Depression with Mike Moise

Mike: 00:00:00

Some of the signs of depression are fatigue, heavy fatigue not feeling up

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for doing anything, counting it as a win.

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If you get up and take a shower, right.

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Being numb to certain things and that's not cynicism, but just numb watching

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your life sort of go by and it could be three months, six months that go by

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and you're sort of like a spectator.

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and not a participant of your own life, and you don't

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even realize that's gone by,

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Hey, this is Allison.

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Welcome to under withheld the podcast by accountants and for accountants,

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where we talk about our ubiquitous professional and personal struggles.

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You are not alone.

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This episode is a conversation I had with Mike MOEYS.

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Mike is an accountant based out of Boston, Massachusetts from childhood.

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And into his college and working years, Mike has had an on-again

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off-again relationship with depression.

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Uh, Mike shares experiences of growing up and working in accounting with depression,

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as well as some thoughts on how folks in accounting might approach their own

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depression and how others might help them.

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Before we jump into the conversation, a little background on the topic.

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Per the national institutes of health, depression is quote a

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common but serious mood disorder.

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It causes severe symptoms that affect how you feel, think, and

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handle daily activities such as sleeping, eating, or working.

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To be diagnosed with depression.

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The symptoms must be present for at least two weeks in quo.

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And IHS website lists 12 signs of depression.

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I will go through each one in the event that something resonates with you,

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certainly the list isn't all-inclusive nor miss someone present with all

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symptoms to be considered depressed.

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And of course, any of these symptoms could be indicators of some other

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underlying issue that may or may not be related to depression.

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In short placing medical care.

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If you think you may have depression, here we go.

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Number one.

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A persistent feeling of sadness, anxiety, or just feeling empty.

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Number two.

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Hopelessness.

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Pessimism.

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Number three.

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Being irritable.

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Number four, not being interested in hobbies or activities.

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Number five decreased energy levels being tired.

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Number six, moving and talking slowly.

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Number seven, feeling restless or having trouble sitting still.

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Number eight difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions.

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Number nine difficulty sleeping.

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Early morning awakening or oversleeping number 10, appetite and or weight changes.

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Number 11.

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Thoughts of death or suicide or suicide attempts.

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Number 12 aches or pains, headaches, cramps, or digestive problems

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without a clear fiscal cause.

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And or that do not ease even with treatment.

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NIH reports that approximately 8% of us adults experienced at least one

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major depressive episode in 2020.

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It therefore seems reasonable to me that there are quite a few

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accountants who have depression.

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My research on this was a mixed bag.

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While I found indicators through various articles, that depression is possibly a

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systemic issue in the accounting industry.

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I wasn't able to locate any industry-wide resources for help.

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If you have resources specifically where these two topics meet, please reach out

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to me with those under withheld.com.

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I'll add them to the resources already listed in the show notes.

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In case it needs to be said.

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I know my guests are therapists.

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We are not offering therapy.

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We may say things that just don't resonate with you.

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And if so, that's totally cool.

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There's nothing prescriptive here.

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Just colleagues talking about an issue we think is important.

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And we hope talking about it will help someone else.

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If something sounds helpful to you here.

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Cool.

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If not, just ignore it.

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Welcome to the show.

Alicyn: 00:03:53

Mike.

Alicyn: 00:03:54

Hey, welcome to the show.

Mike: 00:03:56

Hey, Hey, thanks for having me.

Mike: 00:03:57

Appreciate it

Alicyn: 00:03:58

Yeah, absolutely.

Alicyn: 00:03:59

How's it been going?

Mike: 00:04:01

going pretty well.

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I took a lot of time off actually recently, so that's good.

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How about yourself?

Alicyn: 00:04:08

tired.

Alicyn: 00:04:09

I'm ready for a little break myself.

Alicyn: 00:04:11

So I'm going up to the mountains for a few days and I'm looking forward to.

Mike: 00:04:15

So you haven't taken a break yet

Alicyn: 00:04:16

Not just yet.

Alicyn: 00:04:17

My out of office is kind of a lie.

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I usually put on longer than I'm actually gone., so I can refrain from

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answering client emails for just a few days, get caught up on a few things.

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Good.

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So I guess the key question right, is you're gonna be out of office where

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you, are you gonna be on Twitter?

Alicyn: 00:04:33

I.

Mike: 00:04:34

Ah, okay.

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That's like the ultimate shutdown.

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If you, if you're gonna be off of Twitter or LinkedIn or whatever you use the.

Alicyn: 00:04:41

Yeah, I think if you're gone for more than a week, you have to

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put on it out of office on Twitter.

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Right.

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Checking out, see you later.

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I am introducing myself a lot nowadays.

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I actually say that I am a poet and child raise in an embassy.

Alicyn: 00:04:58

Wait say that last part, a child.

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I'm a poet and a child raised in an embassy.

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So I'll explain it a bit, but you know, for the listeners, right?

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My name is Mike Moise.

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I'm a CPA by training, currently a consultant.

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And the reason I say that is a, I actually have done a ton of poetry.

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So that's kind of a metaphor for what I'm gonna be describing, but

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poets, really, our creative people, they have huge imaginations and they

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have the power to really create.

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What doesn't exist through just their words.

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Right?

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So I've, that's actually been something that's marked my career.

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My life in general gets into some of that a little bit, and actually

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creative people are more prone to what I like to call melancholy.

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So if you actually study a lot of great musicians, a lot of great

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artists or what, like, they feel a little more deeply sometimes

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than just the regular population.

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That poet metaphor has always been appropriate for me, at least.

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And then the embassy thing, that's just, if you think about an embassy, right.

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An embassy is literally, it's a, it's a foreign country.

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That's, established on domestic soil and my parents are from Haiti, so they

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were born and raised in, in Haiti.

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Right.

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I was born here, but like a lot of immigrants, I always felt like I had

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to navigate the, like these dual ID.

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So I would be at home and in my house, the embassy, right.

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My home would have the Haitian customs, the Haitian language Haitian Creole

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and just the culture in general.

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So I would have to like, I'd live by that.

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Right.

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But when I stepped foot outside of the house and I went to school or,

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you know, wherever else, it was the American culture that I had to sort of

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navigate and navigate for the first time.

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Right.

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So my joke is that, you know, my home was like an embassy that I was raised in.

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Once I stepped foot outside of that embassy, it was the

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United States of America.

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And I had to learn how to both be patient American or, a child of immigrants and be

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a young man growing up in the Boston area.

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So that's the area that I'm from.

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Yeah, so that's, , that's, that's kind of like my intro to people

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just in general, because it's true.

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It's just it's marked who I.

Alicyn: 00:07:03

did you get into accounting?

Mike: 00:07:05

Good question.

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So we were talking about this before, but essentially I always knew always, actually

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I always knew when, since I was a kid that I wanted to be in business, right.

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That was people who would always ask me, Hey, what do

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you wanna be when you grow up?

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I wanted to be a businessman, not knowing what that meant or the different avenues.

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But when I got to college, I actually studied economics.

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So I wasn't actually going down the accounting path and I think maybe I, you

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know, maybe I'm risk averse, who knows, but during the financial crisis, right.

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I saw people lose their jobs.

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And when I say financial crisis, I'm talking about the oh

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seven to like, oh nine crisis.

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People were losing their jobs, their homes.

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I was working in sales at the time actually saw a lot of sales folks

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that were making six figures.

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Just lose that overnight because of just a shift shift in demand.

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Right.

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And then if anybody.

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Was aware or, you know, alert enough during that time.

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It was actually really scary.

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Right.

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I just happened to be studying economics during that crisis.

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So I was just hyper aware of what was going on.

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So I had always known about the CPA profession, not to the

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extent that I obviously do now, but I'd always known about it.

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And I always said in my mind, I want to choose something that would cause me

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to be confident if this ever happens.

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So if another crisis comes around and a company says, Hey

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Mike, we're gonna do some cuts.

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We're gonna have to let you go.

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I don't want that to send fear in my heart.

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Like I actually want control over my life.

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So that's actually why I chose the accounting slash CPA route to begin with.

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So I, studied economics, but I went and got my masters in accounting.

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I attended the university of Massachusetts Amherst.

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So that's in the new England area and I went the typical big four

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route for, students in that program.

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And I started off working at Ernston young.

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So I started working in public accounting, doing, auditing for a while.

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And that was my journey into, accounting.

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I didn't know much about it.

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I just knew it was something that I wanted to do.

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And I think I just learned more about the industry as my career went.

Alicyn: 00:08:59

So Mike, you are here with us today to talk about depression.

Mike: 00:09:04

Yep.

Alicyn: 00:09:05

I was doing a little bit of research in advance of our conversation.

Alicyn: 00:09:10

Of course my research tool is Google,

Mike: 00:09:13

Yep.

Mike: 00:09:13

Mm-hmm yep.

Alicyn: 00:09:14

Google, accounting, and depression.

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And I was curious as to what I would get.

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They were stories from other accountants about their struggle

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with depression in the industry.

Alicyn: 00:09:27

I didn't see a lot.

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Yeah.

Alicyn: 00:09:30

itself about, Hey, we, you know, we think that depression.

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Or other concerns are systemic in the accounting industry and here's, here's

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what we're doing about it, or here's what we would like to do about it, or here's

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what we think you should do about it.

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It was honestly kind of a little sad.

Alicyn: 00:09:46

I even found a website called the depressed accountant.com and about, yeah.

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Yeah.

Alicyn: 00:09:55

The depressed accountant, . Looks like it was a blog started in 20,

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20, 20, 21, somewhere in there.

Mike: 00:10:01

mm-hmm

Alicyn: 00:10:02

And somebody just started journaling about what it was like to

Alicyn: 00:10:05

be going through depression and to also be in the accounting industry.

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All of that to say while I did find some information out there, it felt like,

Alicyn: 00:10:15

I guess I'll summarize it this way.

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It felt like enough that this seems like it's a systemic issue.

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And yet there doesn't seem to be anything industrywide that is available to help.

Alicyn: 00:10:25

So I just wanna say that and I'd like to hear, of course from you, your story

Alicyn: 00:10:30

with depression, with what it's like in the industry, going through this.

Mike: 00:10:35

Yeah, no, Allison, I, first of all, I appreciate you Googling that.

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I'd never even thought to do that.

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I've definitely Googled a ton.

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I guess I've done a ton of self teaching on depression and I'll get into that in

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a bit, but I never thought to actually combine depression and accounting

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together and research an issue with that.

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So I'm actually glad that you're bringing it up, cuz even for myself, I never

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thought to bring the two together.

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So I'll take a step back.

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And just when I think about depression, right?

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It's been a journey for me just to understand what depression was

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just to begin with and in my life.

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Depression has been a series of like distinct, tangible chapters.

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they've, they've been chapters.

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So I've known like I have chapters in my life where I know, okay,

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this was like that dark period.

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Right.

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You know, and then I'll come, I'll come out of that.

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And then it'll be, you know, let's say five years, we'll go by six

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years, then it'll be something else.

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And every time that's happened, I've learned.

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So I'll start with the first, my first known instance,

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but I'll actually go back.

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And I think this is important just to actually like reflect

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on yourself in general.

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So I'll go back to when I was a kid and I don't even know why

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this was, it might have been just the whole, the immigrant thing.

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Like I told you I had some great parents that cared about me, but there were

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some struggles with just growing up a being black, but then not really fitting

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with, with my black peers and actually fitting in more with immigrant peers.

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Because I was Haitian, but then B I'm doing everything for the first time.

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Like I, you know, things that kids knew by second nature were just different for me.

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Like I didn't have a Google, so I would, research for example,

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how to even talk on the phone.

Alicyn: 00:12:14

Yeah,

Mike: 00:12:15

To like my peers.

Mike: 00:12:16

Right.

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I would write scripts before I wrote on phones, because I just didn't even know

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how that, how to kind of navigate that.

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And it, it is just because , I wasn't used to the, American culture as

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much as I was the Asian culture.

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So growing up, I used to actually pull my hair out a lot.

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So like, I would, I didn't know this, but I was pulling my hair out and

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then I would have like patches in my eyebrows or like on my, you know, near

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my forehead where my hairline is and my parents didn't know what it was.

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I didn't tell 'em I was pulling it out.

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They thought something was wrong with me.

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And something was, I just didn't know what it was fast forward to today.

Mike: 00:12:47

I sort of Google the symptoms and obviously I'm not diagnosing myself.

Mike: 00:12:51

I'm an accountant, not a doctor, but those symptoms are tricot.

Alicyn: 00:12:55

Hmm.

Mike: 00:12:55

And it's a disorder caused by anxiety, stress, depression, et

Mike: 00:12:59

cetera, and anything can trigger it, but that pulling out of your hair,

Mike: 00:13:02

, it's an actual condition, right?

Mike: 00:13:05

I've had the ingredients for what I think is depression for a while.

Mike: 00:13:09

What happened later on in life was in college for a various number of reasons

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that I, I had to actually unpack and sit and journal and go to therapy for.

Mike: 00:13:18

I had bout of depression.

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That was so bad that I failed three semesters in a row.

Mike: 00:13:25

I got all F's I'm a nerd.

Mike: 00:13:26

I was always a great student or a decent student.

Mike: 00:13:29

Right.

Mike: 00:13:30

And I had to actually sit and think, Mike, if you you're a decent

Mike: 00:13:34

student, if you actually failed three semesters in a row, something's wrong.

Mike: 00:13:39

If you can't open up a book and actually read the book and have some

Mike: 00:13:44

takeaways and be able to take a test because you can't even remember what

Mike: 00:13:47

you read, like something is wrong and I'm, I'm barely 20 at this time,

Mike: 00:13:51

but I, I knew something was going on.

Mike: 00:13:53

I was, I remember vividly actually being in my dorm and I

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didn't want to see the sunlight.

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So I would have the shades down all day.

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And the only time I would leave my dorm was because my stomach could no

Mike: 00:14:04

longer take the fact that I was hungry.

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So I was kind of forced to leave just to go get a bite, to eat, come

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back and then stay in the dark again.

Mike: 00:14:12

Right.

Mike: 00:14:12

So, and funny enough, I failed intro to accounting three times.

Alicyn: 00:14:17

Oh, gosh,

Mike: 00:14:18

So that's bad.

Mike: 00:14:21

Yeah.

Mike: 00:14:21

Right.

Mike: 00:14:21

So I failed intro to accounting three times.

Mike: 00:14:23

I failed three semesters in a row.

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And as I was so scared to go back for that fourth semester, because I knew if I went.

Mike: 00:14:31

I would fail outta I'd get kicked outta school.

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Cause that was my last semester I had a 1.9, six GPA.

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I remember that vividly.

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And that's what I told, the school that's what I told my parents

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and my friends and my family.

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I'm afraid to go back because my mind is not working.

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The one thing that you're relying on , you can't even trust it to go

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back to school and actually , pull a C let alone in an a right.

Mike: 00:14:52

So that was a time period.

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And I took that time off.

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So like, I, I left school.

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People thought I was gonna be a dropout.

Mike: 00:14:58

I, I didn't know where this was gonna go.

Mike: 00:15:00

Cause typically when you do dropout, it's harder to get back.

Mike: 00:15:02

But yeah, I took some time off really pause.

Mike: 00:15:06

I, I pumped the breaks on like life and you know, long, fast,

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long story short, I ended up coming back and doing really well.

Mike: 00:15:14

And I thought that depression was behind me.

Mike: 00:15:16

That that was just one.

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And you fast forward, maybe.

Mike: 00:15:19

So that was around like 20, let's say 2008 ish,

Alicyn: 00:15:24

Mm-hmm

Mike: 00:15:25

seven, eight.

Mike: 00:15:25

Around that time, I think.

Mike: 00:15:26

Yeah, 2007, 2008, just really, you know, dealing with that depression.

Mike: 00:15:30

But then I ended up coming back.

Mike: 00:15:31

You fast forward to maybe 2015.

Mike: 00:15:34

I had family members that.

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We had all gone through like a large dispute and, and we lost

Mike: 00:15:39

some relationships because of that.

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And I lost some like key relationships in my life as well.

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And that caused a, that triggered, you know, some grief in me and

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that was another bout of depression.

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So this is now I'm working in accounting.

Mike: 00:15:53

And that was the first time I'd contemplated suicide.

Mike: 00:15:55

And that's when I knew, okay.

Mike: 00:15:56

Like I, I thought this was behind me.

Mike: 00:15:58

Right.

Mike: 00:15:58

Like I thought I'd, you know you know, gotten over things.

Mike: 00:16:02

And so that's when I went back and, I went back to therapy as well.

Mike: 00:16:05

And this entire time I'm not doing a good job of consistent maintenance

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or hygiene for my mental health.

Mike: 00:16:11

I'm just thinking that, Hey, I got through.

Mike: 00:16:14

I'm okay.

Mike: 00:16:14

But then four or five years later, or sometime later an episode

Mike: 00:16:18

will happen where I'll just go back into this dark place.

Mike: 00:16:21

Now, thankfully by then I had sort of known what was going on because

Mike: 00:16:25

in college, when I'd gone through that, I'd done a lot of just my own

Mike: 00:16:29

research, just reading up on depression.

Mike: 00:16:31

Cause I didn't know anything about it.

Mike: 00:16:32

I didn't, I thought I was just maybe tired or, you know, God forbid

Mike: 00:16:36

like maybe just lazy or over life.

Mike: 00:16:39

But I learned that, Hey, like this is actually something that happens to.

Mike: 00:16:42

And here are the symptoms and you know, this is not unusual, so I

Mike: 00:16:45

kind of knew but it still happened.

Mike: 00:16:46

Right.

Mike: 00:16:47

The last time this happened was around 20 18, 19 ish.

Mike: 00:16:53

Right?

Mike: 00:16:53

So fast forward from 20 15, 16 to now, like 20 18, 20 19.

Alicyn: 00:16:58

Oh,

Mike: 00:16:59

And you, what I'm noticing, is the time periods between

Mike: 00:17:02

when these chapters show.

Mike: 00:17:05

Shrinks.

Mike: 00:17:06

. So my first time was around, like, let's say, oh 7 0 8, then seven years.

Mike: 00:17:11

And now it's like 2015 ish, right?

Mike: 00:17:14

20 14, 20 15 ish.

Mike: 00:17:15

Around that time.

Mike: 00:17:16

, but then only a few years between that.

Mike: 00:17:19

And you're looking at, you know, 20, let's say end of 2017 to 2019, I'm

Mike: 00:17:23

being, you know, liberal with my dates, but that's around the time range.

Mike: 00:17:27

And that was actually, that was a culmination of a lot of things.

Mike: 00:17:31

A I'd lost time from school.

Mike: 00:17:33

So I felt like I spent my entire career trying to catch up.

Mike: 00:17:37

Right.

Mike: 00:17:37

So I, I felt like I felt like I did a version of me a disservice

Mike: 00:17:41

because I entered into the accounting industry a little bit later.

Mike: 00:17:45

You know, I hadn't progressed to where I wanted to be.

Mike: 00:17:47

I should have been you know, pick a level, pick a title, pick a,

Mike: 00:17:51

compensation band or whatever.

Mike: 00:17:53

Like I should have been at that place.

Mike: 00:17:55

And I wasn't.

Mike: 00:17:56

So what I found is to validate my self.

Mike: 00:18:00

And I know this now I didn't know well was going on, but I know this now to validate

Mike: 00:18:03

myself where I was doing a lot of things.

Mike: 00:18:05

I started my own firm.

Mike: 00:18:06

That was one thing.

Mike: 00:18:07

I was working overtime and just trying to just assimilate as much information, get

Mike: 00:18:12

as much experience as possible to be the super CPA, know, I don't know what, yeah.

Mike: 00:18:18

Some, I just wanted to, I wanted to.

Mike: 00:18:21

Exactly, exactly.

Mike: 00:18:22

So I just wanted to I wanted to be the best that I could be,

Mike: 00:18:26

but in a very unhealthy way.

Mike: 00:18:28

Right.

Mike: 00:18:28

And where it came all crashing down was I actually tore my Achilles

Mike: 00:18:31

playing basketball in 2019.

Mike: 00:18:34

The foundation was cracky before that, but when I tore my Achilles,

Mike: 00:18:38

I could not keep up with anything.

Mike: 00:18:41

Right.

Mike: 00:18:41

I, just couldn't.

Mike: 00:18:43

And.

Mike: 00:18:44

To be honest, I've actually been battling my way out of that for a while.

Mike: 00:18:47

Cause you know, you, tear your Achilles, you have surgery.

Mike: 00:18:50

You're just not the same, you need to rest.

Mike: 00:18:52

And I've never done that because I think there's always been this thing

Mike: 00:18:54

in me where, I believe every action that I take or every thing that I

Mike: 00:18:58

accomplish is sort of validating or making up for the mistakes that I

Mike: 00:19:04

made or the person that I wasn't when I was maybe younger or in school.

Mike: 00:19:09

COVID, wasn't helpful because that was sort of isolated.

Mike: 00:19:13

I'm actually gonna go check out that website, the depress accountant,

Mike: 00:19:15

because around that time as well, I was dealing with that depression.

Mike: 00:19:18

I isolated myself.

Mike: 00:19:19

One of my friends was so worried that she ended up actually calling

Mike: 00:19:23

the police to come check in on me.

Mike: 00:19:25

Some of the signs of depression are fatigue, heavy fatigue not feeling up

Mike: 00:19:30

for doing anything, counting it as a win.

Mike: 00:19:33

If you get up and take a shower, right.

Mike: 00:19:36

Being numb to certain things and that's not cynicism, but just numb watching

Mike: 00:19:41

your life sort of go by and it could be three months, six months that go by

Mike: 00:19:45

and you're sort of like a spectator.

Mike: 00:19:48

and not a participant of your own life, and you don't even

Mike: 00:19:50

realize that's gone by,.

Mike: 00:19:51

You miss a lot of things.

Mike: 00:19:53

So those are sort of the three chapters.

Mike: 00:19:54

When I think about depression, those are three chapters in my life

Mike: 00:19:57

all caused by different things.

Mike: 00:19:58

But I think the underlying root for me, this is me saying this, the underlying

Mike: 00:20:02

root has just been a lack of self worth.

Mike: 00:20:06

And then also a lack of self.

Mike: 00:20:08

So this is the last time with COVID.

Mike: 00:20:09

I think a lot of us, and I've seen this on Twitter or blogs or whatever.

Mike: 00:20:13

A lot of people in our profession, we just went into a black hole and I think

Mike: 00:20:18

we're now starting to come out of that.

Mike: 00:20:20

And trying to detangle from unhealthy ways of thinking and patterns

Mike: 00:20:25

and behaviors that came with the pandemic and all the regulations

Mike: 00:20:29

just the fast moving pace of things.

Alicyn: 00:20:38

Would you say Mike, that depression impacts you as an accountant?

Mike: 00:20:43

well, I definitely say I missed out on opportunities.

Mike: 00:20:46

I said to myself, Mike, this is actually costing you not taking carry yourself

Mike: 00:20:50

on the front end, cost you, right?

Mike: 00:20:52

Like you can finish the project or you can.

Mike: 00:20:54

You can write a killer memo or do whatever, but on the back end you

Mike: 00:20:59

will pay for it and it actually costs you and makes you miss

Mike: 00:21:02

out on certain opportunities.

Mike: 00:21:03

And what do I mean by that?

Mike: 00:21:04

Right.

Mike: 00:21:05

I think if I'm not depressed, for example I have more mental Dex, sturdy

Mike: 00:21:10

or vitality to actually let's say propose or think through a job better and propose

Mike: 00:21:15

better, I'll give you one, one great example if I was, so I was so tired for

Mike: 00:21:21

this one client that I was doing work on.

Mike: 00:21:23

And when I say tired, mentally tired that I didn't, I didn't

Mike: 00:21:26

have the time to actually stop.

Mike: 00:21:28

And think about the scope of the work that they were asking us to do.

Mike: 00:21:32

So this was, this was an audit readiness type of client.

Mike: 00:21:35

They weren't really doing their books and they were getting ready to get

Mike: 00:21:38

audited by a big accounting firm.

Mike: 00:21:41

And I, I knew because I'd worked in the industry, I'd seen this playbook before.

Mike: 00:21:45

I knew that this was gonna be more than what we could handle.

Mike: 00:21:50

So it was myself and another more junior staff, but I didn't have

Mike: 00:21:54

the time to actually sit, analyze and inspect the proposal because I

Mike: 00:21:59

was kind of just going with things.

Mike: 00:22:00

And when you're tired, sometimes you're open for you're just open.

Mike: 00:22:04

You don't have the ability to actually push back.

Mike: 00:22:07

and, defend a position or think, right.

Mike: 00:22:09

So what ended up happening is that because I didn't actually have the

Mike: 00:22:13

energy for that this whole project ended up becoming what I knew it was

Mike: 00:22:17

gonna become, which was a giant mess and causing me more hours anyway.

Mike: 00:22:21

So I ended up working seven days a week for X amount of weeks

Mike: 00:22:23

straight, which actually didn't help.

Alicyn: 00:22:25

no.

Alicyn: 00:22:26

Right.

Alicyn: 00:22:26

That just exacerbates the problem.

Mike: 00:22:28

Yeah.

Mike: 00:22:28

So that happened and not having the energy to speak to folks caused me to not be

Mike: 00:22:33

able to network as much as I usually do.

Mike: 00:22:35

And I don't even like using the word network, but just relationships,

Mike: 00:22:37

both professionally and personally.

Mike: 00:22:40

Right.

Mike: 00:22:40

I, I either don't develop the ones that I should or the ones that I do

Mike: 00:22:44

have suffer a ton, especially with people that don't understand what

Mike: 00:22:49

it is that you're going through.

Mike: 00:22:51

Right.

Mike: 00:22:51

So, Got a lot of people that think that I either abandoned them or I had an

Mike: 00:22:58

issue with them, or I just, you know, I'm disinterested in the relationship.

Mike: 00:23:01

The relationships suffer.

Mike: 00:23:02

And I think relationships for me are one of the things that mattered the most.

Alicyn: 00:23:05

Sounds like there's heavy costs.

Mike: 00:23:07

Yeah.

Mike: 00:23:08

Heavy, heavy costs this time around.

Mike: 00:23:09

Definitely.

Mike: 00:23:10

It's almost like whenever.

Mike: 00:23:11

This happens, I go into a cave.

Mike: 00:23:14

I come out and the world has changed.

Alicyn: 00:23:17

Oh, wow.

Alicyn: 00:23:18

Yeah.

Mike: 00:23:18

Yeah, so that like, it's, that's actually how it, what it feels like.

Mike: 00:23:22

It feels like I I'm frozen in time.

Mike: 00:23:24

And then once I kind of get out of that, now I'm catching up with what's going on.

Mike: 00:23:28

And so you, you lose time, right?

Mike: 00:23:31

Which is the VA most valuable resource.

Mike: 00:23:33

Even some of the technology and tools that people are using , I missed

Mike: 00:23:37

out on that because I haven't been around really for, a number of years.

Mike: 00:23:42

So in my mind, I'm still thinking of zoom as being a revolutionary

Mike: 00:23:47

technology that no one knows about.

Mike: 00:23:49

But in reality, Zoom was adopted by the entire world, almost because

Mike: 00:23:54

of the pandemic, but I've been using zoom since like 20 16, 20 17.

Mike: 00:23:58

You see what I'm saying?

Mike: 00:23:59

I was a champion and a cheerleader of zoom.

Mike: 00:24:01

I loved it.

Mike: 00:24:01

You know, I was using it for all my clients cuz I was

Mike: 00:24:04

doing the whole virtual thing.

Mike: 00:24:05

So my mind is still back then before zoom became what it is now.

Mike: 00:24:09

Right.

Mike: 00:24:09

Or any of these other tools that , have either popped up or have been adopted

Mike: 00:24:14

widely by a lot of firms in our industry.

Alicyn: 00:24:17

Mike, do you have any thoughts about how employers who have staff.

Alicyn: 00:24:23

Who may have depression might be able to help them.

Mike: 00:24:27

That's a, that's a good question.

Mike: 00:24:28

I don't.

Mike: 00:24:29

So I, the reason I don't immediately is because I wasn't ready for

Mike: 00:24:33

what you told me about that depressed accountant website.

Mike: 00:24:35

Right.

Mike: 00:24:36

I never thought to look up or think of accountants and depression.

Mike: 00:24:41

And to be honest, in my mind, I don't think you think of accountants as

Mike: 00:24:45

being, or allowed to be depressed.

Mike: 00:24:47

Are you allowed to be depressed if you're an accountant?

Mike: 00:24:49

, is that even a thing, right?

Mike: 00:24:50

You don't think of that.

Alicyn: 00:24:51

talk about that.

Alicyn: 00:24:52

Keep going with.

Mike: 00:24:53

I'm a Googler at heart.

Mike: 00:24:55

Like I Google everything.

Mike: 00:24:56

Right.

Mike: 00:24:57

But why did I never Google depression and accounting?

Mike: 00:25:00

Why did I never go down that route?

Mike: 00:25:01

Even though I've been Googling my condition or researching my

Mike: 00:25:04

condition for, 12 years now.

Mike: 00:25:06

And when you think, when I think of an accountant, at least, the

Mike: 00:25:09

perception of accountant is you're a numbers person, you're business

Mike: 00:25:13

oriented, there's logic to it, right?

Mike: 00:25:15

There are rules and regulations that you follow, right?

Mike: 00:25:18

There's no, it's almost emotionless where it's like, Hey, that

Mike: 00:25:21

deduction is that deduction.

Mike: 00:25:22

There's no emotion behind it.

Mike: 00:25:23

Or that position that I'm taking for the financial statements.

Mike: 00:25:27

It is what it is when I argue or debate with the auditors.

Mike: 00:25:30

We're not debating based on how I feel about so.

Mike: 00:25:34

But based on what the guidance says, right?

Mike: 00:25:36

So there's no, there's no feeling in this industry and I'm obviously I'm kind

Mike: 00:25:40

of exaggerating, but there's no feeling it's, it has nothing to do with feelings.

Mike: 00:25:43

So I would not associate accountants with having, and I'm, I am one.

Mike: 00:25:48

Right.

Mike: 00:25:49

But I wouldn't associate our industry with having a feelings type of issue.

Mike: 00:25:54

And that's partly why I think for me, I probably, would've never, bring this

Mike: 00:25:59

up the workplace or with colleagues cuz it's not even something I've

Mike: 00:26:03

even heard talk about, you know?

Mike: 00:26:06

So I think talking about it might be the first thing, like what you're

Mike: 00:26:09

doing right now is probably honestly the first thing to do because , we

Mike: 00:26:14

don't deal in the realm of Ebo, which is also probably why as a separate.

Mike: 00:26:19

Accountants, I think find it difficult to move into other, maybe more

Mike: 00:26:23

management positions, cuz we're taught to be technical early on, but some of

Mike: 00:26:29

the more managerial, soft skills I think a lot of accountants probably

Mike: 00:26:33

struggle to transition to that.

Mike: 00:26:36

But yeah, I think having the conversation first is important cause I've never

Mike: 00:26:39

really had the conversation about mental.

Mike: 00:26:41

in any firm, never at EY.

Mike: 00:26:43

Maybe they do at the big four firms now.

Mike: 00:26:46

I don't know.

Mike: 00:26:46

Cause I haven't been there in a while, but especially not at my firm.

Mike: 00:26:49

We don't talk about that.

Mike: 00:26:50

So talking about it is, is the first step for sure.

Mike: 00:26:54

I guess so a question for you though, like what do you think, like do you,

Mike: 00:26:56

was that ever discussed when you were growing up, so to speak in the profession?

Mike: 00:27:01

Can you get depressed during busy season or is it just a

Mike: 00:27:04

Rite of passage for everyone?

Alicyn: 00:27:05

Yeah.

Alicyn: 00:27:05

So I've been in accounting for about 20 years, 10 of those,

Alicyn: 00:27:09

roughly working for others, 10 of those, roughly working for myself.

Mike: 00:27:13

yeah.

Alicyn: 00:27:14

So the last 10 years, maybe like you, Mike, I may be a little bit

Alicyn: 00:27:19

out of the loop as to what goes on in larger firms that have multiple

Alicyn: 00:27:23

people, HR departments, all that.

Alicyn: 00:27:25

But my experience before I think they were still STR trying to struggle

Alicyn: 00:27:30

with the upper out mentality.

Mike: 00:27:32

Mm.

Mike: 00:27:32

Yeah.

Alicyn: 00:27:33

That was probably about as quote unquote, mental health

Alicyn: 00:27:37

related as they could get.

Alicyn: 00:27:40

And I, I think that was just sort of touching on, there are other job paths

Alicyn: 00:27:45

besides partner, maybe we can't afford.

Alicyn: 00:27:50

And we're really seeing this now.

Alicyn: 00:27:51

Maybe we can't afford.

Alicyn: 00:27:53

To dismiss people from our industry, from public accounting specifically

Alicyn: 00:27:58

because they don't wanna make partner.

Alicyn: 00:28:00

And now of course we have a huge staffing problem.

Alicyn: 00:28:04

And a lot of that was because a lot of good people got to senior maybe

Alicyn: 00:28:07

manager and realized, you know, there's no part-time partner here, or I don't

Alicyn: 00:28:12

wanna work 60 hours a week or 70 for the rest of my life or whatever it is.

Alicyn: 00:28:17

So I think maybe that was the beginning.

Alicyn: 00:28:20

So if there is more out there, I actually don't know what is there.

Mike: 00:28:24

Yeah.

Mike: 00:28:24

I'm honestly, I have images of people, before they quit right at my oath.

Mike: 00:28:28

I remember one person I had interned when he was like a staff

Mike: 00:28:31

or senior or something like that.

Mike: 00:28:33

And I know he'd worked a lot on a ton of jobs.

Mike: 00:28:35

That's what they do.

Mike: 00:28:36

They just staff you on jobs.

Mike: 00:28:37

And I remember maybe a week before he quit, I actually saw him.

Mike: 00:28:40

I remember his image cuz he was sitting around the, the table.

Mike: 00:28:44

His back was kind of bent.

Mike: 00:28:46

You notice he'd like gain a ton of weight.

Mike: 00:28:47

He hadn't shaved , he had dark spots under his eyes.

Mike: 00:28:51

He looked broken.

Alicyn: 00:28:53

gosh.

. Mike: 00:28:54

It was almost like he went from being this youthful person that

. Mike: 00:28:57

just probably graduated college to a manager that looked like he had been

. Mike: 00:29:01

beaten up broken and was finished.

. Mike: 00:29:04

Now someone would look at that in during our time and

. Mike: 00:29:06

say, oh, he just worked a lot.

. Mike: 00:29:08

Or, you know, it is just the grind of, of being accountant, but.

. Mike: 00:29:13

One of the triggers and my trigger this last time around for being more prone to

. Mike: 00:29:18

being depressed is , that constant work and not treating yourself as a, being

. Mike: 00:29:22

, with a mental and emotional component.

. Mike: 00:29:24

Right.

. Mike: 00:29:26

So you think of that and would someone say, oh, he's depressed

. Mike: 00:29:28

and that's an actual condition that needs to be considered, or would

. Mike: 00:29:31

someone look at that and say, oh, you just need a break or maybe you

. Mike: 00:29:34

need to just go and find another job.

. Mike: 00:29:36

You're gonna work better hours.

. Mike: 00:29:38

Let's promote someone else to do what you're doing, which is

. Mike: 00:29:40

work all these crazy projects.

. Mike: 00:29:42

You know what I'm saying?

. Mike: 00:29:43

Yeah.

Alicyn: 00:29:44

you're saying.

Mike: 00:29:45

Yeah.

Mike: 00:29:46

so think of that.

Mike: 00:29:47

Like if that's our industry, at least from what I remember is predicated on

Mike: 00:29:53

that type of lifestyle, you can't hack it.

Mike: 00:29:56

Leave.

Mike: 00:29:56

So the people that I guess do hack, it must mask those issues.

Mike: 00:30:01

Like you have to mask I used to eat Reesey's all the time at night

Mike: 00:30:04

during one of my, on one of my jobs, just to make me feel better.

Mike: 00:30:08

But even thinking back, that was just a way to cope with what I was

Mike: 00:30:11

feeling, you know, that was a way to cope with just the slog of it all.

Mike: 00:30:15

Yeah.

Mike: 00:30:15

So this is actually I'm even, I'm thinking of this on the fly.

Mike: 00:30:18

This is just coming to me.

Mike: 00:30:19

I think this is incredibly important to discuss, and I don't think people want

Mike: 00:30:24

to discuss it if there's money involved.

Mike: 00:30:26

Cause you have to bill , the name of the game is billing, right?

Mike: 00:30:28

And, and you utilization rates.

Mike: 00:30:30

Like even if you're the nicest partner or owner of a firm, there's

Mike: 00:30:34

always gonna be this tension.

Mike: 00:30:36

you have people that you're paying and you wanna make sure they're utilized to

Mike: 00:30:39

a certain degree, cuz if you don't build them out, you don't make any revenue.

Mike: 00:30:43

I think things would change if you could actually, on the P and

Mike: 00:30:46

L measure the cost of, right.

Mike: 00:30:49

Right.

Mike: 00:30:49

You have to incentivize people to do certain things.

Mike: 00:30:52

, I think if I'm incentivized as a partner firm owner, whatever the case

Mike: 00:30:56

is to, to hit certain numbers for my bonuses, then no matter what someone

Mike: 00:31:03

being sick is going to, it's just gonna be a temptation for me to not care

Mike: 00:31:08

about that sickness, because you're always gonna be looking at that prize.

Mike: 00:31:11

Right.

Mike: 00:31:11

And that, that sickness is just gonna be something that gets in the way.

Mike: 00:31:15

Right.

Mike: 00:31:15

And you can measure that bonus.

Mike: 00:31:17

You have no way of measuring the cost of that person being sick or them

Mike: 00:31:22

actually saying, you know what, in six months I'm gonna quit because

Mike: 00:31:25

this person or this environment doesn't care about how I feel.

Mike: 00:31:29

You don't have a way of measuring that or measuring how long it's

Mike: 00:31:32

gonna take to replace someone new or pay a recruiter's fee or whatever.

Mike: 00:31:35

. I'll actually share, how I approached this now that I'm on

Mike: 00:31:38

the other side one of my staff I could tell on this job, right.

Mike: 00:31:42

I could tell that one of my staff was really just going through it.

Mike: 00:31:45

He was working a lot of hours.

Mike: 00:31:48

We were definitely under staff of this project and he was

Mike: 00:31:51

ready to go to the United Kingdom.

Mike: 00:31:53

He was going because he's part of a rowing crew.

Mike: 00:31:55

And he had told me , Hey Mike, I really don't want to

Mike: 00:31:58

have to deal with this client.

Mike: 00:32:00

While I'm in the UK, I wanna enjoy myself.

Mike: 00:32:02

So we were trying to actually get the project closed as fast as possible.

Mike: 00:32:06

Obviously that didn't happen.

Mike: 00:32:07

Right.

Mike: 00:32:07

So I had a choice.

Mike: 00:32:09

I had a choice to say, Let's call him Joe.

Mike: 00:32:12

Right, Joe.

Mike: 00:32:14

I know you wanted to not bring your laptop to the UK, but the client's not done with

Mike: 00:32:19

issuing the financials, can you actually take it and field questions throughout

Mike: 00:32:23

cuz you were working on your tasks.

Mike: 00:32:26

I'm not as familiar with them or I'm not as close.

Mike: 00:32:28

You can answer questions.

Mike: 00:32:29

A little bit better or faster.

Mike: 00:32:31

I could have went that route, but then in my mind I said, Hey, when

Mike: 00:32:35

I was in Joe's position, what would I have appreciated from.

Mike: 00:32:40

Want a project manager on my, what would I have?

Mike: 00:32:43

You know, what would've mattered to me.

Mike: 00:32:45

And although I didn't want to do it . Because part of me

Mike: 00:32:48

was like, we're all selfish.

Mike: 00:32:49

Part of me wanted to be like, Hey, like I wanna take my time to relax as well.

Mike: 00:32:53

I said, you know what Joe, take your trip.

Mike: 00:32:55

Don't worry about anything.

Mike: 00:32:57

And I just, I dealt with the client directly in the, you know, in, I

Mike: 00:33:00

got my hands dirty essentially.

Mike: 00:33:02

Right.

Mike: 00:33:02

And I'm not doing that for reciprocity or anything like that, but I just, I wanna.

Mike: 00:33:06

Hope that I can at least consistently on my projects at leads or, or anything

Mike: 00:33:11

that I work on, that the people that work with me will report to me.

Mike: 00:33:15

They get to experience a different mindset or set of values than

Mike: 00:33:20

what we typically see , in the accounting world at large.

Mike: 00:33:24

So I don't know how you do it systemically.

Mike: 00:33:26

I, I think I can try to do it, individually with the

Mike: 00:33:29

people that I work with, but.

Mike: 00:33:30

I don't got a quick answer on how you do it across the firm or across the industry

Mike: 00:33:36

Okay.

Alicyn: 00:33:36

Two part question on the employee side.

Alicyn: 00:33:38

One, if I'm an employee who has depression, whether it's an ongoing

Alicyn: 00:33:44

matter or whether it's something maybe like it is with you where it just

Alicyn: 00:33:47

kind of comes up here and there, is that something that you would advise

Alicyn: 00:33:52

folks disclose to their employer?

Alicyn: 00:33:54

And two, regardless of your answer there, do you have any thoughts,

Alicyn: 00:34:00

tools, help, et cetera, for employees in account who have depression ? Oh,

Mike: 00:34:06

Yeah.

Mike: 00:34:06

Wow.

Mike: 00:34:06

That is a tough question.

Mike: 00:34:08

Cause let's be real, right.

Mike: 00:34:10

I'll speak for myself.

Mike: 00:34:11

Especially part of me is that I don't actually want to disclose

Mike: 00:34:14

that , I've never wanted to disclose that to any of my employer.

Mike: 00:34:16

And actually , in the cases where I have, I feel like it's been used against

Mike: 00:34:21

me, but that's a one that's a one off.

Mike: 00:34:23

I wouldn't say that that's typical.

Mike: 00:34:24

I think people genuinely care about other people, right?

Mike: 00:34:27

They're definitely bad bosses, bad, employers or whatever, but yeah, I'd

Mike: 00:34:31

be hesitant because you have to have a great relationship with that employer.

Mike: 00:34:35

It's not the company, it's the people that you're working with.

Mike: 00:34:37

Right.

Mike: 00:34:37

You have to have a great relationship with.

Mike: 00:34:39

Boss manager, partner, whatever to even disclose that, because that is

Mike: 00:34:43

a, that's an intimate part of you.

Mike: 00:34:46

We're dealing with, we're talking about my mind here.

Mike: 00:34:48

That's an intimate part of me.

Mike: 00:34:49

So I would, my counsel would be to say, think about your relationship

Mike: 00:34:53

with that employer as an employee.

Mike: 00:34:55

That's what I would say.

Mike: 00:34:57

Because there's still a stigma, both in the, the, and I'm talking two

Mike: 00:35:01

cultures here, both in the American culture and even in like our Caribbean

Mike: 00:35:05

culture as well, like there's still like the kind of like a stigma that

Mike: 00:35:08

you're, you're weak, you can't hack it.

Mike: 00:35:09

So I think people are kind of hesitant to do that.

Mike: 00:35:13

So honestly, I would say, talk to someone that you do trust

Mike: 00:35:16

in your work environment.

Mike: 00:35:18

It might not be your direct manager, but I would hope you would

Mike: 00:35:21

have that relationship with them.

Mike: 00:35:22

It's just tough

Mike: 00:35:24

In terms of tools though for me, what I haven't been consistent

Mike: 00:35:27

with, but that does help and is extremely helpful is a therapist.

Mike: 00:35:32

And the reason I say that is cuz even with my family who is extremely caring they're

Mike: 00:35:36

not therapists, they're not licensed.

Mike: 00:35:38

But secondly, it is really incredibly freeing for me to talk

Mike: 00:35:43

to someone that doesn't know me that doesn't know my patterns yet.

Mike: 00:35:48

And it's almost like a clean slate and you can talk to them and talk to

Mike: 00:35:51

them and just say anything that you probably wouldn't say to someone else.

Mike: 00:35:54

And I think that's incredibly freeing and healthy.

Mike: 00:35:58

I think as human beings, we need people to talk to at the ground level.

Mike: 00:36:02

You just need someone to talk to and then having someone.

Mike: 00:36:05

There's also license that knows how to work with people that have depression or

Mike: 00:36:09

more pro to depression, super important.

Mike: 00:36:12

And you'll probably catch this if you Google it, right?

Mike: 00:36:15

If you work out and if you're active, go out for walks, get

Mike: 00:36:18

some sun extremely helpful.

Mike: 00:36:21

Actually earlier this year I spent a lot of time in Florida.

Mike: 00:36:24

I had a family member of mine that was six.

Mike: 00:36:26

So I spent some time in Florida.

Mike: 00:36:28

And this was during periods where I was working seven days a week.

Mike: 00:36:31

Which was obviously not good for my mental health, but that's another

Mike: 00:36:34

story I even noticed me working in Boston was completely different

Mike: 00:36:39

than me working in Florida.

Mike: 00:36:41

When you get sunshine and the weather's different.

Mike: 00:36:44

Yeah.

Mike: 00:36:45

I felt completely different.

Mike: 00:36:46

One of the days we went to the beach and I watched the sun go up

Mike: 00:36:49

being in on that beach, just with no electronics and just watching the sun

Mike: 00:36:54

go up in Florida, did so much for me.

Mike: 00:36:57

And it reminded me , especially , having gone through COVID staying indoors,

Mike: 00:37:02

co myself up , it doesn't need help.

Mike: 00:37:05

. So going out, getting some sun for me is important and, getting some activity and

Mike: 00:37:09

the therapist has definitely been helpful.

Mike: 00:37:11

And if you have really great friends that you feel like, believe in you

Mike: 00:37:15

that aren't oh, rolling their eyes.

Mike: 00:37:17

Every time something happens, oh, here we go again.

Mike: 00:37:20

I think that helps as well because if I have a few people in my corner,

Mike: 00:37:23

it helps me get through people that believe in me that believe, Hey,

Mike: 00:37:25

like Mike, you'll get through this.

Mike: 00:37:26

That don't see me as weak because.

Mike: 00:37:29

I'm more prone to depression than maybe a lot of people show or actually are.

Mike: 00:37:34

So those are some things that I kind of think about, but I'll be honest, Alison,

Mike: 00:37:37

it's just something I still struggle with.

Mike: 00:37:39

I wish it wasn't so, but I just have to be more mindful, at least

Mike: 00:37:42

from my perspective than other people about working too much or

Mike: 00:37:46

not taking care of myself and I haven't been consistent with that.

Mike: 00:37:48

Even now.

Mike: 00:37:49

I'm gonna go back to therapy, but I haven't been consistent with therapy.

Mike: 00:37:52

Even though I know it's something that is actually helpful, the thing

Mike: 00:37:56

with therapy is , you don't go once and say, okay, I'm better now.

Mike: 00:37:58

Like it therapy is like a consistent thing, right?

Mike: 00:38:00

You have to be, you have to be consistent.

Mike: 00:38:03

And therapy to me is one component of the.

Mike: 00:38:07

Strategy to stay healthy.

Mike: 00:38:09

I remember going to therapy and maybe on the 10th session, cuz he would

Mike: 00:38:12

ask me Hey, how are you feeling?

Mike: 00:38:14

Maybe on the 10th session, I would start to kind of feel like, okay,

Mike: 00:38:16

I'm getting this, I'm doing this.

Mike: 00:38:17

Like getting up, back up my feet.

Mike: 00:38:19

But the first to the ninth sessions were still kind of dark, you know?

Mike: 00:38:25

There's never really been a magic bullet for me where it's

Mike: 00:38:27

like, okay, therapy session done.

Mike: 00:38:29

No more depression like that.

Mike: 00:38:30

That's not how it works, , but maybe that's too, that's my

Mike: 00:38:33

personality I'm type a right.

Mike: 00:38:34

I like to get, stay organized, get things done, accomplish

Mike: 00:38:38

things, input, output, right?

Mike: 00:38:40

Like that's not your emotions, your feelings, your soul, even like that

Mike: 00:38:44

does not, that's not how it works.

Mike: 00:38:46

Right.

Mike: 00:38:46

Where complicated beings and you can't apply an accounting

Mike: 00:38:51

principle or the tax code to like.

Mike: 00:38:53

your life how you feel, it just doesn't work like that.

Mike: 00:38:56

This is great too, even have just have us having these conversations, right.

Mike: 00:38:58

I feel seen almost right.

Mike: 00:39:01

Being understood and feeling seen actually has been incredibly

Mike: 00:39:05

helpful for me just on this journey.

Mike: 00:39:07

So I appreciate conversations like.

Mike: 00:39:09

Because I don't, I really don't talk about 'em that often let alone, I think

Mike: 00:39:11

this is the first time I've spoken to it.

Mike: 00:39:13

You're the second accountant that I've actually had this conversation with.

Alicyn: 00:39:17

Mike, is there anything else you'd like to share?

Mike: 00:39:20

What I would say is I think this is incredibly important to hear, I can

Mike: 00:39:24

hear this a million times and every time I hear it, it's actually important

Mike: 00:39:28

for those that are in this profession.

Mike: 00:39:32

And they feel like they have the symptoms of what would be described as depression.

Mike: 00:39:38

A it's it's actually 100%.

Mike: 00:39:40

Okay.

Mike: 00:39:41

You don't need to justify, explain or apologize to people.

Mike: 00:39:46

That's one big thing that I've had to kind of just kind of go through.

Mike: 00:39:49

I definitely try my best to communicate now a little bit better

Mike: 00:39:52

to family members or other folks and say, , I'm going through a rough time

Mike: 00:39:55

or I got a rush patch or whatever, whatever language you want to use,

Mike: 00:39:58

but for the most part, when I'm going through what I'm going through, if

Mike: 00:40:02

it is a win for me to get up and take a shower, I'm not gonna apologize

Mike: 00:40:06

for not being able to make your BB.

Mike: 00:40:08

If I were to put it that way.

Mike: 00:40:09

So I wanna just tell people like, Hey, it's okay to not be okay.

Mike: 00:40:14

It's okay to be going through this.

Mike: 00:40:16

You are not weak or less of a practitioner or professional because of it.

Mike: 00:40:22

And in some respects, I think COVID has taught us all this.

Mike: 00:40:26

You can try, but you really can't compartmentalize your health.

Mike: 00:40:29

Either physically, mentally, right?

Mike: 00:40:31

You can't compartmentalize that with work.

Mike: 00:40:33

For my vocation and the client work that I do to really matter, I have to be okay.

Mike: 00:40:40

In terms of my health and if that's not okay, I have to go and fix that.

Mike: 00:40:45

It will impact my client work and it will catch up at some point I,

Mike: 00:40:49

when it catches up, it's devastating.

Mike: 00:40:50

, you don't have to really apologize to anyone and I'm still going

Mike: 00:40:54

through the healing process right now.

Mike: 00:40:55

Myself.

Mike: 00:40:56

I've made some commitments, like I said, I'm just coming off , taking

Mike: 00:40:58

some significant time off and.

Mike: 00:41:01

I'm saying it now.

Mike: 00:41:02

And I hope it sticks true, cuz it's important, but I've

Mike: 00:41:05

made some recommitment to myself.

Mike: 00:41:07

So make some commitments to yourself.

Mike: 00:41:08

I've made some commitments and I've said, Hey Mike, you've gone through these bouts.

Mike: 00:41:12

You've learned, right?

Mike: 00:41:13

I've gone through these chapters of depression.

Mike: 00:41:14

I have learned some of the things that caused that work on

Mike: 00:41:18

those things and commit to them.

Mike: 00:41:21

Especially when it comes to us and our profession and the hours that we

Mike: 00:41:25

work and the things that we accept

Mike: 00:41:27

you have to make that commitment to yourself and say, Hey, , I'm

Mike: 00:41:30

gonna put myself first here.

Mike: 00:41:31

Or I'm gonna sign off at this time.

Mike: 00:41:33

And, and really do it.

Mike: 00:41:34

And actually I'm daring myself right now to do it and see if

Mike: 00:41:37

anything actually detrimentally changes, which I don't think it will.

Mike: 00:41:40

So I'm daring myself to put myself first prioritize what

Mike: 00:41:45

matters ? And to establish clear boundaries, . And my thesis is that

Mike: 00:41:51

I can have an abundant, healthy life and still be able to do a great job

Mike: 00:41:56

That's a wrap, my friends, reach out and let me know what you think.

Mike: 00:42:00

I appreciate you listening in to this episode of under withheld, the podcast

Mike: 00:42:04

by accountants and for accountants, where we talk about our ubiquitous

Mike: 00:42:07

professional and personal struggles.