Meet Mysti Marcantonio

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mysti Marcantonio a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Mysti, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.
As I was starting out, I would face problems or situations as we all do. I would feel incompetent and discouraged that it would take me so many long hours only to feel more perplexed. Me belief was that if I couldn’t solve something, I must be a fraud. Even so, my typical response was just to keep learning and growing. Giving up wasn’t an option so I knew I couldn’t be afraid to reach out for help.

Surprisingly, finding help was a challenge all its own. Once I able to secure a lead, I had more hope that I could still get the issue corrected in a timely manner. I hired consulting professionals to collaborate with me on the issues as they arose. Not just any professionals though. I chose niche industry leaders that were on social media platforms presented as educators and gurus. The fees were hefty but I felt like I was making a good decision and the fees were justifiable due to my feelings of desperation.

Subsequently, I came to find out I had been faced with very high complexity problems or extremely rare situations that had not been presented to others professionals prior to me. We would collaborate for an hour at a time. Sometimes they would find the resolution and sometimes they wouldn’t. Maybe that was simply not sufficient time for that consultant to resolve the issue themselves, but they tried their best. They did, however, leave me with a few golden nuggets to take with me on my journey forward.

To my astonishment, it seemed that I was no less qualified than they. I kept pressing on and came to find the solutions to my own problems and situations. And after being through that same process a handful of times, I realized that I just needed a little encouragement to help my motivation stay strong. My belief in myself skyrocketed. I also learned a valuable lesson about a professionals specialty-there is a lot of information in the universe and just because a professional knows a lot about a broad topic, doesn’t mean they will be a matter expert every time.

We all have to continue to learn and grow daily. I learned that I’m not a fraud just because I don’t know something. Everything situation we are faced with is an opportunity to learn something new or grow in different perspectives.

Finally, being open to being wrong and staying teachable and coachable is essential for success, but positioning myself as the leaders I once hired has come from overcomeing the imposter syndrome.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I began my journey as an entrepreneur in 2018 when I was going through a divorce and had to reenter the workforce after being a stay-at-home wife and mother for a decade. Prior to that my whole career life was in managerial accounting through retail management that eventually led me to income tax preparation.

Around 2015, as my children were getting older I found myself volunteering in different ways. Several of my friends were entrepreneurs and we’re starting businesses around me. They didn’t have a budget for a bookkeeper or accountant so I offered to help since I knew it so well and loved what I did. It was only a few hours a week that I would put into these businesses but it was a tremendous help for them.

A new I wanted to continue to homeschool my children and remain having a flexible schedule to be available for them. The going back to work as an accountant full-time putting in 40 to 60 hours a week just wouldn’t work for me. I started to delve into forming a business around my lifestyle. My Friends that I was helping with accounting suggested turning the work I love into a business instead of working for someone else.

During 2018, I did all the research and put all the pieces in place that I would need to launch in 2019. I basically thought about how much I would need to make every week in order to work the amount of hours that I could and still have the lifestyle and time freedom that I wanted. I came up with that number and that’s how I decided I would charge for my services. I never set out to get rich or work myself to death. My goal was to live a simple life where work and money didn’t own me. To be present with my children and help them grow and learn and give them every opportunity I could.

My journey gave me a great passion for entrepreneurs who were trying to do the same thing. Slowly took on a few clients here and there in 2019. And I was only working about 15 hours a week. I priced very reasonably especially low for some people sometimes to help them get off the ground running as I did. I’ve always had an abundance mentality I was never afraid that I wasn’t going to have enough or there wouldn’t be enough to go around. I did hire a business mentor to help me through the time of my divorce when I was hearing all of the ugly things from haters and people wanting to see me fail. That was the best decision I could have made. She got me through quite a rough patch where I was experiencing so much self-doubt. Hired another mentor for coaching for industry niche accounting. I continued to take continuing education courses since I had a little extra time.

In 2020 I continued to grow and during the pandemic I was already in a position to operate 100% virtually so I reached out and let anyone know that if they needed help or coaching to move virtually I would be happy to assist. I wound up taking on a mentee that was going through a hard time in her life as well. I was able to get her up and running to do the exact same thing I did. She’s now a very close accounting friend and her and I work with mutual clients and collaborate regularly.

I got remarried and had a baby who is now two and a half. I still want the same lifestyle I don’t want to work more than 20 hours a week so that I can be available for my husband and my children. My oldest son has been accepted to his master’s of engineering program and just got engaged. My middle daughter is 14 and finishing 8th grade. My passion is to help entrepreneurs have the same time freedom as I while making whatever amount of money that they wish to.

I teach entrepreneurs their constitutional tax rights and how to pay taxes like the rich. The importance of documenting and recording everything to be IRS audit proof. My firm’s team is comprised of bookkeepers, accountants, IT technicians, a marketing manager, an investment consultant, and myself. We specialize in automating all of company processes to give business owners and entrepreneurs their time back.

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?
I believe that the top three areas that were the most impactful on my journey were being teachable and coachable and willing to ask for help, understanding and believing that what we love to do is what we should be compensated for, and visualizing the lifestyle you want and then reverse engineering your career and how to accomplish it. Which could be summarized as self-awareness , goals, work-life balance.

Who is your ideal client or what sort of characteristics would make someone an ideal client for you?
My ideal client is something that I’ve worked on for years to narrow down and hone it on. After working with all sorts of people and businesses I can say I understand it fully now.

My ideal client is an entrepreneur who wants to understand how their numbers affect their business, but recognizes that accounting is not their zone of genius. Someone who understands and appreciates what I bring to the table and wants to grow and learn together. Someone who wants to continue to add to their portfolio over time, wants to continue to build their wealth, builder children’s wealth, and be generous – just not to the IRS. Someone who wants to understand their tax rights and apply them regularly and apply new tax strategies as time goes on.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Chloe Williams, Christian Marcantonio

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