Episode 50: "Be Willing to Withstand the Pain Through Change: Don't Back Away From It, Believe In Yourself: You Can Do The Hard Stuff as Long as You Don't Back Away From the Pain" With Paul Peterson
Life is never smooth sailing, and often, the best ones have their significant share of hard times. In the end, everything is worth it. You just have to learn how to withstand the pain by believing in yourself in the process. In this episode, Paul Peterson, CPA, Managing Partner at Wiss & Company, LLP, joins Amy Vetter to share his journey from staff accountant to managing partner and how his value systems have been a key to ensuring his career is aligned with his purpose, and his leadership is authentic. At its core, Paul learned how to endure, not to back away from the pain and learning how to embrace change because that is where we produce innovative ideas. Join him as he tells us about why that is through his own experiences and more.
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"Be Willing to Withstand the Pain Through Change: Don't Back Away From It, Believe In Yourself: You Can Do The Hard Stuff as Long as You Don't Back Away From the Pain" With Paul Peterson
I'm excited to say that this is our 50th episode. I feel it's a milestone coming from the beginning of when the thought came to be about putting this episode out there, and all of the comments and feedback that you have given me has motivated me to keep going with this. I have interviewed many fascinating leaders from all different professions. Hopefully, these episodes are helping you from a personal standpoint dig deep and understand where your belief systems are coming from. Are they serving you and helping you in your work life or personal life? I would also say that hopefully you share these episodes with friends, colleagues, family members that could use the inspiration as well and subscribe so that we can keep growing this blog too. There are many great nuggets of advice from these leaders from all over.
This episode is no different. I have many notes with my interview from Paul Peterson. He is the Managing Partner at Wiss. He leads the firm's long-term strategy and helps cultivate the environment where their people can flourish in servicing their clients. He's been inspired by the spirit of entrepreneurship and the close relationships that formed was servicing privately held companies and family businesses. He has extensive experience providing accounting, auditing tax services, as well as advising clients on strategy, personnel and organizational structure. He is a graduate of Seton Hall University and earned his MBA from Stern School of Business at NYU. Aside from spending time with his family, Paul enjoy sports and music. In this episode, Paul shares his journey from staff accountant to managing partner and the importance of his value systems that were key to ensuring his career was aligned with his purpose and that his leadership is authentic.
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I'm with Paul Peterson from Wiss. Paul, do you want to start off and give a little background on yourself?
Thank you for having me, Amy. I appreciate it. I am the Managing Partner for Wiss and Wiss is a Metropolitan, when we say Metropolitan New Jersey, New York City-based accounting firm. We've become more of an advisory firm over the past several years. Personally, I've been here at Wiss for many years. It's been a nice run and I'm still looking for that run to continue.
I can't wait to hear your journey through Wiss because I'm sure there have been a lot of pivots and turns along the way. You hear few people that their jobs or their careers is with the same company. I want to start off getting a little bit of background like where did you grow up? What did your parents do?
I grew up in the town that we have our business established here. I know people think that was by design. I grew up in Florham Park, New Jersey, which is a suburb within Northern New Jersey. When I grew up here, it definitely wasn't anything what it's like now. It was almost rural, quite honestly. I grew up in a household where my dad was an accountant, but not a public accountant, an accountant for private industry. He was a controller for a company for a number of years. My mother was a stay-at-home mom who had to raise 1 of 3 boys, which was not easy. My poor mom, we were quite active and disruptive.
She kept trying for that girl and then after the third, she was like, “I'm done.”
I was the middle child, so I was probably the toughest. We learned some valuable lessons along the way. My father happened to be a part of a management buyout during my middle school years, where the person that they ultimately allowed to be the controlling shareholder turned against my father and the other minority shareholders and took control of the company. It was all a mess. I saw at a period of time where it was difficult for my father even to get a job because that was right in the earlier part of the ‘80s where the economy wasn't booming yet. To see the way in which my father handled that, it wasn't him. It took him a while to find a job. It was a difficult place to be. It had such an impact on me because from that moment forward, I always felt like I'm never going to allow anyone to control my destiny. From there, I did a lot of things on my own. I had a newspaper business, a lawn mowing business, shoveled driveways. I did anything I possibly can to not have to work for anyone. Eventually, I had to break down.
I had a similar experience with my mom, not working for someone, but made services. They focused in the construction industry when the savings and loans went down and she lost her business. The same thing that I was like, “I will never make those mistakes again.” You're watching because your life changed overnight.
It went from a comfortable, secure environment to one we were thinking we had to move and sell the house. It was a stressful time that was felt in the household.
How was he during that?
It wasn't him. I'm sure that he was depressed, although it was not the connotation back then you didn't use. He wasn't himself at all. He was withdrawn for a period of time.
Were you trying to help around the house or help him?
What was good with both my parents is they tried to keep it as normal as possible for us so that it didn't impact us. They are trying to shield us from it, but you knew it was impacting them. I wonder sometimes, maybe it would have been better if we openly talked about it. It made us tougher. At that point in time, we all came together as a family and got by. If there were things that we cut out, we cut out. We accepted it. It was more like we made those choices than it was like anything. My dad loved doing house projects anyway and I had an older brother. It freed me up to go do other things. I was playing sports all the time.
What did he end up getting a job doing?
It worked out well. It's like one of these good stories. He ended up taking a job. He made probably a third of what he was making in Teaneck, New Jersey, which is about an hour with traffic from where we lived. He ended up being a controller there and had that job since the mid-‘80s. It worked out. Unfortunately, the matriarch of that small family business had lived to 102. She outlived her children and she left the business to my dad. It's like one of these feel-good stories. He's in his late 70s and still working.
He is like a typical accountant.
They never give up. Both my brothers are in the business, so they're all together. It’s a nice little story.
What's also interesting is your longevity and where you've worked that your father was like that as well. You saw that.
He was loyal and probably loyal to a fault at times.
It's sticking it out.
That’s a good way to put it.
It's not always pretty. Why would you decide to be an accountant after seeing that happen to your dad?
I think it was the fact that he was able to find a job again. I was always good with numbers. I looked at it as like, “I'm good at numbers.” I was influenced once by a guest speaker that came in to college who said, “There's no such thing as an unemployed CPA.” That definitely stuck. I was like, “I never want to be unemployed because of what my dad had to go through. I could control my own destiny. I’m good at numbers. That sounds like a good career choice.” At the time too, I was coming out late ‘80s. There were a lot of jobs like accounting. It was like, “As long as you’ve got a reasonable grade, you are going to get a job.”
Isn’t that interesting how that speaker has no idea using the word ‘unemployed’ was enough for you to be like, “That's it?” You never know who's sitting in an audience and what resonates.
It's true and I'll never forget it to this day, that conversation. It was impactful. He probably left thinking like, “Here are these college students that listen to one thing I said.” I made my career choice based on his talk.
That's the impact we have without even realizing it. Was there something else you dreamed of being?
Withstand Pain Through Change: You can run an accounting firm in a way that is more humanistic. You didn't have to be divided. Even if you're a partner, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't be as accountable to the culture as any other person within the firm.
Entrepreneur, there is no question about it. I love business. I can't help but be competitive from sports. I didn't care about winning. It was more the aspect of trying to be the best you can. I still like that. I'm driven by that.
It keeps your job interesting.
It does and I never want to lose that. I feel like that's the edge that you keep knowing too that there's so much out there to learn. I still run now. It's like, “How can I run faster?” That was in me. I felt like if I could find a place to bring that and control my destiny by being a CPA because that's how I always felt like, “I can always go off on my own.” That was always my fallback. I went into working at a firm like Wiss with the mindset that I was going to go out on my own. That was always the plan.
Did you start at another firm first?
I was at a national firm doing audit. It was not from me at all. The way it worked is I started off that way, left quickly knowing this. I did not like not feeling as though I could develop relationships. That's what it was at that point, to be honest. That was the biggest driver for me was coming in and you don't even have a desk that you're at. What I said is like, “Maybe I'll try private, maybe public is not the answer.” I went into private and I realized everyone that was in a leadership position had worked in public accounting for a period of time. They had their CPA designation. They had that experience and they almost were brought in at a managerial or a leadership position directly from the firm into that role.
To move up organically and internally was going to be a challenge. I was like, “I’ve got to get out of here then.” That's what I said, but I needed to be at a firm that was like a Wiss-type, more servicing entrepreneurs or family businesses and in an environment that I felt like I can have relationships with my fellow coworkers. That was the number one driver at the time. That's what brought me to Wiss. I had a great interview. Like we all say, we had a guy here at the time was a recruiter and he had a way to connect with people. You left feeling good about the organization. I remember even walking around and had a community feel to it. It was different the vibe that you got.
What kind of position did you come in doing?
I came in as a staff accountant. I had to start from scratch, which was fine. I had an advantage because when I was in college, I had started a cookie business.
What kind of cookies?
We started off with chocolate chip, but it was Paul and Todd's homemade. We did well. I left that part out of the story, but I did that for a year after school out of college. I learned so much. It was the best thing I ever did by far. It was tough because I gave up the salary and you'd be with your friends out at the bars or whatever. They would be talking about what they're making. Meanwhile, I'm not making any money. I'm just pouring money in.
Were you a good chocolate chip cookie maker?
We had to learn.
Why did you choose cookies?
We went on a winter break in college to Sugarbush, Vermont and that's close by Ben & Jerry's. What happened was the week we picked to ski in the middle of January ended up being 62 degrees, almost average temp. There was no skiing. We spent our time around a lot of talking, a lot of beer drinking. One day, we ventured out to do some things. We went to Ben & Jerry's factory. One of my friends was like, “We should try this with cookies.” We went back and started doing it.
I thought you were going to say like, “We had my grandmother's recipe.”
Not at all, in fact, the first sheet pan we had was crooked. It was like a story. Here are these two dudes that are walking in and talking to these delis about like, “Do you want our cookie?” They're like, “Yeah, put them out.” They would give us great positioning. It'd be like an impulse buy.
Were they the best cookies or you had them branded or positioned well?
They were homemade, which helped. I would say that they were good because at a price point, they're homemade. It was easy to compete against some of those wrapped up cookies that are on the shelf for God knows how long. Business model-wise, it was difficult because you had to make sure they were fresh.
There's not much scale to it.
We tried different things. We tried frozen and everything. We got to the point where we were renting space in a factory, which was cool. We would go to festivals and just blow them out. It was hard to keep the quality up when you're trying to do fresh cookies and delivering. It's not a good business model.
There's a reason they're packaged.
It’s exactly 100% why you use preservatives.
You start as a staff accountant doing tax audit.
I went back to audit. The way it was, even though you were “audit,” you touched a lot during those days. You didn't have such separation of service areas. There weren’t these different departments. Even our tax department back then were more like tax experts and you had a handful of them. We did a little bit of everything. We'd closed books. We would do audits. We would do tax returns. We did personal returns. I'm happy that I did that because it gave me such a great understanding of all these different nuances of the business.
It was perfect for me to learn more about how businesses operate, what's important to the client. I realized how important the tax aspect was to the client. How important it is to also know these different elements about how to become an adviser. The most enjoyment I had even during that time was having conversations with either the controller, if I was lucky to speak to one of the owners about their business. I was always like, “How do you get customers? What is it that you do that makes you different?” I care more about that than I did about putting work papers together.
You found your niche there.
Yeah and it was easy because you got access to it. I felt that even at a younger age, you get this unbelievable access to what goes on with some of the top decision-makers in the company.
Withstand Pain Through Change: It's weird how we've undertaken this as an industry that there's a certain way you do things and that's the way you do things.
That was always the divide with audit and advisory. I always felt that audit is the perfect background to becoming an advisor, but when you're an auditor, they don't want to hear your advice because they're afraid you're going to give them an audit point. You do the same thing as an advisor and they're soaking it in.
Putting yourself in different contexts, but the skillset. I wouldn't be able to advise if I didn't know auditing. Getting all of that and understanding how it all comes together.
What was your track like? How do you think you have come into your own, now being the managing partner there? What was your path to that?
It was difficult, but I think a couple of things.
Did you have a goal of being a managing partner?
One hundred percent, and I don't want to come across as arrogant about it. I always felt like, “I could be doing this better,” and I was young. It wasn't strategic or anything like that. I felt it was like how to treat people. I was in a firm at a time where there was a strong divide between keeping the traditional way, a bureaucratic, top-down way versus what was happening outside of traditional accounting firms in this movement. Whether it was casual dress or this whole movement around more being and bringing yourself and allowing people to be more human. I was fortunate. The primary reason why I stayed is I was surrounded by people that agreed with the way in which we wanted to treat others.
The way we wanted to be treated and the way we felt others should be treated and to look at coming together and we did. I happened to be close with several other people that we grew up at the same time in the firm. We had this belief that you can run an accounting firm in a way that was more humanistic. You didn't have to be divided, even if you're a partner, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't be accessible and as accountable to the culture as any other person within the firm. We felt that there were certain aspects of the Wiss culture that were wonderful. We were lucky that it was somewhat progressive at the time to even allow us that insight to, “We can do this.” We had to overcome a lot of obstacles to do it. There were people that were anti that way. There was this belief that if you treat people good, they're going to take advantage of you. That was one of the overarching themes.
Why did they think that do you think?
I always questioned that. I believe that it was more around they wanted to keep people down. There was a kingdom at the time at the top levels. Once a kingdom is established, the king wants to keep the kingdom going. That was frustrating. We realized that there was going to be a breaking point. Thankfully, we always felt that let's do the right thing. Always keep to the right thing, even though your path and goal is out there, do the right thing. At the same time, be detached. If you're not going to be able to get there, then find a different way. That Law of Detachment became an important element in ultimately getting us to where we wanted to be. Ultimately, we wanted to be here and we wanted to be in a position of influence, but we also were under the agreement that if we couldn't, we'll go do it somewhere else for ourselves.
This was an important critical point a lot of people get in their careers. The two things that you hear a lot is there's a disagreement with leadership, values, mission or self-worth. Either, number one, they leave and start their own firm or business, which you didn't. I want to understand why you didn't. Secondly, people believe because of their title, they can't lead. They'll say, “I don't agree with what my manager's doing or what my partner's doing, but I have to do it.” I would say in both of those cases for you, since you were in those positions, how did you sleep at night saying if your value system wasn't aligned? Why would you stay instead of starting your own practice?
It was difficult. To give a little bit further context into it, our value system was being eroded. That's exactly what led us to being more aggressive and I had to do it right. We hit that point where it was a challenge even sleeping at night, knowing that we weren't comfortable anymore with being in a situation where you feel like you're enabling the problem to continue. It came down to looking yourself in the mirror and saying like, “I'm enabling this. I'm not okay with that anymore.” There are people that have more influence than they think.
We were good at what we were doing. We had customer relationships. We had value. There were things that we were allowing to occur because we were allowing them to occur. The reality is from a business point of view, when we came together and there were a few of us that said, “We're going to stay together in this.” We did this where we said to ourselves, “Here's the worst-case scenario.” To take the risk for some people was important to see, “What would the outcome be if the risk is taken and it doesn't go as planned?”
We made a list of all the customers we thought we could take, even if we did it within the partnership agreement, what we'd have to pay for it. Can we do that? We put a plan together. That getting together and uniting together was that moment where you felt, “Now, I know what the worst-case scenario is.” It gives you this internal strength to push forward and not even caring about what it is you want to accomplish, but pushing forward knowing you're doing the right thing. Finally, for the first time, I felt that my heart and my head were in the right place. Things started to happen naturally. Amy, I approached our managing partner at the time right to his face and said that he should step down. I couldn't do anything that was going to be Machiavellian or some coup attempt. I couldn't live with it. We could have.
It would go against your value system.
I couldn't do it. I kept saying it because there were some that were like, “Let's do it this way.” I was like, “I can't do it.” I was taken advantage of because once I had indicated and laid all the cards on the table, I would say that that was a weakness for someone that's going to try to take advantage of that and now work behind the scenes. I was okay with that. I knew that, but it was the first time here where I felt that this is who I am and I'm comfortable taking whatever, taking on any partner I needed to. At that point, it's either going to work this way or we're going to find another way.
I would say a couple of things relating it to where firms struggle with innovation. One of the things that is hard with an accounting firm is people are promoted to an entrepreneurial position, but they're not entrepreneurs. They didn't start that business. They've never taken the risk of putting money on the line, that sort of thing, when you go into new services and stuff like that. Exactly what you talked about with this managing partner is a good exercise for any new service or things you want to do as far as innovation and say, “Do we all believe in this? What is the worst that could happen? Where are our risks? Are we able to stomach that?” because we believe that this is the right way forward. It’s a good exercise. The second thing and this is hard for people to not play politics because it goes back to what they said earlier to you, if you're too good to people, they'll screw you over.
You went to them and because you showed your cards, but I would go back to your upbringing that there are certain experiences that you have in life that can help you stomach those hardest times. You saw your dad go through hard times, not lose his value system. That was an unfortunate set of circumstances of the way the company turned, but it trains you later when you're in these hard positions of like, “I got to see my way through this and do the right thing.”
It's true and it's easy to give up. One of the things that I learned and a couple of things. I love the name of your show, Breaking Beliefs. It comes down to this whole concept of these accounting firms where there's a belief that things can't be different. It's weird how we've undertaken this as an industry that there's a certain way you do things and that's the way you do things. When you look at how power is distributed, one of the things you have to be careful of in a professional service firm because, statistically, the professional services firms don't die because of competitive disadvantage. They die because there's internal infighting.
It's like a rock band.
It wasn't pretty. I make it look good, but it wasn't pretty. One of the things that was important that I learned was that the other thing about influence or what you're onto is that you got to be willing to withstand the pain. It's painful to try to be influential. It's not easy. That was the thing. One of the things that I was looking at like, “How am I taking this guy on?” It was like taking him on and doing in a way that was authentic and I felt that I was doing it and leading with my heart. At the same time, not backing away from it. He was going to fight tooth and nail for the power.
Those that want power will crave power. What happens a lot of times is it fatigues others. You get to a point where like, “This person's relentless,” and then you start compromising. That's what was almost happening. All of a sudden, when he felt there was pressure on it and there were others that felt the pressure too, it was like, “Let's compromise here.” That's where it became important where I was like, “No, there's no compromising.” That's when you have to have belief in yourself.
Even after it's all done, you’re still fighting. It doesn't end. You've got to believe that you can do this. You’ve got to be willing to go through the pain. A lot of us back away when someone else wants something more than perhaps we do. You can't. For me, the thing as I look at Wiss and the future is to always make sure that we're promoting people. Power is such an obligation to do it right. You’ve got to be careful who you give power to. It can be scary. It's hard because sometimes you don't realize that, especially if you don't know people and you bring people from the outside and it could be disruptive.
I love that you can't back away from the pain. Many people can look at you as a managing partner from the outside and be like, “How fortunate you are.” They don't know the journey there. They don't know what people go through on the inside because you're still trying to keep upfront of client relationships and a good business running. You're not going to expose to everybody all the hard stuff going on in the background, which is people's personal lives too. Every day they show up to work and there's stuff going on. You can't wear it.
Amy, you’re bringing up all the things that we would want others to know because the intangible value of the partnership and the perception of the togetherness of the partnership matters. You want it to be true and authentic that those relationships are there, but that was a scary moment in time for Wiss. Unfortunately, as this fight was nearing its ending point, the disruption started leading to the outside and to clients. I remember I got a call on a Sunday night from one of my clients and was like, “What is going on over there?” I was like, “It's out there.” That was scary because at the end of the day, even this client was like, “If you can't guarantee me that you're going to be there, I don't want this to be not in my decision.” The firm could unwind quickly. That was a hard thing to do to be able to still march the march.
I've been through a number of partnerships and I've been through something like that. There's a question here, but one of the problems in a partnership I find, it's not looked at like a corporation. If you're a corporation, you're looking at what's best for the business. When you're a partnership, people are individually looking at what's best for them. It's hard to get partners to look at the company separate from them personally. Having gone through this and now coming to the other side of this, what would be your guidance to partners in any kind of business to make sure that you don't end up in this position?
There are a few and you're right. Number one, you have to, no matter what, run it like you would. You have to think of yourself as an investor in that business and the business needs to be fed. You have to care for the business. I always look business like it's a newborn. You got to constantly care for it. You got to feed it. You got to cater to its needs, but you can't take from it. You have to be willing to be demonstrative at times about taking risks and investing money. You almost have to show it and the way that I like to do is like, “This is the kind of pot that's going to innovation. Some are going to work and some are not going to work.” The mature business is like the life cycle. You have your mature business that it has to feed the up and coming businesses. If you have a partner group that doesn't buy into that, as a partner, you got to make a choice at that point in time. It's basics. It’s 101 if you're not going to invest. That's one. A lot of it also comes down to we've had this conversation, getting the partnership right.
Withstand Pain Through Change: Power is such an obligation that you have to do it right. You have to be careful who you give power to.
You have to be willing to go to the distance and that does take some complex, difficult conversations. You have to be strict on making sure that people live according to the values. The partners have to be held to a standard. We're still working at that. There are legacy issues we still work through, but there have been changes in the partnership. There are people that have self-selected out, that's not for them. We've had conversation with some that, “This isn't going to work.” The only way to make a partnership operate like a corporation is that you have to insist upon it and also have open dialogue around you're an equity partner and what does that mean. What should an equity partner be doing?
Also, making it harder to be an equity partner. I look back decisions that were made and it was like, “They were good at technical work or they were good at client development, whatever it would be, but from a values perspective and a culture perspective, you're putting a person in a position to lead to toxicity.” I don't care how much tangible value they provide, the intangible value that you're losing as a result of this person working against you. It's immeasurable, but destructive. You have to have people that believe in how to run the business and that they believe in your culture. We work hard at that. That's something that we will make it harder now for people to become an equity partner.
There isn't enough education on being an equity partner. Is that right for you? You can be a non-equity partner and that might be the right path for you. Especially in the accounting firm space and I'm sure other professional services. There's this goal to be partner, you get into it and you're like, “This isn't what I thought it was going to be. I'm stuck now.”
It's funny you say that because many people say it like, “What does it take to be equity?” There's a mystery. How much do you make as an equity partner?
You can make less and people don't realize.
You're 100% right, the economics of the business have to work. You learn the hard way at times and you have to keep that model in place. If your business model works, it makes all other decisions a lot easier. The other thing you have to be able to do is, let's say that you have a partner that they're not equity, but they're important. That's an important role, but you got to pay them well. You can't like, “You're a non-equity partner. Here's your manager's salary plus $5,000.” That's where the other thing you talked about with the firms running like a corporation. You do have to have some clear lines of delineation around compensation and what it means for somebody that is going to get through that point and put the effort in. You’ve got to reward accordingly, but you have to have the economics in place to do so.
I’m going to close it off with some rapid-fire questions I ask everyone at the end of the interview. You pick a category, family and friends, money, spiritual, or health.
Spiritual.
Things or actions I don't have that I want?
It’s acting quicker when I know I need to act quicker. Living in the present, live in the present, enjoy the present.
Things are actions I do have that I want to keep?
I love relationships and impact. I love having impact and influence. I'm going to miss that one day when I have to give that up.
Things or actions I don't have that I don't want?
This whole concept of I have detached from a lot of material type things. I want to keep that way. I don't have a lot of burden and I like it that way. It’s freedom.
Things or actions that I do have that I don't want spiritually?
I beat myself up. That's been a quality I've had since I've been a kid. I could be my own worst enemy and be difficult on myself. I've gotten a little bit easier on myself over the years, but as long as my intent was good, I think I should beat myself up if I had not the right intent. Taking guilt for things that I don't have any control over, especially when I have to make difficult decisions here. Sometimes you have to do it because that's the right thing for the whole. Having less guilt about that.
At the end of the day, it's a lonely job. Even when you have a team, you still are the final one that has to make a decision.
I’ve had to get used to that. It’s not that easy.
Anything else as we wrap up that you want to make sure is a takeaway for people reading this blog? There have been many great tips from you.
The biggest thing is life is unpredictable. It's a gift and there are many good things to enjoy and take that in. At the same time, understand that the bad is part of that and not to get too down with the bad and almost expect that there's going to be bad. My biggest thing is to live it well. I'm glad that I've had difficulties along the way. They always say sometimes suffering is the path towards happiness. That's the biggest thing is allow yourself to go through those bad times and to suffer. Endure it because so much is experience. We're an incredible adaptive species. It is incredible how you grow and you don't even know you're growing, but allowing yourself those opportunities. There are going to be days where it's tough, but there’s food on the other side.
Withstand Pain Through Change: Allow yourself to go through those bad times and to suffer. Endure it because so much is experience.
When you have that longer-term vision, you can get through the suffering.
You can reply to that. It’s easy to. The profession is a roller coaster. That's something that we're unprepared for coming out and in the expectations in public accounting, but you do have those moments, but you also have those great moments. There's a lot more excitement than there are the actual downs. We're not told that that's going to happen. A little bit of a surprise when it happens.
Thank you for sharing your story. Many people will be able to learn from it as well.
I'm happy to do it. Thanks for having me, Amy. I appreciate it.
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For the Mindful Moments segment of this show. Paul gave us many nuggets of great information and advice from a leadership standpoint. He was authentic with the way he talks about his story. His story started with his father being an accountant and losing his job at the time when Paul was young. The importance of going through hard times like that and how it affects you going into adulthood. Later in this episode, he talks about how you have to stick through the pain. For many of us when we develop those belief systems, we can track back to how that occurred for us, that we have the ability to do that. Sometimes the worst things in our lives create some of our biggest strengths.
When we can look at the positive of those times and how they have benefited us, we can have gratitude for things that are sometimes hard or uncomfortable that have happened in our lives. I know I've had many as well, but I can also understand where I get my own strengths of withstanding hard times and pushing through it because of those stories that have happened when I was younger. I can relate to what Paul was talking about. When you go through hard times especially financially when you're younger, the line that he said was that there's no such thing as an unemployed CPA was such an important line. For many of us that have gone through hardships, watching parents lose their jobs or businesses or seeing our lives change economically, being a CPA and an accountant ranks up there as job security.
The important part is how we align something that we feel is safe with our purpose and our value system. One of the things he talks about pointedly is when he started as an accountant, with the different roles that he had, how he wasn't getting fulfilled in what he had hoped in this profession. This is important. I talk to college students about this all the time because I went through the same things starting out when I worked at a Big Four firm coming out of college and thinking that there would be much more than your first job and the work that you do. What's awesome about most professions, when you stick it out, you start learning other ways that you can splinter your experience and start aligning it to the things that matter to you the most.
His background wanting to be an entrepreneur, wanting to run his own business helped lead him to pivoting his career and accounting to serve what was most purposeful for him. It's always good to step back and make sure you have your own personal purpose statement. We have mission statements for businesses, but we don't necessarily always put together our own personal purpose statement value system so that we can make sure that what we're doing in our lives is aligned with that purpose. It's important to write that down and understand why we do what we do, who do we serve, is it aligned with what we're most passionate about and who we want to help. When you've got the opportunity after the beginning of your career to get the nuts and bolts down of whatever your profession is, that's when you can start figuring out what you want for your future.
When he joined Wiss as a staff accountant, his goal was always to be a managing partner, which everybody has different goals. Some might be that they don't want to go past a certain leadership level, and others might be to be a partner and others might be to lead a firm like that or to have their own firm. Whatever your goals are in your career, it's important to make sure that you are intentional about how you get there. One of the things that he noticed was the divide between the traditional way of running that business versus where it needed to head for the future. He was brave enough to figure out how they could communicate and start trying to advise that firm on how to move forward. This can be a hard thing because many of us think that we might not have a voice in change or we might not be heard.
It can be hard because there's definitely going to be people against change because what's comfortable is what they know now. If we don't give opportunity for people that are comfortable with change to start looking at innovative ideas and so forth and then start structuring for the people that aren't as comfortable in the unknown, education, processes and ways that we can get there, then we're always going to have that divide and we can't move together. We need to understand that everybody has a different makeup. If we're fearful of change or for someone that's an innovator and likes to be in change, somehow we have to bring that together and nurture those skills in each other and how you make everyone comfortable moving forward.
Part of what he did was understanding what his value system was and making sure that all of the challenges that were facing him, he had a belief system that this was the right thing to do. The people that were around him also believed that this was the right thing to do. One thing that I thought was important that he talked about and this is any change you're going through whether this is personal life or work life is writing down what is the worst-case scenario? If the worst happened and you weren't able to accomplish what you hoped, then at least know what bad could happen or what would be your exit plan. What would be option B? What would be option C? That you don't feel fearful of the unknown that you are okay with the risks that you're about to take. If you are not okay with those risks, then it's important to make sure to evaluate is this the right path moving forward?
He stressed how important it is to stick through the pain because when you're going through change, there's always going to be people that don't want to come along with you. It is painful and also easy to give up because there are some days where you're like, “It's not worth it. It's not worth going through all of this.” If we're aligned with our value system and we believe in what we're doing, then it's important that we are willing to withstand that pain as we go through it and find ways to influence people where we are authentic. That was a big point that Paul talked about. Thirdly, having a belief in yourself when you're going through it because sometimes no one believes what you believe. You might see something in the future that no one sees. In order to withstand hard times, it's important that you believe what you're saying and also you believe in yourself to go through it.
He gave some important points as leaders that power is an obligation to do it right. That once we have power, a lot of times there's a quote from Gloria Steinem that’s like, “If you have power, you should speak less and listen more. If you don't have power, you should speak more and listen less.” The problem is as people get up into leadership positions, people are more afraid to give feedback because they're afraid for their own jobs and so forth. If you don't create a culture where you can have that upward feedback, then it's hard to do things in the right way because you're acting in a silo and you're not clear what's happening at the field level.
Also, that he talked about the intangible value of a partnership matters, not just the tangible value of the firm, but the intangible that people feel it's an authentic place to be. That people are there for the right reasons, it's not about power. It's about why do you do what you do, who do you serve and how do you do that? Some of his advice was that when you're running a partnership or in a partnership, to run it like an investor in that business. Make sure you take yourself out of it. This isn't about you. This is about the people that depend on that business, the people that are investing in this business and that you're serving your stakeholders. To make sure to care for the business and make sure all of the needs are being met and to take risks and invest money.
A lot of times we get comfortable where we are and we stopped spending money because things are going well. Instead of allocating a certain amount every year for innovation and making sure that you're always looking into the future so that business is a going concern. The thing is when you are not looking into the future, the problem is that you may get passed by. Because you're maintaining, but other people are getting innovative and the industry starts changing without you. The other thing that I thought was an important point was to constantly check in and make sure the other partners hold the same values in the business and that nothing is getting off kilter. If you don't have that open dialogue, it can hurt the partnership because things can get off track and you don't even realize it.
Another tip that he had was that the value and culture are one. You can't separate it. The thing is a lot of businesses will write down their values and so forth but never refer back to it or make sure that people are adhering to it. One of the tips that I give many times is we do performance evaluations with the people that work for us, but we don't necessarily during those performance evaluations also evaluate are you living to the values of the business? Making sure that's still aligned and reminding people what those values are and how to live it. If anything is getting off-kilter there, that you're nipping it in the bud fast.
All in all, there was so much in this interview. I think that it's an important one to read. I'm glad that this was our 50th episode because it was a great example of the hard parts of leadership and where we have to test our values and our belief systems. There are many good things and the things that we do each day that sometimes we don't celebrate. We're looking into the future that we're not in the present. What Paul demonstrated for us all is that even through the difficulties, making sure that we're finding happiness that we're happy in the present moment and we're aligning our values with the work that we do so that we're not just fulfilled at work, but we're also fulfilled from a personal standpoint as well.
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About Paul Peterson, CPA, MBA
Paul Peterson is Managing Partner at Wiss. In his role, he leads the Firm’s long term strategy and helps cultivate an environment where our people can flourish in servicing our clients.
Paul is inspired by the spirit of entrepreneurship and close relationships that form with servicing privately held companies and family businesses. He has extensive experience providing accounting, auditing and tax services, as well as advising clients on strategy, personnel and organizational structure. Paul is a proud graduate of Seton Hall University and earned an MBA from the Stern School of Business at NYU. Aside from spending time with his family, Paul enjoys sports and music.
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