When I tell my story, I often begin with, “If there was ever a born accountant, I am one.”

I started small with typical kid stuff like budgeting and tracking my candy stash from one holiday to the next. In elementary school I moved on to tracking my money in a notebook and counting it every week to make sure it was all there. By junior high I was organizing and recording receipts for my truck driver dad to give monthly totals to his tax accountant. By high school I was helping my friends with their accounting homework even though I had never taken the class. OK so maybe those aren’t typical activities for a kid, but they came to me so naturally and I actually enjoyed doing them.