60: The Podcast Turns 3! 🎂

Happy Birthday to Accounting with Confidence: The Podcast! This passion project started 3 years ago and has been one of the most energizing and rewarding things I've ever done.

In this episode, I reflect on the three-year anniversary of the podcast, discussing the challenges and joys of podcasting, especially during the holiday season. I share personal insights on managing holiday stress, the importance of self-care, and the joy of gift-giving. Keeping it real, I talk about managing the overwhelm and realizing that it's okay to have feelings even when others are going through much more significant things in their lives. 

Please give me feedback on future podcast topics by sending me a text from the link up there ☝️ or send me an email or DM! I'd love to hear from you as I'm putting together my plans for 2026!

Merry Christmas!

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Beth Whitworth
• 0:31 Car Chats and Podcast Milestones
• 2:21 Holiday Season Challenges
• 6:58 Celebrating Wins and Overcoming Struggles
• 15:11 Call to Action and Conclusion

Transcript

 I am Beth Whitworth race car driving quilt making CPA firm owning wife, mom, and boss. I'm here to help you build a business you love by sharing all of the good, the bad, the ugly, and the excellent sides of working in this industry. It's not always easy, but after many years I can finally say it's worth it.

Let me guide you on your journey to accounting with confidence.

Okay, so it has been a hot second since I've done one of my car chats, and I decided this morning as I was woke up in the middle of the night as you woke. But during that little window, I usually have some fairly. Decent thoughts, good ideas. That's where some creative creativity comes in. I'm like, you know what?

I have a few minutes between dropping the dog off at daycare and meeting one of my sisters for breakfast that let's get this card chat recorded. So, hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of Accounting with Confidence. I'm super excited about this one, um, because it represents three years. Since I started this podcast and you know, I've had some, some breaks, I've had some hiatuses, I've had some lapses.

But overall it has been something where I have been much more consistent this year. And I don't have the, the final count of how many episodes we got out and recorded and out into the world this year, but it was more than in years past. And I also got to a point where I realized that. Doing this podcast is something that.

Really does bring me energy. So this week I just, one, I wanted to celebrate that. That's a huge milestone to me to be having done this for three years. It's in the podcast world, getting past, you know, the first year, the first six months, the first three months. Sometimes people don't, they don't stick with it.

And I had some concerns when I would take these breaks for different reasons that I wasn't gonna stick with it. But when I look back, I say, well. But that is what was bringing me so much energy and I was so much happier when I was doing some podcasts. So today I just wanted to talk a little bit about what it's like because not only is it our three year anniversary, we are in the height, the middle, I don't wanna say the messy middle, but it is holiday season and I know for me anxiety around the holiday season starts early November.

I don't really know why, but it does and it's hard for me sometimes to, you know, just. Enjoy. It's also a very busy time for accounting professionals who work with taxes. So we are a tax firm and so we have to do a lot of tax planning. We have, you know, year end bonus calculations. We have, you know, retirement calculations.

We have, oh my gosh, you know, how much should I give to charity to reduce my taxes? And you know, there's a whole lot of small businesses that need support during this time. It becomes a little hectic with trying to get all of those people answered and getting, you know, your mind into all of that kind of takes away from thinking about enjoying some of the holiday traditions.

So I just wanna tell everybody, you know, give yourself grace. Things that I'm always been bad at. I am not. I Well, okay, let's not say bad. I'm not bad at it. I don't enjoy. Decorating my house for the holidays for any holiday. Asked my daughter. She rarely got a whole lot of decorations for any holiday other than Christmas.

And when she was super young before she could help put up the tree and take down the tree, the tree would sometimes stay up till March because you know what? Taxi season started and she was little and I was busy and, and I, part of not wanting to decorate is I don't wanna unec. So this year I asked her, I just asked her yesterday, I'm like, do I need.

To put up a tree. Now, keep in mind, my daughter is grown up. She is working her dream job, and she might not know that it's a dream job right now, but she doesn't live with us. But I still wanted to ask her permission, do you expect me to put up a tree? And her answer was no. If I wanna enjoy a tree, I'll enjoy it, my house.

And that took that pressure off. I was like, okay, great. That's one less thing I need to worry about doing, but I'll try to find the stock gates. So that takes it down to a much more manageable level for me. But I still felt like I needed to ask you permission. It's not like we have a huge tradition around putting up and decorating the tree.

We don't do it on Thanksgiving. We don't do, you know, there's, there's some people that really have. They go get a real tree and they decorate and it's always at a specific weekend of the year, and that's not us. So I took that off my plate and I'm very, and I'm a little thrilled about that actually. But like I said, it is a time that can be high anxiety.

And for us this year, for me, I'm a gift giver. That's a probably one of my love languages. So I really like to find. Gifts for people or to, you know, if they, my daughter gives me a list, I'd love to give her things off of her list. 'cause I know she has put thought into that and she, she knows what she wants.

Uh, I try, this year I got way ahead of the gift stuff and so I feel pretty good about that. And I'm super excited for this morning that my sister and I are, are going to do some holiday shopping. That we started doing this, uh, about a year, maybe two years ago. It was just, it's just so much fun and it's, we just go to one, it's one place.

And I don't know if you've not an, they're not a, a sponsor or anything, but paint and true boutiques, which I believe is a franchise. And essentially they put small business owners booths into one location and they manage the sales process for them. And then the individual business owners maintain their boosts and their pricing and, and a lot of times it is creators, you know, so it will be a lot of.

Gift type things. It will be people who create, uh, things like blankets or afghans or baby clothes or whatever they're doing with their cricket or you know, candles and soaps. And really, it's just really fun and there's like hundreds of booths in one location. So it is, for me, it is way more fun, one to spar to support the small business owner, two, to be doing it in one place and it's not.

Mall. So I am not a mall person. I grew up being a mall, a mall kid. You know, we'd meet at the mall every weekend. I don't do that anymore, so I'm pretty stoked about getting to do this. We managed to find a time that we could kind of hop in here on this Saturday morning and, and it's about, uh, oh, 29 degrees here in St.

Louis. So it's not great. Okay. So the one other thing that I wanted to mention, because this is something that I, you know, I work with a coach and. She really, really, really encourages me to celebrate the wins and for a lot of us, and me in particular, I sometimes struggle with celebrating the wins. And I think of the things that didn't happen that I didn't get accomplished, that a goal that just kind of faltered or fell away because of life, you know, life.

Life is life. And this year I can say I've done the math. And because my business is on a subscription model, I can more easily predict revenue as it comes up at the, the, towards the end of the year. And we are gonna hit our revenue goal for this year. Now, I, I set a goal to increase our revenues by 15% in 2025, and we're going to get there.

And the reason I was struggling with celebrating this was because I am not sure how we did it. We had some struggles this year. We, you know, health issues for, for me, for my team, for my team's family, for my family, for there. I mean, there's, there's just been a lot going on where the focus has been pulled away from.

Truly working on my business. So that's what has made it very difficult for me to be able to say, wow, you know, we, we got there. Is it? 'cause I wasn't focused on it. In fact, I feel like it was, I don't wanna say it was luck, but I do feel like it feels lucky. So when I look back and I, when I talk to my coach, Kim, and she gets me thinking about things and one of the things that.

It made me realize about reaching this goal with all of the background noise that we had this year and with, you know, feeling like I really wasn't focused on that goal was that it essentially goes to having created a business model that is working. So the fact that I'm able to increase revenues, we did not increase our team necessarily to do that.

We still get to stick to our. Permanent part-time model are no overtime, are not keeping track of time, giving excellent client service every chance we get. And that is what makes me realize, okay, next year, what if, if we could put all of our attention or more of our attention, I won't wanna say all, 'cause we're not all, all business all the time, but if we could just put 5% more, you know, more focus, more energy.

Where could we be? So if we got to 15%, with just increasing our efficiencies and our having good training in being able to re selects the ideal clients that we, what we do resonates with them and what, what they do resonates with us. And we just, it, I know it's all, it's a little. Woo woo. But for sure I want to celebrate that.

And I encourage you to celebrate whatever you need to celebrate. I mean, everything should be celebrated. And I say this coming off of a week where it, I had a really stressful week. I was really struggling with getting my mind focused on getting some things done, and I was very easily derailed. And I know some of this is.

Lack of physical energy. Some of this is lack of mental energy. And when I was kind of going through my, I don't, I don't want to say it was, you know, well, it was probably borderline panic attack. Mostly it was just that finally like saying, okay, enough's enough. I've gotta let this out. I then am one of those people who says, well Beth, you are fine.

There's people going through much worse things than you. Suck it up. And I do that a lot. Because there are, why did Car Chance make me cry? So saying that to myself of, well, other people have worse things going on, what you're going through is not a big deal. Those words aren't really helpful. So it took me, it took me a few, some time, I should say, it took me some time.

To remember what skills I have that keep me from being mean to myself or being negative to myself. And one of those, I think I've said it before, music, so I don't know how many times I've listened to the Hamilton soundtrack this week. I can sing along. I try so hard to keep up with all, all of the words, but that, that it kind of evens me out.

So I listen to music soap, Hamilton Jelly Roll, and then. Maybe some, I have a couple of playlists that are, get out of, get outta that funk or shut up and drive or whatever. So it's, it's my favorites of things. So I will, I, it took me a, a hot second to remember, wait, go to your music. You know, that will, that helps.

And the other thing was to just say, okay, stop. Let's do something for me. And. And one of the things that I, I decided to do, which I had started this year was I scheduled a time this week to just go get the TA a tattoo, which for some people that sounds very traumatic for me. It's somewhat relaxing, and I have a vision of a tattoo that we're working on.

And anyway, so I did that and I try and I did not feel guilty about it. I did not feel guilty that I did that instead of working, I did not feel guilty that I. Did that instead of working on my business or working on getting things ready for the holidays or anything, I just did it for myself and then I, I just got to that point where I was like, it, it.

Spurred me to reignite what I needed to be doing. It refocused me. So even though I had not a great week, and I know people are going through much more difficult things than I am right now, I have to give myself permission to just deal with it and to to be angry, to be sad, to be frustrated, to have those things when I.

Do it's, I feel like it's counter cathartic, so it gets me through it. Anyway, that is where I am. I just wanted to jump on here while I'm in the car driving around St. Louis and let everybody know that no matter what you see on social media, no matter what you're hearing, you know, in podcasts and videos and, and people were trying to put on their best.

I'm here to be real and say sometimes your best is just shutting down and going to get a tattoo. I mean, I know that's not for everybody, but that was a thing that I needed to do to reset that, you know, don't judge yourself against other people. I, I compare myself, not, it's funny, I don't compare business to business necessarily.

I don't, you all do you in your business. I wanna help you be successful in your business, but. I compare myself in other ways to other people of more of a, what they're going through is so much bigger and heavier than what I'm dealing with right now. I don't have the right to feel this way, and that is not it.

That's, that's not okay. So anyway, now things that have happened, you know, six successes, yes. You know, we, we reached our revenue goal, things that. Weren't so great that I know I need to work on is some time management things, some getting things done, some focus things. One of the things that isn't done yet, not even close, not even for first quarter of 2026, is my content calendar.

And what that is, is my plan of what I'm gonna talk about every week. And it's. Spent on my to do list. I am way behind on putting together my content calendar. So that's where I'm gonna ask you, you know, either text me here where it says, send Beth a text or reply to the email. If you got the email from me sharing this episode with you and, you know, shoot, shoot me a, a message on, you know, Facebook or LinkedIn or anywhere of what types of topics you would like.

To hear in the coming year. More of this, more of this car chat of, let's be real, we all have stuff going on and I'm gonna share it with you. Or more of the technical stuff or you know, I have, I had desire to interview people. Do you wanna be interviewed? I'd bring it on. I want I, that would be awesome. So get in touch with me.

That's my call to action for you, is to tell me what you wanna hear, what do you like about my podcast and what would you like more of with my podcast? Because like I said at the beginning, three years, I hope to be doing this for at least another three years. I want wanna be bringing you what you want.

That being said, remember that we're here to we, I guess it's really me, but to empower you to build a business and a life that you love because your business is not your life, and your life is not your business. They have to co, they have to coexist, and you wanna love them both. And only you can can do that.

Only you can build both of those, a business and a life. That you love. It's, it's really, it's up to you, which is why I spend so much time talking to you about things that may hold you back or things that hold me back, and maybe you can relate to that is more of what that is. So anyway, all right. I talked for 20 minutes.

That's pretty amazing. I am almost to the breakfast location to meet my sister. I gotta be there in one minute. So I'm gonna wrap this up. Everybody, thank you so much for listening in. I hope you all have wonderful, happy holidays. Know that there's people out there who can relate to whatever you are going through, so reach out.

Don't be afraid to, you know, do something for yourself. And I will talk to you next week. Bye.

Thanks for listening to another episode of Accounting with Confidence. My hope is that my experiences can help you navigate the realities of owning and operating your business. Please subscribe or follow the podcast on your favorite podcast listening platform so that you never miss an episode. Feel free to leave me a text by using the, send us a text message link in the show description and let me know how I'm doing.