Keep adding to your toolkit

Who was more valuable to the “Show time” Lakers: Magic Johnson or Kareem Abdul Jabbar? Kareem is the all-time leading scorer in NBA history, but when he went down in the 1980 NBA finals, the point guard played center and had one of the greatest games in NBA finals history, going on to be the youngest and only rookie to ever be the finals MVP. Why was he the MVP?

Simple, his skillset covered every position. He could play from 1 to 5 position.

Similarly, after a decade plus in the tech industry, I left Microsoft to join Delta Air Lines. When I left Microsoft, I knew everything – all you had to do was ask me. I would have been happy to tell you. However, I then joined a different industry and realized all of my rev rec and stock comp deep knowledge really didn’t help me tackle financings (no debt), leasing (heck, we had $100B in cash at the time), pensions (nope, not in tech), VIEs, derivatives and hedging, etc.

So I had to get out of my niche and broaden out, reading and learning everything applicable to a new industry. Over the next 8 months I read everything I could about all areas whether applicable or not and in the process I fell in love with what I liked so much about accounting again. More importantly I realized the danger of specializing and the value of learning, reading and adding new skills and experiences every step of the journey. I’ve kept that up since then, for six years publishing a weekly summary of everything going on in the accounting world. I’m reinstituting that on my website in the Accounting Update and Resources page. Stay tuned for future updates.

Why Uphill Consulting? We cover every position, from 1 to 5.