Know Your Vices + Let People Live
Y'all, welcome to another episode of the Working Mamas podcast. I am Nikki Winston and so excited and glad to have you tuning in and rocking with me today. I am here to talk about a plethora of things. I am a certified public accountant. I'm also a CPA exam instructor and coach.
Nikki:I'm a writer. I'm a podcaster. I am a CPA firm owner and I like to give career advice and share my experiences as a black woman slash disruptive millennial working in corporate America, but also running my own businesses. And one of the things about my podcast is that it's very cathartic for me. It's very therapeutic in a way for me.
Nikki:And so I don't edit my podcast. I want the organic emotion, feeling, the moment to live through the episodes. And I don't wanna edit out something just because I take a sip of water or I clear my throat or one of my kids barges in to my studio while I'm recording. So I'm excited to jump into today's episode. If you are tuning in for the first time, welcome.
Nikki:Thank you for being here. If you are a regular listener, hey, hello, welcome back. So excited to have y'all rocking with me. So let your network know that you are listening to this episode by using the hashtag working mamas, w e r k I n m o m m a s. Also feel free to tag me on social media.
Nikki:My handle is nickwinstoncpa, N I K K W I N S T O N C P A. You can also find more information about my firm, the Winston CPA Group, about my ghostwriting and content creation services, as well as get right for the CPA exam all on my website at nickwinstoncpa dot com. And you can also find me on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter nickwinstoncpa. So let's jump into this episode. Grab your water, grab your tea, grab your whiskey, whatever pleases your palate.
Nikki:Let's go.
Nikki:Some random, random, random, random thoughts. I am supposed to be writing right now. I love writing about different things, about accounting, career advice, motherhood, personal finance, fixing your credit. So many things. I don't know how crispy my AirPods are and if you are picking up on this episode of Martin that's playing in the background or not.
Nikki:But, like I said, I'm supposed to be writing. I'm about 80 to 90% done with this post, but it's late. The post is late. It's it's past its submission date, and I have these days and times where my desire to write is at an all time high, and then I have these other moments where it's at an all time low. And sometimes everything in between.
Nikki:But it made me wonder about why we know we need to do something. We don't do it right away, procrastination, of course. But what is so polarizing about procrastination? Is it that you're not doing what you're supposed to do because you're doing what you wanna do? Not writing because you're trying to catch up on Ozarks and you only own the second episode of the second season and season four starts in a couple days?
Nikki:Is it that you're not interested in what you're doing even though it's something that has to be done? Prime example, waking up, going to a job, or logging into a job every single day that you don't like, that doesn't excite you, that doesn't fulfill you, but you get a check. I'm trying to figure out what it is about procrastination that makes it habitual, that makes it so familiar in our daily labs. I guess I never thought about procrastination as a vice. Like, everybody know what their vices are, whether you like to drink wine, watch TV all day, like a couch potato, whether you like to smoke weed, whether you like to go to the club, go shopping, smoke cigarettes, smoke blackened mouths, whatever go to the gym, eat, whatever your vice is.
Nikki:We always tend to think about vices as those sorts of things, but we can easily put procrastination in that category. Something that's intangible, not tangible like a glass of wine, a TV, a remote, a club. It's more something that you do or in this case, something that you don't do. But when you think about it, somebody's like, I know what my vices are. Your vices are those things that have a hold on you that people might not view you in the best light or maybe it's something that you do that takes you away from doing other things.
Nikki:It's things that you wanna do that takes you away from doing things that you need to do. And if that's how we define a vice, I don't know what the official term is. I'm going off of the the life learned definition of a vice. Actually, I'm supposed to be writing. I'm right here on my iPad.
Nikki:Let's look up the definition of advice. The definition of vice. According to Merriam Webster, advice is a moral flaw or weakness, bad or a moral behavior or habits or a minor bad habit, moral depravity or corruption, wickedness in all caps. So it can be a blemish, a physical imperfection, a deformity, an abnormal behavior pattern. So these are interesting.
Nikki:This is not really what I I wouldn't take it. I didn't know that the definition of vice was that inflammatory. But where I was going with it was whatever you do to unwind or whatever is your stress reliever that's not necessarily a good thing. The societal definition of what's good and what's bad. Some people think weed is good.
Nikki:Some people think weed is bad. Depends on what side of the table you're sitting on, how much you have read and researched, what your personal views are. But if we wanna put procrastination in that category, it could very well be a moral fault or failing. It could be something that you're habitually doing, a habitual shortcoming. But I was like, what I'm writing about is something that I'm pretty well versed in.
Nikki:I don't need to reference any other sites. The topic I'm writing about, I could literally just flow on the content and be done. The one thing that has this particular submission late is that sometimes I feel like I just want to be a writer. I wanna write. I don't wanna look for cute photos, stock photos to add to the post.
Nikki:I don't care about APA formats or all these other things. Sometimes I just wanna write, and that's why I blog. My blog is a lot of times the written version of my podcast. A lot of my podcasts start off as journals. And then those journals become blogs, and then I record it.
Nikki:It becomes a podcast. It's very much just my thoughts, my feelings, and things that I know that I'm good in, that I'm knowledgeable in, that I'm an expert in. That's what my clients say that I want other people to know. So I have a couple of blog posts that I'm sitting on that I need to publish. One is about S corporations.
Nikki:Few years ago, the flavor of the month was LLCs. Everybody was talking about LLCs and how you started LLC and you can run your business and you won't have to get sued. And my first thought is why is it that the thing at the top of your mind when it comes to running a business is not getting sued? But, of course, LLC started jumping like jacks. Everybody started forming one, and then along comes s corps.
Nikki:And now people think of an s corp and immediately think of a tax deduction or a tax credit, then now everybody wants a s corp. And I have this post. It's called s corps ain't for everybody. Just like that. Ask Corp.
Nikki:Same for everybody. My blogs are written the way that I talk for my clients. Sometimes I can be me, and I can write it the way I wanna write it. But a lot of times they have their writing guidelines and things like that, which I totally respect. And I put my thoughts down on paper, and then I'll go back and edit the content so that it's aligned with my client's content outlines.
Nikki:And those content outlines or content guidelines vary depending on what I'm writing about, the tone, the the mood, the vibe I'm trying to convey. So I was sitting here about to finish this piece that, again, is about 80% done. And what has me on pause is this extra editing I have to do. So that's why I say that you have to know what your vices are. I knew when this post was due.
Nikki:I knew what I needed to do. I've written for this client a bunch of times. And so the content guidelines, I'm very familiar with. But there's just something in me that did not want to do that nonwriting piece. And instead, I started writing a whole another blog post.
Nikki:So whatever the takeaway from this is gonna be whatever your vice is or your vices are if you have multiple. The biggest thing is having the self awareness of what those vices are. The second thing is how do you make adjustments to your day, to your calendar, to your lifestyle so that your vices don't become disruptive to your deliverables and what you need to do? My thing is this, people are people and perfection. I have yet to see perfection from a human.
Nikki:I know I'm not perfect. I'm not gonna expect that out of anybody else. So if you good with your vices, be good with them regardless of what anybody has to say. But if you know that your vices are disrupting your lifestyle, your bag, your well-being, You probably need to do something about that. So, again, this is a random, random, random thought right now.
Nikki:I was reaching for my iPad to finish this post finally today, And then I gotta do some paperwork, which probably can wait till tomorrow. But I wanted to share that. And I'm a be done there because if I keep talking, I'm gonna go on a tangent, and I need to be getting this content done. So I wanted to share that in hopes that it helps somebody. It helps you refocus.
Nikki:It helps you be accepting of your vices, to give yourself some grace, to give the people around you some grace. And even if somebody's doing something and what they're doing doesn't fit into the little box you've tried to put them in, that's okay. Let people live. Let people live. Whether you like it or not, whether you agree with it or not, whether you support it, let people live.
Nikki:Okay. I gotta go. I gotta write. After I submit this to my client, I'm gonna get back to writing my blog post. I think it's been a good month since I put something out.
Nikki:So, yeah, no real excuse. But, again, let people live. Know your vices and procrastination can definitely be put in the category of vices. But I'll say it again in case you didn't hear it. The first, second, third, or fourth time I said it.
Nikki:Let people live. Y'all be good. I gotta go write.
