Archives for August 2026

Vulnerability, Curiosity, and the Messy Middle of Leadership

Earmark Team · August 28, 2026 ·

At Nancy McClelland’s “Vulnerability as a Strength” panel at Scaling New Heights, the session opened with a word cloud. The question on screen was, “How does it make you feel when you think you’re the only one who doesn’t have it together?” Almost every answer was some version of “poopy” — alone, overwhelmed, not awesome. By the end of the session, the same room answered a different question. “How does it feel to realize you’re not the only one who struggles?” The screen filled with seen, validated, not alone, resilient, community. There were tears in that room. Nancy took a picture of the word cloud.

In Episode 33 of She Counts, Nancy and co-host Questian Telka talk about the two very different sessions they each led at that conference. Nancy ran a panel on vulnerability in leadership. Questian, along with co-presenter Ashley Rhoden, COO of High Rock Accounting, led a session on guiding clients and teams through change. When they compared notes afterward, they realized both talks made the same point. The strongest leadership skill in accounting isn’t having all the answers. It’s being willing to say out-loud what you don’t have figured out and staying curious enough to notice what your team and clients aren’t saying. As Questian put it, “Vulnerability is about recognizing and naming what’s happening inside of us. Change leadership requires us to recognize what is likely happening inside of someone else.” They’re two facets of the same muscle. Here’s how each one works, and why leadership happens in the messy middle.

Why admitting what you’re not good at makes you a stronger leader

Nancy has now run this panel twice. Both times, she started with what she calls a deeply invasive survey designed to reveal deeply rooted feelings and how people cope with them. Then she pulls out the common themes.

Patterns repeated across all six widely admired leaders: Every one had made a costly business decision. Every one had made a major client error. Every one had faced a physical or mental health crisis. The themes that came up included reconciling perception versus reality, building resilience through community, balancing control with letting go, finding meaning in the past, and managing stress and anxiety. These are the same coping strategies often used in cognitive and dialectical behavioral therapy.

There can be a huge gap between how leaders look and what they’re privately carrying. Questian described a friend telling her she “seemed to have everything perfectly together.” She nearly spit out her drink. “I feel like I’m falling apart most of the time.” Both hosts admitted they tend to share the hard stuff only after they’ve worked through it, like the woman who returned to a professional group after a long absence and explained, “It was just too hard to reach out while I was in the messy middle.” When leaders only share mistakes after they’ve been polished into a tidy success story, nobody gets to see the real scale of the failure, or how a person keeps going before they solve the problem.

The panelists were honest and specific about their weak spots, like conflict avoidance so strong it gets in the way, ADHD, the discomfort of hiring and firing, and the desire to be loved that makes holding people accountable genuinely hard.

So how do you admit a weakness without making your team fear for their jobs? Nancy’s answer, drawn from her panelists, is:

Your team already knows where you’re weak. Pretending otherwise backfires.
Name it, then ask for help. “You’re really good at this. I’m not. Do you have ideas for me?”
Invite people with complementary strengths to help shape the firm’s future and offer the same support back. Mentorship goes both directions.

That same self-awareness makes you attentive to what’s happening inside someone else. And that’s where Questian’s session picks up.

Reading the change your client never announced

Questian’s practice is niched in nonprofits, where boards turn over constantly, and the decision-makers change with them. Change rarely arrives as an announcement. It usually shows up sideways:

Slower response times
Canceled meetings
New, unfamiliar faces in meetings
Shifts in who’s making decisions
Unexpected reporting requests
A client simply going quiet

She lost her first client that way. The organization was losing funding, responses stretched out, meetings got canceled, and eventually the executive director called to say they had to tighten their belts. In hindsight, the signs were all there.

Her advice is to meet regularly, build genuine rapport, and ask open-ended questions. What’s new? What’s changed? What are you planning for the next few months? Her questions, not their announcements, surface the most information. Nancy connected this to the “lead with curiosity” lesson from the Reframe conference: resisting the accountant’s instinct to jump straight to a solution. She also passed along a tip from Twyla Verhelst: before your next client meeting, run the transcripts of your last two or three meetings through an AI tool and ask what’s worth following up on. It’s not a substitute for rapport, but it’s a memory aid for when you have more client relationships than you can hold in your head.

This helps you become the person a client calls first. Change stops being a threat and becomes the doorway into advisory work. And as Questian pointed out, it’s far more expensive to find a new client than to grow a current relationship.

The messy middle is where leadership happens

Whether the change is internal, such as new technology, standardized processes, and documented SOPs, or on the client side, the hard part is emotional rather than technical.

Change happens in three parts: ending the old way, the messy middle, and the new beginning. “When you are in the messy middle,” Questian said, “that’s where we lose people and where we fail.”

Resistance almost always traces back to a fear of losing something, whether it’s control, expertise, authority, job security, or identity. Documenting SOPs so a team member can take a vacation without their laptop sounds like a gift until someone thinks, if you create those SOPs, then you can replace me. So get buy-in early, while feedback can still shape the decision. Frame the change as solving their problem. And remember that a launch date doesn’t come with an emotional switch. Questian described one team member who met her with resistance at every turn. She simply kept showing the benefit until they came out the other side and buy-in finally landed.

When a client’s needs shift, name it out-loud. Compare the original scope to the new outcome they’re after. Sometimes scope grows to support a negative. For example, helping a nonprofit evaluate cost cuts or a workforce reduction is a distinct project that deserves its own pricing. Center the conversation on the client’s needs, be transparent, avoid surprises, and lead with sensitivity, especially when the situation is painful. Absorbing unbilled, out-of-scope work “builds resentment,” Questian warned, “and it weakens the relationship.”

And there’s a bigger reason to get good at this. As Nancy argued in nearly every talk she’s given this year, as AI takes on more technical work, empathy and connection are more valuable than ever before. Trust and psychological safety stop being soft skills and start being the professional skills that set you apart.

Two questions to sit with

Nancy summed up her panel in three lines:

No one has everything figured out
Vulnerability doesn’t weaken leadership when it’s paired with responsibility and self-awareness
You build resilience through community

Questian’s take is that relationships and scopes evolve when organizations evolve, and that evolution is an opportunity.

“Resilient firms aren’t built by people who never struggle,” Nancy said. “They’re built by people who don’t hide their struggles.” For women navigating rooms where they’re often the only one without a seat at the table, that reframe can mean pulling up a chair. Transparency is a professional strength, not a liability.

Nancy left listeners with an exercise. Write down every person who actually knows what you’re carrying right now. If the list is short, you’re not letting anyone in. Then flip it and ask yourself, “Whose load can you help lighten?” Or, as the hosts asked on LinkedIn, which side of leadership needs more attention from you right now, being more honest about what you’re carrying, or becoming more curious about what someone else is carrying?

They closed with a line from Nicole Davis, highlighted on one of Nancy’s slides from her SNH panel: “Vulnerability is a strength that the greatest leaders wear with pride.”

Listen to the full conversation between Nancy McClelland and Questian Telka and earn CPE credit for it on the Earmark app.

How to build a bench of accounting talent in 15 minutes a day

Earmark Team · August 28, 2026 ·

A team member resigns during a demanding season. You post the job that afternoon, refresh your inbox for a week, and feel relieved when a résumé with the right title finally appears. Under pressure, it’s easy to let urgency decide for you.

Fletcher Wimbush says the posting isn’t the real problem; the waiting is.

On this episode of Who’s Really the BOSS?, hosts Rachel Dillon and Marcus Dillon welcome back Fletcher, who has helped small CPA firms solve hiring and talent acquisition challenges for more than a decade. His company uses practices rooted in industrial and occupational psychology rather than hiring anecdotes or gut feelings.

Fletcher believes accounting firms don’t have a job-posting problem. They have a talent-market-access problem. To solve it, they can use a repeatable system: Focus, Attract, Compare, and Transition (FACT).

Focus: Define success before searching

Fletcher’s best advice is the old woodworking rule, “Measure twice, cut once.” Skip that step, and you may find yourself going back to Home Depot. Hiring works the same way.

Focus begins with a job analysis. Before recruiting, define the work in clear, measurable terms:

How many returns will this person prepare?
What kinds of returns and clients will they handle?
Which software will they use?
What schedule and workload should they expect?
What behaviors reflect the firm’s values?
What should success look like after one year?

This matters because titles don’t mean the same thing at every firm. A tax manager may have worked only on C corporations, while your firm serves mainly S corporations. That doesn’t automatically disqualify the candidate, but it’s a training need you should understand before hiring.

Marcus describes another common mistake: Instead of defining a role, owners try to “replace Mollie.” But there is only one Mollie. Define the work rather than searching for a copy of the person who left.

Once you know what you need, you can stop waiting for the right person to stumble across your posting.

Attract: Build relationships before a position opens

The accounting profession hasn’t produced enough accountants for almost 20 years, Fletcher says. That leaves a limited number of people with both the education and experience many firms want.

In greater Los Angeles, perhaps a few hundred people qualify for a specific accounting role. In many markets, the pool may be closer to 50. A job posting depends on one of those people seeing the ad, wanting to leave now, and finding your opportunity more attractive than their current position.

“That’s not what’s happening,” Fletcher says. Firms must identify qualified people and contact them directly.

Fletcher says that work should begin “Today. Now. Yesterday.” Experienced talent can take a year or longer to acquire. He recommends building a bench of six to 20 relationships and maintaining it over time.

The process can take just 10 to 15 minutes a day:

Use Google, ChatGPT, or Claude to identify accounting firms in your market
Review those firms’ LinkedIn people pages
Send promising professionals a polite, low-pressure connection request
Invite them to coffee or a short conversation
Stay in touch through LinkedIn, email, text, or phone calls

Employee referrals are another path. Ask a strong team member to name the best person they worked with at a previous firm. Then ask them to make an introduction. Rachel says referral hires have performed well in production, client service, and longevity.

Thank employees publicly for introductions, even when they don’t lead to a hire. Fletcher says formal bonuses can be useful, but they shouldn’t be the main incentive. Good people often want to work with other good people.

Building the bench gives you options. The next step is comparing those options against the actual job.

Compare: Look beyond titles and compensation

Desperation makes it easy to overvalue a résumé or first impression. Rachel has seen candidates with CPA credentials, large employers, and impressive titles require extensive training because they previously owned only one narrow part of the work.

Fletcher keeps a Warren Buffett quote in his email signature: “I hire for integrity, motivation, and intelligence. And if they lack the first thing, the other two will kill you.”

That perspective can open the door to overlooked candidates, including junior professionals and parents returning to work. These candidates may become talented, loyal employees if the firm is willing to develop them.

Money alone may not persuade a strong professional to move. Fletcher says an extra $5,000, $10,000, or even $15,000 often is not enough. Experienced candidates may care more about:

A shorter commute or flexible work location
A manageable workload
Better work-life balance during tax season
Career development
More in-person support instead of isolated remote work

The firm must also describe its business model honestly. A seasonal firm that works long hours and then slows down may suit one person. A CAS firm with steady year-round work may suit another. Both models are valid. Problems arise when a firm sells one experience but delivers the other.

That honest comparison should continue after the candidate accepts the offer.

Transition: Plan the first year before day one

Fletcher frames the goal with a mutual question: One year from now, what must the firm and employee be saying for both to feel good about the decision?

Use the candidate evaluation to identify strengths and development needs. Then create a specific, measurable, and time-bound onboarding plan. Regular check-ins should cover where the employee is stuck, where expectations are off track, and what support is needed.

Rachel’s firm sends new hires a two-week schedule before they begin. It includes calendar invitations, shadowing, observation, and the gradual handoff of simple clients. Candidates have told her that clear answers about onboarding, training, and career development helped convince them to join.

She also asks about ideal schedules, desired hours, and career goals before making an offer. Someone may apply for full-time work but prefer to begin at 26, 28, or 30 hours. Learning that early helps both sides avoid a costly mismatch.

Make hiring part of the growth plan

FACT replaces urgency and guesswork with a process. Focus on measurable success, attract talent before you need it, compare candidates with the real work, and transition new hires through a clear plan.

Listen to the full conversation on Who’s Really the BOSS? Then start with 15 minutes today. Define one role, contact one person you would like on your bench, or ask one team member for an introduction.

Rachel and Marcus Dillon, CPA, own a national, remote client accounting and advisory services firm, Dillon Business Advisors, with a team of 28 professionals. Their latest organization, Collective by DBA, supports and guides accounting firm owners and leaders with firm resources, education, and operational strategy through community, groups, and one-on-one advisory.

How a “secret menu” tax service protects capacity and creates value

Earmark Team · August 28, 2026 ·

One of Rachel and Marcus Dillon’s tax services is missing from their firm’s website. That is not an oversight. It is a capacity strategy.

In a summer 2026 episode of Who’s Really the BOSS?, Rachel and Marcus explain how they built the Tax Advisory Plan (TAP). Their firm stopped accepting annual-only individual and business tax clients around 2018. But strong referrals kept coming from financial advisors, professional partners, and existing clients.

Their first monthly solution, Advice with the Intent to Minimize (AIM) taxes, proved that clients would pay for ongoing access. But at $150 per month, AIM created a new version of the 1040 practice the firm had tried to leave behind.

TAP became the better model, offering higher-value planning, clear service boundaries, and a hard limit on growth.

Better pricing starts with a better definition of value

A monthly engagement doesn’t become advisory work simply by dividing an annual tax fee by 12. Marcus says AIM clients often viewed the service that way: a tax return paid in installments, with team access included.

“What we’re doing is creating a whole new 1040 practice,” he says.

TAP changed the price and the value. The base fee is $500 per month and includes:

Preparing and filing the client’s individual tax return
Two tax projections, generally in early June and late October
Recorded commentary explaining each projection
An invitation to a planning meeting after each projection
Year-round access for questions about financial and tax decisions

That access matters. When a friend suggests using the Augusta rule or another tax strategy, clients can ask the DBA team before acting instead of relying on a web search or an AI tool.

Trust returns and other complexities may increase the monthly fee. Clients with investment or real estate entities can also add quarterly QuickBooks Online support for about $250 to $500 per month.

The best-fit clients are high-income earners, high-net-worth households, K-1 recipients, investors, and people with Schedule C or Schedule E activity. The common thread is meaningful planning opportunities.

That distinction also shapes how the firm brings clients onboard.

Clients usually arrive with life questions

New TAP clients generally pay a one-time onboarding fee starting at $750. Existing client accounting and advisory services (CAS) clients who transition into TAP usually don’t pay the onboarding fee, because the firm already knows their history.

The onboarding fee covers a review of the most recently filed return and a kickoff call with the service team. New or amended returns are priced separately when needed.

Marcus notes that accountants often assume a prospect’s main problem is missing compliance work. Compliance is familiar and comfortable for us. But clients are often worried about a life event, a financial decision, or an uncertain future.

A former client named Jerry illustrates the difference. Jerry left the firm around 2017 or 2018 after winding down his consulting business. His tax return became simple enough to prepare himself. Years later, he contacted the firm after his brother-in-law died in California.

Marcus first assumed Jerry needed a referral for a California trust matter. Rachel took the call and learned that Jerry already had a California attorney and CPA. His real questions involved inherited property, investment accounts, retirement income, his wife’s retirement, and future required minimum distributions.

Within minutes, Rachel explained that moving from a self-prepared return to TAP would cost $500 per month. Jerry continued the conversation and signed a $500-per-month engagement with a $750 onboarding fee within 48 hours.

His last return was a simple Form 1040-SR. Pricing based only on that return would have missed the point. The value was helping him make decisions early.

Once a client signs, the next safeguard is a team-based service model.

A team of 3 prevents partner dependency

Each TAP client works with a tax administrator, tax controller, and director of tax and financial planning. Before the client kickoff, the team holds an internal Sales-Onboard-Service (SOS) meeting to transfer notes and identify unanswered questions.

The client then joins a 30-minute virtual kickoff call. Rachel attends to ensure the service team’s expectations match what she promised during the sales process.

The roles are clear:

Tax administrator: Manages Canopy setup, document requests, engagement letters, organizers, e-signatures, return delivery, and filing notices
Tax controller: Prepares returns when needed, performs much of the review, and helps manage the client relationship
Director of tax and financial planning: Provides higher-level review, technical support, tax updates, and team education

Although the titles may suggest a hierarchy, the administrator and controller often have the most client contact. Clients receive help from the people closest to the work instead of waiting for a partner.

Pricing, payment, and engagement changes go back to Rachel. This allows the service team to focus on serving clients while one gatekeeper protects scope and capacity.

That structure also gives TAP room to support clients through major transitions.

TAP can be an off-ramp or an on-ramp

One longtime CAS client moved into TAP after selling his business. He continued consulting for the buyer as a 1099 contractor, so the firm added quarterly QBO support for his entity.

Three months later, he wanted help tracking sale proceeds, investment accounts, personal spending, and several large purchases. He moved back into a CAS-style engagement, this time for his family group.

TAP can serve several purposes:

An off-ramp after a client sells or closes a business
An on-ramp when personal finances grow into family-group CAS work
A source of continuity during a major life transition
A respectful exit when a client doesn’t want to pay $6,000 per year for planning

However, the model only works if the firm controls how quickly it grows.

A 10-client cap keeps TAP off the website

The firm doesn’t have a TAP growth target. In fact, they accept no more than 10 new TAP clients per year. At the time of the episode, it had accepted two for 2026.

These clients still have individual returns with fixed deadlines. Too many new engagements create seasonal pressure, even if the work is priced well. The cap protects service quality and supports a steady year-round workload.

That is also why they don’t advertise TAP. “I don’t want to have all my calendar filled up with the wrong-fit prospects,” Rachel says. “I need room on my calendar for right-fit prospects.”

The website promotes services the firm wants to scale. TAP remains a “secret menu” option for trusted referrals and existing clients in transition.

Build the guardrails before accepting the work

TAP offers several practical lessons for firm leaders:

Define the planning, access, and outcomes before setting the price
Qualify clients by their planning needs, not just their tax forms
Use a team so the relationship does not depend on one partner
Give one person authority over pricing and scope
Cap deadline-driven work before it strains the team
Advertise only the services you truly want to scale

Growth doesn’t always mean serving more clients. A deliberately limited service can create stronger relationships, more meaningful work, and better use of team capacity.

To hear Rachel and Marcus explain TAP’s pricing, onboarding, staffing, client stories, and secret-menu strategy, listen to the full episode of Who’s Really the BOSS?.

Rachel and Marcus Dillon, CPA, own a national, remote client accounting and advisory services firm, Dillon Business Advisors, with a team of 28 professionals. Their latest organization, Collective by DBA, supports and guides accounting firm owners and teamss with firm resources, education, and operational strategy through Streamlined OS , groups, and one-on-one advisory.

Four ways out of a partnership and the hot assets waiting in each one

Earmark Team · August 27, 2026 ·

Jessica wants out of Lighthouse LLC. After several years of losses, her partner Seth remains committed, but she is done. If Seth pays her $10,000 for her interest, the transaction may look small, but it isn’t.

The transaction also relieves Jessica of her $40,000 share of partnership liabilities. For tax purposes, that debt relief helps produce a $50,000 amount realized. The check alone doesn’t tell the whole story.

In a recent episode of Tax in Action, Jeremy Wells, EA, CPA, closes his four-part partnership series by connecting outside basis, distributions, and dispositions. These topics belong together because outside basis helps determine whether distributions are taxable and how much gain or loss a partner recognizes when leaving.

Outside basis belongs to the partner

Outside basis is a partner’s adjusted tax basis in the partnership interest. It is not the partnership’s basis in its assets, and it is not the partner’s capital account.

A capital account is a separate partnership-level measure of a partner’s equity. It may be negative and generally does not include the partner’s share of liabilities or partner-level basis adjustments.

Jeremy emphasizes individual partners must maintain the record. “Individual partners, not partnerships, are responsible for tracking the partner’s basis in their partnership interest.”

Initial outside basis may come from:

The adjusted basis of property contributed under Section 722
The cost of a purchased partnership interest
Section 1014 basis for an inherited interest
Section 1015 basis for an interest received by gift

Basis then increases for income, gains, additional contributions, and increases in the partner’s share of liabilities. It decreases for distributions, losses, deductions, and reductions in the partner’s liability share.

The order matters, too. Positive adjustments come first, followed by nonliquidating distributions and then losses and deductions. This ordering generally preserves tax-free distribution treatment when possible. You normally calculate basis at year-end, but if the partner disposes of their interest during the year, you calculate it on the disposition date.

That leads to a practical warning. Tax software may produce a basis worksheet, but the worksheet might not appear if you didn’t enter an original basis. If the records are missing, practitioners may need to reconstruct basis using prior K-1s, capital account information, contributions, distributions, and annual liability changes. The partner carries the burden of proving enough basis to deduct losses.

Section 704(d) suspends losses above basis. They can become deductible if income or a contribution later restores basis. For an individual, outside basis is only the first limitation. Sections 465, 469, and 461(l) may also restrict losses. Suspended Section 704(d) losses generally don’t transfer to another taxpayer, so an exit can leave them unused permanently.

Debt relief counts even when no cash changes hands

Partnership liabilities make outside basis especially important. Section 752 treats an increase in a partner’s share of partnership debt like a cash contribution. It treats a decrease like a cash distribution.

The rule reflects the economics. When a transaction relieves a departing partner of debt exposure, that partner receives a financial benefit even if no money changes hands.

Liability allocations don’t automatically follow ownership percentages. You generally allocate recourse debt to the partner or related person who bears the economic risk of loss, such as through a qualifying guarantee or pledged collateral. Nonrecourse debt follows a different, more complex allocation process.

For Jessica, $0 of tax-basis capital plus a $40,000 liability share (assuming no other partner-level basis adjustments) gives her an assumed $40,000 outside basis. You treat her as receiving $40,000 when that liability share falls to zero.

Hot assets can convert capital gain into ordinary income

A sale or exchange of a partnership interest generally produces capital gain or loss under Section 741. Section 751(a) creates an important exception for “hot assets,” including unrealized receivables and appreciated inventory.

Having receivables or inventory on the balance sheet alone does not settle the issue. We must examine whether the partnership has unrealized receivables or appreciated inventory and whether the transaction is a sale, exchange, or disproportionate distribution covered by Section 751.

Without Section 751, a partner can sell an interest priced partly on future ordinary income and report the entire gain as capital. The rule instead treats the portion tied to hot assets as ordinary.

Suppose Seth pays Jessica $10,000. Her amount realized is $50,000 ($10,000 of cash plus $40,000 of debt relief). After subtracting her $40,000 outside basis, she has a preliminary gain of $10,000. If a hypothetical sale of Lighthouse’s hot assets would allocate $6,000 of ordinary income to Jessica, the result is $6,000 of ordinary gain and $4,000 of capital gain.

You might not see that exposure looking at a cash-basis balance sheet. Practitioners need to examine the tax bases and fair market values of the underlying assets.

Four exits follow different paths but similar arithmetic

Jessica has $40,000 of assumed outside basis, $25,000 of suspended Section 704(d) losses, and potential Section 751 income. Jeremy considers four options:

Abandon the interest. Jessica must show both an intent to abandon and an affirmative act. Silence or nonuse isn’t enough. Assuming Section 751(b) does not apply, her $40,000 liability reduction is treated as money received, using up her $40,000 basis. She recognizes no gain or loss and can’t use the $25,000 of suspended losses.
Sell to Seth. The $10,000 payment plus $40,000 of debt relief creates a $50,000 amount realized and a $10,000 preliminary gain. In the example, Section 751 divides it into $6,000 of ordinary gain and $4,000 of capital gain.
Have Lighthouse redeem the interest. This follows the liquidating-distribution rules under Section 736 rather than beginning with Section 741, but the example still produces a $10,000 gain and a similar hot-asset analysis.
Sell to Grady. Jessica’s calculation remains similar. Grady begins with $10,000 of purchase basis and may then receive an allocated share of partnership liabilities. Practitioners shouldn’t assume he automatically receives Jessica’s exact $40,000 share. You have to review guarantees, the operating agreement, and creditor arrangements.

There is also an entity-classification issue. If Jessica leaves without a replacement, Lighthouse becomes a single-member LLC and is disregarded for federal tax purposes by default. If Grady replaces her, Lighthouse remains a partnership.

Plan for the exit before anyone wants out

The practical steps are:

Maintain an outside-basis worksheet with the partner’s return each year
Reconstruct missing basis before claiming losses or completing an exit
Review agreements, guarantees, and collateral before allocating liabilities
Measure suspended losses and consider whether basis can be restored before departure
Test underlying assets for Section 751 ordinary-income potential
Confirm whether the exit changes the LLC’s federal tax classification

As Jeremy explains, abandoning an interest is not a case where “you walk away and nothing happens.” The decisive tax facts often developed years before the exit documents appeared.

Listen to the full Tax in Action episode for Jeremy’s complete walkthrough of the Lighthouse LLC case study.

Take a step instead of a leap when you’re ready to begin again

Earmark Team · August 26, 2026 ·

You can build a client forecast, test three scenarios, and explain risk down to the dollar. Then you close the laptop and leave the spreadsheet about your own future unopened for years.

Fear rarely introduces itself by name. It can look like a business plan you never write, a job you stay in through burnout, or constant work that keeps you from sitting intentionally with your thoughts.

In Episode 34 of She Counts, hosts Questian Telka and Nancy McClelland share two conversations recorded at the 2026 Theater of Public Speaking Advanced retreat. Katie Helle, CPA, explains why she waited seven years to start her firm. Mariana Alvarez describes how she rebuilt her identity after 17 years in an abusive marriage.

These experiences aren’t equivalent. One is about career risk; the other begins with survival. Yet both women found that change came through support – and one careful step at a time.

Turn vague fear into questions you can answer

“We should use it as information, not instruction,” Katie says. Fear can raise valid questions. The problem comes when we let those unanswered questions make our decisions.

Katie managed a CPA firm for 15 years and had long wanted to work for herself. She had entrepreneurial experience, including running a successful home-based jewelry business. Still, leaving a comfortable position felt risky because she was her family’s main income earner.

Her fears piled up. What if she didn’t make enough money? What if she was unprepared? What if clients didn’t want to work with her?

Then she used a familiar accounting tool: a spreadsheet. She calculated how much she needed each month and how many clients it would take to reach that amount.

“Once I dug into the spreadsheet and did the math… the math worked,” she says. “It was very logical. But my brain was telling me something different.”

The numbers didn’t eliminate all the risk, but they made it easier to examine. Burnout finally pushed her to act. Katie loved her job, but long hours, a small child, and running a household had become too much. Her spreadsheet showed that she might be able to earn what she needed in fewer hours.

If you are considering a change, ask:

How much income do I need each month?
How many clients, projects, or hours would produce it?
How much savings should I build first?
What do I still need to learn?
Who could help me test my assumptions?

Once the numbers are visible and viable, the next challenge is finding support.

Take a step instead of a leap

“You don’t want to take a leap,” Katie says. “You want to take one step at a time.”

That could mean researching pricing, building savings, learning a skill, or contacting someone who already runs the kind of firm you want. Katie stresses that quitting without a plan is not the answer. Small, measurable actions prepare you for a responsible change.

Community also changed what Katie believed was possible. Nancy and other women in their mastermind encouraged her to revisit her spreadsheet. Katie also learned from online accounting communities where experienced firm owners share what they know.

“We’re not gatekeepers,” she says. “There are things that you don’t know, but it doesn’t mean you can’t learn them.”

That support did not decide for Katie. It helped her trust the evidence she had already gathered.

The process was still uncomfortable. Katie argues that discomfort may show you are approaching growth rather than heading in the wrong direction. Nancy connects that idea to imposter feelings: learning begins when you enter a place of “not knowing”.

Katie cites a 2025 report that found 60% of people wanted to change jobs but were afraid to act. She challenges anyone in that situation to write down the change you want, name each fear, and place one step beside it.

But some fears require a different first step. In Mariana’s story, that step was safety.

Put safety before forgiveness

This section discusses domestic abuse.

Mariana was married for 17 years. She stayed in the relationship because she feared losing her children. At times she believed the abuse happened because she wasn’t good enough, attractive enough, or able to communicate well. After leaving, she blamed herself for staying as long as she did.

“Then I learned that wasn’t true,” she says.

Mariana is careful not to turn forgiveness into “another burden” for women who remain in abusive situations. Her order is clear: first safety, then support, and then the work of finding your own truth. Forgiveness may come later.

After leaving, anger and bitterness became a protective wall. Over time, Mariana realized that carrying the wall forward kept the experience present in her life. Reconnecting with childhood friends and family helped. They remembered her as kind, cheerful, friendly, and talkative, even when she could no longer recognize those qualities in herself.

Her recovery involved safety, stability, therapy, reflection, and steady support. She also drew an important line, recognizing she wasn’t responsible for the abuse, but she could take responsibility for her healing and future. “I had to do the work,” she says.

That work helped Mariana recover her voice, which leads to a lesson many women may recognize at work as well.

Reclaim your voice without apologizing

Mariana wanted her children to live in a peaceful home where silence meant they were safe. She especially wanted her daughter to see genuine inner strength rather than a facade.

Work initially became another hiding place. “I worked long hours. I worked a lot,” Mariana says. Healing included learning that she didn’t always have to stay busy to hide a feeling or prevent a storm.

Katie and Mariana began in very different places. Yet neither waited for fear to disappear before acting. Each found support and moved forward one decision at a time.

Your next step might be calculating a savings runway, contacting a mentor, asking for help, or beginning the work of forgiving yourself. You don’t need to see the entire path before you start.

Listen to Episode 34 of She Counts to hear Katie and Mariana share their stories in full, and then name one small step you can take today.