Latest / Project Candor: Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories / Follow the Money with Albert Butler | Ship's Log #24

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Follow the Money with Albert Butler | Ship's Log #24 · Project Candor: Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories

0:02
Jeanne: Welcome to Project Candor, where ordinary people share unexpected stories.
0:07
Jeanne: I'm your host, Jeanne, and today we are welcoming Albert Butler aboard.
0:12
Jeanne: Albert Butler, CPA MBA, is the resident partner in charge of a national accounting firm where he has led with integrity, strategy, and purpose for more than 25 years.
0:23
Jeanne: He earned his Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Southern University and AM College and his MBA in International Business and Entrepreneurship from LSU, graduating with a perfect 4.0 GPA.
0:36
Jeanne: He is a lifelong learner, a father of four, a youth coach, and a servant leader.
0:41
Jeanne: Albert lives by two guiding principles.
0:44
Jeanne: Accounting is the heartbeat of business and the key to personal finance success.
0:49
Jeanne: And if you follow the money, you'll find the answers.
0:53
Jeanne: Welcome, Albert.
0:54
Jeanne: Thanks for aboarding our little ship.
0:59
Albert Butler: I am so excited for our conversation today.
1:02
Albert Butler: I really believe that your audience will be able to resonate with some of the aphorisms and quotes and stories that I can share.
1:09
Albert Butler: And hopefully they'll have some great takeaways that your audience can put into their life and add to their toolkit.
1:15
Jeanne: Oh, that's wonderful.
1:16
Jeanne: Because I know, stay tuned, people, because when we get to our Two Truths and a Lie, Albert's got some stories, there's really good ones, including an ICU.
1:26
Jeanne: I am so excited for that.
1:29
Jeanne: So what we do is start with questions.
1:32
Jeanne: I hope you're ready for me to fire away at some questions, but I have to just say one quick thing, and that is in reading your bio, oh my gosh, a 4.0 in all those degrees in college.
1:47
Jeanne: And they aren't small schools.
1:49
Jeanne: These are like really nationally accredited colleges, universities.
1:54
Jeanne: I'm just so, so impressed by you.
1:57
Albert Butler: So I'll tell you, Jeannie, the Woolprinter was in grad school.
2:00
Albert Butler: It wasn't in undergrad.
2:01
Albert Butler: So, but it in undergrad.
2:03
Albert Butler: Yeah, in undergrad, I did very, very well.
2:05
Albert Butler: So, but so in grad school, yes, I was determined to really push for it and put the best foot forward to really try to make the stamp for that, you know, that people can follow.
2:15
Jeanne: Yeah, that's phenomenal.
2:16
Jeanne: I'm just really impressed.
2:17
Jeanne: So we're gonna expect a lot from you, Albert.
2:21
Albert Butler: Totally fine.
2:22
Albert Butler: I'm looking forward to it.
2:24
Jeanne: All right.
2:24
Jeanne: I'm far away here.
2:25
Jeanne: We'll put the gunboats on.
2:28
Albert Butler: There you go.
2:29
Jeanne: You often say accounting is the heartbeat of business.
2:33
Jeanne: Uh, when you say that, what do you want people, especially families and entrepreneurs, to really understand?
2:40
Albert Butler: That's a very, very, very powerful question, Jeanne.
2:42
Albert Butler: I'm so glad you started there first.
2:44
Albert Butler: You know, as a CPA and through my walks in life, my clients that I've served, and the volunteerism that I've done, what I've learned is that without your numbers, you don't have clarity.
2:58
Albert Butler: And if you don't have clarity, you can't make decisions.
3:02
Albert Butler: If you can't make decisions, you will make mistakes.
3:04
Albert Butler: And that those mistakes can capsize the boat that we're on right now.
3:09
Albert Butler: And it does, you're gonna go out of business and it's gonna cause depression and it's gonna cause anxiety, and it's gonna cause heartache, and all these things are gonna take place.
3:18
Albert Butler: So when you roll that onion all the way back, it comes back to one guiding principle that accounting is the heartbeat of business and it's truly the key to personal finance success.
3:29
Albert Butler: From the smallest of the kitchen tables to the largest of boardrooms, accounting gives the clarity to allow you to make those decisions to ensure that you can begin with the end in mind and make and be able to forecast your business, forecast your life to get the result that you're looking for.
3:47
Albert Butler: So always tell people accounting is truly the heartbeat of business.
3:51
Jeanne: Oh, that's great.
3:52
Jeanne: When you say accounting, you're talking financial, but as you were speaking, I know a little bit about you from our previous conversation and from reading a lot of your information.
4:03
Jeanne: Accounting is being accountable as well.
4:06
Jeanne: And you're an advocate for that.
4:09
Jeanne: So I just wanted to bring that up.
4:11
Albert Butler: Well, let's talk about it a little bit because it is an accountability that you have to take for responsibility in your life.
4:19
Albert Butler: The accounting is the balancer, it's the storyteller, it is the messenger of who you are as a person.
4:25
Albert Butler: So, yes, I am talking about your numbers, but I'm also talking about you.
4:30
Albert Butler: Because if you can't be accountable to you, you'll never be able to scale yourself.
4:35
Albert Butler: You'll never be able to scale your family, you'll never be able to scale an enterprise.
4:38
Albert Butler: So, truly, knowing where you are personally, to be accountable, to give that balance to your life.
4:45
Jeanne: I love that.
4:46
Jeanne: That's a great answer.
4:48
Jeanne: That kind of wraps them up together because a lot of times people will think, well, money is something I shouldn't be so focused on.
4:56
Jeanne: But I'm seeing your point.
4:57
Jeanne: So I have another question along that line.
5:00
Jeanne: You introduced the framework plan at review.
5:05
Jeanne: I love simple structures because I'm coming from a project management background.
5:09
Jeanne: So why do you think so many people skip the review step?
5:14
Albert Butler: Because we're in a culture of go, go, go.
5:16
Albert Butler: We're in a culture of I want to have it now.
5:19
Albert Butler: And unfortunately, if you do not review what you've done, how can you possibly learn from your success and from the failure?
5:28
Albert Butler: So I advocate heavily.
5:30
Albert Butler: Plan, but plan quickly.
5:32
Albert Butler: Take action and put your plan into action to make sure you can get the feedback.
5:37
Albert Butler: What's the feedback?
5:38
Albert Butler: The feedback is the review.
5:40
Albert Butler: It's the most important part.
5:41
Albert Butler: And a lot of us skip that piece.
5:44
Albert Butler: Because if you take the time to go and look back at your results of what you came out from, you will learn so many more things because you got to go back to the drawing board and start all over again and put your next plan into action.
5:56
Albert Butler: That's the only way that we can see progress.
5:58
Albert Butler: Because if we just action, action, go, go, go, go, go, and never step back and say, what's the result?
6:04
Albert Butler: How did it work out?
6:06
Albert Butler: What did I learn?
6:07
Albert Butler: What mistakes did I make?
6:08
Albert Butler: How can I do better?
6:10
Albert Butler: We're never going to be able to progress.
6:11
Albert Butler: We're never going to be able to grow.
6:13
Albert Butler: So it's always plan, act, and you must review.
6:16
Jeanne: You must review.
6:17
Jeanne: Yeah.
6:18
Jeanne: So that's a lot of the structure in, like, say the PMP discipline, the project management professional discipline.
6:25
Jeanne: And it's always at the end where, you know, you've gone through a lot that you do lessons learned.
6:32
Jeanne: But where do you say the review comes in?
6:34
Jeanne: Is it at the end of something?
6:37
Jeanne: Like you've completed something and it could be enough failure at that point.
6:41
Jeanne: When do you review?
6:42
Jeanne: At steps along the whole process or just at the end?
6:46
Albert Butler: It's interesting because there's actually another framework that comes into play.
6:50
Albert Butler: One is that is just as simple, but it encompasses plan, act, review.
6:54
Albert Butler: I call it train, practice, work.
6:56
Albert Butler: And train and you practice and you work, you have to plan and act review in each step of those.
7:03
Albert Butler: So what is training?
7:04
Albert Butler: No matter what you do, Jeanne, you have to train.
7:07
Albert Butler: Training is by yourself.
7:09
Albert Butler: Training is when the doors are closed.
7:10
Albert Butler: Training is when you're all alone and you're trying to find a way to make something better better.
7:16
Albert Butler: But you can't do that unless you are really putting in the effort to train your mind, train your body, train your soul, train your spirit in a way that you're trying to get a result to come to answers for yourself.
7:28
Albert Butler: So what is practice?
7:30
Albert Butler: Practice is when you go out and go out with what like-minded people, when you work with a coach, when you work with a mentor, when you work with someone who knows it, who has been in it, who has experience, and you go into them with your training so they can fine-tune your training.
7:46
Albert Butler: So you can come to those final answers of the questions that you have.
7:50
Albert Butler: So what's the work?
7:52
Albert Butler: The work is fun.
7:53
Albert Butler: The work is the game.
7:54
Albert Butler: The work is the arena.
7:55
Albert Butler: The work is when it's time to show off all that training and all that practice.
8:00
Albert Butler: And it's enjoyable because you get to show the world how great you really are.
8:04
Albert Butler: So in each component of that, you have to train, plan, and review.
8:09
Albert Butler: If I'm sorry, train, train, act, and review inside of your training.
8:12
Albert Butler: You got to plan, act, review inside of your practice, and you got to plan, act, review inside of your work.
8:18
Albert Butler: You have to do a review all through those stages.
8:21
Albert Butler: Because if you don't, you're going to miss something along the way.
8:24
Albert Butler: And that's going to give you the opportunity to make it better every single time.
8:27
Albert Butler: So train, practice, work, and then plan, act, review.
8:32
Albert Butler: It all goes together for the culmination of a development process that's continuous.
8:37
Albert Butler: And it's not something you do one time, it's something that you do on a daily basis.
8:41
Jeanne: That's fantastic.
8:42
Jeanne: So I know that uh in development and technology, they have this agile kind of mindset where you do something similar.
8:51
Jeanne: You have short little sprints and you move forward.
8:54
Jeanne: But I think you're tying it together in a different way, even better.
8:58
Jeanne: Okay, so I'm thinking off on another question.
9:01
Jeanne: What happens when you get to a review and you find out this ain't working?
9:06
Jeanne: And you know, what kind of adjustments do you take?
9:09
Jeanne: There's is there another framework in there that says, okay, I've done this and I've done this, and now I have to say, scrap it.
9:17
Albert Butler: The wonderful thing about that is that there's this concept that floats around in every entrepreneurial scene that's called the minimal value of product.
9:24
Albert Butler: Well, the minimum value service, the minimum value person, the minimal value experience.
9:30
Albert Butler: You want to have that because you want to be in a position where you can take something and put the minimal amount into it and get the feedback from it.
9:39
Albert Butler: So you can scrap it.
9:40
Albert Butler: So you can go back to the drawing board.
9:42
Albert Butler: It's very, very important.
9:44
Albert Butler: A lot of people miss that piece.
9:46
Albert Butler: And a lot of people get disheartened because they they put something together and they thought it was going to work and it didn't.
9:51
Albert Butler: Well, guess what?
9:52
Albert Butler: You learned the lesson.
9:53
Albert Butler: It did work because you learned the lesson.
9:56
Albert Butler: It gave you the opportunity to see something that you had an idea.
10:01
Albert Butler: You took it to market, or you took it to someone else.
10:03
Albert Butler: Let them see it, let them try it.
10:05
Albert Butler: And it didn't turn out like you thought it would.
10:07
Albert Butler: But guess what?
10:09
Albert Butler: You learn why it didn't turn out like you thought it would.
10:11
Albert Butler: So you get a chance to go back to the drawing board and readjust and then do it again.
10:16
Albert Butler: And then readjust and then do it again.
10:19
Albert Butler: Before you know it, it's going to work.
10:22
Albert Butler: And just because it didn't work the first time doesn't mean that it's not going to work the second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth time.
10:27
Albert Butler: But if you stop along the way, you will never know if your idea was going to be what it's supposed to be.
10:33
Jeanne: Yeah, that was going to be my follow-up question.
10:36
Jeanne: Uh, when do people stop too soon?
10:39
Jeanne: I guess you just don't know.
10:41
Albert Butler: You don't know.
10:42
Albert Butler: You don't know.
10:43
Jeanne: But I guess if their funds are depleted and they they just can't go forward, I guess, you know, they can stop then.
10:51
Jeanne: But it's the shame that right around the corner there might have been that one breakthrough.
10:56
Albert Butler: That one breakthrough that if you just would have just leaned into it a little bit more and then boom.
11:03
Albert Butler: And once they once that boom happens, there's no stopping it.
11:08
Albert Butler: There's no it's motivational to a certain point.
11:12
Albert Butler: But I don't like to lean in so much motivation because motivation comes and goes, is discipline.
11:18
Albert Butler: If you're gonna be disciplined and you're gonna be consistent, that is the superpower that you need to have.
11:24
Albert Butler: Because if you're disciplined about it, no matter what the world tells you, and the world's gonna tell you a lot of stuff, no matter what the world tells you.
11:31
Albert Butler: Stay consistent, stay disciplined, and you're gonna reap what you're gonna reap what you put your purpose in, which what you put your energy into to define to get to your purpose.
11:40
Jeanne: Yeah, that's good.
11:41
Jeanne: I like it.
11:42
Jeanne: I I do think you're right about the discipline versus the motivation.
11:46
Jeanne: I mean, just in a simplistic term, like, okay, I'm motivated to walk my dog, but I'm not uh disciplined enough to go where as far as he needs to.
11:57
Jeanne: Yes, I love that.
12:04
Jeanne: You're you're really like uh building something that's um very workable, but covering all aspects of what people need to do to get a viable business going.
12:15
Jeanne: I love that.
12:16
Albert Butler: That's right.
12:16
Albert Butler: And not just a viable business.
12:18
Albert Butler: This is really for the viable person.
12:20
Albert Butler: You know, advocate heavily that um you have to scale yourself before you can scale a business.
12:26
Albert Butler: And I'll go one step further.
12:28
Albert Butler: You have to scale yourself so you can scale your family.
12:32
Albert Butler: Then you can scale a business.
12:34
Albert Butler: Then you can take on these huge endeavors.
12:37
Albert Butler: Because the world in the world is it's hard.
12:39
Albert Butler: And you have to collectively understand that I have to be the whole on the inside for all the rejection I'm gonna get on the outside.
12:47
Albert Butler: And when that rejection comes on the outside, because I'm whole on the inside, I can keep going.
12:52
Albert Butler: Because the narrative out there is gonna be a whole, it can become a lot louder with a lot of noise if the narrative on the inside does not have the focus that you need to push forward.
13:02
Albert Butler: So scale yourself first, work on self first, understand that you have to be a whole person so you can take on this world that we're in.
13:10
Jeanne: That's wonderful advice.
13:11
Jeanne: I appreciate that.
13:12
Jeanne: I know the listeners will too.
13:14
Jeanne: All right, more questions I have for you.
13:17
Jeanne: So um, you're a CPA, you earned your MBA with a perfect 4.0, and you're also a father and coach.
13:25
Jeanne: How has fatherhood shaped the way you think about money and leadership?
13:30
Albert Butler: So while I have four children.
13:32
Albert Butler: I have a son who's 19, I have a daughter who's 17, I have two 12-year-old daughters, they're they're twins, and uh being a father, well, I'm it it makes me pause, Gina, because the responsibility, the obligation, and the honor to be a father, to be a husband, to be that one who that's the champion for your family is is one that I have covered ever since day one.
13:58
Albert Butler: And I'm not gonna sugarcoat your audience and tell them that I was perfect walking into this.
14:03
Albert Butler: No.
14:03
Albert Butler: Extreme learning experiences is an extreme journey.
14:07
Albert Butler: So much so I wrote a book about it.
14:09
Albert Butler: And in the book, I really go into detail about my own personal walk and things that I have that I've experienced to give a level of a of a guide for my children that gives a gives scripture, it gives quotes, and it gives advice from a father to his children of different life living life endeavors that you're going to walk into, from health and fitness to wisdom along the way, to perseverance, to a value system that you can believe in, all the way down to traveling around the world and how do you deal with money.
14:45
Albert Butler: And those things are so critical because they don't teach you those things in school.
14:51
Albert Butler: You have to learn those things at the kitchen table.
14:53
Albert Butler: And some people don't have the privilege of having someone to be that that patriarch or to be that nature for them to give them that love of advice.
15:03
Albert Butler: That's the only reason why I wrote the book as well, too.
15:06
Albert Butler: It helps everybody.
15:07
Albert Butler: If you ever in a position where you don't have a father, where you lost your father too soon, where you play the role of mother and father, the the book that I wrote life, it it helps you with that love of advice.
15:20
Albert Butler: So in my own walk with my children, I have tried my best to stay grounded in foundational family values that have been passed on to me from my parents and my grandparents and my aunts and my uncles and and all those wonderful stories that they've told me at the kitchen table that I can instill in my children.
15:40
Albert Butler: So it's a journey.
15:44
Jeanne: Well, I know I I agree with you.
15:46
Jeanne: When you start to become a parent, you're not prepared.
15:49
Jeanne: It's like no manual there.
15:51
Jeanne: I mean, they used to say, these are the baby books, follow these at age, whatever they should be doing this, but that just doesn't get to the core of it, does it?
16:01
Albert Butler: Not at all.
16:02
Jeanne: So your book is going to be super valuable for a lot of people.
16:05
Jeanne: I just feel it, you know, already you're using it in your life.
16:09
Jeanne: So I think that's a fantastic.
16:12
Jeanne: But you're going to tell us more about how to get that.
16:14
Albert Butler: Yes.
16:15
Jeanne: Another question: if someone listening today feels financially overwhelmed, what's the first practical step you would tell them to take?
16:24
Albert Butler: I will tell you 100% to know your wise and why you feel financially overwhelmed.
16:29
Albert Butler: Every decision that you've made today is the reason why you are in the position you are today, be it good, be it bad, be it indifferent, you're still a culmination of the decisions that you've made in life.
16:39
Albert Butler: Now, all of us start from a different starting line.
16:42
Albert Butler: That is very, very true.
16:43
Albert Butler: But as you start from that starting line, you have to make sure you make a decision for your future self, not for your today's self.
16:49
Albert Butler: I call it living through the decades.
16:52
Albert Butler: You have to plan long term, not for tomorrow, not for next year, but 10, 20, 30, 40, and for those of us that are younger, now 50 years into the future.
17:04
Albert Butler: Why?
17:05
Albert Butler: Because if you begin from that perspective, you're beginning in a space where you're starting to know your purpose and where you're trying to go.
17:12
Albert Butler: So becoming financially overwhelmed is based off of knowing where you are as a person.
17:18
Albert Butler: And how are you focused on going to where you're trying to go?
17:22
Albert Butler: That's going to help unoverwhelm you.
17:24
Albert Butler: Because a lot of times decisions come along us along the way, and we say yes to things that we probably truly shouldn't say yes to.
17:31
Albert Butler: We should probably say no.
17:32
Albert Butler: Because if it doesn't align up with that vision for where I'm going, it doesn't support my purpose.
17:38
Albert Butler: And when I say yes to things that don't support my purpose, I can become overwhelmed.
17:43
Albert Butler: I can become financially overwhelmed, which means I'm going to become mentally overwhelmed, emotionally overwhelmed, spiritually overwhelmed.
17:49
Albert Butler: The dominoes just keep falling.
17:52
Albert Butler: So you have to draw a line on the sand and know where you're trying to go.
17:55
Jeanne: You're making me feel convicted of all the stuff I have in my hobby room over there.
18:01
Jeanne: That I should have thought about.
18:05
Jeanne: Do I really need that?
18:06
Albert Butler: Do I really need that, right?
18:07
Albert Butler: Do I really need it?
18:09
Jeanne: Yeah.
18:10
Jeanne: Well, I like to say I have it.
18:12
Albert Butler: Right.
18:13
Albert Butler: I I am notorious that every six months or so I will go through my house and go through my closet.
18:19
Albert Butler: That's the if I haven't worn it in the not been in the past six months or two a year, I'm not going to.
18:25
Albert Butler: So I need to go ahead and make more room because the blessings are going to continue to come in.
18:30
Albert Butler: If I don't make room for the new blessings, I'm going to be holding on to all these old things, and I need to go ahead and pass it on to bless somebody else.
18:37
Albert Butler: So I'm constantly cleaning out my closet.
18:39
Albert Butler: My wife goes back and forth.
18:41
Albert Butler: Like she likes to pack, she likes to keep stuff.
18:43
Albert Butler: I'm like, I'm no, let's get rid of it.
18:44
Albert Butler: Get rid of it.
18:45
Albert Butler: Clean out the closet, clean out the garage.
18:47
Albert Butler: Let's go ahead and give it away.
18:48
Albert Butler: Give it away.
18:49
Albert Butler: Because you're giving it away, you're going to bless somebody, which is a real blessing in itself.
18:53
Jeanne: Yeah, that's very true.
18:54
Jeanne: That's very true.
18:55
Jeanne: Yeah, I think I've heard that before.
18:57
Jeanne: I can't remember what speaker said that, but um, yeah, I should take that advice.
19:02
Jeanne: I haven't done that at one point.
19:05
Jeanne: Well, this was a while ago, but I remember when we moved one time and I said, I wore that in college.
19:11
Jeanne: And I'm like, oh my gosh.
19:14
Albert Butler: Right.
19:15
Jeanne: Why do I have it?
19:16
Jeanne: I know.
19:19
Jeanne: I really don't know.
19:20
Jeanne: He still has this stupid hat he brought from Sweden when we first got married, and it's like a bumblebee looking hat, and it was leather and everything.
19:29
Jeanne: And he still keeps that thing.
19:31
Jeanne: I'm like, where what are you gonna do with that?
19:33
Jeanne: It's the ugliest thing.
19:35
Jeanne: He's like, I keep it because it's ugly, and it tells me not to buy on a whim.
19:41
Albert Butler: Right.
19:42
Albert Butler: Those sentimental things, though, it's interesting because you wind up collecting so many sentimental things that have a story behind them as well, too.
19:50
Albert Butler: I have a lot of those sentimental things as well.
19:53
Albert Butler: But what I do is that I'll I'll take a clipping up.
19:55
Albert Butler: My grandmother used to do this.
19:57
Albert Butler: She'll take a clipping of a shirt or a clipping of a blanket or something, and she'll take it and make a new blanket out of it.
20:03
Albert Butler: Do that a lot.
20:05
Albert Butler: And you still have that sentimental thought behind it, but the same token, you can go in and still clean out the closet as well, too.
20:11
Albert Butler: So that's a that's a habit that um I don't sew, but I but it's something that uh she used to do that that was a sentimental thing for me.
20:18
Albert Butler: And it's it's made me think about being able to clean continues to clean out the closet all the time.
20:22
Jeanne: Well, I do sew and make quilts and stuff, but there was a big business one time um in Georgia, but I think they've just shut down, called Shirt Off Your Back Quilting, and they used to take people's t-shirts from when they were little kids all the way up to out of college and make quilts out of them so that you had your memories that you could sleep with.
20:47
Jeanne: I never kept t-shirts that long, and I always wore them out.
20:52
Albert Butler: Well, I'll transfer to have a t-shirt.
20:54
Albert Butler: I used to run track when I was younger.
20:56
Albert Butler: I have a t-shirt from a track um event that I won from high school that's still in my closet right now, and every time I go through it and I see it, and that those memories from from way yesterday kind of that just come flashing back.
21:09
Albert Butler: But I look at them like I should really just take this t-shirt and do what my grandmother used to do and cut this thing up and just make a little quote out of it.
21:17
Albert Butler: But it's still sitting in the back of my closet from almost years ago.
21:22
Jeanne: That may be why I kept that college thing, but it's gone now, thank goodness.
21:26
Jeanne: And one last question here before we play our two truths in a lie.
21:30
Jeanne: Uh if there's one takeaway you want every listener to walk away with today, what would it be?
21:36
Albert Butler: You know, that's a wonderful question.
21:38
Albert Butler: And and the the takeaways are what I call the items that you put into your toolkit for when turbulence takes place.
21:45
Albert Butler: You know, life is turbulent.
21:48
Albert Butler: And because it is, there is a valley that we all get into.
21:52
Albert Butler: We have our ups, we have our downs, but sometimes we don't ever talk about the in between.
21:57
Albert Butler: And the in-between is that space when you're railing.
21:59
Albert Butler: That that cause of a break of a breakthrough.
22:02
Albert Butler: And those are the moments when things get to be really, really, really hard.
22:05
Albert Butler: So I have a quote that I share as well.
22:07
Albert Butler: It's called I can because I will.
22:09
Albert Butler: I will because I can.
22:11
Albert Butler: I don't say can't because I can.
22:14
Albert Butler: I am a champion.
22:16
Albert Butler: I train like a champion.
22:18
Albert Butler: I practice like a champion.
22:19
Albert Butler: I work like a champion.
22:21
Albert Butler: Therefore, I will win like a champion.
22:24
Albert Butler: Nobody can beat me but me.
22:27
Albert Butler: That quote has helped me so much.
22:31
Albert Butler: It has helped my children.
22:33
Albert Butler: It has helped my family.
22:34
Albert Butler: And I like to share it with the world because nobody really talks to you about being in the in-between.
22:41
Albert Butler: And those are the moments when you have to really pull yourself up and really push through and know that you can because you will.
22:50
Albert Butler: Nobody can stop you but you.
22:52
Albert Butler: And if you stop, that's when you lose.
22:55
Albert Butler: So don't stop.
22:56
Albert Butler: Keep pushing.
22:58
Albert Butler: And you're gonna make it.
22:59
Albert Butler: You'll be great.
23:00
Albert Butler: I can because I will.
23:02
Jeanne: I love that.
23:02
Jeanne: Did you is that your quote?
23:04
Jeanne: You haven't it's not someone else's?
23:07
Jeanne: Because I'm I'm hearing like this rock song coming out of it or something.
23:11
Jeanne: Like a kid.
23:16
Albert Butler: Queen, we will rock you.
23:18
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, that is a that whole quote is like a rock song to me.
23:22
Speaker: Like everybody can get behind it, like a battle cry or something.
23:25
Speaker: I love it.
23:26
Albert Butler: But no, that's that's one that I I that's that's an original.
23:29
Albert Butler: I created that.
23:30
Albert Butler: Um, and it came out of a conversation with my father.
23:32
Albert Butler: And um, I write about it in the book as well, too, where he and I were, I was, I was much younger.
23:38
Albert Butler: This is this has to be 20 plus years ago now.
23:41
Albert Butler: He and I were sitting talking on his back porch, and I was coming to him in a very frustrated space that I was in, and I wanted to quit my job, and I I wanted he and I to start a business together.
23:51
Albert Butler: He was in the later part of his life, and he told me with very strong conviction, I can't do that.
23:58
Albert Butler: And it it shook me because this is my hero, this is my guy, this is this is a person that I believe can do anything, and because of him, I felt like I can do anything.
24:08
Albert Butler: And when he said I can't, I just was, you know, internally devastated.
24:12
Albert Butler: I respected him in his in his words, and we kind of ended the conversation, but I walked away from that saying, I can do anything.
24:20
Albert Butler: I can because I will.
24:21
Albert Butler: My willpower is stronger than anything out there, and I can do it.
24:25
Albert Butler: I didn't understand at the time because I was so young his reasons for saying he couldn't do something.
24:30
Albert Butler: And he was more so thinking about not he and I together, but he was thinking about himself that he would not want to put any burden on me as his son.
24:39
Albert Butler: He would want to try to bear the burden completely.
24:41
Albert Butler: And from his mindset, he was thinking if he and I do a business together, he would have to cover me completely, cover him completely, and make sure it's going to be successful.
24:50
Albert Butler: And he did not want me to go through the heartache of not being able to be successful.
24:55
Albert Butler: And that's the reason why he said, I can't in that moment, and that was, you know, I'm I'm 48 right now.
25:02
Albert Butler: He was, yeah, at the time, I think I might have been 22.
25:05
Albert Butler: I didn't understand that at that time.
25:07
Albert Butler: I do now, and I didn't at that time, but I can because I will came from that conversation, and I've used it as a basis to not just for myself, but again, for my children and for everybody in my family to push through and pull yourself up and do whatever, do whatever it takes to make sure your dreams come true.
25:24
Jeanne: Very awesome.
25:25
Jeanne: I hate to pull us away from this because this is all such great information, but I I don't want us to run out of time because you had some fantastic uh headlines here.
25:34
Jeanne: So it's time for us to transition to our uh my favorite part of the well, not always my favorite part, but I I just enjoy it to play Two Truths and a Lie with our guest.
25:45
Jeanne: Um so for those listening for the first time, Albert has given me three headlines from his life.
25:51
Jeanne: Two are true, one is not, or it's a twisted truth.
25:55
Jeanne: I don't know which one it is.
25:57
Jeanne: And you don't know which it is, so you can play along with us.
26:01
Jeanne: And he won't tell us until he walks us through all the stories.
26:04
Jeanne: So I am going to read out his headlines, and then we will start the explanations.
26:13
Jeanne: This episode is sponsored by Rebel 180, the home of brave pivots and fresh starts.
26:21
Jeanne: Rebel 180 is all about helping you rediscover what's possible when you stop settling and start listening to that little tug inside that says, Life can be different.
26:31
Jeanne: Whether you're navigating a career shift, dreaming about a new direction, or standing at the crossroads wondering if it's time for your own 180-degree turn, Rebel 180 is a reminder you don't need permission to change your story.
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27:15
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27:20
Jeanne: Thank you to our sponsors.
27:22
Jeanne: So, Albert, he said that from the ICU to the boardroom, how a health crisis forced Albert to redefine what success actually means.
27:36
Jeanne: His number two story is as a CPA who walked into a company on the brink, Albert uncovered millions in financial chaos and had to decide whether to fix it or walk away.
27:48
Jeanne: And his last one, number three, Albert almost quit accounting forever after his first five years in public accounting.
27:55
Jeanne: So I'm going to guess which one it is, so don't tell me uh until after you explain them all.
28:01
Jeanne: But uh I think uh number three may be a lie.
28:06
Jeanne: I think you really have a passion for accounting.
28:09
Jeanne: I don't know that you would have quit that quickly because you're not a quitter, but uh, don't tell me that might I might be totally off.
28:16
Jeanne: So hey, start walking us through those.
28:18
Jeanne: Tell us about number one and the ICU.
28:21
Albert Butler: Number one is a very powerful moment in my life.
28:24
Albert Butler: Uh tell you that when you get to a certain age, I advocate this and I was talking to someone about this over the past this past weekend.
28:32
Albert Butler: Life truly begins when you make when you turn 40.
28:35
Albert Butler: And this is why I say that between 40 and 60, life really happens to people.
28:40
Albert Butler: When you're in your 20s, things are going great, you got all this energy, vitality, you think you're invincible.
28:48
Albert Butler: When you turn 30, you realize you really don't have all the answers.
28:51
Albert Butler: You're still trying to figure it out.
28:53
Albert Butler: You probably have started a family and you're just going through it right at the moment, but you're pushing through.
28:59
Albert Butler: When you turn 40, certain things take place.
29:02
Albert Butler: If you've had kids, your kids are probably starting to get older, or they're they're in their middle school age or high school ages, and they're getting ready to leave the house somewhere, somewhere in that space.
29:11
Albert Butler: Also, your parents are getting older, and if they're still with you, or they or they're they're getting elderly, and you gotta kind of step up there to try to help take care of them as well too.
29:21
Albert Butler: You might have lost your job, or you might have gotten a new job, or you might have gotten a big promotion.
29:26
Albert Butler: A lot of life is happening in this 40 to 60 window.
29:29
Albert Butler: Another key thing takes place.
29:31
Albert Butler: A health scare for you personally can take place where you might have an issue with your heart, kidneys, liver.
29:39
Albert Butler: For me, my scare came in in a myriad of different situations where I had a blood clot in my leg.
29:45
Albert Butler: And that that blood clot really resonated from a narrowing artery inside of my leg as well, too.
29:52
Albert Butler: And it just caused a domino effect of the blood flow inside my body that I didn't even realize that I had, and it was matriculating for years before it became serious enough to require me to have surgery.
30:02
Albert Butler: So those things are um they build up in that window of 40 to 60.
30:08
Albert Butler: I'm a man of of, again, like I said, four children.
30:11
Albert Butler: My parents are no longer with me.
30:13
Albert Butler: I've started my practice and I've been in I've been in practice for for several years now, and those life things just happen.
30:21
Albert Butler: And especially when something happens to you personally and from a from a health perspective, especially when you've tried to be healthy your entire life, it really has a paradigm-shifting moment that takes place inside of you to really think differently about life.
30:37
Jeanne: Oh, okay.
30:38
Jeanne: Well, it's surprising though, because you talked about being a sports person, but it even sports people get those blood clots because they know there is a hurricane, Carolyn Hurricane Tockey guy that we love because his last name is Anderson spelled, he's Danish, spelled just like ours.
30:56
Jeanne: So we have jerseys with Anderson on it.
30:58
Jeanne: And I know that during some of his hockey career, he's had problems with blood clots.
31:03
Jeanne: So they're not they're not something to ignore for sure of that.
31:07
Jeanne: Not at all.
31:08
Jeanne: So I can imagine that was a big scare for you.
31:11
Jeanne: So I'm glad um, I don't know if that was true or not, so I'll just go ahead and not make too many comments on that.
31:17
Albert Butler: Okay.
31:18
Jeanne: Tell us about number two, about that one's wild because uncovered millions and god chaos.
31:24
Albert Butler: Yes, yes.
31:25
Albert Butler: So it's interesting in this case.
31:27
Albert Butler: Um, I can't name the company name, but I will tell you that when you have an idea and you push for it and that it actually works, all of a sudden you start making all this money, but you don't have the proper infrastructure to support it.
31:44
Albert Butler: This is more one of my other um topics I talk about called the five muscles of enterprise really takes place.
31:51
Albert Butler: Those five muscles are leadership, operations, sales, IT infrastructure, and accounting, the heartbeat of it all.
32:00
Albert Butler: When those five muscles are not trained properly and then and that that entrepreneur is not set up in a way to really maximize those five muscles, and you don't have a support system around you for the areas that you're not strong in, you wind up scaling chaos.
32:16
Albert Butler: Like me, I come in, I try to do an audit, or I try to help you with your taxes, or I try to help you with your financial statements to get all those things together.
32:24
Albert Butler: And you realize that, oh my gosh, this might be unfixable.
32:30
Albert Butler: That happens.
32:31
Albert Butler: And you know, I'll tell you, that happens more often than not.
32:34
Albert Butler: That happens more often than not, where people just have an idea, but they never built the infrastructure around that idea to make it really, really scalable.
32:42
Albert Butler: And the idea works, and then millions and money starts coming in, and more money, more problems.
32:48
Albert Butler: More more problems, more chaos.
32:50
Albert Butler: It happens a lot.
32:52
Jeanne: Wow.
32:52
Jeanne: Yeah.
32:53
Jeanne: I know that a lot of audit I've been around and worked with auditors before when they come in, and but it hasn't been about money as much as it's been about processes, you know, and things that we had to fix around processes to keep us from getting in the chaos.
33:09
Jeanne: But there, yes, I can see where that would have been a horrible thing to uncover.
33:15
Jeanne: So why did you walk did you fix it or walk away?
33:19
Albert Butler: I'm a I'm a fighter, so I fixed it.
33:22
Jeanne: That's it, I guess.
33:22
Albert Butler: But I'm gonna say that's good.
33:23
Albert Butler: But stay there for a second because you made a powerful word just now.
33:27
Albert Butler: Process.
33:27
Albert Butler: Companies that don't have documented processes is where the system falls apart because they really don't have a system.
33:35
Albert Butler: If you are an entrepreneur and you do not have your policies documented, you don't have your processes documented, that means that you have to stay a part of that business because if you ever was to step away, that business will collapse.
33:51
Albert Butler: You have to make sure that you're running your business like you like you have the idea that I want somebody to buy this business for me one day.
33:58
Albert Butler: And nobody's gonna buy a business if you don't have processes and policies documented.
34:03
Albert Butler: So they're very, very important and very, very critical for success.
34:06
Jeanne: Absolutely.
34:07
Jeanne: I totally agree with you on that.
34:09
Jeanne: Yeah, and I've been in the most of my career is fixing, fixing, fixing.
34:13
Jeanne: So uh let's see.
34:16
Jeanne: Number three.
34:17
Albert Butler: Number three, I'm not gonna tell you, but um the holy grail of being an accountant is passing the CPA exam.
34:25
Albert Butler: You you have to pass the exam, pass the exam, pass the exam.
34:29
Albert Butler: And when I began my career in public accounting, it's required that you take the exam every time that was that it was offered.
34:36
Albert Butler: Now, this is gosh, 20 how old am I?
34:40
Albert Butler: 26 years ago now.
34:42
Albert Butler: And um back then the exam was written.
34:46
Albert Butler: It was given twice a year, and you had to go in and and in this huge auditorium and everybody's there together, and you have to go take the parts.
34:54
Albert Butler: Um, it's an eight-hour process over two days.
34:57
Albert Butler: And for the death of me, I just could not get the exam passed.
35:03
Albert Butler: And as I was matriculating through, I'm doing great work at work, but I'm struggling to pass this test.
35:09
Albert Butler: I'm also getting ready to start a family, but I'm struggling to pass this test.
35:13
Albert Butler: So I got to a certain point, I was like, you know what?
35:16
Albert Butler: I think this might not be for me.
35:18
Albert Butler: And I think that I might just go and do something different and walk away from public accounting or accounting as a whole and just go a different route in life.
35:27
Albert Butler: So that was number three.
35:29
Jeanne: Okay.
35:29
Jeanne: Well, I I actually saw something the other day.
35:32
Jeanne: I don't usually like to name drop people, but I have already, uh Anderson, the hockey player.
35:38
Jeanne: Now I'm gonna say Kim Kardashian, because she I saw some expose or something where she was trying to pass her bar exam, but she had bypassed everything to get there.
35:48
Jeanne: She had only done some kind of internship with a law firm.
35:52
Jeanne: She hadn't gone to school and she law school to learn, you know, and then she was trying to just pass it and she had failed it up like three or four times.
36:01
Jeanne: And yeah.
36:02
Jeanne: It's hard to pass these things because they design them to make sure that you either can think through something, you know, that you you actually know the answer, but they make it twist it in a way where you have to unpack it and then answer correctly after you've done that.
36:23
Jeanne: So it's a lot of logic in there, whether it's a multiple choice or true and false, it doesn't matter.
36:29
Jeanne: They have twisted those exams, so they they're terrible.
36:33
Albert Butler: Yes, yes.
36:34
Jeanne: I don't know if she'll pass it or not, but I'm not gonna follow that.
36:37
Albert Butler: No, it's it's it's special because it's required because you're working with the public.
36:42
Jeanne: Right.
36:43
Albert Butler: You you're working with people who are not experts.
36:46
Albert Butler: So having that gatekeep of making that exam, this is at least from a from a public accounting perspective, is supposed to be hard.
36:54
Albert Butler: It's supposed to be something that you have to really fight for.
36:57
Albert Butler: Because if if you didn't ever and everybody could do it, how would you really be serving the public the right way?
37:03
Albert Butler: I represent an industry that is giving back to the public to understand something that they are not working with on a daily basis.
37:10
Albert Butler: I have to be an expert in that space because people are coming to me because they trust.
37:15
Albert Butler: They trust me based on my credentials, and they trust me based on my experience, and they trust me based from that point in building a relationship with them to help them be a steward of their financial situation.
37:26
Albert Butler: So that gatekeep is critical and important to make that exam as hard as it's supposed to be because you're working with the public.
37:34
Albert Butler: Absolutely.
37:36
Jeanne: All right then.
37:36
Jeanne: So here's the big reveal which one was the lie or kind of twisted truth.
37:41
Albert Butler: Drum roll is number one is the twisted truth.
37:48
Jeanne: Okay.
37:49
Albert Butler: Number one.
37:50
Jeanne: Great.
37:51
Jeanne: I'm glad you weren't sick.
37:54
Albert Butler: Twisted truth.
37:56
Jeanne: What was the truth?
37:57
Albert Butler: Twisted truth.
37:58
Albert Butler: And and the the truth, the truth in number one is that I was sick.
38:02
Albert Butler: Everything I just explained to you was the truth.
38:04
Albert Butler: But the ICU piece, that wasn't related to my mother.
38:09
Jeanne: Oh, okay.
38:10
Albert Butler: That was related to my mother.
38:11
Albert Butler: My mother did pass away in this instance, and that health crisis that she went through was a major, major shift for me in that moment as I sat with her as she was getting ready to leave us.
38:27
Albert Butler: And when you go through that type of experience with someone who's so close to you, everything that matters comes on the table in that moment.
38:35
Albert Butler: And the last words my mother told me was that she loved me.
38:38
Albert Butler: And that's a life.
38:39
Jeanne: Oh, that's nice.
38:40
Albert Butler: So number one is very special to me, it's very emotional to me.
38:43
Albert Butler: My dead, my I dedicate my book to her in every aspect of it because she's the one who really had that entrepreneurial spirit, and she's my father, my father was my champion, but my mother was my hero.
38:57
Albert Butler: And that's the best connection I can actually put because those two people showed me this the tale of two different coins on how to live life.
39:05
Albert Butler: And I respect them and I love them for every aspect of what they've been able to give to me while they were here with me.
39:10
Jeanne: That's a great tribute to your parents because a lot of people don't feel that way.
39:14
Jeanne: They just kind of don't give their parents um respect at all, and all of the hard work that they poured into their kids, they just kind of walk away from it and think, uh, I don't need them in my life anymore.
39:28
Jeanne: I mean, that's a big phenomenon now, but you know, I'm just blown away by the tribute you've just given your parents.
39:35
Jeanne: I think it's excellent.
39:36
Albert Butler: Thank you.
39:36
Albert Butler: Thank you so much.
39:38
Jeanne: So this was so much fun.
39:39
Jeanne: I mean, your stories were really very thought-provoking.
39:44
Jeanne: And I know people are gonna want to get in touch with you because everything you've said is just like so impactful to people that are working through finances in their businesses, financing in their home, um, just learning how to um build their family up.
40:00
Jeanne: I mean, all of that.
40:01
Jeanne: So I'm gonna show on my screen here how that people can get in touch with you.
40:07
Jeanne: Awesome.
40:07
Jeanne: You also have already said that you have the quote accounting is a heartbeat of business and the key to personal finance success.
40:15
Jeanne: You also had that great rock song.
40:17
Jeanne: I think you should get somebody to put that to music.
40:20
Jeanne: It's awesome.
40:21
Albert Butler: I think I will do that, yes.
40:23
Jeanne: Yeah, I know.
40:24
Jeanne: Yeah, I don't know.
40:25
Jeanne: Just for the fun of it, go to Fire and get somebody to make it into a song.
40:30
Jeanne: Um, but here are all the ways that people can get in touch with you.
40:35
Jeanne: I'm gonna have all of these links in the actual transcript and for the show notes.
40:41
Jeanne: Um, you actually have a call to action you'd like to present to folks if they'd like to get in touch with you.
40:47
Albert Butler: Again, 100%.
40:48
Albert Butler: If if you if you do want to get in contact, I'm I'm so readily available all over.
40:52
Albert Butler: If you just Google Albert Butler CPA, all of these social links will pop up.
40:57
Albert Butler: Also, the book Life is available on Amazon right now.
41:01
Albert Butler: The ebook, the paperback, the horror copy, and the audiobook are all available.
41:07
Albert Butler: And I make a very special thing that I make the ebook only 99 cents if you really want, because I I want to get that out.
41:13
Albert Butler: I really want people to be able to read it, and I don't want money to be any a a reason why you don't pick it up.
41:18
Albert Butler: So pick up the book, have a read at it, and I think it will be something that's transformational for your life.
41:24
Jeanne: Fantastic.
41:24
Jeanne: So it's so funny to hear you say it's only 99 cents, and I don't want the finance to be a hindrance for you to get it.
41:31
Jeanne: So that's very heartfelt because here you are a financial person, and you're telling people how to be accountable in their financial careers.
41:40
Jeanne: So you're not doing this for making money, you're doing this to help.
41:44
Albert Butler: Just to help people.
41:45
Albert Butler: The reason why I do what I do is because I help people.
41:48
Albert Butler: I have, and it's a strong passion.
41:50
Albert Butler: I literally have individuals walk through my doors with an idea, but don't understand the business aspect of trying to grow that idea, and I help them grow something from nothing and give back to the world.
42:02
Albert Butler: It's a beautiful thing, and I've done it many, many times.
42:05
Albert Butler: And it's something that I take pride in.
42:06
Albert Butler: I go home and I smile and I sleep well at night because I help people.
42:10
Jeanne: That's fantastic.
42:11
Jeanne: Well, thank you so much for joining the show.
42:14
Jeanne: And for those listening, this is your Admiral of the Unexpected, Jeanne Anderson, and I wish you all the best and smooth sailing until we meet again in the next episode.
42:26
Jeanne: Thank you, Albert.
42:27
Speaker 2: Thank you, Jeanne.
42:28
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
42:29
Speaker 2: Bye-bye.
42:30
Jeanne: Thanks for joining me on Project Candor, where the doors are open, the stories are unexpected, and the treasure is always real.
42:37
Jeanne: If today's episode made you laugh or think, follow the show and share it with your crew.
42:42
Jeanne: Otherwise, I might just make you swab the deck.
42:45
Jeanne: I'm Jeanne Anderson, your Admiral of the Unexpected.
42:49
Jeanne: See you on the next voyage.