The Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast

162 ⎸ What does it mean to be Ambitious?

• Serena Shoup, CPA • Episode 162

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In this solo episode I delve into the concept of ambition, sharing reflections on personal success, fulfillment, and the evolving priorities of life. Tune in if you’re ready to reevaluate what success means to you!

In this episode you’ll hear:

  • what ambition means
  • defining success for yourself
  • balancing ambition with life seasons
  • origin of the name ‘Ambitious Bookkeeper’


Resources mentioned in this episode:


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Welcome back to the ambitious bookkeeper channel. I am now calling it a channel because I am trying to put these videos on YouTube. Uh, so you can listen or you can watch, So, yeah, today I am going to talk about what it means to be ambitious and. maybe I'll dive into a little bit of why I chose this as a brand and how things have evolved. It's kind of interesting. first I want to start with. The definition of ambitious. good old Oxford dictionary, maybe that's where I looked it up. Now. I don't remember. I should have cited my sources on my notes, but the definition of being ambitious or ambitious or ambition, I can't remember which one I actually looked up. It is having or showing a strong desire and determination to succeed. Now there's other definitions that talk about. Money and power, but this is the definition that this brand is centered around. And why that's important is because. Ambition has nothing to do with how much you work. How many hours you put in. How often you post on social media, how many clients you have. Because it is all centered around the desire to succeed and you get to decide what success is. So let's strip back the layers today and talk about how to figure out what success means to you and how to discern the things that will get you closer to your specific flavor of success. So the first thing that I like to talk about when deciding what success is, and honestly, I have to reel myself back in quite often because yes, I'm a very ambitious person. I like to succeed. I like to. achieve and I like to do things however, it's not always the right season of life to do so. So. You have to be able to discern when certain things matter or if certain things even matter enough to pursue them. Cause there's all these ideas and you should be doing this and you should do this, all the sheds right. Of the things that you should be doing in order to get your business to a point that other people think it should be at, or maybe even you think it should be at. But to be able to step back and look at. How much does that matter in the grand scheme of things and how much will that actually contribute to my success? Or my joy. Right? That's the other thing, part of what your success is, could be just fulfillment and yeah, maybe that particular activity isn't going to give me. directly. Result in clients or a directly result in something that contributes to my success. But if it contributes to my happiness, maybe it's a creative outlet. for instance, like maybe you like social media, maybe you like posting on social media and that's a good creative outlet for you. That ultimately probably will contribute to your business success, but it's also in the short term. Maybe contributing to your happiness and your joy and your business. So it's really important to choose the things that are going to bring you joy, not just money. the other thing I like to look at is what do you want to be spending your time on, in your business and outside of it? So where will you actually be in five years? Not this whole where do you see yourself in five years? But like, actually, where will you be in your life in five years? If you are 35, you're going to be 40. So this is a journaling exercise, really? So pull out your journal and kind of think about it, like in five years, how old will I be? In five years, how old will my kids be? If you have kids in five years, where will we be living? If you know, you're planning on moving? Like, what is your life actually look like of the things that you know, for sure. That are going to happen. Everyone's going to get older for sure. So the things that you know for sure about your life in five years, write them down. And then look at that. This was a really powerful exercise for me , to write down. and I try to do this exercise every year, honestly. how old my kids will be in five years. And what they will be doing for activities or what I kind of expect them to be doing for activities. And where is my time going to need to be spent?, in cultivating. Their activities and their hobbies and their lives. And then reverse engineer, what success looks like for me and my business. So if. my youngest right now is six. So in five years, my youngest is going to be 11. Which is crazy, but like, I also have an 18 year old that just graduated high school. so I'm very familiar with how quickly the time passes with your kids and. Unfortunately, I worked a lot in corporate while my oldest was growing up. And so I missed, I have the benefit. of. Seeing the effects of missing out . On being involved as much as I really wanted to be involved. This is kind of a heart-wrenching exercise for some of us. But my youngest will be 11. My middle child will be. 13. And so what do you think they're going to be doing at that age? And like, what do, I mean, I know what it's like to have an 11 and a 13 year old. Not at the same time, but. I've you know, like I've ha I have an older child, so I know a lot of what happens for an 11 year old and a 13 year old is carting them around. Being the taxi. So picking up the friends, taking the, the friends, places with my kid. taking them to activities and practices. So that's a lot of time commitment for you. So. there's that right? And then also looking at the gap in between of okay. In the next five years. That's how much time I could possibly miss out if I hustle too hard. so it brings things back into perspective. And so defining for you, what success looks like in each season is really important. I have like an ultimate vision for my business. I think probably most of you do my ultimate vision is to grow it to a. Not astronomical amount, but a good enough amount to that, that I can exit from. And. Have a big chunk contributed to my retirement. However. While my kids are growing up is not the time I'm going to be hustling to get it to that point. I'm slowly getting it to that point and I'm okay with that. And I have to be okay with it and I have to constantly tell myself I feel okay with it because it does. Get to a point sometimes where like, I could be doing this, I could be doing that. I want to be doing all these things, but then it's like, but then something has to give. And we don't want to end up in burnout and we also have to take care of our health. And then to asking yourself the question. In addition to. fulfillment, success and time success of what you're doing with your time. And spent how, how much time you're working in spending. Time on your work. But how much money is enough? What would be the thing that helps you feel like, okay, my business is making enough money for me. It's always been, I don't want to have to check grocery store prices. I don't want to have to figure out like, if I can afford. The, the cart of groceries that I have, that's always been a big one for me. I like to cook. I like to buy novel ingredients and I like to buy some. Higher quality ingredients. And so I don't want to have to constantly check prices. So that was a big one for me. Like. If I'm making enough to be able to go to the grocery store and not really. I'm mean I'm blinking some eyes about it these days, because it's freaking expensive. I saw a post the other day that was like, my fuel bill, my fuel receipt on the car is, Like this, the cost of a car payment and my, car payment is the cost of a mortgage now. And like the grocery bill is a cost of the Costco bill and the Costco bill. It was just like, everything is so magnified now, but I digress. So for me, it's like I do blink an eye about the price, but at the same time, I know my business is doing what I want it to do when I can go to the grocery store and not have To worry so much about how much I'm spending on groceries. For you, it might be, I want to be able to, go on a spontaneous trip and not have to worry about if I can pay for it. so like adventuring or traveling, or if you have, An artistic hobby, like painting or quilting. And you want to be able to purchase things for that hobby without having to think about it. That is a. definition of success too. Like, it can be all the little things like that. Being able to, just have the time freedom to go pick up your kids from school and not have them in aftercare or not even have to have them take the bus or. Be able to stay home with them when they're sick and not have to call in all of these things can be part of your success. So, if you are like me and sometimes you get caught up in like, I'm not doing enough or like my business could be here, but it's only here. I encourage you to take a step back and look at all these things that your business is allowing you to do. And sit in that gratitude and know that it's just a season that you're maybe being prevented from working as much as you want to. And, In the next season of your life, you'll have the opportunity. Your business will not go away. Just if you maintain it to where it's at or do really slow growth, like it's going to be fine and you can hustle later if that's what you really want. Or maybe you'll finally come to the conclusion of like, none of that really matters. We just want to run this business in order to pay our bills. or have a little extra spending money or whatever your situation is. My ideas of success right now is so different. In my late thirties, then it was in my early twenties. And that's okay. It's okay. To slow down or speed up. It's okay to honor the season that you're in the season of life. if you have small kids, if you have teenagers, if you have, a parent that you're caring for, it is okay to honor that season. And. It's okay. If, that's enough. So. I did promise you at the top of this episode that I would talk about like the name behind the ambitious bookkeeper. I don't know if I've ever talked about it on the podcast. but it really came about because I wanted to build a community of other people that. Do kind of feel this way, have this pull of doing something a little bit more. You have this. desire and determination in your bones. And, it doesn't have to look like hustling at all, but we all have this common sense of ambition and ideas and wanting to serve our industries and Have more fulfillment honestly, is what it boils down to in my eyes. So if you're here for that, thank you for being a part of it. thank you for tuning in to this. Podcast each week. I really appreciate it. If you have found value in it, please go rate and review the podcast. Follow me on YouTube. I'm starting to do these on video. and. Uh, link all of that in the show notes for you. That's it for now. I'll talk to you guys next week. Bye.

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