Be careful who your clients are. You have the power to choose who you work with. Amy Vetter’s guest in this episode, Susan Stutzel, speaks on this subject. Susan is a CPA and a leadership, mindset, and productivity coach. Stay focused on what you do best. If you take up the wrong client, you won’t have the space for the right client. Listen to this episode and step in the life you desire.

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You Have The Power To Choose: Step In The Life You Desire With Susan Stutzel

We are going to interview Susan Stutzel. She is passionate about freeing professional women from self-sabotaging goals and helping them build a life of purpose and balance. As a mindset and productivity coach, she helps her client’s ditch overwhelm by finding their voice through the process of rebuilding habits and expectations so they can feel successful both professionally and at home. During this conversation, we talk about Susan’s journey from starting in an agriculture farm in Iowa to finding her passion in accounting and becoming a CPA and auditor and her pivots along the way in order to create a life that was aligned with her own values and mission that she is living the life that she desires. If you like this episode, please like it. Share it. Subscribe to this show. We appreciate you reading this blog. If you have any future suggestions for topics or guests, feel free to go to AmyVetter.com and give us your suggestions. Enjoy my interview with Susan.

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I’m with Susan Stutzel. Would you like to introduce yourself?

Thank you, Amy. It’s so great to be here. My name is Susan Stutzel and I am a CPA and leadership coach. I’m a founder of two different companies because I am a multi-passionate person. I’ve been a CPA for many years and delved into the coaching arena because there’s so much power there. I love coaching CPAs and women in business.

I always love when we can merge together with your passions. I would love to start out to get to know you and the audience and get to know you a little bit. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A CPA. I grew up in a blue-collar, farming home so we didn’t have a lot of money. I was good at math. I was super shy, quiet, wanting to blend into the background but one day, somebody said, “What are you going to be when you grow up?” “I don’t know.” They’re like, “You’re good at math, right?” I’m like, “I am. I enjoyed math.” They said, “You should be a CPA.” I’m like, “I don’t even know what that is. Why?” “Because they use math and they make a lot of money,” I was like, “Dang, sold.” That’s all I know. I could do math every day and make a lot of money.

Where did you grow up? What was the community?

I grew up in Tipton, Iowa, it’s a small town in Eastern Iowa and I still live there. I was that girl that was like, “I’m going to be a CPA. I’m going to a big city. I’m getting out of here,” then I met the love of my life as a 16-year-old in high school. That’s like, “What was I doing?” We’re still here and we love it.

Did you have brothers and sisters? What did your parents do?

My parents were farmers. My mom was a stay-at-home mom most of the time. There were different times in our childhood that she would go to work. It was because we needed the money. We weren’t starving but we didn’t have a lot. I remember seeing work as something that they had to do. I never saw anybody that was like, “I get to go to work. Here’s what I do and here’s what I’m passionate about.” It was always like this thing that took up all this time during the day. I remember being young thinking, “Why do you go do this thing that you don’t want to?” It was a little childlike at the time like, “Shouldn’t you love it?” Even now, I do think that you should love what you do and it is possible to love what you do. That was the beginning of my journey to say, “There’s more and I’m going to go find it.”

What kind of farming was it?

Agricultural. We had animals at some times. They did mostly corn. I grew up on a farm but if you ask me questions, I’ll have no idea. I couldn’t have been more disinterested in the farming community. I had a dog and a cat at some point. That was my extent of animal care.

They never took you out into the farm to work in it?

Once in a while, we always had a big garden and would do some things but my parents were a little bit more of the mindset like, “Stay out of our way. We’ll get our stuff done.” I don’t think that I learned to do that much. I mowed the lawn a couple of times as a kid but I didn’t do that stuff. It was that stay-out-of-our-way. My parents were young parents like unplanned, very young pregnancies.

How young were they when they had you?

My mom was seventeen when she had me and I have an older brother.

How much older was your brother?

He’s a 1.5 year older than I am. They started young. They were doing the best they could with what they knew because they were kids.

How did they meet?

In high school.

That’s funny that you met your husband the same way.

That is why when we met, I was like, “This isn’t going to work.” We don’t have any in common. I’m not meant to stay here.

Was your dad older? How old is he?

He’s three years older than my mom. A little bit older but not much.

I’m guessing that they grew up in that farming. How did they get into it?

It was handed down. It was the family way. They were all farmers.

From what you’re explaining, it doesn’t sound like they were encouraging you to go into the farming industry.

Not really. It’s interesting even to this day. I have a lot of cousins and family members who continued and that’s what they do. I’m the odd one that’s like, “I’m not interested in this at all.”

You said they weren’t very interested in what they’re doing. How did they give you any guidance? Was it pretty much you seeking out other avenues because you weren’t interested?

It was me seeking out other avenues. As I said, that person, I don’t even remember who it was which is funny because I was so young that put this CPA idea in my head. It was like, “I’m going to figure that out.” My parents got divorced before my teenage years. We already had this family that we weren’t close to. We were all very different doing our own thing and then you add that in. We’ve split all different ways. I was a preteen and then a teenager who’s helping pick up the slack and fill the gap when my parents were doing their own thing. I have a younger brother and a younger sister that I was helping them along with. I was like, “If you’re going to figure this out, you’re on your own.” They weren’t the kind of parents that were like, “Let me help you figure this out.” I visited college campuses on my own. I applied to colleges and financial aid. I figured it out. Part of that was like, “This is what I want to do so I’m going to go after it.” There was at least enough optimist in me to go, “It’s possible. I figure it out.”

I always find it interesting to look back at yourself at that age and you’re like, “How did I know to do that?” I was in a similar situation as figuring out college and student loans and all of that. I don’t know that I ever thought there was another option. If you wanted to do it, you had to figure it out.

You figure it out. I’ve looked now and I’m like, “I helped my kids with so much.” I do that. I want to and I love to but sometimes I’m like, “Me at your age, I was picking up the groceries and cleaning the house, running my siblings around. We need to add a little bit more responsibility to you.”

It’s interesting you say that because I had a moment with my son when we were going to orientation for college. I went to the University of Cincinnati and he was going there for orientation. I remember I had walked up this hill to go to orientation by myself. When I got up there, I was like, “I’m going to change my life.” I had this moment. I was looking over the stadium and everyone was there with their parents. I noticed but I didn’t notice because I was focused. A couple of years ago, I took my son to orientation and we happened to pass the same spot. I was like, “Stop here. I need a picture.” All of a sudden, this came over me. As what you’re explaining is, “You broke that pattern. You were there for him.” This is the way it was supposed to be. You were supposed to be there and enjoying it together not be such an individual thing.

It was powerful in the moment. Those are the times in your life when you start noticing differences with your own children that you took notice of your things you didn’t want to repeat. Some people will look at those experiences like, “I had to do it myself. You should do it yourself,” versus like, “I wanted it to be different. Now, I’m going to make it different for you.” It’s always a good observation that you’re talking about.

I love the independence that I have from that. I also don’t want to rob my kids of that. I’m like, “I’m here with you and to support you through this,” but I also try to teach them like, “Advocate yourself first and try some of this. Let me show you and help you,” because the other side is watching like, “Here’s how I do it. I’m doing it all by myself so you should too.” No. You also don’t want to go so far the other way. They’re adults and still at home.

You’re in high school and deciding you want to be a CPA. You have this in your head. I’m guessing you’re researching it. How do you meet your future husband?

It was a blind date which seems strange because we live in a small town. I was good friends with someone who was dating his friend. He’s like, “You got to go out. We can double date.” I’m like, “Okay.” I knew enough about him. I was the cheerleader and drama. I was all involved in school and he was more of the mindset of work. He was into cars. I was like, “This isn’t going to work. We are not going to like each other.” You’re my friend so I’ll do this. We agreed to get set up. We met on my sixteenth birthday. I remember he was like, “Why are you doing this on your birthday? Don’t you have something to do?”

I was like, “He’ll going to hang with my friend anyway.” He listens and we would talk all hours of the night. He played adult baseball. We were at the park on a Friday night. We were sitting up on the curly slide. We crawled up into there. We’re sitting, talking and looking at the stars. He was talking about his dream and he’s like, “Someday, I would love to live out in the middle of nowhere in Montana or somewhere. That’s so beautiful.” I’m in my head going, “No, I want Chicago or a big city. I’m going to be top of the CPA firm.”

In my head, I’m going, “This isn’t going to work,” but I share with him like, “This is what I want to do.” I was like, “What are we doing?” We had that connection because we can talk about all that I was going through with my family being such a mess. He listened and his family was very different but yet he met me where I was and which is a support for me from the beginning. At sixteen, I don’t know what I recognized but it was amazing.

How did you reconcile that? I’m assuming you went away to college.

I went to college but locally. It was only 45 minutes away from my hometown. We stay together through that. I got married about halfway through college when I was 21 and he was 25. I was known as the married girl in college. I went to a private college so it was pretty small. Most of the students, their parents were paying for college. It’s a typical college story that we hear up like, “Here I am, not only figuring it all out on my own. Paying for it on my own, figuring all that out. Now, I’m also known as the married girl.” I was different on so many levels. I started my career with RSM, which also was local. I’m starting that career locally. They let me dive into tax a little bit which was awesome because I wanted to try both. That was a great opportunity. I very shortly discovered that I am an auditor all the way.

We never had that moment that it was like, “Where are we going to live?” We kept moving forward and stayed where we were and it was great. We both recognize that to this day, we’re in the right place. As I said, his family is very close. It’s so wonderful now that we have children to be close to them because they’re such an important part of our kids’ lives. Many years ago, my son is an outdoorsman. One day, he said to me, “This is the best place on Earth to grow up.” I was like, “We’ve got it.” We live on 15 acres out in the country that’s all wooded. We’re having a little bit of this in the middle of nowhere but I’m not far from a city. Where within five hours of Chicago, Minneapolis, Kansas City, lots of places. We may not be here forever but for now, this is where we’re supposed to be.

What I’d like to understand is your career at RSM and how you got that into alignment when you’re talking about how important family is because when you start out as an auditor, your hours are horrible and so forth. What was that experience for you getting into audit?

I got into it and I loved it.

What did you love about it?

I loved the teamwork and the comradery that we developed as an audit team that would go out on audits. I loved the work. I loved working with the clients and that relationship building because I went from this super shy girl and all of a sudden, I’m doing this thing that I love. I’m like, “I’ve got to talk to people all day long. I got to show up like I know what I’m talking about.” I had some great mentors that now I think it’s such a more formal process but at the time looking back, I had a couple of great people that led the way and showed me the way but then also said, “Now that you’ve watched me do it now, it’s your turn.”

I stepped into some of that confidence and built that as I walked along but also at the beginning of my career, I’m looking back on my parents divorced. My family was a mess. I helped raise my siblings. By the time I graduated from high school, I was done having kids. I’m a career girl. I don’t think that kids are in my future and he was like, “Let’s see what this looks like.” He was very patient. That changed many years later but I was a little slow. In the beginning, it was like, “This career thing is great because I’m not the family girl. I’m not worried about trying to balance that at this point.” That came later.

I relate to so many things that you’re saying. I was in a similar situation where I was responsible a lot for my two brothers. That gets overwhelming. You’d get scared to go into that next phase of like, “Am I going to have to go through all of that again?” It’s not like the new parent feel that most people have. The positive of it is your independence. You know how you want to parent very differently because of what you experienced.

When I was in high school, I worked part-time at a bank. One of the loan officers there was like, “Don’t give up on kids yet. Don’t make that decision yet. Raising someone else’s kids or your siblings is not the same. There’s nothing like being a parent.” I was like, “Sure.” He was so sincere. You look back and I’m like, “You planted a seed. It’s not what I’ve made up to be in my head.”

The other thing that is important is when you’re trying to figure out your path. I like what you brought up about mentorship. It’s seen as such a formal process but it doesn’t have to be. You can be looking up to mentors that never even know you’re looking up to them. You’re following things that they’re doing because it inspires you and it gives you ideas of what you want to do in your life. Asking people for their help is important as well. When you were talking about those people that took you under their wing, was that you are asking that you needed that help? Did they see you needed that help? Where was it that they came into your life?

I never asked anything. Part of it was a connection that we made. I ended up doing a lot of the nonprofit organization audits at RSM. The team and the partner that oversaw a lot of those happened naturally. I didn’t ask. They didn’t seek me out. It was a natural personality fit. They were born leaders or created leaders for where they were and willing to raise up that next generation and helps me along the way. When I saw that, I was like, “Okay.” I’ve always been that learner and figure it out. I remember watching and going, “That’s how they’re doing it. I can do that.” Watch enough times and practice and screw it up or talk to the client. I don’t know what to say next but figuring it out as I went. It took practice but nothing formal about it for sure.

It’s an important point as a leader to be seeking out where you can help people. It doesn’t have to be that the organization tapped you to do it but that you are looking for who you can help shape especially in how you describe yourself. You are a hard worker, you care, you’re willing to do things to learn and allowing those people the freedom to try new things and to give them those opportunities is so important rather than letting them flail to the side. What’s hard especially in the accounting profession, is everyone is busy. It’s hard for people to look up and look around them. As you get to different levels in the organization, it should be less about your work and how you’re helping others grow. When you started growing in your career, how did you see that evolve for yourself?

It’s because of the benefit that I saw from that then I was like, “I can do that.” They would seek out others. Maybe they were doing it more intentionally than I understood at the time but I loved that and I recognized how far that brought me and how quickly it did by them planting that and saying, “Now you try it.” I have sought that out and I still am looking. It’s a great value in leaders to recognize that and say, “Here’s where I’m at now. I can pull and help someone else along by encouraging them and seeing that potential and then encouraging them to step into that.”

Where did you decide to make a switch in your career or pivot?

I’ve made a lot of pivots, I was at RSM for only a few years and a lot of my friends at the time were leaving and going to the industry. They’re like, “It’s so great. The corner office, no more weekends, no more busy season.” I fell into that and I was like, “I’m going to give it a shot.” There was this opportunity at a small client that I worked for to step into a role with them. It felt like the right time so I did that. I stepped into that. Within a couple of months, I had cleaned up all their accounting. It was an accounting position but it also involves some office management and I very quickly learned about myself, “You’re great at accounting but please don’t make me do any HR work like insurance policies.” It was a learning journey to go, “You stepped into this thing that many other people love and it does not fit right.”

It’s important to know what you don’t want to do and not feel bad about it.

Sometimes, you have to try it. It was a step to go, “Either you recognize you failed and you go back or you look for something different.” It was hard because I thought, “I’ve worked so hard to build a resume and myself. What if I look like a failure already?” I leave right away but I thought, “I’ve got to try.” I did. I learned that it wasn’t for me. I switched and I went to Fortune 500 company. I still didn’t go back to public accounting yet but I went to a bigger organization where there were opportunities for growth within to go up and lateral.

That was great. I was like, “Now I’m surrounded again by lots of CPAs but also non-CPAs and working into this organization,” but then I learned something about myself that in the industry, it’s a very cyclical process. It was week one of the months you do this, week two of the month you do this, week three and so on. While it was great and they always provided challenging opportunities, it was like, “This is too cyclical. I miss the client interaction. I miss the different things that come in and come up.” Once again, here I am going, “You’re going to switch again.” An opportunity came up at a smaller CPA firm. They were looking for someone to head up their audit department. I was like, “That’s for me, I’m not going to have to do any tax. I have to make sure I don’t ever get in that role.”

I took on this job and in the interview, I didn’t prepare for it but they were like, “We’re coming up on tax season so we typically work all day on Saturdays.” It had been a couple of years since I’d worked in CPA firms. I was like, “I don’t work on Saturdays.” I was like, “I said that out loud.” I had a newborn baby. I had a 2.5-year-old and I thought, “No way, I don’t work on weekends.” It occurred to me that, “You’re applying at a CPA firm. They’re going to think you’re going to work on the weekends.” They all paused.

There were 3 or 4 partners in the room and they looked at each other and went, “If you’re not doing taxes, you probably don’t have to.” Part of me was like, “You destroy the interview. They aren’t going to hire you.” On the other hand, I was like, “I’m so glad that I said that because I would have gone in at the salary they gave me. I would have assumed I’m not working weekends and they would have assumed that I was.” I thought, “Here I am, somebody that shows up as I am here. Here’s what you get. You don’t get weekends,” and it worked out great. As I said, it was the biggest interview blender ever but yet it worked out perfectly.

One of the hardest things is a lot of people set up flexible arrangements or part-time arrangements and then the boundaries start getting gray especially women that set these things up. What I’ll hear them say a lot is like, “I worked when I wasn’t supposed to work but I don’t want to lose my schedule and what they gave me,” but when you look back at it you’ve already lost it for the year because of how much extra time you ended up and then you’re not being paid for it and so forth. How did you manage that to make sure that you could still prioritize what was important to you and keep the career you wanted?

I was supposed to head up this audit department and grow it. At first, it was great then it was a lot more traveling. Not overnight travel but longer days and inching into the weekends with two little ones at home and not a lot of sleep. All of us parents know how much time little ones take. It was this thing that expounded and it inches and inches. All of a sudden, I had that moment that it was like, “I am exhausted,” and I’m trying to grow this thing.

In the meantime, the firm made a decision they were going to take this a different route and I was like, “I don’t want to do this.” The opportunity for a partner was coming up and I’m like, “I don’t want to be a partner here. What am I doing? I’m exhausted and killing myself.” At the same time, this what I want to do. That was when I first started working with a coach and it was like, “How do I do this? Look at my resume. I have switched. How do I start over again? What do I do now?” That was the moment that it was like, “If you want a CPA firm that does works with the clients you want, when you want and how you want. How else do you do that but on your own.”

I decided to step out and start my own practice, which was exciting and terrifying but my husband was 100% behind me. He was where I lacked the confidence in it. He was like, “I know you can do this. I have no doubt.” He gave me that extra lift that I needed. I was like, “Let’s do this.” Now I’ve got two little ones at home and I’m starting my own practice with zero clients. It’s not like I could build a set of clients on the side. It was zero but it was an opportunity for me to dive into that network that I had built over the years and the people that I had met so I reached out and said, “Here’s what I’m doing. Let me know if you know of anything.”

Naturally and organically, clients started calling, which was awesome and something that further develops the confidence to go, “Somebody believed in me enough to refer someone to me.” That expounded. It was so great because I could control my schedule and control not only the clients that I was working with that lit me up. I was excited about not have to do all the other things and projects that I wasn’t interested in and be able to focus on my family when I was at home. Finding that balance but always a daily struggle of decisions and being intentional in what we do and how we use our time.

Your story is unique. Even for myself, I’m starting my own practice or consulting with people about it. What happens is you start taking on whatever clients because you want money and getting the practice started and you end up with clients that you wouldn’t have chosen later on, or don’t pay well or working more hours than you intended because you own the business and it’s all on your shoulders. Maybe you can give some advice on how you were able to be so intentional or when you notice you’re getting off and how you got back to that.

It is true. Again, I will attribute that to the amazing people that I had in my path. Looking back at all of the different positions that I had dabbled in, tried and taken but yet I am a learner at heart. I chose from each of those to learn from that. In that, when I set out, I knew that I wanted to work with small nonprofit organizations. I also knew enough about myself to know that I don’t want to be that CPA firm that knows a little bit about everything. I want to know what I know and I will refer away everything else. That was the decision that I had made to say, “I’m going to stay narrowly focused.”

That means saying no to money that might come along and there were opportunities for things that I turned away but there was also someone along the way that said, “Be careful who your clients are.” I took that to heart. That lines up with my thoughts on staying focused because there were some big projects that came along that people were like, “You have the capacity to do this because we don’t as a firm.” I could have taken it and it would have been great money. That’s not my specialty. It’s too much risk. The CPA in me says, “Let’s be a little risk-averse.” That did help me stay focused and do what I do. It also develops the confidence in me to say, “I know what I know and everything else. I can refer you to somebody who knows better and I’m happy to do that.”

It’s important that we aren’t afraid to have that space for the right client instead of if you take it up with the wrong client then the right client comes along and you don’t have time for them. Talk about where your business went and how you got into wanting to coach yourself.

My CPA practice was predominantly auditing at the start. All that compliance work that you know has to be done. It’s not that they love being audited but they have to have it. My favorite part of that was the relationships that I built with the executive directors and the board as I would present audit reports to them. I’ve learned over time that my favorite conversations were those ones that we're digging into the long-term vision for the organization or where they wanted to grow or how their board needed some support or some development. The number of people that are on nonprofit boards that don’t understand financial statements that I could come in and they would be like, “We never had an auditor explain it to in a way that we understood.”

I was like, “There’s something here to be said.” I found myself doing a lot more training and asking questions because I’m curious and even talking to some of the accountants and executive directors like, ‘What gets you excited and what do you see yourself doing?” Walking away going, “That didn’t have anything to do with the audit but that was so exciting. I can’t believe this person wants to start this whole new segment of the nonprofit or whatever. I’m getting paid for this thing over here but I’m excited about this thing over here.” Again, I’m working with a coach, dug into that a little bit and went, “I know the power of coaching because I’m the product of it. I’ve seen it work. I’ve seen it be powerful.”

What I’m doing is very similar because I’m curious and I’m asking questions and encouraging them to do things. I would even follow up three months later and be like, “Did you do that thing you said you were going to do?” I’m like, “I’m holding people accountable that they didn’t ask me to. I don’t know if I should ask them about that. Maybe that’s not a great idea,” but I discovered that I have a passion for coaching before I even knew what coaching was and could be. I decided to get my executive coaching certificate a couple of years ago. Now I’m able to do both so I still can focus on my CPA firm on small nonprofits and even segue that a little bit more into board development.

Some of the learning gaps are missing or the strategic planning that they don’t always have time to making room for. On the coaching side, I get excited about helping women find that balance and find what lights them up because going back all the way to when I was a kid and watching adults go through this life that they didn’t love. I believe that you can have a career and have family and love every single day. Is it perfect? No. Is it messy? Yes but it’s possible. That’s where I focus my coaching efforts to open up that possibility and help provide that pathway.

You can see so much of how that strung through your background of seeing people that didn’t enjoy their work or their life. Now you wanted to spread that you can with that passion because you can see the other side. I did a show with a psychologist Dr. Keith Bernardo. He was talking about something similar that when he was 12 or 13, his father had this near-death experience. When he came back, he sat Keith and his sister down and said, “Who are you?” Keith was like, “I’m a football player.” He’s like, “What do you like about football?” “I love getting touchdowns or whatever.” He said, “What do you like about getting touchdowns?” “I love to see how the plays work and the strategy to get there.” He’s like, “You’re curious.”

What’s strung through your story and where we go wrong a lot of times as we define ourselves by titles or the career objective instead of who we are. You’re a learner and curious. If you get a job that is not aligned with being curious and learning and you’re in maintenance mode with your job then you’re off balance and you’re not happy. It’s getting to your soul of what makes you use so that you can make sure the work you do aligns with your soul.

It’s discovering what gets you excited and then do that. It’s about the choices that we make. You have a choice to either figure it out if you don’t know what it is or make a choice to go in a direction that aligns with who you are.

What’s also important is as we go through life, it’s always interesting hearing people’s stories because you don’t know by your outside appearance, you went through that with your family and there’s a choice to make in the life of do I blame my past and my experiences and carry that through my life or do I break from that and say, “It can be possible. I can break from this. It’s going to be work. It’s going to be hard and I’ll figure it out but I’m not going to blame that for my life circumstances.” That’s a hard choice to make in life.

It can be but that’s so true. It’s about the choices. We can either live out that life that we’ve been given. Maybe it’s great or not or we can choose something different. The power of people in our lives that plant that seed for the possibility of something different and being able to go after it. I’ve seen that. Because of the life that I’ve lived, my daughter believes she can do anything. I’m like, “Yes. Okay.”

Also because of your husband, you believed you could do the same. A lot of times especially with women, we don’t necessarily speak up to the people around us and you were very clear from the moment you met him like, “I care about my career,” but a lot of women don’t necessarily do that. When the next best thing comes in their career, they need to ask for help in order to take that job. What is the family going to shift? How are we going to make a sacrifice to do it? Is this what we want to do as a family? A lot of times, we’ll reject the opportunity versus have the communication and the discussion of what’s needed.

It can be hard. You go to your husband and say, “I want you to quit your job and see what happens.”

I like to end it with some rapid-fire questions. Pick a category. Family and friends, money, spiritual or health?

Family and friends.

Things or actions that I don’t have that I want?

I would say more authentic relationships with my family.

Things or actions I do have that I want?

An amazing marriage and kids.

Things or actions that I don’t have that I don’t want?

Fake relationships. Some of my family relationships are a bit on this surface-level and fake. I like authenticity.

Things or actions that I do have that I don’t want?

I still would say some of the limiting beliefs. I’ve broken a lot of that as I see my daughter but there are still things that I struggle with. so I’m still working on that.

I appreciate you sharing your story. There were so many takeaways for people. Is there anything we didn’t discuss that you want to make sure people take away from this conversation?

You do have the power of choice. Making the choices in our lives can completely change your life if you live and step into that. I encourage everyone out there to find their voice and dig into who they are so that they can live out the life. I believe that we should all have a life that we love.

Thank you so much for joining me in this conversation and I appreciate you sharing your story.

Thanks for having me.

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For my Mindful Moments with my interview with Susan, there were so many pivots along the way and Susan’s journey that was great learnings for all of us. As we think about the life that we started and the journey we take throughout our career and the changes in our life as well and the things that we learn along the way. One of the things that were interesting about her story was the story about her parents being farmers and realizing that her parents didn’t love the work that they did and there was a lot of disinterest in the work that they did. From a young age, she tried to seek out what will create excitement for her and what would make her excited about a life and career and her future. What was important is the learning piece of Susan.

We talked about in this interview understanding your soul and what’s important to you. Throughout her story, she was seeking out information whether it was watching others, taking advice from others and balancing it with what excited her. When she was told at a young age she was good at math and she could have a more financially stable career as a CPA, she immediately focused on that as her future profession. Many of us don’t necessarily think about what started our path in our careers. A lot of times, it’s from a friend or family member that had been a CPA or an accountant or we are told that we’re good at math or we do know it’s a secure career but once we get into it, it’s important to seek out what interests us.

What’s so amazing about the accounting profession is there are many avenues to go in. It’s really important to know what doesn’t fit with you versus what does. We don’t have to be perfect at everything. Too many times, because of our personalities, we will feel like it’s a weakness if corporate accounting isn’t aligning with us versus when we’re meeting with clients as an auditor or we’re not as good at tax but auditing is something that we do find a strong suit instead of looking at it and saying that there are people for every type of job. Even narrowing it in further when she talked about the types of clients that she loved to work with. We’re not-for-profit clients and honing into that.

There’s always this fear that if we don’t do everything or take everything on that’s requested of us that we’re failing the people around us. We have this fear that we won’t be successful but as she demonstrated in her career that it has brought the boundaries, balance and alignment to her values to be very focused and intentional about the types of clients that she works with. What she loved about the work that she did whether there’s teamwork, curiosity and learning along the way that you’re not getting complacent.

By observing what those traits are in you, it leads your journey and your career. Now, she has a practice where she’s coaching and asking more questions and helping with strategy. Being observant of your journey along the way is important and not being hard on yourself whether you are changing jobs or changing the things that you do. The important thing is you watch and learn not only other people but you observe yourself as a learner to see the things that create a passion for you and making sure that you’re not afraid to make the choices that will help you live the life that you desire.

Finding your voice and stepping into your truth is important without feeling like there’s something wrong with doing that or it’s selfish. Instead, stepping back and observing yourself and knowing what’s right and wrong and feeling that in your body and having that awareness can help make sure that your life is the one that you want to live every day. You find that happiness so that the energy you create is the right energy for the people around you.

Important Links:

• Susan Stutzel

• Dr. Keith Bernardo – past episode

• LinkedIn – @SueStutzelSStutzelCpa

• Facebook - @SStutzelCoaching

About Susan Stutzel

Susan is passionate about freeing professional women from self-sabotaging goals and helping them build a life of purpose and balance.

As a Mindset and Productivity Coach, she helps her clients ditch overwhelm by finding their voice through the process of rebuilding habits and expectations, so they can feel successful- both professionally and at home.