Episode 136: Live A Life Of Gratitude And Abundance With Roger Knecht
What does it look like when you live a life of gratitude and abundance? In this interview with Roger Knecht, President of Universal Accounting Center, we discuss his humble upbringing and how he always appreciated what he had without envy of others. This trait has helped him as a leader and father to ensure he is always grateful and trusting of the people around him rather than looking for competition or being jealous. Roger also shares how he navigates into his role creating a self-sustaining, living, and breathing business that works autonomously. To wrap up the conversation, he mentions that you’re blessed when you approach life with an attitude of gratitude and abundance. If you want to be in a place where you get blessed, tune in to this inspiring episode, and, together, we’ll celebrate each other’s wins.
---
Listen to the podcast here
Live A Life Of Gratitude And Abundance With Roger Knecht
Welcome to this episode of Breaking Beliefs, where I interview Roger Knecht. Roger is the President of the Universal Accounting Center, a post-secondary school for accounting professionals. With over twenty years of marketing, sales, HR, and operations experience, Roger has helped thousands of business owners work on their businesses to increase revenue, improve profits, and build value. His strong work ethic and collaborative style deliver reliable and high-quality results for business owners.
Roger's podcast, Building the Premier Accounting Firm, keeps accounting professionals on the cutting edge of the industry offering quality bookkeeping, accounting, and tax services. Roger is also the author of Your Strategic Accountant and Your Profit & Growth Expert. Each is written to help business owners understand what they can expect from the accounting profession. The Universal Accounting Center provides accounting professionals with the training, certification, coaching, and support they need to become profit and growth experts to their clients.
During this interview, we discussed his humble upbringing and how he always had an attitude of appreciating what he had without envy of others. This trait has helped him as a leader and father to ensure he is always grateful and trusting of the people around him rather than looking for competition and being jealous. I'm so excited to share this episode with you. Make sure to share this episode with people that you think this could help with. What always helps too is to subscribe to this show so that you are notified when any new episodes drop.
---
I am interviewing Roger Knecht. Roger, do you want to start off and give a little intro on yourself before we get started?
Certainly. I can give it both personally and professionally. Personally, I'm a great guy. Professionally, I am the President of Universal Accounting Center. I work with accounting professionals. I help them start and build their accounting firms offering bookkeeping, accounting, and tax services.
We're happy to have you on with us. What we like to do is get right into your personal story right from the beginning. Why don't we start with where you grew up and what your parents do, and we'll start from there?
I don't remember the beginning. There was a sperm and an egg. I wasn't really there, but it began at some point. I was born in Provo, Utah. My parents raised me there. They were living in a trailer home for a few years as they each attended college. Once they graduated, they moved to Sandy City. It's a suburb of Salt Lake City where I was raised and went to school and everything. I loved my upbringing. I was on the outskirts of town. We were out on the fringe of civilization as you might think. Now, it's not the case. It's developed now. I had a wonderful childhood.
I lived in a lower-income area of town. I was raised in a household that was struggling to make ends meet. I remember some impoverished times. I recall distinctly a period of time when my father was unemployed. That was a traumatic thing to see as a child. I also had family and friends who were nearby in a very affluent part of town. My high school, to give you an idea, had a very poor area and very well-to-do gated community-type area. I got to experience all facets of life. I had friends. I remember distinctly going into a home and there were two baby grand pianos, one on each level of the house. I thought that was amazing.
Isn’t it funny what we remember? That got your attention.
I had a piano. My mother had a piano in our home. It was one of those square box ones where I was taking lessons. She would insist that I go through that. Here, I walk into another home and two baby grands are on each level of the house. It's amazing what stands out in our memories as to how we reflect on things.
Let's go back a little. Your parents were in college. What were their degrees and what did they end up doing?
My mother didn't finish college, but my father completed History. He was intending to become a History teacher. He didn't, but that was his major. He took a few extra years to finally get his bachelor's degree. He was enjoying the dating scene and was enjoying the college life. He took a little bit longer than perhaps some. Nonetheless, he found his wife and married, and here I am.
Your parents met in college though?
They did.
What did your father end up doing?
He did a few things. I remember him distinctly managing a plastic company. It was a business where plastic was new. It was something interesting. He was overseeing a plastic company that was here locally. It was a national chain. He then got into the lumber industry. It was one of the local companies here that provided lumber for construction. He was managing that as well. Those were two of the main professions that he had. Those are the ones I recall when I was growing up.
He wasn't doing much with History?
Not at all. He always has a fascination or curiosity for history. American history and there was some religious history that he was very interested in. That was very much part of my upbringing. I remember conversations about a lot of that stuff. I personally grew to have a great deal of interest in those two subjects myself.
Did your mom stay at home with you?
She did. She was a stay-at-home mom.
You were in Utah. What was it like growing up there? What did you do? What was your favorite thing to do when you were little? Was it being outside? Did you have different hobbies? You said you played piano.
I did. I took lessons in piano. I don't know that I necessarily played it but I tried. My upbringing is like the memes you would see on social reels now. The picture of the kid in the front yard that's on a two-wheel bicycle that's jumping without a helmet on, free-spirited. Those memes that say, “We knew when to come home when the lights in the neighborhood went on the street.” That was my upbringing. I distinctly remember leaving in the sense that I would go in the morning and say, "Mom, I'm going to my friends." She wouldn't necessarily ask which friends. She wouldn't necessarily care where. As long as I was backed by mealtime, she was fine. We would go to friends' houses, but it's not like we were cordoned there because I said I was going there.
From there, we went anywhere and everywhere in the neighborhood. There was a gully nearby. We would ride around the neighborhood. It was free rein. I was very free-spirited and had a lot of opportunities that way. There was a period of my life, and this is a total tangent, where I was very interested in television and watched quite a bit of television. There was a period when my mother was somewhat concerned that I wasn't getting outdoors and playing with friends. That was a segment of my upbringing. Otherwise, it was very much free-spirited.
You said you had these two worlds happening between there being the affluent side and the one that was lower income. What were you learning about it? When you were little, was it that you wanted to be on the affluent side? Were you trying to figure out what that takes to get there? Were you content where you were?
I was very much content. I remember as a teenager having wants in the sense of attire and so forth. You wanted expensive jeans. I was very much raised with hand-me-downs. I had cousins who were older than me, and therefore I would receive their clothing. I remember going to the local thrift store and my mother picking up used attire and other types of things. It’s very much in that sense, but I was the fortunate one. Even saying all that, I was the fortunate one because I was the oldest. If there was anything that was missing, I typically would get the newer. Not the greatest, but the newer. My siblings would get the leftovers of me.
This is very much a thing that I don't know that people would experience now. I remember my parents having clothes in bins or bundles of sizes. As the school year began, I distinctly recall in August, all the clothing would come out. We would try on what fit and what we liked, and that would go into our closets. The bin would be put back together and set away for the next year. My siblings would get my hand-me-downs. There would be a chest with clothes in it that my mother would have folded up. When the new year would begin before school season, we would go in August and pull out what we were going to have for the new year. What we were offered, what I recall, is I could get one new pair of jeans and maybe a shirt or two that I could get that's new that I would have for my first day of school.
Other than that, most of my wearings were either cousin hand-me-downs or other types of things from thrift stores. I wouldn't necessarily say these are fond memories, but I was fine with it. It was my norm. I didn't have anything to challenge it. That being said, I had cousins who lived in an affluent neighborhood that was a number of blocks away. I would go up to those homes in that gated community. I'd see a much larger house and see a lot of newer things. That was their world. Mine was mine. I didn't have any envy or jealousy for it. I was coping very well, I guess.
I interviewed a lot of people and heard these stories from being younger and feeling like they were made fun of because of their clothes or things like that. What do you think gave you confidence and being okay as you were?
I don't know that I exude the confidence I have now. If I could go back and be the person I am now, I'd go on more dates and have a lot more fun. You deal with self-esteem. That's a natural thing that every teenager would go through. One of the things that I described, and in my mind represents adolescents because I work with a lot of adolescents and teenagers. What we saw then as being unique to us, we wanted to hide. As teenagers, we want to blend in. We don't want to stand out oftentimes. Anything that is unique, we tend to suppress. The moment you become a young adult, you start to recognize that those are inherent characteristics that you want to emphasize and promote. You want to draw attention to them because they then qualify as that unique thing.
Gratitude And Abundance: As teenagers, what we saw then as being unique to us, we wanted to hide. The moment you become a young adult, you start to recognize that those are inherent characteristics that you want to emphasize and promote.
A lot of times, what I see is when I was younger, things that I would try to blend in with. Now, I leveraged them for my own success. As a younger person, I remember sitting back on the fringe, observing and watching. At the same time, I was very confident in many circles. I was more than happy to be the star of the show or be the host of the party if you will.
That's great. It probably has something to do with your parents as well, giving you that confidence or support. That's awesome.
My parents were very good at offering that type of support. Going back to my earlier comment of being able to leave the home and have free rein, they trusted me.
That's a big deal, that trust. Once you're going through childhood, what do you imagine you were going to be when you grew up? So far, I've heard nothing about accounting or business in your background.
Nothing of accounting or business. My parents weren't entrepreneurs. If I look back, I'm sure I could identify individuals who may have been entrepreneurs or business owners, but that was not my upbringing. One of the things that I might want to mention is when I was being raised, I had the support and confidence of my parents. They would encourage me to try and do anything. There wasn't anything that they would necessarily say no to other than expenses. We didn't have the funds to do a lot of sports and so forth. They were very encouraging and promoting them, and if anything, supportive. I did feel a lot of that, which allowed me to believe that I could do what I wanted to.
My vision of where that might be is not like I was aspiring to be an astronaut. I wasn't intending to be an accountant for that matter. I’m always admiring those people in the movies who only spoke when they had something insignificant to say, like the chief or the medicine man in the movie. They only said what needed to be said when it was necessary.
I also esteemed shows where they would have maybe the president, and they would have a handler that would take them from thing to thing. Their day was full and scheduled and they were in a position where they could have influence, but they were managed as to what was going on because they were so busy. I esteemed that. It was something that I looked forward to. Could I be in a position where what I had to say mattered, at the same time that I could have enough influence that my day was full of impactful situations? Honestly, that's where I believe I am now. I'm very happy and content with what I do because I love the busyness of it all.
To be clear, was it the person that was the chief, the president, or the handler that was coordinating?
It was the president. I wanted a handler. I remember hearing a story about Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold would go down a line of people and he would evidently greet them. He would have the same phrase that Arnold Schwarzenegger evidently would say to each of these people he was meeting. The handler would have a gesture that he would do to tap on Arnold to say, “Move along. You had to go to the next person.”
Having that tap told him evidently to move forward. I thought that was fascinating to have a handler like that who managed the surroundings and was attentive to all that, allowing him to be present with each of those people. “I'm here for you. I'm going to let somebody else manage the surroundings. When I need to move on, I will, but I'm going to be present for the moment that I can with you.” I thought that's impressive.
That's interesting that you picked up on that. That was the part you were picking up on a TV show. I like that. That's interesting. Now, you're coming to college. Did you go to college? If so, how did you afford it? Where did you start?
It's changed names numerous times over the years. At the time, it was UVC, it was Utah Vocational College. At the time, that's where I was going to go to at least get my associate's degree, and then find where I'd go to finish and get my four-year degree. Coincidentally, they had become, at that point, when I had enrolled in a four-year college. I think it became Utah Valley Community College. Regardless, I didn't finish my associates. I transferred to Brigham Young University. I completed my four years there. I graduated at the end in Communications. It was my degree.
How did you choose that?
The way I chose it was I knew a number of individuals would graduate and not use their degrees. I was aware of the fact that they would finish it and move on to something else. I wanted something that would be practical. I was considering public relations, journalism, and broadcasting. Could I go into broadcasting and be an anchor or a reporter? Could I do journalism? Could I be like a PR-type person?
I was leaning more toward public relations, and then I learned of a communications degree, which was a blend of all three of those. I got some broadcast courses, journalism courses, communication courses, and PR courses. I love them. I got my communications degree. Honestly, I feel I've used a lot of that in the roles that I've had in sales and so forth. That was the degree I earned at Brigham Young University.
What steps did you take after? How did you use it?
After I graduated, I was in the film industry. I went from the film industry into an employment placement. I would do, as a recruiter, either tempered direct hire type positions for accounting professionals. That was my introduction to accounting by the way. It was there that I started to place individuals in temporary assignments or direct-hire opportunities. From that, I learned of Universal Accounting Center, which is a post-secondary school for accounting professionals. I was taking the graduates of the accounting programs and I was putting them on assignment. I would get them jobs more or less.
As I did that with Universal Accounting Center, I became familiar with the owners and the president. I began doing some consulting work for them. An opportunity presented itself for me to take on employment with Universal Accounting. I did so. I did that in 1999. For more than twenty years, I've been with the school and have a variety of responsibilities. It's almost 24 years.
That's awesome.
Who can say they've worked at a company for 24 years now?
Very few people.
I climbed the proverbial ladder. I started as a non-accountant. Now, I'm the president of an accounting school, so there you go.
What is it that drew you to the accounting profession and kept you there, since you've had no background in it at all up to that point?
There are a few things, but I'll settle on two. One was clearly the people I worked with. I worked with some amazing individuals. It was a business that was committed to helping people pursue their accounting careers and excel. That meant helping people find employment where they were being paid well. It meant helping people start and build accounting businesses and pursue that entrepreneurial dream. Being here as long as I have, I've got to see so many people not only start their businesses but now I've been here long enough to see them retire from and sell their companies. It's beautiful.
My interest is their life story. Their success is our success. As we see them take the principles that we teach and learn, they're able to implement them successfully and change their lives. That's the beauty of it. From an academic point of view, it's nice and rewarding to see people have that success. The same is likewise for the employees. I see that this is a phenomenal company to work for. Even before being president, I saw we would employ people for long durations. They were very committed and loyal, so very few would leave the business. It's nice to not only work for a great company but now be the head of a company that I consider to be wonderful and one that treats its employees well. You've got both the employees that I enjoy working with and the customers that we service.
Just an interesting thing, your father wanted to be a teacher and never taught. Have you ever talked to him about this? Has he ever been curious about your experience teaching and what that was like since he didn't get to follow through on that?
Although he didn't professionally teach or get into academia, he was a teacher. I mean that in the sense he was always pursuing information and then sharing it. He was one of those mentor types. My father coincidentally passed away in 2007, so he never saw me become president of the school, but he was aware of my teaching at the time. I think there was a good deal of, I don't know if pride would be the right word, but he was pleased to see that I was in a role that he perhaps one time wanted to achieve.
When I was teaching classes, I was in a position where I was coincidentally traveling around the United States and Canada. Getting to travel a lot and see the country at least, if not the world. It afforded me a lot of wonderful opportunities to meet people, teach them, and be in that instructor role. I presume that he was proud of me. I'd like to think that.
Reverse-wise, with you going into a teacher role and with you talking about him being a teacher mentor and the role you're in. What kind of things do you think you've embodied from watching your father or learning from your father?
A curiosity for life. That continual learning. That idea of there's still more to know. I remember distinctly my father saying something. This would've been in his late 50s or mid-50s. I remember him saying at one point, “I've forgotten more than I know,” or something to that effect. At that point, he had unlearned things that he thought he knew. I relate to that now. There are a lot of things that, all of a sudden, I've got this wealth of information. I struggle to remember, “Where's that book? What book was it in? Who said that?” I've got this great quote and I'm like, “Who said that? I can't remember exactly who.”
That's what he was alluding to. If you pursue a lot of information and knowledge, and especially where he was so well-rounded in a variety of topics, you get to a point where there's a lot of information up there and you're trying to say, "What book was that in? Where was that said? Who said this?" My father, towards the end, was spending a lot of his time reading. I remember him being part of a book club where they would continually send him books every month. He would go through more than a book a week, like 2 or 3 books a week. He was a prolific reader.
I remember learning later that if you read 3 to 4 books on any given topic, you know more than 95% of the population. You instantly become an expert in that area merely because you've read the 3 or 4 books about the topic. I think that's fascinating. I've read a number of books on a topic and I can hold my own based on the fact that I've read 3 or 4 books on a specific subject.
Gratitude And Abundance: If you read three to four books on any given topic, you instantly become an expert in that area.
You took the time to learn it and a lot of people don't take the time to do those things.
They might read an article. They might read a short summary of it. They might read the cliff or spark notes on it. At the end of the day, did they dive into it? For that matter, did they go into a course or program related to it? My father was willing to put in the 2 or 3 books needed to become very knowledgeable on a given topic. I've taken that same approach. I'd like to be well-versed in a variety of things. I love current events, history, politics, and religion. Those topics are ones that I enjoy getting into. The more taboo the better because there's a little bit more curiosity in them.
How do you teach continuous learning and curiosity in the work you do? How do you pass that on to the students that are a part of your course?
I'd like to think they're becoming lifelong learners. That'd be the ideal. Within our profession as accounting professionals, there's this idea of continuing professional education or continuing education. The CPE or CEs that many of us need, that’s intended to say, “There's always something new to learn out there. Your profession is important enough and changing enough. You need to be on the cusp of what's new.” I hope that there's that instilled interest in, “I'm curious enough and I'd like to know more.” The way we teach at school however is we used to have campuses around the United States. Now, it's all done independently. It's all online instruction. You are able to log in and go through video instructions. You're able to go through the workbooks and the assignments.
Because we're a post-secondary school, we truly believe that people learn through different mediums. Some are through visual. Some are auditory. They need to hear it. The other people are hands-on. It's the kinesthetic. You want to experience it and do the exercises, do the work, and you learn through that experience. We want to provide each of those teaching elements within the instruction that we provide. That's something that we're very attentive to, in addition to the quizzes and exams that attest to whether or not you've grasped the concepts.
When they graduate from your school, what is the outcome?
It's a variety of things. One, because we're a post-secondary school, there are certain certifications or designations that we're able to offer based on the proficiency of the person in the final exam. That's very important. After that, we're helping them through a job placement program that we have to assist individuals in finding employment, getting that promotion, pay increase, or whatever they're looking for. That's something that we're involved in. At the same time, we work heavily with individuals who are trying to supplement their incomes, whether it's part-time with a handful of clients or full-time going in and offering quality accounting services.
I'm working with a number of people who are starting and building their businesses. As firms are established, we're oftentimes working with the owner and helping them train their staff, build their staff, and offer new services. Whether they're in that startup phase or that build phase, we're working with accounting firms to be what I refer to as the premier accounting firm in their area.
What do you think has been one of the most important leadership transition lessons? As you've gone through the different ranks since you've been in this business for so long, what do you think you've learned over time or had to change as far as the belief system and how you lead in order to be effective?
Trust and delegate. There's a lot to be said for if you want it done right, you do it yourself. I totally get it. I've been through that. When you're growing an organization, there comes a point where you have to let go. You have to understand that somebody might be able to do it better, and you have to trust that they can. That sometimes means that they'll do it differently than you. One of the things that I have come to respect as we've grown the company is to realize that I need to be willing to delegate. I learned a principle that was from an individual who was running a multi-billion dollar company.
At a retreat I attended, he said, "My job is every 6 months to 1 year, I need to replace myself." What he was explaining is that every year, he needs to reinvent his job or role in the business. What he was essentially doing was, over the course of 6 to 12 months, he would identify a need within the organization. He would find something that needed attention, and then he would try and figure out what needed to be done, identify the related tasks, and then in turn, he would hire someone to do those tasks. Now that it's been documented, he can now duplicate it. He would hire someone into that role to take on that responsibility. In doing so, in essence, he would then fire himself and take on a new role or pursue something new or different in the business.
I thought that was fascinating because so many times when I'm working with business owners, we tend to love what we do and what we do well, and we want to keep doing it. The reality is when you're growing a business, you need to create processes and systems to ensure that it's done the same way but no longer by you. You can get to that point where you can delegate. If you can delegate, then you can grow an organization that has value because it's no longer you that it's dependent upon.
You know when you've arrived is when you can quote yourself. I'm going to quote myself. I always say that a business needs to be something that you can build that is a self-sustaining, living, and breathing entity that works autonomously from the business owner. If you're in a position where you can delegate and no longer be involved in the day-to-day operations of the business, you've created something special.
How did you get there?
The school of hard knocks. It's processes. It's looking at what I'm doing that is repetitive, looking at something that is duplicatable, and then documenting it, and then asking someone else to do it, and seeing that they can replicate what you're doing, and then giving them the autonomy to take it and run with it. That's the way I look at it. I'm currently in that process. As we’re recording this, we're nearing the end of the year. I'm assessing what is it that I'm doing on a regular basis that I can now ask someone else to do so that next year, I'm no longer doing it. There are a variety of things that I've identified that by the end of the year, I expect I'm no longer doing.
For people though, you might identify it, but still the belief system or the habit that you have to get to not do it and not feel bad about not doing it. How do you cross that chasm?
First of all, you have to understand that it's not about you. It's about your customer. They're paying for a product or service. I realize some people may say access to you or you specifically, but what they're looking for is a deliverable. If I can find a way to deliver consistently a good quality product or service and no longer be in the way of providing it, then I'm building an organization I can be proud of.
I'm going to put it in very simple terms. You can be an entrepreneur. You can have a business that you own and operate, but if you're doing all the work, you have a job. All you did was start a business for which you said, "The first person I'm going to hire today is me. Congratulations. I have a job." That's wonderful and great. You get to go around town presenting yourself as the owner of a company. In reality, if you don't wake up in the morning and open the door, nothing gets done. You have a job.
What you want to do is move from that job to an owner position. The pathway to that is, first of all, addressing the lifestyle of an owner. The lifestyle of the owner is achieving what many are striving for, which is freedom, independence, and greater wealth or income that they wouldn't get in a W2 position. That's achieved when you're able to hire key employees or managers and delegate the things that are menial to what you're paying. That's great that you can do the garbage, do the windows, and lock the door, but for the pay you're making, do you want to have those responsibilities? Let's be smart about this and delegate those things.
All of a sudden, what happens is you start to realize, "I'm now living the lifestyle of an owner, and I no longer have a job. I get to have a vision. I get to give purpose. I get to help other people with their livelihoods because I am that visionary person and I have that thing that's the product or service that enables me to employ other people and give them the livelihoods that they want."
That's very empowering, but then you want to get from the lifestyle to that of an owner. You want to be in a position like what many of us see on Shark Tank. You see these people that invest in businesses. They provide vision and direction, but they're not going into the office every day. They're not doing the work. They're clearly at that point where they're seeing the business more of an investment. Would you mind if I give one other analogy here real quick?
No, of course.
Here's my analogy. Consider your business as being in one of three stages. It's, first of all, like an infant. When you have a child that is an infant, it's very dependent upon its parents. You have to feed it, clothe it, protect it, and watch it. You're with it 24/7 because it could put its finger in the light socket and so forth. That's like your business. You've got to be there all the time, make the decisions, and deal with the issues. Your business is you. You're tied at the hip so you're one and the same. Imagine your business gets to the point like it's a teenager.
The teenager is a little bit more independent. It can wake up on its own and clothe itself. The teenager is able to feed himself. All of a sudden, you're in a situation where that teenager starts to have interests of its own. It pursues maybe some athletic thing. Maybe they get involved in some extra-curricular activities or get a job on their own. All of a sudden, what you're dealing with is this teenager is becoming independent of you. You don't have to be there all the time. You can go on a vacation. You can have friends outside of the family. Why? It's because this child is able to, now as a teenager, be independent.
Take it to the next level where your child becomes a young adult. As a young adult, they move out of the house. They start their own relationship or perhaps get married. They pursue college. They get their own job. They move on. You still have an interaction and a role to play with them as a parent. You're still influencing them, but you're no longer involved in the day-to-day operations of that person's life as you were when they were an infant. That's how I think a business ought to be. You need to be building a business that over time becomes less dependent upon you.
Gratitude And Abundance: Build a business that becomes less dependent upon you over time.
Just like many of us who are older and have young adult children, we take pride in a lot of the things they're doing, but it's not because we decided the things that need to be done. They are making these independent decisions that at a distance we can look back and go, "Well done. You're doing great. This is wonderful,” but it is them.
I love that. That's a great analogy. There are so many great lessons that you shared. I love to end with some rapid-fire questions. You can pick a category, family and friends, money, spiritual, or health.
Family.
Things or actions I don't have that I want to have with my family.
I've got a lot of stuff with my family. I don't know that I'm in a want. My children all live close by. They're each married. I just became a grandparent. My youngest granddaughter is a year old. My youngest daughter is about to have twins. I'm very blessed. I'm very grateful for the interactions I have with my children. I moved my oldest daughter into her second home. She sold their condo and built a house nearby. She's within ten minutes of where I live. The home is being completed. They got their keys on Monday and took possession of the house. We moved them in. To see those types of things and interact with my children where I am involved in their day-to-day lives is a big deal.
It also happened to be the one-year anniversary of my son. He's been married now for a year to a beautiful wife and is very happy. My children are all doing phenomenal. I'm involved in each of their lives. They live nearby. I see my children at minimum once or twice a week. I speak to them regularly. I guess what I should say is this. I have always taught and believed that family's first and that family is everything. I've instilled it in my children. I've wanted them to feel that they can rely upon family and that we're always there. I believe that they feel that way. That's going to be my answer and I'm holding to it.
You now answer it because those are things you want to keep. I think you've answered most of the questions within that one answer. Anything that you want to make sure that you share that we didn't get to share during this or some takeaway that you want people to have from our conversation together?
Because of the nature of this conversation, there are two takeaways. First of all, it's very important that you have an attitude of gratitude. Gratitude is something too often overlooked. When you are able to be grateful for the things in your life and the blessings in your life, when you can take a moment and reflect on so many of the things that are going well in your life, your day goes differently. You see things differently. Through confirmation bias, you find more to be grateful for. I believe that causes you to be a much more positive and optimistic person.
That's the first thing. Approach life with a sense of gratitude. Some people will carry or keep what's called a gratitude journal. Other people will, in the mornings or evenings, record the things for which they're grateful. Those exercises are amazing. I believe it causes you to be not only a happier person, but a better person to be around because you contribute so much to everyone else around you.
My second thing is to have an attitude of abundance. You need to be someone who sees opportunity and believes in potential not only in other people but in life itself that this too will pass when you're dealing with struggles and lead to a better opportunity. When you have this abundance mindset, you start to see things that you didn't notice before. You start to find places where you can give back, help, and make money.
All the things that you may be wanting through that abundance mentality can be achieved. If you approach life with, “There's plenty out there. I don't have to take from someone else to have, but rather there's enough for me to have, and them as well.” Stop being jealous of other people's successes. Celebrate what's going well with other people. When you live a day-to-day life with abundance and gratitude, you're very blessed. Those are the two things I would end on.
Thank you so much for sharing your story and being part of this conversation. I'm sure so many people are going to take away some great lessons from it.
I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you.
---
Now, for my Mindful Moments with this interview with Roger. We started out talking about his humble beginnings starting with living in a trailer in Provo, Utah, and how in his town, there was a division of lower-income and more affluent people in the same town and same high school. Also, how does that translate when you're crossing between homes, and what you notice that you have versus others have? We had a good discussion about the fact that for once, he never felt that he didn't have something that he wanted because of the way his parents supported him and educated him. It allowed him to be this free spirit, curious, being out there, and learning new things.
Also, the learnings he got from his father about American history and religious history, and his constant curiosity to learn more gave him a sense of being content. Even when his clothes might be hand-me-downs and so forth, that wasn't something that he looked down upon. He looked at his life that it was unique. This is an important thing for all of us when we go through things that might be different from others, a lot of times, we might reflect on that as something bad that happened in our lives instead of flipping it and looking at what are those things that have made me special and unique, and what characteristics will that develop as an adult.
Because he was very much observing and watching others and his parents trusted him so much and supported him to have this curiosity and learning, it allowed him to develop and be this unique person and not feel like he had to be like everyone else. When I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, it was what he saw on television and watching leaders on television.
The one thing that he noted about it was that they had people to manage their schedules so that in each situation they could be present. That's a very important thing when we talk about leadership. We have very busy schedules all day long. Either living by our calendar or having someone who actually helps us to ensure that we are staying present and in each moment the way that we need to be without being distracted by the last experience, the last person we talked to, or all the other works that we have to do. It's taking that into our lives as a leadership lesson to make sure that we're present in each experience because we don't know what we may miss if we aren't.
Unlike many people, he's been at the Universal Accounting Center for over twenty years and has built his career from entry-level to being the president. What attributed it was that he loved the people he worked with and he was helping other people find success. This is very important in the times that we are living in to ensure that we are protecting our culture and that people like to work in our workplace. Meaning, not only are they the type of people and the personality profile that we want in our businesses but we create ways to keep their careers interesting. They're able to find other career paths right within the work that they're doing so that they don't feel like they have to leave.
Secondly, they have a purpose. Purpose is an important thing. That is what he found in his career. He's been able to help professionals be able to live their life stories and the successes that he's been able to see, and being around those people long-term makes your job more than the job. It is important that we look for that ourselves and as leaders, making sure that we're honing in on those things in our culture to ensure we have that for our people as well.
The other thing that we talked about, and it was learning from his father, was the sense of curiosity and continuing education and learning. The more knowledge we have, the better we are. He gave an interesting statistic that he read somewhere. If you read 3 to 4 books on any given topic, you know more than 95% of the population. That's the time to keep learning. A lot of us get very comfortable with the work that we're doing. We get honed in on that and we don't necessarily keep expanding our knowledge and going into different areas that maybe we aren't an expert in. When we go into that and we start reading, learning, and growing, that makes us even more interesting, more curious, and more knowledgeable in the things that we do.
The other thing that I asked Roger was what he thought was one of the most important traits that he's learned as a leader. That is trusting and delegating. There's nothing that you can talk about enough in that area because delegation and trust go together. Going back to making sure we're hiring the right people and having the right profiles in our organizations, we have to know that we can trust the people in our organization in order to delegate. I loved his lesson about being able to fire yourself each year. This means that each year, you should be finding a process that's repetitive or something that you've been working on that someone could take over.
What I usually say is so that you can do your next best thing. If you keep holding on to work and not trusting the people around you, you'll never be able to grow into your next best thing. Rather than looking at it as a challenge, instead, looking at it as an opportunity that no one's ever going to replace you. Each person is unique, but we need to keep growing in order for our businesses to grow and the services that we offer to the people around us as well.
Lastly, how important gratitude and this understanding of abundance are important, and not thinking from a scarce mindset. We have this attitude each day to look around and look for what we are grateful for and make sure we don't get lost in the negative things that might be happening in the day that we find the positives in the day. We also look for the opportunity and potential of what's to be. We don't look around for competition or be jealous of the people around us. We also look for how we can help and keep growing. When everybody keeps learning and gets better, then the world gets better.
Some great takeaways from this interview with Roger. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. If you enjoy these conversations and others that I've had on this show, please subscribe so that you get notified as we drop new episodes. Also, continue your learning as a connected leader as part of the Disconnect To Connect book that I put out. It's now on Audible. We talk a lot about these concepts of nurturing the people around you in order to create a better organization and also a better life for yourself.
At the B3 Method Institute, we have a number of webinars coming up from October through December where you can go deeper into how you transform your workplace and your leadership in these areas. Check us out on BusinessBalanceBliss.com and you will see our course offerings there. I want to thank you for your support and tuning in to this show. I look forward to having you on our next interview and the learnings that we'll take from there.
Important Links
About Roger Knecht
Roger Knecht is president of Universal Accounting Center, a post-secondary school for accounting professionals. With over 20 years of marketing, sales, HR & operations experience, Roger Knecht has helped thousands of business owners work ON their businesses to increase revenue, improve profits and build value. His strong work ethic and collaborative style delivers reliable, high-quality results for business owners.
Roger’s podcast, Building the Premier Accounting Firm, keeps accounting professionals on the cutting edge of the industry offering quality bookkeeping, accounting and tax services. He hosts discussions with some of the accounting world’s best minds and shares actionable insights for firms.
Roger is the author of “Your Strategic Accountant” and “Your Profit & Growth Expert”, each written to help business owners understand what they can expect from the accounting profession.
Universal Accounting provides accounting professionals with the training, certifications, coaching, and support they need to become Profit and Growth Experts for their clients.