Jan 2021

This is a more personal About Me section than the one on my home page, which is attempting to be professional. Hopefully, it succeeds, but only time will tell. (¬‿¬)

Here I want to share with you more personal info about me – you know the stuff people tell you not to divulge when you talk business – kids, hobbies, stuff that makes you laugh. ♥ With that being said, I hope we can become friends…and maybe even colleagues.

So did you know what you wanted to become when you were growing up? I didn’t. I don’t think many of us did.  ◕‿↼ This gets tricky especially when my high schoolers are in that phase when they are being asked what THEY want to do when they grow up. I say, take it easy, not all of us want to be doctors, nurses, and firemen from the get-go.

I am a multipotentialist, a term coined by Emilie Wapnick. Some of us have never grown up to One True Calling but rather are passionate and interested in multiple things. Some people clime up the pyramid and progress in a straight line, but others follow what life throws at us, in a zig-zag ⇝ way.

People say that the world belongs to specialists, but I think multipotentialists are happier. And I do choose happiness. It is MY life, after all. ᕙ(⇀‿↼‶)ᕗ 

When I got to college, I loved math and I thought I might want to do something with that. But after taking a very high math course that was super abstract, I realized, I couldn’t do theories all my life. A good friend suggested that I take an Econ class. I liked the class and so I became Econ major. If I had to do it again, I would probably take Finance more so than Econ, but I didn’t know what I was doing. That is the advantage of getting through the system, I can share with my own kids lessons learned.

My second major was English, just because I knew I wanted to take many English classes to improve my language skills, as English was my second language. And a minor in Computer Science was because I liked technology.

If it was now, I would have done graphic, web design, something like that. But no regrets. Things happen for a reason, and I am an optimist. Every job I had, taught me something. I feel like a culmination of all the skills that I have learned over the years. Now I just have to figure out how to make use of all of them and do what I like.

Have you read the book by Scott Adams, “How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big?” It is such a great book. I could relate to what the main premise was the fact that our success is born in the cumulation of all our skills. Although Scott Adams was never the best artist or the best bank manager, he was a teller that could draw decently enough and could bring the comic strip Dilbert to life. An artist that didn’t understand the office culture wouldn’t be interested or care to give us Dilbert and a bank teller that couldn’t draw at all would be limited in sharing the absurd stories. You kind of need both.

Getting back to Econ and Finance. I worked at a Big 4 Accounting firm and an investment bank, working on tax documentation, research, and providing support for large multimillion-dollar companies. Interesting stuff, but very distant from my everyday financial life.

That is why I became n IRS Enrolled Agent and I worked at a couple of large tax preparation companies as Master Tax Advisor and Tax Expert, preparing taxes for individuals.

I currently volunteer doing taxes and am working on tax-related infographics, book, and articles. I like this work so much more because it is so relatable. Knowledge from everything I learn about individual and small business taxes can be applied to my family life.

I volunteer with two IRS Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) programs that offer free tax assistance. As an AARP Tax-Aid volunteer, I prepare tax returns for seniors, and as a Ladder Up Tax Preparer & Quality Reviewer volunteer, I prepare tax returns for individuals in disadvantaged communities.

Taxes and finances are emotional. So emotional. It is hard to keep it cool when you have to make a large surprise payment to the IRS. It is hard to keep it cool when you are supporting a family and things are tight. I love being able to share with my clients what benefits are out there and translate the tax law in easy terms. I can see an immediate impact on somebody’s life — from a short discussion that teaches them something practical and applicable to their life. My involvement with the VITA programs also taught me another thing. Volunteering is important and it is important to find a way to give back that relates to your interests and strength.

Enough of this tax talk. What else?

I am married and have been with my husband since 1996… a very long time. I assist him with his remodeling business by helping on the operations and financial side and taking care of website design, YouTube videos, and remodeling articles (many drafts….not many actually published yet). That is how I kind of got propelled toward entrepreneurship and web and content creation, as I started enjoying it immensely. I love being able to put stuff out there. I do have a history of making art and loving it so that kind of relates to my interest in design.

I have two teenage kids who are my co-workers right now as we are surviving through the at-home e-learning and working from home during Covid-situation. My son and daughter swim competitively, and during the year, we are busy with swim activities (which are currently are on-hold and we miss).

Finally…

I ♥ life and a good sense of humor (right now, I love watching Sarah Cooper). I have a few draft comic strip cartoons that I want to publish, but I need to work on them a bit more. Taking photos and making abstract art make me super happy and I love to use them to decorate our home.

Most of all, I love learning, simplifying, and creating things. I decided enough of these unfulfilled ideas and drafts piling up on my hard drive. It was time to put it out there and share it with the world. I am glad, I am actually doing it. You should too. Whatever you want to do, just do it. You are never too old or not good enough. Think about the fact that if you have another 20-30-40 years to go, that is so much time to do what you like. And if you say you are not good enough, did you see what stuff people put on YouTube and the web? Sure there are some incredible things out there and if you were doing it for 10-20 years you would be as good, but there are also many sub-par things made by people that have the confidence to put it out there. If they can do it, surely we can too. ٩◔̯◔۶

Important: I am not suggesting to put crap out there, not at all, it is your brand you are creating, but putting things that we can do to the best we can right now, even if they are not award-winning, is still great. You and I will get better and it is great to create your own presence online. I hate to break it to you but the internet is here to stay so might as well have a bit of control of what is out there about us by creating it ourselves. ☜(⌒▽⌒)☞

My goal is to do 100 new things/submissions/creations in 2021. I have started accumulating some rejections but also some winnings too. Maybe when I am a bit further in the process I will share them. Let me get to 30. 

In the past, when I was working on all of this by myself, I was not sure where it was going…but now I know and it feels great. It is a bit scary, but still so much better than if I didn’t try. Trying what, you ask? I don’t know…different things – selling, publishing, writing, designing, zooming with new groups and people, etc. I rather regret falling on my face ヽ(O_O )ﾉ than regret not trying at all.

When you start doubting yourself, think about somebody that you know that is no longer here with us on this Earth. Especially if they were young, and they were robbed of the chance to fulfill their dreams, it is our duty, I believe, to fulfill ours. It is a cop-out having the chance and not taking it.

So here you have it. I think we are friends now. (¬‿¬)

Aki ♥