Episode 138: Remain Optimistic: Be a Multiplier and Focus on Progress with Linda Wedul
To succeed, embrace optimism, focus on progress, and be a multiplier of strengths. Celebrate small victories, collaborate relentlessly, and believe in the glass being half full. We have Linda Wedul, CEO of the Minnesota Society of CPAs, here to talk about resilience, leadership, and adapting to uncertainty. She shares her journey from growing up on a farm in North Dakota, where she learned to work hard and be resilient at a young age. She shows the importance of adapting and learning throughout her father's diverse career and her own unexpected changes. Linda's professional journey included facing unexpected challenges and constantly learning. She was influenced by two books on leadership: "The Multiplier Effect" and "The Progress Principle”, with which she shares her favorite lessons from today. Tune in now and learn how to look at a glass as “half-full”.
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Remain Optimistic: Be a Multiplier and Focus on Progress with Linda Wedul
Welcome to this episode of Breaking Beliefs, where I interview Linda Wedul, President and CEO of the Minnesota Society of CPAs since 2016. Linda has worked at the Society for more than 25 years. In her past roles at the MNCPA, she led projects in CPE, memberships, communications, and digital strategies. She graduated from the University of North Dakota, majoring in Accounting, and is a Certified Association Executive. She's also a volunteer for Can Do Canines, a non-profit organization that provides service dogs to individuals with physical disabilities.
During this interview, we learn about her background driving a truck on her family's farm to being a musician and eventually becoming an accountant. Linda shares the leadership lessons she has learned to collaborate, listen, and gain support to create progress and move initiatives forward. Thank you so much for tuning into this interview. I look forward to the takeaways that you get after tuning into Linda's story.
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Welcome to this episode of Breaking Beliefs. I'm very excited to be with Linda Wedul. She is the CEO of the Minnesota Society of CPAs. Linda, do you want to give us a little background on yourself before we get started?
I am actually from North Dakota and I grew up where we had a family farm. I spent a lot of time on the family farm learning how to drive a grain truck and how to back it up to an auger to unload that grain. It was hot sometimes and sweaty. At the time, I didn't realize I was learning this, but you do build a solid work ethic doing that. I saw that from my father and from my family, in general. There were so many family that was around there. I went to the school at the University of North Dakota and I started as a Music major. I was smart enough to figure out that I wasn't going to make money that way, so I switched to Accounting and I got an Accounting degree.
From the farm side, were both of your parents working on the farm?
My dad was both a teacher and a farmer. Those work well together because you have your summers off. He also had an Accounting degree. I had an uncle who also worked in accounting in North Dakota. I had it around me, which is something that we have learned about accounting and pulling people into the profession that oftentimes it is somebody close within your influential network being family that encourages you to go that route. If you're lucky enough to get a teacher who sees that you have the skills and the experience to succeed in it, then you get that encouragement. That happened when I was in college as well. I feel very fortunate with the instructors that I had, who I learned from, and what I learned from them.
What kind of farm was it?
It was a small grain farm for the most part. We didn't have animals. It was mostly all small grains. Hence, I learned how to drive a truck. I can drive a stick shift. We made sure all of our kids learned how to drive a stick shift. They all prefer, when they can, to drive a stick shift. We can rent a car and they are fine.
That's even in the cold weather. You were in North Dakota growing up, so that has to be pretty rough in the winter doing that.
You learn to tolerate the cold. You don't realize that when you're there, it's just what you do and it's all good.
What did your mom do?
My mom was a school secretary, so she also worked in the school system but as a secretary. She was a stay-at-home mom for a while and did some daycare. As we got older and didn't need to have someone with us, then she went back to work outside of the home. We always spent a lot of time at the farm. It was always in the summer. I resented that at the time, probably because we weren't taking the fabulous vacations that all of our friends were taking. We were working out there.
Did you have siblings?
I have one sister who lives in New Jersey and has a family out there, so we had a pretty small family, but a pretty big extended family with my parents and their siblings. Many of them all stayed and lived close. Unfortunately, that didn't follow for me later. We're all very spread out on both my husband and my side of the family, but growing up, we were always around cousins, aunts, and uncles. That's something I miss.
The farm, was it a family farm? Did they inherit the farm?
They actually purchased the farm from his parents and my mom's parents, he bought both of them. It's in this little tiny town, 45 miles outside of Grand Forks, North Dakota. There's a town called Niagara that probably has 200 people in it. Very small. We lived in Grand Forks, so we didn't live on the farm because he was teaching there.
Why did he do it? What was his interest in it?
He grew up farming. I think it's that piece of you that connects with growing something and harvesting it from beginning to end. Farmers have a challenging career when you think about it. They don't get to set the price of what they're selling. They don't get to control the weather. You don't get to always control whether the machinery is working or not. They're very innovative. They are do-it-yourselfers. They figure it out. That probably all transfers over when you think about it growing up.
Did he sell the grain? What was the output?
Yeah, it would be sold. It was barley or wheat, beans were another one that was planted. That would be sold.
Is he the one who made the connections for selling all of that too?
As a farmer, you would go to the elevator and that's where you would sell it. Whatever the going rate was at the time, where you might store it and wait for prices to go up or down, and then choose when to sell it.
He had an Accounting degree. Did he do accounting?
He didn't because what happened is, he went back to school. You do get inspired by your parents. He was a car mechanic and he wanted to go back to school and increase his opportunities for earning a living. He got an Accounting degree. As a family, we lived on a college campus when I was in elementary school. You're around college kids and other families that were doing this. When he graduated, he had an opportunity at a technical college to either work in their accounting department or he could teach truck mechanics. He opted to teach truck mechanics. I think he did like being with the students. It keeps you young when you're with students, whether it's college, elementary, or high school.
He decided to go that route, and then the teaching of course gave him a nice balance between farming and teaching because he could take that summer to do the work that was on the farm. It was a great balance for years. He retired eventually from teaching and now he rents out the farmland. He's not currently farming anymore.
What was his desire for accounting? You said your uncle is in accounting firm.
I think he saw it as a good career and an option to go forward. Other pathways came in front of him and he got to choose what he wanted to do.
When you were growing up watching all of this happening, what did you imagine for yourself?
What I learned was that he took a step back. He is a car mechanic. He was making a good enough living, but he took a step back. He had to give up some of those earnings knowing that there was something further down the road. I think it's that delay of gratification that you learn. It's so important for a child to learn because it's hard to learn it as an adult. You've maybe seen it in some people, but that delay of gratification, knowing there was something better, making that investment in yourself, and I think this continuous learning. That is something that I would definitely list as one of my strengths. It would be a learner who wants to continually learn new things and find new ways to do things, whether it's through reading or through experience. I think that all came from growing up.
Remain Optimistic: It's so important as a child to learn when to step back because it's really hard to learn it as an adult.
You said you played an instrument. What did you play?
I played two instruments. I played flute and I played piano. I truly enjoyed music when I was doing it, but when you start to be around real musicians, it is very different. You're just in awe. You know that you're not at that level. I had the commitment to practice. I was probably playing 6 to 8 hours a day in those first 2 years that I was in college. Between the performance groups that you were in, the practicing groups that you were in, and the lessons you were in. I was in four performing groups. I could get good technically, but I didn't have that musical talent that people innately have. Once I saw that, it was like, I could enjoy it personally, but it wasn't going to be something that I could support myself or have a career with. That was when I switched to accounting.
Many people have learned that there's a big crossover between music and the use of patterns, and then it translates into math. A lot of it was the same thing. The accounting courses and I'm not bragging in this case, but I had to study. It wasn't that I didn't have to study, but they made sense to me. They were very logical. I could find the patterns and see how it was all working. I would enjoy my accounting courses.
I find the same thing because I grew up playing violin and viola as well and went into accounting. I know exactly the feeling that you're saying. You're still at a high level, but then you see people that it's natural to them and it's not as much work, like you're talking about with accounting. To make that decision and probably going back to what you said about your dad, "I got to start over. I got to take another path and observe where my strengths are." I think that's an important thing to see. I do have to say when I started accounting, it wasn't natural to me, but I thought it would be more natural. The debits and credits I never understood when I first started because it was opposite from a bank account that I've been reconciling my whole life. I was like, "That doesn't make sense."
Until I got into business, once I could visualize it, it made more sense to me. Like you, my grandfather was a CPA. He was a part of the Minnesota CPA Society 1930s. Funny side note story, I had done some research on my grandfather for some keynotes I was doing. This was probably ten years ago at this point. I emailed your help desk and said, "Do you have any information on him? Here's the information I have." On the same day, someone emailed back every office he was ever in from 1933 to 1977. They were probably excited to have the project. It was fascinating, so it was great information I could have never gotten on my own. What did you do after you got your degree in Accounting?
We moved down to Minneapolis. I had married at that point. This is where the jobs were at. We came to Minneapolis. I initially was doing jewelry sales because I was already working in that. While I was going to school, I could transfer here and have a job, so I could keep doing that while I was looking for a new job. I was a gemologist so I had a certification to grade diamonds.
That goes back to learning and always looking to what you can do. I would be shipped diamonds in these little pages. I still can't believe this actually happened. I would get them in the mail, and then I would take them out, I would have to grade them and do the little diagrams, and then I'd ship this diamond back. I don't know if they'd do it the same way anymore. Probably not. There's probably more security around it because I was always like, "I got this diamond. Let's do this."
I had a gemologist there for a while, and then I went into branch reporting. I worked at a savings and loan that I was doing branch reporting. That was during the savings and loan crisis that many, maybe the audience will know or not know about the crisis, but there were all kinds of savings and loans that failed in a period of time in the ‘80s. I was at one of those. It was in the early ‘90s I guess.
We were taken over by the Federal government. That's where you go through a period of, "I don't know what's going to happen." You're nervous, you're scared, you have a family, and things are going on. That was when I landed my job at the Minnesota Society of CPAs. I've actually been here for over 30 years and I started working in professional education, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was such a great match because I had an accounting degree, so I understood the acronyms, the language, and debits and credits. I knew what they were.
I also had people experience working in retail. I think everyone should work retail or be a server at a restaurant at least once in their life so that they understand what it is like to have those kinds of jobs and how hard they are and to appreciate when somebody is good at it. I was bringing that retail experience I had in working with members and building relationships that way. I've always had a love of technology. When I was working in sales, I built a database when databases didn't exist and we were keeping track of member or customer names, purchases, and how we could reach out to them and those types of things.
I could bring those three things together in education. I worked in education for 10 or 12 years. I was moved into membership, not by choice. I was told you are going to move into the membership department. Again, lots of anxiety because you're like, "I am not good at that. That's not something I do." It's amazing what you can grow into when you have that opportunity, accept it, and say, "I'm going to figure this out," and then, when you're surrounded by great people that you can learn from. I've always been blessed with being able to work with amazing people that I look up to.
Remain Optimistic: It's amazing what you can grow into when you just have that opportunity, accept it and say "I'm going to figure this out."
Somebody once told me, "Always hire people who are better than you because that is how you will grow and get better." I completely agree with that philosophy. I don't want people like me. I want people that are better than me. Over time, I have worked with many different departments. I started working with digital technologies within society communications. When the role of the CEO and President opened up, I applied for it and I was fortunately selected by the committee that was passed with selecting the next president of the MNCPA.
When was that?
That was six years ago.
During this time of leadership, I'm part of the board for the Ohio Society. It’s probably some of the most challenging, innovative, and hardest times for the leader in a society. What have you drawn upon in order to help lead Minnesota forward in the pipeline discussions and all of the different things that are affecting the profession right now?
There is a lot affecting the profession. We might view it as the best time to be in the profession because I see so many opportunities ahead. For some people, it's a very scary time in the profession because we don't know exactly what is ahead. Minnesota did introduce legislation that would change the requirements to become a CPA. That was a significant step. It's not something Minnesota is probably used to. It's not something I am necessarily used to create controversy and start this national conversation. It came from the members.
When you have the members talking to you, explaining what the challenges are in the profession, and listening to what is going on in their world. When our board came together, this was done with the full board support going forward. This is a team effort. It's not just Linda creating controversy out there. It is speaking for the grassroots. This is where you see the power of when groups come together. It is the power of associations. It's having a professional home that brings people across business and industry, public accounting, government, and education. All come together even though they might be competitors out in the workplace that come together as a profession.
While there are disagreements within the profession, I truly believe that everybody wants what is best for the profession. We may have differing viewpoints. We might have differing approaches. It requires communication and trust in order to move forward and find the solution that's going to be best for everyone. I do believe that will happen. I don't know what it looks like yet, but I do believe that will happen.
Where did you have to take that again from what you learned of stepping back, pausing, and not moving too fast into a decision of things that you were doing that might've been uncomfortable or not natural in the way you've gone about things before?
It does take courage to put yourself out there, knowing that there are going to be people who are critical of the decision that is there. That builds up over time. That's such a great question because I'm trying to think of where that has come from. I do think sometimes when I was put into positions where it was unexpected. When the savings and loans were shut down, I didn't know what was going to happen there or I was put into a new department that I had not planned on and it wasn't something that I had looked for or desired.
When you work through those things and then you see some success from that, you realize that you have whatever is within your core in order to move forward and be successful there. It also sometimes comes from failure. There are plenty of times when I've had things that did not go the way that I expected. We should be thankful for our failures because that is where we sometimes learn the most when we move through those.
What have you learned from this process and how are you guys moving forward now?
In terms of the pipeline?
Yes. Everything you've proposed and the struggles that you've gone through with that.
We continue to be very engaged in the conversation. Our board chair is very supportive. Our whole board unanimously voted to move forward. That was very important. It builds trust. We talked through the issue. It also did not happen overnight. It happened over multiple years in multiple conversations of working through it. Also, research. What is the information we need to know and learn so that we're basing the decision on the right things? Not just our feelings or our personal experiences. Let's build the knowledge around that so that we know why we're making the decision because that is as important as what the actual decision is that has been made.
That continuous support is what keeps us moving forward, the dialogue and the conversation. There's some stat out there that says 90% of relationship problems are all based on communication issues. Communication is a constant challenge. I don't feel like I ever get good at it. I have to keep practicing it. It's something that can fade if you don't keep working at it. Keeping that dialogue, engaging in the conversations, and listening. You can't communicate well if you're not listening. That has to be a part of it as well.
How have you kept yourself from getting emotional and being able to stay within that stage?
I don't take it personally. This is about the issue, it's not about me. That takes practice too because I was much more emotional earlier in my career and reacting to things. I used to think my work was me, so it was personal. It had to be like, "No, it isn't." The work part of you is outside. It isn't personal. Accepting that there are different viewpoints to take a look at. I also don't think there is only one correct answer. There are multiple ways that we can come to a solution. I try not to marry myself to one solution like, "It has to be this or nothing." I think there is a range of solutions that are in there.
When we can collaborate, I very much enjoy a collaborative environment, which is why I love the team that I work with. We work as a leadership team. It's not just one person making the decisions. We talk and we explore different ideas. We're willing to share things that are sometimes difficult to share but in a very polite and respectful way because that is how we're all growing. That is how I work through all of that. The support of both the staff, and then the members as well helps us continue to move forward in a positive way.
Besides being more patient now or not tying yourself too much to your job, have you noticed other things that you've brought into leadership now from maturity or maybe from something you saw earlier in your life that you notice you do now and you're like, "That was something that I had learned early on and it's helping me now?"
The Multiplier Effect: Tapping the Genius Inside Our Schools
There are two books that I feel influenced me. One was The Multiplier Effect, it was written by Liz Wiseman. I don't know if you have read that book or not, but it's about being a multiplier and not a diminisher. How do we multiply the strengths and the wisdom that everybody is bringing to the team? I would like to help every member of the MNCPA and every staff person who has ever been here to feel that they became more competent and competent after they were here. Whether they stay or whether they leave, that is the goal. If we can send out more people who are going to multiply the positive things we have in the world, we're going to be a better place.
I think small organizations are also wonderful organizations to work for because they give you the power to experiment more. Individual jobs are more like individual little businesses. How do I grow this job to be more than what it was when I started it? If I can have everybody thinking that way in the organization, just think how powerful it can be, the influence you can have, and the difference you can make.
The other one that I love is The Progress Principle by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer. People are like, "We have to make a big change in order to have an impact." Those are sometimes very threatening because you're making a major change that throws everybody off of where they were at versus probably the exam principles. What are the incremental things that we keep evaluating and improving? If every day I feel like I'm making progress, then I feel like I'm making a difference for the organization, the project, or whatever that I might be working on.
The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work
Focus on the small wins as you go.
Yes, and then celebrate those. Sometimes I feel like I should celebrate more. I always feel like I'm starting over every day though. I have a great day and tomorrow I start at zero again. It's that achievement piece of it, but it is important to celebrate.
This has been great. I always like to end the interview with some rapid-fire questions. You get to pick a category. Family, friends, money, spiritual, or health?
Let's go with spirit. Hopefully, I get these in the right vein that you're looking for.
Things or actions I don't have that I want to have as far as spiritual.
I'm going to say more art. Having more art. Maybe this goes back to the music, but I think art can be a very spiritual experience, and appreciating the value that artists bring. Maybe it's because I don't have those particular skills and more art in the world makes the world a better place.
Things or actions I do have that I want to keep.
Believe that there is more good in the world than there is evil. While we can be disappointed and I would like to say we're misled by social media to believe that there are so many things that are worse. If we look close to our neighborhoods, to our families, and the organizations that we support, I think there's a lot more good there than what we might be led to believe.
I think people tend to talk about the negative and not go to what is good or what's happening good. Things or actions I don't have that I don't want to have.
I do not have and I don't want to have any overwhelming fear of being hurt or wrong that would hold me back from exploring or learning.
Things or actions that I do have that I don't want.
I like to spend less time on my phone. I have to admit that sometimes I get that scrolling thing going on or spending a half hour choosing what to watch on Netflix. What a waste of time when I should be spending it more on hobbies, learning new skills, and expanding on how I can be a better person. Scrolling on my phone does not make me a better person.
Sometimes you need the release.
Yes, that is true.
Just not think for a little bit.
One time, I made my husband look on his phone to see how many hours he had spent on it that day because he's becoming quite addicted to it. He went to look, and it was five and a half hours of screen time.
Let's get it down to 5, and 4.5 next. It's crazy the time suck.
It does.
Yeah, and then it's disappeared. There can be times you need to release, but other times when it's better spent to be with people around you or even by yourself.
We spend so much time now. This is awesome that we can do this virtually. I love that we can do this. I also was speaking to a young professional group at the tax conference last week and my message to them was that coming in person was so important because that is where you build relationships and professional networks. That is something no one can ever take away from you. You can't do that unless you're sitting next to someone being able to look at them in the eye and talk to them in person. You don't develop those same relationships virtually.
For sure. You had such a great turnout last week.
We did.
It was great to see. It's good to see it in person. Anything that you want to make sure that people walk away with today that maybe we didn't cover or something you want to emphasize before we close it out?
I would want to encourage everyone to remain optimistic. There are so many good things that are happening in spite of the many scary things that we're seeing happen in the world. I guess I chose to focus on the glass being half full glass. I heard someone describe this recently and I love the way they said it. They said, "When you focus on the glass being half full, you're focused on something that's in the glass. When you focus on the half-empty glass, the empty part is nothing. There's nothing there. Why focus on that? Let's focus on what we have and grow that."
Thank you so much for taking the time to share your story and so many great things for our audience to take away and learn from. I appreciate your time.
Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to be with you. This goes back to be around people who are better than you because they will bring out the best in you. I have seen you do that many times. Thank you for what you bring to the profession and to the people that the profession serves.
Thanks for all you do as well.
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Now, for my mindful moments looking back on this interview that you heard with Linda from the Minnesota CPA Society. We talked about her beginnings in North Dakota, growing up on a farm, and watching her father who was a teacher, a farmer, and had an accounting degree. What she learned by watching him, seeing how he decided to change his career very early on, be courageous enough to step back in life while he went back to school, decide to graduate in accounting, and then eventually transition into teaching mechanics in high school. It's so that he could offset the farming side in the summers with his love of mechanics and being able to educate students as well.
All of this taught Linda a few things that were very important and that we should step back and think about. One of them is this delay of gratification. We live in this world of instant gratification. We want things right away. Sometimes for things to turn around in our life, we do need to take that beat or that pause so that we can find the path that is going to lead us into something better.
The second part that she learned was investing in yourself, having that confidence in yourself that there is something better on the other side, and believing in the things that you are doing. It may not be perfect now, but knowing that the investment that you're making is going to benefit you later and the people around you, as well as continuous learning. That is something that I think is very important. Sometimes we forget that as we get more expert in our careers and lives, we might get to this point where we stop making time to learn to grow ourselves.
I know every time I step out of my business and go to a conference or go to a training, even if it wasn't the best training I've ever been at, there's always 1 or 2 things I can take away that start affecting me in the way that I move forward, or work, or in the initiatives that I have going forward as well, or even gives me food for thought to pivot. I think these things are so important because as you grow in your career, it becomes more lonely. Less and less people are going to give you that feedback voluntarily unless you ask for it. Seeking out where you can learn is such an important skill to have as you grow in your career.
We also talked about her rise in the Minnesota CPA Society and how she started out in education and moved through other departments as well. When she moved out of education for the first time, she wasn't happy to move out of education. It was something that she was asked to do. A lot of times, we get put in positions where we don't even know what we're going to learn or how it's going to help us in the future.
Sometimes that same beat or pause is that observation when something feels uncomfortable or we don't love something as much as we'd like to. In those times, it's important that we are taking that time to learn and not pass judgment yet. Anything that we start new, we're not going to be good at it right away. That's the uncomfortable part. It's giving yourself that space to learn and actually observe to see if this could be something that you like, interested in, that aligns with you, or that could help you in your future.
Also, we talked about the society working hard on this pipeline issue and doing things that maybe were uncomfortable or not exactly the way they've done things in the past when there have been big initiatives to move forward. The things that she's learned over this is making sure that this wasn't done out of emotion, that you're building trust, you're doing research, having a lot of dialogue and conversation, and building relationships to make sure that the outcomes that you are creating are not for you. It is for the better good of all.
I talk about this a lot in my connected leadership talks about moving from ego to service. How am I in service to others versus making it about myself or feeling like I need to be seen a certain way when the greater good doesn't feel in alignment with that? It's important that we're open enough to listen and make sure that the things that happen when you do something courageous or hard is that people are going to come out against it. When they do, it's to make sure that you're not taking anything personally, that you are not marrying yourself to any solution, that you're making sure that you're independent, that you're collaborating with others, and it makes the solutions easier or the actions easier because of it.
A couple of things that we ended with that I thought were important were the two books that she talked about, The Multiplier Effect and The Progress Principle because you can see in her essence what an optimistic positive person she is. A lot of times our natural way is to move to the negative. That's the way our brains are. We focus on that versus the positive. We have to train our brains to look for the good and realize that our energy is contagious. When we are negative, it creates negativity around us and it draws everyone down.
When she talked about being a multiplier, not a diminisher, that's all about collaboration. It's also about being open and positive when you're in these conversations that might be difficult in order to gain the best result for everyone. I want to thank you for tuning into this interview. There were lots of great takeaways from this discussion with Linda. I hope you enjoyed it. Make sure to share this, subscribe to the show, and share it with people that you think would be helpful too. I look forward to bringing you our next guest on Breaking Beliefs.
Important Links
Linda Wedul - LinkedIn
About Linda Wedul
Linda Wedul, CAE, president and CEO of the Minnesota Society of CPAs (MNCPA) since 2016, has worked at the society for more than 25 years. In her past roles at the MNCPA, she led projects in CPE, membership, communications and digital strategies. Wedul graduated from the University of North Dakota majoring in accounting and is a Certified Association Executive (CAE). Wedul is also a volunteer for Can-Do-Canines, a not-for-profit organization that provides service dogs to individuals with physical disabilities.