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Nancy McClelland

This Forbes Top 200 CPA Says Sponsors Matter More Than Mentors

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Picture this: You’re sitting across from a potential client—an older gentleman who seems kind and polite. Your expertise fills the room, your credentials speak for themselves, but throughout the entire meeting, he keeps calling you “darling.” Not your name. Just “darling.”

This experience happened to Nicole Davis, founder of Conscious Accounting (formerly Butler Davis) and a Forbes Top 200 CPA. For Davis, who’s originally from Georgia, where terms like “honey” and “sweetheart” are common, it wasn’t about being offended. It was about something deeper.

“Since we’re in a professional setting, I’m like, ‘you need to call me by my name,’” Davis explains. “When some men see a pretty face or just women in general, they kind of tend to sidestep our expertise.”

Sound familiar? If you’ve worked in accounting, tax, or bookkeeping for any length of time, you’ve probably been there. That moment when your face is seen, but your capabilities somehow become invisible. It’s why a recent episode of the She Counts podcast bears the title “Don’t Call Me Darling,” and why Nicole’s response to these moments is a masterclass in redefining professional power.

When Power Looks Different Than Expected

Davis’s journey to commanding respect didn’t happen overnight. Despite her current reputation for dominating whatever room she enters, she admits something that might surprise you: “I am highly introverted. People think I’m not because I can turn on. But as quickly as I turn it on, I can turn it off.”

Early in her corporate career, Davis bought into traditional definitions of power. “Early in my career when I worked in corporate America, I thought power meant title, power meant that corner office, power meant I’m calling the shots and I’m telling people what to do.”

But when she started her own firm, that facade crumbled. What emerged was something far more powerful. “Real power isn’t in a title. Real power isn’t in how much money you have. Real power is when you own who you are, and you make everyone else also accept that person.”

The catalyst for this shift? Representation. Davis’s boss at the Federal Home Loan Bank, Michelle, was the first Black woman she’d ever worked for. “When I started working for her, my eyes started to open. I started to see myself like a boss, but I didn’t see the path to get there as a Black woman, because all I saw was white men.”

This speaks to something we don’t talk about enough in our profession. When you don’t see people who look like you in positions of power, it’s hard to imagine yourself there. As co-host Nancy McClelland admits, “When I hear the word ‘doctor,’ I presume it’s a white male. Now, that is just absolutely ridiculous. It’s these deep-seated institutional societal biases we all have.”

For Davis, seeing Michelle changed everything. It showed her there was a path and more importantly, she could define what that path looked like.

Redefining What Domination Really Means

When Davis talks about “dominating” spaces, she’s not talking about aggression or making others small. “Dominating means agency. It means I am calling the shots. I’m writing my own tickets, I’m making the rules. I am doing things my way.”

But here’s the part that gave podcast co-host McClelland chills: “Dominating is not about making men small, right? Dominating is about making the space honest enough for all of us to fit into it.”

This isn’t about rejecting collaboration or building walls. It’s about what Davis calls “owning your story so completely that the room moves to your rhythm. I’m not moving to theirs.”

Learning to do this required Davis to develop boundaries that she calls “non-negotiables.” “I set boundaries and I set them fast with people,” she says. The key is being “warm but firm.”

As Davis explains, “People think you have to walk into a room and be the loudest person there to show you’re significant. No, you don’t. You walk into a room and you’re just there. Your presence says way more than words you could ever speak or say.”

This kind of presence requires something many women in accounting struggle with: refusing to shrink ourselves to make others comfortable. But when you do it right, something magical happens. Davis describes authenticity as working “a lot like Wi-Fi” because “people in range of you being who you are get that signal and they log into theirs.”

In other words, when you show up authentically, you give others permission to do the same.

Technology: The Great Equalizer

One area where Davis sees a massive opportunity for women is technology, specifically AI. Her philosophy? “Buddy up with the bots.”

“AI is making a grand stand in our profession, and so many people still have not latched on to it yet,” Davis observes. But here’s where women have an advantage. “Women have mastered efficiency out of necessity. Women are perfectly positioned to make a big major splash in the tech industry.”

Davis describes AI as acting like “a tireless junior associate” that “never needs to take a vacation. They never get tired. They can do all the things you really don’t want to do from an administrative standpoint, possibly from an analytical standpoint.”

This is about layering technology with relationship-building, and it’s something women excel at.

This approach has allowed Davis to build her firm primarily through relationships rather than traditional sales tactics. “I built my firm strictly on relationships,” she says. “I just kept taking care of my current clients and adding more services to what they needed.”

The result? A practice designed around her values rather than traditional expectations, what she calls achieving true freedom through strategic use of technology.

The Power of Sponsorship vs. Mentorship

While many people focus on finding mentors, Davis believes sponsorship is more critical. “Mentors guide, but sponsors vouch.” This concept was a key inspiration to co-host Questian Telka in her initial creation of the She Counts podcast.

Davis’ own story illustrates this perfectly. In 2020, Jeff Drew from the AICPA reached out about the practitioners planning committee. “I had no idea this committee existed,” Davis admits. But Drew’s sponsorship opened doors she didn’t know were there, eventually leading to her current role as committee chair.

“Sponsors rewrite the guest list for you so your name is on it,” Davis explains. “And when you’re on the list, your mentors help you stay on the list and guide you as you go through your journey.”

This distinction matters because it shows sometimes the biggest barrier isn’t our capability; it’s visibility. Sponsors help solve that problem by putting your name in rooms where decisions are made.

From Spaces Not Built for Us

When asked about spaces traditionally dominated by men, Davis counters, “What space was ever built for me?”

It’s a powerful question that reframes the entire conversation. Rather than trying to fit into existing structures, Davis has consistently created her own path, from starting her accounting firm to launching a construction company.

“Who said women can’t wear heels and then put on some steel-toed boots in the same week?” she asks with characteristic wit.

This mindset shift, from asking for permission to creating opportunities, separates true leaders from those still waiting for someone else to open doors.

Getting Out of Your Own Head

Davis’s advice for women wanting to take up more space is, “Take it. I know we haven’t touched on this a lot, but stamp out imposter syndrome. You’re not an imposter.”

Her approach involves speaking life into your goals. “Say it out-loud. Say it to yourself in the mirror. Say, ‘I am a badass speaker. I am an exceptional accountant. I know how to do this, this, and this.’ Even if you don’t know how to do it, say it anyway. Because eventually your mind is going to start believing it, and eventually your actions start following what your mind believes.”

It’s about recognizing that you’ve already proven yourself. “You wouldn’t have gotten this far without knowing anything. You know something. Use that to level you up.”

The Ripple Effect

Davis’s journey from being called “darling” to being recognized as a Forbes Top 200 CPA represents something bigger than individual success: cultural transformation.

When women refuse to shrink themselves, when they set boundaries while maintaining warmth, when they leverage technology to create more inclusive practices, they create ripple effects that extend far beyond their immediate sphere.

As Davis puts it, authenticity becomes “a permission slip” for everyone around you. Refusing to apologize for taking up space permits others to do the same.

In the accounting profession, technology is challenging traditional power structures and changing client expectations. There’s a new generation of professionals who refuse to accept “that’s how it’s always been done” as an answer.

Women like Davis are leading this transformation, not by playing by the old rules, but by writing new ones. They prove you don’t need to adopt masculine models of authority to command respect, and you don’t need to diminish others to demonstrate your strength.

Every boundary you set, every authentic moment you choose over conformity, every time you refuse to make yourself small, you give the next generation permission to thrive.

Because the world needs more women who understand that true domination isn’t about making others small. It’s about being so genuinely powerful that everyone around you gets permission to thrive.

Ready to transform how you show up in your professional spaces? Listen to the full She Counts episode to hear more of Davis’s insights and discover specific strategies you can implement immediately. 

The Secret to Turning Fear Into Career Fuel

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Picture Nancy McClelland at 40, standing backstage in a short fringe dress, her heart pounding as she prepares for her first go-go dancing performance. The stage lights are bright, the music is starting, and all she can think about is what people will say when they see her “hauling her 40-year-old heiny across the stage.” This wasn’t just stage fright. This was the terror of pursuing a lifelong dream that felt completely at odds with her professional identity as an accountant.

Yet in that moment of pure vulnerability, McClelland discovered something that would reshape her entire approach to career growth. When she confided to fellow dancer Laurel that she wished she could be fearless like her, Laurel’s response was life-changing: “Oh no, no, no, no, Nancy, I’m just as scared as the next person. The difference is that I do it anyway.”

In this episode of the She Counts podcast, hosts Nancy McClelland and Questian Telka explore the relationship between fear and professional success. They share raw stories of moments when they chose courage over comfort, from McClelland’s dancing debut to Telka’s surprise presentation to 500 people instead of 80. Their conversation reveals an uncomfortable truth about women in accounting: we’re often told to be fearless when what we really need is to be strategically courageous.

The most successful women in accounting don’t overcome their fears. They harness them as career accelerators. They transform every terrifying moment into evidence that they can handle whatever comes next. This builds the muscle to move forward when every instinct tells you to retreat.

Why “Don’t Be Afraid” Is the Worst Career Advice Ever

The accounting profession has a fundamental problem with fear, and it starts with the most damaging piece of career advice ever given: “Don’t be afraid.” We’ve all heard it in conference rooms, performance reviews, and networking events. But McClelland and Telka discovered this advice isn’t just impossible to follow; it’s actively harmful to career growth.

“I personally wish we could delete the phrase ‘don’t be afraid’ from our lexicons,” McClelland explains. “Being afraid is an extremely natural, very human way to be.  Our bodies do this to keep us safe. So by saying, ‘don’t be afraid,’ we’re like, ‘Pay no attention whatsoever to all of these hormones that are coursing through you.'”

The distinction between courage and fearlessness isn’t just semantic; it’s career-defining. Fearlessness is the absence of fear, which Telka points out is completely unrealistic: “I’ve never met someone that doesn’t have fear and doesn’t get afraid. Some of us are better at hiding it than others, but fearlessness is the absence of fear. And that’s just completely unrealistic.”

Courage, however, is something entirely different. As Telka defines it: “Courage is accepting that you feel the fear and acting despite being fearful anyway; doing it anyway.”

This reframe changes everything. Instead of viewing fear as a weakness to overcome, successful women in accounting learn to see it as valuable information. McClelland discovered this through her unlikely mentor, Laurel, whose words became her operating system: “As I say those words out loud, I can feel the goosebumps on my arms and my legs. It’s become a mantra to me. I see fear as something I’ve earned. And courage is the thing that makes me strong—not being fearless.”

Fear often signals you’re approaching something meaningful enough to accelerate your growth. Your body cannot distinguish between fear and excitement: the sweaty palms, rapid heartbeat, and nervous energy are identical responses. The only difference is your mental interpretation. When you reframe these sensations as excitement about an opportunity, rather than terror about potential failure, you transform your body’s natural alarm system into a career accelerator.

This understanding is especially crucial for women in accounting, who face additional pressure to appear “professional” while receiving contradictory messages about vulnerability and emotion. The moments that terrify us most often contain the greatest potential for professional transformation.

When Terror Becomes Your Greatest Teacher

The most profound professional transformations often begin with a phone call that changes everything. For Telka, it was discovering just days before Intuit Connect, that her carefully planned presentation for 80 people had been moved to a 500-person auditorium.

“I full panic, full panic, like from 0 to 11,” she recalls. “And I stayed there until after my presentation was over. I feel like I missed half the conference because I was just so scared and terrified.”

But here’s what happened next: “It was literally one of the best things I have ever done. And my favorite part was engaging with the people in the audience.” The very thing Telka feared most—not being able to answer questions from a large crowd—became the highlight of her experience.

This experience taught Telka a lesson about her capabilities: “If I did that, I can do anything. There’s nothing more terrifying to me than standing up in front of a room of 500 people. And so now I’m like, okay… and I just did it.”

McClelland learned similar lessons through an unlikely teacher: skydiving. Despite her intense fear of heights and her boss’s logical observation that not wanting to jump from a plane is perfectly reasonable, McClelland completed the full training course and solo jump. The experience taught her that “training mitigates risk. Learning how to do the thing will build your confidence.”

This insight transforms how we approach career challenges. McClelland applies this principle when working with bookkeepers who say they “could never do advisory work.” Her response: “I bet if you studied how to do advisory work, you would be confident enough to do advisory work. But you’ve got to actually learn how to do the thing and really dig in and test yourself.”

Yet even understanding this concept doesn’t eliminate fear from future challenges. McClelland emphasizes this crucial point: “Courage builds courage. I’m not afraid of all the same things I used to be afraid of.” But new fears replace old ones, and even familiar challenges can still trigger anxiety.

These transformative moments don’t happen by accident. They require specific tools and strategies for moving through fear rather than around it.

The Professional Toolkit for Acting Despite Fear

The difference between women who advance in accounting and those who remain stuck isn’t the absence of fear. It’s having a systematic approach to harness that fear as career fuel. McClelland and Telka shared practical strategies that work in any challenging situation.

Start with Your Why

The foundation begins with reconnecting to your purpose. As Telka explains: “I constantly come back to my why. And that generally helps me make a decision. And it helps me mitigate the fear that I have around those decisions.” When you remember that you care more about your goal than your fear, the choice becomes clearer.

Separate Action from Feeling

McClelland learned from her therapist that your three selves—thinking, doing, and feeling—don’t actually need to be aligned to accomplish something. “You can be lying in bed depressed and be like, ‘I do not feel like doing the thing,’ and your brain can be like, ‘Doing the thing is the worst idea in the world.’ And you can still get your butt out of bed, and you can do it.”

McClelland’s shorthand for separating the action from the need to want to do it is “putting your yoga pants on.”. This approach makes it easier to develop courage as a habit over time.

Commit When You’re Not Terrified

McClelland developed a crucial strategy: “I say ‘yes’ ahead of time. I say ‘yes’ to whatever it is I’m going to do when I’m not terrified. And I have a policy of not backing out.” This worked when Financial Cents asked her to teach 700 people the Time Warp dance at a virtual conference. She said yes when it sounded exciting, then honored that commitment when fear kicked in later.

Use Physical Exercise to Burn Adrenaline

McClelland’s therapist taught her that adrenaline is a finite resource. “If you are really scared about something, go get some physical exercise. Use up all that adrenaline. It takes a while for your body to regenerate it.” This is why you’ll find speakers like Misty Megia doing jumping jacks before big presentations.

Borrow Confidence from Others

Telka credits both McClelland and Megia with providing crucial support: “Find someone who believes in what you’re doing, who believes in you, even if it’s something that you’re scared to do.” You can amplify this by speaking your fears aloud or writing them down. McClelland explains: “You can actually magnify that by saying it in a group of friends. You can magnify it by saying it to a mentor and borrow your confidence from them. So simultaneously, you’re taking the power away from the fear and you’re borrowing confidence.”

Break Tasks into Smaller Steps

Instead of focusing on overwhelming challenges, break them into manageable pieces. This approach makes the insurmountable feel achievable.

Develop Personal Mantras

McClelland keeps reminders like “remember who you are inside” and “go with the freak-out flow.” Telka draws from science fiction, reciting from Dune: “I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it is gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

The ultimate insight is that you don’t need to feel ready to act. You just need to act. Each time you choose action over comfort, you build evidence of your capability to handle difficult situations, creating a career acceleration system that transforms fear from an obstacle into an opportunity detector.

The Fears That Hold Women Back in Accounting

Women in accounting face specific challenges that require courage to overcome. These fears are deeply connected to how we’re perceived and judged in professional settings.

The Emotional Professional Paradox

Telka came from a Big Four environment where “if you have an emotion, you need to step away. Do not be emotional.” She used to take it as an insult when someone called her sensitive or emotional. “But I think it’s my strength at this point,” she reflects. “My emotions, my empathy, my compassion, my sensitivity—I used to take it as an insult, but it’s actually my strength.”

Setting Boundaries and Asking for Money

For firm owners, the challenges multiply. Setting boundaries with clients and team members requires constant courage. McClelland admits: “It’s been really, really hard for me because I feel so much empathy for them. Sometimes you just have deadlines and it’s terrifying. I just get paralyzed sometimes.”

Asking for money remains one of McClelland’s biggest challenges. “I don’t want to have to sell it. I don’t want to have to ask you for money. I just want to do these things that I want to do that I think will make a difference in the world and be paid, and then just skip the part where I have to ask for it.”

Admitting You Don’t Know Something

Perhaps the most universal fear is admitting ignorance. As McClelland learned from teaching music theory, “The best thing to do when you’re teaching and somebody asks a question you don’t know is to earn the trust of the students by saying, ‘I don’t know the answer to that, but I know where to find it, and I’m going to get back to you on it.'”

The Motherhood Penalty

The guilt around balancing career and family creates another layer of fear. Telka boldly states: “I do not have guilt leaving my kids to go to conferences.” McClelland, though not a mother herself, reinforces this: “Your children need to see an example of you having a healthy, enthusiastic relationship with your work and with your hobbies and with your friends.”

These fears are normal and shared by successful women throughout the profession. The difference is that successful women develop strategies to act despite these fears rather than letting them dictate their choices.

Your Next Breakthrough Is Waiting

The most successful women in accounting share a secret that has nothing to do with technical expertise and everything to do with their relationship with fear. They’ve learned that fear isn’t the enemy of career advancement; it’s the most reliable indicator that they’re approaching something meaningful enough to accelerate their growth.

Consider how this approach transforms common career challenges: Instead of avoiding difficult conversations with clients, you prepare thoroughly and have them anyway. Instead of declining speaking opportunities because you’re not an “expert,” you accept them and become one through the experience. Instead of staying in safe employment because entrepreneurship is scary, you start your firm and learn to navigate the fear of the unknown.

Every major career breakthrough requires moving through fear rather than around it. The women who advance fastest act despite their doubt. They understand that professional growth happens not when we feel ready, but when we choose to act anyway.

Each time you choose courage over comfort, you’re building the muscle that makes the next scary decision a little easier to navigate.

The next time you feel that familiar terror before a big presentation, client meeting, or career move, remember McClelland standing backstage in her go-go boots and Telka discovering her 80-person room became 500 people. They didn’t wait to feel ready. They didn’t eliminate their fear. They simply chose to act anyway.

Listen to this full episode of She Counts to hear more strategies for transforming fear into professional fuel, and discover how other women in accounting have built careers by repeatedly choosing courage over comfort. Because your biggest breakthrough might be hiding on the other side of your biggest fear. The only way to find out is to do it anyway.

From Guilt to Grace: How Setting Boundaries Actually Improves Client Service

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You decide to sleep in for once, rolling over in bed to ignore the world and give yourself a much-needed break. Then your phone buzzes with an email notification that makes your blood boil instantly: a one-star Google review from a client who’s furious that you won’t drop everything to take his phone calls.

This exact scenario happened to Nayo Carter-Gray, an Enrolled Agent (EA) who runs her own accounting firm, just a couple of weeks before she joined Nancy McClelland and Questian Telka for a live episode of She Counts recorded at the Scaling New Heights conference. The client in question was part of a client list acquisition, bypassed Carter-Gray’s communication policies from Day One, and demanded immediate callbacks despite her firm’s clear appointment-only structure.

Here’s the kicker: After Carter-Gray crafted a nearly 5,000-word response (thankfully never sent), the client discovered the real problem was a tech issue on his end that had been blocking emails for a week. “He took his review down because he discovered the thing that he was upset about was not even our fault. It was his,” Carter-Gray explains.

The client took down his nasty review, but the damage to the relationship was done. More importantly, Carter-Gray realized this was a blessing in disguise, a clear sign this client wasn’t a good fit for her practice.

This story perfectly captures the tension that accounting professionals face every day: the clash between setting professional boundaries and managing client expectations in a culture that demands instant gratification. During their conversation about boundaries, McClelland, Telka, and Carter-Gray tackled one of the most challenging aspects of running a sustainable practice: protecting your time and energy without sacrificing service quality or damaging client relationships.

Professional boundaries aren’t about saying ‘no’ to clients; they’re about saying ‘yes’ to better service.

From Barriers to Bridges: Reframing the Boundary Mindset

Transforming boundary-setting from a guilt-inducing struggle into a service enhancement tool starts with a simple reframe. As Carter-Gray puts it, “Boundaries aren’t barriers, but bridges to better client relationships.”

This philosophy runs counter to everything most accounting professionals have been conditioned to believe. We’ve been taught good service means being available whenever clients need us; saying ‘no’ makes us difficult; and professional success requires wearing every hat in our practice. But Carter-Gray’s experience tells a different story.

When she initially set up her firm, she was doing exactly what most of us do: trying to handle everything herself. “I was doing all the things, trying to set the appointments, trying to have all the client calls,” she recalls. “I realized I was spending so much time on things clients can do themselves, like schedule an appointment.”

The breakthrough came when she asked why clients had to talk to her to schedule a call with her. “When I call the doctor’s office, the doctor isn’t the one on the phone scheduling a call. It’s usually the front desk admin or a nurse practitioner or somebody lower on the rung,” she explains.

This realization led to restructuring how her firm operates. She implemented scheduling links, started using an answering service, and created clear communication protocols that actually freed her up to focus on the work that truly requires her expertise.

“When I’m talking to you, I wanna just be able to talk to you and not have any distraction,” Carter-Gray explains. This captures the essence of the boundary-as-bridge concept. By protecting her time and attention through clear systems, she creates space to be fully present with clients when they do connect. The boundaries enhance the service rather than diminishing it.

Building Systems That Support Your Boundaries

The magic of effective boundary-setting isn’t the boundaries themselves, but the systems that make those boundaries feel natural and professional rather than defensive or apologetic. Carter-Gray’s approach demonstrates how multiple touchpoints and clear processes can eliminate the need to justify your professional structure.

“I try to do a really good job of explaining it the first time,” Carter-Gray explains, outlining her multi-layered client education process. “In our potential client call, I’ll walk you through the process. It’s at the bottom of our follow-up email, and we reiterate it in our welcome guide.”

This welcome guide serves as a proactive boundary-setting tool. Rather than waiting for conflicts to arise and then having to explain policies defensively, the guide educates clients before issues develop. “It is in the engagement letter as well,” Carter-Gray adds, acknowledging that “people don’t read,” which is why repetition across multiple formats is essential.

Her automation strategies go beyond simple scheduling tools. “You fill out the potential client form. I get an email that tells me all about you, and then we accept it or decline it based on your responses,” she explains. Once accepted, automated emails go out immediately to capitalize on the client’s momentum while setting clear expectations about what comes next.

One practical example of systematic boundary-setting is her approach to business hours. “We’re virtual. That doesn’t mean we’re 24/7. We have business hours. We work Monday through Friday, 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM Eastern Standard Time,” she states firmly. But she goes a step further, scheduling emails to send during business hours even when she writes them on weekends.

“I stopped sending emails on weekends because sending an email on a Saturday at seven gives the impression that you’re working,” she explains. “So even though I might be working on Saturday, I schedule the email for Monday morning at 10:00 AM Eastern (or 10:05, so it won’t feel like I’ve scheduled the email).”

Her team structure reinforces these boundaries through shared systems rather than individual heroics. “We use a shared email inbox,” she explains, “so every meeting, every email is seen by the entire team that’s responsible. At any given point, if one of us is out, somebody else can jump in.”

This prevents the single-person bottleneck that destroys boundaries when clients believe only one person can help them. 

Perhaps most importantly, Carter-Gray aligns her systems with her personal energy patterns. “Sales calls are on Monday because I am pumped up for the week,” she shares, demonstrating how boundaries can actually optimize performance when they’re designed around how you naturally work best.

Here’s her professional out-of-office template:

“Dear Client, from [start date] to [end date], I’ll be taking some much-needed time off. For urgent matters, please contact [colleagues]. I value our partnership and assure you that all tasks will be handled with the same dedication and efficiency.”

No lengthy explanations. No apologies. Just clear, professional communication about availability.

Overcoming Guilt and the People-Pleasing Trap

The most sophisticated boundary systems in the world will crumble without addressing the psychological patterns that make saying “no” feel impossible in the first place. For many accounting professionals, the real battle is with the internal voice that whispers… we’re being difficult, selfish, or unprofessional when we protect our time and energy.

“If you feel guilty about all of the things, then you will never feel good about all of the things,” Carter-Gray points out. This guilt cycle creates a destructive pattern where professionals overcommit to avoid disappointing others, then build resentment toward the very clients they’re trying to serve.

“Sometimes you have to take your guilt and say, ‘Why am I feeling guilty about this? Is it because I’m not able to do this? Or is it because I don’t want to do this?’” Carter-Gray challenges. “When you realize it’s something you don’t want to do, the answer’s no.”

The power of “no is a complete sentence” prevents the resentment that destroys service quality. “I don’t wanna resent you, I wanna be able to enjoy whatever relationship that we have,” Carter-Gray explains. “Every time I see you, I don’t wanna be like, oh, let me avoid this girl.”

The oxygen mask principle flight attendants teach is a perfect parallel for professional service: “You gotta take care of your mask first before you help others,” Carter-Gray reminds us. This isn’t selfishness; it’s sustainability.

Even the language patterns that reinforce guilt need conscious attention. Telka recognizes herself as an over-apologizer, a common pattern among women in professional settings. Carter-Gray offers a simple but powerful reframe: “Instead of being sorry for something, thank the other person for their patience. So instead of, ‘oh, I’m sorry I’m late,’ say ‘thank you for your patience. You waited for me.’ Really I should be saying… let’s honor, let’s celebrate that.”

The deeper principle at work here challenges the entire culture of instant availability that pervades professional services. “Don’t apologize for taking personal time. We are humans. We are not robots. We are not made to work 24/7,” Carter-Gray states firmly. “If you worked for someone else and your hours were nine to five and they asked you to come in at seven, you would be pissed. So you work for yourself, but you don’t set up these same rules for yourself?”

Carter-Gray’s favorite saying captures this mindset: “Not your monkey, not your circus.” In other words, you don’t have to jump into every chaotic situation just because you have the skills to help.

Small Steps to Start Today

For conflict-averse accounting professionals who want to start practicing boundary setting, Carter-Gray suggests beginning with low-stakes changes:

  • Email auto-responders. “You can set your emails now to have a responder that says ‘Thank you so much for your email. We will get back to you within 48 business hours.’ It takes a little pressure off of you to respond immediately.”
  • Virtual assistants or chatbots. These can help take over some of the communication functionality that currently pulls you away from client work.
  • Clear communication about availability. Be proactive about telling clients when you’ll be unavailable, giving them time to prepare mentally.
  • Provide alternatives. When you can’t help directly, offer other solutions. As McClelland points out, this might mean saying, “I’m not available to help with that. However, I have an amazing team that I’ve invested a lot of my time and energy into training. And they will take really great care of you.”

The key is being proactive rather than reactive.

Your Path to Sustainable Service Excellence

Professional boundaries aren’t about becoming the difficult accountant who never helps anyone; they’re about becoming the professional who helps the right clients exceptionally well. The most sustainable practitioners don’t say “yes” to everything. They create frameworks that protect their ability to serve authentically.

This approach offers a roadmap for any accounting professional ready to move beyond the exhausting cycle of over-commitment and resentment and gives them permission to prioritize sustainability without guilt. 

Take the first step by choosing one small boundary to implement this week. Maybe it’s an email auto-responder that sets response time expectations. Perhaps it’s scheduling your weekend emails to send during business hours. Or it could be as simple as switching your language from “I’m sorry I’m late” to “Thank you for your patience.”

Listen to the full episode of the The Counts podcast featuring Nayo Carter–Gray for more advice on setting boundaries to become sustainable, focused, and authentically present. 

You can follow Nayo Carter-Gray on social media @NayoCarterGray and learn more about her work at upcoming conferences, including Bridging the Gap, NAEA’s Tax Summit, and Intuit Connect. She also serves on the board of the Accounting Cornerstone Foundation, which provides scholarships for first-time conference attendees in the accounting profession.

When Your Time-Blocking Superpower Becomes Your Kryptonite

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“I’m proud of my time-blocking superpower,” Nancy McClelland admitted during a recent episode of She Counts. Co-host Questian Telka nodded in recognition. They both lived by elaborate color-coded calendars that managed every minute of their days.

But their guest, burnout coach and CPA Lynnette Oss Connell, was about to challenge everything they thought they knew about professional efficiency. What followed was one of the most honest conversations about burnout you’ll hear in the accounting profession.

Nancy and Questian were upfront about why they brought in an expert. “This is something where we both feel completely lost,” McClelland explained. “We don’t have advice for others because we’re both struggling with burnout ourselves, at times sort of teetering on the edge.”

Lynnette, known as “the Burnout Bestie,” built and sold her own successful CAS practice before becoming a coach for accountants struggling with chronic stress. Her story reveals why our greatest professional strengths often become our biggest vulnerabilities (and what we can do about it).

The Efficiency Trap: Engineering Your Own Over-functioning

Lynnette’s story starts exactly where many of us find ourselves. She had what looked like the perfect setup: a thriving firm, organized systems, and the ability to juggle multiple roles with precision.

“I had engineered a life of my own over-functioning,” she explains. Her elaborate time-blocked calendar enabled her to serve as a firm owner, CFO of several companies, and soccer team manager for her kids. When other parents marveled at her ability to manage it all, she’d think, “I just time block—it’s a superpower, right?”

But here’s the problem she discovered: despite all her backup plans and support systems, everything still required her to function as the central hub. “I thought I had done all the right things,” she recalls. “My mom is my backup with the kids, I have a neighbor who’s a backup, and I have employees with tasks. But at the end of the day, all of those systems relied on me to keep them going.”

The most deceptive part? By traditional metrics, Lynnette had achieved work-life balance. She worked only 3.5 hours per day running her successful firm. But those remaining hours weren’t filled with rest. They were packed with equally demanding caregiving responsibilities.

“I’m working the rest of the time, too,” she explains. “Your family work is work, too.”

This led to her biggest realization: she had trained herself to override her feelings “like a light switch.” Whenever she felt resistance or exhaustion, she would do what she calls an “analytical assessment” by asking herself, ”Does this feeling serve my goals?” If not, she would simply shut it off and continue with her perfectly planned schedule.

Energy Auditing: The Game-Changer You Haven’t Tried

This is where Lynnette introduced the concept of energy-blocking.

While we’ve mastered scheduling when we do things, we’ve completely ignored whether those things give us life or drain it. The energy audit reveals what’s really happening within each role we play.

“Within your role, are you balanced?” Lynnette asks. “There needs to beintentionality around what gives you life. Am I pouring out and receiving in?”

This isn’t about achieving a perfect 50-50 balance in every task. It’s about recognizing that some aspects of our work energize us while others deplete us, and being deliberate about maintaining that balance over time.

The efficiency trap is particularly seductive for women in accounting because our profession rewards exactness and the ability to manage complex systems. But what we’re actually doing is creating increasingly sophisticated ways to make ourselves indispensable and irreplaceable when everything falls apart.

Community vs. Connection: The Support System You Truly Need

Lynnette’s next revelation cuts deeper. “I have community,” she explains. I have friends, I have work friends, and I have family who cares about me deeply. But what I didn’t have was conversations around what happens when life gets lifey.”

The problem isn’t a lack of people in our lives. It’s that we prioritize efficiency over intimacy in relationships. We collect connections like productivity tools: broadly and systematically, but without the deep investment required for them to support us when our systems fail.

This lesson became crystal clear during Lynnette’s son’s medical emergency. After spending all night in the hospital, she found herself at 8 a.m. in the parking lot, calling a client to explain why she couldn’t make their regular appointment.

When her client—a father himself—learned what was happening, his response stunned her: “Get off the phone right now. I don’t want to hear from you for a week. Why did you even call me?”

He wasn’t upset at her absence. He was upset that she even thought she needed to work while her child was in the hospital.

“I was living in this tunnel where I was holding myself to these impossibly high standards,” Lynnette reflects. By failing to give people credit for basic human decency, she created a world where no one was allowed to show up for her.

The solution requires what Lynnette calls “controlled vulnerability”—sharing appropriately about where you’re struggling and observing how people respond. This creates a sense of “who your community really is, who you can go to, and who has the capacity for it.”

Why Women Burn Out Differently: The Biology Behind the Breakdown

When Nancy mentioned that many of her high-performing female friends have been diagnosed with anxiety, depression, and panic disorders, Lynnette’s response was both validating and alarming: “The research shows that those are all symptoms of burnout.”

The biological differences in how women and men respond to stress explain why traditional burnout advice often fails us. While men typically experience “fight-or-flight” responses dominated by testosterone and cortisol, women’s stress responses are dominated by oxytocin, creating “tend-and-befriend” behaviors.

“Women feel threatened, and so we nurture,” Lynnette explains, referencing research from “Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle” by sisters Emily Nagoski, PhD, and Amelia Nagoski, DMA. When accounting deadlines loom or client crises emerge, instead of getting forceful as male colleagues might, we internalize the pressure and respond by taking on more responsibility.

“Women don’t tend to get forceful or demonstrative in our stress until several more notches down the burnout journey,” Lynnette notes. “We instead internalize.”

By the time anyone recognizes we’re in trouble, we’ve already done significant damage to our nervous systems. The three warning signs to watch for are:

  1. Emotional exhaustion. Bone-deep depletion from constantly nurturing others while your own needs go unmet.
  2. Depersonalization. Suddenly resenting work you once loved because you’re running on fumes.
  3. Lack of accomplishment. Feeling like no matter how efficiently you work, you’re always behind.

“I could be hugely efficient for hours on end and leave the day and be like, darn it, I feel like I didn’t get ahead,” Lynnette recalls.

Building Prevention and Recovery Plans That Actually Work

The solution isn’t just better time management; it’s creating systems that work with women’s biology, not against it.

“I want everyone to respond to the stressors in their life, instead of reacting to the stressors in their life,” Lynnette explains. When you’re reacting, you’re putting out fires with a heightened stress response. When you’re responding, you’re coming from a grounded state, approaching challenges as a capable person with options.

Prevention strategies include:

  • Energy audits to balance life-giving and life-draining activities
  • Deep community relationships that provide practical support
  • Regular exercise that metabolizes stress hormones and adrenaline
  • Quiet practices that help you reconnect with what actually serves you

But equally important is having a recovery plan. “You don’t just take a break and go back to ground zero,” Lynnette warns. “You need to heal from burnout, because it’s a whole body experience.”

Recovery means knowing exactly who to call for different types of support, having scripts prepared for difficult conversations, and allowing yourself to scale back without shame.

The most profound insight is reframing resilience. Instead of viewing recovery as returning to who you were before, Lynnette challenges us to see it as “traveling through change in a way that honors who you’re becoming.”

The Bottom Line: Sustainable Success Starts with Honest Assessment

If you recognize yourself in this conversation—the proud efficiency expert, the person everyone counts on, the one who’s engineered elaborate systems of over-functioning—you’re not alone.

The question isn’t whether you’ll eventually hit the wall. It’s whether you’ll recognize the warning signs soon enough to choose your own path forward.

Start with an energy audit of your current roles. Which activities energize you? Which drain you? Begin shifting that balance deliberately. Practice giving people credit for their capacity to show up for you. Build movement into your routine as essential medicine for your nervous system.

Most importantly, challenge the metrics by which you measure success. The goal isn’t to eliminate efficiency—it’s to become efficiently sustainable and build systems that preserve the system builder.

Listen to the full episode to hear more of Lynnette’s story, including the difficult decision to sell her firm and her husband’s role in recognizing their diverging paths. You’ll also get practical scripts for difficult conversations and deeper insights into building the kind of community that can actually support you through crisis.

What does burnout look like to you? Share your experiences in the comments on the She Counts LinkedIn page. Your story might be exactly what another woman in accounting needs to hear.

Find Lynnette Oss Connell at burnoutbestie.com and follow her on LinkedIn and Instagram for practical burnout prevention tips.

When Personal Crisis Collides With Tax Deadlines

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Picture this: You’re standing in a hospital room, staring at a laptop screen that won’t stop wobbling before your eyes. You haven’t been able to sit down or lie down for weeks—not for a single moment—because every time you try, your body erupts in seizures. Your mind is foggy from pain and exhaustion, yet you’re desperately trying to work because you run your own accounting firm, and clients are depending on you.

This isn’t fiction. This was Nancy McClelland’s reality for 107 consecutive days in 2017.

This stark image opens a raw conversation from the She Counts podcast episode “How to Make Business Happen When Life Happens,” in which hosts Nancy McClelland and Questian Telka strip away the professional veneer to reveal what really happens when personal crises collide with accounting deadlines. Their stories shed light on circumstances many women in our profession face but rarely discuss openly.

Nancy’s medical crisis began in July 2017 when her lifelong spinal condition suddenly worsened. “I ended up having seizures on my left leg every time I would sit down or lie down. It was absolutely horrible. I wanted to die,” she recalls. Standing became her only option for work, eating, and even during sleepless nights for over three months.

Telka’s story is equally harrowing. Her son, who has a rare chromosomal abnormality, was hospitalized for a month last year and nearly died from complications unrelated to his syndrome. “It just nearly broke me,” she admits. 

Why We Suffer in Silence

The numbers tell a sobering story about how women in accounting handle personal crises. According to Accounting Today’s 2022 survey, 41% of female CPAs who experienced personal loss delayed taking time off because they didn’t want to appear weak. Even more telling? A staggering 76% later regretted not stepping back sooner.

This reluctance to seek help stems from several deeply ingrained patterns in our profession. First is what Telka calls the “suck it up” mentality. “I always had the mindset—I’m actually kind of ashamed to admit it—but I always had the mindset that we have to suck it up,” she reflects. “When something’s hard, you have to push through and keep going.”

But this approach has its limits. When her son was fighting for his life, Telka reached a breaking point: “I was like, you know what? There is no more suck it up. I cannot suck it up.”

The perfectionism that drives professional success can be particularly toxic during personal crises. Research from the International Journal of Accounting and Finance found that 68% of female accountants feel they’re expected never to make mistakes. This creates what experts call “socially prescribed perfectionism,” a known predictor of burnout.

As McClelland points out, “We have that expectation of ourselves without having it of others.”

Adding to the isolation is the fact that many struggles remain imperceptible. McClelland looked completely normal to observers—she was standing, after all. “You never know what someone is going through,” she realized. “My horrible situation was actually invisible to many people.”

McClelland’s therapist offered a reframe that changed everything about how she approaches difficult times: “Doing your best doesn’t mean the platonic ideal of your best. It means the best you can do under the circumstances.” Now she communicates this directly: “I let people know that I really am doing the best I can. I’m simply not in a situation to do more, but when I am, they’ll get that version of my best.”

The Power of Community Support

The most resilient accounting professionals understand that the path through personal crises isn’t paved with increased isolation but with strategic vulnerability and authentic community connections.

Communication becomes your lifeline, but it requires balance. “Communicate clearly. Communicate honestly,” McClelland emphasizes. You don’t need to share every detail, but transparency about facing challenges builds trust rather than eroding it. “Transparency sets realistic expectations for your availability or temporary performance shifts,” she explains. “And it lets them know this isn’t forever.”

McClelland offers a helpful script she learned from burnout expert Lynnette Oss Connell, for those tentative to divulge details: “That’s all I’m comfortable sharing at the moment. But if you’re open to it, I may want to share more later.” This approach shows trust while gently establishing boundaries.

The fear that sharing struggles will damage professional relationships often proves unfounded. As Oss Connell told McClelland, “We underestimate how much our work family cares about us.” When Telka’s son was hospitalized, she witnessed this firsthand: “So many people came forward and sent gift cards to us.”

McClelland experienced this support through a local colleague who took over her tax clients during her medical crisis. Even more touching was Mindy Luebke from Bookkeeping Buds, who immediately offered to take any work off McClelland’s plate with no questions asked. “She was just like: ‘What do you need right now? Give it to me. I will do it. I will figure it out. We’ll deal with the specifics later,’” McClelland remembers. “It still sticks in my mind as the number-one kindest moment in my entire life.”

The most effective support comes from taking initiative rather than asking “What can I do?” As Telka explains, “When you’re going through something like that, it is so difficult to tell people what you need, and everyone’s asking.” Instead, think about what you would need and simply do it—send DoorDash gift cards, take over upcoming deliverables, or handle routine tasks.

McClelland beautifully illustrates this through a Jewish tradition of praying when hearing ambulance sirens. “If you were that person inside the ambulance and you knew that everyone within the sound of your siren, even strangers, were wishing you well, how much strength would that give you to hold on until you got to the hospital?”

Practical Crisis Management Strategies

When trauma strikes and decision-making becomes nearly impossible, having systems in place can mean the difference between business survival and collapse. The key is building these systems before you need them.

Start with triage thinking, borrowing from emergency medicine to categorize every task. First, identify your “stop the bleeding” priorities: payroll, critical tax deadlines, and regulatory filings. These need to happen regardless of personal circumstances.

Next, distinguish between what truly matters and what feels urgent. “I keep saying, ‘Oh, I’ve got to put together my speaker kit,’” McClelland reflects. “No, I don’t have to. I don’t have to do that today. It can wait.”

The choice becomes simple for everything else: delegate it or drop it. Nancy’s crisis forced her to give away clients who weren’t ideal fits anyway, including ministerial tax work she’d taken on early in her career but wasn’t passionate about. What felt like a loss became strategic clarity.

The challenge is what McClelland calls the “will problem.” A will is a document that, the moment you need it… is exactly when it’s too late to make it. That’s why building systems during normal times is crucial. Lean hard on standard operating procedures, task management tools, saved email templates, and automated processes like invoice reminders.

Decision fatigue compounds every crisis. When you’re already making countless decisions about medical care or family logistics, having to decide how to respond to each client email becomes overwhelming. But with systems in place, you can operate on autopilot when needed.

McClelland learned this lesson the hard way in 2017, but was better prepared when facing another family medical emergency earlier this year. Having her husband added as a bank signatory, documenting processes her team could follow, and automated client communications meant she could focus on family without watching her business crumble.

Resources and Next Steps

For those wanting to explore crisis preparation more deeply, McClelland and Telka recommend Dawn Brolin’s new book,”The Elevation of Empathy. ” This book explores how empathy and compassion—often seen as weaknesses in male-dominated business environments—actually create healthier company cultures and stronger leadership. Oss Connell also shares resources for crisis prevention and recovery on Instagram. And Jennifer Dymond and Karen McConomy have developed a “Business Backup Plan Bootcamp” that walks attendees step-by-step through the creation of an actionable contingency plan.

The hosts want to continue this conversation with real stories from listeners. They’re asking women in accounting to share on the She Counts LinkedIn page about times when they had to keep working through rough personal periods. What helped most? What do you wish someone had said or done during that time?

Your Permission to Be Human

Perhaps the most important message from Nancy and Questian’s conversation is this: you have permission to break, to ask for help, and to admit when circumstances exceed your capacity. As McClelland puts it, “The good and the bad coexist. They do not cancel each other out.” You can appreciate moments of joy and success even more deeply because you understand the contrast.

True professional strength is about building authentic relationships, implementing smart systems, and having the courage to be your real, imperfect, resilient human self.

The future of accounting isn’t about creating invulnerable professionals. It’s about building communities where no one has to face their worst moments alone.

Listen to the complete She Counts episode to hear every detail of McClelland and Telka’s journeys, including specific communication scripts and concrete strategies for building support networks before you need them.