Money isn’t Everything: How to Find Fulfillment in Business and Parenting

Hello, my friend, I am so excited for you to have a chance to listen to this episode today with my amazing guests that Kimberly Tara. She is a CPA and a certified tax coach, a wife, a mom to four little kids and a multi passionate entrepreneur. And as a tax strategist and Business Growth advisor, Kimberly and her team partner with CEO mom's service providers to maximize revenues, reduce taxes, and build wealth and create a legacy. But we don't talk about that stuff at all. Welcome to dev zone here, we do not talk about tax strategy. We don't talk about how to like, change your bottom line, build your revenue, maximize your profits, none of those things. It really is amazing, all those things, but she's also amazing at mindset and just talking about a wealth mindset and what it means to really understand your own value and worth and how that plays into how you prioritize yourself and how you're spending your time in your business. So this was truly such a great conversation and I can't wait for you to listen. You can also check out Kimberly over on the CEO moms building wealth podcast where I am also a guest this theme week. So check us out over there and give her a follow. And just a couple more things about Kimberly. She believes in fostering a supportive community where CEO moms are proactively encouraged to learn and ask the difficult tax and financial questions so they can understand their numbers and confidently make better business decisions. through proactive tax strategy and ongoing trusting relationship. Kimberly and her team believe in putting more money back in their clients pockets, and helping them sustainably grow their business while putting family first Kimberly is all about finding the balance to live your dream life and to be successful on what matters most. And then it absolutely what we cover in this conversation today and I can't wait for you to hear it.

This is the Entrepreneur School Podcast where we believe you can run a thriving business and still make your family a priority. This show is all about supporting you the emerging or early stage Entrepreneur on your journey from solopreneur to CEO while wearing all of the other hats in your life. My name is Kelly Sinclair and I'm a brand and marketing strategist who started a business with two kids under 3am, a corporate PR girl turned entrepreneur after I learned the hard way that life is too short to waste to doing things that burn you out. On this show. You'll hear inspiring stories from other business owners on their journey, and learn strategies to help you grow a profitable business while making it all fit into the life that you want. Welcome to Entrepreneur School.

Hey, hey, Kimberly, I'm so excited to have you on entrepreneur school today. Thank you for being here.

Yes, I am so excited. Thank you for having me.

Absolutely. We're gonna talk all things that so many people don't want to talk about, which is numbers, CEO mindset, money's stuff. Because you are a CPA and you deal with all those pieces. And I respect the heck up view that immediately let's see,

I respect you because I don't love the marketing, right? Like, that is not my jam. That is something that I've been having to learn over the last year, right. So like, I think that that's important for the listeners to know is you know, they're like, Oh, you're so good at this, you're so good at all these numbers. But remember that we all can't be good at everything. We can't all like everything. And so for me, that's the marketing. So just know that as good as I am at the numbers side of things. That's how bad I am at the marketing side of things. And that's something

Yes, absolutely. We all have our strengths. And that's sort of the whole point, when you run a business is identifying what those are, and leaning into the things that really bring you joy and that you're great at and then finding support with the rest of it. Right, exactly. Mm hmm. So can we start with sort of your co story, because I know that you're a mom, and you have young kids and like where did it all start for you? And how did this entrepreneurial journey happen?

Sorry. I wanted to interject because they feel like this is like a pattern story that so many of us have when we first get started

Oh yeah, doing all the things wrong like if you feel like you started your business and you didn't do all the right things like I promise you are so not alone. Even though like I'm a numbers person and I work with businesses, I still made so many mistakes right in the beginning that I wish I would have known better but I just didn't know

Right. And so why do you think it is that we get ourselves into that situation?

Yes, I think a lot of that, too, can get tied to that hourly billing. And I was a consultant for several years before I started my business. So I started the same way because it was the model that I knew. Yeah, even though I knew it wasn't really the best model. But it when you just say, I'll work for you know, when I worked for x hours, I will charge you X. But then I thought if I wasn't working, like I wasn't working for a client, I wasn't doing anything valuable either. So Apple idea of you know, could I take, go to a workout class in the middle of the day, you're taking my dog for a walk, I just didn't even couldn't even mentally get my head around it

Yeah, absolutely. I found the exact same like myself when I made that shift. And I helped some clients as well to see that because there's so much stress. Sometimes they're like, Oh, I committed X hours, and I'm charging them X hours. And even if you do it on a retainer basis, but you're still attaching it to the hours, you're feeling like you're scrambling at that invoicing time where it's like, Oh, I haven't completed it. But like, Did you add the value that you said your ad, right, you're burning yourself out trying to over deliver? And the truth is, the client doesn't even care, the client, just the result or the deliverable. And you provide that regardless of how long it takes you. And the more that you do it, the better you get, the faster you get at it. Right. Was that setting you up for?

Right, exactly. And so that's why I say like, you know, I think that a lot of times at the beginning, especially if you're learning, I think that sometimes the hourly model does make sense, right? Because you don't know how long it's going to take you you're still learning your craft. But once you've really learned your craft, and you do become an expert, that is when it needs to for sure switch to value based pricing. Because my clients do not care if it takes me three hours or 30 hours, if I'm going to save them $60,000 A year, they are willing to pay me what our fees are, because they want to save $60,000 a year for the next five years, every single year. And that's well worth it to them. And they honestly don't care how long it takes me to come up with that for them. They absolutely don't want to do it right now, especially tax strategy. Nobody wants to do tax strategy. No, yeah, but you do they love that do and I love it.

I just get so excited when anybody's excited about what they do like to me, it doesn't matter your your expertise, as long as you know, your passion, then it really becomes something that you're able to use through everything that you do. And I believe that that is the core of what your brand is. And that's what attracts people to you. Yes. So I feel like we should go into the mindset piece around all of this, like around being a CEO and like how, obviously, like, I love that you're already acknowledging the shifts that happen as you get more experience. And you know, as you get some practice under your belt with clients, and and you learn from the ways that you're delivering and setting up your business. And you have to go through that like, Well, I was having a conversation with somebody yesterday about the unrealistic expectations that we set for ourselves. And that's so often because of what we see on social media, right? There's such a disconnect between what people are putting out there, and then what we believe that we should be able to do not knowing any or all of the contexts around their own situations.

Yes. Oh, my goodness, so much. So much. Yes. I don't even know where to start with this.

I know. Right? I like there's a question in there. But like, I think you know, one of the things when it comes to money and running a business and how we feel like what success looks like there's still it's very difficult to disassociate with the actual income, right? As much as we can. And I personally can like tell myself that success is that I have this flexibility. I can you know end my day when my kids are home from school. I can take them to school every day I can take them to their activities at four o'clock. All of the things, and yet the moving thing of like how much but how much money are you making? Or you go to a family event and someone says, How's business? And you immediately assume that means are you making any money and like it just carries with you, right? And so we believe that we need to be making money, however much money we think we need to make. And then we're seeing all these other people quote, doing it. Yes.

You know, thank you so much for sharing that, because what I'm hearing underlying there as well is that we have these battles. I feel this way too, like when you're ambitious. And I think that this is the like, the big question to be trying to figure out is how do we allow and like, live in harmony with ambition, and presence at the same time, like, because you can have, you can do all the meditating, you can hear all of the people saying that, you know, you just have to be present in the moment and enjoy it and everything, but you live, but I got goals. And I want to Yes, and like,

I'm feeling torn about this all day, every day. I feel torn literally all day every day.

Yes, yeah, me too.

I have no, I have no suggestions for how to get rid of that feeling. Because I literally feel it all the time. And then, and then you feel guilty, because you shouldn't feel torn? Like, well, of course, you should pick a kid. Right? And so then, so then the guilt comes in, because you're like, Why do I feel torn? Well, you know, why do I feel it's just, it's, it's a real, it's a whole thing. It's a whole thing.

You know, and I think just saying it out loud, is really important that we're validating anybody else? Who's having those same feelings, where it's like, yeah, I want to, like, Be ambitious and, and try and grow my business and do all these things and hit my goals that I also want to be around to be able to go do a kid's assembly in the middle of the day and watch them saying or, you know, do their Halloween makeup or whatever it is. And like, I also live in a constant battle of wanting both of these things.

Yeah. And it's really hard. Because, you know, I think sometimes I tell myself from a professional aspect to justify how much I work. And the things that I'm doing is, will, you know, I'm working hard now so that it can have more freedom later. But at what expense, right, because I don't want to miss these little years, my kids are 653 and 16 months, I don't get these years back. So me working more now to set us up for more freedom down the road, but at what costs at the cost of missing them right now. And so that's kind of that's the justification for me personally, that's what works for me, that's what I tell myself is, you know, working hard now to have freedom down the road, I'm not going to get to go back and have them when they're 16 months. And when they're three and when they're five. And when they're doing their fair dance practices to be on stage or when they're begging me to be room up. I'm room mom this year, and I needed to be room mom, like I needed a hole in my head, y'all. I did not need one more thing on my plate. But my first grader who is in first grade right now, he asked me last year, he asked me the year before he's like, Well, when are you going to be my room? Mama? When are you going to be my room? Mom? So that's the priority, right? All the work stuff can wait. Because there's gonna come a point where he's 13. He's like, Mom, why are you at school, don't come by me don't come like I know those days. I mean, I hope that they don't. But I know that that's the reality that at some point, they're not going to be begging me to come to school and do art projects with them and do fair dances with them. But for right now, in this moment, in this year, in this season of life, they want me there, and I want to be there. And that means you know that that is what drives me to say, I will have the business for the rest of my life, I have the opportunity to make money for the rest of my life, I do not, I do not have the opportunity for the rest of my life, to enjoy the first eight years of my kids lives where they really want me to be there. And they really want me to be present. And it's still a battle with my personal and professional goals. But that is what I use personally, to keep me motivated to say, work can wait, my kids need me now. Because they're not going to wait time is not going to stop them from having a birthday every single year. And growing older and growing up. There's nothing that's going to stop that that that's not always going to be there by business, the opportunity to make money that's always going to be there.

Mm hmm. That's beautiful perspective. And I think it kind of goes into the other half of what we were talking about before that we were starting to unpack around these expectations, like the guilt and the that battle is coming from wanting something to happen faster, generally, in our business, right. And actually, before we got on here we were starting to talk about like what were shown online and it's a very difficult to not feel like to feel okay with setting your own goals and having like allowing things to happen more in their own time. In a world where we're constantly seeing like, my six figure launch and my like all this money I made in five minutes while I was you know, on an airplane or whatever very important thing to say around like financial disclosure, basically

I do I have a lot I have things to say around this. So, you know, when somebody on Instagram or Tiktok, or whatever the social media platform is touting their seven figure business or their six figure launch, right? They're not telling you all of the expenses that they incurred to make that money. Number one, right. And I get to see the back end of a lot of businesses, people share a lot of the money insights with me. And so I know, I've learned and I've seen with my own two eyes, someone who has a seven figure business, but they're in the red, right, they're not actually even they don't even have a profit, or they're only paying themselves $2,000 a month. And I don't know about you, Kelly, but I will not have a seven, I don't have a seven figure business and my profit margins. But my multi six figure business is actually much more profitable and much more beneficial to me than a lot of the seven figure businesses out there because their profit margins are either 5% or negative 5%. And so don't fall prey to the marketing media that they are doing to say, Oh, I'm so successful, but you have no idea what they're actually keeping in their pocket. And that's what I want to know is I want to know, how much are you taking home because I don't care how much you actually brought in, if you brought a million dollars in, but you spent 600,000 on Facebook and Instagram ads to do that, and you spent 300,000 on contractors to help you make that money. And then you spent another 200,000 on all your other costs, you've made no money. And I do not care that your business brought in seven figures, I don't care. And the other thing too with that Kelly, like that's the money side. But then on the flip side to is, you know, I know how those people who say, Oh, I made this in five days or five minutes while doing nothing. You don't know how many years they've spent getting set up for that, or they're probably lying to you, or they're spending exorbitant amounts of money on contractors who are doing the work for them, right. And look, I've started outsourcing more, that is something that I've had to learn to lean into is that I'm only one person who has ambitious goals, who also wants to be a present mom. So I need help, I need support. But if you bring in support, that means you're taking home less money. And that's okay. If time is more important to you, and presence with your children is more important to you. Great, outsource it, you should but know that that's money that's not coming into your pocket. And so just I really think that we need to stop comparing ourselves to everyone else out there, because you have no idea what their profits look like, what their support looks like, what their personal life looks like. Maybe they don't have any kids. You know, I can tell you, I would absolutely have a seven multi seven figure business right now, if I didn't have these four children that are out hours upon hours a day. Yeah. I mean, I'd work 12 hours a day, six days a week. If I if I didn't have kids, I'd always be working. I love what I do. Yeah.

You know, and and why do we even make decisions about who we want to work with or whatnot? Why are we so impressed by people's things there when we start feeling like we don't have anything to share about ourselves in our own businesses, if we don't have like screenshots of our clients telling us how much money they make or right. Like, why is that the Oh, it's despite as constantly having this conversation, I think in trying to reframe success, we are still victim to it, we still look at it as money. Yeah, absolutely.

And, you know, what, what a lot of, you know, and I don't, I don't want to use the word naive, but but a lot of us will, you know, go back to the beginning of our conversation, right? We all, we all have to start somewhere. And so when you're new and you don't know what you don't know, right, which is so applicable to business and finances, like you don't know what you don't know. And so what you're not realizing a lot of times is that one client win that they're sharing, that's one out of like, 10,000 clients, and they're picking though, one success story, and there could have been a lot of outside factors that led to that client one success story, you know, because you notice it in marketing. It's like you're seeing the same Client Testimonial over and over again, or the same, you know, the same outcome over and over again. And it's like, well, yeah, there's always that outlier that that does really well, but you know, I don't know I agree with you, Kelly. I don't know why we all keep going back to this even though we know we shouldn't it's like, but we have to and that's where that should work comes in and I really don't like that should worry that like we do something because we should

Totally and you know, I think well, maybe I'm just making everyone super cynical and skeptical that up out. And that is not the goal of this. That's not what we mean. Yeah, right, it was more like to empower you to, to not feel like you have to behave in a certain way or to compare your business. Because you know, the insides and outs of it, and you don't know the insides and outs of other people's businesses that they're sharing about online.

Yeah, and or for solidarity, right? We want you to like, I want everyone to know and feel like they're not alone, that all of the challenges that we're going through, like, we're all feeling that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's important. That's like a big, it's one of my big passions, right? It's just making sure that you know that you're not alone. Because I think that it's so easy for us to fall into that trap of the glamour and the big flashy numbers and the successes of others. And so sometimes, you know, back to what you were saying, Kelly, what is success? And what can be enough, and my husband, thankfully, is so good about that. He keeps me so grounded with, you know, he's like, Well, if you hit that goal, are you going to stop? Are you just going to move on to the next goal? He's like, I know you and you're just going to move on. He's like, so what, what is the urgency to hit this goal? You know, because you say, oh, because then you'll have more time he's like, but I know you're gonna fill it with something else. Right. And so that's very sobering sometimes to hear that and to say, I am guilty of that, I do do that, right. And so maybe I do just slow down so that I can be more present in the here. And now because he's right. I'm not just a person who's going to sit by idly right now know that about myself

more than nobody does, like we did something called the hedonic treadmill, where we have this belief, I write about this in a book recently, we have this belief that when we get to a certain different state, we're going to think, believe and act differently, when the truth is that that reset just keeps happening. And you're just constantly like, you know, like, the the mouse on the little wheel spinning, because you're you keep going, and it's just all victim ruse, right, basically. Yeah. So, you know, I feel like we need to find a way to equate the value of the other things that we have going on. Yeah, like that flexibility and the time freedom and all of that, like, we need to either put it into the same spreadsheet in some way to allow us to see that what we're doing has value beyond the income that we're bringing in. And it's not directly like, all time was created equal. It's not. It's not like only the money making stuff is worth something and everything else falls by the wayside.

Yeah. And I think people always think it's so funny, because like, I'm the CPA, I'm the money and financial person, and I quite, quite often am reminding my clients or my friends or my business, you know, my entrepreneur appears like, money isn't everything, and money. You know, no one ever wishes. No one ever says that they wish they would have had more money or died with more money, right? You know, and so I think that people always kind of laugh because they, they see the irony in the fact that I'm the one telling them like, it's not all about the money, you don't necessarily need to make more money, spend more time with your family, enjoy, enjoy the ride, right. And I know that as I'm telling you, I think sometimes I'm telling my clients that are my peers that because I'm reminding myself of that too, right? Because I know that it's not all about the money. I know, it's not about the professional success. I don't even I don't even talk I don't even know why sometimes this is we're not going to go far into this because it's that would be turned into like therapy, but sometimes I wonder like, I don't share it. You know, my my friends will be like, Well, why didn't you share that on your Instagram that you, you know, got an award or that you, you know, save this client? $60,000? Like, why don't you talk about it? And it's, I don't know, because I don't do it so that I can talk about it's really literally just for my own self satisfaction to hit these goals and hit these accomplishments and these metrics, because I don't even share them. Like my parents didn't even know that I was chosen his powerhouse of the year until something arrived and like, well, that's what's that for. And I was like, oh, you know this and that. They're like, You didn't come home and share that with us. You know, that kind of thing. So it's, it's not even for others. It's for myself. And so sometimes I sit back and it's like, But why, like, why do you why do you need that? Kimberly, if you're not even sharing it with the rest of the world? Is it that important? I don't know. I don't know the answer. That's why I say like, we're getting into therapy terror. Yeah,

Yeah. But thank you so much for sharing, like the insides of the way that you're thinking about things because I feel that knowing other people's perspectives is always really helpful to ground, whoever's listening to this in that it's okay to be making the choices that you need to make and why Want to make and choose to make for your own life and your own goals and your own family, and you will get where you want to go? At some point. If you don't stop, and you have no intention of stopping, you're going to get there. And I know that sometimes I feel like it's been forever, like, when is it going to happen? It doesn't even matter. Like it really doesn't. Like and I loved it mean, I don't care and it doesn't mean that you're not like goal oriented or whatever, it just means that you're working through it, and,

No, yeah, I mean, the perspective of time and how precious it is, is such an important one to hold. And, and like for me, having lost my mom, I have that very front of mind all the time. Like I just don't even I know that tomorrow isn't even promised for any anybody. So

yeah, yes, and there's so much, you know, research as well, that goes into that abundance versus scarcity mindset. And that's what you're talking about. And that's like, acknowledging what you do have and being grateful for it and showing that gratitude and, and that when you step into that, you become the attraction for what you want, as well. Like,

for money, right? Like I've like we talked about that with our clients from a mindset perspective, right? Really living in that abundance mindset monetarily, as well. And even the you know, I've, I've personally seen the benefits of that, you know, like, and I understand if you're, if you're newer to business, you maybe are in a little bit more of a hustle mode and you're worried but like, at some point, you have to shift your mindset and say, you know, I need to believe that I know what I do is good work. I know that clients want to work with me and really lean into that abundance mindset from a monetary perspective as well.

Well, there's been so many good gold nuggets in this conversation. I loved it. Thank you so much for sharing all of this and I hope that listeners will reach out to you as especially if you actually we didn't even talk about. We mentioned a few times, you know, Kimberly is a tax strategist and a CPA. So if you need any support in any of those areas, please connect with her. Let everybody know where to find you and how to stay in touch.

Yeah. So if you love listening to podcasts, I invite you to come listen to the CEO moms building wealth podcast, Kelly is actually a guest over there as well. And we had a different conversation, but equally good and important. So if you like podcasts, I invite you to come listen to the CEO moms building wealth podcast. You can also find me on Instagram at Tara CPA firm. I like to call it my landing page. I don't post a lot. But I love connecting in the voice DMS with a voice DM and then we also have a resource. And this is really applicable whether you're in the US or you're in Canada or somewhere else in the world. But we have our 12 most missed tax deductions. And so if you're in the US, they will explicitly apply to you. But even if you're in Canada or somewhere else, I want you to use it to really get the conversation going with your professional to say, Where am I missing deductions, where can I be saving money? Where can I be putting more cash back in my pocket from the work that I'm doing in my business? And so I'm sure Kelly will include the link to that resource for you.

Yes, absolutely. And thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me.

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