Back in South Africa, when I first started in my accounting studies, my real reason, my real ‘Why’, could be summed up in one single word.
Freedom.
I wanted freedom.
And I knew that if I studied to become a chartered accountant, got a great job and eventually partnership, I would be well on my way to that goal.
Or that was what I thought.
Reality turned out to be slightly different.
I studied hard, all of that studying done on a part-time basis from day one, passing every single exam over all those years, until the final results of those board exams came out and I very proudly earned myself that piece of paper that said I was a chartered accountant.
In my exuberance on that day, there was one thought loud and clear in my head:
‘I made it! I am on my way to freedom!’
I had achieved my dream.
Or had I?
After my initial excitement had died down, I looked around me and realised that ‘freedom’ wasn’t anywhere to be found.
Yes, I had a high paying job. But time — that was something of which I had very little.
Money has a nasty habit. The more I earned, the more I spent (at the time). Which really left my net result at essentially the same point — poor, and therefore not ‘free’.
Despite what I had hoped for, despite all my hard work, I had not achieved freedom, and it was still far out of my reach, which set me off on a journey to find freedom and to help others find it too.
In 2003, me and my family moved to the UK, and I decided to become a business coach. I very quickly learned that I knew very little, which led me on a journey of learning from and apprenticing to some of the top business coaches in the world.
In 2006, I opened a business coaching company based on a model that I developed and the results were quite astounding.
Having worked with over 300 small to medium-sized businesses, helping them to grow and helping the owners on their journey to find freedom, in 2011 I decided to come full circle and work exclusively with accountancy practice owners (with turnovers ranging from £150K-£4M).
Here’s the thing…
Freedom is totally and utterly possible for any practice owner.
Absolutely.
Both freedom of money as well as freedom of time.