Hanging with Yoda
"Martial arts have always been rife with mythology; warriors will boast, and men will make legends of their heroes, teachers, and fathers. Every martial arts has its own path to victory, to invulnerablity, to freedom from fear. If you study with this teacher, and practice the moves ten thousand times, no one can defeat you; you will never need to be afraid again. The secrets of the Ancients, the Death Touch, the one-inch punch; stories of mystical teachers who can move people without touching them. Mysticism and martial arts go hand in hand, and every school mythologizes its instructors."
- Sam Sheridan, as taken from A Fighter's Heart
Last weekend I had the pleasure of spending some time with one of my foremost professional mentors: the legendary Bernie Colpitts. I drove like a mad man on Friday--a week ago--morning to meet him in San Diego, picked him up at the airport, and then we went and saw Dave Matthew Band play that night. That "day" started at 3 AM on Friday morning and ended at 1 AM on Saturday morning, and is probably part of the reason why my body went into protest mode a few days ago. I guess I'm not 22 anymore. Regardless of the physical shut-down last weekend served as a marker as to how far I have come in my professional life.
I've spoken much about Sean Reeder, the current director of my group, and the influence he has had on me professionally. At the time when I started working under Sean, Bernie was Sean's boss. If we stick with the whole Star Wars them here, Sean would be Obi-Wan, and Bernie is Master Yoda.
Accounting, much like the martial arts, is based on a master-apprentice relationship. The gifted probably don't need a master to study under, but the great chop-socky movies aren't about gifted students. The movies and images that come to mind for me personally stick to a pretty tight schedule: an unruly student appears before a great master, their skills are non-existent--questionable at best--but their is some intangible quality that the student possesses, and the master, or roshi as the Japanese would say, agrees to train them. The master then breaks down their body through a serious of seemingly pointless physical tasks--along with their ego--they are taught the fundamentals of a fighting system, and then comes my favorite part: the training montage--where the once weak, awkward student transforms themself through the rigourous training process into a warrior. The movie then caps with the transformed student taking on a gifted, but misguided warrior and defeating them in martial combat. It's a simple formula, but it's endlessly satisfying--at least for a person in my demographic.
Bernie's method's were similar. He'd show you how to do something the right way, and expect that the work you would produce would be done the right way. The phrase he was fond of saying was: "The work should be crisp." The word "crisp" makes me think of Stefan Edberg's backhand volley: no backswing, minimal racquet movement, proper positioning and weight transfer, the ball met out in front. In short, he expected his colleagues to produce work that was technically correct, presented cleanly, and appropriate in execution. It was a high standard, the standard of a professional.
Along the way, he certainly had me do a lot of things that didn't make a lot of sense right off the cuff, but seem to be the most effective way to do things now. Each time we would have changes made to a filing prior to our submission to the SEC, he would issue the same marching orders: "Foot, cross-foot, clean tie-out. Be quick, but don't hurry." After my first 10-Q I knew the drill cold. It was annoying and often seemed like busy work at the time; now I recognize the precision necessary to craft a such a product, and this is one of the necessary steps.
If I had to boil down the lessons that the man taught me to one word it would be this: "care." When you do something, you put in the necessary time to read the accounting guidance, look for industry best practices, amerliorate the material together, address the business concerns, and present the information cleanly. To do this you had to work with care, care about the people that such analysis would affect as well as the business processes that such analysis would potentially change.
Bernie left our shared place of employment back in 2006 to take on an executive position at a different company in the Pacific Northwest. I would shortly be leaving after him, only to return back to the Company after a hiatus of a year and a few months. And when we met up this past weekend, I had an opportunity to thank him for taking the time and "care" to pass on such lessons.
Maybe more importantly, during our time together I got to talk with him about some of the technical issues that his company is working through to discover that I understood the overwhelming majority of what he was talking about. It was a marker as to the technical base that has begun to formulate of the years.
At one point we were talking over dinner and Bernie said, "Sometimes when I am working on a problem, I wonder is it would have taken Steve Rivers or Lewis Moorehead as long to work through it." Regardless of how far you come and how good you truly become, it appears that most people will always hold their teachers in a place of great honor in their minds.
As I was writing out the formula for a chop-socky movie, it became apparent that the qualities of transformation and improvement for both professional development and martial arts training are very similar: an codified efficient system practiced with focus, direction by a teacher, and a moral center always seems to trump a bloated ego and talent in spades. You can get caught up with position, individuals' perceived salaries, but these things are really superfluous. I would suspect that most people are aware of such things, but it takes a certain "stomach" to pick a path, stay the course and work without ego.
Namaste
- Sam Sheridan, as taken from A Fighter's Heart
Last weekend I had the pleasure of spending some time with one of my foremost professional mentors: the legendary Bernie Colpitts. I drove like a mad man on Friday--a week ago--morning to meet him in San Diego, picked him up at the airport, and then we went and saw Dave Matthew Band play that night. That "day" started at 3 AM on Friday morning and ended at 1 AM on Saturday morning, and is probably part of the reason why my body went into protest mode a few days ago. I guess I'm not 22 anymore. Regardless of the physical shut-down last weekend served as a marker as to how far I have come in my professional life.
I've spoken much about Sean Reeder, the current director of my group, and the influence he has had on me professionally. At the time when I started working under Sean, Bernie was Sean's boss. If we stick with the whole Star Wars them here, Sean would be Obi-Wan, and Bernie is Master Yoda.
Accounting, much like the martial arts, is based on a master-apprentice relationship. The gifted probably don't need a master to study under, but the great chop-socky movies aren't about gifted students. The movies and images that come to mind for me personally stick to a pretty tight schedule: an unruly student appears before a great master, their skills are non-existent--questionable at best--but their is some intangible quality that the student possesses, and the master, or roshi as the Japanese would say, agrees to train them. The master then breaks down their body through a serious of seemingly pointless physical tasks--along with their ego--they are taught the fundamentals of a fighting system, and then comes my favorite part: the training montage--where the once weak, awkward student transforms themself through the rigourous training process into a warrior. The movie then caps with the transformed student taking on a gifted, but misguided warrior and defeating them in martial combat. It's a simple formula, but it's endlessly satisfying--at least for a person in my demographic.
Bernie's method's were similar. He'd show you how to do something the right way, and expect that the work you would produce would be done the right way. The phrase he was fond of saying was: "The work should be crisp." The word "crisp" makes me think of Stefan Edberg's backhand volley: no backswing, minimal racquet movement, proper positioning and weight transfer, the ball met out in front. In short, he expected his colleagues to produce work that was technically correct, presented cleanly, and appropriate in execution. It was a high standard, the standard of a professional.
Along the way, he certainly had me do a lot of things that didn't make a lot of sense right off the cuff, but seem to be the most effective way to do things now. Each time we would have changes made to a filing prior to our submission to the SEC, he would issue the same marching orders: "Foot, cross-foot, clean tie-out. Be quick, but don't hurry." After my first 10-Q I knew the drill cold. It was annoying and often seemed like busy work at the time; now I recognize the precision necessary to craft a such a product, and this is one of the necessary steps.
If I had to boil down the lessons that the man taught me to one word it would be this: "care." When you do something, you put in the necessary time to read the accounting guidance, look for industry best practices, amerliorate the material together, address the business concerns, and present the information cleanly. To do this you had to work with care, care about the people that such analysis would affect as well as the business processes that such analysis would potentially change.
Bernie left our shared place of employment back in 2006 to take on an executive position at a different company in the Pacific Northwest. I would shortly be leaving after him, only to return back to the Company after a hiatus of a year and a few months. And when we met up this past weekend, I had an opportunity to thank him for taking the time and "care" to pass on such lessons.
Maybe more importantly, during our time together I got to talk with him about some of the technical issues that his company is working through to discover that I understood the overwhelming majority of what he was talking about. It was a marker as to the technical base that has begun to formulate of the years.
At one point we were talking over dinner and Bernie said, "Sometimes when I am working on a problem, I wonder is it would have taken Steve Rivers or Lewis Moorehead as long to work through it." Regardless of how far you come and how good you truly become, it appears that most people will always hold their teachers in a place of great honor in their minds.
As I was writing out the formula for a chop-socky movie, it became apparent that the qualities of transformation and improvement for both professional development and martial arts training are very similar: an codified efficient system practiced with focus, direction by a teacher, and a moral center always seems to trump a bloated ego and talent in spades. You can get caught up with position, individuals' perceived salaries, but these things are really superfluous. I would suspect that most people are aware of such things, but it takes a certain "stomach" to pick a path, stay the course and work without ego.
Namaste
posted by Zen_Accountant at 8:21 AM
4 Comments:
Your post calls to mind the following quote, called to my attention by one of my foremost professional mentors:
"Study truly is the grand requisite for a lawyer. Men may be born poets, and leap from their cradles painters; nature may have made them musicians, and called upon them only to exercise, and not to acquire, ability. But law is artificial. It is a human science to be learnt, not inspired. Let there be a genius for whom nature has done so much as apparently to have left nothing for application, yet to make a lawyer, application must do as much as if nature had done nothing." ~Daniel Webster
I think it is equally applicable to your professional pursuits.
AKH
Enjoyed your last post and this one as well. Excellence is a seductive lover. Unfortunately, I don't think you ever achieve climax with this one. Instead, it is always about the pursuit, changes along the way, who you become.
Summer is over. The parties have ended; the days are getting shorter. I am a little blue.
Even though I have several trips planned for this fall, they don't sound as fun. There is a ring to the phrase, "summer vacation".
Any thoughts on the change of seasons?
You sound like you are trying to be smart and deep when really you are kind of generic quoting a bunch of people you probably found on a google search. It is kind of transparent how you pretend to be all philosophical yet you criticize others for superficial reasons. Ugh and ick.
I actually was excited to post until I got to Mr Ugh & Ick who is just using the internet's anonymity to vent his frustration that he has neither the intellect nor the creativity to add something to the conversation.
Anywayyyy...I like the martial art analogy. Being a bit of a martial artist in my past I can assure you the "one-inch punch" and the "moving people without touching them" arts are real. My sensei, having more of an ego then you might imagine, challenged an Aikido master who promptly knocked him on his ass from half way across the room. Another black belt in my dojo told me of personally being thrown to the ground and never having been touched. But I digress from my main point...which is I'm proud of you. Back when you were in SF you had some discouraging experiences which I believe made you question your abilities. I always knew there was a bright, talented, and motivated individual just waiting to get the right mentorship. It seems you have had that mentor and it is paying off in spades. It is a pleasure to watch.
MAD
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