In this episode of Canopy Practice Success, KC Brothers talks with Heather Satterly, CPA and Director of Education and Media at Woodard, about embracing change in the accounting profession. Heather shares why growth is essential for modern accounting firms and how mindset shifts can help accountants move beyond comfort and into long term success.
The conversation explores how joy, personal development, and investing in life outside of work can improve performance, leadership, and client relationships. Heather also discusses how AI tools like ChatGPT are reducing friction in daily workflows, allowing accountants to spend more time as strategic advisors rather than task focused processors. This episode highlights why embracing change, prioritizing well being, and using technology thoughtfully can help accounting firms build better businesses and more fulfilling careers.
TRANSCRIPT:
KC Brothers (00:05)
Welcome to another episode of Canopy Practice Success. I am your host, KC Brothers. I am joined today by Heather Satterly. Heather is a CPA, educator, and innovator who helps accounting professionals transform the way they work. She's the director of education and media at Woodard, where she leads programs that empower accountants to build better businesses and lives. You might also know her as the co-host of the
Appy Hour with Liz and Heather, a show that brings together accounting pros and software vendors or apps to explore the latest tools and tech shaping the industry. Heather is passionate about process automation, community building, and helping firms embrace change. And she's been recognized as one of accounting today's top 100 most influential people and a top 10 pro advisor. Heather, it is so good to have you on the podcast.
Heather (01:00)
KC, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.
KC Brothers (01:03)
Good, I mean, just reading your intro and getting to know you a little bit before too. So congratulations first on being a top 100 most influential person as named by accounting today. That's gotta be a reflection of a serious list of accomplishments.
Heather (01:19)
Well, thank you very much. know, that was something my mom is also a CPA. And I got to tell you, that was a very cool moment for me. It was kind of like, look mom, what I did.
I always joke with my friends that I was a one hit wonder. know, you those people that were on, that are on the Academy Today Top 100 Influential list. 2019 was my year. It was amazing. I honestly couldn't believe that it happened. But, you know, I also would say little old me. So it was a very cool thing for sure.
KC Brothers (01:44)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Let's talk about a couple things. Even in your intro, we hinted at how you help firms embrace change. I'm very aware of this as someone who works at a software that that is one of the biggest reasons why people might not purchase us is because of their fear of change and everything that comes with it. But I want to even take it back a step.
Why should firms change? I feel like we talk a lot about tech and advances and things, like, let's, let's take it back again, really quick to remind firms why though what they're doing today, comfortable as it may seem, and as it may seem like it works, why bother changing? It's working, isn't it for most people or is it not?
Heather (02:28)
You know, that's a great question. And when you're in the middle of it, and that's all you've known for five, 10, 20, 30 years, you may not know what change actually looks like. And if you never step outside of the treadmill and what you've been doing the same way, you're really holding yourself back from growth. And I don't mean growth.
like revenue growth, number of clients growth, although all those things are really great, what I'm talking about is growth as a human, Growth of expansion of your mind, expansion of your skills, of the things that you notice and of the potential that you have in every aspect of your life. So if you're really resistant to change and change is scary, it's uncomfortable.
But it's so necessary to kind of reach that next level and to experience new things in your life.
KC Brothers (03:23)
Yes. So, I've been fangirling lately. I think I've disclosed this on the podcast, ⁓ over Arthur C. Brooks. Are you familiar with him? ⁓ his content is so good, Heather. And based on the things I know you're interested in, I think you would really like him. He's a professor at Harvard business. and he's a writer. He's written several books and he writes a column for the Atlantic all on happiness.
Heather (03:32)
I'm not.
KC Brothers (03:48)
⁓ and he talks a lot about, meaning and satisfaction in life and how us as humans are not meant, how did he say it? Something like we're not really made to achieve goals to arrive is the word he uses. We are made to thrive in progress and that when that arrival comes, I don't know if you've heard this, but there's this,
Heather (03:48)
Hmm.
KC Brothers (04:10)
feeling that Olympians have even after winning a gold medal. They've just won a gold medal and they can often experience depression afterward because it's that point of arrival and it's like, then what's next? How do I progress? And I bring that up because that's my why for change to your point of like just growing as a human.
⁓ it can be about so many things. can be about like the two biggest, when you talk about anybody trying to sell you anything, ultimately, in my opinion, it comes down to time or money. does it save you time, make your time more, time is finite. So how can I use my time better? Right. Does it earn me more money? I feel like those are ultimately what people are trying to get at when they try to sell you something
but I think you hit a third that like, nobody will ever lean on in terms of selling you something, but it's something that you as a person need to recognize that there's that element of, growth, of progress, of getting better at things. And I think from there, you and I could unpack so many things.
Heather (05:12)
Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, joy. Joy is something that we really need to strive for. And it's funny, you you talked about Arthur and, he writes on happiness, which, you know, joy is the same thing when, you know, I actually had a podcast interview with ⁓ Kristen Keats, who is one of the co-founders of Breakwater just last week. And that is her, mission is to bring joy back to accounting.
KC Brothers (05:14)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Heather (05:36)
And
in our conversation, I was like, so tell me what joy in accounting looks like. Right. But there is joy. And I think the joy in accounting and anywhere in your life is the thing that you smile. Right. You smile when you feel it. You know it. You know it when you see it. And here's the thing that I learned about, I think, four years ago is that the joy can actually come.
from practicing spontaneous smiling.
So if you're one of those people that gets caught in your office and you're doing all the things, and yes, we enjoy our work, and if you would ask me five years ago why I work so much, would say, well, I don't look at his work, I find it really fun, right? I enjoy what I do, I love what I do, I don't mind being in the office for 15 hours a day, because I enjoy it. But one of the things about doing that is I never went outside.
my office. mean, I did, I have a family and things, so I did things, but most of what I did in my life was out of obligation. It was because I was stuck in that place of here's what I, what I in my mind think I'm supposed to be doing. The work that I'm doing is because I felt like it was the way it was supposed to be done. And as soon as you kind of stop and say, you know, you step outside of that and you let yourself feel joy.
that changes. So the smiling, the spontaneous smiling thing, I wish I could tell you where I heard that, but it really did change my mind, is that I, ⁓ go ahead.
KC Brothers (07:00)
Well,
I knew I had heard something in the same vein and I just looked it up. Not in terms of spontaneous smiling, but I can see why that's the suggestion because get this, how many times on average do you think a child smiles per day?
Heather (07:15)
⁓ hundreds.
KC Brothers (07:17)
400. How many times a day do you think an adult smiles a day?
Heather (07:18)
Okay.
for.
KC Brothers (07:22)
a little bit more, 20. But still, relative to a child, I mean, I have a six-year-old, an almost four-year-old, right? And the things that they think are hilarious, their bar is low. And they smile and laugh all the time. And so to me, that is very logical to then recommend just smile spontaneously to
Heather (07:23)
20, okay, okay.
KC Brothers (07:44)
to try and close that gap and the effect that has on us psychologically and our performance and our ability to produce.
Heather (07:52)
100%. And I mean, there's science out there too. ⁓ When you smile, there's some chemical things that happen in your body. There's a dopamine rush when you smile. So that's the happiness hormone.
So yeah, so the smiling, the spontaneous smiling thing I started four years ago and it was really making the conscious decision to allow myself to smile. And what I had found was I didn't smile very often because I was afraid that people would look at me and be like, what is she smiling about? It was that self-consciousness of like, if I've just walked down the street and see a flower that...
I think is beautiful and I smile for no reason that somebody on the outside looking in might think I'm weird or you know, what's wrong with that lady? And I decided to kick that to the curb, KC. I decided to say, I don't care what they think. If I see a beautiful flower and it makes me happy, I'm gonna smile. And so that's where I started practicing spontaneous smiling. And it works.
KC Brothers (08:51)
And what does that look like? Like you're just like, is it, you're trying to get your brain and body to connect more. So you're consciously thinking smile, Heather, smile. And then you smile or like, what does that look like in practice? What does that look like in your firm? Are you in a meeting with your client grinning ear to ear saying smile, smile, Like, what does that look like? Yeah.
Heather (09:08)
No,
So what it looks like it's giving yourself permission to let yourself smile. It's giving yourself a permission to acknowledge joy. Right. So for example, I went for a hike. I think it was yesterday. Yeah, I went for a hike yesterday morning and I try to go for a hike, you know, three to four and it's really just a walk in nature. Right. So
When I go for a hike in nature, there's, you right now I'm in Connecticut, it's the fall, everything is beautiful. Everything is beautiful. So it used to be that I would walk and be very stoic and just kind of look at things and, you know, I would notice them and I might feel them. But it's almost like the act of smiling for me, it becomes like a speaker, like an amplifier. It's like you feel that thing, but when you smile, it gets louder.
KC Brothers (09:56)
Okay, so I finished reading a book recently by another person I'm a big fan of. His name is Jonathan Haidt. He's written, if you're familiar, he's written The Happiness Hypothesis. He's written a number of other books. Anyway, the book I read recently was The Anxious Generation. He's done a lot of research on the internet, social media, its impacts on kids. He's also a professor at NYU.
Heather (10:02)
Okay.
Yes!
KC Brothers (10:19)
And he talked about, I mean, he's teaching, would that be Gen Z already in college? ⁓ 19 year olds to, you know, 21. and they're, they're people who are probably on the early end of having a childhood affected by all of these things, right now in their adult years. He talked about giving them an assignment to go on what he called, I believe an awe.
walk. And they're in New York City and he's like, you can do this anywhere. But the, I think the requirements were simply don't have headphones. So don't be listening to anything and don't have your phone out. Pay attention to where you're at, what you're walking through. He's like, and it had profound effects for even those people who walked past the iconic architecture in New York City. But he said it had
larger impacts on those who chose to go to parks, to be in nature. And he said, I don't know if he had metrics in terms of how it impacted the work his students turned in that week, but he said those entries or those papers or whatever the assignment was were some of the greatest work he had seen by his students in years, the reflections they had. So to your point about like going out.
And nature, think is really the big thing. And I've seen a lot of research around this. And then your point about smiling, enjoying it, taking it in.
Believe it or not, take an hour out of, instead of doing 10 hours of work, do nine hours, take an hour to have an aw walk, ⁓ a hike, to get your blood pumping, to expose yourself to sunlight first thing in the morning. These are things I'm hearing a lot about with researchers right now. And you will get more done in those nine hours than you got done in the 10 hours previous, 100%. And you'll be happier.
Heather (11:51)
Love that.
Yes, absolutely. It's changing that pattern that you have in your life. It's change, right? It's being brave enough to walk out the door. Even if it's just walking out into a parking lot and looking up at a tree that's in the parking lot, you may see a bluebird in that tree. Smile at it, right?
Like look at how blue it is look at the pattern on it like notice those things allow yourself to notice those things and and really that It really will have an incredibly positive impact. I did that yesterday. I was working on a really tough project That's why I went for the walk and I was just feeling Like am I ever gonna get this done?
Right. so going for the walk recharged me. When I came back, I was ready to go. I was ready to go. ended up having a super productive day. And then I had the memories of those incredible colors of the leaves, the stillness of the water, mushrooms, you know, all the things that I saw during that, you know, that 45 minute walk, you know, carried me through the rest of the day.
KC Brothers (13:04)
Yeah. Back to, mean, you mentioned dopamine, you get cortisol too with stress. And when your cortisol levels are high, it's harder to function and to function well. And these things are things that help you reset those levels. And yeah.
Heather (13:08)
or something like that.
You asked me how I got myself to smile and I just want to, don't think I really answered that question. And what I would tell you is at first I had to remind myself to do it. So when I would see something, it would be like smile and it was almost a defiance.
KC Brothers (13:31)
Yeah, you had to have that
consciousness of brain, tell your face to smile. Yeah, okay. Building that muscle memory.
Heather (13:37)
That's right. And then,
part of it was a defiance. So part of it was an empowering thing for me to tell myself, I'm smiling in the face of, know that there's people around me that are probably gonna think I'm weird. And I'm okay with that. So there's an empowering part of that, of like, I'm being authentically me, right? And that happens, I don't know, that probably happened for a couple of weeks of practicing it. Now I don't think about it.
What I will think about is when the smile actually happens, it makes me smile even bigger because then I realize I'm doing it. And then that just feels really awesome too. So, ⁓ and the other thing is babies, like I smile spontaneously and now every time I see a baby, I'm smiling and they smile back. it's like, so it's like getting this reflection of the happiness right back at me and little kids and even adults, not all adults, but when another adult catches me smiling and I get one back, that's even, it's even cooler.
KC Brothers (14:30)
It is, it is so cool. And you think of that, like you're giving all these examples just as a human, which I think is really great, but let's put that in practice for the accountant. You talk to your client and you have a smile on your face. I can't imagine the impact that has on that relationship. Their willingness to tell you things, their excitement to see you, their decreasing their likelihood of being.
Heather (14:43)
Mm-hmm.
KC Brothers (14:54)
brisk or rude or whatever and just increasing the overall effectiveness of the interactions. I can, I'm making assumptions, but you're nodding your head.
Heather (15:04)
Yeah, I mean for the most part, mean where my brain was going with that is for the most part, yes, you know, when you show up with a positive attitude and you're smiling and you know, in my opinion, when you smile more, the way you look at life just changes. It just changes. And I know it's a small thing, but there's times that you'll go into a meeting and you can find that it's not appropriate to smile, right? Like there's times where you, you know, it's...
But it is allowing, I think it's allowing yourself to smile when you see the opportunity to do it, right? But yeah, it's, I think that the more you do it,
for yourself, the more you're able to bring it to others, including your clients, including your team members. And then making them understand that it's okay for them to smile because they're probably feeling exactly what I used to feel was people are gonna think I'm weird. But if they see you doing it, it ends up being contagious. yeah, yeah, it's, you know, and I did read the book, The Happiness Hypothesis. You're a great book. Yes.
KC Brothers (15:58)
Oh, 100%. Yeah.
So good, so good. Put it on your list.
Well, you also talked to me before we hopped on here and actually started recording about something else you started recently that has impacted you so positively that even your coworkers were like, Heather, why didn't you do this years before? Tell us more about that.
Heather (16:24)
Yeah, so I have always loved horses my whole life. I have loved horses. I was the little kid that you're driving past the farms and horse, you know, just really love them. And I did ride a bit as a child. Well, about four or five years ago, during COVID.
I had taken a women's leadership class and they asked us to write down all the things we were going to accomplish in our lives when we were like a kid, when we were a kid, right? Write down all the things when you're a kid that you're going to do. And I wrote all those things down and at the next day they asked us to look at the list and then go through it and write down, do we still want to do it? Number one, is it possible? Number two, and then if it is possible,
like flying, you if you wanted to fly, obviously, I mean, fly without a plane. That's an impossible thing to do. But, you know, if it was possible, why weren't you doing it now? And is it something that you could do now? Well, after that exercise, at the very top of my list was own a horse. Right? It was just one of those things, like when I was a kid, I'm like, one day I'm going to own a horse.
And so I thought about it I was like, okay, well, I didn't do it before because horses are really expensive. I had kids, I had a family, I had a career. And then the next question was, could I do it now? I'm like, well, I could definitely go take a lesson. Like that's something that I could do. And so I did it. So I went out that day and I put out on next door the app in my neighborhood and I said, I am a 50 something year old woman. I want to ride a horse. And within 30 minutes,
A woman that was on a board with me said my daughter who I knew just started taking writing lessons at a local barn on Wednesday night. It's all women, adult women. You should go. And so I did. And within a month I was writing two days a week. Within six weeks it was three days a week. Six months later I bought my horse Marley. And I have to tell you that I had always knew there was like horse people.
But because I had never put myself in the position of being a horse person, I never really thought of myself as a horse person. I thought of myself as somebody who loves horses. But what I found was I am a horse person. When I have horses in my life, I'm a different person. I'm happier, I'm calmer. ⁓
KC Brothers (18:37)
There's
a reason why there's such a thing as equestrian therapy.
Heather (18:40)
⁓ 100%. And so after doing that, after making that what started out as like a two hour investment once a week, when I came back to my team, they said, you know, in our meetings, were like, we wish you had done this before. You're bringing, their words were,
KC Brothers (18:42)
Yeah.
Heather (18:57)
You're bringing something to this company that we desperately needed and you weren't able to bring before you started doing that other thing. And that what that was, was investing in me as a human, right? And something that was outside of work, which weren't a service industry, it's us giving. We're constantly giving to our clients. We're giving to our teammates where, you know, every investment that we make is so that we can be a better advisor to our clients. And this wasn't for any of that, but
KC Brothers (19:22)
Yeah.
Heather (19:25)
It made me a better advisor to my clients by investing in, by filling my own cup. All of a sudden I had more to give.
KC Brothers (19:30)
Yes. ⁓
If you weren't going to say that, I was going to say that. The moment you started saying give and give over and over again, it made me realize the point that you just made. You can only give as much as you have to give. And if you are not filling yourself first, it's like on the airplane, they always ask you to put on your mask first before you help someone else. Being in such a service heavy industry,
Yes, there's the typical components of you do the numbers, you put the annotations on the documents, but let's all face it. That's not the, how do I want to say this? One, AI is going to start taking stuff like that away because it can. Two, even today with AI as it is, or even yesterday without AI, mean, metaphorical yesterday, right? The relationship.
really is such a key component, maybe the most important component of keeping a business moving forward, retaining clients, improving those relationships, building, getting more revenue opportunities as a result, right? Yeah, that we cannot under emphasize or overemphasize. What would be the right one here? Enough. The importance of...
filling your cup. And it's not, I almost said self-care, but I feel like self-care has been on this interesting journey of like what it is. It's not our, it's not the bath bombs, the face masks, at least what I hear as a woman. It's not the getting your nails done. It's this, it's being well rested. It's physical movement. It's meditation or whatever you want to do there to connect with something beyond yourself.
Heather (20:45)
Mm-hmm.
KC Brothers (21:03)
It's serving, I think other opportunities outside of your actual profession. think family is a big component of that. We're getting into a lot of KC's philosophies here too though. But it's recognizing that you are not, you're not an accounting machine. You're not. ⁓ Yes. Exactly. And I actually do love what AI is doing for this industry because I think it's
Heather (21:14)
I love it.
You're more than an accountant. You're more, you're a human first.
KC Brothers (21:30)
It can, if you're not feeling this way, I want you to, by the end of this episode, know that AI first and foremost again is not stealing your job, but it is putting you, it's helping you leverage your skills and understanding as an accountant so you can check the things that it might help you do and do them faster so that you can more fully step into your actual role, which is the strategic advisor. And though it's not said there, those two words are relationship. It's human connections.
Heather (21:59)
100%, I mean, it is. I use AI in my life professionally and personally every single day. And it is not stealing my job, it's making me better at what I do. ⁓ 1000%. When I think about having to go back to the days before AI, I still got stuff done, but now I'm able to do it faster, better.
KC Brothers (22:11)
Mm-hmm.
Heather (22:21)
I'm still the subject matter expert when I'm using AI. I'm still know if it's right or wrong. It's just making it more frictionless. I think that's the word that comes to mind is that it makes my job less, you know, it reduces the friction of what I'm trying to get done. So I love that.
KC Brothers (22:31)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, that was a good way to summarize things, makes things less, it's frictionless. There we go. To wrap up today's episode, I want to ask you a few rapid fire questions. What is one app or tool you cannot live without?
Heather (22:45)
Yeah.
All right, ready.
At this point, chat GPT.
KC Brothers (22:57)
I'm right there with you. I was so hesitant for a while. I like, how is this going to help me? I'm in a similar position to accountants. A lot of my job as critical thinking is working through things as mental processes, it's documentation. I'm like, how is this going to help speed up my work? And then when I found it, it's been a game changer. Yep. Who inspires you inside the accounting profession?
Heather (23:18)
Mm-hmm. Just use it.
You know, I just met Jennifer Wilson from Convergence Coaching about two years ago and man, is she a powerhouse. And she inspires me every day. think she's a great human. I love how she's empowered women in our industry and she advocates for what's right, not what's easy. And I love the fact that she has those hard conversations unapologetically. She's just an incredible human.
KC Brothers (23:49)
love it. Okay, last question. What's a common myth about accountants you love to dis-
Heather (23:54)
⁓ wow, that that we're not fun. love. I know. Some of the I mean, I would say most of the funnest people I know, is that a word funnest? Most fun, I think. Sorry, my eighth grade English teacher, our accountants, they're so fun. They're so fun and quirky and.
KC Brothers (23:58)
Why is that a thing? I have met so many fun accountants.
Heather (24:17)
creative and, you know, just amazing, fun people.
KC Brothers (24:22)
Yeah, I don't know if it's, we think math, math is not fun and then therefore accountants, no fun. But I've heard that one too and I'm like, I don't see it. I don't see it.
Heather (24:34)
I don't see it either. I don't know if it's because of people think taxes aren't fun. So the people that work with tax, preparing taxes, how could they possibly be fun? that's just, I there's people, I mean, think about this. Like I have horses, so I have to go and muck their stalls, right? And there's people that do that for a living. Mucking for most people is not fun, but I'm sure the people that muck stalls are fun, right? I know that, I know that.
KC Brothers (24:57)
Yeah.
Heather (24:59)
to
be true.
KC Brothers (25:00)
Weird. Anyway, thank you again, Heather. It was such a delightful conversation.
Heather (25:00)
Yeah.
Absolutely. Thank you so much, KC This was a lot of fun.