Yet,

so much of business and personal development gives everybody the exact same prescription.

Do this every morning.

Make decisions this way.

Post this many times.

Be consistent like this.

Push through your resistance.

One of

I mean, what's your thoughts on that?

Yeah, so let's talk about the younger professional first, because I think this is where we're really struggling with that.

what academia is preparing students for what we need today and what we know we need in the future.

And the reality is that where some of that, I'll just say simpler work, because if you think about accounting as an apprenticeship profession, you start off by doing some of the simpler tasks, seeing the patterns in that work, and then you progress and take on more difficult things.

It's, I think it's non-debatable that where we're going to see some of AI replace the work initially is in that simpler work.

And then we're gonna continue to integrate it into the more complex.

And so if I was a student today, and we have lost a lot of people being interested in the accounting profession, because there are some sexier careers out there that seem really cool and really trendy.

So what are those three key takeaways that you want to leave with this audience so they can feel more comfortable about how they can evolve in this new framework?

I don't know.

Well, there's a couple of things here that our profession historically has attracted just by the nature of the work.

Somebody who tends to lean more analytical, more rational, more logical math numbers.

I mean, same with architecture, same with math.

And even a lot of medicine will attract people who are like deep in the science and the knowing of the information.

So we're already starting off.

I don't want to say at a disadvantage, but we were hiring for a side of the brain that doesn't lean relational.

I

What are you sharing with them?

Yeah, and I think it's a yes and.

Again, I don't want us to feel like we have to completely abandon the gift of the compliance mindset, even in the age of AI.

If I'm going to evaluate the output of AI, my expertise, my experience, my ability to know patterns from clients I've worked with help me evaluate the options or the data that is coming out of artificial intelligence.

So there is value to that.

My argument is that there are less clear-cut answers today And look at what so we're recording this episode in early May 2026.

And just this past weekend, look at what happened with Spirit Airlines.

What do you share with them?

Hmm

... set a target for what this looks like, and at what proficiency you need to be at different stages of your career, then we have nothing to shoot at.

So how do I, how do I go find learning? How do I go find experiences and opportunities to help me develop whatever this is if somebody hasn't laid out a clear expectation of what I'm trying to get to? So that's the first piece, is setting clear expectations, and I mean doing that in a way that's objective, in a way that's measurable.

Because if it's just vague, like, "Well, you need to be able to have effective communication with our clients." Okay, what is effective communication, and by whose standard? And if I'm evaluating somebody based upon what my understanding of effective communication is, and you're evaluating them against your understanding, neither one of us are wrong.

But how confusing is that for a colleague that's saying, "I'm trying to get better at this," and neither of you [laughs] can describe what it looks like, but one of you is saying, "I'm doing it in a way that's outstanding," and one of you is saying, "meets expectations," and you're both saying, "I'm doing the same thing." Like, I can't make sense of that.

I don't know how I'm doing, and I don't know what I need to do differently.

So we've got to set clear expectations about the behaviors that we want people to engage in and how that progresses.

Hmm

Mm-hmm

... to close loops.

We get hits of dopamine and serotonin when we check something off the to-do list or when we have an answer and the problem's fixed.

So there's physiology that goes behind this in addition to just our, what we get rewarded for externally.

There's internal rewards too.

So doubling down on those human skills, learning how to ask better questions, uh, learning how to be curious, learning agility, which is learning how to learn, so that when I encounter something I don't know, I don't get freaked out that I don't have the answer to this.

I just activate the system that says, "Okay, so when I don't know something and that feels uncomfortable, how do I go about figuring out where I can get information, where I can learn more?" And that's a skill in and of itself.

[laughs]