Episode 128: Redefining Boredom As Gaining Patience With Scott Scarano
In this day and age of hustling, boredom is seen as a plateau that runs counter against success. But what if we reframe our mindset towards feeling bored with our careers and see it as a moment to explore ourselves without all the rush and bustle of this competitive world? Redefining boredom in this episode is Scott Scarano. Scott is the Founder of his own accounting practice, Accounting High. During this interview, he sits down with Amy Vetter to talk about how boredom teaches us to gain patience—which plays an important role in any creative or entrepreneurial act. Scott also shares his upbringing being a part of a family of entrepreneurs and what he learned from them, particularly on how egos get in the way. Making space for his creative heart, he talks about the need for performance and building that into your career later on. Plus, Scott and Amy discuss Amy’s new book, Disconnect to Connect. They dive deep into the lessons from the book and reflect on the importance of never losing creativity in what you do to create the life you desire. Tune in now to hear more of Scott’s personal growth lessons that have helped him as a business owner and also his personal life.
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Redefining Boredom As Gaining Patience With Scott Scarano
Welcome to this episode where I interview Scott Scarano who's an eccentric entrepreneur with the heart of a lion and the soul of a house cat. Scott loves approaching problems from a different perspective and analyzing solutions. Scott's why is empowering all growth-minded entrepreneurs in his reach to thrive and prosper. Scott's Padgett team is filled with passionate advisors with unique personalities who share the same virtues of empathy and integrity in everything they do.
Scott did the school thing and has the credentials, but his real value comes from his questioning mind and grit to push through any adversity. Scott lives in Raleigh, bleeds Carolina blue, and dedicates himself to his wife and his three children. My interview with Scott went through his journey and his upbringing being a part of a family of entrepreneurs and what he learned from them.
He shares his personal growth lessons that have helped him as a business owner but also personally. We also discussed my new book, Disconnect to Connect: Tap Into the Power Within You to Create the Life You Desire. Listen to his takeaways from that book. Hopefully, you're having the same as well. We will have an upcoming series completely dedicated to the book. Buy your copy now so that you can participate in our book club.
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I'm very excited to be talking to Scott Scarano. Scott, do you want to get started and give the audience a little background on yourself before we get started?
I'm OK Rapper. My new rap name is OKR.
I saw the OKR. I applied that more to technology.
That’s the point. That's the intent. It's a double-entendre. I tend to do that in a lot of different things I do. I started a school. It's not really a school. It's sort of an entertainment platform with content, Accounting High. I've been doing that for a couple of years now, and we rebranded. I have an accounting firm. That still runs. I've owned it for about fifteen years. Now, I'm trying to be like you, Amy. I'm trying to be in front of other accountants, help out the profession, and move it forward. I'm doing that through my platform, Accounting High. It's modeled from a school.
I'm using a lot of different metaphors for high school in teaching accountants how to be business owners and how to run a business. We're using the theme of high school to take them on that journey to grow into actual entrepreneurs and leaders among their firms and what that means. I never had that for myself. I had to learn the hard way over 10 years or 15 years. I'm trying to give back what I wish I had. That's in a nutshell where I'm at.
That is so amazing because many of us that are entrepreneurs learn by watching, listening, failing, and learning from failure.
There are lots of them.
A lot of people go into business because of interests they have and passions they have but not understanding what it takes to be in business and to be an entrepreneur. There's that entrepreneur mindset. Whether you're starting your business or you're within a business, running a service line is similar. You have to be creative and agile.
It's harder to be agile if you have an established business too. In my firm, I can't be as agile because there are a lot of moving parts, clients, and employees. As a business owner, I'm restarting again with this other brand. I'm able to do different things with that because I've grown and evolved since I started my firm.
Redefining Boredom: It's harder to be agile if you have an established business.
Let's talk about your journey. Let's start from your beginnings. Where did you grow up? Did you have brothers and sisters? What did your parents do? Give us your background.
I grew up in New York mostly up until I was about nine. That's where my family is from. My parents have their own business.
What did they have?
It's a software company for nonprofits. It's an accounting platform like a GL for nonprofits. My dad used to work for his dad. My grandfather was a CPA. He had a CPA firm. That was in New York. My dad did not work well with him. When they worked together, it did not work out. My dad got fired 5 or 6 times. He would show back up to work after he got fired. That didn't work out. That's what pushed him away from the profession. I don’t know if it's ego or maybe pride. It's hard.
I don't think I would be able to work with my dad either. I don't want to speak for my son if he ever wants to work with me because I don't even know if that would work out, but I don't want to say that wouldn't. That pushed my dad away. He was a CPA. He worked for my grandfather. At a certain point, he finally decided, "This is not for me." He went into sales, did a few other things, and then decided he was going to start this.
My grandfather built out a GL in his firm back in the late '80s or early '90s. It was DaaS-based. It was for his nonprofit clients. He realized he couldn't have it within the firm and also build the software platform. He learned that in the early days. My dad took it over. That's the company that they have. It went from DaaS to Windows-based. They moved it to the cloud in 2006 or 2007, around that time.
I've been adjacently connected to all of this accounting my whole life. I had no choice but to go into accounting. They moved to North Carolina from New York, took the software company, and ran it from the house my whole life. They're still running the same software company. It's called FastFund. Araize is the name of the company but the software itself is called FastFund. They would be fundraising, GL, accounting, and payroll for nonprofits. It's an all-in-one package.
Was your mom in accounting?
My mom has done the marketing. She's the creative side. That's where I get that from. She's always been the marketing and the branding. She's always had her little side things. My whole life, she always had different brands. When I was young, she decided she was going to sell kids' fonts. She had me write the whole alphabet with little Crayola markers, crayons, and paint. She sold those fonts in the early days before you can get a font on Google. She would sell them in school lunch bags. She called it Kid Bag.
It was a pretty cool idea. We would see that come up. If you look at Joan Osborne's CD Relish, that's my handwriting on the cover in the paint for her name. Where it says Relish, it's the skinny Crayola markers. There are other albums too where we see it on there. There's Robert Cray. Crayola used it for some of its branding and marketing. My mom would sell out the font, and then people would buy that little TIFF. She would mail it to them in a CD in a bag called the Kid Bag.
I remember that once at my elementary school, she had all the kids draw stuff. This is in the early days when I was in elementary. She had an animator animate the kids' drawings. She sold that too as little clip art. We would see that show up sometimes too on little ads, branding, and things. I've been always exposed to computers, branding, and marketing. My mom has always been tech-forward. She has been the tech person. My dad is an accountant. That's where I get my mix. That's how I got into this world.
Let's go back to your dad for a second because this happened so much in the accounting profession of other generations coming into an existing practice or family practice, and that problem happens when a younger generation comes in and has new ideas. The older generation doesn't ever want to move over or shift to those ideas. I do think it is such an important thing for people that are in those situations to figure out how to maneuver that. That was probably a great solution of letting your dad lead up something separate that was still part of a firm. You got that creative freedom.
It worked out because their relationship improved after he moved to North Carolina and took over the company. All of a sudden, they got closer over time too. There wasn't as much tension. I don't even know the details but it was more of pride and ego getting in the way of them not being able to work together because my grandfather was forward-thinking enough as it is. He was creating software within his firm at that time and hiring programmers at an accounting firm in the '80s and '90s. That was unheard of. It's still unheard of now. We still talk about that stuff now as if it's foreign.
Is there a certain type of not-for-profit he was going after?
Honestly, it was more of the ones that needed audits. It was more for the audit. Now, it's fund accounting. I know a lot of firms that work with nonprofits that don't even do fund accounting anymore. I'll ask my dad about that. He's like, "They need to." They also say that's an '80s or '90s thing to be doing. You don't necessarily need to do that. You can use QuickBooks for it now. QuickBooks is a big competitor of their software. He doesn't like to hear that. He doesn't even like me giving him ideas about what he's doing. You're spending all this time on the fund accounting. Is that where you should be focusing your time and efforts? I don't get involved in what they do.
From a young age, did you always think you would run your firm or business by watching your grandfather and your parents?
When I was a young age, I wanted to be an actor. I wanted to do some entertainment of type stuff. That's all I ever wanted to do. When I got into college, I went into business because I knew that it was safe to be an accountant. That was my goal, or at least when I first went to school, I went to school to be an accountant because that's what I knew. That's what my grandfather did. I wanted to be like him. Once I got to college, my mind opened up wide. That's back when I wanted to do the entertainment again.
Full force, I was taking screenwriting classes. I had a TV show at the school. I was learning how to do entertainment. I was trying to learn how to rap too at that time. All that came crashing down when I got arrested. At the same time, I wasn't too in touch with the reality of things because I was doing a lot of drugs. I was doing things that I'm not too proud of but I learned a lot from it. I learned most of my business sense from the business that I started, which was not legal but I did learn a lot about business. I learned about inventory, pricing, and customer service.
Let me guess why you had problems or got arrested.
It was cocaine. It was drugs. That was the business. I was making a lot of money. It was very profitable but it was not legal.
How did that even get started?
I had some friends that started doing it. It started very innocently. I thought everybody was selling weed. It was normal for people to be doing that and making some money on the side or getting theirs for free. I was like, "I could do this too." I was well-connected. I knew a lot of people. That worked out. It was on the low. Everybody was cool with it. Nobody cared, at least I thought. I was in my little bubble but then it graduated to other things. It was super profitable. I was making money. I was also doing entertainment. That's what you see when you listen to rap or when you watch movies. Those are the movies I was paying attention to like the movie Blow and Scarface. I was in that whole little world, and I thought I was invincible like any other kid.
How did you get yourself turned around? That's an amazing story.
After I got arrested, I was fortunate enough with money, the current situation, and how that type of crime is handled. I still can't talk about why or how I was able to get out of that without doing serious prison time. It has a lot to do with the color of my skin. I know that for sure. I'm not in a position to be talking about why or how that happened but I'm very fortunate that's the way it went. I was able to rebuild my life. They gave me a chance. It wasn't like they threw the book at me.
They gave me a chance to rebuild my life. I was young enough. I went back to school for accounting. That was safe and stable. That was what I ended up doing. I got married pretty young at that stage. I had a kid young. I got straight A's when I went back to school. I was getting good grades back when I was in school too. It was that one little blip. Even during that time, I was dean's list at UNC in Carolina. I always get myself into trouble. I'm my worst enemy in most cases.
Everybody is.
I make mistakes. I learned from the failures. That was a big old failure that cost me a lot of money and everything but it also jumpstarted my life earlier. I didn't go through ten years of trying to figure out who I was or what I wanted to do. That was it. I knew it at the core. Metallica came out with a new album. I'm not big on listening. I don't listen to Metallica but I like the concept. It's called 72 Seasons. They say your first eighteen years of life are determined by your first 72 seasons. That's how you develop. That's your core. You can always go back to those years and know those are the decisions you're making as an adult or even later. It came from and stemmed from that time.
Redefining Boredom: They say your life is basically determined by your first 72 seasons, your first 18 years of life. That's how you develop your core. You can always go back to those years and know that the decisions you are making as an adult or even later came from and stems from that time.
That idea resonated with me because I realized everything in my life keeps coming back to what I wanted or who I was then. I still am that person now. That's why this is Accounting High because I feel like I'm still in high school in a lot of ways. For fifteen years, I ran an accounting firm and did accounting. It was all to make money. It was all for money. It wasn't like I was that passionate about it. I liked working with businesses. I loved helping businesses and working with people. Everything has always been centered around being around other people and feeling part of a group or feeling accepted.
I've always loved connecting with other people too or being part of that connection. Everything has always been also about attention for me. At its core, that's why I want them to be an actor or an entertainer. It’s for attention. In owning a business, you get a lot of attention. You're meeting with clients. They're looking to you. They're coming to you for whatever it might be. You're reacting and working directly with people. You feel like you're having an impact. You always have somebody's attention, whether it's on a call or a meeting and everything. I was still driven by all of that and felt needed.
There are so many things here.
Where do we go?
My family had someone that was also in the same situation with drugs and the same trouble. I lived it from the family side, not as a person. Even what you were talking about in the beginning, it seemed like everyone was doing it. A lot of kids view it as a way to be in with the crowd. That's what I've always told them because you can think that. If you have whatever addicted quality to it, your life changes forever. It's not just being with the crowd. That's what I watched in my family, which was awful for the family. You're not only fortunate with the privilege to get out of that situation but also fortunate that you weren't addicted later on because that is the biggest thing to overcome.
I was addicted to the money. I was addicted to the power that it gave me or that I had over the situation. That was the addiction. It wasn't necessarily the drugs. Drugs are great. I still love drugs but I don't think that was the addiction at all because I could stop doing that. That wasn't that much of an issue. Even after I got caught, it wasn't like I needed the drugs again. That wasn't it. I had the money and the privilege to be able to get out of it too because that's still what it was about for me. That's what running the accounting firm was about too. It's always about money. At its core, I've detached myself from that addiction to money. That has only been because of disconnecting.
That's why your book has resonated with me too. Through disconnecting with what I thought I wanted and what I thought, that's what social media, the news, everything, every ad everywhere, and everybody is telling you, "You need this. This is what you need. Buy this." You're comparing yourself. It's like, "You need money for this. You need money to have this house, travel here, and do that." It has always been like, "Money solves problems,” in my mind. I don't think that's the case anymore but I had to evolve from that mindset. I had to have a mindset shift around money itself.
Disconnect to Connect: Tap into the Power within You to Create the Life You Desire
I was thinking about that addiction piece. There is the chemical addiction but when your brain is organized like my family member with the get-rich-quick, I would constantly be saying, "It takes time." You can keep thinking this is going to get quick but then you're going to keep falling.
Nothing is quick.
It always crashes. No one wants to take that time. We were talking about that before. In every new venture you take, there's the time of experience. You're trying to rush to the goal of whatever you think that goal is, but you're not enjoying the learning process along the way. That struggle is the learning process. It's frustrating, exciting, and exhilarating at the same time because you learn so much about yourself and what works and doesn't work. If you're a person that likes that learning process, the climb, or whatever it might be, one of the hard things is once you achieve whatever you think you achieve, which is the money, then you're like, "I'm bored. What do I do now?"
It's so funny you say that. The last time we were on an episode, you quoted a rap for me without knowing it, and you did it again, "I'm bored. What am I going to do now?" Here's the rap that I finished for this tournament that we ran in Accounting High, the ABC tournament, or the Accountant Bracket Challenge. This was a parody I did of Victory by Puff Daddy. In the end, he's like, "What am going to do now?" You know that track. It was the one with Busta Rhymes. I did it too. I said, "I'm so bored now. What am I going to do now? I'm so bored now because the tournament is over." That's how I feel about anything. After I achieve something, then all of a sudden, I feel bored. I want that rush again of whatever it was that I was doing.
That's the same addiction quality. In the book, I talk about how hard it is to be still, be in that moment of boredom, and explore yourself at that moment without feeling like you have to rush it because something will come through that exploration. Is it going to be next month? Is it going to be in six months? Is it going to be in two years? You have no idea, but it's sitting through it and going through that learning process.
I got a good quote from Rick Rubin's book The Creative Act. He says, "Removing time from the equation, you're left with patience." I don't know if that's the exact word but that's the essence of it. That's hard for a lot of creatives and people because there's a whole lot there. I and Ron Baker did an entire episode on that. We reviewed the book. It was a book report on the show but it's centered around the idea of patience, and how much that plays into any creative act, any entrepreneurial act, or any act. That's the addictive quality of needing something right now and getting that instant gratification versus having the patience to see it through or let something grow or naturally develop.
Redefining Boredom: Remove time and you're left with patience.
It's so hard for me. I get it, and I know that I need that but I'm still also so bored. Most of the time, I can occupy myself with an idea. The rap that I talked about came up one Saturday night. I'm sitting there. I wanted to do a rap for the winners of the tournament. I'm looking up tracks and trying to figure something out. I found it. I saw Victory, and it all fit perfectly. Puff Daddy says the word cat, "I'm cat one." Puff Daddy rhymes cat four bars in a row. All of it fit perfectly. It consumed me for three days.
I was present in the house but I wasn't attentive to anybody or anything. I was just writing this rap. We went to my parents. The whole day, I'm in a room writing the rap. I haven't paid attention to my kids in three days. I've been with them but I've been doing this rap. I finally finished it. We released it on the show. It consumed me but I was energized. I was full of life during that time. I'm excited and coming up with ideas. I don't know how to navigate that still. That's still a problem for me. I see that as an addiction because that was a rush right there. Finishing it was a rush. Releasing it was a rush, and then it was over.
It's a crash.
Not everybody is going to react to it as I did. Not everybody is going to be as excited about it as I am but during that time, it was the best thing in the world. This is the best one I've worked on. It's still something that I'm navigating through. I'm still having trouble because I'm always going to have addictions to things. I'm always going to be addicted to that adrenaline rush. I don't know how to navigate it.
It's important to know that these things of who we are aren’t necessarily negatives. It's important to be aware of what are the things that drive us and how we do things in our life that align with what fuels us. If we don't do things that are aligned, then that's when we get off track and so forth. If you haven't read this book if you're creative, it's called Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert.
Is it the one with the blowup of colors on the front? I love that book.
It talks about the struggle of creatives. When you turn your creativity into your career, you're still within guardrails because you have to please your audience or the person you're creating it for.
If you're creating for yourself, then that's the difference between an artist and an entrepreneur. Artists are creating for themselves. Entrepreneurs are creating for the audience.
If you're driven by money, you can't be a starving artist.
That's a good point. I never wanted to be a starving artist. That's why I went into business. That's also why I'm starting my artist-type stuff with a business mindset or an entrepreneurial mindset. They fuel each other. They're interwoven with harmony. The only way to find it. If you can intersect your passion and your purpose, which we talked about in your episode.
Redefining Boredom: The only way to find your entrepreneurial mindset is if you can intersect your passion and your purpose.
I've talked a lot about it in my raps and everything. It's finding that intersection but then always keeping the audience in mind. It's still hard to create unless you go with a specific intent. The rap that I just did was for the winners. It wasn't for me. I didn't do it for me. I did it for the winners. They won the tournament. If I did it for them, then everybody who voted for them to win should also like it. I love where you went with that. I need to go back and reread that book because when I first read it years ago, I wasn't at the stage in my life where I am now. It would have a different impact on me now. I'm glad you brought that up. That's dope.
Part of why I was thinking about it too was she was talking about who owns an idea in this book. She talked about an idea she had. She changed her mindset because someone else ended up doing the idea because life got thwarted, and she had to change paths. It's a big and long story. It was good. The moral of the story, which is something that stuck with me from that book, is no one owns an idea. Creatives come up with so many ideas that they float until they find a home. Sometimes what's hard is that if you are creative, you come up with ideas all the time. My staff jokes with me all the time, "No more ideas."
People all around my life tell me that.
That's fine. I've had to learn what people can handle, what I have to take on my side, what people can't handle, and then how people make it better once I lay the groundwork of what I want. They can execute in ways that I wouldn't be able to execute, but without being negative on yourself that you don't have that skill. It brings it to the world and makes sure it happens. I'm willing to make investments and certain ideas, but there are ideas I've had that I've seen someone else implement. As she says in the book, people will go, "That was my idea." It wasn't your idea. It was an idea looking for a home.
This is so great. Rick Rubin talks about that. There's a constant conveyor belt of ideas in front of you. It's only our job to pick the ones that are at the right moment. You can pick one and then put it back because it's not the right time, and let it back on the conveyor belt. Somebody else might pick it up, or it will come back around, and then you can pick it up when it's the right time.
When I started this Accounting High thing, I put together a founding faculty. That's around the time I put Byron on there because we have been good friends. I love everything about him and everything he does. I wanted the people on the faculty and the people that have been on show to help contribute. This was after he lost his job at Fieldguide. He was looking for something to do. We met up. I had a book full of ideas, and we went through them all. The one that made it out of that book was the tournament. That was the one that I'm allowed to pay attention to for the first quarter. That's the one that we worked on. That was it. I couldn't come up with new ideas. We couldn't do anything else. It was the one.
When I introduced the idea to the rest of the faculty, David Leary was in the meeting. He claimed it was his idea. He's like, "This is my idea. I probably told you about this. I'm glad you are going to do it but this was my idea." He had to claim that. That was this whole scenario. You have to pick the right ideas. They're not all yours. I could say it was my idea but I'm sure 100 other people had an idea to take all the things in the accounting space, turn them into a 60/14 bracket, and have them all compete against each other. It's a great idea but it's a lot of work to do that. You can have an idea.
It's an investment.
The difference between an idea and doing it is the doing. That's the hardest part. Ideas are easy but doing them is hard work. I don't like the word ownership, and I don't like people taking ownership over something because everything good is always a team effort anyway. There's always a group of people that are putting it together. Sometimes one person is usually attributed to whatever that is but it's not possible without the team or the group. Somebody taking ownership of an idea isn't right because there are a lot of people that contribute toward that.
It's true. It is an entrepreneurship lesson because to be a good entrepreneur, you have to focus and be able to figure out what you can execute, what has legs, and what doesn't.
We're all limited by time. That's our capacity for everything. Either you have the patience to see something through, or you're always stuck chasing the next deadline or it chasing you and trying to do too much. You feel burnt out because you're trying to fit too much in the little time that you have. You have to let ideas and projects breathe too. I'm learning this the hard way. Trust these lessons.
That is one of the things that happens with age. Younger, I felt like I had to do everything right now. Probably even at my pace at 49, people would say, "You do a lot," but I'm at 50%. I always felt so panicked that I needed to get there and be getting to another place versus letting those ideas percolate, seeing what works, and going from there. It also takes time to come to these realizations about yourself as you have and figure out the best use of your time so that you can feel fulfilled and not feel burnt out that you're not doing what you want to be doing.
A good lesson there was in Brené Brown's Atlas of the Heart where she talks about feeling satisfied, feeling gratitude, and feeling grateful for what you've accomplished and where you're at, but also still reaching for something, knowing that you can grow, wanting that growth and the climb, and being satisfied with where you're at too. That has always been hard for me because I'm either happy with where I'm at or I get lazy, and then don't do anything. I'm like, "I can coast," then I'm bored.
We talked about Enrico's episode. After he sold his first company, he was bored. He needed something in his life. He needed to build something else. That's where I was at with the firm. The firm was good. I didn't want to keep growing that, but I needed something else. I needed to build and grow something else. When I started doing that, all of a sudden, I'm focused on where I wanted to be.
I'm depressed and upset because I'm here, and I want to be there, "I want to be on the stage at the ExpensiCon thing. I don't want to be in the audience now." I should be happy enough that I'm going to be there and that I'm in Italy. We talked about this before. All of a sudden, I want to be on the stage. I want to be speaking and teaching people, but I need the patience to eventually get there.
Learning too is one thing I've always told people about interviews or anything. You know it in sales too. When you get the noes, sometimes they're as important as a yes or if not more important. You learn what you need to do to adjust or be able to win it the next time and keep honing in your skill or whatever offer you're doing. A lot of times, we take a no personally versus as a learning opportunity that that's what's going to make us better.
Another example is the tournament again. In the beginning, I needed a sponsor for the tournament because we wanted to give away a big prize. I approached Expensify, hoping that they would give away a trip to Italy for the winner of this tournament as if they would do that. They said no because this was an idea. At first, I took it personally. I was a little drawn back by it, but then I pivoted, approached others, and then found two people that said yes. When we had sponsors for the tournament, we were able to give away a trip to Hawaii. I reached out to the winner. She was over the moon that she won a trip to Hawaii. That's thanks to the people that said yes.
None of it was about me. It was trying to get something off the ground. I needed a big draw to do that. At first, I took it personally but then pivoted to others. A lot of these moments turned into something else. I prepared a speech or presentation but I've never done this before. I can now use the preparation that I used for the session to pitch to somebody else for another conference or event.
That is the world of speaking.
I'm learning this the hard way because I do take things personally. If I wasn't on a call with you right when I found that out, I probably would have taken that personally too. Thank you. You've already helped me in so many ways. I'm just a guest here.
It's not for the lighthearted for sure. A lot of times, I'll lose a keynote to a juggler.
I'm sure that's happened. You wouldn't come up with that specific example. Has that happened?
It's interesting because they're trying to see all these different types of ways to engage people. It's not even like you're going up against someone that has a topic of yours.
Somebody is juggling. You're probably talking about how you don't need to be juggling so much. You have to focus on one thing, disconnect, and do this. This person is sitting there and saying, "Juggle everything. You can do it all." Focus. Do one thing. You don't need all the balls in the air.
There you go. It's one or the other. You have to pick your poison.
That has been hard for you. We talked about that in your episode. That's one thing that I learned over time. I've learned this through others and through trying to contain my own ambition that I can't do everything. I can't have all those balls in the air. You're only going to be okay at it. That's the joke or the play on my rap name, OK Rapper. If I don't focus on just one thing, I'm going to be okay with a lot of different things. If I go all-in and focus on something, maybe I can aspire to be more than an okay rapper.
That's where my head is at right now because that's what I've wanted to do my whole life. I'm about to be 40. I'm trying to go all-in on that, but that means also saying no to a lot of other things. I can use that as part of my platform. My presentations and the sessions that I want to do include raps and rapping on stage. I'm not juggling but I am juggling a lot of different words. I'm trying to make them all fit together but also deliver the same message that I would deliver if I was doing a regular session.
It's like how you integrated all of your passions in the session that I saw you do at Appy Camp where you got everybody out of their chairs outside and meditating. I thought that was beautiful. That was you taking what you were passionate about and bridging it. You did it effortlessly. It was flawless. It was awesome. There were so many learning lessons in there.
That was a huge inspiration for me because I'm not going to get everybody rapping, but I may be able to do something that I love and bridge it with also teaching. People can take something away from that. They're not going to become rappers but they can get inspired to go do their thing. It's so hard though. When I have all these ideas, it used to be harder. Now, it's easier because if it's not geared toward that one thing, then it's easier to say, “No, this isn't for me." It used to be that I would say yes to everything too. It was so hard to say no to my own ideas and ambitions. I was saying yes to that, not just to other people.
Disconnecting has helped me say no to other people too. I'm fully disconnected when it comes to notifications, being online, the news, and all the noise. I'm disconnected from that so I can listen to myself, but then it was me that was pulling me away from other things and distracting me. It wasn't external inputs. It was my own ideas that were driving me.
That's so important. In the book, I talk about not blaming outside circumstances. A lot of times, we're like, "We can't do this or that because of this demand or that demand." There are always a few minutes or a way to rework your day if you learn how to rework your day or make it intentional versus feeling beaten down by life, and that it's coming at you.
I've got a million things happening with my kids moving on and all this other stuff, but you can't control those things. Life happens. It's weathering those times but also making sure you're not saying, "I have to give up everything." It might be a short moment but you make a commitment and a dedication to what it is that you want to make sure happens in your life. You show up better for everyone around you when you do.
You accomplish that thing. You were talking about writing your book. That's like being pregnant almost. Ron Baker compared it to that.
It's a very long pregnancy.
That's the thing though. Once you get it out, then all of a sudden, you've put something out there, and you've worked hard toward it. The time that you spent on it doesn't matter when you're done because you could have spent a couple of weeks on it for five years. Nobody knows. They get that final result. That's the patience that you have to put something out there that you're proud of. Your kids are proud of you too. I read their forewords in the book too. That's amazing that you include them. That's so dope because you've integrated everything. You've pulled it all together. I can't wait to read the whole thing because it sounds like what I was saying is the same message that you've got in there.
There's this book I read, The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. He talks about the concept of Einstein's time and how we don't all have to be slaves to time. It's a different way of looking at time. I'm not good at articulating what he says in there because it's a big concept of changing your mindset around time, having more patience, and knowing that we have all the time in the world to do everything that we want to do, but you have to be deliberate, specific, and intentional about what you're going to do.
The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level
I'm going to keep going down and end up confusing people more than helping. I'm going to reference that and say that it's a way of navigating life and feeling more in control over what you do and when you do it, rather than letting time dictate when and how you do everything, and running into deadlines and everything else. There's a way to balance all that. It takes changing your mindset around the approach. That's a huge unlock for life. That's one of the biggest unlocks.
That is awesome. There are lots of great lessons for everyone. I would like to end with some rapid-fire questions. You pick a category, family and friends, money, spiritual, or health.
This sounds like tarot cards. This is dope. I love this. Since we talked about money in the beginning, can we do that one?
Things or actions that I don't have that I want with money. There are going to be four questions about money.
I don't have a good ability to spend it without feeling like I'm losing a lot. I have a hard time spending money. I've never had a problem making it. I have a hard time spending it. I don't know if that answers the question.
You want to be able to spend it in a way that you enjoy it. Things or actions that I do have that I want to keep.
I'm pretty good at making it. I don't want to lose that.
Things or actions that I don't have with money that I don't want to have.
That's a good one. I don't see that as the end game or the goal anymore. I don't see attaining this money to get what I want from it. That goes with the whole spending of it. It's not about the money anymore. All my decisions don't center around money the way they used to. Subconsciously, a lot of them do. That still bubbles up but I don't want them to be. Once I become conscious of it, then I'm able to pivot and change. I don’t know if that answers it. It was a vague answer.
That's good. Things or actions that I do have that I don't want.
That goes back to the first one too. I have trouble spending it. I do have a way of being safe. That's the other thing too. An accountant is who I am at my core. Those are the principles and things we need to teach business owners as accountants. Don't spend all your money. Don't spend money that you don't have. I do all of those things well because of my mindset around it but I also want to be able to invest more, spend more, and do that. Maybe that's my way. I don't necessarily say I don't want to do that anymore. I don't want to teach those good principles and live that way because then others can learn from that example if they overspend, but I don't want to take it to the extreme that I've always taken it.
Is there anything that you want to emphasize or that we didn't cover that you want people to walk away with?
I'm at the early stages of this book that I'm writing. I've got a lot to learn. I'm always open to learning. There's always so much to learn. There are so many people around you already that you can learn from if you just started paying attention and get out of your way. We didn't talk enough about getting out of our ways. That was at the core of everything we were saying. Getting out of your way unlocks a lot.
Redefining Boredom: Be open to learning. There is always so much to learn and so many people around you already that you can learn from.
That's the ego quieting that, pushing that aside, and not letting that get in the way. At every step along the way, it's so hard to do. It's so rewarding when you start to see outside and go past yourself. All of a sudden, you're able to do the things that you want to do because you let yourself get out of the way. That's what I'm learning. I'm still in the early stages of this.
That's awesome. Thank you so much for being on. You got so many great stories. I appreciate you sharing that with everyone.
Thanks for having me on. It was dope.
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Welcome to my Mindful Moments with this interview with Scott. It was so fascinating hearing about his journey starting with his grandfather and his father who had a CPA practice. His father was working in that practice, and the struggles that they had working together, which Scott narrowed down as egos getting in the way. A lot of times, we get distracted by who's in charge, who has the best ideas, and so forth instead of opening up to the next generation and giving them the opportunity to take that business into the future. We see that all the time with family firms or family businesses. The next generation struggles to come in and be able to take that business in the right direction.
What was interesting was that his grandfather took out a piece of the business, which was the software for not-for-profit fundraising. His father ended up running that operation. That separated them, but his father was passionate about that technology and took it to the next level. He also credited his mom with her marketing ability and creativity which has helped Scott to be able to understand marketing and also that creative mind and how to utilize it. He gave some great examples from when he was a child and what he learned from her there.
Scott's journey was that he wanted to be an actor. That's what created bliss or happiness for him when he was a child. Once he got into college, he realized that it would be safer to go into business, having a family of CPAs that he saw gave him the right foundation to having a secure or safe career for his family. It's important that we identify those things that Scott was talking about. It’s that creativity, that needs for performance, and how you start building that into your career later on. We talked about the blip in his journey when he get arrested and what he learned from that from a business side but also the side of what things were driving the behaviors that he was having.
That's when we got into the book's lessons. He realized that what drove him was money and that he was able to grow that business through relationships. He likes attention. Being a creator and a performer, you like attention. How do you take those things now that you've turned your life around? You're running a practice and helping entrepreneurs. That's what he has done. He took this and allowed himself to get re-energized by writing raps, and how he can take that creativity and music into the work that he's doing.
That's so important that we understand where we get that fuel from. There are certain things we do in our careers that are the foundation that provides security. We need this 20% or 30% that drives the fuel that we need to find that happiness or bliss. When we can be honest with ourselves and identify that, it can help us to be able to change our lives, not only to create the right energy for us but to create the right energy for the people around us as well.
What he's learned along the way is how much he needed to stop trying to do everything, be able to say no to things that don't feel that fire, and make sure that what he is doing creates that passion, and he's able to incorporate it into everything he does. It is a constant learning process, which we ended with. It’s about staying open to learning, making sure that you get out of your way, and don't get too hard on yourself when you don't enjoy the journey and some of the lessons that you are finding about yourself, and what creates happiness for you.
I hope you enjoyed this interview. I know I did. There were so many great lessons with it. Share it with your friends and colleagues who you think it would be helpful for. Go out and get my new book Disconnect to Connect. We talked about some of the lessons in this book. We will have a whole series coming up. Read it now. We are going to break it down chapter by chapter so that we can have that virtual discussion. You will be able to send in your questions prior. Thank you very much. I will see you in the next episode.
Important Links
Scott Scarano - LinkedIn
Disconnect to Connect: Tap Into the Power Within You to Create the Life You Desire
Ron Baker - Accounting High episode
Enrico Palmerino - Accounting High episode
About Scott Scarano
Scott Scarano is an eccentric entrepreneur with the heart of a lion and the soul of a housecat. Scott loves approaching problems from a different perspective and analyzing solutions. Scott’s "Why" is empowering all growth-minded entrepreneurs, in his reach, to thrive and prosper. Scott’s Padgett team is filled with passionate advisors with unique personalities who share the same virtues of empathy and integrity in everything they do. Scott did the school thing and has the credentials, but his real value comes from his questioning mind and grit to push through any adversity. Scott lives in Raleigh, bleeds Carolina blue, and dedicates himself to his astonishing wife, Juana, and three surprisingly intelligent kids; Julia, Frankie, and Arya.