Do you ever wonder why you aren’t adapting to change? In this episode Jimmy interviews an innovator and change agent, Donny Shimamoto.
Episode Keys
- How you can become a change agent and adapt to any situation with confidence.
- Why you will want to adopt a policy of outsourcing mundane tasks that don’t challenge you or your don’t possess the skillset to accomplish excellently.
- Who you need to delegate tasks to for increased value of your team.
- What is the biggest impediment to your acceptance to change!
Podcast Transcription
JW:
Good morning! This is Jimmy Williams, with Live a Life By Design, your Monday morning moments of motivation to help you become bigger, better, and bolder at what you do. Today is an exciting day for me. I know you get tired of hearing that thousands of subscribers in 53 countries hear this on a weekly basis. I’m in awe and I am blessed. Thank you folks for listening and subscribing to this podcast, but every week I come out and I’ll tell you how excited I am. I tell you why I’m excited because I truly do live life by my design. And today is no different. I have with me, a wonderful, wonderful co-host, a dear friend I’ve known for many, many years. And our guest today is, in my opinion, one of the brightest, most brilliant people I’ve met in the CPA profession. But before I get to him, let me tell you something about today’s show. What we’re going to talk about is an ever-changing business world and what can be done to maintain the value we bring as professionals, particularly in the CPA profession that we can bring to the marketplace to maintain that trusted advisor role that so many of our clients rely on for us to be. And so introducing our co-host today, this lady, an outstanding, another brilliant professional in her own right of the world of public relations, communications. She is just a brilliant person. I’ve had the ability to work with her through our state society for many years, and now she’s just out killing it and working with our guests. I’d like to introduce, welcome to the show Amy Welch. How are you, Amy?
AW:
I’m great, Jimmy, how are you today?
JW:
Well, you know me, this is not her caffeine or drug induced. It’s just me, Amy, and I am pumped for today.
AW:
It’s always nice to see you, Jimmy.
JW:
I’ll tell you what, as my dad always said, “Better to calm down a fanatic than warm up a corpse.” Amy, you know, that’s my motto.
JW:
Hey, our guest today… Oh man, I gotta tell you, this guy’s like five time zones away folks. I mean, if you’ve ever been to Hawaii, he’s in that great state of Hawaii where I call it heaven on earth out there. It’s just beautiful. And our guest today is the founder and managing director of Enterprise Technologies, LLC, an advisory-focused CPA firm. Now I want you to listen to how he title that – advisory-focused. So we’re going to talk a little bit about what that means in a moment. And he focuses on innovation, acceleration, and organizational development for small businesses, middle market organizations, and non-profits. He’s recognized as a thought leader and educator in the fields of accounting technology, IT risk management and performance management. If I read this entire bio that his mother wrote, folks, we’d be here for two hours. So I’m going to just tell you this. We’re going to place his bio in the show notes for your reference. And I highly recommend that you look at his articles he’s written. He has been recognized as one of the top thought leaders in public accounting by CPA Practice Advisor. He’s a Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting. I mean, this guy’s done it all and I’ll bet you he can even surf, something I can’t do. Welcome to the show my friend Donny Shimamoto. I’ll get that right. Let’s go back. Try that again. Welcome to the show. Donny Shimamoto. Did I get it right?
DS:
Great. Perfect. Here it goes. That’s good. Definitely close enough. Thanks so much for having me Jimmy, and by the way, I actually do not surf.
JW:
Okay. Now listen, Donny, what else is not true on this statement? Did I just make that up? No. Well, listen, I want you to know something, friend. I know you’re very busy, gosh, with all the work you do for CPA firms and small businesses across the globe. Man, talk to me a little bit about, what’s the one thing in life that we can count on besides death and taxes?
DS:
One thing in life you can count on besides death and taxes. That’s a hard one.
JW:
Oh, it’s very easy. It’s what you do. It’s called change. That’s the one thing you can count on. So Donny, help me and our listeners today. Let’s talk a little bit about what made you as a CPA professional want to work with IT, data, ork, security, that type of stuff. What got you into that role?
DS:
Well, actually I’ll tie it back. So this is the one way I do surf, and seeing the wave of change.
JW:
I like that.
DS:
And those things combined, that really to me is why I work with technology and with accounting. I see the two actually balance each other out. So for me, what I like about accounting is the fact that we have standards. It’s very sure. I’m going to say it historically has not changed a lot when we look back, you know, at GAAP, a lot of this other stuff. So there’s that nice stability. However, I’m the type of person that likes new things. I like to keep my mind engaged and entertained and that’s the IT side. So kind of keeping up with the trends, understanding what’s happening, you know? And as I said, rather than being overwhelmed by this wave and, you know, wiping out, it’s really about learning to kind of surf it because you can’t control it, but you have to at least read it enough to be able to get on it and get on the board and stand up. And then let’s see where this wave takes us.
JW:
See, I knew Amy, he was going to use a surfing analogy. See, that’s what I knew. I love that. One thing about technology – and Amy will know more about this than me, she’s more technological than me – but one thing I’ve always tried to take pride in as a CPA that advises small to middle market businesses ourselves is I always want it to be, if I didn’t know the answer, I know who to call. And Donny, you’ve been on my speed dial. So tell me what value you try to bring through your business to the traditional CPA firm.
DS:
I love that you used the word traditional CPA firm because the way that I normally introduce myself is I’m a non-traditional CPA, because we actually are a CPA firm, but we don’t do audit tax or bookkeeping. We only do this IT advisory services. And what that really means is two different things. And this is where, again, it kind of based, you know, with the two interests, it’s a balance of these two things. The first is really innovation. Most people think innovation, think technology. So that’s definitely a large part of what we do, but in any type of technology, in any type of change adoption, what you actually need to do is change your business practices. So a quick example in the tax side, if you’re doing tax preparation and you start to use automation, you also have to change your pricing to use fixed or value pricing. Otherwise you’re going to lose your margins because it’s going to just take you less time. So it’s technology change plus business change. That’s the innovation side. The other side, which is actually going to sound more CPA is, is actually risk management. So my background actually comes from the audit side. I did both financial and IT audit. So we balance out the technology and business practices change with IT risk management, which a lot of people call cybersecurity today. And then also broader, I think of it as enterprise risk management. Now most people hear enterprise, they go, “Oh, that’s really big enterprise,” when I use that word. I mean holistic. So looking at the entire business, not just IT risks, financial risks, but people risks, reputational risks, right? If you have a data breach, there’s actually reputational risk involved in there, legal risks like e-discovery. So we take a much more holistic look at the firm and can also help firms look at their clients in this more holistic way as well.
JW:
Oh, that’s very interesting. So one of the things that I always thought of, if you look back at the AICPA, our national and now international organization for CPAs, And you look at what they had in their vision projects, their Horizon projects to project what the future may look like for the CPA profession, give me what were some of those findings for the Horizons project? What were some of the things that you said, “Hey, wait a minute, we’re not going to be just doing audits and tax returns and accounting? What will we be doing?” So what are some of those things that came to light?
DS:
Actually, the really interesting thing to me, having been part of that Horizons 2025 project, which was in 2012 you know, so almost 10 years ago, nine years ago at this point was the fact that we actually took the services out of the whole definition of CPA. So for us now we said, you know, it’s not just about tax audit and bookkeeping, because so many CPAs today work beyond that, especially when we start to get into these advisory services. So for my firm then I asked, “Well, what do we actually do?” And that’s where I came out with our three accounting outcomes rather than services. So the first of those is really around peace of mind that we help give, whether it’s a business owner or an individual, the ability to just sleep well at night, you know, what is it that’s keeping them up? What are they worried about? Is it the fact that the IRS might come after them? They’re not going to be able to get the loan that they wanted? More recently with the pandemic, am I going to have cash to pay my employees? Right? And so our job as accountants is to come in and help these people really sleep better at night and not have to worry. Turn it into the IT side on the risk management and what we do. You know, what happens… Are you going to get attacked? Are you going to get ransomware? How are you going to recover from that? Like, those are the types of things we also look at. So the first thing I really think of what we do as accountants is this peace of mind. The second thing is really more about the future and maybe this ties a little more to the innovation and it’s about vision and clarity. So when I go and work with a client, you know, my team, we always ask like, “Where do you want to be three to four years from now?” And actually we’ve recently started going, “Where do you want to be two to three years from now?” Because technology change is happening so quickly that you really, it’s hard for even us to predict where things are going to be three to five years. So where do you want to be two to three years from now? And that’s so we help them create that vision. And then we come back and say, okay, well, let’s figure out how you’re going to get there. Let’s create the roadmap. So whether it’s that financial plan for that individual or that family, or whether it’s more of a business plan, a technology roadmap that’s what we’ll do on the business side that creates the clarity that they need for, these are the things that you need to do. And that’s how you then get vision and clarity. And then the last thing, both of these things in the end, I think produced this third outcome, which is really hope. And that is for us as humans that key element, because it’s this, this hope that there is tomorrow. I’m not, I don’t have to worry. I’m not going to get shut down whether it’s by the IRS or some technology breach, I am going to have this better tomorrow. I’m going to be able to afford that home, send my kids to college or my business is going to be successful and I can retire and not have to work the whole rest of my life. Right? Like that I think is the most essential thing that we do. So that’s really the key three key things to me that we do as accountants.
AW:
I love what you said, Donny, and that’s one of the reasons why I couldn’t be more proud to be a part of your team. And what I’d like to know and our listeners to know is how do you feel like that ties into the Center for Accounting Transformation?
DS:
You’ve reached out to one of my hearts. First, let me thank you for joining our team because you’re so wonderful at helping to tell these stories. And that’s what I think a lot of these are. These really are stories of the human condition and the way that we can help that. And so we formed the Center for Accounting Transformation. It’s a division of our firm to really help improve the world. And if you ever look us up, it’s improvetheworld.net and we chose that specifically because we realized that as accountants, we’re not just here to do the numbers, we are here to help people make better business decisions or even better personal decisions, right? So it’ll play out whether it’s just a family or whether it’s a business owner. And the way that we do that is by really helping provide better information. And then I’m going to go back, Jimmy was on the original vision project and they came up with this purpose of the CPA and the purpose of the CPA, which I believe is the purpose of all accountants is to make sense of a changing and complex world. So taking a look at all of these different regulations and standards and the things going on in the business environment, all this change, and helping people to make sense of this change so that they’re surfing rather than wiping out.
AW:
Can you elaborate a little bit more on kind of how it was born? I remember we were having a discussion with with another group and you discussed how you did a lot of inner reflection and kind of looking into yourself about what was going on and why you were there. I’d like to hear more about that.
DS:
Sure. The Genesis of the center was really because there was a lot of quote “thought leader”s who were saying, “You need to do this,” and I’m going to actually throw the AICPA into there. They, “you must change into advisory. You must do this.” And a lot of people are also using the fear factor, fear tactics that said, “If you don’t do this, artificial intelligence is going to take over your job. If you don’t do this, blockchain is going to eliminate the need for auditors.” And what I kept hearing is people reflected on it. They said, “I’m so scared. I don’t want to do anything.”O So I think it was actually having the opposite effect. It was stopping people from change because they just said, oh, I’m backed in a corner and I’m going to just stop. And I’m just not going to not do anything.” And so coming back to this whole need for hope, that was why I wanted to form the center because we to show people how. Well, there’s a lot of how out there. There’s a lot of consultants that work and help with firms. And the other thing that to me really resonated was the fact that, you know, every year, the thought leaders that Jimmy mentioned, I’m a part of, we have this meeting and a lot of the consultants were there who work with the top 100 firms. So they’re complaining, “Oh, they’re not listening to me. The firm’s not willing to make the change. The partners are not willing to change.” And so it was about maybe five years ago that I finally said, “You know, I am so tired of trying to convince people to change. If they don’t want to change, let them wipe out, let them get overcome by the wave of change.” We really want to help people who want the change, who want to stay ahead, who want to surf this wave. And so let’s really show them how. Now, Jimmy, you said you work with small and mid-sized businesses. That’s where my heart is as well, because that’s where we’re dealing with family owned businesses. It’s not driven by this craziness on Wall Street and analysts expectations. It’s not driven by this huge profit and sell-out motivation that we see in the VCs. And so with that to me, we really had to also make this affordable. So that was the other big thing I think we’ve done with the center is we’ve won. We’ve, right-sized this the type of techniques that are being used. You know, I actually come from PWC is where I earned my CPA. But again, where these really big companies that just really weren’t looking at the community and everything that was happening. So with the center, we’ve right-sized a lot of these are mammoth techniques that are used by the big firms. And we’ve got them down to where it’s a smaller midsize business.
JW:
You know, one of the things that I love about what you’re presenting is you’re giving the opportunity for smaller to mid-size companies that maybe can’t afford an entire IT team or department themselves. They can’t justify the investment for example, but you’re helping fill that void, giving them the IT assurances they need, for example, that they can without taking an undue amount of risk, operate and function, as they desire to serve their customer base, their market share and so forth. So let’s talk just a little bit about, what if you got someone hypothetically speaking, like, let’s just call him Timmy. And let’s say Timmy’s one of these guys that only does three things in his entire company, but he hires all these beautiful, wonderful, diverse, brilliant people to do all these other necessary tasks. What do you think about a guy named Timmy? And let’s say he doesn’t adapt as quickly as some of the young people’s name. Let’s use a guy named Ronnie, so we can, you know, hypothetically… I think you know who I’m speaking of here, but my team says to me, “Hey, Jimmy, you’re not afraid of change. You just don’t get in its way.” Right? So how do you help a guy like me, for example, with the abilities that you have with your team and, and making those transitions, if you will, surfing that wave of change while still allowing us to offer traditional services, if you will?
DS:
That’s a great question. I actually think, and this may be as part of the beauty of what we do comes back to our roots as CPAs, right? So for one, we never make decisions for our clients. And so if Timmy was our client, the first thing that we really want to do is we want to understand kind of what’s his vision. And we don’t have a pre-prescribed vision for everyone. This isn’t, “You have to go down this path.” It’s where do you want your firm to go? So if you tell me, I want to stay in traditional services, which I’m going to define that as like tax preparation, audit bookkeeping, that. And I’m going to distinguish bookkeeping from controllership and CFO type of services. So if you want traditional services then I’ll say that’s let’s let’s increase your margin on that. So you’re not working as hard. Your staff is not going crazy during busy season. And the way that we would do that is look at automation. So how do we actually bring automation into play? The second thing that we would do, especially right now, where there’s a talent crunch in our profession is we would also look at outsourcing, which could be onshore, or it could be offshore. So outsourcing whether it’s within the states or locally, wherever you may be, since you said you have an international audience or offshore. So typically what we’ll see in a county is India or Philippines. It’s finding the right vendors. So it’s doing good vendor due diligence, so that you’re managing your risk. But we work within the parameters of what you’re comfortable with and help you then craft that strategy. It’s kind of, I draw the analogy again to tax, right? When you’re working with a family on their tax planning, you’re not telling them you have to do this, you have to do that. You’re understanding their risk tolerance. You’re understanding that, you know, for example, like, are they the type that always get insurance on everything. My great aunt is one of these. She buys the travel insurance. She has long-term care insurance. Like she’s bought all the insurances and I’m like, “Are you sure you need that?” And she’s like, “I feel better just because I have it.” And so I draw the same analogy to what we do. Tell us what your risk is, tell us what your risk tolerance is, and we can help create that path.
JW:
You know, it’s funny you say that I’ve got a sister does the same thing. I promise you. She doesn’t fly a lot, but every time she flies, she stops that little, that little kiosk and fills out a life insurance thing. And I always caution her with a great amount of love in my heart. And I say, “Listen sis, I understand why you’re doing it. Just always remember to place the word beneficiary right below my name.” So that’s all I know. No, that’s terrible. Amy don’t even laugh at that. That was terrible. Sorry about that. So let’s talk just a little bit about for our audience here. If I were wanting to look a career similar to what you’ve carved out and specialized in, the CPA is a great credential. I mean, I think to me that opens a trusted advisor door. It is still heralded as one of the most trustworthy of credentials, just below one other group. Do you remember who that group is? Either one of you, that’s got a little better trustworthiness than the CPA?
AW:
Let’s say doctors.
JW:
Yeah. Your personal physician, as a matter of fact, not specialist, but your primary care. They seem to know. I mean, let’s face it. If they know everything about you, they’re going to be trusted. Right? So CPAs are right below that. So at the end of the day, what I’m seeing is as serving as the national accreditation commission chair, our specialty areas for CPA. So how, how does that help Donny from you? So you’re a CPA first, but you built that as the foundation, and now you’ve added to that expertise or specialty in IT nd other things, tell us a little bit about how that helps the CPA build this greater value to the marketplace.
DS:
Well, I’ll start with first by actually explaining, you know, for myself I mentioned I actually am dual trained, so starting all the way back and I was doing both accounting and I was doing some IT stuff. And then when I went to college, I was actually a double major in accounting and information systems. So I graduated with a double degree in PWC financial audit and IT audit. So when I look at the CPA, first of all, I think of CPA as the start of my career, not kind of an end. And so that’s one thing, if any students, or if anyone’s talking to students, they really need to paint that picture that CPA is the start. It’s after your two years in, right, you can pretty much, you should already have your CPA. So this will be credentials to me are the next step after that.
DS:
And that specialty credential really represents the ability to go beyond the basic CPA. Now, I know that sounds weird because people think, well, CPA, it’s this great thing. And, you know, people that don’t work with us all think, “Wow you’re a CPA.” Like when I told my family I became that they were all so happy. They don’t realize that it’s, it’s really the entry point. So these specialty credentials, you know, whether it’s in personal financial planning, whether it’s in IT, whether it’s in the CGMA, I think of as the controller or CFO specialty, these all represent an even more astute level of expertise that requires an additional three to five years of experience. So it’s beyond the CPA and then they really represent the mastery of a particular area. And since you brought up the medical field, you know, it’s the equivalent of the specialist on the doctor side. So you could go to a general practitioner, which would sort of be your CPA, but if you have cancer, you want to go to an oncologist and that’s that specialty. So that’s the way that I would think of these specialty credentials. It’s really that much deeper, richer knowledge of a particular area.
JW:
I don’t want you to think the two of you that I would ever seize upon an opportunity to steal some thunder away from the medical community of which we have many of those doctors and clinics as clients. But I call myself, Donny, don’t laugh, the financial doctor, because people come to us with all of the concerns of their financial information, their lives, their estates, their taxes, the valuations that are businesses. Guess what? We don’t do all of that. We do some of that. And only on that area, we wish to really specialize that I have a passion, for example. One thing I like about what you’ve done and Amy brought out earlier is that you started this, this system of where you can be an integral piece to that, but I want CPAs understand to understand they don’t have to know it all. They just need to know who does. You see my point?
DS:
You are completely correct.
JW:
Wait a minute. Can I get you to talk to my wife? Can you tell her that? She never lets me be correct? Donny? Listen, I’ll give you her phone number just a minute after the show. We’ll call it. Jimmy was right. That’s all. Anyway, I’m sorry, Donny.
DS:
You’re all good. So that’s part of the reason why my firm is in place. You know, we’re here to help any other CPA that is trying to have this whole cadre of other professionals that is really coming to help bring these holistic solutions to clients. So you’re the financial professional. I’ve gotten both the finance and the IT. I am not a tax person. I’m not using tax analogies, but I am not a tax person by any means, you know, working together. We can really help to accelerate what these clients can do and then I’ll even share. I can serve myself more of a versatile list within the IT realm because we don’t do everything, but I know the right person for the networking. I know the right person for particular softwares. I know the right person for cybersecurity. So it’s really you know, kind of this double circle of holistic. So bringing holistic solutions to help these clients achieve their dreams.
AW:
I absolutely love everything that you’re saying. And honestly, I don’t think I ever would have read the book had you not recommended it, but I really enjoyed the infinite game by Simon sign it. And I really feel like I felt a kind of continuity between what he was saying and the purpose of the center. And what I really like about that is that you’ve basically in everything that I’ve talked to you about and everything I’ve read about you kind of allude to and insist that small businesses are the cornerstones of all of our communities. And what I love about the center is that it kind of helps prop up CPAs and kinds of push, push them into making sure that they know that collectively they help the small businesses, which in turn helps the communities, which in turn builds a better world overall for all of us. Can you kind of describe how you kind of happened upon that or just envisioned that and how that affected the center for accounting transformation?
DS:
Sure. And I’m actually going to give credit to my auntie Raita because she was actually the one that, that explained this to me. And so the way that she explained it to me, or maybe even a little backstory on that I was going through a really hard time with my firm. This is, this is back probably I think mid two thousands. And so I was maybe five years in our firm had grown quite a bit. I think we were at maybe 19 people at that time. So it was really at a point where I was like, man, I cannot run this on my own. We were having cashflow issues. And I was telling her, you know, I don’t know if it’s worth having this firm. I don’t know, if I don’t know, you know, all this stress and everything that it’s causing. And she said, well, the way that you need to think about it is you yourself can have an impact on so many people. You can only work with so many clients, but if you can empower your clients to then work with other people or have this impact upon others, then that’s just going to broaden that circle of impact that you can have. And, and through that then, so she’s, I think about the number of people you touch and the number of people of those people touch. And this is that good, this growing circle of influence that, that you can have to have this impact and whatever it is. And she didn’t say the world at that time. But that was kind of her message to me. And so when I look at it, that is why we shifted our focus to really look at like, so how do we help improve the world? The way that we do that is by helping other CPAs, other accountants really be able to help their clients more, which then helps their clients help their customers. Right? And so now you hear it’s this fourfold circle at a minimum, this fourfold circle of how we can actually impact our communities and they’re in the greater, the greater world. And so it’s really a, I think of it as the resonance factor of our ability to help people make better holistic decisions. And then coming back to our core CPAs, helping people make better ethical decisions. And the whole pandemic really forced this need on this more broader view of things. It’s not just about the bottom line, it’s about safety, it’s about our communities. And it’s really how this impact that we can have on individuals and people.
JW:
I think one of the things you say about how you integrate with other firms to help them help others really sounds like ideally, where I was attempting to go in my business and finally got there, but it took me 20 years. Right? You, you seem to be able to adapt to change a lot quicker. Donny, tell me, what’s your secret to saying, Hey, you know, I can let go of yesterday and grab on to the moral and then go forward so much easier than maybe some of us much older than Amy. You know, Amy’s only 29, so, and forever will be. But some of us let’s say, Donny, I’m not too much, but I’m quite a bit older than that. So, so how do you adapt so quickly? What’s your what’s your secret?
DS:
I think there’s two elements to that. So the first, and I know this is really trending now, now right now, but the first is really around mindfulness and it’s this which I think of as the ability to be in the present and not get pulled back and get stuck in the past. And also the second part of mindfulness is really around understanding why you’re reacting a certain way. So being able to take a step back away from things and why am I feeling this way? Why am I reacting in this way? So that then you can start to chart your path forward. The second thing that I always tell people is that technology really follows patterns or our world as a whole follows patterns. And so what you absolutely need to do is you need to look for the pattern, for example, this cloud and the cloud that we all talk about, right? It’s been around for maybe 10 years, at least the cloud is actually an evolution of the mainframe and the way the mainframe operated. So when the cloud came out and I had to figure out, well, how do I audit the cloud? I went back and said, well, this is the way I audit the mainframe. Can I follow this conceptually? And then what is different? And then we adjust the same thing. Now we walk chain is like this big buzzword, right? Blockchain actually is EDI. And the value added networks come with additional cybersecurity, a bunch of other stuff. But again, that’s the thing that’s changed. So I’m looking for patterns. And then I figure, what is this most like, or maybe it’s a combination of two things. And I use that as my basis for saying, okay, well, this is how I’m going to deal with this change.
AW:
I absolutely love that. I think I think, you know, going over that and just part of your specialty in helping firms embrace change is a big deal. Can you describe the transformation areas that the center focuses on and kind of what, where we hope to help others in those transformation areas?
DS:
So the three core transformation areas we’re focused on aligned directly back into the art, the CPA profession. So audit transformation, tax transformation, and finance transformation. It’s really the three core areas that we work in and layered with them that we also, our matrix maybe is a better word matrix within that. We try to deal with three different distinct things is innovation acceleration. So how do I accelerate some ability to adopt the innovations again, whether it’s technology or business practices, the second one is balancing risk. So this was the risk management piece. And it’s, so again, it’s kind of looking at what are the risks? What are the people risks? What are the reputational other types of risks that may be into play? And then the third area we’ve been talking about it, but we never actually said it is more aligned towards these people. And so the third area is better business decisions that it’s this holistic approach and a both holistic and full approach to decision-making that considers not just finance, but the broader business picture and the communities that we serve.
JW:
You know, one of the things that I enjoy about the context of this entire conversation among the three of us, is there something I’m working on myself? So I’m working on an article, Donny and Amy that is along the lines of diversity, equity and inclusion, but I’m going to tell you what I’m working on, has nothing to do with the race of the person has nothing to do with ethnicity or anything of that nature or the, or the sex of the person has none of that. What it has to do with though the article I’m writing is right in line with what you’re really saying, Donny. It’s diversity of thought. I believe the next generation of CPA firms in the next 10 years is going to have to have engineering backgrounds, IT backgrounds, you’re going to have to have data management backgrounds. You’re going to have to have the traditional accounting training background, mathematics statisticians. I think you’re going to see that we’re going to no longer be called CPA firms. I think what you’re going to be called is financial firms that are owned by CPAs and the big four have kind of done that. Haven’t they?
DS:
So, yes. And I actually disagree with you a little bit in that I don’t it’s 10 years, I think it’s two years.
JW:
Well, remember, I’m slow to change. So if you were to, if you were to look at that and interpolate, okay.
DS:
Accelerate your innovation a little bit. Here we go. I, I definitely agree with you, you know, holistically agree with you. I think it’s about two to three years where we’re going to see that I’ve also been telling people that I, I think that the future CPA for us is a business advisory firm because it’s really about this holistic approach to business. So not accounting, but IT, HR, you know, this whole picture of what’s actually happening there. In fact, then I’ll add into that a little bit of lie. No, we’re not practicing law, but increasingly seeing on a number of attorneys being part of a CPA firm today, it’s this neat again, I think this holistic picture, and I love that you’ve bridged that into sea of thought, because I think too often people are so focused on diversity as just and race. And it’s also about all economic backgrounds, right? So when I go and I speak you know, especially in states that are majority white and this is actually going back again to maybe 2011 to 12, where they would, they, they would tell me, well, you know, our, our state is predominantly white or our city is predominantly white. Like how do we get thirsty? And I would always have to explain to them that it’s not just about the look it’s really the innovation that occurs is this diversity of thought, having these multiple disciplines, you know, even so even for myself, which people call me an innovator. I think part of that is because I have the accounting background, I have the IT background, and then I’ve also done graduate work in the HR area on organizational development. So understanding things from these multiple perspectives, kind of applying that mindfulness, being able to take a step back, let’s come at it from the accounting. That’s, you know, cork financials, let’s come at it from risk and controls. Let’s take a step back, let’s come at it from a technology standpoint, from a data standpoint, let’s take a step back and come at it from a people standpoint, from a learning and development standpoint, from an organizational change and behavioral change standpoint, you know, it’s analyzing it from all these factors and then coming back and saying, now, this is the way we with this solution. That’s, that’s really the power that this diversity of thought
AW:
Donna, your holistic approach is is very commendable. I’d like to go back to some of the things that we’ve talked about in looking forward, where do you see yourself in the next three to four years?
DS:
It’s so funny is that I just, this last weekend, I was actually going back to think, to go like, where do I want to be? I realized, you know what? This whole pandemic actually disrupted my vision of where I want it to be. And the clarity that I originally had around where, where I was going to go. And so this actually happened because a few weeks ago I was, I was doing a speaking for a conference in North Carolina and one of the other speakers who I’ve known for a long time, we had dinner and he said, she said, you know, in 2019, you said that you were going to step away from your practice and go and be a nomad people that people that don’t know me, I love to travel. I love to eat. I love eating and different cultures and understanding more of the local scenes. So if I ever visit you or if you don’t take me to a chain, I hate those. I want the little hole in the wall. I don’t care if it’s a little dirty. I don’t want it to be a lot 30, but a little dirty. So, okay. In fact, I think it makes them better. That’s what I want to experience. And because our firm had already had, we’ve had remote work for so long. I was like, you know, I can technically work from anywhere, not just within the state because we’re international. And so my original vision for 2020 was that I was going to go and different date to start 2021 was supposed to be a different country every month. And so Amy, when you ask three to five years from now, I’m going to say, I want to see that vision have occurred. I think we have some work now with the starting of the center for accounting transformation. So I’m going to dig in a little bit and continue to work with you and the rest of our team to finish getting this to the point where it’s operating relatively on its own. And then I’m going to go be that in the digital nomad for a couple of years.
JW:
So I’ve got some great news for you, Donny, and Amy will tell you this too off-screen I will tell you if you’re looking for some great food and I’m telling you great food, Oklahoma has this uncanny knack for barbecues, hamburgers, steaks, things of this nature. So if you’ll come visit Amy or me in Oklahoma, I’ve got a little hole in the wall in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I’ll take you to, you won’t find it anywhere else. It’s not a chain. It’s a family owned, passed down generations that it has this great barbecue smell flavor. They do their own sauce and everything with just a hint of ptomaine poisoning. So that would meet your criteria. But I mean, you know, you’re taking a little risk, but you’re just enjoying the meal at the same time. To me, it adds just a little bit of excitement to the mail, you know? But anyway, I digress. Let me, let me throw one thing at you then. So if I were wanting to seek the assistance of your firm what would be the first step we need to do? I’m certain Amy, you can answer this as well. If you’d like, which of you can tell me, how can I get in touch with Donny Shimamoto and his team?
AW:
First place I would go is improvetheworld.net. And that’s definitely where you’ll find. If you go to our inspiration operatives page, you’ll find his bio. You’ll find a lot of speakers on that page, actually, who worked with the center, but you’ll be able to contact him that way as well.
JW:
And, and so Donny, I’ve got a quick question for you too. So if you could give me your top three countries, cause you’re like me and my friend, I’m a lifetime learner, so I love different cultures. I’m learning Spanish now. Cause I’ve got a lot of friends that are of different nationality. And so I’m learning to communicate with them in their native language and so forth. And I have found two things about that real quick. Cause I digress again in Spanish you gotta be careful, first of all, what region you’re speaking to space. So my friends in South America, Brazil, Portugal, and all that they Portuguese for sure is different, but they speak a different type of Spanish than what my friends do say in Mexico City, Cozumel, La Playa, those areas. But so what I learned from that is too, is there a slang? So I’m learning how to pronounce it and do it properly grammatically correct for Spanish syntax. And they’re telling me, no, man, here’s what you need to say. So I’m learning. Okay. I’m a lifetime learner. So Donny, tell me your top three countries you wish to travel in the next three to five year timeframe.
DS:
Oh, that’s a hard one. I say that because so, well maybe I can give you a little more region. So one is definitely Europe. I’ve never been to anywhere in Europe. So that’s a big one for me. The second one is more, I think Africa just because it’s so different. So somewhere there, maybe South Africa, not necessarily, although I know a bunch of people in South Africa, so that’s definitely on my list. And then the third, Asia always still kind of calls back to me. You know, my, my family’s Asian American I’m fourth generation. So we’re pretty far it’s, it is still a foreign country for us when we go there and like, I don’t even speak any of the language natively. So those are kind of be my top three areas now where wherever then, then was so happy to see. Cause like I said, I’m actually more of, I truly am a nomad. So for the people that have no that have known me for awhile, they know too that I’m usually about 50% on the road, just here in the states. So it’s hard. I’m kind of a true, like it, it varies and it depends on my mood.
JW:
So speaking of the university of Y rainbow warriors, you’re truly a road warrior. Sounds like to me, you stay on the road. Definitely. If you’re going to Europe, I got three things to say to you that you need to write down. The first one is laser Jules Verne, which is a very five-star restaurant. And the second one is inside the Eiffel tower, go at night, go to dinner. Beautiful, great service. The third thing I want to say to you is either don’t wear a belt or go somewhere private. You can loosen your waistband afterwards. I’m telling you, they feed you so well. It is incredible. I left there and I just said, you know, I’ll never eat a meal like this again, unless I come back, it was awesome. Our family enjoyed it. So let me ask you one last question of Amy, Amy, your role with Donny’s firm. And tell me a little bit about what you’re doing and you work as I understand you telecommute, correct? A hundred percent of the time?
AW:
I’m 100%. 100% virtual.
JW:
Yes. So, so like he, didn’t say you got to go to like a firm meeting in Oahu and stay a couple of weeks on the company’s dime. Another thing is that, so I might mention to you, we use the thing in our firm called annual retreat. We do it twice a year though. So it’s semi-annual you might mention Donny, the annual retreat and the wahoo diamond head I’d recommend highly. But anyway so tell me, what do you do to bring value? And I know you bring tremendous value. I’ve known you a long time. What do you do to help Donny vision come to light?
AW:
I think my biggest role for, for the center and for Johnny is to be the storyteller to communicate as best as we can, not only about the different areas of transformation where we can help others, but also to tell the story stories of the people who we help and make sure that they understand that that’s what we’re here to do. And my role is to basically help Donny help others.
DS:
Jimmy, can I build on that? Because I think the, and I’m going to throw up a generic word. I think the journalism community or the pro generalism profession is, is really underappreciated in, in, I think most CPAs don’t realize that the power of what you do is not in the financial statements or the tax return, or even in the tax plan, the power, if you’re trying to attract clients to you, it’s the power of telling the story of the impact that you can have. And that’s where working with someone like Amy, that has more of the PR background. If I, if I turn to the AICPA, you know, they have the, it’s the journal of accountancy, but that’s a whole team. It’s not just a single magazine that really helps to tell the story of what we do in accounting, why we do what we do and then the impact that we have on people in the world. So if any firms too are kind of looking at, like, how do you differentiate yourself? You differentiate yourself by being able to tell your story of the impact you’re having on your clients. That,
JW:
Yeah, that is big. I will tell you both that. One of the things I’ve been fortunate to do in my life is mentor younger professionals. Either the CPA profession are coming up through the financial planning side of that. And I’ve got one now that’ll be graduating in May from her undergrad, she’ll get an MBA. And then she’ll, you’ll set for her CFP and some other exams, she’s not going to CPA track, but again, I’m trying to get diversity within our company as well. Right. And she asked me, she said, I’ve got to take three electives. And so she’s finishing undergrad. She found out now from our counselor, I’ve got to have three electives. And she said, what would you recommend? I take, and she’s sitting here going, she’s going, I’ve had all of these econ classes. I’ve had statistics classes. And I said, well right there, I just want you to stop for a minute. She said, okay. And I said, get out of the tunnel and start looking with a more broad lens. So I said, don’t laugh. Here’s what I want you to think about communication. If we cannot communicate with the public, with our colleagues, with our clients, with our communities as a whole, we’re worthless to them. I don’t care how much value you think you can bring if they don’t understand and communicate with you, you bring nothing. And so I told her, I said, take speech classes, technical writing classes, take thought process classes, philosophy classes. She looked at me and she goes, Jimmy, you are really getting old. That was very wise. So Donny, I got that going for me. Okay. I don’t want to brag, but well, listen, I’d like to one last word from each of you. If you didn’t do what you’re doing now, and both of you do what you do so fantastically, I know you’re passionate about it, your heart’s in it, but let’s assume that you didn’t do what you’re doing now. What would you do? Or what would you be Amy?
AW:
Wow. well, I think I would probably like to be a real estate agent just because I really love looking at homes. And I’m fascinated with the shows on Discovery+, that kind of show you all these different homes and all these different areas. And then they show you how they’re going to completely transform, completely transform a house into a new home for somebody else. And I really find that fascinating passionately, if I could do anything, I would 100% volunteer, 100% of the time for the YWCA in Oklahoma city to help victims of domestic and sexual assault to help them recover and help them rebuild and transform their lives as well.
JW:
So, Amy, I’m going to tell you something, that statement is the most powerful statement, and I don’t mean to demean Donny’s comments at all today, but that statement is so profound and impactful. That’s what this show’s about. You know, Donny’s got improve the world.net. Jimmy wants to be with his team, change, the world not met. That’s where I want to be. Great stuff. Donny, same question to you, sir,
DS:
Mine actually would be a psychologist. So that was psychology earlier. You mentioned, you know, the alternate classes in speech. I actually did a minor in speech, so definitely agree with you on, on the speech side. But the reason I did the the master’s work in organizational development was because I realized that to get people to change, you need to convince them to change. And part of that is in persuasive communication, which comes from the speech side. The other side of that is getting into really the way that they’re thinking, which is the psychology side. And I’d actually consider myself lucky, because as part of what I do some people call me the organization whisperer because I’ll come on site and I’ll be able to get a CEO or other executives to really change the way they’re thinking about something and all of that’s in that psychology. And then we have to deal with everybody else that doesn’t agree with that change. And then I become the therapist. So a lot of times I’ll end up going on site, they’ll give me an office. And then I’ve got this line of people that’s waiting to give all their complaints, and I have to kind of work to help them work through that and understand why the change is occurring. And so I feel kind of feel like I’ve actually done that second career a little bit.
JW:
You know, you need to take a lesson, Donny. I’m just offering here. You know, I’m just here to provide a value where I can, my friend and so w during COVID, they shut down our spouse. So I couldn’t go get my massages and things. And so guess what? She has a portable table. She comes to your house. She tells us she’s had the shot. She wears a mask. Does all the protocols we should do coming into someone’s home. And then of course she came and I got my massage as well. I’m telling you, sir, maybe as the psychologist for CEOs, you need to walk in their office, take a little couch folded out. Now, how does this make you feel? No, just kidding. But I think it’d be a great idea myself. But anyway, Hey, last question for each of you, if you could, without restriction and limitation of resources, whether it’s money, human, and technology, whatever it is, there’s no limit to resources. What’s the next step you would take in your life. If all you had was a week left to live,
AW:
I would spend as much time as possible with every person in my family. Hopefully charter an amazing yacht, get everyone on that boat and let’s go visit all these islands in the Caribbean and really have a great time and make sure they know that I’ll always be with them. I’ll always love them. And I’ll always be looking out for them. So
JW:
Donny, how about you?
DS:
I would do exactly what I was doing Bartlett XLR, because to me, this is my legacy that I’m going to leave, and this was what I, again, I fundamentally believe that this is the path to improving the world. So if I can accelerate that and get everything in place in that one week, that’s what I would do.
JW:
You guys have done wonderful today. I want to tell you something and why I asked that last question. I asked that last question, because I want to impose upon you a thought, I want to influence you if I could, in a way that I hope you take from this moment we’ve had together, that not only helps us change the world with your great comments, your ideas, your thoughts, but also it might change your lives as well. My reason for asking that question is, is you do have that week, put it into action today. Don’t wait for that sign of all. I’ve got to week, you’ve got a week, you’ve got a day. We all got 144 hours and we’re done for the week, right? So at the end of the day, 144 minutes, excuse me, we’re done for that day. I want you to take that time and go out and change the world as you’ve done. Thank you, Donny Shimamoto. Thank you, Amy Welch, as my co-host and Amy, you may be getting an invitation to be co-host again. On several days, you did a great job today.
JW:
Ladies and gentlemen today has been a blast for me. These two individuals are big, big influences in my life, and I appreciate them being here today. The one thing I like to leave our audience with is a challenge. You heard our last question on the podcast. What would you do if you had unlimited resources, time in a week’s day that you’re going to pass away, what would you do to leave your legacy for the world? Because see, there’s only one, you make it bigger, make it better and make it bolder. Join us here next week and live life by design as we do what we wish to do every week. And that’s change the world for better.
