 What role did you expect to be at now versus reality? So what role did you expect to be at in 15 years versus what happened in reality? Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I think that it's funny because when it comes to that, like what do you expect to be in life in general? It's similar to like my picture for my whole life in general. Like when I was a kid, I had, you know, different ideas of what I wanted to be, what I wanted to become. Would it be a doctor, an engineer, whatever the case may be. Went into college and, you know, this is full disclosure. When I went to college, I didn't have an idea on my head that I wanted to be an accountant, right? So I didn't choose the major right up front. I took the elective courses and some of the introductory courses in college and then I chose accounting from a host of other choices available to me. But the short answer to your question in terms of like where I, when I started out accounting, where I thought I would be after 15 years, I honestly thought I would be one of two things, either a chief financial officer of a company or a partner at an accounting firm. So these are the two options that I thought are, you know, most available to accountants, you know, chief financial officer or partner at an accounting firm. Now the reality is I could, I realized that I could pursue either one. I could pursue becoming a CFO and I still can and I'm actually, I am at some level pursuing becoming a CFO. However, I also look at the level of, you know, work-life balance, stress level of work versus reward. So you kind of have to look at the reward versus stress. So for me looking at a CFO position right now with young children, I have to do the calculation of like how much more work or how much time I have to dedicate to my role versus how much time I need to spend, you know, nurturing my kids and family and taking care of them. Hey guys, Shane from the future here. I really quickly wanted to mention, because for some reason I forgot to in the video, Bill has some phenomenal resources for anybody who wants to become an accountant and I'm going to include those at the top of the description down below. So definitely check those out. So being a corporate controller then became the happy medium where, you know, it's sort of an executive role of the company, but not the top executive when it comes to finance. So the top executive is going to be the CFO. The controller is going to be sort of that secondary level or second layer of executive power in the company when it comes to finance. And so that was like a happy medium for me. So yeah, the expectation was more of a CFO role in 15 years and happened to land right now at a corporate controller position. Awesome. Yeah. And I know there's a ton of opportunity in FinTech, you know, huge, huge industry there expanding, you know, at lightning speed right now, maybe one of the best industries you could possibly be in. And yeah, that's a great point on work-life balance. Another thing I talk about quite a bit on my channel, not all about the money. In fact, after a certain point, usually for most people, the money is not going to make you any more happy. Now, of course, you know, living there in New York, it's a little more expensive, so might need a little more than average. But yeah, that's one point I always like to point out to my audience for sure. Yep. There is, even I think I read somewhere that there's a law of diminishing return after a certain level of like reaching a certain annual salary. And I think the number was $75,000 a year or something like that, where you reached that sort of the happiest point in like fulfilling all of your sort of like your essential needs. And then as you get, you know, get up from there and climb the ladder from there, you're adding more sort of stress and work to your life and, you know, getting more money, of course, but it's sort of have to kind of, you know, walk this tightrope and like make sure you're like balancing the two. You know, so that's the question I think that you're always going to be asking yourself as you progress in your career. Got it. Got it. So what skills within accounting are in hot demand right now? What are some of the best skills you can possibly learn? Yeah, that's a great question. So, you know, when we're looking at that, I think the best way to look at this is like when I look at a candidate's resume right now when I'm hiring on my team, what do I look for as a controller? So what kind of accounting accountant I'm looking for? So the two major sort of scale group of skill sets that I look for is going to be the financial systems and the knowledge of financial systems, sort of tying technology and finance together, right? And we can get into that in more detail. And then the second group is going to be someone who's able to interpret the guidance, like the sort of the accounting standards, like, you know, learning the pronouncements that are coming out of the accounting bodies and interpreting them and making sure that the company is following the right standards when it comes to accounting, disclosure, financial statements, presentation and all that. So we can get into the each one in more detail. But, you know, to me, like even more important than the technical accounting side is the financial system side. So someone who's able to automate things and now this is becoming like the keyword and the buzzword when it comes to accounting is, you know, using lists of the, you know, the manpower when it comes to like crunching the numbers and, you know, giving things out and using more of we refer to them now as bots. These are like the robots or the robotics and the systems that talk to each other and transfer numbers one place to another, eliminating the human error and also speeding up the process. And it's a cost reduction when you rely on systems more than humans. So these are the scale sets that are like and hard demand right now when it comes to accounting. Got it. So correct me if I, you know, say anything wrong here, but learning something like some computer programming, Python, maybe SQL, something along those lines would be extremely valuable. And then also just learning how to kind of streamline and automate processes in general seems to be very valuable right now. Is that what you were saying towards the end? Yep, yeah, exactly. So, you know, learning programming is, you know, obviously 10 or 20 years ago when you talked about accounting, that was unheard of, right? But now when you find a finance person who's also like a programmer or knows one of those languages is like a really killer combo right now. But like for your audience, like even at a more basic level, right, even if we're not going the route of like learning Python or any other language like that, at a basic level, make sure like whatever position you work at, you're learning the financial systems that they're using. So if they're using an ERP software, like SAP or NetSuite, get into that and like really understand how they're implementing all of that the processes of the companies within the ERP says software, right? The more you know of how the implementation of that software works, the more you'll know how to troubleshoot it. And the more frankly, you'll know how to implement it in the next gig, right? So if I'm hiring you to work on my team, you're going to be much more valuable if you know that in the ins and outs and the mechanics of how NetSuite or one of those systems work. And then, you know, further down, if you, you know, unpeel it further, you look at like other systems that, you know, complement ERP software is going to be like the Expensify and these are like the expense management softwares, you know, Carta is a host of systems now that are built outside of ERP software that complement all of the accounting processes. So learning, you know, what can be done with these softwares at a basic level is important. But then on top of that, if you learn how to troubleshoot them and implement them, it's money. This is like this, you're sort of, you know, hugely valuable when it comes to, you know, the market wars of what you can command as a salary. So yeah, so I would put a huge emphasis on financial systems for sure. Got it. Okay, so for someone who is just about to graduate with an accounting degree, could you kind of just break down maybe some of the main areas of work that they would be looking into right after graduation? So, you know, the thing about working right after graduation, so what you'll be doing isn't necessarily what are you going to be doing for the rest of your life, right? So I don't want someone to stress, to stress out on thinking, you know, for the first couple of years after graduation, you'll be doing, you know, mainly mundane work when it comes to accounting, and you should expect that, right? You'll be, you'll be, you know, sort of the lowest point in the chain in the team in terms of accounting, and you'll be doing sort of the data entry, you know, basic coding of transactions in the system, or ticking and tying at a member like my auditing days, you give you a huge binder and you're just sitting all day confirming the stock holding of this huge corporation with their custodian, with their stockbroker. So there's a lot of unglamorous work to be done at the beginning, but that's sort of the groundwork that you're, you're, you're putting in, you're layering in these hours, you're putting in these hours up front so you can learn sort of the ropes and learn the, learn the language and, you know, the accounting, the actual meat and potatoes of accounting, and then you'll be able to progress from there and do much more, let's call it a sexier type of work when it comes to accounting, right? So whenever, when you're graduating from, from school, you'll be either working in the two major areas that you're going to be working in when you graduate with an accounting degree. It's either going to be on the revenue side of the business, or it's going to be on the expenditure or the treasury side of the business. These are like the sort of the two, and you can think of it as looking at an income statement. There's two major buckets, you know, revenues and expenses. So you're going to be in either one of these two sides. So if you start out on the revenue side, you're going to be what's, what we refer to as a billing analyst or an accounts receivable analyst. So your job is going to be in a, you know, to summarize it is going to be issuing the invoices to customers. You're going to be calculating, issuing invoices, following up with the customers, making sure they got the invoices, they paid on time and everything else that goes along with that, which is, you know, as you progress in that, in that role, you'll be doing other things that has to do more with the technical accounting side of things, especially around revenue recognition. So that's from the revenue side. If you start out in the expenditure side, and you can start out in either one, there is not one that's better than the other, you need to learn both ultimately so that you can become a more rounded professional in accounting. If you start out on the treasury side, and this is where the company spends money, you'll be then processing the invoices that come from vendors, you know, reviewing them for errors, you know, putting them, entering them in the system, making sure that whatever you're entering in the system then is translating into going into the right line item on the balance sheet or the income statement, and that kind of thing. And then as you then progress from that, you'll get into a third group of accountants of the company, which is the financial reporting, right? So once you've sort of worked and mastered the billing and the revenue side, and then worked in the expenditure and the treasury side, you then are ready to sort of work in financial reporting, where now you're familiar with other mechanics of the AP and AR, and then you're now ready for financial reporting. And this is, that's when you start getting paid higher salary, and you begin to do more strategic stuff. And so, yeah, this is the expectation that you should have if you get into accounting right after college.