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Nancy McClelland

Saying No Is the Ultimate Power Move for Women in Accounting

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Years ago, Nancy McClelland sent a text to Questian Telka that would eventually birth the She Counts podcast. “What if our default wasn’t saying yes?” she asked. As two self-proclaimed yes-aholics who regularly got themselves “into a lot of trouble with how much we say yes,” Nancy wondered what life would look like if they flipped the script entirely, making “no” their default and forcing themselves to justify every yes.

That text conversation planted a seed that grew into episode 14 of She Counts, where Nancy and Questian sat down with Brandy Jordan, a self-proclaimed “Jane of all trades” who’s made a name for herself as Catalyst at Woodard and Concept Alchemist at High Rock Accounting. Brandy knows something about saying no that most of us desperately need to learn.

When “New Scenery With the Same Inbox” Becomes Your Vacation

“For years, vacations were just new scenery with the same inbox for me,” Brandy admits during the conversation. She’d work through every trip, checking emails poolside, taking calls from the beach. No one demanded she stay online. It was her own inner superhero insisting she needed to be available.

The kicker? She was coaching other professionals about boundaries while burning her own to the ground. “The irony was painful,” she says.

Sound familiar? If you’re nodding along, you’re in good company. Nancy hasn’t taken a vacation without her laptop since before the pandemic. Questian can’t remember the last time she took a full weekend off. When she recently took her kids to the pool on a rare day off, she remembers thinking, “Wow, this is a nice feeling. Like I’m not actually working.”

This is the reality for women in accounting, where the pressure to prove your worth through constant availability feels like oxygen: invisible but essential for survival. As Brandy explains from years of coaching high performers, “These are bright, capable people driving themselves into the ground because saying no felt like career limiting or a personal flaw.”

Your Yes Reflex Is Actually Killing Your Career

Here’s the brutal honesty Brandy drops early in the conversation: “Every time you say yes, you’re saying no to something else whether you mean to or not.”

For women in accounting, the pressure runs deeper than just workplace expectations. The industry rewards responsiveness and that service-oriented mindset. It sounds great until you realize you’ve become the default note-taker in every meeting, the organizer of office birthday cards, and the coordinator of team events, all while maintaining your full workload.

“These smaller yeses create patterns of taking on all the extra things that need to be done,” Questian observes. Meanwhile, colleagues who don’t say yes to all the extra stuff actually get their work done while you’re in what Brandy calls “that constant state of feeling like you have to catch up.”

Nancy confesses she literally remembers the last time she felt caught up: 19 years ago, sitting on her front porch at age 34, choosing between the beach and yoga. “I’ve spent the past 19 years trying to get back to that moment.”

Part of the problem is what behavioral economists call the planning fallacy. As Brandy explains, we tend to underestimate how long tasks actually take, even when experience proves us wrong repeatedly. Questian nails it: “I recognize that it takes me about twice as long as I think something’s going to take me, but I still don’t want to acknowledge it.”

We’re not just miscalculating time; we’re completely ignoring mental bandwidth. Some tasks drain us more than others, yet we schedule them back-to-back as if our brains are machines. As a result, we keep telling ourselves we’ll figure it out or catch up next week. But as Nancy points out, being an adult has become “saying I’ll catch up next week, every week for the rest of your life.”

The Revolutionary Difference Between Saying No and Starting With No

“Starting with no is not about being negative or difficult,” Brandy clarifies. “It is about installing a new operating system for your decisions.”

Drawing from Daniel Kahneman’s book, Thinking Fast and Slow, Brandy explains how our reflexive yes belongs to System 1, the quick, emotional, people-pleasing response. Starting with no forces System 2 thinking, where you actually ask whether you can afford the cognitive load, the hours, and the context switching this demands.

Think about budgeting money, Brandy suggests. “If you constantly spend first and figure it out later, you always feel behind and stretched. But if you start each month at zero and consciously decide exactly how to allocate your funds, you’re going to feel empowered and in control.”

The same applies to your time and energy. But you need concrete criteria. Brandy’s approach is to write out five personal values that align with everything you do. Then identify your top three or four career goals. Every request gets filtered through the question, “Can I do this without compromising my other priorities?”

“I’m writing that down,” Nancy said. It’s the question that changes everything because suddenly you’re not asking “Can I squeeze this in?” but “What am I willing to sacrifice?”

How to Actually Say No (Without Feeling Like a Jerk)

“Don’t start saying no to the biggest thing that comes your way,” Brandy advises. “Start small because you have to get comfortable with saying no.”

Her practical framework:

  • Use clear yet empathetic language: “Thank you for considering me, but I cannot take this on right now”
  • Offer alternatives when possible, such as suggesting a colleague who might benefit or be better aligned
  • Give yourself time by saying, “Let me review my workload and get back to you tomorrow”

That pause is crucial. “It gives you space to thoughtfully assess the request without the stress of an immediate reaction,” Brandy explains. “Your fear will diminish because now you’ve thought it through logically.”

Questian admits the pause is her biggest challenge. She recalls immediately wanting to volunteer for a speaking opportunity, even reaching out to Nancy when a colleague declined it. Nancy’s response? “No, I’m going to protect you from yourself here.”

The shift changes how you think about no entirely. “Stop thinking that saying no is inherently selfish or inflexible,” Brandy insists. “By thoughtfully evaluating your commitments, you respect your own capacity and your team’s capacity and ability to rely on you fully when you do commit.”

The Day Brandy Told Herself No

The hardest no Brandy ever said wasn’t to a boss or client; it was to herself. After years of preaching boundaries while working through every vacation, she finally drew the line. The laptop stayed home. Not in the hotel room, not in the bag. “I knew if it was in my bag, I wouldn’t leave it be.”

Notifications went off and she warned her team, “I will be unreachable. Carry on. Don’t break anything.”

The hardest part was silencing that voice insisting something might implode. “It never does,” Brandy reflects. “There’s nothing life-threatening in our line of work that would need anything right away.”

The payoff was immediate: real rest, a fresh perspective, and the end of that hypocritical guilt. Now everyone at work knows, when Brandy’s on vacation, she’s unreachable. Period.

Nancy’s taking her first laptop-free vacation since pre-pandemic after hearing this. She’s even built in buffer days before and after. Her new philosophy? “If this all burns down while I’m gone, then that wasn’t the business I wanted to be running anyway.”

Why Your Team Secretly Wants You to Say No

“Modeling is essential,” Brandy emphasizes. When leaders protect their bandwidth, they demonstrate that focus is a competitive advantage, that thoughtful prioritization—not endless accommodation—delivers excellence.

Nancy discovered this when she vulnerably told her executive assistant, “I need you to help me. I’m not good at this.” She even offered a raise if her assistant could help her survive through July. “That took a lot of vulnerability and it was a little embarrassing,” Nancy admits. “But they’ve really been stepping up for me.”

Something magical happens when you actually disconnect. “It’s amazing what they can figure out when you’re not around,” Brandy observes. Those urgent emails? Already solved. Your team becomes highly self-sufficient when given the space.

The transformation extends beyond individual teams. As Questian discovered, “When I take a vacation and really put everything away, I am so much more efficient. My efficiency level increases substantially.”

Brandy puts it bluntly: “Self-abandonment is unsustainable leadership.”

Your Challenge: One No, Two Weeks

The path forward isn’t complex, but it requires courage. As Brandy says, you need to practice because “anything new is work” at first, but it becomes a habit when you consistently ask, “Does this align with what I want to do?”

Nancy and Questian are committing to trying this approach. Will you? Choose one request in the next two weeks and apply Brandy’s framework. Pause. Evaluate against your priorities. Ask, “Can I do this without compromising my other commitments?”

If the answer is no, practice saying, “Thank you for considering me, but I cannot take this on right now.”

Then head to the She Counts LinkedIn page and share your experience. Because you’re not alone in this struggle, and you shouldn’t have to figure it out by yourself.

As poet Nayyirah Waheed writes, “I don’t say yes because I’m strong. I say no because I am.”

The accounting profession needs leaders who model sustainable excellence, not martyrdom. That transformation starts with two letters: N-O.

Ready to dive deeper? Listen to the full episode above where Nancy, Questian, and Brandy explore every nuance of moving from exhausted accommodation to strategic leadership.

When Professional Jealousy Strengthens Friendships: She Counts Season 2 Kicks Off with Raw Honesty

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“How did she get invited to this? And I didn’t get invited. I’ve been in the industry for over 20 years. Why is she more popular than I am?”

Nancy McClelland’s text to her podcast co-host Questian Telka wasn’t meant to be public. But standing before a live audience at Bridging the Gap conference in Denver, Nancy chose to share this raw moment of professional jealousy. In doing so, she showed exactly why She Counts has struck such a nerve with women in accounting.

This special Season 2 kickoff episode marks a full-circle moment. Nancy and Questian met at Bridging the Gap exactly one year ago, and that meeting sparked their friendship and Nancy’s role as a founding member of Ask a CPA. Now they’re back, recording live with guest moderator Erin Pohan of Upkeeping, LLC, who runs the Women in Accounting Visionaries and Entrepreneurs (WAVE) Conference.

The Hidden Work Behind “Real Talk”

Before sharing this vulnerability, the hosts pulled back the curtain on what it takes to create She Counts. “Mad props to anybody out there who does a podcast. It is so much work,” Nancy admitted, even though Earmark handles production. “I was delusional because Earmark is an amazing podcast production company. And I was like, ‘oh, they’re going to do all the hard work.’”

The reality hit hard. Each episode requires hours of planning, rehearsing, and outlining. It’s “like writing a session to present at Bridging the Gap,” Nancy explained. Then there’s finding sponsors (which Nancy calls “so much work”), plus the constant pressure of social media and marketing. “We feel behind all the time. Literally all the time,” she said, seeing nods from other podcasters in the audience.

So why continue? Questian has an idea: “We’re doing it for all of you and all of ourselves, of course, because this is something that we wanted and we didn’t have.”

The payoff came in unexpected ways. While Questian treasures the hour they spend recording together, Nancy was floored by listener responses. “I did not expect so many people to be coming up and saying, when you said this one thing… it made me feel less alone.”

When Your Best Friend’s Success Triggers Your Insecurities

The conversation turned deeply personal when Erin asked about putting themselves out there publicly. Nancy’s response made the room go quiet.

“I remember the first time you went to Scottsdale,” Nancy said to Questian, her voice shaking. “And I texted you, and I was like, how did you get invited to this and I didn’t get invited.” The hurt went deeper than professional disappointment. “How does she know all the cool kids? I don’t know the cool kids. The cool kids think I’m a nerd.”

These feelings connect to old wounds. Nancy mentioned being “beat up in the locker room” and feeling like everyone was against her in high school. But instead of letting jealousy fester, she took it to therapy.

Her therapist’s response changed everything: “Nancy, do you want what she has?” When Nancy said yes, the therapist explained, “So that’s what envy is. Emotions aren’t inherently positive or negative. It is just a fact to say, I wanted to be invited to Scottsdale. How is that a bad thing?”

The breakthrough came when Nancy texted Questian directly. “I said, hey, what’s this Scottsdale thing? How come I didn’t get invited? Did you not invite me?” Questian’s response dissolved the tension. It was her first invitation, she’d been nervous, and she hadn’t even known what she was being invited to.

“Saying out loud to her, I have envy. It changed everything,” Nancy reflected. “Jealousy doesn’t have to turn into resentment.”

Questian admitted her own jealousy, particularly watching Nancy effortlessly secure sponsorships. “I’m like, how did you do that? Of course I’m jealous.” But she channels it differently: “I just watch her and I’m like, I want to be able to do that.”

Everyone Has “Imposter Syndrome,” Which Means No One’s an Imposter

When Questian mentioned she “suffers” from imposter syndrome, Nancy pounced: “Is it a disease? Are you the only person who has this horrible disease?”

She asked the live audience who experiences imposter syndrome. Nearly every hand went up—the same result Questian got at her Scaling New Heights panel. Nancy’s point was sharp: “If literally everyone in this room raised their hand, then is this a syndrome that we have? Or are these just imposter feelings? The way we feel jealous sometimes, the way we feel happy sometimes?”

Her conclusion: “Nobody needs to be medicated for something that literally everyone in the entire universe has. The weirdos who don’t feel imposter syndrome are the ones who should be medicated for not having any self-awareness whatsoever.”

Both hosts revealed ongoing insecurities that seem absurd given their achievements. Nancy, at 53, regularly speaking on major stages and running successful ventures, confessed: “I am constantly terrified that people will think I’m a rookie. I’m still convinced that I am 17 years old, and this is the first time I’ve ever done anything.”

Questian’s insecurity centers on credentials. “I’m not a CPA. I don’t have my CPA license,” she admitted. People question her expertise: “Oh, so you’re not an accountant? And I’m like, no, I’m an accountant. Like, I know my shit, but I haven’t gotten my license yet.”

The morning of the recording, she received a text about North Carolina potentially removing the master’s degree requirement for CPA licensure. Her colleague’s message: “Go get it, girl.”

Creating Ripple Effects Through Vulnerability

The power of shared struggles became clear through specific stories. Nancy described a friend who recently suffered her second stroke. “She said, driving back and forth to her doctor’s appointments, she listens to She Counts and she feels less alone.”

Erin’s story shows how one genuine interaction can spark movements. Last year at Bridging the Gap, she knew no one. But Nancy “turned her entire body toward me, looked me in the eye with genuine curiosity and said, ‘I want to know you too.’” That interaction inspired Erin to create the WAVE Conference, with the next one scheduled for May 15, 2026.

Body image struggles surfaced when asked directly. Questian, despite being thin, faced childhood bullying about being “anorexic” and having “giant bug eyes.” More disturbing: “I can think of three times where a man in a superior position to me has made comments about my body at work.”

Nancy shared how she helped her friend Brittany Brown overcome fear about keynoting at a major conference because of her weight. “The people who are in that room are not there to judge you,” Nancy told her. “They’re going because they see who’s speaking before they go. They see the name. They see the picture. If they don’t want to be there, they just won’t be there.”

The gratitude comes full circle. After Aileen Gilpin posted about how She Counts made her feel less alone, Nancy found herself drawing strength from that message during her mother’s nursing home transition. “She’s thanking us for doing what we’re doing. But the note she wrote totally changed my week.”

The Permission to Be Human

Nancy shared her biggest fear about the podcast: “I’m terrified that people will listen to this and they’ll be like, who does Nancy think she is? Just grabbing that mic again?” She knows some see her as “too much,” “intimidating,” or “attention seeking.”

“I’ve been in therapy for it because it is hard,” she admitted. But she’s clear about why she continues to show up and speak up. “I needed this when I was younger. I need it today. I need to feel like I’m not alone, and I don’t want anybody else to feel alone.”

Her mantra, from Marianne Williamson, guides her: “When we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”

For anyone in the early stages of starting their own practice, Nancy offers this truth: “Nobody got a rule book. It’s not just you who are making it up as you go along. We are literally all making up what running a practice looks like, we are making up what being an adult looks like.”

Questian’s advice is simpler but equally powerful: “Trust your gut. Always.”

The episode closes with Randy’s updated wisdom from his father: “You can do anything that you set your positive mind to.” But as this conversation proves, a positive mind isn’t one without doubts, jealousy, or fear. It’s one that shares these feelings openly and transforms them into connection.


Listen to the full episode of the She Counts podcast, follow She Counts Podcast’s LinkedIn page, and share underneath this episode what you feel women in accounting most need to hear. But through this raw, unscripted hour, the hosts already provided the answer: Women need to hear that their struggles are normal, their feelings are valid, and they’re not alone.

Three Women Are Redefining Success in Accounting by Breaking Every Conference Rule

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When Questian Telka attended her first accounting conference—Cindy Schroeder’s Bookkeeping Buds retreat—she discovered something unexpected. Instead of vendor pitches and surface-level networking, she found genuine connection. Watching Carla Caldwell speak, Telka pictured herself on that stage for the first time. She met Nancy McClelland, who later became her podcast co-host. Most importantly, she learned the conferences that transform careers aren’t always the ones with 5,000 attendees. Sometimes they’re intimate gatherings where you can let down your guard and actually be yourself.

In this episode of She Counts, McClelland and Telka sit down with three women reshaping the conference landscape: Erin Pohan, creator of WAVE Seattle; Sharrin Fuller, chair of AFWA’s Women Who Count; and Madeline Reeves, founder of Advisory Amplified. Together, they explore how women-led conferences fill gaps that mainstream events have ignored for years.

Meet the Women Behind the Movement

Pohan launched WAVE Seattle after attending Bridging the Gap 2024 – an unusually small accounting conference focused on mental health and sustainability in accounting; she and McClelland met there. WAVE (Women in Accounting Visionaries and Entrepreneurs) brings together 100 firm owners each May in Seattle. The next gathering is May 15, 2026, and it’s already a third sold out.

Fuller chairs Women Who Count, put on by the Accounting and Financial Women’s Alliance (AFWA). This national conference draws everyone from college students to retirees. This year’s conference is October 22-24 in Mesa, Arizona, and they’re expecting their biggest turnout yet—350 attendees. Fuller also has a book, “Unfollow the Rules,” launching the following week at Intuit Connect.

Reeves created Advisory Amplified, a six-city tour focused on hands-on advisory training. Starting September 23rd in Seattle, the tour hits LA, Chicago, Austin, Atlanta, and Boston. Each stop partners with local “hometown hosts” to keep momentum going after the event leaves town.

What connects these three conferences? They’re all deliberately small, intentionally intimate, and designed to create real relationships rather than just exchange business cards.

Where Being Real Is Professional

McClelland describes what makes these gatherings different: “There was a sense of safety. We could share our experiences, fears and self-doubts, and sharing those things really encourages bonding.”

This shift from hiding struggles to sharing them creates breakthrough moments. At WAVE Seattle, Pohan witnessed one during a peer strategy session about loneliness. “I had to take the stage right after that, and I just had these tears well up because I’m like, ‘me too. You’re not alone.’ I think every woman in that room felt that moment together.”

The communication style at these conferences is noticeably different. Fuller, who spent years in male-dominated venture capital before chairing Women Who Count, puts it bluntly. “With the men you need to scream to be heard. And with the women: if you scream, you won’t be heard.”

These conferences tackle what Pohan calls the “messy middle”—that challenging space where firm owners feel stuck between starting and scaling. Topics considered “too emotional” for mainstream conferences take center stage. Fuller asks the question many women face: “How do we get to that table while being ourselves without everybody saying, ‘oh, they’re just emotional’?”

The answer isn’t suppressing emotion or copying masculine styles. When one attendee heard Fuller speak about transitioning from employee to entrepreneur, she didn’t just take notes. She quit her job and started a firm helping others with burnout and balance. That’s what happens when conferences address real challenges instead of surface topics.

Moving from Inspiration to Action

Reeves discovered a common problem at mainstream conferences. A woman on an escalator told her, “I just feel like I’m drinking from a fire hose of inspiration and ideas, but I don’t really know how to bring these back and put them into practice inside of my firm.”

Advisory Amplified addresses this with workbooks designed like vinyl records that slide out of sleeves—a playful nod to their “Warped Tour for accountants” theme. Each session includes hands-on exercises and a “resource playlist” with templates attendees can implement immediately.

These conferences also upend traditional vendor participation. Instead of relegating sponsors to expo halls, they’re positioned as knowledge partners. Reeves, who worked with companies like Fathom, Avalara, and Intuit, explains, “I would be working with thousands of firms at a time, and so my visibility into what was working and what wasn’t was much more macro than people inside an individual firm.”

The conferences tackle harsh realities that other events avoid. Take pricing. While traditional conferences offer formulas, women-led events dig deeper. Reeves points out, “Nobody talks about our scarcity mentality, systemic barriers that impact how we think about money, or the ways the wage gap shapes women to think we should charge less.”

They also address personal realities. Reeves openly discusses how she “had to make the decision to choose my company over my marriage.” She notes that many female CEOs are divorced or in second marriages, and those who are married “have had to do a lot of work to ensure they have a partnership that isn’t operating off traditional gender roles.”

Even technology education takes on new meaning. At WAVE, Twyla Verhelst’s AI session emphasized why women must experiment with these tools now, because AI is “directly learning from the information and inputs we put in.” If women don’t shape its development, the technology will evolve without their perspectives. This session inspired Telka to invite Verhelst onto the She Counts podcast to discuss the topic further.

Building Networks That Actually Last

Unlike conferences that end when you leave, these events create ongoing communities. WAVE Seattle runs Zoom happy hours before and after the event. “It’s never just about the day of the event,” Pohan explains. Pre-event sessions help attendees arrive knowing faces, while post-event gatherings ensure insights become action.

Women Who Count takes a radical approach to inclusivity. Fuller made a bold decision: “Every event we have is for sponsors, exhibitors, everybody. There’s no sign up sheet.” This eliminates the system where celebrities get exclusive invites while newcomers are shut out. “What about the quiet girl in the corner that deserves to be there too?” Fuller asks.

Advisory Amplified partners with hometown hosts at each stop. These are local firms who keep the energy going after the tour moves on. They exclusively work with minority-owned local businesses and donate merchandise proceeds to the AICPA scholarship fund, addressing economic barriers to credentials.

These connections create lasting impact. McClelland shares an example: “There’s an amazing tax attorney who, it turns out, lives a few blocks away. And she and I have been friends ever since the first Women Who Count conference I attended.”

Perhaps most importantly, these conferences dismantle the competition myth. Fuller recalls Darren Root’s observation: “All of you own firms and take similar clients, but you almost never compete for the same client at the same time.” Now, when clients don’t fit her practice, she sends them to colleagues whose services match better.

This collaborative mindset changes everything. As Fuller describes, “When you feel that competitiveness from someone, you want to reach out and befriend them and teach them that’s not what we do. We are all friends now.”

The Future Is Intimate, Not Massive

WAVE Seattle caps attendance at 100. Women Who Count limits registration to 350. Advisory Amplified keeps each stop to 100. This approach ensures real connections over business card collections.

McClelland and Telka are bringing She Counts to Women Who Count with a two-hour live recording session on the main stage. The topic? Sexual harassment in the workplace, with an attorney and an HR expert as guests. Not material you’d see at a typical accounting conference.

What makes this movement revolutionary is the courage to acknowledge that traditional models have been failing women for decades. When conferences prioritize vulnerability over vendor halls, implementation over inspiration, and community over competition, they have the power to transform a profession.

Ready to experience the difference? Listen to the full podcast episode to hear how Pohan, Fuller, and Reeves are reshaping professional growth and discover which conference might catalyze your own transformation.

As McClelland and Telka remind us in every episode: if you’ve ever felt like you’re the only one, you’re not. And you don’t have to figure it out alone.

Whether you join WAVE Seattle’s pre-conference Zoom happy hours, experience Women Who Count’s radical inclusivity, or dive into Advisory Amplified’s hands-on workbooks, you’ll find what mainstream conferences have been missing: a community of women who understand that real professional growth requires real human connection.

Visit the She Counts LinkedIn page to share what you’d like to see at conferences for and by women. The organizers are listening… and more importantly, they’re acting on what they hear.

Why This Firm Owner Woke Up Unable to Move After Planning Her Path to $3 Million

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Picture being six months pregnant, climbing a ladder—not stairs, a ladder—in slingback heels to reach your desk in a famous New York fashion stylist’s loft. For most people, this would be a wake-up call about workplace safety. For Justine Lackey, it became the spark that pioneered virtual bookkeeping in the early 1990s, using FedEx, zip drives, and messengers to revolutionize an entire industry before online banking even existed.

In this episode of She Counts, hosts Nancy McClelland and Questian Telka welcome Lackey, a true trailblazer who built and sold a successful bookkeeping firm while challenging every assumption about what business success should look like. As McClelland shares in her introduction, Lackey is “a devoted mother to three and mentor and coach in her incubator program for bookkeepers and accountants growing their firms.”

When Your Body Knows What Your Mind Won’t Admit

“I’m an accidental entrepreneur,” Lackey explains early in the conversation. She landed in bookkeeping through a roommate’s invitation and never planned to build what she calls “the H&R Block of bookkeeping firms.” Without a college degree (she didn’t finish until 2009, well after she established her firm, Good Cents Management) or corporate experience, she lacked the traditional frameworks most firm owners bring to their businesses.

This lack of traditional structure had consequences. “Everybody says, ‘I wanna be successful,’ but that’s ambiguous,” Lackey says. “You have to get into the details of it. I wanna make $250,000 a year, or $500,000 a year. I wanna work 20 hours. I wanna have a team of five.” Without this clarity, she found herself swept along by what she identifies as cultural pressure to constantly expand.

The breaking point came during an Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) planning session with her team. Together, they mapped out a roadmap to $3 million in revenue. The math was clear: seven to nine bookkeeping teams with redundancy meant 14 to 18 bookkeepers. Add client service managers and a true integrator or COO, and they’d need approximately 28 employees.

“The energy in the room was like, yeah, woo!” Lackey recalls. “Like when you’re at conference world and you’re walking on hot coals.” Everyone left excited, including Lackey—until the next morning.

“I woke up and I literally could not move my right shoulder,” she shares. The pain was so severe her massage therapist couldn’t even work through the tension. “What is this weight on your shoulders?” the therapist asked. As Lackey recounted the previous day’s planning, the connection became clear. This wasn’t an injury; it was her body rejecting a path that violated her values.

The Hard Conversation Nobody Wants to Have

Recognizing she didn’t want to build a 28-person company meant facing her excited team with a complete reversal. “That’s ethical leadership in action,” Lackey explains. “That’s hard conversations.”

Lackey returned to her team with honesty, “It was really exciting and I believe this can be done. But at the end of the day, this is my life. I don’t wanna do that.”

“It’s terrifying to put your tail between your legs,” she admits. But as Telka points out, “Admitting that you have taken a wrong turn builds a lot of respect.”

This moment revealed a deeper truth about integrity. “We often talk about integrity in relation to other people,” Lackey notes, “but we don’t talk about integrity in relation to ourselves. When we’re out of alignment with integrity, that causes inner conflict and stress.”

Why Growing Sideways Beats Growing Up

The conversation then turns to a concept that challenges everything the industry teaches about success: lateral growth versus vertical growth.

“Whenever people on LinkedIn talk about having a successful firm, they always talk about revenue,” McClelland observes. “They almost never, ever, ever talk about profit or net income margins.”

Telka adds her favorite quote, “Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity.”

Lackey explains the difference. “Vertical growth is the most common type of growth people discuss—raising your revenue number and client acquisition. Those are really sexy numbers.” But lateral growth—the systems, processes, technology, and team development—”requires patience. It is very detailed, hard work.”

The challenge is that small firms can’t do both simultaneously. “There are very few people, particularly in smaller firms, who can do this all at once,” Lackey emphasizes. “So you need to make a choice.”

Her choice involved intentional constraints that seemed counterintuitive. She worked exclusively with QuickBooks Online, turning away Xero users even when they begged. She refused wholesale clients with inventory because she “hated counting bits and bobs and COGS.” These weren’t limitations; they were strategic decisions to build deep expertise.

Even technology decisions followed this principle. When Good Cents invested months implementing a new practice management system that the team hated, they made a shocking choice: abandon it entirely and return to Google Sheets. “Sometimes lo-fi is hi-fi,” Lackey explains. “Technology platforms are like people, and not all people are your people.”

The Blindfold Moment That Changed Everything

Perhaps the most powerful part of the conversation comes when Lackey shares how she discovered her business was actually a sellable asset. “When you live in a scarcity-based poverty mentality,” she explains, “it is hard for you to see a different reality for yourself.”

During one particularly frustrating period, she vented to a designer friend, “I’m so frustrated. I just wanna quit.”

“But you could just sell it,” the designer replied casually.

“Sell what?” Lackey asked, genuinely confused.

“It’s like I was blindfolded and somebody snatched the blindfold off,” she recalls. The designer pointed out the obvious: recurring revenue, strong operations, great clients. “You’re a great business. You could sell it.”

This revelation sent Lackey on a research journey. She devoured “Built to Sell” by John Warrillow in a single day and discovered firms were selling for about one times annual revenue. Her firm was worth more than her 960-square-foot cottage.

“I couldn’t even see what was possible for myself,” she admits.

When she eventually sold Good Cents in 2023, 28 potential buyers courted her. The relationships she’d built—including one client who’d been with her 22 years and had hosted her baby shower— created incredible value. “Relationships are assets,” Lackey emphasizes, “even if we can’t line item them on a balance sheet.”

The Secret Every Firm Owner Needs to Hear

Near the end of the conversation, Lackey shares what she calls “a secret that nobody talks about.” Every firm owner wants help.

This insight applies whether you run your own firm or work in someone else’s. “When you can come into a conversation and say, ‘I really like working here and I really like the work I’m doing, but these are the recurring problems and this is the solution I propose’—that takes courage,” she explains.

McClelland adds her own experience, “My best mentor ever taught me that important lesson. She said, ‘Come to me with solutions, not problems.’”

Your Next Step Toward Intentional Growth

Lackey now channels these lessons through her Modern Firm Challenge, a free five-day program running one hour per day. “My personal mission statement is that I help the world by helping people,” she shares. The challenge focuses on the biggest pain points: onboarding, monthly close, pricing, and increasingly, technology and AI.

“You’re not gonna fix all the things,” she tells participants. “You’re gonna look at the lessons and say, this is what I’m gonna focus on right now.”

McClelland predicts some firm owners might initially resist. “You’re telling me I need to slow down to speed up? I don’t have five days to take off to do this.”

But Lackey’s response is practical: “The classes are only an hour a day. We run them from one to two.” Plus, they record everything for those who can’t attend live.

The results speak for themselves. As Lackey notes, “I’m not here to tell you you can build a million dollar firm overnight. I’m here to tell you you can do whatever you wanna do, but it’s going to take time.”

Permission to Choose Your Own Path

The conversation closes with McClelland sharing a powerful quote from author Laurie Perez: “I reserve the right to evolve. What I think and feel today is subject to revision tomorrow.”

This perfectly captures what Lackey has given listeners: permission to have clarity about what they want and to change their minds when their goals no longer serve them.

Ready to build the business you actually want? Sign up to get on the VIP list for Lackey’s next Modern Firm Challenge at justinelackey.com/register. You can also find her on LinkedIn or join her free Facebook group, The Incubator, with about 4,000 members building community together.

As this episode of She Counts proves, building with intention rather than endless expansion might just be the key to creating the valuable, sustainable business you’ve always dreamed of, even if you didn’t know it was possible.

The Real Reason Your Female Colleagues Keep Disappearing from Leadership

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You’re watching your female colleagues disappear. One by one, the talented women who started their accounting careers alongside you vanish from the partnership track. When you look around the conference table at senior leadership meetings, you realize that although women make up half of all new hires, only 19% of firm partners are women.

In a recent episode of the She Counts podcast, “Still Under Glass,” hosts Questian Telka and Nancy McClelland tackle this leadership crisis head-on. But they’re not just naming the problem. They’re offering examples and solutions and calling on firm leaders to make fundamental cultural shifts.

The Pipeline Problem That Isn’t

Something dramatic happens between new CPAs entering the profession and reaching partnership, and it’s not a lack of talent.

Unfortunately, this problem isn’t unique to accounting. Across business sectors, women hold only 14% of executive roles. But accounting starts with gender parity, making the difference even more stark. “We know that we have 50% as women, and we know they’re talented,” Telka emphasizes. “The issue is that the profession is losing women mid-career, not because they aren’t capable, but because the system really isn’t designed for us to stay.”

Making the Invisible Visible

Telka shares that a male colleague recently told her he wants to help create positive change but doesn’t understand the issues or how to help. To eliminate that excuse, we need to spell out exactly what’s happening and what allies can do about it.

The biases start small but compound quickly. Studies show men interrupt women 2.5 times more often than women interrupt men. Women are routinely asked to take notes in meetings or organize office celebrations, rather than men. They receive vague feedback like, “you’re doing great, keep it up,” while men more often get specific, actionable guidance tied to promotions.

McClelland adds, “Women of color have a much harder time. There are many different kinds of privilege.” These biases get disguised with phrases like “she’s just not quite the right fit,” a convenient way to mask discrimination that’s hard to pinpoint.

However, recognizing bias is just the first step. Three critical barriers keep women under glass: the motherhood penalty, the flexibility trap, and the sponsorship gap.

The Motherhood Penalty: Same Event, Opposite Outcomes

The data is jaw-dropping. Mothers are considered 12% less committed to their jobs than non-mothers, while fathers are seen as 5% more committed than non-fathers. This perception gap translates directly into salary differences. Mothers receive starting salaries 7.9% lower than childless women and 8.6% lower than fathers.

“The exact same life event, becoming a parent, becomes either a career accelerator or a career killer depending solely on your gender,” the hosts note.

Telka shares a story about her ex-husband taking their son to a playground. When his brother asked how he felt about “babysitting” while the women went shopping, he immediately corrected him: “I’m not babysitting. This is my child.”

That single word—babysitting—captures everything. When fathers care for their children, they’re going above and beyond. When mothers do it, it’s just expected. Worse, it’s considered evidence that they’re not serious about their jobs.

This bias affects daily decisions that slowly strangle women’s careers. Women get passed over for major accounts based on assumptions about their availability. “They’re thinking: you’re a mom, you don’t want to have a larger account,” Telka explains. Instead of asking what support women need to keep advancing, firms quietly write them off.

The Flexibility Trap: Benefits That Destroy Careers

Many firms advertise flexible schedules and family-friendly policies. But there’s a massive gap between having these policies and creating a culture where women can use them without killing their career trajectory.

“Don’t say you’re going to give unlimited vacation or flexible schedules and then expect your employees not to use it,” Telka warns. “Real flexibility isn’t just a policy; it’s putting it in practice.”

McClelland shares an infuriating story that shows this trap in action. A lawyer friend, raising two children alone while her daughter faced serious health issues, negotiated a 25% pay cut for more flexibility. Despite maintaining her full workload and delivering the same results while working more from home, that pay cut became permanent. Future raises were calculated from her reduced salary, compounding the penalty year after year.

Meanwhile, another friend’s male boss responded completely differently to her caregiving needs. “You participate and contribute more than anybody here. I know you’ll get the work done. Take whatever time you need.”

Same situation. Completely different outcomes.

The flexibility trap extends to hiring practices. Most larger firms refuse to consider part-time senior-level roles, demanding 60-plus-hour workweeks as the baseline for showing commitment. “We could hire more women who are highly competent, highly skilled,” Telka argues. She left her position partly because there was no opportunity to work part-time while caring for her son.

The hosts challenge the entire premise of equating hours with value. “The bragging should be, ‘’I’m still hugely successful, and I’ve only had to work ten hours this week because I’m so efficient,’'” Telka suggests. Instead, the profession celebrates whoever logs the most hours, regardless of actual accomplishments.

The Sponsorship Gap: Beyond Coffee and Advice

While firms love their mentorship programs, women need sponsorship, and there’s a crucial difference. Mentors give advice. Sponsors give opportunities.

“Women need advocates who promote them even when they’re not in the room,” Telka explains. This means giving them the opportunity to work with big clients, putting them forward for promotions, and actively using influence on their behalf.

The “feedback gap” shows how this plays out. Telka noticed that men at her firm received specific, actionable feedback: complete these certifications, lead this type of project, and you’ll be ready for promotion. Women got vague encouragement that sounded supportive but functioned as a career ceiling.

McClelland’s experience breaking into professional speaking illustrates the power of sponsorship. She had no idea what to charge and accepted far less than market rates. When Telka learned what McClelland was charging, her response was direct: “You need to charge a lot more.” That single conversation of transparent peer mentorship immediately increased McClelland’s earning potential. But sponsorship is that next step: vouching for her quality of work to professional connections who were ready to pay market rates.

Because women need more than peer support. They need people—espectially men—in leadership roles actively using their privilege for change. This means interrupting when women themselves are interrupted, questioning why Jennifer’s client portfolio is smaller than John’s, and advocating for women who aren’t in the room.

“Don’t wait for women to ask for a promotion,” McClelland urges. Women are far less likely to self-advocate, since they have been socialized to be “nice and kind and warm” rather than assertive. “Intentionally promote women. Just because they’re not asking doesn’t mean they’re not qualified or don’t deserve it.”

From Awareness to Action

The good news? Change is already happening. Jason Ackerman’s firm has achieved 80% women employees with equal gender representation in leadership. Some firms tie partner bonuses to diversity outcomes. A male partner who took paternity leave shifted his entire firm’s culture simply by modeling the behavior.

The solutions are practical and achievable:

  • Track account assignments to ensure equity
  • Stop asking for prior salaries that perpetuate pay gaps
  • Provide bias interruption training for everyone
  • Create revenue-sharing models that reward value over hours
  • Hire skilled women seeking part-time or flexible roles
  • Make pay ranges transparent within organizations
  • Model the behavior you want to see

Companies like Luma Accounting have incorporated policies like these into their firm culture with such successful results that they started the Women+Workplaces community to connect talented women seeking flexible work with firms smart enough to recognize that 30 brilliant hours beat 60 mediocre ones.

“Culture is created based on what we celebrate and what we reinforce,” Telka notes. The profession rewards visibility and hours logged… but it should be rewarding impact, innovation, and results.

The Business Case for Breaking the Glass

When firms lose half their talent pipeline to preventable cultural barriers, they lose experienced professionals who could transform their practices. Women who navigate personal challenges often become more adaptable, empathetic leaders.

“My personal family struggles have made me a much more resilient individual and a more compassionate person and leader,” Telka shares. McClelland agrees, noting that her medical challenges made her more understanding and better able to support her team.

Telka shared a quote from Michelle Obama, “Strong men, men who are truly role models, don’t need to put down women to make themselves feel powerful. People who are truly strong lift others up. People who are truly powerful bring others together.”

The leadership gap in accounting won’t close on its own. But with awareness, commitment, and intentional action from everyone—not just women—the profession can finally move beyond keeping women under glass.

Whether you’re running a firm or just starting your career, you have the power to be part of this shift. Listen to the full episode for more insights, strategies, and an honest conversation about creating real change in accounting.

The hosts also invite you to join the conversation on the She Counts LinkedIn page by sharing your own stories of workplace bias and solutions that work. Recognizing the glass ceiling is just the first step. Breaking it requires all of us.