What would you do if you couldn't FAIL?
For the first 3-4 years of firm running, I was SO afraid. So very afraid. Of everything. I was afraid of messing up, of wasting time, of wasting money, all of it.
👉 Is it overkill to set up an LLC?
👉 Is this pricing too high?
👉 Should I really be spending money on this extra piece of software?
It wasn’t until I reframed everything as an experiment that I stopped being afraid of doing something wrong (read: failing), because…
You can’t fail an experiment.
An experiment has an unknown result. The experimenter is running the experiment to find out what happens.
There is no failure in experiments. There are only results.
As soon as I viewed everything I did in my accounting firm through the lens of an experiment with no chance of failure, my fear disappeared.
👉 I don’t know if this accounting firm thing is going to work. I’ll set up the LLC. If starting an accounting firm doesn’t work out, I’ll just close it down with the state and mark that year as the final tax return year. No biggie.
👉 I don’t know if that price is too high. Let’s see how they respond. If it seems like I really missed the mark, I’ll ask them what I missed and I can adjust the offer or offer a discount for a few months.
👉 I don’t know if this software is worth it. I can pay the slightly higher monthly fee and test it for a couple months. If it’s not worth it, I’ll cancel the subscription after two or three months and know what I need differently next time.
Notice how nothing here seems as scary? They’re just experiments with results.
Now the question is…
What would you do if you couldn’t fail?
Cheers,
Erica
PS - Friendly reminder that I wrote / scheduled this email weeks ago and I’m currently on sabbatical. If you hit reply to this email (and please do!), I’ll get back to you after July 19th.
What’s Happening in Aligned
Recently Added to the Video Library:
Tax Scheduling: Panel Discussion [5.26.26] (3 solo firm owners share how they scheduled their clients this past tax season)
Tax Season Scheduling Playbook (same content as above, but in case you’d rather read than watch)
AI Show & Tell [6.8.26] (See what solo & small small firm owners are using Claude for)
Double Demo [6.16.26] (lots of new AI feature; lots of side discussion on running an efficient accounting firm)
🤔 Question of the Week > Looking back on the first part of the year, how did your workload and pay feel?
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