3 skills I developed in audit that are saving me today
What I'm Up To (Eating), What I Reflected On (Audit Skills), and What's Occupying My Mind (Cooking Techniques)- all part of Allen's Friday Flights
Hello Professionally Curious One!
I missed the April Fools charade. I could have said I recently accepted an offer to work at a Big 4, pointed to all these previous hints, and have you jaw drop.
But come on now, that’s not very believable, is it?
Anyway I’m back with another post in these incredibly busy times I’m living.
Cheers,
Allen
Past Publications
What I’m Up To
TL;DR: Grateful for the skills I built in a past life.
The Things:
Bad-Batch, a star wars animated spinoff, ends in the same way as Star Wars Episode 5. I know cause I watched both.
The Blind Pig has a great mushroom saltado dish and French Onion Soup.
For Q1 of 2023, I’ve ran 180 miles. Which means its been 90 days since I only do 2 miles a day.
Will this gym be the gym that brings me back what I love about West LA Equinox? Because I’ve seen photos of the Equinox in OC, and its stuck in the 1980s.
This expensive pillow will change your sleeping life. 10/10 would recommend.
Taco Mesita is that bougie West LA Taco Place that meats the culinary smokery vibes of Orange County, and it happens to be in Tustin. Only 3 choices of meets, and they are slam dunks.
Oddly enough, Nardo at Pacific City in Huntington Beach has an incredible Margherita Pizza. For a quick, and light, lunch for two, I recommend one pizza and one appetizer. Enjoy dessert at Popbar nearby.
I don’t know why, but this particular 24/7 CVS in Irvine is an unusually well-stocked CVS I’ve ever been to with premiums goods from Oatly, Milkbar, and all the wines you’d see at Whole Foods.
Turns out I have access to this WeWork thats has a a great view, the entire floor, a bridge terrace, and 24/7 access.
Ellies Table is a must have, easy light lunch. Get a “palm” sandwich. (it’s a size).
I’ve transitioned from Lastpass to 1Password. PSA: Use a password manager.
3 skills I developed in audit that are saving me today
TL;DR: Those boring skills are what will help you be successful.
The skills
Corroboration
Whiteboarding
Documentation
Corroboration
When you get one piece of information, and go to another person, ask the same question, to see if the answers align close enough.
Essentially, I am doing process and strategy walkthroughs & knowledge transfers to understand just how things get done, or will get done. Since I can’t ascertain a reliable central source of truth for me to base decisions off of, I have to rely on asking several people the same question and seeing how the puzzle fits together.
In an unstructured, fast pace, process breaking, biased to action environment - corroboration will be the way you forge clarity. And damn is it exhausting to do.
Whiteboarding
Drawing things visually, live, and with others
In a past life, I used to do technology data flow walkthroughs that entailed following a transaction through systems and processes until it hit its final end state. Turns out, that’s an incredibly useful skill when it comes to visualizing abstract concepts - like the entirety of blockchain.
I’m currently working through staking recognition, and let me tell you - the “phases” a cryptocurrency can go through when it gets “staked” can get very nuanced. It is because of this nuance that I have found a lot of people miscommunicating it. Busting out a whiteboard and drawing sticky notes and arrows, as things are getting technically explained to you, is a hilariously fast way to achieve clarity with others.
Documentation
Writing stuff down in such a way that someone else can take it.
I hate documentation. Well, used to. I used to hate writing things down. A career break focused on writing has allowed me to appreciate a new super power when it comes to writing:
Writing helps you create passive value.
In the context of a business, writing is essentially documentation. Documentation is how you build scalable businesses fast without contributing significant capital.
It turns out anyone that isn’t meticulous, compliance driven, or an auditor, is terrible at documentation. Jokes on them, documentation is my superpower and I often spend a lot of my time writing my thoughts on issues out (all in Notion!) and then sending it. It’s often read by 4 to 5 other people so that by the next day, we’re all talking about it.
Thee mantra of “If it’s not documented, it’s not done” carries a lot of truth. But more importantly, documentation brings process clarity in a way that helps you scale your passive value at a business - and you need all the passive systems you can get.
Why am I telling you all this?
Right now, I’m in one of the hardest work environments I’ve ever been in it. Everyday, I’m operating under conditions that:
Are less than ideal
Certainty in information is a premium
Constantly pressed by the need to make fast decisions daily
Incredibly unstructured, and all Remote
No-hand holding
What this translates to is there is a lack of clarity everywhere, and that can cause a lot of pressure on you if you aren’t comfortable operating in ambiguity.
For any new college graduate, even people who have worked 10 years, these conditions would probably grind you out, and/or burn you out extremely fast. Most of the versions of past me wouldn’t survive this.
I realized current me can. I have spent a lot of time ruminating on how untransferable or useless audit skills, or accounting skills, are. So much so that I tried to actively run from service lines, did some product, and well even left the public accounting industry too.
In my current environment, those same old skills I used - skills that seem like commodities and even undervalued by others (me included) - they are saving my ass. I didn’t have the wisdom to connect the dots differently to create value with them.
A lot of it has to do with the gravitation toward those “sexy skills” like being a “negotiator” or “having such great technical coding chops”. A year spent investigating boring businesses has also yield a new perspective for me: Boring skills are what drives you to be successful because they are what you will default to 98% of the time.
And for me right now, those “boring skills” in audit are the reasons I’m able to get through the most pressing challenges today.
What's Occupying My Mind
TL;DR: I love learning cooking techniques.
2 videos to watch to help you improve your cooking technique, using water
Faster caramelizing by boiling stuff.
Cut the cooking time of pasta in half using cold water, and less water.
I always enjoy your newsletter. Every post you inspire me to try something new with mine!