Episode Summary
This episode is sponsored by Liscio. Learn more at Liscio.me
Arun Mathur from UltimQuest Knowledge joins the DM Disruption! Listen now to learn why it’s important to educate and mentor young CPAs, how UltimQuest can benefit you and your firm, and where he finds his motivation.
Arun’s Beginnings
Arun talks about having over 10 years of experience as a CPA. He has experience working in both large and small firms, and says his focus has been to specialize in improving governance in all types of entities, and sharing knowledge through addressing CPAs across the country.
Teaching Young CPAs and Succession Planning
Arun also talks about how important it is to train the new generation of CPAs to not only do accounting work, but get them familiar with how new automation will disrupt their workflow. Automation is becoming more prevalent in many firms, and jobs that used to take hours can now be completed by software. It is more important now that accountants are able to expand the services they can offer their clients.
Arun also talks about how important it is for all firms, both new and well established, to keep up with the changing technologies around them. The disruption that COVID-19 caused revealed pain points in many firms, and those who chose not to adapt to new technology post-COVID had a difficult time staying afloat.
Dawn also adds how important succession planning is, and that many firms have not created an easy way to transition their workflow to another person when they choose to retire or sell their firm.
Where Arun Finds Motivation
Arun shares a story of when he was really struggling in life, and said that one of his good friends that he had known since high school offered him a job. This allowed Arun to get back on his feet and he credits this person for giving him the motivation to achieve the success he has today. Currently, the friend is now a partner at Arun’s accounting firm.
How Arun Gets CPAs Out of Their Comfort Zone
Arun is very passionate about helping CPAs and he is currently designing a course for CPAs that will help them get out of their comfort zone. He often sees many CPAs unwilling to attend networking events or converse with other colleagues, and this can greatly inhibit firms from progressing. He strives to help CPAs build more confidence in themselves, and wants to help them do so in a fun way!
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Transcript
Dawn Brolin
Hi everyone, my name is Dawn Brolin, I’m a Certified Public Accountant, Certified Fraud Examiner, a president of powerful accounting, Inc, and the author of the designated motivator for accounting professionals. I’m here today to talk to you about one of my favorite new application implementations. And that’s with Liscio. We were finding that we were chasing clients and wasting a lot of administrative time chasing them for documents for information for answers to questions as we’re going through tax season. And we found that we’ve really could be working a lot less hours if we could solve for that pain point. So we found Liscio. And because of implementing liscio, we were able to save hours of time every single week, chasing clients, not only wasn’t the time that we were spending, but it was the frustration of trying to get in touch with them. And for them to securely send us documents and information so we could prepare their tax return in a timely fashion. No more picking up and putting down tax returns, because we don’t have everything we need. What I love is that it’s one central place for us that all of us in our firm can see all of the communications, whether it’s via text, or email, or a document that we’re looking for anyone in the firm can go grab that document or that communication and know exactly what’s going on with that client at all times. What’s even better about it is that it does integrate with our project management and workflow solution, as well as our accounting software. So we’re entering contact information for our clients in one place and pushing it out to other other solutions that we use. And I find that application integration is critical. But being able to save us that time, so that I can be on the ball field coaching in the spring, or whatever else it may be being with my kids, whatever it may be. But we found that we were being so unproductive, doing that administrative chasing that we were just like it’s not the clients fault, it’s our fault, we have to offer them a solution that’s going to work for them. And what we found with as we were implementing Lycia with our clients, the best feedback we would get in this was almost every single client was wow, that was easy. And that’s what we need it to be in order for our clients will get us what we need. And it’s got to be secure. We need cloud to cloud secure document exchange and secure communications. We no longer give out our personal cell phones, which is awesome. I don’t want to hear from a client at midnight. If I happen to hear from them through my liscio app, then that’s cool. Maybe I respond, maybe I don’t. But it gives me that flexibility and that time of peace and quiet when I’m not in the office. So I’m telling you go out, get yourself a demo of Liscio, implement it for your business so you have a successful upcoming 2021, 2022, 2023 and beyond tax season. Thank you so much for listening. And I wish you the best as you move forward.
Hello, everybody. And welcome back to the DM Disruption. My name is Dawn Brolin. I’m a certified public accountant, a Certified Fraud Examiner and the author of the designated motivator, and also the author of the upcoming book, the designated motivator for accounting professionals. And what we do here on this podcast is we not just talk about motivation, we also take that motivation and put it into action because you can listen all day long. But if you’re not doing something about it, then I’m not doing my job. So we’re here today with an awesome guy that I’ve just met Arun Mathur. He’s with UltimQuest. And he’s we’re going to talk have a great conversation about motivation. He’s a former CPA, which is awesome. And he’s gives back to the community through education. So a Arun, welcome to the DM Disruption. Thank you so much for coming. Tell us about Arun.
Arun Mathur
Thank you so much, Dawn. It’s such a pleasure to meet with you. And I have watched a couple of your podcasts very excited to see what you’re doing. So I have to start by saying I have not written a book. I’m not selling anything. However, I do have a pretty strong background as a CPA, I work 10 years in the largest CPA firm in the country. And when I use the term country, I’m talking about Canada. So see, right, I worked in the Toronto office and the national office. Then I got into a commercial real estate stand where I did land rezoning buying and selling commercial property. So that was totally unrelated to the CPA career, did that for a number of years and then came back into the profession in a smaller firm which is like a three partner firm. So I’ve seen like big business I’ve seen small business I’ve seen the owner operated business, done a lot of consulting work for them accounting work that anything. So my main focus in the last 1012 years has been on improving governance in all types of entities, sharing ideas through addressing CPAs across the country. And ethics is actually a core part of good governance. So those are the two areas that I’m specializing in when it comes to training. And you know, your book is about the designated motivator, the thing I learned in my life is our entire lives are about motivation, right? So I’ve seen, like, for example, the ability to motivate a lender, the ability to motivate government, our coworkers, customers, suppliers, even we motivate our family and community. So this is, this is sort of my life. And I’m, I’m at a tail end of my, my career, having done a number of different things. So currently, I’m focusing on developing younger CPAs, helping them with finding joy in their careers. That’s what I’m all about.
Dawn Brolin
And that’s awesome Arun, so we talk a lot about it, we have for many years, and you’ve been involved for so long, as well as like, this next generation, we really have to grab them reach our hand out, pick them up, and bring them along for this, what can be a joyous and wonderful ride in the world of accounting. And, you know, I love the fact you’ve got experience with the big firms, right? Because that’s a whole different ballgame, then a smaller firm of four to 10 to 15, staff members, and a smaller run firm, where maybe there’s a little bit more flexibility than you’ll find in the bigger firms. But you’ve got that expertise. And so, you know, tell me what, because obviously, you’ve been in the accounting industry so long, what just got you to this point where you’re like, I want to help the industry, I’m ready to educate because you know, you like you like me, I’ve been in this for over 20 years. And it’s like, we’ve kind of seen it all. We’ve seen the good see the good, the bad, and the ugly. So yeah, what is it that’s motivating you to want to get out there and educate this generation?
Arun Mathur
Yeah so there are a number of factors, actually, some of the early indicators were when I was quite young, I actually took a course on public speaking when I was 21 years of age is pretty unusual. I don’t know anybody else who did that. And I am as a personality, I guess, I’m very bold and very confident. I like to take risk, I like to try things. So you know, there are people that might say, you know, I want a nine to five job, I want a steady job, I want to do the same work every day and all that I’m not that person at all right? So I’ve had this kind of idea of observing, watching contributing all of that through my whole life. And then when it comes to the CPA world, and actually the business world as well. I observed some people are very happy, like they’re doing good things, they enjoy their work, you know, they go home, all charged up and ready to come back and all that. And then we see the other side where people feel stuck. You know, they might feel like, you know, they want to do more. I’ve heard members say to me that, you know, we’d like to be contributing to the community doing something worthwhile. So I see I see our members as being very intelligent, hardworking, ethical people. And then I’m observing some that feel stuck, they feel frustrated. And having served on boards having audited large firms having worked in many, many smaller entities, you kind of gain some insights on how things work, you know, what things will not work all of that. So I think it all happened kind of naturally, right? Like I idea. I love the idea of sharing, and this is what happens, I go across the country, someone tells me something, then I share that insight and with the hope that you know, we’re sharing ideas that work sharing methods and sharing strategies that, you know, might have worked in one organization can also work in another organization. But currently, I guess the big concern is disruption automation. A number of members have said to me, you know, will we have a job in the future? What will that job be like? So there’s a need to upskill there’s a need to retrain. And I think the whole profession will probably not only the profession, but the whole world is in that same state of disruption, right? Because of technology, and many other things like automation. And so you know, in the old days, you could say, Okay, I want to become a CPA, this is what I’m going to do. But that this is now expanding significantly, right? Yes, it was that accounting tax and bookkeeping is not enough, right. Like we need to do much more. Right?
Dawn Brolin
Well, yeah, because at the end of the day, we’re the trusted advisors of the business clients. We know that and individuals when you’re doing dealing with taxes. But, you know, and I think it’s a really good point we’ve we’ve talked about how do we replace, I’ll say the older generation, I guess I have to include myself in on that since I’m over 50, I was able to get the AARP starts coming to your door, and you know, you’re over 50, right, I haven’t gotten my hand waiting for somebody to go ahead and subscribe me to it, because that’s what I did to my husband, because that’s funny. And so, you know, we as that older generation need to set the stage for this younger generation. And you’re exactly right, it’s the movement towards the automation. And that is that’s here has been here for years, but you’ve been moving faster than we ever can imagine. It’s moving. And so the younger generation wants that. They want that automation, they don’t want redundancy. That’s what I believe, you know, and I have young generation employees here, and staff members that I that I’ve worked with, you know, they don’t want to be here, nine to five, they don’t want to work, the old fashioned tax season of 80 hours, you know, you got a badge for working 80 hours, well, those, those badges are bad, they’re actually not great anymore, right? So I think that you know, what we can offer you through education, being able to help train and say, you know, people like me are gonna be around for another 10 years, right in the profession, not like, I’ll be dead in 10 years, that’s not what I mean. You know, we’re still gonna be here, right? And we’ve got to get ourselves in a position to be able to bring them in, train them, not on the old ways. And that’s where the problem stands, I see people that are still, you know, files and file cabinets everywhere like that is. So that’s like last century, that’s not even yesterday, right? That’s just, you’ve got to figure, here’s one of the things I ruined, I’d love to hear what you think about this succession planning for smaller firms that are anywhere from sole proprietor, sole practitioner to, you know, 20-30 40-50, staff members, and being able to think of a succession plan where you need to have technology in place so that I can literally say, here, actually, here’s my logins, a password keeper, everything you need to get into everything. But here’s my all this is how I do everything. Here’s my, my app stack, which and here’s my diagram that shows how it all interconnects that you know, and then maybe some kind of a training program, but for those that are still sitting on paper, I think they’re gonna find that the value of their firm is going to be significantly less than somebody who has a pretty good handle on that technology.
Arun Mathur
For sure, for sure. And, you know, Dawn, this COVID experience we’ve have had in the last 18 months is a perfect illustration of what you just said. So companies, and not only our company, but any company that was in the old way, the paper way and not digitized. Like your your work comes to an end, right? You can right client, the staff is not there, you can do your work, right? So in the old days, we were like that we had files and papers, we would go to the client. So in COVID, that’s not possible. Right? So that’s a really good example of, of what happens if we don’t adapt, right, like, right, you’re going to be in trouble.
Dawn Brolin
Right? And that’s, you know, that’s the whole the one who has, you know, has that technology in place and is able to serve as clients anytime, anywhere, anyhow, used to be more of an efficiency conversation. And a good handful of years, I’ve been saying, okay, we can stop it with efficiency. Okay. Efficiency is great. How about profitability on top of efficiency, which is even much more fun, right? So that you’re, you’re able to get I mean, I know our let’s just be everybody else. To be honest here. Let’s just be totally honest, we love our clients. Don’t get me wrong. We love to hear the stories with the clients. But when we’re preparing texture, and I don’t want to hear about any stories, I want to focus on the return. You know, I said people would come in for an hour, well, probably 3540 minutes of that was just talking, which is still great. And you can still do it, but you don’t go meet me let’s go meet at a coffee shop. When I can actually listen to you or whatever. You know, I can listen to you and look at you in your face instead of this. Oh, that’s nice. Johnny had a game. That’s awesome. Oh, how did he do? And you really never listen to what they’re saying. Exactly. And so those people thrive. And you’re right. And so thankfully, I think some firms like I think it was a big realization for people, right? That, oh, I have to really have it together. But I want to shift this conversation just a little bit because I want to ask you, in your profession, you’ve been doing this for a long time. Was there somebody in your life that that gave you the motivation it took to either, you know, become a chartered accountant, right, because you’re a CA CA in Canada? I think it is. Right?
Arun Mathur
We will see is but about seven, eight years ago, the entire profession merged. So we’ve now using the CPA, but it’s now okay. Professional Accountant.
Dawn Brolin
Right. Got it. Okay, so, so through your career, you had to run into somebody who was like, wow, they really helped me out at a key spot or whatever. Tell me about that. I’m sure you’ve got somebody.
Arun Mathur
So that’s a really good question. I mean, I had people at a university level like professors who shared their ideas with me and turned me towards what what’s practical and current? I’ve had a partner who one of the stories I have is I have like a rags to riches to rags to riches story, which is unusual. As part of that story, I have a friend who I’ve known since I was in high school. And when I was in this very, very dire situation completely down and out. He approached me through my family and said, you know, we have a job for you come and work for us, and so on. So I would say that is the gentleman who I would point I would answer your question with someone that had confidence in my abilities, someone that was willing to, to help me at a time when I was absolutely, absolutely down and out, right. So he’s actually my current partner in the firm I’m with it’s a small firm, I’m 100%, dedicated to working with him and helping him. And he’s actually much more than a friend much more than a very, very good professional, he’s actually a excellent human being cares about other people, that type of thing.
Dawn Brolin
You know, and who better to work with and somebody like that, as opposed to somebody who’s just mean, right?
Arun Mathur
You know, I can tell you so Dawnn, I mean, over the 45 years that I’ve been working, I actually heard from one of my staff members. When she came over and joined us, I asked her, What was your firm like, and all that, and it was also a smaller firm, she told me that every single staff member left that firm, right? Attrition down to non existent, right. So that’s how bad that owner was. They didn’t take care of the people that didn’t care about their people. And one by one, every single team member left the team, we’ve seen that as well.
Dawn Brolin
You know, and I think that that just goes back to the unfortunate world that we live in currently, where it’s a lot about me, me, me, as opposed to us, us, us. And you, you, you and us together and working together. And I like my whole passion is around just I mean, changing the world is like kind of a big goal, I think. But But But you’re right. I mean, people want to be around positive people. That’s the whole concept of the the the designated motivator, is being able to reach and tie inside the soul of somebody and be be selfless in a way that you actually give them that attention and that care and concern on a daily basis. And it’s genuine. Right? And so just treating one person a day, in a nice way. Can you know they pass it along? This is a simple example. So Saturday, we bought I bought a boat finally been talking about buying a boat forever finally bought a boat. So we’re going down to the boat on Saturday, and we stopped at a grinder shop to grab some grinders to take on the boat. Great time. So we go in there, there’s three young boys, it got to be between, I’d say between 10 and 11 years old, and that in that range. And they came into the pizza place and they were picking up pizza. They’re sweating. It was like really hot on Saturday. And they’re like, Wow. And they come in and they vote. They’re all standing near the cooler. They’re like, Oh, I really love a sprite right now or a coke or whatever. And I can I’m listening to them. And I said to us, I said to the lady go, hey, get add, you know, three sodas to the I want to give these guys a drink. They will. They’re all drooling over the soda over their drought. They’re drenched. And they these young boys are just like, Wow, thank you. That was very nice. And I said you know what, guys all you know how you do you know how you repay that? You go be nice to somebody else that maybe other people weren’t so nice to today. And that’s called passing it along, guys. And they were like, thank you. So like it was a soda, you know? But like, right, that’s the stuff that people say, Well, I’m not like you bro. And I’m not crazy. And I, you know, I don’t you know, put on costumes and do crazy stuff and use a bullhorn and yell and it’s fun. You know, I’m not like that. You know what you can buy a soda for a kid who comes in and sweating. And I said to them, I said, I’m just so glad to see you outside and not on a video game. And they were…
Arun Mathur
Such a nice story, Don, because you know, you’re small act of kindness, which you know, not a big deal. But this, this will make an impact on those three lives, right? Like those kids are going to go forward and say, wasn’t that lady so nice to us? She didn’t have to do it. And I think, you know, the world is made a much better place with even a very small act of kindness, like listening to someone talking to someone expressing concern, you know, you don’t have to spend money and not too much time. But you know, the unfortunate thing is the media is full of bad news, right? The media will never cover good news. Right? So we ended up getting this impression that the world is a horrible place when really not that bad, right? So when your little act of kindness, you know, comes in someone’s life is like a refreshing thing that someone did something selfless. Right? Right. That’s a nice example. Yeah,
Dawn Brolin
yeah. And it’s great. And so you know what, let’s shift this conversation because I know you have a child who’s playing soccer from what you told me. So tell me a little bit about that. what that’s about.
Arun Mathur
So, so I have a son who now is about 22 years of age, when he was around 11. While right from about six years of age, he played soccer every summer. And you know what a soccer team is like what a soccer game is like, Oh, yes, typical thing is like a parent is coaching because they want their kid to grow. And, you know, there’s always one or two hotshot players that are able to score. The other kids are like secondary, their job is to pass the ball to the to the scorers, and they score and they win, right? This is the typical way. soccer season, right? Yeah, what happened is one year we had an absolutely strange year, they formed a team. And then there was no coach. Right? So I was concerned, my son was concerned, all the kids were concerned, are we even going to play or is this season going to be like something we have to set aside and other teams will play. In the midst of that confusion, one of the parents, his name was John, he stepped forward and said, I will coach this team. And he only stepped forward because we were seeing that nobody would be playing right. And that was that was his motivation. He had never coached soccer before, but he came in. Now John had a very, very different approach to coaching. I’ll just give you a couple of examples. So you know, like, during the weeknights, they would have a practice night, on the weekends they would play. So during the practices, I noticed that John was getting the kids to do drills, right. So they were drills to pass the ball up the side, they were drills on how to pass the ball, how to throw the ball, how to take the corner, kick all of the mechanics of the game, right? So he was he was teaching the drills to every single kid. And I noticed that he wasn’t focusing on his own son, like he was giving the same training to every single kid. Right? This This to me was a little bit unusual. And I’ll tell you what happened in the game. So, you know, as you know, like, whether it’s baseball or soccer, like the parents are instructing the kids and telling them what to do, you know? Oh, we’d be like, you know, we would be gasping because we’re yelling, you know, not only yelling at our own kids what to do, but even the other kids because we know their names, right? So we’re instructing them go this way, pass to, this guy, all of that. And, you know, we’re thinking that the right person should take the corner kick and all this. Well, this coach John, he trained the kids in the practice, but in the game, he just stood and watched the game. He didn’t give any instructions. He didn’t say who should do the corner kicks, who should do the throw? And, and, and he stepped aside, and they just watched the game, right? So you might be wondering, what was the outcome of that season? Right? Yes. Let me tell you. This team had no hotshot players, this team won every single game in the season. Wow, we single game on the field. I’ll tell you, like, basically, the kids were making their own decisions. The kids were not focused on scoring, they were focused on the passion they had for soccer. They liked working with each other, they had all been trained equally. There was no identification that this is the boss or this is the leader or this is the scorer, everybody had equal chance, right? So, you know, I guess, you know, if you focus on fun, and the enjoyment, no matter what your activity is, versus focusing on a win, it’s like, in a corporation, you might say, you know, we achieved the bottom line or whatever. But then you people could be miserable. On the other hand, you could say, Okay, are we enjoying what we’re doing? And then the winning is a byproduct of that enjoyment? Right? So to me, that whole experience was about motivation, about empowerment, about building trust between the kids. And the coach did all of this very silently, right? It was not obvious to me while it was happening. And he focused on skills development, right? So he built the skills of every single player, not just hotshot players, you know, you could be playing defense, midfield, you could be playing center, or whatever you were playing. But he worked on all the kids equally. And we saw that right. Like, there was no special treatment for his own son. And I think the idea that the kids were free to figure out the place, right, figure out who they should pass to, and all of that made a huge difference, right? So I think ethical treatment, fair play, all of these things are kind of the the indications of a good team of a strong team. And I think like this is the lesson I learned, like it was a soccer game, but it can apply in a family it can apply in business, government. So that’s something that happened many years ago.
Dawn Brolin
I love that story. That’s a great story. And, and it’s so true. It’s almost like you know, even like think about a firm You know, in any firm, any team, any part in life is at your strongest at your weakest link, we all know that that’s the truth. It’s a fact. So what you’re doing, by building up all of those players allowed that team to have success that they likely would not have had to be totally honest with you, I believe. Number one, I believe in the techniques, I believe in training and teaching repetitive movement when it when you’re in sports, and that’s something that we do, you know, we do what we call, we call, we call them everydays, you’re going to do the same drills every single time you come to the game because, or to the practice, or whatever it is. Because those are the fundamentals of your job of your game of your whatever you’re playing, or whatever you’re doing in life. And in a firm, it’s like you bring in these, we’ll call them juniors, cuz that’s what a lot of people call them, right? They come in the first years, and they’re starting to learn. And the more that the culture of the environment of that firm, embraces those newcomers we call the newcomers and softball newcomers to the game, and put your hand out and pick those guys up those guys, girls, whatever, you pick them up, you bring them, you bring them up to as hot as fast and as best as you can bring them up to that level. And that’s what a real successful firm like yours, Arun, because obviously, you know, you’re attracting talent because of how you treat people. And that’s some of the things people don’t realize not only about how much you’re paying them to pay me a million bucks, but I can give somebody a Friday off and still pay them. I’m winning.
Arun Mathur
Yeah. So Dawn, let me let me tell you your what you just said reminded me of something that happened to me in India. So I’ve been in Canada for about 55 years. So I was just a young kid when I was in India, but I’ve gone back for trips. So I was in I was meeting someone for the first time he was the chairman of a large food company in India, a manufacturing company. And as I walked into his office behind him, there was like, a cork board. And there was a sign that said TGIM, right. So even before I said good morning and started introducing myself, I went to that site, and I said to him, I said, you know in North America, it’s TGIF, it’s not TGIM, right? Then he went on to explain the sign. He said, We have a program where we develop our people, and the type of corporate culture they’re trying to create, is that they, they hope that their employees will be so excited about coming to work, that they look forward to Monday. And that blew my mind. Right? Can you imagine that kind of where you’re looking forward to coming to work? Right? Isn’t that amazing?
Dawn Brolin
That’s awesome. See, and you know, a room that is such a great story, because you can think about it. It’s like, if you like imagine just let’s just start an idea. Like you do something different every Monday morning, if people can’t wait to come and find out what is what’s going to happen on Monday morning. And they’re excited about it’s kind of like watching a reality show, like what’s happening next week, you know, it’s like, Okay, I’m gonna go, I’m gonna find out what what what’s going to be on my desk today, or whatever it may be. And that’s about creating a culture of happiness. Listen, work is called work for a reason. It’s not called vacation. It’s called work. And we all have to have to do it. Okay, well, we all should do, I should say it that way. We all we all have to so at the end of the day, the one who makes the work environment fun and fulfilling, both from an individual perspective and a professional perspective. When you can do that and be a designated motivator that leaves that firm. You got it figured out. And trust me, I just did a keynote on the book last week. I tell people like, oh, people don’t set goals, money goals, of course we do. We set out we have budgets, and we have, we have budgets, and we do have goals in that capacity. But I don’t come to work on Monday morning to make money. I come to work on Monday morning to be around my people to be around my clients talk to my clients, and hopefully help them survive, as well. So I just I love that.
Arun Mathur
That’s No, I think it’s so critical to have that attitude, I actually taught a course in the university on auditing. And you know, people consider our work to be pretty dull, right? Accounting, auditing, this all kind of dry tacks and all of that. So one of the things I started in that class where they said, and there was about maybe 40 students, right, in a beacom class, so I said to them, I said, you know, we’ll start this thing where we’ll start the class with a joke, right? So they can’t be off color jokes. It’s got to be like, proper. You know, I’m going to do it. And and, and I’m going to urge you to do that as well, right? So in other words, we’ll start the class by saying, Okay, who wants to tell a joke? And if nobody else does, then I will. Right? So this class went on for the entire semester. And we did exactly that. Right. And this elicited, you know, participation, people told us stories, people shared things. One of the young ladies who was in the class actually was a medalist in the Canadian CAE exam. Like the years later I saw a picture I said, Oh, I recognize her right. So that small gesture of adding a little bit of you know, humility, adding a little bit of humor in the middle of the auditing class. US, it generated like a very positive result. And I think you can do this in anything. Like when I’m teaching my courses, people say to me, I came into like a course on internal control, fraud prevention, of course on key performance indicators, whatever it happens to be right. And they say I came in with a view that I’ll be bored out of my mind, right? Because they have, and we go on on the subject, right. But I tried to bring in my, like real life experiences, we try and share real things. So I think people can do that. Right. If you can think of what is relevant for the other person how to make it interesting. Yeah. And that itself is motivation, right? Because you’re putting across your content. But you’re framing it from their perspective, right? And this makes it more effective. Right.
Dawn Brolin
That’s so fun so far. So listen Arun, this has been a great conversation, you are just a pleasure to even just have a conversation with I mean, is there anything else you want to leave with the listeners, anything that you can think of that you want to message? And and tell us just give us a little bit of how they find you? And and obviously, this is education for Canadian accountants Correct?
Arun Mathur
Well, that’s our courses are offered in the US as well. We’re pretty global. Yeah. And I’ve got some things going on in India, which are just in early stages. So our environment is very similar. So the courses would be relevant. So just to get back to what I said in the beginning, like my life legacy is to figure out how I can help other CPAs. And so what I’m, this is like a work in progress has not been done yet. But I’m coming up with like a program. It’s like a mentorship program. And the idea is that if someone is feeling stuck, like for example, I think our CPA, if you look at the demographics, they’re intelligent people, hardworking people, ethical people. But I would say if you look at the strengths, the strengths are on the hard skills, right? Where we might have weaknesses is on the soft skills, right? So I’m looking at all of my years of experience and seeing how the world works. So I’m looking at, you know, how do we empower our members to gain the soft skills and run out the things so that, you know, that’s not an impediment for their growth? So if, you know, again, it’s like a work in progress. But some of the ideas we have, we’re thinking about, you know, going back to your original motivation, when you first became a CPA or wanted to become a CPA, you know, what is it that you were trying to accomplish? And kind of going back and revisiting that original decision to say, Are you are you getting what you wanted to get, and so on. So I hear from many members that, you know, they’re enjoying their work, and all of that, but they think that they want to do more for the community. So I’ve heard from a number of people, you know, for example, they tell me, okay, I’m retiring. And I say, What will you do next? Invariably, the most common answer I get, is people want to do community service, they want to serve the charitable sector, the not for profit sector. And this is so nice to hear. So I’m going to talk about, you know, how can we do that, while we’re working? Right, you don’t have to wait till retirement. You know, the whole idea of collaboration, this is the key thing, in my, in my experience, if we learn how to collaborate effectively, we can have much, much better outcomes, you know, this whole idea of managing people, I mean, we’ve been talking about it up to now, a lot of senior people, a lot of management people in our industry, may be very good accountants, but they really have not thought about managing people, you know, thinking about the other person. You talk about arranging effective meetings, you know, sort of the strategy, the approach, how do you get to what you want? How do you make a meeting worthwhile? We’ve all attended meetings where you scratch your head and say, you know, why was I asked to come here? Sometimes these meetings go in circles, right? Like you’re not accomplishing anything. Even this whole idea of networking, I’ve talked to many CPAs, they’re unwilling to attend a networking event, like a University alumni event, you know, even a work related, networking event, business Chamber of Commerce type of event. My life experience tells me that the greatest acceleration in my career happened randomly, right? It happened because I met someone in a networking event, we hit it off, we met for dinner, and then I left my job and join them. Right. So this actually happened to me. It’s a very, very powerful way to propel your career, but I don’t think many of our members are thinking that way. So I’m going to talk about that. Public speaking is another area like it’s part of leadership, it’s part of communication. You know, well, I mean, I don’t have to tell you this, but you know, if two people are talking it’s a one to one communication. You look at Anthony Robbins right. They fill a room, you can regress 2000 people in one go or 10,000 people in one go So, and public speaking is like a multiplier effect, right? Like your communication is being multiplied. I guess it’s happening right now because people will listen to you and I. So you know, there’s a lot of hesitation not just in our members, but generally it’s a human nature, people are scared people don’t want it. Right? When I talk to people about public speaking, is just like selling, right? If you say to a CPA, you have to sell something, they don’t want that. Right, right. So why don’t we get them out of that comfort zone and think about, think about the benefits and also how to write. So So I guess you could encapsulate all of these things into like, emotional intelligence and that type of field. And then also like career development, career advice, mentoring, even all of the emotional psychological things, I think, like, I have so many professors, family members, others who just kind of nudge me a little bit that made my life, right, it was a minor, little thing. So I hope to be able to do that for the future generations so that, you know, they find joy in the profession, they find fulfillment in their work, they feel that, you know, their life has been worthwhile. They’re contributing to the community. It’s very, very possible. Right? So I’d like to remove some of the roadblocks that are preventing people from reaching that joy. Yeah, maybe towards the end of the year, we might have our program done.
Dawn Brolin
Well, and we’ll have you back, we’ll have you back. Just reach back out, we’ll get you because I’d love to hear, you know, how did it go? What’s, you know, what are we? What are we looking for, and, and certainly link to you guys in the, in the bottom section of the podcast, because we able to link to you and see the great work that you’re doing. And I just want to thank you…
Arun Mathur
One thing I should just stayed on? Sorry. No, you know, I just wanted to add, one of the things I’ve learned in my life is that when you fail, you have to get up and go right, you can’t fail and just stop. Right. And, and you know, very often people have a very negative view of failure, like we want to prevent failure, we want to avoid failure. You know, when you look at any kind of business success, we’re always talking in a very positive tone, you know, you could become chairman of General Motors and all of that, right. But between the zero and there, there’s a lot of failure, a lot of hardship. And I think we we don’t really hear that. So I’m very happy to tell you that having gone through this kind of thing myself, that I’d like to communicate that right, the idea that we should have a positive attitude towards failure, we should learn from failure. And really, it’s kind of counterintuitive, maybe, but this is how the world works. Right? We fail and we have to get up and, and start again and keep going at it. Persistence is important. Hard work is important. Right? Yeah.
Dawn Brolin
I love that. Because really, at the end of the day, you’re right. Number one, when you’re successful, I find for myself, like when I have a Successful IRS representation case, and I’m able to, you know, take care of whatever the situation may have been for that client, that gives me confidence. So for me, is it positive, of course it is I get excited, I’m fired up. I’m like, took care of this person. That’s my job, I’m doing well. But when I failed, and I failed many times it for many different reasons, whether it was how I handled a staff member, how I handled the client situation, whatever that may be. That’s what I actually learned. I didn’t learn from success, I learned from the failures, for sure.
Arun Mathur
That’s so true. So true, I have a lot of ideas. Like you know, I have ideas about relationship building, I have ideas on these types of things. Because what I’ve learned is, you know, if you can create positive relationships that can prevent a lot of headaches, if we have like, ethical kind of behavior towards the people we work with, that that creates a really good relationship, it creates high trust. So you’re kind of you’re you’re putting yourself into a platform where you can springboard from that. And a lot of people are looking for quick returns and quick gains. But long term, if you take an ethical approach, you build good relationships, high trust relationships, just like they did with the soccer team, right? Like that’s a win. And that’s, that’s like a sustainable win, right? Because you are doing positive things is going to create a positive result, right? Absolutely. I have lots of ideas, but we’re hoping to put that into a program into a very step by step type of thing that will go global with that, hopefully, it will help a lot of members.
Dawn Brolin
And that’s what it’s all about. You know, that’s one of the reasons why I started the podcast, I’m just like, can we get the message out? Can people hear this, you know, successes and failures over and over again and really just like, try to take it in on themselves and look inward towards themselves and what they can maybe do change. You know, those kinds of things to make their lives better, but also the people around them, which is what’s important, right? So we’re gonna message you you’ve been fantastic. Arune Mather with UltimQuest. And we’re excited to have you back once the program gets launched Let’s let’s help you watch it. Again. thanks again everybody for listening to the DEM disruption. We’ll see you next time. Same place, same time. Look forward to talking to you everyone. Take care.
Arun Mathur
Thank you very much. Nice seeing you.
