Episode 80: Transformation Happens When You Are Uncomfortable: Create A Community To Support You With Mariette Martinez
Transformation happens when something is going through a change, it can be in a physical form, emotional, or spiritual. For Mariette Martinez, her transformation was about everything. It led her to the life she’s always wanted, from the life she thought was meant for her. As a former public accountant turned small business advisor and public age educator, she tells Amy Vetter how her experience growing up with an entrepreneur mom shaped her journey to the life she has today. She shares the importance of building a community that will support you and knowing that the roadblocks are there to tell you that transformation is needed. It is a time in your life when it’s uncomfortable, but it is an important part of your journey to success.
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Transformation Happens When You Are Uncomfortable: Create A Community To Support You With Mariette Martinez
In this episode, I interview Mariette Martinez. After years of working with small businesses as an accounting and tax advisor, her entrepreneurial spirit has taken her on a path from practitioner to educator. She is the Founder of Master Your Books, a learning community for bookkeeping professionals to become more confident, knowledgeable, and connected with themselves and their small business clients. Her passion is as an educator and mentor to guide bookkeepers as they step fully into the role of the new age bookkeeper. During my interview with Mariette, we discussed the influence of her entrepreneurial grandparents and mother that had on her journey of creating businesses of her own. We discuss her journey of taking risks that she needed to, finding the right mentors and community along the way in order to create the success she desires.
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I'm with Mariette Martinez. Mariette, do you want to start off and give us a little background on yourself?
First of all, I want to thank Amy for inviting me. We were joking around before. She sent an email and I missed it. I was wondering if she thought like, "How is she not responding to me?" We've known each other for quite a while. Quick intro because I believe we're going to go a little bit more into background. I am an accountant for years that has transitioned into a public educator. I'm a mom of three kids, a 15-year-old, a 13-year-old, and 4-year-old that came late in the game. He has us running around in circles. I'm from Southern California. I've been serving small business owners my whole life. I hope Amy and I can go a little bit more into our stories because we have some similarities.
My mom immigrated in the ‘40s and ‘50s with eleven siblings. All of them chose entrepreneurship to build wealth. My mom chose the restaurant business. She did that for 30 years. It's funny when I say it. It's all I knew. When I speak to entrepreneurs now, they have a different way of joining and taking the leap to entrepreneurship. I thought that's what everybody did. That's what you do. That's how you build wealth. That is your path. I hope we talk a little more about that. I have that different nuance in my life in regards to how other entrepreneurs have walked into the journey. I appreciate that because I also take it a step back. I have to connect with my entrepreneurs differently because they have a different story. I appreciate my story but I also know that it's not the common story as I thought it was for many years.
As you can already see, Mariette has more passion and purpose behind everything that she does. She brings so much joy to every conversation in every room she's in. I'm excited to have her on and hear more of her story. One of the things about what you said that hit me for a while is one of my last roles as you knew before, I went back out on my own was working for zero, which I was in a global job at that time. That was a big a-ha moment for me. I came back and wrote an article after one of my first trips going to New Zealand, Australia and UK, meeting with all of these accountant entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs around the world.
Transformation Happens: Passion is not how you’re expressing yourself. It is a product of breaking through the fear.
I felt we lost that entrepreneurial spirit in America. Same as you, I had immigrant grandparents and parents that were entrepreneurs. My grandparents were entrepreneurs. There was a huge risk in coming to another country. The risk was in the blood. What did you have to lose? What's already lost by coming over versus when people take the leap to entrepreneurship? Am I going to be safe? Is it right? They're trying to get all these guarantees into entrepreneurship that immigrants never even thought about. I love to hear your story on this because that's so representative of that spirit.
I wrote that down. I noticed you and I have that where I get to write down things that call to one another. I'm the same way. When you said risk, I literally got the goosebumps. I will probably get emotional because this is in our bloodline. We've seen it. We lived it. It was our table conversation. This is how they would wake up. It's like we got to get this done. They would push through the fear. It was consistent, especially in my family. My grandmother way before her time was an entrepreneur. My mother's mother in the ‘30s and ‘40s had eleven children. She adopted another one so twelve. Isn't that enough? All of them chose different entrepreneurial paths. This is what they talked about.
What was your grandmother's business?
She was a tailor. She would sew clothes for people in her community. She taught three of her kids how to be tailors. One of my uncles is a very famous tailor out in Nashville, Tennessee. They didn't allow themselves to be scared. I knew they were scared. All of my mom's siblings were immigrants. I'm first generation here in the US.
Where did they come from?
They all came from Mexico. They all came from a city called Tecalitlan in Mexico. They immigrated from the ‘40s to the ‘60s. I agree with you, Amy. That's why I tell you, I have to step back and understand entrepreneurship. Before when people talked about entrepreneurship, it was the American Dream. You got to get out there, take those risks, and get uncomfortable. That was something you knew you had to do. Now I feel like we're convincing people to do that. We're teaching them how to do that.
They were striving for a better life and believed they could by taking those risks versus if I'm safe in a career going to entrepreneurship. That's a big difference. It's my money I'm putting on the table. It's whether I know how to run a business in the way that it needs to run. My grandfather was a CPA. If you look back in history in the ‘30s, being a CPA, I'm not going to say it's easy but compared to all the regulations and compliance that an accountant and entrepreneur have to go through versus starting a business in the early 1900s was a lot different.
I talked to my community a lot. We'll talk a little bit more about my learning community. I'm trying to be empathetic to like, “Don't overthink it. We all do feel scared.” By the way, years ago, when you have a business, you feel scared. That's a certainty. It's what you do with that fear. It's what you do with knowing that we're all here feeling that but you need to push through that like perfect show name. Break that out of you. You have to. That is a key indicator, I believe, of a passionate entrepreneur. I don't think passion is how I'm expressing myself. That is a passionate way of expressing myself. Passion is a product of breaking through that. That's what I truly believe passion is.
One of the things when I'm talking to people about whether to start a business or not, especially if you're coming from a corporate environment, in a corporate world, you're doing all this analysis and presentation on whether you can push through an initiative or whether something will work. When you're an entrepreneur, 50% is gut if not more. You may not have proof. There's something in you that knows it's going to drive to success, to believe in that and not fight it. It's when we get in our way of the self-talk and so forth. If you are listening to your gut and your gut is telling you, "I'm going to be in danger going this path," then you should listen to that gut. Too much of the time, we want to prove everything. That's very hard to do when you're starting out a business. Whatever business you think you're going to start, it's going to be something else in years. It depends where your customers take you.
Two things I have to reiterate from being in the business for years is number one, 50% gut. I have people tell me all the time because I'm a big believer in mentors and coaches. They will tell me, "Mariette, you said about three times I think I know this. If you think, you know this, that's your gut. Go with it. You need me to tell you to go with it. You said it three times in the same conversation." That's the gut you're talking about. I appreciate that. The other thing is you're right. You go out there and know that what you're doing is not going to be what you're doing in the next years or a year after. It's a journey.
Let's back up to get to how you even were bred in this world. Your mother had restaurants. What caused her to open a restaurant? What kind of restaurant?
Amy is going to have me do this. All of my very thoughtful friends have me go way back. If we go way back, my mom came when she was fourteen. Coming from that lifestyle of go out there and work, she went to night school back in the day. She started working. She worked in the restaurant business. She also worked in a factory where they did clothing. That's what she knew. She knew those two industries. About a few years into this and working, she graduated from night school. She loved cosmetology. Think about it, ‘60s and ‘70s. She opened a beauty salon. She had that for two years. During that beauty salon age, she found a little spot next to where she had a beauty salon. It was a little restaurant.
In Mexico, we do these combo businesses. Let's be honest. It's like you have the beauty salon. Next to the beauty salon you have a little restaurant. Next to that, you have a little market. That's how we roll. She's like, "Maybe I'll open a restaurant." She's always been an excellent cook. She opened a little taco shop. It was called El Mejicano. This is funny. I'm going deep and personal here. My dad always said he wanted to go in business with her. El Mejicano means the Mexican. She was like, "I'm going to open you a restaurant. That's where you're going to work since you always want to work with me. You can have the salon and you have your restaurant."
Funny enough, he didn't like the restaurant business. That's not how it works in marriage. You can't open a business with your spouse. She learned that. What ended up happening over six months when she had two businesses side-by-side, she realized she loved the restaurant business. She loved serving and cooking. She loved the community that would come in and spends time with her. She closed the beauty salon and she stayed with the restaurant business. She stayed with that for almost 30 years. It was close to 29.5 years. Her entrepreneurial lifeline was about 29 years in the business.
Even they closed the salon, they were all-in on the restaurant.
During that whole span, she also had six kids. She was a motherpreneur. She always had a love and passion for family. That's what she came from as well. One thing about my mother was she worked hard. She did very well for herself. That didn't mean her kids weren't going to work. As students, we were capable of working in the restaurants. She always would say, "You go from toilet to register and not the other way around." We had to do it from the bottom up, which was good because we learned that going from the bottom up initially. No one is too good to clean a bathroom. That's what we did. All six of us got a chance to do that. Sadly after those close to 30 years, a consistent struggle was structured. As you said, even with the entrepreneurial spirit, you still do need that structure, team, and a possible education or bringing people in that are strong that can create this well-defined business, the systems, the processes, and the team.
Transformation Happens: Wealth helps everyone.
She didn't have that education. She graduated from high school. She always struggled to bring people in that would support her. Honestly, after almost 30 years, she said, "I'm tired of this. I can't build the team. I'm struggling with this. I've done enough." Her first four kids were old enough. I was the youngest of the first four. I was nineteen. She had twin boys that were eleven at that time. It was a clean break. She's like, "Enough is enough. I'm either going to go, try to dedicate another 30 years to build a business or I'm going to spend the next years enjoying my life." She chose that.
This is maybe a harder question to answer but from your observation. What do you think that it was? I do think this can be a mistake with people going into business. I own a yoga studio. It's another business. I see in that industry and in a lot of clients where I love what I do. It sounds like your mom. I love to cook but it doesn't mean you're a good leader or a good business owner. I know she didn't have an education. Where in her leadership do you think she was losing people from ownership’s perspective?
If we want to be real, I'll be real. She would try to bring in leaders that stated that they knew leadership. They would come from other companies. Some were higher educated. They would promise her that they would help her with this thing that she didn't know how to do. She knew she needed to have this business survive. She had hundreds of employees. She was helping hundreds of families also pay their own bills. It was a lot of pressure on her. She did her best to trust people. I met her CPAs, accountants, management team, all of them. I always also felt too. Remember, I'm a teenager here in high school, so I'm not all in. I did feel like, "You've had this guy here for a few years and I don't see any differences. It's still you running around visiting."
She had over 30 restaurants, by the way. She was driving to all the restaurants. I'm like, "Is that what business owners do? By this point, shouldn't your team be at the restaurant, not you?" I always knew something was not right. I was smart enough even as a teenager to say, "This is not right. You shouldn't be working seven days a week." It was so hard to even spend time with my mom. That was the other thing. You're right. She trusted, which many of us in the service business. We're trusting people. She was trying to bring people in that knew more than her. To be honest, sadly, they didn't. Nothing changed. That was the big issue.
The first yoga business I had, the studio I was going to, I become a partner at a firm. The owner read it in the paper. She was like, "I would love for you to be a partner here. I don't know how to run the business." What I found was at that time, I didn't know enough about the industry. They can spite me on things and I'd be like, "I don't know. They're saying this class is an important class to have. I'm seeing it's not making money." I'm saying I cannot. They're telling me I'm wrong because I didn't have the knowledge. I couldn't argue on it. What can happen in those situations is she had the industry knowledge. They might've had the business knowledge but she could have also been pushing back on them too. I know that she's the one with the passion and the money on the line.
It's interesting you give that exact example. At a young age, I would challenge her. I'd say, "That doesn't seem right. You want to bring people in. Shouldn't they be people like an expert in the restaurant business? Knowing your passion, they should say, ‘Maria, you don't need to be driving around all day with big cases of taco meat in your car.’" That's not how you run a business but she was still doing it. I can make a pretty strong assumption they weren't giving her that advice. She wasn't a pushover but if someone was like, "You stay home on Sunday. I got this covered," she'd stay home. She would have liked to have stayed home.
What did your father do with all that wiz?
I share it very often but the very interesting dynamic was they made an agreement early on, which is very rare in a Latino family household that he would stay home with the kids. He stayed home, took care of us, did the school activities and the sports activities. She was the entrepreneur or the breadwinner completely. It was a different dynamic, especially where we were brought up. That was unheard of. We were brought up in an area where it was predominantly non-Latinos, non-people of color. This was a whole different scenario. To be honest, sometimes they'd be like, "Where's your mom?" I'd say, "She's running in the business." "What do you mean?" "That's what I mean. She's running a business. My dad is here." They're like, "That's different."
Is that something that caused you angst?
Not me per se but my older brother. Mind you, we were being raised in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s. That was a very extreme scenario, especially where we were being brought up. I would say for my older brother, who's in his late 40s, yes. He sadly had some bullying there. He dealt with a lot of that. The good thing was he had some hardcore sisters. We're not going to have any of that because we have our mom's spirit in us.
What was it like with them? I grew up pretty similar. Not with the father that was thing home but my mom had three businesses. You couldn't take work home. They had to be at work. At the time, I worked at her office as well. She unmade services. I understand that. How was that for you?
It was the latchkey generation. For a while, I'll be honest, we all held that as a belief. That's why we are where we are. That's why we want to be different because we were latchkeys. We would come home alone. We had the key around our neck. That's the latchkey identification that's like, "You wear your key around your neck because you open your own door and you lock your own door." It was tough in regards to having to raise ourselves. Even though our father was supposed to be there, to be honest, it was more the nannies that took care of us. That was a huge absent in our lives all the way up to my youngest twin brothers.
When she retired, when she chose to close her doors, they were eleven. Since then, they had my mother full-time. They had half of their childhood similar to my generation. The other half, they had their full-time mother, which was pretty amazing. It was tough. The one thing I will say and I don't want to compare to other people that were in a latchkey generation but personally for me was that I would go back to like, "My mom's not hanging out, running around, playing, having tea." She would take us on Sundays. We would see the families. She'd have these big barbecues. You'd see them all eating together. I would see that and be like, "My mom is taking care of business." I understood. There were times when I'm like, "I wish my mom could be there."
How did that shape you as far as when you started picturing your future?
First was extreme like, "I'm going to be with my kids 100%. I'm going to always be home. I'm going to do this and do that as we always tell ourselves to be extreme." I chose an industry. For the first years, I was in public accounting. I had tax season. I did taxes accounting, advisory work. I had some busy seasons. Early on in my marriage when I had my first two kids, I worked six days a week, during tax season, seven days a week. Honestly, I fell into that same lifestyle. The difference was my office was only ten minutes away versus my mom had restaurants, sometimes 60 miles away. I was falling into that. I'll never forget about ten years into my career, my mom had to have a sit down with me. Not to say anything but I could've sworn. "You were going to be with your kids more." I wouldn't miss big things. I wouldn't miss school events or sports and stuff. That's where my transformation started into education and where I wanted to find more fulfillment. I wanted to remember what I had said was important to me when I started my career was my family. I did fall into that. I fell into the grind, to be honest.
Why did you choose accounting?
What profoundly hit me was the struggle with my mom. I didn't understand how someone could work so hard. Making good money could still be struggling. It did not make sense to me. I'm sorry but I was like, "Isn't that what an accountant is supposed to help you with? Aren't there supposed to be numbers being tossed around and calculated?" I didn't understand specifically but I had a feeling that there should be a financial team, even if you don't know your numbers very well, especially when we're talking about big numbers. There should be a team helping you with that. I always knew that there's something odd there. Right out of high school, I said, "I'm going to do finance and accounting. I need to figure out how it's supposed to be done." In my household, I don't think it was done right.
I find this so interesting that your mom is the one who stopped you. I'm guessing through this period of time when she got rid of the businesses and started getting immersed back into life again, did she have regret?
It's still very difficult for her to talk about it. It's been 30 years. Can you believe that? It's so amazing to think. For the first decade, it was very difficult. In essence, that was her lifeline. It's going out, being around these businesses and families. She completely engulfed herself in my twin brothers. They were eleven. She had a vacation home in Mexico. At that time, it was my stepdad. My dad had passed throughout this scenario as well. She remarried. He's an amazing stepdad. He helped raise the last two. They moved to a place in Mazatlan. Mazatlan is where our one place we had our mom.
She would take one thing she dedicated and she always stay true to it. She takes three weeks off, leave the restaurant and we'd go to a vacation home we had at Mazatlan. Sometimes, we'd take a couple of weeks throughout the year but it was always the three weeks in the summer. I remember when all this was happening, my stepdad, her husband at the time, he's like, "Why are you stressing on where are you going to live? We're going to have to do that. No, let's go to your vacation home. Isn't that where you said you want to be on the beach? That's where you always said you want to be. Plus you need that because you're going through a lot of anxiety." He whispered away. The other four kids, by the way, were like, "You're taking my mom away. Are you kidding me?"
There were a few years of a lot of issues there because we did feel like he took my mom away in Mexico with my brothers, the four older ones, even though I was the youngest of the four. I was nineteen. The restaurants were in their mid-twenties. That was a big shock. For those first few years, it was living in Mexico. My brothers were bilingual. They were going to school in Mexico. This was the worst part with my stepdad. I get it. She was going through so much. He was a world traveler. Every summer and every Christmas, they travel. I'm like, "Can't we see my mom but then you take her all over the world. What about us? Are we chopped liver? What's going on?" Now I get it. He had to take her away from all of that and distract her.
Transformation Happens: You go out there and know that what you’re doing is not going to be what you’re doing in the next few years. It’s a journey.
That was about 2 or 3 years. The kids were in high school by then. They had to settle down because they had some big commitments, my twin brothers. I still call them the kids. They would be cringing. Things settled down. We started doing our best to get back to normal and talk about things that affected all of us, especially the oldest four. We did have some things we've had to talk about over the years. We all took that moment of leaving and breaking off so quickly. We all took it a little differently.
Plus, you lost your father.
We lost our father during all of this as well.
That’s a lot.
I don't think about it but it was a lot.
You know you were going to be okay without that support system.
I don't try to think about it. How did I know it? The only thing I knew is that I had to keep going. I knew that my older three, I was the youngest of the top four, they were having a hard time. They call me the glue of the family. You kept this together through things. I had to be strong for them. I also had to be strong for my mom. I couldn't imagine what she was going through. She lost her first husband. She's losing her business. She has this knight in shining armor who was amazing, my stepdad. Imagine as a person, as a human. I can't even imagine without it getting into my pit of my stomach.
I was talking to somebody. Every time I talked to this person, they talk about they want to get rid of one of their businesses and how much they don't like it. It causes them stress and anxiety. They're talking to me about mindfulness things it can do. I said to that person, "Get rid of it. Why are you holding it? You know you have enough money in this other business. Why are you holding onto it?" "I don't know. I filled it up to this." He takes the camera and shows me all the stuff they have in the office. I'm like, "It's just stuff."
The thing that's hardest as much as going into business but letting go of a business is it becomes ego part of it. It's like your right arm. You grew up from nothing. I know when I sold my first business, I was depressed for a couple of weeks. It was something I wanted but I didn't know then how I would define myself. What would I be saying? Who am I kind of thing? I can totally see after many years. Your father passed but also having older children going through that myself. That's a whole different transition too. Maybe she felt like she had missed so many years with you. At the same time, this business has gone.
I'm telling, Amy. It's interesting you said that because that's the one thing that she would say. Even her siblings, her brothers, sisters and us, not knowing that it would be a big question but when I think about it it's like we would say, "Mom, how do you feel?" She'd probably be like, "Stop asking me." In Spanish, she would say exactly what we said. "It was just stuff. It was just things. I can get all that stuff back." She would say, "By the way, I don't want any of that stuff back. If I got rid of it, I want to keep it simple." She is interesting. She did this whole 360. She lived a very simple life. When you would see my mom for the first few years, she didn't like to go shopping.
She was very simple. She loved to paint. A lot of times, she would be in her painting clothes. She's a painter for years. You got to look at her. She's like from a woman every day, get up pantyhose, heels and then in a painter's dress and painting. Sometimes, you'd be like, "Are you there?" I want to thank you, Amy, for having me even go this far back. It's not easy. I see now why she had to go into her paintings, escape, and travel. Almost she was like, "This is the next step. Let me do what I got to do to get through these next couple of years though before I feel like I'm going to lose it."
When she came to you and said, "Don't make my mistakes," what led you to make the transition that you did? This is important too in the world of public accounting. Did you feel like you could speak up and not lose your career? Did you feel like you had to leave?
It was a long time coming. Meaning, I always knew what I wanted but then I also know I love the entrepreneurial life. We're talking. I'm getting goosebumps remembering what it was like in the house. That does feel me. What was always coming to me was, "Mariette, I get it. You love the entrepreneurial life but you also do want to not miss those times with your family. You don't want to recreate the life you had with your mother and with your siblings. You did always feel like you were missing out on that lifestyle of having a parent there, having those dinners, and having my mom asked me, ‘how was your day? Tell me about your friends.’" My mom didn't know who my friends were. I always had that.
The thing is I would try to rationalize. I am home by 7:38. I could ask my kids but they're tired. They're getting ready for school the next day. They don't want to talk to their mom at 7:38. By the way, I don't want to talk to them either. I'm 12, 13 hours in. What happened is my mom a few years before my actual full transformation happened in 2015, she started telling me, "Mariette, I come to your house. I'm here for a whole week. We don't talk to each other. You're in your office. You're out in your office. When you come home, you're in your home office. I go to sleep. I wake up at 2:00 in the morning. You're still there. What's going on?" At first, I was a little offended. I'm like, "Mom, I'm like you." She's like, "That's the point."
Do you feel like you're making her proud?
Of course, I want to make her proud. She would say, "I'm proud of you. Trust me. I go to all of my kids.”
It's funny. It's the complaint you had about her. As an adult, she's feeling like you're not involved with her.
It would be funny. She would be like, “I'm going to my kids' houses.” It got to a point where she's like, "I don't even want to come visit you all anymore because you don't spend time with me." That was where it started hurting me. I'm not spending time with my mom. I'm probably not spending enough time with my kids. That started happening around 2012 to 2013. She'd come to visit a lot more after she went on her whole hiatus of traveling the world. I started feeling that. In 2014, I'm like, "Mariette, there is something not right here." I had talked to my husband. My kids were at a good age by then. They were 7 and 9. I said, "I need to get out of this. I want to go to these conferences where people are mindful. They're creating these beautiful dream businesses." Monetarily, we're doing good but this is not a dream working all these hours.
I felt like I was the same thing my mom was doing. The only difference was I wasn't driving all day long. I said, "I need to invest. I need to get out of here. I need to go away a few times this year." I did that. I started going to conferences. I started going to retreats. Amy, right away, people would be like, "You don't have to work like that. There are other ways of running your business. By the way, do you love who you're working with? Do you love what you wake up and do every day?" I'm like, "I love it. I love what comes in from it." They're like, "Does it fulfill you? You're this passionate person. You're all alive here. Do you feel like that when you're doing what you're doing?" Those thought-provoking questions I hadn't been ever asked that before. Mind you, I've been in business for years. That was it. I started saying, "There's got to be a better way. There's got to be a simpler way for me to do what I'm doing and still great this lifestyle I want."
I was on a journey already trying to figure out what I wanted to do. It was in 2015 when I found out I was pregnant with James Oliver, my youngest. I was like, "I am not going to have three kids and have this lifestyle. There's no way." I was 39 years old. I didn't want to do that anymore. I went all in. I made myself a goal. I said, "By the end of this year before I have my child," I got pregnant in August. I had him in June. I said, "I got to figure out what my next years are going to look like." I always go straight. "I've been doing this for years. What are my next years going to do?" That was it. I sat down. I thought about it. I had conversations with trusted colleagues and friends. They started mentioning, "What about all the stuff you've been doing? You're always creating. You're always writing. You have courses. You have this. You're that." At that time, I was already speaking with the entrepreneurs and other network. I was already a public speaker and educator.
They’re like, “You don’t have the education.” I went all in and researched it. I'm like, "That's a billion-dollar industry. That's it.” End of 2015 going into 2016, I said, "I am transitioning. I'm going to start my transition from practitioner to educator." It took me almost five years. 2020 was my first year without a tax season. I'm sorry for those of you that had it. People would be asking me questions. I'm like, "I'm not doing taxes. I'm sorry." Let's take it all the classes for them to help them. The majority of my learning community are tax repairs wanting to implement bookkeeping and learn bookkeeping. I'm still in that community learning. That's how it was. It was the nudge of going out there and learning from others in these retreats and these conferences. Combine that with being pregnant at 39 years old. That was it.
When you have someone to look at like your mom or you've seen an entrepreneur before, you know what's possible. Probably what you saw with her weaknesses, you realized, "I don't have those." My mom lost her business because she didn't have a financial background, I believe and didn't have the right accountant giving her advice during that time. In my head, I was always like, "If I ever open a business, I will not make those mistakes." There are things you can't control like what's happened with COVID and things like that to a business. I've seen a business go down.
I make sure it's cash protected. A lot of business owners are living month to month. It is important that future planning, that business planning, all those things, even when you're taking a risk, you know your exits as well. We talk about that in yoga all the time. People that want to go up in a handstand know your exit. If you're going to come out of it, it's the same thing. Know where your safety exits are. Not that you'll know what things are going to happen but how you're going to protect yourself so that it doesn't feel as scary.
I love that analogy or the example of the yoga pose. It takes me back to how I do work with my community. I always tell them, "I encourage you to be competent. Step into it but also try to take yourself to a few years out. If you're there and if you don't want to be there, if you want to have an exit plan or what comes next, it's good to think about that as well. If all that is planning, insuring yourself and taking care of the legality of things to feel protected every day, that already is a planning strategy." Every time I think about planning and thinking what's next up, I think about someone in a yoga pose. Don't fall on your head. You knew that pretty well.
There are so many great things in your story. Thank you so much for sharing so many personal stories within that as well. All of us to break that is uncomfortable. Whether we realize it or not, a lot of times we are doing things to please someone but it's about us. A lot of times, with the anxiety and stress that we have, we have to step back and go, "Is someone putting that stress on us or am I putting that stress on me? How do I shift?" It's hard. Every day that still comes up because it's a belief system. It's something that is within you. You have to break it intentionally.
I would add to that. My mom, a trusted person, someone that we spoke a lot about her, I do hold a high in my life, in my heart, and in my soul. I needed someone else to help me break that. I needed to meet and stopped saying, "Everything is okay." It's not. Go out. Go to your retreats. Go to your conferences. I try to pull that in so much. You know, Amy, how much I want to help my community, share about them and encourage us to have these leaning into a conversation like this. When I'm going to come into any kind of interview, show, or opportunity with my sisters, with my dear friends like Amy, I know you all going to pull things out of me. If it helps and connected with someone, that's all I want out of this.
I would say having known you as I have, you are a learner. When you talk about not depending on that one person you look up to, how we break belief systems is by watching others. It doesn't even mean they have to be an official mentor. Watching things other people are doing and going, "Does that resonate with me? Could there be another way being curious and open to that learning process?" Mariette is so good at it.
I want to pull out what you said. It's curious. If anyone is not feeling curious, I would challenge you on that. Why have you lost that curiosity? That is the lifeline of us, of our brain wanting to continue on. Let's figure out why we're not curious anymore.
I'd like to end with some rapid fire questions. You pick a category, family and friends, money, spiritual, or health.
Let's do money.
Things or actions that I don't have that I want with money?
Taking care of my money more often, which sounds funny, than I already do.
I do think that as an accountant myself, it's the last thing you want to do?
I've been doing tax deadlines for my whole life. I know it's fine. I've already did it.
Things or actions I do have that I want as far as money?
I would say goals. I have goals. I set them. I want to continue to have those to be able to get and achieve where I want to be.
Things or actions that I don't have that I don't want as far as money?
I'm sure I do have them but I probably don't let them come up to my mind. Any kind of belief that wanting to have money or wanting to build wealth is greedy, ugly, or bad. They jump in there but I try to push those out quickly. I don't want them. I don't want to believe that. I truly believe that wealth helps everyone.
Things or actions that I do have that I don't want?
I'll be honest, things around my house. With the pandemic, I looked a lot more on all the things we've got over the years. I have three kids and a spouse but a lot of things that I do have that I don't want.
Is there anything that you want to make sure that people walk away with from this or that you want to share about what you do before we end?
I will share something I want people to walk away with. I've already shared it already with Amy. When you know you can be around someone like Amy or someone that pulls things out of you that you probably feel like it's going to either help you or help others and it is an uncomfortable feeling, let me be perfectly honest, I offer you to have those experiences. I'm sure this is going to be good for Amy. She's going to be able to share this and that's great. Where the transformation happens inside of us is when we get to have these moments. We step away from them and don't realize how powerful it was for both of us. I'm sure there are people in your life, those of you that are reading, that maybe you can have that additional connection with, that real human-centered connection with. I offer you to take that chance. Even call someone that maybe has an opportunity like this to share. Ask them if they would be open to hearing your story because you can change so many lives like that.
Thank you so much for being you and sharing your story. There are so many great things you shared that will help a lot of people.
Thank you.
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For my Mindful Moments with my interview with Mariette, which there's so much to dive into here, Mariette is a positive, joyful person but has so much to share and give to the people around her, which make her a great coach and supporter of her community. Her story of her grandparents being entrepreneurs, having eleven children plus an adopted child, and also her mother opening businesses was a tie in to how my life has gone to. I had so much to relate to as far as growing up as a young girl and seeing a woman achieve where you hadn't seen women have careers like that before. It's very hard for people to go back and remember these times because things have changed so much. There are so many areas of diversity, equity, and inclusion that we have so far to go. There are moments when you look back at those times and realize how far we've come in the last years as well.
I had a mother that was in business as well. At the time of no computers, laptop, texts, emails, and all the communication channels that we have now, the work that they did at that time was many late hours, many early mornings, and driving from different locations. I totally related to what she observed as a child and how much her mom missed because of being an entrepreneur. Even though her mom was struggling with how much she loved her family and wanted to be there, it was a struggle because she couldn't put the right foundation in place and businesses. This is something else that Mariette and I have so much in common. We watched our mothers that did not have the accounting and financial background that they needed to make sure they were properly protected.
Times like these when you go through a pandemic, you see business owners struggle with the things that an accountant, bookkeeper, or whoever your financial advisor should be having those kinds of conversations early on to make sure that you are thinking about the risks of your business, what are the gaps, how do you fill them, and making sure that you're planning for the financial protection of that business as well. We talked about that journey of watching her mother let go of the business and close her restaurants. What a big transformation that was for her mother to go through that. Having her own business and understanding how entrenched you get with a business, even if you don't intend to. You could have the story as a child saying, "I will never do that." Once you get an inquiry, sometimes it takes on a life of its own before you even realize it.
We talked about that it was her mother who had struggled with this so much watching Mariette work so many hours and have young children. That stopped her and said, "Don't follow the path that I went on. Make sure that if you are struggling with this and you feel like you want to be around more, take the pause and understand what would make you happy." An important thing about Mariette's story is that it wasn't dropped everything, quit everything and move in a new direction. It was learned and test things that might work as something that might be a good alternate route. For many of us, that could take more time during that process than less.
Transformation Happens: Why have you lost that curiosity? That is the lifeline of us, of our brain wanting to continue on. Let’s figure out why we’re not curious anymore.
When we are trying to evaluate other avenues to go in and evaluate the things that create the most passion in our lives and purpose that if we did it as work, it wouldn't feel like work. If we're doing this as a side hustle while we have a job or a career that we're trying to change from, it's pulling in and take us extra time to do that. We have to get our lives in order and properly prioritize the things that are not as important so that we are focused on where we're going. It doesn't mean give everything up. It means find the path that you think will create the most joy for you and the people around you, which may mean that there are things that you need to let go of like the amount of money that you might make. Instead of looking at how much money you could make, it's how much do you need to make, when you would need to make it, and you would have the cash to be able to balance your own business during that time.
A lot of people that go into business don't realize the sacrifices that you're making in order to have in "the freedom" of being a business owner. Many times you're working more as a business owner with less money. It has to be that you believe in your purpose and where you're going and it's providing you that personal life and personal balance that you want as well. Understanding her mother went through this and she went through this. It's just stuff that we have that we might be holding onto and placing importance on things versus experiences versus relationships.
What you don't want to do is miss out on the things that are most important in life for things. What are the things that are most important to you? Step back, observe it, and then start designing your life to do that. When we talked about designing your life to do that, we also talked about how important it was to have the support of people around you but also create a community that will help you achieve your success as well. Maybe that's a community of friends and family, a community that you find online, or a community that you become a member of. Whatever that is, finding the support that you need to not feel alone as you go through this process. Make sure when you think about this is you understand when we make any change or move from any kind of belief system that we have, it can be very uncomfortable.
Sometimes we have to sit in the uncomfortable to make the transformation. When we make that transformation, at the end of the day, the uncomfortable parts were worth it. Those are the things that pushed us. Those are the things that opened our eyes to possibility that we might have not even realized before. Also opened our eyes to what we need to let go of and what we need to release. I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Mariette. Please share this with people that you think it would help as well. Like and subscribe to the show. If you have future topics or want to be future guests on the show, please go to my website, AmyVetter.com. Submit ideas for the show. We will also provide you a free PDF when you submit that of my B3 basics of things that you can incorporate right into your day to help you get more present, be productive, and create better energy for those around you.
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About Mariette Martinez
After 20+ years working with small businesses as an accounting and tax advisor, my entrepreneurial spirit has taken me on a path from practitioner to educator.
I am the founder of MasterYourBooks, a learning community for bookkeeping professionals to become more confident, knowledgeable, and connected with themselves and their small business clients. My current passion as an Educator/Mentor is to guide bookkeepers as they step fully into the Role of the New Age Bookkeeper.
More detailed info on MasterYourBooks, including a more in-depth bio on homepage: http://www.masteryourbooks.com/
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