What are some surprising achievements in your own life that you never initially aimed for? How did you reach them?

In this episode, I reflect on my unexpected journey from a modest beginning as an everyday accountant to becoming a shareholder and managing partner at a regional CPA firm. I share my insights and personal stories that reveal how I overcame self-doubt and embraced opportunities I once thought were impossible.

Inspiring Takeaways

Scaling Heights: I talk about my evolution from just wanting a job with a paycheck in 1988 to managing a significant book of business and directing a women's initiative that holds an annual conference with 250-300 women.

Valuable Lessons: I emphasize the importance of viewing one's journey with gratitude and learning from each experience, whether it's a success or a failure. My path was filled with valuable lessons, mindset changes, and the importance of embracing opportunities — even those I initially deterred.

Support Systems: I talk about how critical support systems have been in my journey. My biggest fan, my husband Rob Collins, provides unwavering support and encouragement, which plays a pivotal role in my career growth and personal development.

Learning from Others: I speak about the influence of various individuals, some I have never met but learned from, such as Lady Gaga and Queen Elizabeth. Their diverse approaches to life and work provide me with different perspectives that enriches my own journey.

Future Legacy: I also touch on the importance of legacy and mentoring the next generation. I believe in empowering younger generations to continue the work she started and the importance of letting them take the lead while providing guidance.

Inspiring Moments

00:00 Unexpected Success: Betty Collins' Journey

06:37 "Mentorship: See Potential, Don't Settle"

08:12 "Working With, Not For"

13:01 "Choosing Restoration Over Ruin"

16:14 Embracing Growth and Evolution

18:07 Legacy and Resilience Realized

23:19 Learning from Queens and Talent

27:05 Inspiration from Ageless Performance

28:29 Embrace Courage in Action

Forward our podcast along to other Inspiring Women in your life.

This is THE podcast that advances women toward economic, social, and political achievement.

Hosted by Betty Collins, CPA, and Director at Brady Ware and Company. Betty also serves as the Committee Chair for Empowering Women, and Director of the Brady Ware Women’s Initiative.

Each episode is presented by Brady Ware and Company, committed to empowering women to go their distance in the workplace and at home.

For more information, Brady Ware and Company.

Remember to follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.  And forward our podcast along to other Inspiring Women in your life.

Brady Ware and Company

If you would have told me, Betty Collins, you will be a shareholder of a regional CPA firm with 4 offices and a 180 employees and be in the top 200 of the country. And if you were to tell me that you would be the managing partner of one of those offices for, well, 40 plus people, if you were have told me that you'll be elected to the board of directors and you'll be the first woman to do be on that board, If you were to tell me that you're gonna direct a women's initiative where they would have an annual conference with 250 to 300 women, and we would be on our 79th podcast, and we would be in 20 states in that podcast and over a 1000000 hits, I would have just gone there will be no way I will go to those heights in my career. I'm an accountant. I'm an everyday person, and I still really am an accountant and a everyday person. Right? But it would be amazing to me if all of you looked at your journey and you look back and you see these are the heights I was able to get to. These were the heights I was able to climb. It would be pretty cool. Because not only on top of that, I am your everyday accountant with clients.

I have a fairly sizable book of business and and people I a team of 10 that run that book. I'm directing, a division now within Bernie Ware. I mean, all these things, I I don't think I would have ever told you that I was gonna scale those heights. I would have kinda laughed at you back in 1988 when you when I was starting my career in accounting, but it did. I started with a small firm in 88 and my journey at that time was get a job, get your paycheck, raise your kids, have the house, get the second house, do all the things that we think are in that that season of life, especially when you're in your twenties. But really my journey's been full of very, great circumstances and people, and I've learned a lot of lessons and I've applied them. And I want to share those with you today as you're trying to scale those new heights in your life. I want you to hear my journey a little bit of where and where I started and where I am right now.

And everybody's scaling is different. Right? It it doesn't mean you have to get to, I've gotta be the shareholder of a company or I've gotta have this many clients. Scaling your heights can be set different things for different people. But I have had some really, really good stuff. And sometimes when I talk about my journey, the emotions that I have, because I just look and go, wow, I can't believe that I got to do that. Even though they were uphill climbs and there there were a lot of mindset changes. But at the end of the day, it's full of failures, it's full of success, it's full of rebounds, and it's full of resets, but it's mine. It's my journey.

It's my scaling. It's my client. And yours should be too. It's not somebody else's. But we're not gonna go back, fortunately, all the way to 1988, but I do wanna share some lessons that I have learned, and I hope it inspired you today too as you're in your journey. 1st, the first thing I would tell you is how much do you say never? Because I did that a lot in my the beginning years of my of my journey. Everything was about, I'm never gonna do this. Right? And when I think about that, sometimes I when I hear myself say never, I stop and I go, what am I giving up? What is the opportunity that I'm not going to to have because I've really got a mindset of never? I was never gonna use my accounting degree.

I was never gonna become a CPA. I certainly didn't wanna work for somebody. I wanted that guaranteed paycheck. I never wanted to be part of a larger company and yet here I am. I did all those things, and those really those things made my opportunities. So when you're saying never in your journey, you're not maybe gonna scale where you could because guess what? It's probably your opportunity. Maybe you're just scared of it. Maybe you don't know how to deal with it.

Maybe you don't even know what you don't know. Right? But I would tell you when you say never, think of the opportunity, maybe there isn't one. It's okay. I look back and I'm really fortunate, though, who I worked for or did I work with them? And I'll explain that in a minute. I have a podcast called My 5 Guys. So I did have 5 different individuals over my journey that were very impactful. The first person was a guy by the name of Austin Swallow. He was my first job out in New York, Rochester, New York.

And I managed a cafeteria for, college students. Nobody wins in a cafeteria on a college campus. Okay? But I really did love it. I mean it was a fun job. But what made it great was Austin, he was a person who I'd worked through with in the college years as the hostess of the president's dining room at my local college that I went to. And we be we had a great friendship, but he was so easy to get along with and respect because of how he lived his life. And I remember, you know, I'm one of those people who grew up in church but don't know God. I was that person for a long time, but he was a person who lived out his faith first even though I probably didn't at that time in my life.

But I always looked back on that, and he was an influencer in that way. But he also then family was before the college cafeteria. Okay. So faith and family dominated his his that was his why, that was his heart, that was his soul. And, I look back and I'm grateful he lived that out. He was one of the guys that I worked for and he showed me that that was the moral compass he lived by in all of his decision making and he was consistent with it. The second person I worked for that I came back to Ohio, I worked for Randy Nips and he was my parents' next door neighbor. We were like a big community.

And, he was an accountant and he had an accounting firm and I said, look. I wanna come back to Ohio, but I really am not gonna use my accounting degree. I just need a job to get back here. He goes, great. And, that was in 1988 and by 2000, which is 12 years later, I was really running the firm. I was doing all the things and, but he always valued you as an employee. His employees were his greatest asset, And it's how he had a lot of success all through his years because he would take a company, value those people in place, leverage to those folks, and then they would eventually buy him out. That was kind of what he did for a long time.

But so he was that original owner that I worked with and he the the value of assets and the value of people in your life, he really displayed that and at the same time made money. Right? Did all of those things. So then after Randy Nips, Gary Brown came along and he, worked, along with it and he he was an industry specialist. We immediately hit it off. We immediately got it well, but he was the one who said to me, you act like an owner. Why can't you be 1? Why don't you want that? What is it gonna take to get you there? And he encouraged me to not just settle. So here I have someone who's about his faith in his family, I have someone who values the people around him, and I have someone saying to me, see what you don't see in yourself and don't settle. I mean, how fortunate I was in meeting those folks and working for them or with them.

We'll talk about that in a minute. But I was never going to do much more than that, and so we settled into a great practice. I did get my CPA. I did become that owner in 2000, and we built a great practice over 10 years and guess what happens? That large firm that I never wanted to work for, there we go. So they started pursuing us a little bit and 2 gentlemen, Jim Kiser and Brian Carr, became those last 2 in the Five Guys. And what they saw was not your typical accountant, not your typical big four expert. They didn't see any of those things. They saw Betty Collins with energy, passion, and how can we take that to to into the firm and utilize that.

And, of course, their vision was for a women's initiative. So I had people who really had core things that were outside of accounting, outside of journeys, and the last person that I talked with about this podcast, which was Jim and Brian, they said you didn't work for us, you worked with us. So even after all these years, I still had that mindset in my journey that I was working for people not with people. And that just spoke largely to me. It's all part of how you scale your heights when you have these things, faith and your family, your core, valuing those around you, not settling and then seeing that talent is talent, use it wisely, and maybe it's not all the same. And that when you were so you have to make that decision in your career and in your journey. Are you working for people or with people? Because that's who you wanna be with. Right? The people that you work with.

You may not be the owner and, yes, there is someone you work for, but when they make you feel like you're working with them, it's pretty amazing. So I look back and I'm really fortunate and I really love the fact that I got to be with these 5 guys and that I got to work with them, and it was all part of the building years. Right? The the years that meant something. So I'm fortunate, but my only regret in all of it, and I can look back now and I want you to hear this, is that I did not see who I was, they did. Don't live there. Don't do that. You if you can't see you and you can't see your value and you can't protect you in that whole process, you will not scale the heights that you need to. My journey is really one where other people saw and now now I can finally see it looking back.

Don't don't do that. So then in all of that too, I had support systems whatever season I was in. My biggest support system and my biggest fan is Rob Collins, my husband. My first day at Bernie Ware downtown in 2,012, he said to me, go get them. And I'm like, yeah. You know, so I get there. I have the same computer, the same mouse, the same clients, the same software, all of it. But yet I was paralyzed.

I had the best office I would ever have. I could overlook and see the Scioto Mile and I could see the state capital. Wow. But yet I I was frozen. So I did the only thing I know to do, go to lunch and figure it out. And I went down the 15 floors, went and had lunch, and I just couldn't walk across the street and go back to that office. And I called Rob Collins and he said, oh, no. No.

No. No. No. You will be Betty Collins, you get in that elevator, you get back to your office, and you just do what you do, period. And so he's done that with me. I'm kind of a whiner. I am kind of high maintenance. I will tell you that.

But he's my biggest fan and he doesn't want me to settle, and he doesn't want me to not, you know, have the fulfillment and more than just survive. So now, of course, you know, I'm north of 60. Right? Look, I just know more. That's my mantra. It would be a good book actually if I was writing books. But what I can tell you as a young 60 is that seasons in the life are not meant to be reached. Like, I'm just north of 60. I'm a young 60, but but every season's different.

Don't rush them. And sometimes, you know, when we get caught up in the journey and we're going uphill the whole time, that's not a way to have a journey. That's not a way to scale. You'll wear out. So fortunately for me, I've been able to see and was able to see all along that my I wanted to enjoy the moment I was in. So my twenties were didn't look like my forties, and my thirties certainly aren't my sixties. They're all over the place, but we tend to rush them. Do not rush that in your journey.

Do not rush that in your scaling. It's a mindset, and it's a mindset of when, not if. Right? Or is it a mindset of if and not when? So how about just now, right in today? And so our careers are over a lifetime. They are not in one season only. And so you have to enjoy them all. So, you know, the twenties were for me were full of right things. I graduated from college, got married, had my kids, bought the first house. Yay.

All that done. Checklist, gone. Right? Checklist is done. My thirties though were full a lot because those kids were growing up, then the second house was needed, and and my career was finally taking off in some respects. But it was full of a lot of stuff. And unfortunately, I was scaling up and not going at a pace that was good and I burnt out for sure. And I also had a very much of a mental breakdown in life. Best thing to happen to me.

Because when you are in the ruins and everything seems ruined around you, the only thing is you either live in the ruins or you go through restoration. I chose restoration. So my twenties were full of all the right stuff. Checked the box. My thirties were full of a lot and at the end of them, I had to do a reset and a restoration where I can wallow in what I did. It's all part of the journey in scaling. Don't miss the restoration times in your life because because you will not be able then to go in your forties ready to go or in your fifties or whatever time period it is. I was really intentional though about balance.

My kids were my life. I was a single mom, but I went every game. I had every party. We have pictures from all from the one till they were 18. They still think they need a party. That kind of did stop but not totally. But I remember choosing to stay at work one night and Rob, my husband at that just took care of taking her to a game that was out of town of a small small little basketball game out of town at a school that was was in the last place. They weren't that great.

All of a sudden I said, look. That's a game I can miss. So Rob went to the game without me, which was fine. And I but when I got home and I get home and Erica's there and she's beaming and Rob's just standing looking at me because he knows I'm going to be heartbroken because it was her best game. It was the moment that I missed. So I could do more work and clear my desk and let's get this done and let's just skip something that was in that was her season, man. And I missed that one game and I didn't do that again. Because during that game, my daughter is not a front and center person.

She liked she never liked start being a starter. Every time she made the starting thing, she it made her crazy. She loved being the 6th person that went on to the floor of the basketball game because she had 3 to 5 minutes to watch the players and to watch it all. She was not that front and center. But that game, she said we and she started directing that team on the floor. The coach loved it because she came out of her shell and said we are not going to lose today. Not today. Get it together.

And they went to the, championship of that of that, at that time. They did lose the championship because that team was just better. But she played a role that night I didn't get to see. Don't miss your seasons and don't miss your moments. It's all part of the scaling. You don't need to do another 10 40. You don't need to do another whatever. So I was intentional and I loved it.

And and sometimes what ends today starts today. So my end of my thirties were this ends today and a new day is coming. And I chose to restore and reset and my forties were my best. They were the years I would look back and tell you that decade was it. I never worked harder, but I worked at things I loved and I worked at things that mattered. And because of that hard work in my forties, my fifties were just perfect. And I was able to do things in those 2 decades in my career I would have never done had I not reset, restored, re red red fill in the blank. So I was glad for that.

It's all part of scaling. You gotta be able to assess those seasons and those times. And my forties were a lot about coming to Bradyware, that bigger firm I was never going to do, that women's initiative that got started, those employees that I got to meet, women owned businesses that I got involved in. And all of a sudden then I became Betty Collins in the community and then I was able to do things like conferences and speaking engagements and this podcast. So it it's one of those things where I got to enjoy the hard work of the forties. See those twenties of checkbox and thirties of stuff didn't help me set for forties, but the forties I did differently that helped me set for 50. And, of course, now I'm 61. I'm north of 60.

Okay. I'm still trying to figure out sixties where if you wanted if you wanna know the truth. But I wanted it all, so I thought I'd have to do it all. And then I found out, no, that's not what you have to do. So my forties also started with my why. I have a very good friend who got me to read Simon Simic's book and we went through the university. When I started living on purpose and I started living on that why, man, did my life change. And, I I was grateful for that.

I didn't have to still be the same person. I didn't have to be someone who else was. And when I went from I do your QuickBooks and taxes to when the world when the when the US economy works and we can help small business and those employers be have employees that create provision for household that form communities, do you see the difference? That was my whole mindset change. So sometimes when you're journeying, you're trying to scale and you're trying to go forward, the mindset change has to come into play. It just has to. So I would say, just has to. So I was fortunate that I knew my why and I knew my purpose. So now the fifties, here we go.

I figured it out that I didn't have to do it all, but I could have it all. I it all. I figured out that resilience is not just pushing through, that resilience sometime is no, and that's the best thing you can do with resilience. My season right now, age, motivation, transition, blah blah blah. It's it's a weird time period for me because I'm enjoying the fruits of my hard work and sometimes I think I better work hard, you know, because I'm not gonna make fruits. But it's the season this season somewhat for me is about legacy and it really is about the generations behind me. The generations of the younger women, the men in my office, those 30 40 somethings, and really the women's initiative when I really got into it was really about I don't want people to experience what I've experienced. But you know what? Sometimes you need to experience those things.

Sometimes you need to feel those things because you you're not gonna learn. You're not gonna keep going. You're not gonna keep making it. But, I really got to do the women's initiative really did help me live on purpose. And from podcasting to writing stories to empowerment to the conference to all the different things that I've gotten to do through that. But the conference started in 2014 with 44 bradyware women. And last year in 2000 24, we had almost 300 women with a national speaker breakouts in a conference that's known. I would do it all again and and I'd run it by a new generation.

However, I'm still the adviser. I'm fully in control of this conference, but it really is the next generation taking over this conference. That's part of scaling. Scaling isn't holding on to the end. Scaling is leveraging to generations behind you or to the right people in place, especially if you want a legacy or and legacy isn't as much as important as what you started somebody can finish. And that's part of scaling and we don't look at it. We think it I am the only one that can do this. I will get this done.

I. I. I. I mean, when you look today at the benches that we have in our political systems, they're terrible. You know why? Because there's too many people still holding on to those positions. I don't care which party you're in. It's the same thing even in corporate America or when you're trying to sell your business or when you're trying to say, hey, I'm not gonna talk about a will and a state because, you know, I I I where it's like, man, the generations behind you, the people behind you continuing on my purpose and my task that I started. I hope that that remains and goes so that it was worth it, so that it was worth the scaling.

So my journey has not always been easy like anyone's, and I look back on those times where I did learn some lessons and one of those was I did run for office and I did lose lessons. I have a whole, I did learn lessons from I have a whole podcast on it. But in your seasons and in your times, I would I would challenge you, and this is not my strong spot, is that humility is a good thing and leading into it is a great thing because sometimes you need that humility. I probably needed the loss when I ran for city council for this reason. I realize now what it takes to to do that. I have a different respect for it. I learned about process and people and what works and doesn't. I also learned how to apply my loss to to success in the business world of these are the things that are important.

So sometimes embracing the fact, as my mother said to me, you you're not used to losing, let alone coming in last. It was a great thing that she said to me because it made it jolted me a little bit and it made me realize humility is a good thing and I'm gonna lean into it and then what am I gonna do with it when I'm when I'm there. It's all part of scaling new heights. It's all part of journey. I also learned too, and this is an overused sometimes that people get, so don't don't shut me out, but I've learned over the years that diversity is a great, great thing. And diversity isn't just one type of diversity. When I talk about that, I look at different people who have affected me that I will never know, that I will never meet, that I will never have a contact with. I only know them from a distance, but I learn from them.

And one of those is, and I won't go into detail, but I do have a whole podcast on this. It's just, there were 4 people that I really, really look up to that I've never met and never will. 1 is Lady Gaga. I was very judgmental of her very judgmental of her when I knew that she wore meat to a gala to prove a point. And then I'm over at the movie, the remake of A Star is Born, and here she is singing all these songs. I loved it. And I looked at my friend and I said, man, that woman could sing. And she goes, do you mean Lady Gaga? And I'm like, oh, is that that's her? Because I was very harsh and judgmental to her.

Missed many years of great music. Now I listen to her on the way home from work of her remix of Elton John. Fantastic talent. I'm never gonna agree with her on many things. I'm never gonna meet her. She would probably be very annoyed to meet me. She's as liberal as I am conservative. She's an artist.

I'm a CPA. We have nothing in common except she has raw talent that I get to enjoy just about every day. So leaning into what is different, leaning into someone who's different than you and going, how can I learn from that? I don't need to be agree with her to enjoy that music. The other person was Queen Elizabeth. You know, she played a role that she didn't choose chose her. And it's real easy to go, oh, well, when you're in the castle and and and you have more than one castle and you're you have I mean, I couldn't imagine having the clothes selection, let alone the jewelry selection of Queen Elizabeth. When I look at her, what inspires me and I'll never be a queen, by the way, and I'll never be a monarchy and I'll never get to do the things she's done, but guess what? I can watch her and say that's somebody who took a role that she didn't ask for and she played it well with character, with integrity, her loyal to her country and to her family and how she just did it so gracefully and made it look easy. I love that because I look at that and go, those are the characteristics we are longing for everywhere we go, loyalty, commitment, integrity, honor with a smile.

She makes it look easy. And, yeah, she has a castle and she's she's she's a billionaire and all those things, but look at the rest of the family. They didn't take it so easily. She showed that it can be done. She showed that you can live on those purposes and those characteristics and do well. I also look at a new one in my one of my favorite people on Facebook and believe me I'm not a big Facebook person of anyone I know. It's usually people I don't know. But her name is Jessie Rae.

I just love Jessie Rae. She's the mom and fan and and she has 5 kids and they're family of 7 and they're she used to say, I'm a mom of a poor to middle class family and this is how we eat. And she just gets in there and she makes these meal for her kids and she ends the video with, come on y'all, it's ready. And they all say, okay. And they come and eat. She was determined in her journey that she was not going to do what her mom did, but unfortunately she did. She got pregnant young, but she said, I'm gonna make this work and I'm gonna change generations and I'm not going to have my kids raise my kids. I'm gonna raise them and they're gonna have dinner every night and they're gonna have these things that I always wanted as a kid.

She's changing something general in in her generation. That is never easy to do. So I look at that and go, wow, she's pretty bold. And what's interesting about her is now she does her nails and she has her hair done and she's gone a different way. And guess what she does when she cooks now? Well, she's got 3 to 400000 followers on on on Facebook alone. So you know what? Now people are using her to advertise their food when she's cooking. I look at that story and go, wow. She scaled the heights a lot faster than I did at the age of 30, but she's taken something of a challenge, not a CPA shareholder.

She wants to be a really good mom and she wants her kids to have a certain home and she wants them to have foundational things in their lives. I mean, I look at that and go, I'm nothing like her. She's nothing like me, Yet I she has affected my journey and she's expected how I am scaling my heights. And my favorite I always leave to last is Aretha Franklin. I love Aretha Franklin. She passed away a few years ago, but she was quite the singer. And when I look at her, I watched a video of her with and she entertained at the Kennedy Center and and Obama was there and and Michelle was there and the the writer of the song was there and she just comes out and she's at a piano kinda doing her thing, talented to no end. But she comes out to center stage, takes off her long fur, sings like she's 20.

And that gives me encouragement to go, I can sing like I'm 60. Fortunately for you, I'm not gonna sing today, but I can do that. It's on her terms and she wouldn't if you didn't see her in the video, you wouldn't know that she was 70 something and she's still doing what she loves to do at 70. I I it gives me encouraging as I'm transitioning in this current season in my life. How do I do this? And yet at the end of the day, she sang on her own, did it her way, and the audience was at her feet standing. I don't need the audience at my feet standing maybe, but just seeing her play it out how she wants to play it out. I'm sure she never thought that one day I'll be singing in the Kennedy Center for the president of the United States. Right? But she's still doing it and she or at the time till she died.

So it's one of those things of I'll never meet her. I'm nothing like her, yet she affected how I could do. So lean in first to humility, but look at the diversity that is around you and use it to your advantage. And go, how can I learn from that? So my season right now, you know, it for me, it really is about just I'm I'm in it. I'm in the middle of it. Right? Or I'm starting it. But at least I have the lessons that I can look back and keep I can keep scaling. It's just gonna look different.

But all of us have courage in it's it's it's just a characteristics. But few of us put that courage to action and we are courageous. Very few of us, and we need more people who are courage and we only need to give our courage that we use with action, which is courageousness. We only give that to certain people in circumstances and and and situations, and and I would challenge you on it. So I'm today, I'm I'm honored just to talk about my journey. You might have heard bits and pieces of this because I want to encourage you as we head into this new year that we're embracing, we're gonna scale some new heights in our journey and we're gonna learn from those around us. And Hopefully, you can learn from some of the things I'm talking about today. My name is Betty Collins and this is my story.

This is my journey. I'm I'm going to scale heights. I hope that you are too And take the time to sit down and look back or sit the time to look and go, I'm gonna do this forward and make it count. So today, I hope you are inspired. I hope that you see what I'm talking about. I would love to to, get to know you more too. Please reach out to me, but scale heights on your terms and do it well and don't have any regrets.