Build to Enough

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Keila Hill-Trawick: Hello, you're listening to Build to Enough, a podcast for entrepreneurs who want to scale at their own pace. I'm your host, Keyla Hill Traywick, and I'll be your chief storyteller and cheerleader in a world that glorifies endless expansion, we're tuning out the noise and discussing the beauty of enough. Each episode will dive into inspiring stories, practical insights, and strategies to cultivate sustainable success on your [00:00:30] own terms. So whether you're a solopreneur, small business owner, or aspiring entrepreneur, get ready for a refreshing take on the entrepreneurial journey. This is build to enough. At Build to Enough. We challenge traditional notions of success and explore redefining enough on your own terms. So on today's episode, we're diving into unconventional entrepreneurs who prove that success comes in many forms and there's really no one size fits all approach. Now, how do we think that unconventional [00:01:00] success differs from traditional measures? I'll give you an example. When I started my firm and found out that there were surprise, surprise, other accounting firms in the space, it felt like a lot of them had taken a path that I didn't take. They went to college for accounting. They got their CPA or other certification. They went to work for one of the big accounting firms, and then after some time getting stressed out there, they ultimately built their own. That was not my story. I had no desire to be an entrepreneur. Basically, my [00:01:30] whole life I worked in corporate and I worked for the government and kind of just fell into helping others with their accounting and tax stuff and ultimately building this firm.

Keila Hill-Trawick: Was it traditional? No, but it is successful. And I know so many other stories of accountants and other business owners who started doing one thing. Maybe you changed your major four times in college the way that I did, and ended up in a place that was not only successful, but fulfilling that they may not [00:02:00] have seen along the way. Now, the importance of all of this is that we're individuals, and if you lock yourself into a path that isn't meant for you, your destination is probably going to be a place that you didn't want to be either. We have to break away from some societal expectations about where we're going to end up, and exactly how we get there, in order to make sure that even if we end up in the same space, maybe you two have a micro business or even an accounting firm, that our paths of how we got there [00:02:30] really starts from a place of where we started and what we wanted out of it. So here's some ways that I've been thinking about unconventional entrepreneurship and the nontraditional path to success. First, let's talk about passion driven entrepreneurs. And we usually think about this in an artist space. These creative areas where your passion is what's fueling the thing that you make.

Keila Hill-Trawick: But I actually think that this shows up in all kinds of businesses, especially service providers. I used to say that [00:03:00] I'm not necessarily passionate about accounting, but I love rules, and I'm passionate about the idea that where your success goes is partly built off of the financial foundation that you get when you understand your accounting, your taxes and your finance. But this all kind of means the same thing, right? We want to make sure that you are aligning work with your personal passions for sustained fulfillment, because otherwise passion, yeah, it fades, but we need to have both. We need [00:03:30] to have excitement for what we're doing alongside work that feels meaningful to us. So I had to start thinking about what I was passionate about at Little Fish. Client experience is the most important part of everything that we do. I want it to be easy to work with us. I want people to feel like they're going to get their questions answered, that we're going to be proactive about what they need to know and when. And the way that we do that is through a vehicle of accounting. So [00:04:00] my passion is actually just making sure that we're providing excellence in a service for people that feel good about something that they might otherwise be anxious about. I encourage you to think about what you're passionate about. For some people, it's super easy.

Keila Hill-Trawick: Maybe you have always been hype about the law, and so figuring out your passion was a no brainer. I love the law. I'm going to be a lawyer, but maybe what you're actually excited about is music. And so the type of law that you go into is directly impacted by that passion you have for [00:04:30] sounds and composers and songs and musicianship and all of those things. How can you think about those passions and weave them into your professional life? Maybe it's not exactly the thing that you do so much as it is how you carry that out for your clients. Now, there's no linear path to success. What works for me will not work for you necessarily, and what works for even the people that I look up to may not necessarily be my path. There's value and diverse experiences [00:05:00] because they shape what unconventional success looks like. What does that mean? It means that we have and know people who were musicians and moved into being environmental, um, conservationists. You never know how what your path is doing. What you're doing along the way is going to ultimately impact what you end up doing for a living. So take nothing for granted. There are so many experiences, [00:05:30] so many opportunities that you will have access to that may feel like they have nothing to do with the business that you're creating. There are people that you're going to run into or have conversations with that seem really cool, but don't seem like they mean anything for what you're trying to achieve.

Keila Hill-Trawick: But every little thing matters. Every, you know, book that I read, every movie that I go see, has the opportunity to change how I show up in my life and in my business. We did an episode about unreasonable hospitality [00:06:00] that I hope that you listen to, and I hope that you read the book, but it was about the restaurant industry and how we could make hospitality feel like luxury to the people who were interacting with us. Did I know that that was going to change how we use those gyms to reach out to and support our clients a little bit? I didn't know it was going to be as big as it was for me, but knowing that led us down a different path of how we do accounting that I don't know that I would have been aware of had I not been introduced to that. [00:06:30] So think about ways that you are learning, that you are seeing varied entrepreneurial paths, even outside of what you do, because there's a richness that it adds to your journey, that makes what you do and how you do it look different than anybody else who's in the same industry, same area, same everything as you. What you do is going to look different because of the background that you're bringing to it.

Keila Hill-Trawick: Now, one thing that I am also super passionate about is breaking the industry mold. [00:07:00] I'm in accounting, and while I am not one of those accountants that runs around saying I'm not your dad's accountant or not your traditional accountant, I do think that we do things in a different way from what our industry is used to, and I think that that's important not only to show up as an example for the people that come after us, but also to challenge some of the assumptions that have always been in our industry to hopefully make it better for everybody overall. Now, that means that we have to start thinking about innovation. We have to start thinking about [00:07:30] where can we do things differently to get ahead of some of the changes that are coming to not just our industry, but the world? Everybody's buzzing about AI and how it's going to replace jobs. And some of that is true and some of it is overblown. But at the end of the day, we need to be prepared for it. How can we work with it to incorporate AI into how we do our service, how we interact with clients? How can we use it to make for a more human experience? This means that we have [00:08:00] to start questioning conventions. We have to go beyond the ways that we always have done it, and really foster an environment that supports creative thinking and industry disruption.

Keila Hill-Trawick: Disruption. Nothing is going to change if we don't change it. And so when we're thinking about how the past can look differently, we have really an obligation to make sure that we start shifting those paths in our own journeys so that other people can see how it could be done differently. Now, when I say enough and success, I want us to think beyond [00:08:30] monetary. And that is especially important as we talk about literally building to enough, because it's not just about the money. Yes, we want to hit financial goals. Yes, we all have a dollar sign in mind because beyond passion, we also need to get paid. But your success can't just rely on the financial side. We've got to think about success as aligned with our personal values. What is important to you, and do you have time to do and support those things based on how you're [00:09:00] showing up in business? How do your employees feel? It's not really great for you to have a great life while your employees are miserable. It takes all of you to keep the train running, and you want to make sure that they're getting what they need to. And finally, what are your societal contributions? What are you adding to your community, to your family, to your friends, to your peers lives? When we think about success and our legacy, what we want to leave behind and also what we want to contribute, that's more than just the [00:09:30] money.

Keila Hill-Trawick: It's also all of the things that we're giving of ourselves to make sure that we leave the world a little bit better than we found it. And that's nontraditional, because capitalism is king, and we think a lot about the money. But I want you to think about what that money can not only do for you, but hopefully the openings and the ways that it opens up your world to be able to do more for yourself and the people that you care about. So that's our episode. Remember, success is a personal journey and there is no one way to define it. Stay inspired, [00:10:00] stay true to yourself, and keep redefining success. On your turns. Plus, I would love to hear from you. Do you have any insights or practical strategies as an unconventional entrepreneur? Shoot us an email at podcast at Little Fish Accounting. Com and let us know. Have you sparked any new perspectives on your definition of success? Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Build to Enough. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and share the love with your fellow entrepreneur [00:10:30] friends, and make sure to sign up for the Build to Enough newsletter. The link is in the show notes. Stay tuned for more episodes as we continue to redefine success one intentional step at a time.