Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to James Liu. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have James with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?
As a person of color and specifically Chinese descent, I have always felt that I was inherently programmed to strive for success and work hard to achieve a good life. I believe that work ethic is always driven by a motivating factor and my motivation growing up has been to make my parents proud and build a successful life for myself and loved ones. I did not come from a background of wealth and saw how hard my parents worked to provide me a great life. My mom is the most frugal person alive and would never eat any quality food or wear nice clothes in order to save for my siblings and myself. She always prioritized serving us at the expense of herself. My dad is one of the smartest human beings on the planet and worked his whole life to set himself up to provide us a better life than he had growing up. Being the first to obtain higher education and graduate with a PhD in his family, he will always be the role model that comes to mind when working hard and striving for success in anything I do. For me, motivation and work ethic is driven by my dedication to help those around me rather than my personal gratitude. True happiness I’ve experienced in my life is just seeing my loved ones happy and fulfilled. Therefore, my work ethic comes from a sense of servant leadership, meaning that I work towards success, status, and wealth with the ultimate goal to serve the ones I care about around me.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
At a young age, I’ve always engraved in my mind that if I am going to do something, then why not be the best. This is a mentality that my mom always instilled to me around getting good grades in school, but was further inked in my mind by my idol Kobe Bryant and his remarkable approach to life and mamba mentality. Therefore as I have climbed the Corporate America ladder as a certified public accountant, I’ve always owed my success to two main strengths I hold: work ethic and building relationships. Working harder than those around me to be successful is a simple concept I learned quickly through my idols and life itself. To achieve and sustain the highest level of success, hard work is not optional Talent without hard work is useless. I have learned that relationships are the most important assets in anyone’s career professionally. I started my career at a public accounting firm as an auditor like many CPAs do out of college. I knew it was important experience for any successful accountant and finance professional to gain audit skills and perspective of looking at finances. After 3 years, I shifted my path towards private accounting as that was ultimately the long term goal I strived for. After working in accounting and reporting at a private company, I transitioned to public companies as I knew the value of SEC reporting and working in accounting at a public company. I ended up being the head controller of a publicly traded company 6 years after graduating college by the age of 27, a feat I did not expect to achieve until much later in my career. A lot of my success I attribute to my hard work at becoming a CPA, working in challenging work opportunities, and having the mindset of expanding my skillset by purposefully gaining experience in different areas in accounting and finance, including auditing, private accounting, and public company SEC reporting. However, I have to owe the bulk of my professional success to the relationships I’ve built along the way. I have been directly contacted and referred to for the majority of my positions due to the relationships I’ve built with certain professionals. I’ve learned the people you know and trust you are those that will help you succeed in your growth and promotions. One advice I give everyone as they ask for career advice is to value the relationships in every corner of your network, as you never know when they would come back to support you.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
1. Relationships 2. Simplicity
3. Take Risks
The most impactful skill I have is my ability to build connections with all different types of people. Rarely in my life do I remember making enemies and I learned at a young age how valuable relationships are. My career success I owe to the relationships I’ve built with peers and managers. The second quality I pride myself in is just having a simplistic approach to life. I define myself as a minimalist in everything I do, and I also see myself as frugal. Therefore I try to keep my spending to only things I believe I need and also avoid clutter and decision fatigue in life. I’ve helped my financial standing and also believe I live a less stressful life when everything is kept simple. Overall, I try to keep a simple approach to everything in life and I have been more content in my journey as a result. The last quality that I believe is incredibly impactful to not only my journey, but anyone’s life, is to take risks. They say life is short and that statement is really true when you reflect how valuable time is. Everyone’s journey is one they should enjoy and regret can be terribly painful. I’ve found that the most fulfilling life cannot be lived without any risks. Whether it’s to take the risk to date someone, to accept a new job, to go on that trip, etc, no one can truly achieve what they’d like without taking risks in life.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
I am always looking for other successful professionals to network, learn, and collaborate with. People who have journeys that have inspired others would be people I would want in my circle and to work with. I want to learn from others who have succeeded along their journeys, no matter what field or industry they are in. I can be reached on my Instagram at J.liuu and also my email [email protected].
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/j.liuu/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamesliu24
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-liu-cpa-08843593/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=4j8qX3u-nSW4zgirS1yMBw
