I Almost Threw My Keyboard
When I realized I was already doing the work I'd been looking for
I was taking a masterclass in bookkeeping as an independent business. I was realizing that a lot of this material wasn’t new for me, even if the platform was. But the platform made everything so easy – everything I’d had to do manually in my previous experience, this computer could do for us. And we could do it for other businesses, for money. Good money.
I was sitting, listening to the speaker who kept telling everyone, “You can do this. Lots of people do this for insane amounts of money.”
He said “I wanna hear you say it: I. Can. Do. This.”
And then I realized “Wait, I can do this...in fact, I HAVE been doing this...”
That’s where it finally landed. This bookkeeping stuff was so difficult and scary for so many people, but I’d been doing this for so long it was almost intuitive. This was it: My Thing. I’d finally found it, and…
I almost flung my keyboard across the room.
My mouth didn’t even work. “This…what?! How the…are you kidding me? This is…oh come the f*** on!”
I stared at the screen in mute disbelief. Questions filled the chat, as some people said, “Yes I can!” And the others were varying degrees of unsure. “I’m still not sure how…”
It was absurd.
The “unfair advantage” is a thing – a skill, talent, experience - we all have that is a superpower for us, but others are often terrible with. In fact, it’s usually tied to something that no one wants to deal with, but you are uniquely adept at handling. In fact if you look closely enough at it, you probably savor it while everyone else is holding their nose around it.
Yeah, all the pundits will tell you “everyone has it, you just need to find yours”. What they don’t tell you is that it’s highly likely that, if you haven’t found yours until later in life, your reaction won’t be singing and dancing…
It’ll be yelling at a monitor and scaring the cat.
Then you do the math.
I thought to myself: how long had I been in accounting, or accounting adjacent? I checked my resume: 20+ years. How long had I been trying to figure out what I was supposed to do with my life, my career? How many self-help books had I read? How many tarot cards had I thrown down, trying to understand the path forward to financial independence and (lol) “career fulfillment”…? Probably my whole life since at least 12.
My mom got me my first payroll job when I was 20. I got a lucky break, and I did well with it. But then layoffs happened, so I spent 15 years just trying to stay in work. Payroll, accounts payable, expense payable, payroll again.
It wasn’t until recently that I realized that I was quietly, slowly approaching a wall of futility.
I at times argued for myself. That I was teaching people (when I answered the same question for the 500th time). That these people appreciate me (when they get frustrated with my team because of things on their paycheck that have nothing to do with us). That I was solving problems (when an upload would randomly fail for the 6th payroll in a row, necessitating manual workarounds just to make the deadline).
If you discuss it with other 9-to-5ers, you’ll just find other people who have met the same wall, and just keep accepting it. Because…why? Because they’ll retire one day, they say. Because it’s a living (while they’re barely scraping by).
Here’s what I don’t see many people talk about: people accept that life because no one else has shown them any other way.
I accepted it as long as I did because I never had anyone to tell me, to show me: there is another way.
I’m telling you now:
There is more to life than punching the clock, slugging more coffee, and dozing through another meeting, if that isn’t bringing forth what is best in you to a world that needs it.
We are not here so we can live to work, just long enough to retire then die when this hamster wheel has gotten all its usefulness out of us.
We each bring a peculiar medicine, a solution. A s*** sandwich that we are uniquely apt to eat, maybe even hungry for, because we can take it and make fettucine alfredo for ourselves (or whatever your craving is).
What’s mine? I handle all the numbers so business owners who would otherwise be scared off by keeping their books, can run a business doing what they LOVE and get away from working slave wages and hours as someone’s employee.
(I don’t do taxes – that’s a different sandwich entirely.)
What’s yours?
What do you do every day that makes your colleagues’ eyes glaze over with relief when you volunteer for it? What feels obvious to you but impossible to everyone else? What do people constantly ask you for help with?
When you find it, try not to throw your keyboard.