Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Removing the Masks: Tim Perdion's Journey through Personal Challenges to Purpose-Driven Leadership

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Removing the Masks: Tim Perdion's Journey through Personal Challenges to Purpose-Driven Leadership · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
0:08
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:11
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:14
adversity. My name is Anthony Cotispodi,
0:17
and today's guest is Tim Perdean, director of practice
0:20
management and service delivery Technology at Ascend Partner
0:24
Services. Founded in 2023 and based in
0:28
Arlington, VA, Ascend is reshaping the accounting
0:32
industry by empowering entrepreneurial CPA firms to
0:35
grow while staying independent. Backed by Alpine investors and
0:41
already recognized as a Top 25 firm by accounting, today,
0:45
Ascend provides the resources, leadership, systems and capital
0:50
firms need to thrive without sacrificing personal service.
0:55
Tim brings over 3 decades of experience across global
0:58
accounting firms, a top 25 U.S. bank, and a Fortune 500
1:03
manufacturer. He's LED operations, risk and
1:07
technology teams as well as large scale tech
1:10
transformations. Always focused on increasing
1:13
impact, improving processes, and leading with authenticity, his
1:18
leadership approach combines strategic clarity, operational
1:22
rigor, and emotional depth, blending technical precision
1:26
with a deeply human centered philosophy.
1:28
He's a certified PMP and a former CISA and CPA.
1:33
But what sets Tim apart is his passion for building systems
1:37
that serve people, not the other way around.
1:41
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2:25
All right, back to our guest today, Director, practice
2:28
management and service delivery technology of of the SEND
2:31
partner services. Tim Perdian, thanks for making
2:34
the time to Share your story today.
2:36
Well, thanks for having me. Really looking forward to the
2:38
conversation. So Tim, you work for some big
2:41
firms early on in your career, KPMG, Pricewaterhouse, Coopers,
2:46
household names, everybody knows initially you were doing tax and
2:50
audit work and at some point made the shift more into IT,
2:54
audit and infrastructure. Talk about how that change came
2:57
about. Yeah.
3:00
So early in my career, I started out at Pricewaterhouse and as an
3:06
auditor. And what I found was I had an
3:12
interest in technology. And this was in the early 90s,
3:17
so it was a time where computers were just becoming more
3:21
significant in the workforce and in terms of the way they were
3:25
used for everyday use. So I had an opportunity to
3:30
transition into something that blended some of the business
3:33
experience I had with the technology and it really was an
3:36
emphasis on how to help companies get more value out of
3:40
their use of technology. So that was a interest that I
3:44
had from back in college. And when I worked at Price
3:48
Waterhouse, it kind of manifested into an opportunity
3:50
to make that transition in in the workplace.
3:54
OK, lots of really incredible stops along the way.
3:59
Maybe pick one that was most formidable for you before Ascend
4:03
and talk about how that experience has continued to
4:07
influence your approach to work today.
4:10
Yeah. So I think all the experience
4:13
through the time when I spent, I spent 10 years at at Goodyear
4:17
that all prepared me. But the the experience I had at
4:21
C Biz most recently before joining Ascend, I think was
4:26
probably the most instrumental. And I think it was coinciding
4:30
with like a lot of my own journey and maturity in life
4:35
and, you know, things outside of the workplace.
4:37
But it really helped me truly tap into relationships and the
4:44
power of relationships and the importance of empathy in terms
4:50
of change. And you know what, what where we
4:55
we're driving a lot of change. I could see that not everybody
4:58
had the same orientation to change.
5:01
And so I learned a lot on, you know, about people and people's
5:07
adaptability. So I think those were some of
5:10
the things that it was not just about the work, but about the
5:13
people and not about just getting stuff done, but again,
5:17
getting stuff done in a way that it was impactful on the way
5:20
people did their jobs and on the overall organization.
5:26
Is there maybe a specific story that encapsulates how you pick
5:31
up these lessons? Yeah.
5:33
So one of the things that we we did is my team was responsible
5:37
for building some analytics capabilities.
5:41
Just think about it as like dashboards of of of company
5:47
performance. You could slice and dice the,
5:51
the performance by, you know, office by service line, all the
5:56
different ways we might want to look at the business.
5:59
And we were rolling this out to a very diverse group of
6:04
practitioners, mostly accountants.
6:08
And I thought, OK, people would embrace this.
6:11
People would be excited about this.
6:13
It's going to give them access to information that they didn't
6:16
previously had. Or if they did, it would have
6:18
taken a lot of time for them to pull together their own data
6:23
through Excel and all that. The, the, some people loved it
6:28
and there's a lot of people that were like afraid of it and
6:31
didn't embrace it. So like, my logical thinking was
6:36
like, well, why wouldn't people want to embrace this?
6:38
But what it taught me or what it, what it really illuminated
6:41
is that there's a spectrum of people in their comfort level
6:45
for new things. And we had people who were just
6:49
give it to me, I'll figure it out.
6:51
And there were people who didn't want to click on something
6:53
because they thought they would break it or they just, they
6:56
said, I need training. So it led me to like, really
7:01
again, have empathy for people and recognition that not
7:06
everybody thinks the same and not everybody's orientation for
7:10
new things is the same either. And so you have to find yourself
7:15
in a position where you can meet people where they are.
7:17
You meet people where they're at, and that was like the most
7:19
significant thing. Meet people where they're at and
7:23
have patience and bring them along because you need to bring
7:28
them along versus dragging them along.
7:30
And so it's meeting people where they're at and recognizing that
7:35
it's better for all of us if people come along versus if we
7:39
leave people behind. Yeah.
7:42
So I want to spend a bulk of our time talking about what you guys
7:45
are doing at Ascend because the model is pretty interesting.
7:48
So how did the opportunity to join Ascend come?
7:51
About So I was contacted via LinkedIn by one of the
7:55
recruiters and this was a little bit over a year ago and the
8:01
model was pretty similar to what C Biz was doing in terms of
8:06
acquiring accounting firms and C Biz would put them together.
8:11
So they were part of CBIZ, but Ascend is buying them and
8:17
aggregating them. But the companies, the firms
8:20
that join Ascend, they keep their brand, they keep their
8:23
culture. So we have a stay independent
8:26
and Ascend together kind of tagline.
8:31
So industry I'm very familiar with, work I'm very familiar
8:38
with, but in a, in a different business model with like we've
8:43
got 20 firms today and we're forecasted to have 50 by the end
8:48
of 2028. So it's a very deliberate and
8:52
intentional model of aggregating firms that fit a particular
8:58
profile that we're looking for. And so it's a very exciting
9:03
business to be part of very talented people and people who
9:09
are very ambitious and motivated, who've been developed
9:15
in kind of a private, private equity world.
9:18
And, and understanding that. And then you kind of mash that
9:23
together with the accounting industry, which the they, they
9:27
could be from two different worlds, you know, private equity
9:30
and then accounting industry. But it's a beautiful kind of
9:33
combination. And what I really love about
9:36
Ascend is that it's a very people oriented, people first
9:39
type of organization, which sometimes we have to explain to
9:43
firms that we've got to get them out of the stereotypical way of
9:47
thinking about private equity. So I'd like to better understand
9:53
your approach here. Obviously in a private equity
9:55
setting, you're looking for efficiencies of scale and you're
10:00
looking to be able to apply your expertise to help these existing
10:05
firms grow. I think I see the value in
10:10
maintaining each of the individual brands, right?
10:13
Because they're known locally, you know, not always, but a lot
10:17
of accounting firms tend to have the basic clients in the local
10:20
geographic reason region. But talk to me more about first
10:28
let's go through what the profile is that you're looking
10:31
for. Who is an accounting firm that
10:33
kind of fits your mold? It's a firm that's first of all,
10:39
got an entrepreneurial mindset. So they're they're looking to
10:44
grow, they're looking to accelerate their growth and
10:49
looking for a partner for for an investment, an engine to invest
10:55
so that they can accelerate their growth versus a firm
10:59
that's looking to sell as an exit strategy.
11:05
How do you help firms grow? Well, the way Ascend approaches
11:09
it is we, we have what we call A1 like an Ascend proven process
11:15
and that process is pretty intentional where we, we take
11:19
the, the, the leader of the firm and we turn him into ACEO.
11:23
Often in accounting firms of the, the managing partner might
11:27
have a big book of business lot of clients that they serve.
11:30
Our desire is for them to have no clients and the for their
11:34
client, main client to be the firm that they that they
11:37
operate. So they're the CEO, you give
11:39
them training for that. We also identify a chief growth
11:44
officer and we place that professional into the
11:48
environment and that person is intended to help them with
11:52
operational and growth objectives so that they can
11:56
again look at ways in which they can amplify and accelerate their
12:00
growth. We also give them access to
12:05
offshore resources. We have a wholly owned offshore
12:08
center where they can get low cost, lower cost resources to
12:11
help them get better leverage in their business.
12:15
And often firms that we look for are in the 10 to $40 million
12:19
range, and they may not have had access to those kinds of
12:22
resources in the past. That makes a lot of sense.
12:27
You know, I was talking to my accountant recently and he's
12:30
struggling to find junior accountants.
12:33
You know, he's got more than enough business.
12:36
He just doesn't have the throughput to take all of it on.
12:39
And I had my business side. I've been, you know, using some
12:44
outsourced resources since the early 2000s.
12:46
And I mentioned that idea to him and it seemed kind of a little,
12:50
I don't know, scary or foreign. And so with you guys, it sounds
12:54
like you've got sort of your own established team.
12:57
So it's easier for folks to plug into.
12:59
It's sort of less unknown that might be frightening to them.
13:04
So for firms that haven't done it before, they might, they
13:08
might experience some of the same things you described from
13:11
your accountant, some reservations about how it works
13:14
and like, can I trust it? But what's nice is that when you
13:19
have a model that's working and others have gone before you, you
13:23
can, you can see that it's proven and it's working and
13:26
people can, people can trust it. They're good partners.
13:30
What's interesting is we've sent some of our firms, we've sent
13:34
some of their folks to India, to the place where they get to
13:37
actually meet the the people that will be kind of supporting
13:39
them. And you make that connection.
13:42
And now we see how real this is. It's not.
13:45
So now I have a connection with like who these people are and
13:48
you know, and their desire to help our clients just as much as
13:52
we want to. So the model does take some
13:56
adjustment for firms that maybe haven't done that before.
14:00
But the fact is that we have a model that's working, improving,
14:03
really helps accelerate people's comfort level.
14:07
So talk to me about some of the big growth levers that you're
14:09
able to help folks pull because that's part of what's going on
14:12
here, right? They, they want to bring, they
14:14
want to be part of the Ascend family because they want to
14:16
experience that growth. You want them part of the family
14:19
so you can help them grow. How do you do that?
14:21
Yeah. Well, one other thing that we do
14:23
is we give them access to capital so that they can buy
14:27
additional firms in their market, right.
14:30
So those firms? Oh, so you're not the only one
14:33
doing the acquisition. You're, you're the the firm that
14:37
you've just acquired. You're giving them the resources
14:41
now to do acquisitions locally too and that's.
14:43
Interesting those acquisitions become part of that firm.
14:46
So now those are like add, we call them add-ons.
14:50
They're they're added on to that firm.
14:52
So there's there's that growth, but there's also organic growth
14:58
and looking at ways in which we can amplify the business
15:04
development efforts, looking at ways in which we can expand
15:07
service offerings, looking at ways in which we can do more
15:11
cross selling. One of the big initiatives we
15:13
have right now is just getting to know our customers in a
15:18
really deep way. The more we know contextually
15:21
about what's going on in our, in our clients businesses and our
15:25
clients lives, we now can bring to them service offerings that
15:30
you know might match what is going on in terms of business
15:33
events that they have going on. So there's a client centric
15:37
approach to help these firms really get a little bit more
15:41
intimate with their client base to bring them services that
15:45
sometimes sell themselves. Because if I have an event, I
15:48
have to have certain services as a result of that event.
15:51
So there's a a bunch of different levers, but it's all
15:54
around trying to help them become more trusted advisors to
15:59
their clients versus just like the accountant that does maybe
16:02
an annual tax return. OK.
16:05
That was going to be my question.
16:06
I'd like to better understand the services that you guys are
16:09
providing. It sounds like it's more than
16:10
just bookkeeping and accounting and sort of prepping the returns
16:15
for the end of the year. You guys are doing more
16:18
consulting things, advising on tax strategies or M&A things.
16:23
Tell me more. Yeah, Yeah.
16:24
So there's, there's all those things in terms of advising on
16:28
business transactions that might be going on in a in a, in a
16:31
client's business. Also looking at if a client's
16:40
looking maybe to sell their business or if there's
16:43
succession things going on. So there's a lot of tax
16:45
strategy, tax planning, looking at other types of things where
16:50
you might bring specialty tax services where state and local
16:53
tax or international tax or research and development credits
16:58
and you know, more diverse services that clients might
17:02
need. So that's why we want to
17:04
understand a bit more broadly about what's going on in a, in a
17:08
client's ecosystem, in their world, so to speak, in order to
17:13
determine like what other types of strategic tax services they
17:17
may, they may need. The firms that you're acquiring,
17:22
are they specialized in particular industries?
17:27
Like do you find that their clients are of a certain revenue
17:31
size or is this just like all over the board?
17:35
Predominantly in the small to medium business market.
17:42
So we don't have firms that we acquire that are doing large
17:46
public company work. It's mostly in the small to mid,
17:50
mid range business. And what?
17:54
How do you define small to mid range?
17:59
Individuals, family office type stuff would be on the small side
18:04
to you know, you know, a hundred 250 person firm, but you know,
18:10
people, businesses and stuff like that.
18:12
So I'm not sure exactly what the top end would be in terms of
18:17
that size. But one of the things that we do
18:19
have is we have across our portfolio, we have firms that
18:25
are probably 10 million in revenue up to firms that are,
18:29
you know, 50 million in revenue. And we have firms that are in
18:33
small markets and we have firms that are in major, major
18:36
markets. So it's diverse in terms of not
18:40
only the size of the firms that we have in our portfolio, but
18:43
also there's a bit of diversity too and the clients that they
18:46
serve and the geographies that they operate in.
18:52
Tell us more specifically what your role is.
18:54
There too, So my role is practice management and service
18:58
delivery. Technology leader is to work
19:03
with the firms as they come into our environment to integrate
19:09
them into our environment from a, you know, application
19:12
standpoint. So one thing that we we focus on
19:16
is for accountants time and billing is a major system.
19:20
It's like the backbone of of how they track the work they do.
19:25
We now have all of our firms onto a standardized type of
19:30
instance of, of a particular software.
19:33
And so everybody has, let's call IT service categories.
19:39
Here's the categories of the way we catalog our services.
19:44
And everybody that would come to us would have their own catalog
19:49
of services in what they call them.
19:51
We map theirs to our so that we have a standard set of
19:56
categories and subcategories so that when we roll all this up,
20:00
we can determine how much of the different kinds of work we're
20:03
doing across all of the portfolio companies.
20:07
We also are trying to bring solutions to them that help
20:13
accelerate performance of certain processes that in the
20:17
past maybe had been highly manual or labor intensive.
20:20
And one of them, I would use an example is engagement letters.
20:25
So the the letter of the work that we will do for you as a
20:29
client, we call that an engagement letter, kind of a
20:31
statement of work. Here's the services we'll
20:34
provide, here's the range of cost it'll be, and on an annual
20:38
basis we have to send those out to all of our clients.
20:43
And that's a really labor intensive process, highly
20:47
manual. We're now working with a firm
20:50
that helps accelerate that through a solution that
20:53
basically has all the templates accessible, the client
20:56
information accessible, and through a pretty efficient
21:00
process we can, you know, do something in hours that used to
21:03
take weeks. Wow, are you guys layering in AI
21:09
tech much on what you're doing yet?
21:11
We've also invested in, we have 20 people today and we're
21:21
looking to grow to possibly 30 and their focus is on product
21:25
development really around AI solutions that interact with the
21:30
systems that we have. So trying to use AI to take, to
21:37
make more efficient traditional processes.
21:40
So if you take 40% of the effort it takes to do a tax return, if
21:45
you take that and, and reduce that by 40%, it, it frees up
21:49
resources to do what we would say more of that strategic work,
21:53
more that trusted advisor work, right?
21:55
So you can, you can get economies of scale through the
21:58
AI. And so like, we're making big
22:01
bets and how AI will transform the way work happens in in the
22:07
accounting industry. Does that fall under your
22:09
umbrella that? AI work?
22:11
No, it's a team that's kind of shoulder to shoulder with us.
22:16
We partner and and interact with them quite a bit.
22:19
They leverage a lot of the systems and integrate with the
22:22
systems that that we manage. For instance, like our tax
22:25
preparation software, they're building stuff that interact
22:28
operates with that works through the APIs in the tax software.
22:33
So we collaborate with them a lot, but they're in a parallel
22:37
part of the organization. So you already mentioned made
22:41
reference to the type of growth that you're expecting in the
22:44
next few years. Remind me of the numbers, you're
22:47
at 20 acquisitions to date and you're targeting 50 within the
22:51
next three years. Yeah.
22:52
By the end of 28, I think our forecast is to have, you know,
22:56
50 firms. That's picking up speed.
23:00
You guys are sort of growing the team that's kind of out there
23:02
doing the the due diligence and, you know, hitting the street
23:05
looking for the deals. Yeah, Yep.
23:07
So like Ascend itself has about 90 people in a year ago it was
23:14
like half that. So there's been a big part of
23:17
the growth and it's in the deal team, it's in finance team that
23:22
kind of takes over finance operations for, for these firms,
23:26
people operations. So we, we, we offer a lot of HR
23:30
talent to the firms to help accelerate their ability to
23:33
recruit resources. And so then from a technology
23:37
and from AAI perspective, those are the other parts of Ascend
23:43
and it's really rapidly grown again scaling up to support all
23:49
of what it takes to integrate all of these firms at the pace
23:52
in which we're buying them. Tim, I think I'm going to skip
23:57
ahead to a question that I typically, excuse me, leave for
24:01
a little bit later in the interview because I think it's
24:03
going to help flesh out some of your your superpowers and your
24:09
positive characteristics of your personality.
24:12
I would like to explore a serious challenge that you've
24:17
overcome in your life and kind of walk through some of the
24:21
lessons that you've learned in the process.
24:24
Yeah. So probably the, the, the
24:30
driving force of the lessons and the challenge was rooted in my
24:36
identity. So I'm adopted and when I was 10
24:43
years ago in my mid 40s, I, I, I met both of my biological
24:50
parents and it shifted my view of myself and my identity and,
24:58
and maybe illuminated more of the unknown aspects of like how
25:03
I became who I was and, and all of that.
25:06
And it really led me into an inward journey of self
25:11
discovery, personal growth, spiritual awakening.
25:16
And I think what I went from like just trying to do work,
25:22
maybe wearing masks and just trying to work hard and maybe
25:25
hiding any kind of vulnerability to embracing the other part of
25:33
my life, the inner part of my life.
25:35
And, and it really helped me not only get to know myself better,
25:39
it helped me appreciate other people more as well.
25:43
So it was a shift and it really helped me cultivate empathy.
25:50
It helped me recognize, and we talked a little bit earlier
25:54
about meeting people where they're at.
25:56
Well, I met myself where I was at in a place where was a little
26:01
bit dark at times. And so it helped me recognize
26:05
that vulnerability is a strength, not a weakness, that
26:09
asking for help and acknowledging different
26:12
challenges is the way to grow versus hiding them.
26:16
And so like growing up, I learned like if there's
26:22
challenges, we just kind of deal with them and we just try to do
26:25
what we can to overcome them. We don't talk about them.
26:28
So secrets was a bit of a theme or, you know, and so like when
26:35
some secrets that had been part of my life, like where did I
26:39
come from? Became.
26:41
So you didn't, you didn't find out until your mid 40s that you
26:44
were? Adopted.
26:45
I knew I was adopted. I just, what I would have said
26:48
is like, I don't know where I get like some of my makeup, my
26:54
character, who I am. Some of your personality traits.
26:57
Obviously and all that because in the world where I was raised,
27:03
like I didn't see anybody that like had the same drive or same
27:08
makeup as as I did. And so when I met both of my
27:12
biological parents, I got answers like, oh, OK, you know,
27:16
And you know, one thing that was funny, when I first met my
27:18
mother, she's like, if competitiveness was a gene, you
27:22
got a double dose, right? Both her and my biological
27:25
father were very competitive people.
27:28
They were both lawyers. And, you know, so I got to
27:32
understand a little bit more of that kind of nature, part of
27:37
nature versus nurture. Say more about the secrets.
27:42
You said secrets were kind of a big part of your make up.
27:46
So if you're adopted, your origin is a secret.
27:52
So the adoption was sealed. So the identity, the origin, the
27:56
people. I had a birth certificate that
28:00
didn't have any evidence of other people who were my
28:04
biological parents. So that was a secret.
28:07
And, you know, in my family that raised me, there were things
28:13
that we didn't talk about that were secrets.
28:15
And, you know, you know, for example, like my dad had a twin
28:20
brother who was, was, was gay and a life partner who was my
28:28
godfather. And so all throughout my, you
28:32
know, childhood and teen years, I, I kind of sensed there was
28:36
something, but we didn't talk about this.
28:39
And they passed away when I was 18 and and 20 and they passed
28:44
away from HIV, AIDS. We didn't talk about it.
28:48
So like, I would have been the person who kind of always knew
28:52
the truth, but somehow we weren't comfortable talking
28:56
about those types of things. So the metaphor for my life
29:03
seemed to be like, why is it that we're not talking about the
29:06
thing that like, seems very clear and evident to me.
29:10
And, you know, if I Fast forward through a lot of other
29:14
challenging situations, that became something where I would
29:19
say leads to a superpower of discernment, where can kind of
29:24
read body language, can read like facial expressions, can
29:32
just kind of sense things that other people may not pick up on.
29:36
Because what I probably did growing up was figuring out what
29:39
do I need to do to fit in. It was like a chameleon, like
29:43
what do I need to do to in any environment to fit in and
29:46
belong? Because what, what it seemed
29:50
like was I had to be a particular way.
29:54
So I was living someone else's idea of what I should be.
29:59
And so like, that led to wearing masks that look led to like not
30:04
talking about struggles or challenges or that led to just
30:08
trying to like hold that beach ball under the water.
30:13
And, you know, at times the beach ball can slip.
30:16
And So what happened in my life then was like my relationship
30:22
with my emotions became more intimate and mostly anger, you
30:27
know, And so like when anger started coming out it, you know,
30:30
obviously anger that's directed outward can be healthy unless
30:34
it's directed at people. And so like the people around me
30:37
might have experienced the, you know, the, the shrapnel, so to
30:42
speak of, of some of that. And so I got some help later as
30:48
I kind of wrestled with this, I got some help.
30:50
I asked for help and I stepped away from work for a bit of time
30:55
to kind of work on really, truly getting intimate with like, all
31:00
of like, what I would call childhood trauma and different
31:05
types of adverse situations that I wasn't mature enough at the
31:11
time to handle these things. And so, you know, it became
31:18
something that like, yeah, it really just led to better
31:23
self-awareness. And I think, you know, I ended
31:27
up diving into personal growth stuff and learning became a much
31:35
more spiritual person and understanding, you know, the
31:39
faith component of, of spirituality and, and, and all
31:43
of that. And it just accelerated my
31:46
ability to meet people where they're at, to see where people
31:50
might be struggling to see and read situations at work where
31:54
somebody might not be showing up their best.
31:58
And so, you know, kind of having conversations with people about,
32:02
like, is everything OK? And just kind of being more
32:05
plugged into the whole person because you've got people who
32:11
are taking care of elderly parents, you've got people
32:14
who've lost loved ones, You've got people who've experienced
32:17
divorce, who going through hardships and they come to work
32:23
and try to make it seem like everything's OK.
32:25
And sometimes that's just too much to ask of somebody.
32:29
And so, you know, when you're plugged into and working
32:32
shoulder to shoulder with people that are going through things,
32:35
you know, nobody ever asked me if I was OK.
32:38
And I, you know, I kind of obviously would have.
32:40
So I've really kind of found myself relating to people who
32:45
might be struggling with things in a much more authentic way.
32:49
So let me see if I can sort of wrap my arms around this.
32:54
Obviously, you went through some stuff when you were younger.
32:58
Nobody's asking you if you're OK You didn't really have the tools
33:00
or the mechanisms to deal with some of this trauma that's
33:04
occurring. So you know, what happens with a
33:07
lot of folks when we're not taught those tools, we take
33:09
those emotions, we take those experiences, we stuff them down
33:12
inside. And anybody who's sort of been
33:15
on that path knows that that only works for so long.
33:18
That stuff turns into poison and it festers.
33:21
And you know, when it when it comes out, it's, you know, it's,
33:24
it's, it's toxic, it's ugly. And as this stuff started coming
33:29
up, you recognize that I got to deal with this.
33:33
And so you had the courage to kind of raise your hand and say,
33:36
I need some help. I need to step away from my
33:39
work. I need to, I need to work on
33:41
myself right now and step away from my job.
33:44
You've got that help. I'd be curious to hear more
33:47
about, you know, what that format was and, and how it
33:50
helped you. But through that and through
33:53
finding your faith, you became more in tune with your own
33:58
emotions, with your own psychological makeup.
34:04
And as you were able to explore that and better understand it,
34:08
now your antenna are sort of tuned so that you can better
34:11
recognize and other people when maybe they're going through some
34:15
hard things that they need a helping hand.
34:17
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
34:20
And So what what did that help look like for you and and how
34:24
hard was it for you to raise your hand and ask for it?
34:26
Because IA lot of people get stuck in that part of of the
34:29
cycle. Yeah.
34:30
No, it was, it looked like I was on a family vacation and I had
34:39
a, let's call it an episode of that is rage and it was directed
34:45
outward and it and it impacted a family member and I was in a
34:51
pretty, I'd say a dark spot. And, and this was like probably
34:55
the third incident over a short period of time.
34:59
And I got my attention because, you know, what I saw was like it
35:02
was impacting my children and, and, and other people I cared
35:06
about. And so the raising of my hand
35:10
was getting connected with a mental health, trauma and
35:16
rehabilitation facility, a residential treatment facility
35:21
that focuses on mental health and addiction and, you know,
35:26
trauma recovery. So I went to this place, Sierra
35:32
Tucson, in, in Arizona and spent 30 days there.
35:37
And it was like going to school for adults.
35:40
And it's, it's interesting because there were people from
35:44
all walks of life from 18 up into in their 70s and, you know,
35:50
people who just needed an, a healing environment like that to
35:56
figure out like what's under the surface that needs attention.
36:00
And so that was a time where I learned a lot about addiction, a
36:05
lot about codependency, a lot about the connection between
36:12
what we eat and our mental health, you know, the, the mind
36:15
body connection. I learned a lot about regulation
36:19
of emotions through breathing, breath work, and meditation and
36:25
grounding practices. Literally it was like 30 days of
36:29
school and the very kind of pristine bubble like environment
36:39
which then led to like a wind down or a step down type of
36:44
thing. And I, I went for 30 days and I
36:46
lived in a sober living house in Houston, TX, which was a way to
36:50
integrate back into life, but not fully.
36:54
Because you spend now 60 days in a place getting to know
36:59
yourself, getting to know what you may be, putting language to,
37:03
what you might have struggled with, and understanding how
37:07
childhood has a significant impact on our lives.
37:13
You got to reintegrate back into the real world because one of
37:17
the things that we learned quickly is although I was gone
37:21
for 60 days, I go back into my life and everybody else has been
37:25
doing life the way they were doing it before.
37:27
So there's a big adjustment there.
37:30
So help was very significant, like taking it seriously,
37:35
recognizing that there's a. That's the kind of help I
37:41
needed, and it was really because like that methodical way
37:49
of pushing everything down worked until it didn't.
37:54
At what point along the way did faith become an important part
37:58
of your life? Well, you know, I was exposed to
38:03
the 12 step programs when I went through the treatment place and
38:07
all that and that was back in 2019.
38:11
But it wasn't until 2021 that I stepped into a church that was a
38:17
non denominational church. And again, I, I was raised
38:22
Catholic, so I had exposure to religion.
38:26
But the church I went to, you know, in 2021 was what I would
38:30
just call, you know, the pastor would say it's a if, if you're a
38:34
dysfunctional person like us, we're here just trying to make
38:37
Jesus make sense. So it's a very, you know, the
38:41
1st series that I stepped into was about toxic relationships.
38:47
And so like, that became like something that I said, oh, this
38:51
is just like my life. And I understand through all the
38:56
mental health work and all the, you know, the, that kind of
38:59
inner work I've done. And so things just started to
39:02
connect for me and started to make sense.
39:04
And so it was a very inviting place, a place that I felt
39:07
comfortable, didn't feel judgement, didn't feel shame,
39:10
didn't feel like I felt like I belong.
39:16
Bless you. Thank you.
39:20
Yeah. For people just on the audio
39:22
version, I was muted. And so Tim wasn't imagining
39:25
that. I did actually sneeze.
39:27
And so, Tim, you're coming out, you know, 30 days in Arizona, 30
39:32
days in Texas. So 60 days kind of being
39:36
unplugged from your regular life, and I have to imagine
39:41
you're coming out feeling quite different than you did going in,
39:45
and now you're back in an environment where everybody else
39:48
sort of feels and operates the same way that they always have.
39:51
How was that transition back into your old life?
39:55
It was a I'll say it was a challenging transition, but I
40:01
had tools that I didn't have before, so it was.
40:07
Helpful to have a tool kit of things that I could draw upon
40:10
that help me deal with people where they're at and yet at the
40:15
same time is challenging. But I think what I noticed most
40:19
was I had community and I had understood then the power of
40:23
community versus isolation. So the reintegration back into
40:29
my life, really the power of community and the power of not
40:33
having to do all this on my own was one of the biggest lessons I
40:36
learned. And having a tool kit that was,
40:39
you know, more rich in terms of, you know, resources to, to cope
40:44
in healthy ways. Without using any personally
40:47
identifiable information, can you share a story with us about
40:52
a time since then that you've been able to use some of those
40:56
skills that you learned to help somebody else that you could now
41:01
tell was in a place of need? Yeah, so I had one of my now
41:10
really good friends come to me shortly after I came out of that
41:15
place. And, you know, I had shared a
41:18
bit of my story. I wrote a LinkedIn article
41:20
about, you know, vulnerability and asking for help.
41:24
And I shared a bit of my journey and my story.
41:27
And someone came into my office and he was struggling and, you
41:32
know, shared a bit about his own childhood of divorced parents.
41:38
Father struggled with, you know, alcohol and drugs.
41:41
And he was in his, you know, late 20s and shared some of what
41:48
his struggles were with relationships.
41:50
And, you know, he just opened up to me.
41:55
And I think, you know, when when when I became vulnerable, it
42:00
opened the door for people to connect.
42:03
And, you know, that's one of those things that like, I think
42:05
it's the power of telling stories because there's really
42:09
nobody on this earth that is living a perfect life and isn't,
42:13
you know, struggling with something.
42:15
And often they're struggling in in secret or hiding.
42:19
So really what this blossomed into is like, you know, he's not
42:25
one of my best friends and his walk and my walk through self,
42:31
you know, personal growth and into spiritual growth.
42:35
We've been on this parallel journey.
42:37
So it would never have happened if I wouldn't have kind of just
42:41
shared a bit about what what I had experienced in my own
42:46
personal growth journey. And I understand that the last
42:51
couple of years have probably been the biggest period of
42:54
personal growth for you. Can you say more about that?
42:57
Yeah. So I think one of the things
43:01
that I would say is now having that, let's call it sensitivity
43:06
to energy of others and, and the energy I would refer to as
43:12
people that might be struggling with things.
43:14
You know, I, I tend to have a nose for situations.
43:19
So I, I'll say I might attract that.
43:22
And, you know, being very empathetic, you can kind of just
43:25
sense the energy. And, you know, I had some
43:29
challenges in my, my prior job where, you know, things weren't
43:35
going as well as I would have liked.
43:38
And, and maybe I was in, in, in the receiving end of some of
43:43
that energy. And, you know, one of the things
43:47
that I guess I, I went to a men's retreat in this time
43:51
period. And like, one of the big things
43:53
we talk about is surrendering and really letting go and in
43:58
recognizing that we're not in control.
44:00
And when we surrender, higher power can kind of take over.
44:04
And so I ended up, I'll call it surrendering.
44:11
And, you know, my life changed dramatically.
44:15
I, I left that job and really dove, I'll say 2 feet in.
44:25
And, you know, I might have surrendered a bunch of stuff in
44:28
the past prior that, but I don't know that I went all in.
44:31
And when I really became connected with other people
44:35
through this church and, you know, mostly men and developing
44:39
relationships with, with men who were on this journey together, a
44:43
lot of things in my life shifted for the better.
44:47
And and it didn't mean that things got easier always, but I
44:52
basically said, OK, I'm in, I'm all in.
44:56
And frankly, I'm going to let go surrendering things that I
45:01
wasn't in control of. And I'm going to make sure that
45:04
I'm, you know, taking care of myself.
45:06
I'm in community. And, you know, I ended up coming
45:10
to Ascend, you know, through that process.
45:13
And, you know, what was really important to me was looking for
45:18
an organization that was in alignment with what I value and
45:22
was a place where, you know, the leadership is authentic.
45:27
They're committed to creating a, you know, psychologically safe
45:30
environment for people to work where people people can, you
45:34
know, bring their best version of themselves, where people can
45:37
feel like valued and able to contribute, able to challenge
45:42
things, challenging status quo and all that, where it's a safe
45:47
space to do that. So yeah, it's it's amazing when
45:54
we let go of some of the illusion that we're in control
46:00
of things that we're not. And so I guess what I would,
46:03
what I would just say there is that I just really put more into
46:07
my faith journey, recognizing that like I don't have to prove
46:14
myself. I don't have to, you know, worry
46:19
about what other people might think and just become more in
46:25
community with, with people who are like minded and you know,
46:28
supportive and so. How does that show up at Ascend?
46:33
What is it that people say or do that shows you and and everyone
46:38
else that works there that this is a safe place where you
46:40
support each other? Yeah.
46:42
So we, we everybody seems to be open to and collaborative and
46:53
listening and hearing ideas. And, you know, I have many
46:58
decades of experience and I'm in a workforce that's very diverse
47:02
in terms of the spectrum of ages and generations that are in
47:06
there. So people want to hear what
47:11
someone who has a bit of experience has to say.
47:14
And I don't need to be right about things all the time, but
47:19
like, I've had a lot of different experiences that are
47:21
valuable in service of what we're doing at Ascend, whether
47:27
it's, you know, challenges in large scale projects and seeing
47:31
like, what are the things that, you know, we need to kind of
47:33
make sure we're watching out for from a risk standpoint.
47:37
So it, it feels like a safe environment from the standpoint
47:40
that people are open, it's collaborative, it's servant
47:45
oriented. You know, one of the, you know,
47:47
the, the values are people first serving wholeheartedly.
47:52
You know, we want to win, we want to help people win, but we
47:54
want to do it together. And so, you know, we're, I would
47:58
say we're like on the same side of the table attacking problems
48:01
together versus internally competitive.
48:08
There's a lot of good ground we just covered there.
48:10
Tim, thanks for diving into all that from sort of shifting gears
48:15
a little bit. What what about a book or a
48:16
podcast, another resource that has been helpful for you in this
48:21
this path that you've walked, you might recommend to other
48:23
folks? Well, there's a couple that
48:28
might stand out, but the, the book that really got my
48:32
attention that I read before my like spiritual awakening and
48:39
then went to a couple retreats sponsored by the, you know, in,
48:43
in about this book is John Eldridge's wild at Heart.
48:48
And it's a book about the reclamation of the male
48:51
masculine heart. And it really is a journey of
48:55
discovery through the phases of from living early in our lives
49:02
to being a true son of the creator versus like a son of the
49:07
earthly father. And it helps men go through the
49:11
process of looking at all those different types of things that
49:16
they may not have gotten grown up in terms of true fatherhood.
49:22
You know, our fathers on Earth are imperfect people, And so
49:26
they all do the best they can with what they have.
49:29
But that doesn't mean that there aren't remnants of that that
49:33
leave us with marks that, you know, can take some time to
49:37
recover from. So John Eldridge's book was like
49:41
really profound. I went to several retreats
49:43
through my church that were, you know, all about like that
49:46
journey that's really powerful. I listen to so many podcasts.
49:51
Another book that I would say that really opened my eyes to
49:54
the things in me that I needed to kind of work through was a
49:58
book called From Spiritual Slavery to Spiritual Sonship.
50:03
And that was for a person who struggles with trust, who might
50:10
have fears of rejection, fears of abandonment, fears of things
50:15
that might be rooted in in early life experiences.
50:19
To the bridge to feeling peace and freedom and more like
50:26
spiritual sonship. The bridge is forgiveness.
50:30
So a lot of people might have trouble trusting other people.
50:34
And I think, you know, growing up as an adopted person, I
50:39
didn't always know why. But like, you know, it's hard
50:41
for me to get close to people because I have this, like,
50:44
subconscious fear of abandonment.
50:48
So that book was really profound.
50:51
Open my eyes to like, if you want to be free, you've got to
50:54
learn to trust other people and also the creator.
51:02
Getting back to sort of ascend and work related things, I'm
51:07
curious to hear what projects are you most excited about
51:11
moving forward, Something you guys are kind of tinkering on at
51:17
the moment that you're excited to see come to fruition?
51:20
Yeah. We are 20 firms and we have
51:26
firms that have, I'll say, independent application stacks,
51:31
meaning they all kind of have tools that do the same things,
51:36
but they're different tools. And we're looking at like, what
51:40
does it look like when we're 50? And what do we need to be doing
51:44
now to make sure that what we enable is scalability?
51:49
And as we think about the way to scale an organization,
51:54
standardization is important, standardization of data,
51:58
standardization of process. And then also what you can do
52:02
once you standardize is you can automate.
52:04
So we're looking at the strategy of the tools that we want to
52:08
use. So we might go from disparate
52:12
application stacks to kind of a standardized application stack
52:15
that everybody uses and will standardize certain components
52:19
of the data in the processes, which then helps from an
52:23
integration standpoint. So every time we acquire a firm,
52:27
now here's the stack that we're going to bring you onto.
52:30
And it's it's powerful because it's integrated, it's efficient,
52:34
It's also integrates really well with our AI tools.
52:38
So as soon as you join us, you now get this really powerful set
52:42
of tools to help amplify, accelerate your performance,
52:47
your ability to do the work and it frees up capacity to help
52:51
people focus on what it takes to grow.
52:53
So that kind of foundational piece of technology that's
52:58
technology, but also process and data oriented is what we're what
53:04
we're focused on like figuring out now so that we can really
53:08
help accelerate our scalability. I could see that being
53:13
incredibly helpful as you guys move forward and also very bumpy
53:19
in the interim as you make that transition and try to get people
53:22
on board with moving away from the tools that they're
53:25
comfortable and familiar with. Are you, are you already in
53:28
process of this or this is still sort of in the thinking and
53:30
planning stages? It's in the, it's in the
53:32
thinking and planning stages. And what I would say is that
53:35
we're aligning on the challenges we have today.
53:41
And what we have is we have the benefit of like 2 1/2 years of
53:46
experience in going through these acquisitions and then
53:49
bringing the acquisitions together.
53:52
So we have 2 1/2 years of experience of will this scale
53:58
the way we're going now or what have we learned that we might
54:01
need to tweak now so that we can make it less bumpy for the way
54:07
we want to scale? And if we were to start from
54:10
scratch, it would probably be easy.
54:13
But like like you mentioned, you know, in order to grow like we
54:20
want to, there's, there's a emptying out of what we have
54:23
already done that we need to do so that we can fill it and, you
54:26
know, grow. So there's a yeah, that change
54:30
management is a huge component of of what we need to kind of
54:35
work through. So the tool is the tool.
54:37
It's not really as much about the tool as it is about kind of
54:40
the alignment on the the change in alignment on the operating
54:44
model. Tim, I've just got one more
54:47
question for you. Before I ask it, I want to do 2
54:50
things. First, everyone listening, pause
54:52
for just a second. Go to your podcast app, Go ahead
54:54
and hit the follow or subscribe button.
54:57
It ensures that you continue to get more great interviews like
54:59
this in your feed and it helps other people find the show too.
55:02
Tim, I want to let people know the best way to get in touch
55:06
with you or to follow your story.
55:07
What would that be? Yeah, I'd say from a
55:10
professional standpoint, LinkedIn is probably the best
55:12
way to connect. That's the one I'm probably a
55:16
little bit more active on and easy to find me on LinkedIn and.
55:20
We'll get a link to that in the show notes for everybody.
55:23
Last question I have for you. A year from now, you and I
55:27
reconnect and you're celebrating something big.
55:30
What's that thing you're celebrating one year from today?
55:36
Well, I think another year of growth, but I would say I'm in
55:44
this space of looking at ways in which not only professionally,
55:48
but personally, how do I take all of what I've learned?
55:52
And I might package that up and say maybe there's been some
55:56
pain, maybe there's been trials and tribulations, but how do I
55:58
take all of that and really turn that into purpose?
56:05
And I think every day I'm new, people are coming into my life
56:09
and I'm connecting with people in ways I never would have
56:11
imagined years ago. So I know that like all of what
56:14
I've learned, all of what I'm sharing is a great way to
56:17
connect with other people. And that is the most fulfilling
56:21
thing is when I'm connecting with somebody who might have
56:23
been struggling in some ways, but maybe couldn't connect those
56:26
dots on their own. And so if we're a year from now,
56:30
we're talking about like another really acceleration of growth in
56:36
my life and really the realization of what my true
56:41
calling is and how to really continue to use those gifts
56:44
personally, socially, spiritually and professionally.
56:49
I love that Tim Purdean from Ascend Partner Services.
56:52
I want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time
56:54
and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.
56:57
Well, it's a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
56:59
Folks, that's a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories
57:02
podcast. Thanks for learning with us
57:03
today.