Doing things differently: working a traditional career in a non-traditional way - with Jack Bonehill of The Tax Professionals Podcast Artwork

Change Work Life

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Doing things differently: working a traditional career in a non-traditional way - with Jack Bonehill of The Tax Professionals Podcast

July 15, 2025 • Jeremy Cline/Jack Bonehill • Episode 210

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#210: Jack Bonehill is a tax advisor and host of The Tax Professionals Podcast. He explains why he started a podcast about tax, how his employer responded to his podcast, and the benefits he’s gained through podcasting.

What you’ll learn

[02:52] Trying to make money with YouTube videos.
[03:47] Why Jack made a podcast about tax.
[05:31] How to overcome imposter syndrome.
[06:18] The personality behind wanting to start a side hustle.
[08:25] What makes challenge attractive.
[09:37] The pros and cons of wanting to be a high achiever.
[11:49] How Jack stays motivated.
[12:24] The challenges that arise when you quickly progress in your career.
[13:46] The problem with assessing someone based solely on their experience.
[15:30] How to get better at what you do in your workplace.
[18:15] The issues with businesses that only focus on profit.
[19:57] How to retain your identity as you become more senior.
[23:10] Why it’s beneficial to be open and transparent.
[26:55] How different generations view work culture differently.
[29:05] The old-fashioned nature of the tax advice industry.
[31:50] The benefits of hosting a podcast.
[35:42] How colleagues and employers respond to you running a side hustle.
[41:32] The unique nature of LinkedIn and how to use it to win work.
[44:49] Why explore coaching.
[46:57] The most surprising aspect of coaching.
[48:42] The results Jack got from coaching.

Resources mentioned in this episode
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For the show notes for this episode, including a full transcript and links to all the resources mentioned, visit:

https://changeworklife.com/doing-things-differently-working-a-traditional-career-in-a-non-traditional-way/

Re-assessing your career? Know you need a change but don't really know where to start? Check out these two exercises to start the journey of working out what career is right for you!

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What does it take to succeed in the world of professional services these days? What motivates someone who works in a pretty traditional job to start a podcast about it? And how can coaching help you reduce stress and figure out what you want to develop and grow? Those are just some of the things we talk about in this week's episode. I'm Jeremy Cline, and this is Change Work Life. Hello and welcome to Change Work Life, the show where we're all about beating the Sunday evening blues and enjoying Mondays again. I'm a career coach, you can find out more about that at changeworklife.com/coaching, and in each episode, my guests and I bring you tips, strategies and stories to help you enjoy a more satisfying and fulfilling working life. When I think about careers like law or accountancy, I think of very traditional, professional services firms with established qualification and career paths. They serve an important role, but I wouldn't exactly call them creative or particularly innovative. So when I see someone in one of those professions doing things a bit differently, I want to find out more. My guest this week is Jack Bonehill. As well as being a tax advisor, Jack is also the host of the Tax Professionals podcast. Through that and his training courses, Jack helps UK tax professionals to, well, become better tax professionals. Jack was also a coaching client of mine. Jack, welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks for having me, Jeremy. It's nice to be here. We actually kind of became connected because we both worked in tax and did a podcast. I don't know if you remember that we were both kind of part of the same community. I do. It's a very slim segment of a particular Venn diagram. Probably just us two in it, no one else. You could well be right. Let's start with the with the Tax Professionals podcast, because you were pretty early in your career when you launched that. So what motivated you to start a podcast at that point in your career? Yeah, so if this is too long winded, please tell me. But I'm going to go back in time a bit. Basically, me and my now wife are quite tight. We don't really spend much money, so we had a lot of money sitting around in our bank accounts, and I wanted to do something with it. So I actually started looking into investing, and I remember specifically being on one holiday, and I actually took an investing book with me to start reading about it for the first time. It's a book I grabbed from the library. And I was reading through that on holiday, which I'm sure Amy wasn't particularly impressed with, but I was doing it anyway. And it kind of got me much more interested in investing. So I started looking to that loads and loads. And because it kind of crosses over a lot with financial advice and similar things, a lot of people that give advice around investing also give advice around side hustles, and me being a person that has lived under a rock a bit in some ways, I never even heard of the concept of a side hustle when I came across it then, and that really hooked me in. So before I started the podcast, actually, I was thinking, what can I do for side hustles? And I actually tried doing YouTube videos first on tax topics. And the idea was that I would put it onto YouTube, I would get partnership with YouTube, and they would essentially pay me sponsorship fees or whatever it is to put those videos out there. So that was the idea. But I created two videos, each of which probably took me 15 hours to create, and they were five minutes long. And I quickly realised that to make any money at all from doing this, it was never going to happen anytime soon, and it was going to take an awful lot of time. So I canned that idea. But I still had the bug and wanted to do it. Covid hit, and we both listened to Pat Flynn Smart Passive Income podcast. And when Covid hit, because he lost his job and started his own business, he allowed people access to one of his courses for free about starting a business. And so because we had all that time when we were at home and everything, I thought, let's go through this course and see whether anything comes out of it. And they talk about crossing over something that you enjoy or that you like and that you're good at. And I've always liked helping people in terms of teaching them what I know and sharing that knowledge. And I also felt like, because even if I was just one or two years in front of someone in tax, I felt like what I just gone through could help them. And there really wasn't any resources out there at the time that helped people with the general skills of working in tax, like doing tax research or giving tax advice. There's a lot of information training out there that's specifically on the technical tax knowledge, but nothing on the more soft side of things. And I felt like I needed that, and I missed it. And so I thought, surely, there's a gap in the market here, because if I can give some advice and tips around this and help people, then that could really help them because it would really help me. So I kind of just explored it, chatted with a few people, whether they'd actually listen to it if I did it. I got enough that said yes, they would listen. And so I just decided to launch on the back of it. So I always started it with the intention of it being a money-making side hustle, but also, obviously, it's got the nice elements of being able to help people, which is something that I like, and I think is helping the profession as a whole. Something that you said there, which I think is one of those misconceptions that you have to be so far ahead of people before you can teach them. But really, you just need to be a couple of steps ahead, and that is enough to go back and tell people, help them maybe get to where you've got to just that little bit quicker. Yeah, no, exactly. And actually, even saying that, even when I was like manager, senior manager grades, I had people who were directors and partners message me or tell me that they got a lot of value from certain podcast episodes, which is crazy. I would never have thought that people that are more senior than me would have learned something from me, being less than 10 years into my tax career. So certainly, the people that were behind me, let's say, they would certainly get a lot as well. But yeah, it's hard to get past that kind of barrier, because you feel like you need to be an expert, I think, before you start sharing advice, because almost it seems like you've got an ego, or you think you're really good. And that was never really the case. It's just that I thought I could share something that might help someone even a little bit, and that's what kept it going. I'd just like to go back to this motivation. So you're on holiday, sitting by the pool, you're reading books about investing, which leads you onto side hustles. What has got you into the mindset that you're starting to think about that kind of thing so early in your career? This, I don't know, extra sources of income, something beyond the 9-to-5 job. What's sparking an interest in that, again, so early in your career? Yeah, I've never really thought about it before, but my immediate response is, I'm one of those weird people that actually likes doing things that are difficult and challenging. So first off, I chose to do a maths degree, which, in hindsight, was probably a mistake, because it was the hardest thing I've ever done. But even to make it even harder for myself, I then chose all the modules that people avoided because they were hard. And the best mark I got throughout my whole degree was actually on one of the hardest courses. So the thought of something being difficult and challenging does motivate me. So when I moved into tax, part of the reason that I wanted to do tax is because I was really bad at English in school. I struggled to get a C in GCSE English. And I liked the thought of, yes, I've kind of done maths, now I feel like I've become good at that, but now let's try and become better at something that's a little bit more English-based as well. So using the legislation guidance, I went into it actually wanting to do that, which I don't think many people do, but I actually did. I think it's the same thing with the side hustle for me. It's something that's difficult to do, it's something that not many people try to do, and therefore, that's what I think attracted me to it. It actually wasn't about making the money for me. It was the challenge to see whether I could. It might sound weird, but that's kind of the reality of it. Does that make sense? At the risk of going all Freud on you, where does this come from? Honestly, I don't know. Maybe it's trying to prove myself to people or something. I'm not sure. I'm really not sure where it comes from. I just like being good at things, and I like being a little bit different. So it's probably a combination of a few things that ended up with me being like this, let's say. Do you find that there are particular things that you are driven to do? Because there's a lot of things that you could do which are difficult. We're recording this just after London Marathon weekend, for example. A lot of people strive to do that. Maybe it's on a bucket list, it's something they can tick off. Other people want to do the Three Peaks Challenge where you climb the three highest peaks in the UK in one day. What are the things that you see which are hard, but you still want to conquer them? I think it's things that not many people conquer. It's the things that not many people do. So, for example, running a marathon, I'm not motivated to do that, but that's because I think I can see that there's thousands and thousands of people running marathons every year. This comes back to, I think, me wanting to be a bit different. If there's not many people that are good at it, and I can kind of do it and stand there and be good at it, I think it's that. Yeah, I don't think I can really explain it much better than that. It sounds like I want people to think I'm just good at things. I think there is an element of that in some ways, and it's maybe not necessarily a good trait as some people would perceive it, but I think, in my case, it's true. Let's explore that a little bit for a minute, where you said it was not a good trait, and maybe looking at it from both directions, where are the circumstances where this drive has really helped, and you think it's really helped you to achieve certain results, and then, the counter to that, where have been the places where you've noticed it being a bit of a downside? Good, I think I wouldn't have done as well in my maths degree if I wasn't like that. I don't think I'd have progressed as quickly at work without that trait. I don't think I'd have a side hustle without that trait. So I think in those respects, that's good. But I think for every single one of these, there's definitely a directly connected negative to it. So at university, for example, it meant that I didn't really go out much and do the fun side of university. I did the study side of university, so I lost it on that aspect. And I put myself through pressure and stress as a consequence of that. Same with working in tax. I put myself under stress and pressure to get better at things, to do a good job and to progress quickly. Emphasis on doing it quickly. That's the bit that has definitely caused the stress there. Similarly with the podcast, now I've done it. Even when I'm at those parts, when I'm having like a slump, it doesn't seem to be going well, and maybe I'm not enjoying it as much as I used to, I almost feel trapped by it now, that might sound like a weird way to describe it, but I've thought about stopping a few times, because trying to do that and essentially working, well, I work four days now as a tax advisor, but even doing that split and essentially having two different jobs has been really difficult sometimes. And sometimes I think that my life would be easier if I didn't do that, because I would then have to focus on one thing, but I don't, I focus on two. And sometimes that's really difficult, because if, let's say, it's part of being a tax director now, there's an element of winning work that's part of the job, I need to win and bring work, but equally on the side hustle, I need to win work there to make it viable and to make it worthwhile, giving up my one day a week. So I think sometimes for me it's a negative, because it makes me do things almost for the sake of doing it, rather than because it's going to make me happy or feel fulfilled. I just can't stop myself. It's almost like an obsession. So what do you think has kept you going, rather than going, ah, let's just go for the slightly quieter life? I think it comes back to the fact that, then, I wouldn't be any different to, say, the normal person. And I don't even know why I care so much about it. I don't even care about it on a conscious level. I think it's on an unconscious level that I care about it. I think it's literally just that. You mentioned that you've moved up pretty quickly in your career. Have you noticed any particular challenges with that, in particular moving up quite quickly relative to maybe others in your peer group? Yeah, I actually don't think it's peers that tend to mind as much in my experience. I actually think it's more senior people that see someone young doing well for themselves and maybe having a quicker path than what they did. So I think I see a lot of, 'Well, we had to do this, so why shouldn't you have to do it?' So I think that comes with it. I don't know whether it's that they feel threatened. I don't know whether it's just that they feel like it's unfair if someone's progressed in a way that's quicker than them. I don't know what it is, but I think that means that some people's first reaction to me is that they might dislike me as a consequence of that. As ridiculous it may sound, that's at least how it feels sometimes anyway. So then, sometimes it's a fight to then get someone to like me and to look past that side of me, the fact that I have progressed quickly, and I am in a more senior role than most people my age, for example. But yeah, I don't think it's peers. I think they seem to be supportive, they seem to be on board with it. I do personally think it's more senior people. There is this kind of weird thing, I don't know whether it's jealousy or what, and whether it's culturally a very UK thing, but seeing people succeed, and in particular seeing people succeed quickly, it doesn't seem to be celebrated so much as slightly looked down on. Yeah, agreed. And it's one of my biggest rant topics. For me, there's absolutely zero correlation between experience and time input versus how good you are. But I think we're so trapped in it, and it's easy to look at someone and go, 'Can you do this job? Yes or no?' Because they need at least 10 years experience, let's say. It's much harder to go, 'What are the skills that we want for this job? And how do we assess whether this person has them?' So I think that the time thing is used as an easy measure, I think, more so than anything else. I'm not saying I know what the answer is here, but it's one of the sources of my frustration. I see it happening to other people too, who I can see are doing really good jobs, but they're being held back because of time in service or time in that role. And I think it's unfair, and I think it's the wrong thing to do, because you're stifling someone that could be a really good performer, as long as they feel like they're being recognised. Well, they already are a high performer, but they could be an even higher performer by being recognised and being given, let's say, what is right for them. That's interesting. So time in service is an easy proxy for experience. So you assume that if someone has been doing it for 10 years, then they have picked up these sorts of things. And that doesn't necessarily make allowance for the fact that someone can be more junior and already still have picked up those skills. Yeah, exactly. And I think a lot of people get caught in the trap just thinking the more they do it, the better they will get. And I think there is an element of it, but the rate of improvement is really, really slow. Whereas if you deliberately practise something with the intention of getting better, or you're getting coaching, or you're taking on board new information, you're going to get better much quicker. And I think that's something that I've always been good at, not just repeating something over and over again. It's like playing a musical instrument. If you just play one chord on the guitar over and over again for weeks, you are not going to get any better. You can play that one chord probably perfectly, but you can't play a full song. And I think it's the same analogy there. People can see that that's not going to get you better, say, on a musical instrument or with learning language by just being able to say 'My name is...' in a certain language. Whereas when it comes to a skill at work, people don't seem to view it in the same way, which I think is a massive shame. And I think people would just get better much quicker if they thought,'How do I get better at this? What's the type of practice I need to do to get better at this?' And I think that's actually why you see some people with loads and loads of experience, and actually, they're not particularly good at that thing, or at least not compared to the amount of experience they have at doing it, let's say. That might sound somewhat arrogant, but that's just kind of what goes through my head on these things. I would describe that as a hot take. A podcast I listen to, they often have someone on who gives a spicy hot take. And I think that would fall in that category, actually. Yeah. But hopefully, it makes sense, though. I think outside of the world of working in tax or in a professional job, people understand that to get better at something, you've got to do different things and practise certain things, rather than just do it over and over again. But we just don't seem to translate that into the workplace. Yeah. And there is still this fairly substantial residue of, this was what it was like for me, so that's what it should be like for you. And the medical profession comes to mind in particular. It's weird that junior doctors often have an absolute miserable time of it, in terms of the hours that they do and the pressures that they're under. And yet, they seem to think that that has to be a rite of passage, because that's what they went through, rather than thinking this was awful, I wonder how we can make it better for those that are coming after me. Yeah, yeah. And you know, actually, because there are some really young people out there that have started really successful businesses. The one that comes on, I can't think of the name, but the guy that started Gymshark, I think he's the same age as me, and he owns a multi million, even potentially billion-dollar company. And he started that himself. So I think there's plenty of examples out there that prove that age or level of experience doesn't correlate to how good you are at something. But because particularly in, say, accountancy firms and law firms and professional services firms, the people at the top have got there over a long time and are likely to be at least 40, in reality probably 45-plus, they have that stigma attached to it probably, because as you say, they had to go through it themselves and earn the rite of passage to get there. And so that's what they expect of other people also. And I wonder if there's also a slightly odd incentives thing, particularly in professional services firms which are often structured as partnerships, where the people who are at the top, the late 40s, early 50s equity partners, are incentivized basically to continue to extract as much profit out of the business as they can and think about that sometimes ahead of things like succession planning and who's going to be looking after this business if and when they retire. Yeah, yeah. And this is where I think there is a benefit to, sorry if this is jargon for people, but PE-backed accountancy firms and PE-backed law firms, this is where I think the benefit of that comes in. Because all of a sudden, there's no partner that's thinking, 'God, if we spend money on this, then that's going to go straight out of my personal pots.' So I think they focus a bit more on the longer term than, say, a traditional partnership. But I couldn't tell you which one I think is better overall for the profession, because I think there's pros and cons to both. But yeah, definitely one of the cons of partnerships is that pretty much every decision that's signed off is signed off by the people that know that if they sign off on any costs, it directly impacts how much money they take over that year. Yeah, I suspect that there's a whole debate there about a traditional partnership model versus a private equity model. Having worked for a company which had private equity backing, I know that there are definitely challenges there as well. One of the things that I notice is that, as people gain seniority, and particularly where they start to take on more management responsibilities, whether that's financial management, people management, whatever it is, it can present a challenge in terms of retaining your own identity, what you were before you took on those responsibilities. I'm really interested to know what your experience was like in that regard. The only thing I could think that's changing away from, let's say, me, my belief had always been when I started work is that you're doing this for a long time, so you want to have something you enjoy, you want to do something that you enjoy. That's the first part. The second part is, I always wanted to retain balance in my life. So I always had this kind of another mini challenge for myself, basically earn as much money by working as little hours as possible. So basically, I just didn't want to be working say 50-, 60-hour weeks. Because if I'm going to do something like that, I might as well have been an investment banker. Because they actually get paid what I think is right for the amount of hours and stress and everything that they take on. So I think there's that, because the more senior you get as well, even though I feel that I can do my role, generally speaking, within my contracted hours, let's say, because there's so many other people around me that don't do that, and let's say that I didn't bill well in a single month, and I was going home on time every single day, they would use that as a negative probably against me, or they may use it as a negative against me anyway. So for me, I think it's the pressure of feeling like I need to do more hours than essentially what I am paid to do. And don't get me wrong, I'm happy to do extra hours where it's needed and where it's helpful for a particular client, or it's helpful for a particular colleague that I'm helping. But just working longer for the sake of working longer isn't something that I like to do. But sometimes I've started to feel like maybe that's what I should do, even though I don't really want to, and it doesn't align with me as a person. I think I've always been quite an honest and transparent person. And I think actually, contrary to what most people would probably advise me to do, I have become probably more open and transparent at work the more senior I've got. Because I used to find it so frustrating just not being told certain things. And that has backfired a little bit a few times, in that I've looked back at some things and gone, actually, being open and transparent there is actually not the right thing to do. So as an example, we ended up letting someone go, a graduate that wasn't doing well, wasn't meeting expectation, let's say. And I knew that that was going to upset the previous grad, the one that had been there for two and a half, three years now. And the second that we made that decision, my first instinct was to go and tell her that we're going to not pass the other person's probation. But HR said, 'Don't do that because then you're going to put that person in a really difficult position because they're going to know, and then when they're talking to the person that you're not going to pass, it's going to make it really difficult and uncomfortable for them.' And I thought, you know what, actually, you are right, to be fair. I prefer the honest and transparent approach, but I think sometimes, if it's going to benefit the other person by holding the information back, that's kind of where I'm okay with it. But if holding that information back is going to be detrimental to that person, then I'd rather share it with them. Does that make sense? I'll hold it back where it's for their benefit, not mine. So what have been the cases where being more open and transparent has been surprisingly beneficial? I think right now my team trusts me implicitly. I think they feel like I have their back all the time, have their best interest there all the time. And I think, even though I don't like people working long hours or feeling like they need to work longer hours, I think they would just do it for me. I think they trust me implicitly, basically. I think it builds really good relationships with clients as well. So if I'm honest about maybe how often I've done something, or how the fee structure is going to be, or what I think the right route is for them, whether that means that we don't get any extra fees, because I think the best route is that they do nothing, let's say, then I would tell them. So I just think it means, once people spend a bit of time getting to know me, that they have a high level of trust in me, because they don't feel like I'm going to be telling them nonsense or something that's beneficial to me. They will hopefully feel like I've always got their best interests there. And maybe there's one in 100 times where that's not the case, because I think we're all human, so I've got to take into account that sometimes I'm going to be biased, let's say. But all in all, that's what I'm aiming to do, is help them more so, than help me. Do the right thing by them, not me. And has this being transparent and the trust that it's led to been something that you've actively worked on, or is it something that just pretty much comes naturally to you? The trust side, sorry, or the honesty and transparent approach? Well, it sounds like the trust has led on from the honest and transparent approach, so I guess both of them. I think it just comes naturally to me, to be honest. I'm a pretty stubborn person. So once I feel like something is the right thing to do, then I will just pretty much do it whether or not people agree that it's the right thing to do or not. I just think a lot of people, when they think some of these things aren't the right thing to do, are being biased for either themselves or some ulterior motive that isn't me, let's say, or the people that I'm doing it for. So I'd say, yeah, I think it just comes pretty naturally to me. I've had to become more tactful, maybe that's the right word, in when I deploy, when I don't deploy it, let's say, because the natural default for me is to deploy being honest and transparent. Whereas sometimes now I have to tactfully not be, because I think that's the better thing for someone else, not me. Yeah, it's a hard road to walk sometimes, or hard thing to balance, sorry. Although this high-trust mindset, I do think it is something which is not really that much in evidence. I mean, when I think of people that I have worked with, those that have made me go, 'You know what? I would pretty much do anything for you', there are very, very few of them. Whereas I can think of plenty of people where if they've asked me to work late or whatever, then my immediate feeling has been more of resentment, rather than, yes, I want to do this job for you. So I think that's a really, really helpful skill to cultivate. Yeah. And it's not even something I'd have ever said is maybe a natural strength, but maybe it's part of this conversation. Maybe I'm thinking it is. Yeah, I've always done it, I think, even as a kid. But it drove my dad up the wall sometimes, because it meant that if I thought he was doing something wrong or saying something wrong, I would tell him that. And I probably shouldn't say that actually, because I did a podcast recently where I said something to the effect of, you know, my dad's written English is awful, I can't even understand his WhatsApp messages sometimes. And he doesn't listen to my podcast episodes, but he listened to that one where I was interviewed, and I said that. And he asked me about it. And I'm in danger of doing the exact same thing again, though, here, painting him in a negative light. It's just that I have these good examples that seem to relate to him. for some reason. Out of interest, generationally, where do you fit? Are you sort of late Millennial or Gen Z? I'm not sure what the right terms are for these things anymore, but I was born in 1994. Okay. I have a feeling that might be Gen Z, but I'm not sure. Just before Millennial, I think. So you'd like to think Millennial starts when the millennium started, wouldn't you, by logic. Millennial is definitely after me. So I think Millennial is sort of 1980-ish to something. I could probably look it up. The reason it occurred to me was something you said earlier about having a bad month and people say, 'Oh, well, yeah, well, it's not surprising. I mean, they weren't working late. I mean, if they're not going to put the hours in, then it's not surprising.' And that's definitely something that I've noticed in speaking to other people that those who are Gen X's, like myself, or early Millennials, they clearly think that people should be putting the hours in and should be staying in the office, and that's the way to succeed. Whereas those in younger generations, late Millennials, Gen Zs, well, they don't seem to buy into that contract. And I think there's probably good reasons for that. Yeah, I think it comes back to when we're talking about length of service earlier. It's the exact same point. It's an easy measure. If someone is working long hours, it gives the impression that they're working hard, but it doesn't necessarily mean they are. It doesn't mean they're necessarily spending that time well. But it just makes people feel, I think in particular more senior people, it makes them feel reassured, I think. Maybe it's a bit of a trap for feeling reassured, but I think that's what it does. Whereas if, let's say, I don't know, I was like the most effective person ever, and I was putting out 100% efficiency all day for seven hours straight, there's no way of them really knowing whether that's true or not, I suppose, even if it is. Because they can't see anything tangible from it, particularly if the result doesn't come off that month, let's say. All they can see is that that's there and that you weren't working long hours. So yeah, It's a catch 22 in a way. I don't think it's the right answer to a lot of things, and I think the accountancy profession in particular, I might get some hate for saying this, but I think it's quite old-fashioned. And the example I use a lot nowadays, my brother works in IT, and in terms of the fact that they're a service provider, they go in and implement IT systems, we go in and implement tax systems, it's almost like a like-for-like service, I would say, but in their business they have a completely kitted out sales team. And my brother now partly does pre-sales. I didn't even know that was a thing. I mean, sales and pre-sales, it is what it is, but he does pre-sales. So someone else that does, is post-sales the right word, I'm not even sure the right terminologies, but whatever comes next, and then someone else does implementation. Whereas in tax in particular, the most senior people are expected to win work. They're expected to be part of the delivery, even if it's just signing off and delegating certain things. They're expected to be part of the delegation. They are literally part of all of that process. And it means that your time is spread so thin, and it's so hard to focus on anything in particular, because you're focusing on multiple things at once. And I actually think a way to improve the profession and actually make probably more money for people in these accountancy firms, is if they had dedicated sales teams that were the ones responsible for doing the business developments and winning the work. Yes, partners and directors need to get involved to some extent, because they're going to need to help these salespeople understand what they can do. They're probably going to need to be involved in the conversations with people. But why can't a lot of that leg work rest in a different team? And then, the partner or whoever or the director can sit above the team and make sure that the team's operating well, delivering the work well, they're a good functioning team, rather than try and do everything. I think the fact that we try and do everything actually makes us do less. And I think that's why we get stuck in this long-working-hour culture, is because actually we're responsible for so many things, and you can't do any of them that well in the areas that you have. Yeah, those people who are senior in professional services firms, like accountants and law firms, the term that comes up quite often is juggling. They've just got so many different functions that they are trying to juggle. And yeah, you simply can't do all of them well. No, I agree. And actually, would you believe, I think I've received criticism for the fact that I try and delegate things to other people in the team. So, for example, if we've got an internal referral, and it's just like answering a question or something, why does that need to come to me? There's plenty of people in my team that can deal with that. But I think it can get seen as a negative the fact that I'm doing that, because I'm not involved in it all the time. Whereas actually, personally, I think it's better that I'm not involved in everything, because then the rest of the team is hopefully feeling more empowered, they're doing things, and then I can focus on the other things that they can't focus on. So it spreads things better. But anyway, that's another side point. I'd like to return to the podcast, actually. Certainly one of the things that I have found in terms of the benefits has been, if you like, the soft benefits. So it's not been downloads and advertising and that kind of thing, but it's been networking and opportunities. So I'm curious to know what things have arisen for you, which you can say, well, that would never have happened if I hadn't started the podcast. I've got an event in May, actually. I was originally asked to be part of a panel for a four-day event related to freelancers and contractors. I think the only reason they know who I am is because of the podcast. I've been asked to do some training sessions for the Tax Institute, the Chartered Institute of Taxation. The only reason they asked me to do that was as a consequence of that. I've got job opportunities, I think because people know of me because of the podcast. It actually turns out that people don't realise I work specifically in employment tax, though. And to be honest, I'm not surprised they don't know that, because none of my posts on LinkedIn, which is where I do most of my self-marketing, let's say, I don't post about the fact I work in employment tax, very often at least. It's probably like one in 50 posts that connects back to that in some way. So it turned out that people didn't even realise I worked in employment tax. They knew I was in tax, but they didn't know what area of tax. But yeah, I think I've got job opportunities on the back of it. It's actually helped me, I think, to build the current team that I've got. So both of the people I've recruited recently, who are senior, one's a senior manager that we got from EY, one's a manager that we got from PwC, both really good people, really skilled at their job, and both of them had other offers, or at least other opportunities, and they ended up shutting them down very quickly. And I think part of that is because they could see me being out there, they could see that I was doing things a bit different, and I think they got a feel that working with me was going to be less of the normal corporate cycle and was going to be maybe a little bit more refreshing, and that they'd get the investment from me, and that they'd be working in a team that was hopefully nice to work for. So I think it's helped with loads of things, actually. I could probably keep going, but those are the main things that come to mind. What about the courses? Is there a direct link between the evolution of the courses in the podcast? In terms of, I suppose, being able to sell the courses, then yeah, absolutely. Probably, I'm going to say all but maybe one or two of my corporate clients, as opposed to just an individual tax professional coming on them, I think they know about me because of the podcast, and they probably heard about the courses either because of the podcast or because of my posts on LinkedIn. And they're all quite intrinsically linked. So people know of me because of the podcast. I've got a few sales, let's say, because I've done some advertising. There's at least one firm I know of that's come across me purely because of an advert I put in a tax magazine. It hasn't actually converted yet, but it should do in the near future. I think what it builds is credibility. So if I reach out to an accountancy firm, let's say now, the amount of people that I don't even know that have actually come across me before is actually unbelievable. I didn't realise the extent of it. But most people, if they hear my name, they probably will now go, well, in tax, anyway, 'Is that the podcast guy?' They might not be able to recall my name, but if it's said, I think they link it back to it now. So it just means that people are more open to speaking to me, I think. So it's easier for me to get my foot in the door than, let's say, if I didn't do it, because people know of me, and I think it's built a level of credibility alongside it. Does that answer the question? I feel like I've gone off-piste a bit there. It does. And I'd like to go back to what you were saying earlier about having this feeling like you've got this almost split personality, where you've got the day job as an employment tax director, and you've also got the podcast and courses. And I'm interested to know how they interact from a professional perspective, in the sense that you're doing the podcast, and you're doing the courses on your off-time, so not on company time, but I mean, it must be something which your employers know about, they know that you are doing these courses, that you're getting paid for them separately. So I'm curious as to how that interaction works. I mean, what does your employer and your colleagues make of the fact that you have very obviously got this side hustle going on? Yeah. Well, it's something that has to be managed, that's for sure. I've had to keep a very clear line. I think if I hadn't kept this clear line, it would have been potentially a disaster. But my tax director work, and let's just call it my tax advisor work over the years, that is about giving tax support to people, whether it's advice, whether it's completing some returns for them, whether it's helping them implement something tax related, or directly links back to actual tax rules. Whereas everything that I do through the podcast and the training doesn't touch upon tax rules particularly or tax technical. It's all about the skills for working in tax. So that, to me, draws a very clear line. Although I would say it's become a bit more fuzzy recently, because I've had a few people say to me recently, or at least allude to the fact that, well, as part of being a director or a partner, let's say, you are expected to train the team. And my immediate response to that is, well, yes, of course, I'll coach people, I'll delegate, I'll give feedback, and if there's a topic that I think people are struggling in particular, then I will talk them through that. But I don't think any director or partner out there would sit there, spend 40-hours-plus, created a master class, deliver it over two half days, and then go down that route. So I think if I had a side hustle that had nothing to do with tax, in some ways I think it'd be much easier. But because it is tax-related, some people seem to think that because I do that outside of my day job, let's say, that I should bring that into the day job as well. But why? Do you know what I mean? Do I want to in some ways? Yes, because it's beneficial for that job. But do I think it should be expected of me and a necessity? No, they're separate things. It just so happens that I've spent time outside of work and in my free time building that. That shouldn't mean that I have to link it back into the day job, let's say. Does that kind of make sense? It does. And it's interesting because when I started my podcast and for the few years that I was running it whilst I still had the day job, I felt this split personality thing very keenly. I mean, there was no real connection between the podcast and my day job, other than the fact that the podcast was a vehicle where I could explore, to an extent, the feelings of dissatisfaction I was having with my career and how things like that could be made better. But that was at a much more abstract level. Whereas now since I've gone off self-employed by myself, then it feels like it's much more aligned with the work I do. And in some ways, that's felt like something of a relief that I'm able to bring the same skills to the whole package, rather than having two completely different things. But then, I guess a lot of that can also be tied to the fact that now I'm self-employed, I can make that call, I don't have to feel guilty about the podcast interfering with something else. So it's really interesting. If I had started a podcast about private client tax or private client issues and whether that had been separate, so how that would have been seen, whether it was something that my employer would have wanted me to integrate it into the work I was doing for them, or whether they saw it as a competition threat, I don't know. It's interesting. It is, yeah. I think ultimately, people need, it links back to a lot of things we said already about the time of service, easy measure. I don't think in a lot of cases accountancy firms make it clear what they expect of a director and what they expect of a partner. But to me, the solution is, you make it clear what you expect of them. The way they achieve that doesn't matter, as long as you're not acting illegally or immorally. That to me is the ultimate thing. So the one thing I had at my last firm in the end was, I got told numerous times that, essentially, if I want to progress past senior manager, I need to choose between the podcast and working as a tax advisor. Which I never agreed with. But I got told that multiple times. And one of the things that seemed to be a sticking point was the fact that all my posts on LinkedIn, which, bear in mind, were done in my free time outside of my work for them, was all about me and never about the firm, that is what I got criticised, well, not criticised for, but that's the point that got made to me. To which my response was, well, can you tell me which directors and partners actually do post on LinkedIn? Because I don't think any of them do. At least I'm posting on it. I don't think I said, 'At least I'm posting it', but that's what I'm probably thinking at the time. When you start doing something outside of work, and it could be beneficial for your work, it's almost like they expect that you should be doing it for the work as well. But they're different. And I think as long as you're achieving what you're meant to be achieving in that role, then I don't think it really matters the means that you get to it. But maybe that's a slightly naive view on it, and definitely one that would annoy a lot of people if I said it to them, I'm sure. LinkedIn is a really interesting one in the social media world because it's professional. And so on the one hand, what you do in your spare time, what you do in social media is no one's business, possibly subject to how far you go and what you post. On the other hand, I know that employers, certainly my previous employer, would encourage us to use LinkedIn essentially as a marketing tool for them. And so one of the reasons that I never did anything on LinkedIn, either from a professional perspective, my job perspective, and from a podcast perspective, was this. Well, what is my Persona? Who am I? Am I this podcaster doing this separately, or am I promoting the business of the company I work for? So my solution was just to not do it. Well, yeah, and there is definitely benefit from me doing it, even if I don't intentionally want it to be sometimes. Because I have won projects from referrals because people know me from the podcast. So it has created benefit for my employers, let's say, because I have got things on the back of it that are directly beneficial to them, e.g., winning one project was, I can't remember the exact fee, but it was between 25 and 30k. So they have essentially benefited between 25 and 30k on the back of me doing that. We've got another one recently which was much smaller, but it's recurring. It's like 2 to 3k fees a year, I think. So it's not huge money, but the fact is that it's something that wouldn't have been won if I didn't do the podcast. And I'm still winning work and doing other things to meet our targets and other things. So, yeah, it's fed into it in a beneficial way. The thing, though, that I think a lot of tax advisors, accountants don't realise about LinkedIn is, if you look at a lot of the posts from them, the ones that are using it, a lot of them will be something like, 'Here's this tax rule, here's what it means, here's the legislation reference', or something along those lines. And I get the temptation to do that. We work in tax, and we want to tell people about tax. But if you want a client to buy your service on the back of you using LinkedIn, the client needs to want to digest it, the person that you're targeting needs to want to read it. Are they going to want to read a post that talks about tax rules? Maybe 2% of them will. Whereas if you post something that they will want to read, and you weave in a little bit of tax about it, so that they can see that you're a tax person, that you can help them with tax, very different story. But I think that's why the podcast has been helpful in some ways for me, because over time I've had to learn that, I suppose. I've had to learn how to communicate to the people that I want to consume my content. So it's those people that are digesting it and reading it, and it isn't just getting likes or isn't just getting comments or whatever it is. And so I think I might appreciate more than, say, the average tax professional that if you want to use LinkedIn to win tax work, it's not about posting about tax stuff, it's about posting things that your potential clients would want to read, consume, therefore know who you are and maybe get in contact with you, or you then maybe reach out with them, because you see them engaging with your content a lot. Because obviously, I don't post about employment tax on LinkedIn, but I have won at least two projects because of it now. And I've never once posted about what I do in employment tax. Also, I never, never said, 'Come to me for this service in employment tax.' I've done like a few more generic posts over time, but yeah, it's such a small proportion of what I do. Let's talk a little bit about the coaching. I mentioned at the top of the episode that I've been very fortunate to have you as a coaching client. What was it when we started working together that led you to want to explore getting coaching? I had a coach around assistant manager grades. I found it really helpful back then, despite the fact that my wife would refer to it as counselling. So she used to, it would still annoy me if she used it now, but that's what she did it as a half joke, I would say. But I found that really helpful. I think that's a big reason as to why I've progressed, I suppose, how I have done. Because they encouraged me actually to read 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which they said everyone that's read that is starting to progress much quicker. And so I ended up reading it as well, and I thought it was really, really helpful. But I suppose I know that I'm not good at everything. Do I think I'm good at some things? Yes, of course. But I accept that I'm not good at everything. And one thing I definitely struggle with is overthinking with pretty much everything related to work and non work. And I end up getting so stuck in my head that I end up procrastinating or not taking action, because I'm trying to perfect something so much. And I think just the fact that you can talk it out, you can get prompted, can take these hundreds of ideas that are flying through my head and actually turn it into something that I can actually do that's going to help with something. So I know when I initially reached out, I actually wanted help to do with scaling and growing the employment tax team. But what it ended up shifting into was more support around stress and anxiety, because I had so much of that at the time that it was just making it much more difficult to do anything with growth or scaling the tax team, because it was just so hard and not enjoyable to do. And obviously, as we both know, that helped me a lot. And so people can listen to the probably cheesy testimonial that I've given you recently. That testimonial was not cheesy. And I don't know if it'll be up by the time this episode goes out, but hopefully it will be. What surprised you most about the coaching? Part of it is that once you start saying things out loud and talking it through with another person, what you think might be the problem initially is actually not the problem. So I think you often find out that what you thought you needed to take action actually isn't where you need to take action at all. You can be a bit more flexible then with what you do as an immediate result. I think that's probably the most surprising thing for me. I came in with, I suppose, set things that I thought I wanted help with and set things I thought I wanted to talk about. And you probably get a slight indication of this from this episode, but I can go off on tangents, and actually the tangents are probably where most of value is most the time, not the core chat, let's say. That's interesting. It reflects an experience I've had recently with another client where they said that what they really wanted to do was just spend the first few minutes of a coaching session just on a bit of a stream of consciousness. So what they were working on, what's been going on in their life, and out of that, a topic would arise. So they wouldn't necessarily come to a session going, 'This is what I want to focus on.' It would be, well, let's just explore, let's process. And then during that process, during that processing, there was something, okay, yeah, let's spend a bit of time talking about this. Yeah. No, exactly, yeah. So I think that's probably the most surprising thing for me anyway, that actually what you think is what you need to work on often isn't. And you can end up changing direction quite quickly. Which I don't think you would do without the coaching. You'd just be stuck in your spiral, I suppose. And what was the most tangible result you had from coaching? I'm not even sure if most people would class it as tangible, let's say, because it's feeling. But for me it was how much less stressed and anxious I felt at the end. And actually, it's surprising, because even though we haven't had a session there for about, I'm not even sure how long it is, maybe two months, I can feel it creeping back up slowly. It's just that kind of regular check-in, actually. It always reminds you what you need to be doing to stay on track, I think is a useful thing. But yeah, the tangible result for me is how much less stressed I feel. And also, I had some tangible actions around things I want to do with the team to make us more effective and efficient and all those types of things. So, I would have created it anyway, I think, without the coaching conversations, but it helped me get something out there and worry less about perfecting it. So now there's just something there. And before I might not have released it yet, I might have released it, and I might have wasted loads more time trying to perfect it, and I've resisted. So what does the future hold? What are you working on at the moment that excites you about what's to come? Yeah, it's a hard question. One of the things that annoys my wife about me is that I'm not extreme with my emotions. So I don't get super sad, and I don't necessarily get super happy either. My wave moves a bit, whereas hers is up and down, up and down, up and down. So I'm not sure there's necessarily anything that I'm really excited about at the moment. I do really like my team that we've created at PKF Smith Cooper, my employment tax team. I feel like everyone in the team is really good at what they do, really strong tax people with good skills, delivering good client service. And we all get along really well, and we have fun. So I'm excited to hopefully make a success of that, because I feel like we're in a really good position now, and I've never felt like that about a team before. So there's definitely that aspect of it. But that's probably the only thing I can actually assign the words excitement to, at least in relation to a work standpoint anyway. There's things that I want to try and try out. My big thing is learning different things or trying different things out. So at the moment, the thing I'm doing literally this week is I'm Learning more about LinkedIn and how you can try and win business through LinkedIn. So I'm really interested in that book at the moment. So I suppose you could say I'm excited to go through that and make the changes. But for me, I've tried to stop thinking so much about long-term goals all the time, because I think if you focus so much on the long term, then you lose sight of the now and can end up making yourself miserable in the now. So I'm trying to remove those long-term goals. Unless it's absolutely necessary. I'm not going to never have them again, I'm sure. But I don't want to have long-term goals at the expense of the now. And I think I spent probably the last five years thinking too much about the long term. So I'm trying to not think about it so much at the moment. It's that balance, isn't it, between drifting and not knowing where you're going, which is where having these goals can help. But also, this is a horrible cliche, but enjoying the journey, enjoying the moment, appreciating what's going on around you at the same time. Yeah. I mean, my guiding star, if that's the right word for it, is I want to keep getting better. So as long as I'm moving towards getting better, then I'm moving in the right direction. As long as I am keeping happy, let's say, overall, then that's what I want at the moment, really. Yeah, I said a very, maybe not quite as well articulated as this one today, because it's almost the second time I've answered this recently, but I said a very similar thing on another podcast I was interviewed on recently. So you mentioned the book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which a few of my guests have mentioned as a recommended read. What else is on your bookshelf that you really recommend and either has helped you or you think other people might want to take a look at? Yeah, well, first off, I definitely recommend reading 7 Habits. So I read that, and I also had the workbook, and I went through it from front all the way to the back, and in the workbook. But one that maybe people haven't heard of before. So as part of the podcast, when I first started it, I was at the pub one day with some friends, and I had literally just started the podcast, and one of the things I didn't want them to do is find out about it, because I knew they'd take the mick, and I just couldn't be bothered for it basically. But they did find out about it. Of course they did. Because I posted on LinkedIn. So one of my friends, who still comments stupid comments on my posts to this day, found out about it and put it in the WhatsApp group chat. And when they were taking the mick and everything, one of my friends turned to me and just was like, 'Well, it's just a bit boring, isn't it?' And my immediate reaction then was to push back and say, 'You're not my target audience, you're clearly not going to find interest in this than any other.' But I've thought about that one tiny comment an awful lot since then. And to an extent, he has a point, right? My podcast is for people who work in tax, and it's on things related to working tax. It's not an intrinsically interesting topic. And so I kind of acknowledged that, and I wanted to figure out a way to make the podcast episodes more interesting, so that people weren't just gaining valuable information but were also finding it interesting at the same time. Because I think if there's both there, they're more like to come back and refer it or tell their friends about it. So I spent an awful lot of time on storytelling. And so people might not have heard of this person before, because I don't think, unless you're particularly looking for things on storytelling, you would have done. But there's a guy called Matthew Dicks. He's based in the US. But he's an exceptional storyteller at telling real stories from his own life. And so I wanted to be able to do that, too, in the podcast. So I'm nowhere near his quality. I think it's called Storyworthy, better teach and persuade through the power of stories. And the tagline's definitely wrong. But anyway, it's a really, really good book, and it's got really good lessons in there about storytelling. And so I think, if you work in a similar world to me at all, even if you don't have a podcast, being a little bit better at storytelling will help. Because if you're speaking to clients or colleagues, you can tell them things in a more interesting way. It's more likely to stick with them. So I can definitely recommend that and any of the resources that Matthew Dicks has on offer about storytelling, because I've gone from someone that would have given you a one-liner to tell you a story before, to someone that can stretch it out a bit but make it more interesting, hopefully more memorable along the way. And for people who want to find you, want to find the podcast, or they want to find out more about your courses, where's the best place for them to go? Yeah, two places. Go to my LinkedIn profile. I'm very active on LinkedIn. So Jack Bonehill, I'm sure you'll have a link in the show notes or similar. And the second place I'd send you is to the website for my podcast, which, it's not a creative website name, because it's just called thetaxprofessionalspodcast.com, but all the podcast episodes, ways to subscribe and anything we've talked about in this episode relating to that anyway will be on that website. Links will definitely be in the show notes. Jack, thanks so much for coming on and sharing your story. I've really enjoyed this conversation. Yeah, thanks, Jeremy. Okay. Hope you enjoyed that interview with Jack Bonehill. One of the things that I love about what Jack's doing is that he's learnt pretty early on that one of the best ways to get the most out of the people you manage is to get them to trust you. And for him, that trust is built on transparency. And I think Jack is way ahead of the curve here. There are very few line managers who do the things that make their team want to do anything for them. I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of people who in my 20-year career made me feel like that. It was also great to discuss with Jack his experience of coaching. The benefits of coaching are something which I still find it a little bit tricky to articulate. So having Jack come on and explain what the benefits were for him was for me certainly really helpful. Show notes for this episode are at changeworklife.com/210, that's changeworklife.com/210. And if you'd like to find out how coaching might help you in the way that it's helped Jack, then visit changeworklife.com/coaching to find out more and set up a free introductory call. One of the things that came through pretty strongly in my interview with Jack is that he strives to be authentic. He really tries not to be someone who he isn't. And that's what we're going to be talking about in the next episode. What does it mean to be authentic? What does it mean to bring your whole self to work? We'll be answering those questions and more, so if you haven't subscribed to the show already, why on earth not? It's really easy. Make sure you do, and then you will not miss that episode. It's going to be a good one. So I look forward to seeing you then. Cheers. Bye.