In this episode of Escaping the Accountants Trap podcast, we answer your questions around overcoming imposter syndrome. To help answer questions is our expert guest, Nancy McClelland, the founder of the Dancing Accountant. Nancy, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me, Adam. I'm delighted to be here. Yeah, I'm excited to have you. I'm also excited to find out what you mean by the dancing accountant.

That sounds interesting. But before we dive into the questions, tell us who you are and why you're an expert on impostor syndrome. Well, I think almost every woman out there at some point or another accidentally becomes an expert on imposter syndrome. We can talk a little bit of more of that. More about that later. But my name is Nancy McClelland, as you mentioned.

I founded the Dancing Accountant, which is a CPA firm in Chicago. We celebrate 23 years, one this year, graduations. While we were, we were before it was cool. We were doing the full spectrum of, client offerings. We do bookkeeping, accounting, tax and advisory. So I think that that's what makes me an expert on imposter syndrome is that I'm always learning new things.

And I have had to myself, become more comfortable about the fact that I'm not going to know all the things all the time. And unfortunately, we do call that imposter syndrome a lot of the time. And our society. Yeah. And and it doesn't just affect women because I can attest to the fact that affects men because I have imposter syndrome.

I will admit, as well. So I decided that, you know, actually, did you know, 70% of people experience what they call imposter syndrome at some point in their lives? 70% I, I did actually, we did a masterclass yesterday where that was one of the stats.

And it's yeah, it's it's crazy. And I know that most high achievers experience it and we'll get some of the the listeners I had questions. One of them asked a question that will we'll dive right into this topic. So I definitely want to get into the questions. But real quick, Nancy, why dancing accounting. Yeah. So the dancing accountant, this is a name that was actually given to me many years ago by a client.

My company was called Nancy McClelland LLC. Like, really exciting name there. For years and years and years and, I dance. I am in, 4 or 5 different dance troupes, and one of them is called the Janes, which is a 1960s style Go-Go dancing troupe, which is just fantastic. Yeah. Okay. Nancy Sinatra, these boots are made for walking, you know, mini skirts and and tall white boots and, fake eyelashes and the whole thing.

And it is so much fun. And I love it so much. And one day we were, going to be performing at, Unity Park, which is a park in our neighborhood. We have a hyperlocal firm in our neighborhood in Chicago and Logan Square. And Unity Park is one of my pro-bono clients. And the, the dancers we were coming together to do an event there where we are teaching little kids how to go go dance.

And so, of course, I show up in full costume and not one, but two of my clients were picnicking together with their kids. And so I just sort of gulped and kept kept walking on up. And, she said, look, kids, it's the dancing accountant. How funny is that? That's you could be called worse, I guess. So dancing.

Oh, God, it's the best thing in the entire world, you know, it showcases the fun side of my personality. It showcases my passions. I'm a huge fan of, John Garrett. What your what's your and podcast and book. Okay. It's actually his very first guest. Well, on that podcast. And I really think that, we have healthier work environments and healthier, societies when we share the parts about us, that are special to us outside of work so that we have accountants.

Perfect. Because it really it shows a little bit about my personality and, that I'm interested in more than one thing and the type of clients that are attracted to that. You know, that tend to be the kind of clients I want to work with. So it's totally wonderful. I'm so glad that that, that, that they have it.

Yeah, that that's awesome. That the branding and positioning, that's a whole topic for another podcast that I would love to go, oh, that's one of my favorite topics is because I could talk about that all day long. It that's right. People buy things like accounting services based on how they feel, not based on logic. And if you can make your client feel a certain way.

Anyway, that's a topic that I would love to get into at another time, but I'm going to add to that though, before we before we leave that topic, just just this past Friday on Jason Stetson's daily podcast, I actually got a shout out on there because he was talking about exactly this topic where, you're branding, when you brand your passions, it becomes a kind of marketing, but it's a kind of marketing that doesn't feel salesy.

It feels very natural because it's about who you are as a human being. And, so, yes, well, we're going to come back to this podcast. I love it another day. I love it absolutely love it. All right. So let's dive in. So what's our first question? Samantha? A bookkeeper wants to know I keep hearing the term imposter syndrome.

Can you explain to me exactly what it is? Also, how do I know if I have imposter syndrome or if I'm really an imposter? Oh, that's a good question, Nancy, I started, yeah. Oh, my gosh, I love this. This is so meaty. I actually I actually talked about this recently, in a webinar for Insightful accountant.

Okay. Back in December. Yeah. So imposter syndrome is such a frustrating term to me. I mean, we use it all over the place, but, like, it's not like a serious illness, doesn't it? Yeah. It's like, oh, yeah. Oh, no. What medicine do I take for that? Right. But as we talked about, you know, 70% of people experience it at some point.

It's it's not a syndrome. It's 70% of people are dealing with it. It just means the way that we tend to use it is that it's a fear that you're inadequate or incompetent, despite evidence to the contrary. Now it becomes a syndrome. It's that affects your life to such a serious extent that you are having trouble at work, or you're not doing things that you would like to do.

You know, it's truly holding you back in a pathological way at that point. It's a syndrome. And so unfortunately, that phrase, it became really overused. Do you know who Doctor Valerie Young is? Have you heard of her? I have not, well, she actually has a great book on, why capable people experience this and, like, how to work through it.

And so don't feel like there's something wrong with you if you're just feeling self-doubt as opposed to this syndrome of like you're something's truly, truly, truly getting in the way of living your life. Imposter syndrome, the way we tend to use that phrase, it is completely natural. As I mentioned before, especially for women, I know that men struggle with it too.

But, studies definitely show that it disproportionately affects women and minorities. And, you know, basically anybody who's marginalized. And I mean, think about that. Why that would be like, it's understandable that it's just a genuine reaction to being condescended to your entire life. It is normal that you would react to that with self-doubt. So as for the second part of that question, though, because, you know, confidence doesn't get you everywhere, right?

Like you, you have to there are imposters. There are people who are faking it entirely so as to being able to tell the difference. Think of it this way and I, I want you to like, think back in your own life to to where this kind of thing has happened. Any new task, by definition, puts you into a position where you don't know how to do your job right.

It's a new task, so by definition, you don't know how to do it yet. Having more background makes it so that the percentage of your job that you don't know how to do is smaller and smaller and smaller. But climbing that learning curve, that's just part of the experience. It makes you feel exposed or fraudulent, but it just means that you are still learning.

And that is a good thing. Adam. Right? Like, how awful would life be if you stopped learning? Yeah, I agree, yeah. So what? We're really what we're really trying to do here when we, when we're feeling exposed or fraudulent, if we can reframe that and say, actually, this is just not something that is new to me, by definition, it's going to mean I don't know how.

So education, testing experience, those are the three best solutions to it. You know, they help you learn what you need and they also build confidence. Confidence alone does not do it. Like that's not what gets your car out of the snowbank. It's knowing enough to put the chains on the tires beforehand so you don't get stuck or true story, knowing how to rock the car to get it unstuck when you're driving doesn't know how, and offering to take the wheel and actually getting the stuck taxi unstuck, right?

That's that's knowledge. That's that's experience. Those are the things that make the biggest difference. So you have to. Yeah. Yeah. And I know you know this because obviously the CFO project is one of the ways you can do that. I got, master's of accounting and Financial Management. I was super disappointed because I went back to school, and math FM is like an MBA, but with an emphasis on accounting and finance.

And I went back to school because I wanted to learn how to do what you do. Right. I wanted to be a CFO to my clients. I was I already had a thriving bookkeeping accounting attached firm, but I wanted to add advisory. Yeah, less than 10% of my master's program had anything to do with this. So that's why enrolling in a program like the CFO project can be really helpful.

It's it's it seems like it's a huge, time commitment. And it is, but it's nothing like getting a master's and then finding out that only 10% of it applies. Right? There are lots of other ways to do it as well. But you know, the you gotta get educated. Hey there. Adam Lean here. Wanted to let you know about our weekly newsletter called Escaping the Accountant Trap.

It's a five minute weekly newsletter. We will send you practical tips just for accountants and bookkeepers to escape the accounts trap. Click below to subscribe to the newsletter for free today. Yeah, totally. I think imposter syndrome, it's a I mean, it's definitely a real thing. And it's like you said, it's like the psychological, psychological event that happens in your mind that thinks I'm just not good enough.

I'm not good. And like you said, I didn't write despite the evidence, despite the fact that you could, you could have all the evidence in the world and still feel I'm not good enough. And for me, it was, you know, I used to be an accountant turned business owner. And then when I started offering outsourced CFO advisory services, I'm thinking, who am I to say that I'm a CFO?

I'm I'm going to be exposed as a fraud. And I think that's why I'm so glad you said that. I was going to say it's not just that. It's not just the fear that you don't know it. It's that somebody is going to find out, right? That's right. Like, how can you call yourself a CFO? But here's the thing, though, and I think this will help.

Samantha. Specific because I think she she said she was a bookkeeper in that when we as financial professionals think of CFO, we think Coca-Cola's CFO, you know, somebody is highly paid. There's navigating billions of dollars of complex transactions and having to deal with a huge business. That's not who we're talking about when we're talking about being the CFO to businesses.

We're talking about small to medium sized businesses, typically businesses doing less than 5 million in annual revenue, usually about a million in annual revenue. So these are small businesses. They don't need Coca-Cola's CFO. They need somebody that understands the numbers and can guide them. And most accountants can do this. Yes. Now, Adam, I am so glad you said I want to build on this.

I you cannot you cannot do advisory work without understanding compliance work first. Now, I think that this is one of the things that most folks who are, you know, saying, oh, break into advisory as if it's some get rich quick scheme. They don't understand. You have to you have to know your debits and credits. You have to be able to read your financial statements, or at least even if you can't read them and tell the story yet, which is kind of where you switch from compliance to advisory.

So even if those financial statements don't yet tell each story to you, you have to be able to look at them and say, okay, there's I've got negative payables. That ain't right. Like that's wrong. I have to look at it and say, I don't think depreciation has been booked for the past five years. You know, you have to be able to look at those financial statements and they have to make some sense.

So this is why I personally think that bookkeepers are uniquely positioned to be able to do CFO services. Because they have more touchpoints with the client than, most taxpayers do. Right? Because their bookkeepers are working with their clients every month. So they're building trust. They're building trust. They know their clients pain points, they know where they're struggling.

They have a personal relationship, and they know the heck out of their debits and credits. They know these financial statements. They know what should be on those financial statements. They are actually, in my opinion, better qualified for doing this. And also reasonable compensation, which is one of my big areas of passion. Everybody thinks that Toe services and reasonable compensation services are something that only CPAs can offer, and I think that couldn't be further from the truth.

I think the confidence for somebody like Samantha is, you know, you've got to recognize when you are continually learning something new and when you're an actual imposter, if you already know your debits and credits, if you already are taking care of this client's books, you're not an imposter. You're just ready to learn some new things. Totally. And I think actual imposters, people that really are posers, they don't question whether or not they're they have an imposter syndrome.

It's so true. So the fact that you're questioning is most likely means you're not an imposter. That is so, so, so true. Such a good point, such a good. I mean, part of maturing is recognizing that you never know everything, right? Totally. Not knowing it is not a sign of lack of expertise necessarily. You know, if you're already moving in those areas of expertise and you recognize the difference between when you're faking it, you know, and when it's just building on existing knowledge, totally.

Clients see through bluster. They do, you know, replacing knowledge and expertise with bluster that that just erodes trust. Yeah. And if you care about your clients enough to not pretend that you know all the answers, that builds trust. Absolutely. Love it. Hey there, Adam here. From the Escaping the Accountants Trap podcast, I'd like to personally invite you to a free masterclass there.

We're conducting this Thursday called How to Start a CFO service. To register, just go to the CFO project. Com and click Free Training at the top. See you there. All right. What's the next question? Timothy? A CPA wants to know. I worked for ten years in a big four accounting firm, and I recently started my own tax practice.

I want to get into advisory work. However, I'm afraid that my lack of real world business experience will hold me back from being able to advise businesses. What are your thoughts? That's a good question. It is a good question. I, I gosh, I hesitate to say this, but, you know, trust your gut on that one because initially it is going to hold you back from being able to advise businesses initially.

But listen to question number one, right, which is about, you know, when are you truly being an imposter and when are you just self-doubting? If you have ten years at a big four accounting firm, you already know the compliance side of this. I if you don't, you know, you work. That's a different conversation. That's an actual you got a problem there.

If you work for ten years at a big for accounting firm, you already know the compliance stuff. It it's really just a matter the real world business experience. It's a matter of where can I find that. So trust your gut and then work with a colleague. As I mentioned, I got an firm specifically so I could branch into advisory.

And I was so disappointed where I got the most benefit. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love I'm glad I got my Masters. There was a lot that was valuable. But where I have gotten most of my education is in toe firming peer review, contracting, interning, building slowly one by one. You don't have to do this overnight.

You can join a professional group like realize, which I'm a member of, and bookkeeping budget I'm also a member of. But there are a lot of paid professional groups out there. We're colleagues who have been doing this work for a long time. You can bounce these things off of them. You could say, okay, yeah, on my first client, and here's what we're doing, and here's what I'm thinking about.

How would you handle this? This is what I'm thinking. I'm going to do this. This does this work. Does this make sense? Do you have any additional suggestions? There are some free ones out there, like, Kate Johnson's bookkeeping side hustle and Veronica five minute, bookkeeper Academy. They were both on our podcast. Yes. Oh, God, I those are two of my favorite people in the world.

So like, shout out 111. I love you guys so so so much. So there's some amazing free resources out there. And there's some paid professional groups out there. And in those groups you do you will meet the most incredible colleagues, people who have more experience than you in certain areas and less experienced than you in certain areas.

When I hire for my own firm, I generally am looking for people who already are running their own bookkeeping or accounting firms, and they have extra capacity that they want to fill. And so I'm learning from them in the things that they have already figured out. In working with clients through the years and they're learning from me.

So it's not just a mentor mentee relationship like we're really collaborating. My my tax specialist, she ran her own CPA firm for years and years, and I found her online because I was looking for somebody who ran a firm like mine in Chicago. And so I was using search terms that I would hope people would use, you know, to find my website.

And I found hers, and it resonated with me. And I reached out to her and I was like, hey, you want to have lunch? She was really, really, really tentative at first. Just like, what's this woman selling? And I was like, no, I just, I, I want a colleague that I can bounce thoughts off of and, you know, client situations that I'm not familiar with, and I, I figured you might too, since you also run totally, you know, a small firm.

And we became dear friends. She eventually sold her CPA from and came to work for me right. Wow. Yeah, these things can really, really blossom. But you you need to you need to get out there and meet these people. So trust your gut that you probably don't have enough experience. As we talked about, with Samantha, you know, get the education that you need.

But as far as you know, nothing replaces experience. But if you can learn from somebody else's experience that is going to catapult you forward. I'm a huge fan of performing as well, which is, in case you're not familiar with that idea, it's, when one firm that has specialty in one area works with another firm that has a specialty in another area.

I, work with a lot of bookkeepers who to teach them how to level up their bookkeeping so that they can be tax ready and collaborate better with CPAs and other tax preparers so that they're working together with the client. That's a good example of of Co for me. There are a lot of different ways to do it.

And that's what I would that's definitely what I would recommend to you Timothy. Yeah I it is brilliant. And that's also partly why we have a feature in the CFO project called the CFO roundtables. It's a weekly meeting with a small group of other CFOs, other accountants who are offering advisory and CFO services, where we solve challenges for each other.

It's like somebody can bring to the table, hey, my, I have an issue with this client. What should I advise them to do? And everybody else who has, various different expertise will will guide them. That's exactly right. Okay. So, Adam, I want to ask you in your round tables and by the way, spoiler alert, the answer is going to be yes.

It's your roundtables. Do you end up with situations where you've got one person who knows the heck out of one topic and a different person that knows the heck out of a different topic, and they both feel like they are imposters because we don't know everything about both of these topics. Totally. Absolutely. Yeah. It's natural. I mean, that you you cannot know everything.

The world of accounting, bookkeeping, especially tax advisory, it's too big. No. Like nobody can know everything. I know a lot, for example, about, I mentioned reasonable compensation. I know a lot about, cooperate. It's Julie, my CPA, but I was just telling you about. She knows a lot about, real estate and partnerships and, you know what?

I don't want to learn about those things. I don't have to, because I have colleagues that I can reach out to when I have questions about those areas, and vice versa. Yeah. And I would also say to Timothy that you probably discount the fact that you do understand the numbers, the fact that you've been working at an accounting firm for for ten years and you own a tax practice, you understand the numbers.

Think of all these business coaches and consultants out there who don't understand the numbers, yet they are advising clients on making decisions that where they have no no idea how their advice is going to impact cash flow, which is dangerous. A dangerous way to give a yes. Oh my gosh. You know, I, I have to say, we actually have a policy.

We have a, an ideal client, like sort of, profile of who our ideal client is. Yeah. And we don't we don't work with professional coaches because we've had too many experiences, of people giving advice that they didn't have the knowledge about. So like, that totally goes back to what you were saying before. A real imposter doesn't doesn't really it they're not asking that question.

Right. If you're asking the question, then that's, you know, the the best first step you can possibly take. Then talk with colleagues, get education. There are a lot of free webinars out there as well. You know, you don't have to start with, the paid versions, but you'll get a really good sense about the types of things that you do know and where your weaknesses are.

And then you can target your paid, education to be the areas where you have identified that you have weaknesses. Totally. I mean, absolutely. And, and, and we we, by the way, we don't accept business coaches or consultants in our program either. You have to be a really I didn't know that. And it's because I did because you do talk.

You do talk about the fact that, you know, in your webinars, you talk about how these people already have the basis that they need to really be able to, like, use that as a foundation for jumping off. So it makes sense that. Yeah, yeah, there's only one thing that businesses require needs to have to stay in business.

And that's positive cash flow on a consistent basis. And that's a number that's a financial concept. And so accountants we have that knowledge of understanding. So our job is not to to to be an expert in everybody's business. Our job is to understand the numbers and ask the right questions to the experts in everybody's business. Absolutely, absolutely. I couldn't agree more.

Well, Nancy, this has been a fantastic conversation. Where can listeners find you online? I have an award winning blog, actually, that's turning ten years old this year. Wow. What is it using? Yeah, it's at the dancing accountant.com slash. Okay. Org. And a lot of those articles actually get picked up by MSN. I have you can follow me over there if you look me up on MSN and subscribe.

Which is very exciting. I also, offer webinars and Q&A sessions for bookkeepers who need the ear of a CPA. To as I mentioned before, I'm a huge fan of co firming and, tax ready books. And I I'm actually going to be speaking at Scaling New Heights this year on the topic of tax ready books.

Very cool. We will be right. Oh, wonderful. Well, I am the first session on the first day, so they won't have opened the exhibit hall yet. You guys should come and and check it out. Absolutely. Yeah. So that is something that I'm going to be launching, a more formal program at that point where, bookkeepers who want to ask questions about, you know, by definition, they can't ask their clients, CPA about a lot of questions because it will undermine their credibility.

And, they don't want to they don't want to feel like an imposter. So totally you can come to somebody like me, or, a colleague, Hope Brown is somebody else who does, similar kind of work. Mariette Martinez does some of this kind of work. We all collaborate and try to make sure we're working together to make sure that, bookkeepers get what they need.

So find out more about me at the Dancing accountant.com. And I am very active on LinkedIn, so if you want to follow me there, you'll get all sorts of really rich content, perfect. We'll put all that in the show notes. Nancy, thank you so much for being with us today. I'm so glad you invited me. Remember, folks, imposter syndrome is just a sign that you are still learning.

Not knowing is not a sign of imposter ism. It just means you haven't learned that thing yet. So totally work with your clients. Talk to them about what you're learning. Tell stories about where you've found successes. And, you know, you'll you'll you'll up your game and they'll appreciate it. Nancy. That's amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you to Adam, to everyone listening.

If you haven't already, sign up for our five minute weekly email with practical tips for accountants and bookkeepers to escape. The accountants trap, go to Accountants trap.com. See you next time on the Escaping the Accountants Trap podcast. Bye for now.