talk about her vision and watching the school staff handle an assembly was payment enough for spending a day with a large assortment of beautiful (and awkward and sassy and goofy and smelly and loud) 8th grade souls.

🎢 Above, I linked to my community post about trying to do some prospecting on Reddit by just using the search bar, and spitting my best keyboard mojo. In just 3 days time, I had my first prospective client form that answered my final question “How did you hear about Heritage Business Services?” with the answer “Reddit”! Holla!

It is this architect guy from this Reddit thread! You are welcome to scrutinize my mojo. It will be obvious who I am.

P.S. Anyone know how I can change my handle to “RedTexBU” instead of “Imaginary_Mood_6176”? I cannot figure it out. I am not imaginary. Don’t consider myself too moody. And what if someone thinks I was born on June 1, 1976. Gah!  I’m not that old. But I can’t figure out how to change my name!

Being 43yo and not a total goober on social media is hard! 🤣  Also, Reddit is a wild place! 

Are there other public social media places that are not Facebook and LinkedIn where you have found success rubbing shoulders with your ideal client online?

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From The Vault

⚡ Do you want to learn a little bit more about TAXES? Now is the time to start looking for VITA volunteers opportunities for the spring tax season. Not sure what a VITA volunteer does? Watch the video to learn how this volunteer position not only can help you become a better bookkeeper, but can immensely help folks in your community.

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Letters To The Editor

✉️ I like getting comments and emails on everything - even the Family Circus section!

I also love you college campus visits. We’ve done this with the state school near us and I wish I had a Taco Bell in my student union! - Erica G.

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Classifieds (Clickable)

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Keep hustling!

Kate

-Chief Hustler-

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I am down right rabid about transparency and full disclosure. If a link has a * beside it, it means it is either an affiliate link where I might receive compensation if you make a purchase, at no additional charge to you. Or it could be a tracking link that another business provided me to see how many readers click on that link.