In this episode, Dr. Sev sits down with CPA and legacy strategist, Albert Butler, to discuss the emotional, financial, and personal side of money that often gets ignored.
Albert shares why internal wholeness has to come before any financial strategy, how to shift from chasing money to chasing purpose, and what Legacy Over Ledgers looks like in real life — especially for someone navigating a major life transition like divorce or retirement.
They also discussed practical insights on budgeting, personal cash flow, scaling yourself before scaling a business, and building a financial legacy that goes beyond wealth accumulation.
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The Dr. Sev Talks Money podcast’s mission is to empower women to approach money confidently, reframe their financial habits, and build a future where their money is a tool for opportunity and security.
Through Dr. Sev Talks Money YouTube channel and Podcast, I provide actionable advice and inspiration to help you achieve financial freedom. Join me for one-on-one coaching, group sessions, workshops, or speaking engagements as we journey to financial empowerment together. It’s never too late to begin again—let’s make it happen!
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Albert’s information
Albert Butler, CPA, MBA is an author, nationally recognized CPA, strategic advisor, and creator of the Legacy Alignment System, a framework designed to help leaders, entrepreneurs, and families align purpose, structure, money, and legacy. With more than 25 years of experience in public accounting, business advisory, and executive financial leadership, Albert has built his career around one core belief: Accounting is the Heartbeat of Business.
Check out his book here
Transcript
Have you ever thought about what happens after? After a divorce, after retirement, after stepping away from a business. What does it really take to prepare for those transitions? Not just financially, but fully.
Hey, hey, hey, Savvy Squad. Welcome to another episode of the Dr. Sev Talks Money podcast. If you’re new here, I’m your host, Dr. Sev, personal finance educator and coach, who rebuilt my credit from the 500s to 850 and paid off 39,000 in debt after a late-life divorce. I help women rebuild their relationship with money and create financial lives they’re proud of, no matter where they’re starting from. And that’s exactly why today’s conversation matters so much to me.
Because today, we’re not just talking about earning money or growing it. We’re talking about what it means to truly carry wealth, to align it with our life in a way that builds something that goes far beyond the numbers, especially as we move through major life transitions.
Joining me today is Albert Butler, a certified public accountant with over 25 years of experience helping families design a life of legacy that reflects who they truly are. His full bio will be in the show notes and the video description. So lean in and let’s get into it. Albert, welcome to the show. Dr.
Sev, Dr. Sev, I’ve been looking so forward to this conversation. I think when we first had our initial, uh, meetup and you told me how your platform and the needs of your platform, I just knew once we got a chance to talk, the things and the stories and the lessons that we can share is just gonna resonate and be able to help your audience put something in their toolkit to actually use, to make it part of their actual function.
As compared to just theory and high-level things, we’re gonna actually be able to give them something that they can use for years to come. So I am so excited. Thank you for having me. Yeah. You are very welcome, and I’m excited to hear about all those experiences- Yes … years of experience that you’re going to be sharing with us.
So Albert, you’ve spent 25 plus years helping people build wealth, but what’s one money lesson your daughters taught you that you didn’t expect? I have four children, actually. I have a son. He’s the oldest, and, and when he was born, man, everything was great because, hey, I had a son. But when my, my first daughter was born, um, things just shifted. It’s, it’s like you have that true honor on your chest It’s, it’s interesting because your daughters teach you something every single day. And they surprise me every single day with how their, their, their, their levels of curiosity, especially when they were younger and they really didn’t know what daddy actually did for a living.
And some of the things that they would actually say about, “Hey, Dad, give me this. Hey, Dad, give me that.” My oldest daughter, I’ll never forget this story, um, I had the opportunity to actually tell my little girl no for a change. She had to have been maybe about seven years old, and she said, “Hey, Dad, I want to get this doll house,” I believe is what it was.
And I said, “No, we can’t afford that doll house. I don’t have any money for that doll house.” And she says, “Yes, you do. You have that credit card.” “Take that credit card out. You can buy whatever you want.” I said, “I can’t buy whatever I want.” She said, “Yes, you can. I’ve seen you do it. You do it all the time.” I said…
I opened the door, I told my wife, I said, “This is the moment when it’s time to have a conversation about transparency and how the money cycle works.” Because if that little girl could identify that that piece of plastic can purchase things, it’s time for to give her a lesson about what that credit cycle really, really is.
So if I had to give a, a, a straight honest answer, what my daughter taught me that I wasn’t truly expecting was that she was watching. She was watching. She was watching Yeah. I, I, I wonder if they all learn the, the same s- um, spiel at the same place somewhere. Sure. Because my daughter actually told me the same thing.
Go up to the credit card, you know, “You can, you can buy that.” Buy whatever you want. I’ve seen you do it. Yeah. And it’s interesting because they, this, and, and seeing, in that moment, um, I, I actually brought her to, to the table, to the kitchen table, and this is something that I advocate heavily, and something my father did with me.
And it was time to have a conversation about the money cycle, and how our country is really built. Because truth be told, and I like to tell this to everybody, money is, is not what people really think it is, you know? Truly, money is just a tool. It is just a tool, and I’m sure we can talk more about this, but I really wanna hit this home because you, ’cause you brought the question up.
‘Cause I had to explain this to her as well too. Money is just a tool, a tool to exchange goods and services for the resources that we need to survive. However, we’re in a capitalistic society, and capitalism is built on the word credit. So that credit cycle has to continue to flow, because the credit that’s, that’s given to me turns into the money cycle that’s going out to pay somebody else’s salary down the road.
So I pull out that card to swipe it, that company actually is gonna get that money and they can better pay their payroll. Them paying their payroll gives it to their employees. Their employees are gonna go out and they’re gonna spend that money, and that cycle keeps going and going and going. That’s why it’s so critical and so important, because our country is built on credit.
And people don’t understand that. They really don’t. So it’s, that’s the real truth. Yeah. You mentioned about even, this wasn’t part of my, the question I was gonna ask, but let’s go there. Um, you mentioned the cycle, right? The, the fact that you swipe that card, and then that person, when they, that company or that sole proprietor, when they collect that money, they’re paying the lights, they’re paying their employees.
They’re paying- That’s right … you know, all the different expenses. So they, the constant cycle of that money. One of the things I know from what I’ve read is that in certain communities, that cycle goes on several times before the money leaves that community.
That’s right. Whereas, um, um, unfortunately in some communities that cycle doesn’t even complete before the money goes out of the community. That’s it. Yes. And, and as you said, money, we, this country’s built on debt. This country’s built on credit. And, um, we can see what’s going on right now even in our, our government that’s been going on for years.
Right. And the deficit continues to climb. Um, the circle, it seems like the circle in, in corporate America, the circle in the government is, is a little bit, um, wonky. Uh, so you know, we can beat up our communities and say, “Hey, you’re, the money’s not circulating enough.” But we have a, a bad example of what’s going on in the government and in, in, um, in some corporate, um, entities that the cycle that should happen that will feed a community is not quite happening.
Do you wanna add anything to that? Oh my gosh. This is, this is really going to, um, either it’s gonna make people listen in deeper or they’re gonna turn us off immediately. Hope you’re ready for this ’cause it’s, it’s, it’s about to come. It’s about to come. Our government, and since we, we wanted, we, we, we brought it up, our government has a duty, a duty that starts off with security.
That security is critical to make sure our borders are protected. That’s number one. And, and I think that a lot of times that gets a little bit blurred on the spin that it takes to protect those borders. But at the same time, those, tho- that our government is, is using the treasury function to create what we call truly a fiat currency.
Our currency is, is, is not backed by anything, just a, just a, a promissory note to pay. And that promissory note for our good benefit has been the functional currency globally. So when you step back and you hear in the news that other parts of the world are starting to use a different currency that’s not our currency, that’s actually a really bad thing.
That’s a, that’s actually a really bad thing because it, it actually, um, takes some of the strength that our dollar has actually carried throughout the years. So we wanna support that. However, here’s the, here’s the, here’s where the rub comes in then. Our communities, you mentioned that the money leaves out of our community.
Mm-hmm. That also means that our money can leave out of our country as well too. Yeah. Who are you letting in your community? Who are you supporting in your community? Where are you spending your dollars in your community? I am, have the fortunate, um, opportunity to, to work in a majority owned Black firm, and I say that proudly.
I say it because my mission is to help- Everyone understand the money cycle. Help everyone to understand the importance of knowing that accounting is truly the heartbeat of business, but it’s also the key to personal finance success. And when you can understand that concept and you can bring it back to the kitchen table and teach that concept to your children and your children’s children, it really sets up that community drive, that city drive, that state drive, that country drive.
Because there’s equivalent exchange happening on a global basis where money comes in, money comes out. That cycle is gonna be continuing nonstop. So it’s always important. Think about who you let in your community. Think about where you’re spending your dollars at. And if you spend the dollars in places that you don’t want it to leave out the community, you might wanna sit back and think, “I need to put it somewhere else.”
Yeah. Let’s, let’s even expound some more on that, um, accounting and how that relates to not just business, but our personal finances, and how people can understand how… Uh, ’cause I’m a retired accountant, so um, you know, we can talk numbers, but let’s break it down to the people how they can apply that concept to make sure that they’re living fully or they’re exercising their, their money or their agency over money in the right way.
Or not real- let’s, let’s not say the right way. In the way that benefits them. Mm-hmm. Well, I will tell you this, that it starts with a solid understanding of how your spend is taking place. Yeah. The more money we spend, if we’re not putting that spending in, in, in, in places that’s gonna help grow and develop for us, we’re hurting ourselves.
Mm-hmm. So how do we do that? Step one, you have to do a budget. You have to take ownership of that. Every entity on this planet, if you wanna be successful, you have to do a budget. I’ll tell you right now, I’m an entrepreneur. Even, and in my business, our fiscal year is, ends at 9/30. So guess what that means?
I am six months into my fiscal year. So I did a budget six months ago. I gotta go back and redo a ca- recast that budget and look at my plan and forecast it back out to make sure I’m on target, and I can make sure I can plan for the next six months properly. Everybody from every organization, every corporate entity to the small mom and pop, to the kitchen table for every family, you have to do that budget.
You have to recast that budget to understand where the spending is going. Every dollar has a job, and I wanna make sure everybody understands that because when you sit back and you just spend frivolously, that means that you let those dollars go out the door and nothing’s gonna come back to you That hurts you long term.
And you don’t, we don’t wanna hurt ourselves long term. You don’t wanna hurt your future self. And I’ll go one step further. You don’t wanna hurt your past self, because your past self set you up for the being the present self that you are in right now. So let’s make sure we’re not hurting our future selves.
Let’s make sure we’re putting our dollars to work. Let’s make sure we’re making these investments where they need to be. Yeah. Yeah. You, you, you said something so key, that every organization, every entity has a budget. And if we don’t wanna call it a budget, we can call it whatever, but if we don’t know where we are, where we’re going, what we’ve done, how do we get to a goal?
How do we set a goal? And if we set a goal, how do we get there if we don’t know what we have to work with? And, and so that is why it is so key. Whatever name we wanna call it, we need to know what’s coming in, we need to know what’s going out, we need to know what our capabilities are, our capacity is, in order to reach the goal that we’ve set for ourselves.
In order to reach the goal, what are the assets that I need? What are the, the things that I need to reach that goal? And one of those things is understanding what I’m spending and what’s coming in.
So, so yes, it’s very, very key that we, we do that. Now, we hear a lot about building wealth, growing wealth, scaling wealth. But you s- you talk about something called legacy over ledgers. That’s right. What does that actually look like in real life? Uh, especially for someone right now who feels they’re just trying to keep up.
What, what does that mean for them, or what they sh- what should they be looking for to apply to make sure just keeping up is, means more, or just keeping up doesn’t derail them from getting to their goal? Legacy over ledgers. I want… And I’ma, I’ma separate the words. Legacy and then ledger. Let’s start with ledger.
What is that? That’s exactly what we just finished talking about a second ago. Where are your numbers? Where’s the spend going? Where’s the top line revenue number that’s coming in? Everybody has that, has that coming in. You have to know what those numbers are. So when you know how much income you have coming into the house, you have to know income that’s, I mean, the expense that’s going out the house to get to your bottom line.
Are you in the black or are you in the red? Those are real personal questions everybody has to answer for themselves, so that ledger’s extremely important. I challenge so many people to do something called doing your own personal cash flow statement. Mm-hmm. That’s gonna tell a whole story. So I’ll tell your audience, every company has, has the, the, I’ll call them the, the three major financial statements, and I throw a fourth one in there as well too.
Balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statement, and a statement of retained earnings. Those four are critical, but really the, the three I wanna talk more about. That cash flow statement really tells you where you actually spent your money in any given period of time. Let that just sit for a minute.
Have you ever sat back and just looked to see how many of your dollars are going out to random places? All those extra subscriptions that you have that you probably don’t even use, some magazine you might’ve signed up for that you don’t even read. Those are some serious things. And I, I sit back and I, I tell this to people all the time, and they wonder, “Why don’t I have any, any money leftovers?”
Because you’re spending too much, literally. So once you get control of your costs and how much you’re spending, then you look at your top line, how much you really have coming in. What determines how much you coming in? You determine how much you coming in. I will tell everyone 100%, if you are in a position where you’re just barely making it, or you’re just trying to get by, ask yourself the question why.
What have you done to scale yourself? Everybody talks about scaling a business and all that type of stuff. It’s backward. It’s completely backward. I challenge your audience, and I advocate deeply, you have to scale yourself first, then your, your duty is to scale your family second. Then you can scale a business.
It has to work that way. Here’s what happens. Most people decide they wanna scale a business, but their family’s in chaos. Most people wanna scale a business, and personally they have a bunch of personal issues going on that they, that they haven’t dealt with. Yeah. Mm. That’s the real, real hard part. So every client that comes work with me, I tell them, “Hey, we don’t need to talk about your business.
We don’t need to talk about your numbers. Matter of fact, even if I’m doing your taxes, we don’t even talk about that. Let’s talk about you. Because every decision that you’ve made has resulted in the numbers that I see on these papers right now. So let’s talk about those decisions that you made, ’cause if we can’t address that, you’ll be right back in my office, uh, a year from now with the same problems all over again.”
Yeah. “But… And I never really, really helped you at that point.” Yeah. So scale yourself personally first. Yeah. I love that. Because if we are, y- you know, there’s a saying that if you don’t… There’s something, if you don’t do what you’re doing to repeat yourself, or repeat- You don’t learn from your past, you’re doomed to, doomed to repeat it To repeat it.
That’s right. Yeah. And, and so understanding who we are and how we relate to money, which we’ll, we’ll get more into that later in the conversation, but understanding that really does help. Because if I know I’m an e- emotional spender- … that’s something for me to know. And if I know that, now I can put some fail-safe measures in place to help me manage that emotional spending.
Right. What are the things that I can do? Maybe I don’t go to the grocery store, instead I buy online. Um, so I am more, if I go into the store, I’m gonna be grabbing stuff because I’m tired or I’m hungry or whatever, but if I’m online, I’m gonna get what I need online and then leave. Um- Right … you know, whatever it is that we can put in place, but we have to know ourselves, as you said, know who we are, how we relate to money, in order to know what are the things that are tri- tripping us up?
What are the things that I do well when it comes to money? ‘Cause we don’t wanna just focus on the negative. What are the things that I do well when it comes to money? That’s right. How can I duplicate that? And what are the things that I don’t do so well, and how can I do less of that? But in order for me to get there, I have to know myself.
Mm-hmm. So I really love that you brought up that conversation, and we’re gonna have some more after this break. Hey friends, quick pause. If you’re enjoying today’s episode, the best way to support the show is to share it and leave a rating on your favorite podcast platform. And you know it, five is our favorite number.
And if you’re watching on YouTube, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share. Thank you. All right. That was awesome. Yeah, I, I created that. I was like, I, I kept saying things and I’m like, “Let me create something.” Yes. Yes. I have learned… You know what? That’s one of the things too, I, I’ll bring that into the conversation.
I’m not gonna cut this out. I’m gonna bring it because it’s part of life, right? Yes. Let’s talk about it. One of the things as a solo, um, as an LLC, solo entrepreneur, and you have to learn different skills before you can scale up, right? Mm. I was just in a conversation with, um… I’m part of the BBB accelerator program here in where I live, and this was our second week, and we just talked about those things, is your, your, the five stages of your business.
You’re in the, the initial stage, and then you’re in a chaos stage- That’s right … where you’re wearing many hats. You’re doing all these things. You’re doing late nights. You’re doing all these things. Sometimes our money resemble that. And, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of because, you know, for me to create that, I had to come up, think outside the box.
Don’t wanna pay somebody to do that. I have the time. I’m retired. I have the time, and I, I can figure out the skills. Do I use Canva? I’m already paying for it, and I created my little blurb. That’s it. Sometimes you have to do that with your money. You know, you’re in the chaos stage where maybe the money’s not coming the way you want to, so now you’ve gotta figure out ways to make that money stretch.
You gotta figure out ways to cut back on those expenses, those subscriptions that we hold onto emotionally. “I’m gonna use it. I’m gonna use it.” No, you’re not. Get rid of it. No, you’re not. Get rid of it. No, you’re not. Get rid of it. Get rid of it. And I’m talking to myself too, ’cause I have to get rid of stuff.
You know? So, uh, uh, the bottom line why I kind of veered here is I want people to remember not to feel shame, not to be ashamed of where you are. All of us have gone through some kind of cycle where it comes to our money, our businesses. The key thing, I think, is to recognize that and then see where do I, what do I need to do now to fix that?
What, where, what do I need to do to not be in that place again? Uh, to learn from this lesson because data is information. That’s right. Data is something that helps us create plans. So yes, what you are experiencing is data. That’s exactly right. So use that to, to build on. So like me creating that, whatever it is that you need to create to make the financial journey a little bit better for you, whatever you’ve heard from, from Albert so far, you know, apply that, and don’t let shame keep you stuck in a place where you’re not moving, you’re not having any forward momentum.
Let’s, let’s, let’s make a, a, a nice little bow around this. Dr. Sev, I wanna share this with the audience in, in, with everything that you just said. In every aspect of what we do, you have to sow seeds. Yeah. Those seeds, you have to water the seed.
You have to give the seed sunlight. ‘Cause here’s what happens with that seed. Seeds grow down first- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm … then they grow up. You’re building your root system. I call it roots before branches. You’re building your root system by you taking the time. You are investing in yourself, you’re learning a new skill.
It’s, it’s a little bit scary at first, but you’re building a foundation that’s strong. Mm. And as the, the stronger that foundation gets, and all of a sudden that branch is gonna start coming up that, that is gonna get wider and more things are gonna come from, and then it’s gonna bear fruit. That’s what’s powerful about everything that we’re doing.
On the entrepreneur journey is truly the one of the most, I would say one of the most sc- it’s a scary journey- Mm-hmm … while at the same time it’s a, it’s a very exciting journey. And it’s almost like, how do you name that emotion in the middle? It’s very difficult to put, to put a finger on it, because sometimes you’ll be up late at night worried about something and stressed out about something, but at the same time you wake up in the morning excited about the next thing that you’re gonna get a chance to do.
It is so wonderful and so beautiful that it, it’s, it’s… you can’t even put a word around it. I encourage everybody to get, to give it a run see, just to see. And with that, to your point earlier, I have a framework. I call it the five muscles of enterprise, and everything that you just said, you was touching on those muscles.
Muscle number one is leadership. You have to know how to lead if you really wanna go run this, run, run this race. Number two is operations. You have to know how to operate inside the business and know what you’re gonna try to put out there. Service are, are good that you wanna try to sell, ’cause guess what comes next?
The sales. You gotta know how to sell it. You gotta know how to connect with people. You have to know how to get, build the demand for what- Mm … you have to offer, and then give it, give it to, give it to, to the marketplace so they can understand the, the value of it. And then third, the IT infrastructure, that data, data, data.
You just said it. Having a, that solid data system around you of the, not just the data, but also the tools you use to manage that data. It’s so, so critical and so important. And then last but definitely not least, accounting. The true heartbeat of it all. In every aspect of it, I will tell you that whatever decisions you make, whatever cycle that you in, the accounting department is gonna be a part of it.
Because when those decisions go down, they have to be accounted for, ’cause you gotta build a cost structure for it. When those decisions come back up and you, a production item took out, came out of it, you have to know what you produced to put it in inventory to go and sell it. And then last but not least, you gotta go sell it.
And then all that revenue comes back in. All that comes back to be centered into the accounting department to be reported right back up to the leadership, to the C-suite, to those that have to tell the world how great you are. Now we can, we can forecast and then, and we can, we can, we, we can tell the world what we gonna do next.
Because everybody wants to know what you’re gonna do next. That was great for yesterday, but what about tomorrow? Yeah. And accounting does all of that for every organization and for every household. Yes. Yeah, it certainly does. Now, in our pre-conversation, you mentioned starting with internal wholeness- Yes
before anything else. And that’s not something we hear often in financial services. So I have to ask, what does being whole have to do with how we handle money? If you have gaps, your money is gonna try to fill those gaps. Mm-hmm. And it could either fill them to, to, to make you, to make you whole, or it can be filled in this bo- up into a bottomless pit.
So you have to understand who you really are, like we mentioned before, to know thyself in every aspect of it. I, I, I, I share what’s called the five mo- well, not, I’m sorry, the, the, a, a SWOT, personal SWOT analysis for you. As compared to thinking about it from a company perspective, what about you? Have you ever did a SWOT analysis on yourself?
What are you good at? What do you struggle with? What is your opportunity, and what’s your actual threat? Doing that and then forcing yourself to find one, maybe two words to describe it, it completely changes the game for you. Because now you know, you’d know how to tell the world what, “Hey, this is what I do.
Hey, guess what? I struggle with this a little bit. B- but also, this is what’s in front of me, what I’m trying to work toward, and this is what I’m not gonna let stop me.” Now I know I can do business with you. Now I know where you are. I respect you a whole lot more because you tell me what you’re good at, you tell me what you’re struggling with, and we can have a connection that’s a whole lot different than you just tell me where you’re from and, and, and, and what you’ve done in the past.
No, I wanna know what you all about. So doing that is critical. That, doing that makes, gives you a superpower, ’cause now you know yourself, and that can make you whole on the inside, and it can show the world on the outside. Yeah. And I always, uh, try to, uh, share tools, and there are three of them that I know of that help us really identify who we are and our strengths.
And, and of course, when we look at tools, we don’t wanna say, “This is all I am,” because we’re not. We are some, sum total of all the things, and we are maybe stronger in an area than, and we, um, a little bit weaker in another area. But the DiSC Um, assessment, DISC- Mm-hmm … the Strength Finders assessment, the Enneagram.
All those, we can do those, those tests, and it kinda help us because you will see a pattern emerge. That’s right. And that will help us to determine what our strengths are, and you can play to your strengths. The things that maybe you are, areas that you’re weaker in in managing your money, that’s when you work with a coach.
And a coach is not a permanent fix to, in your life. Your coach is there to guide you and to give you the tools to help you so you don’t have to see them every month. You come back maybe a year or two years for a checkup. Um, but those things will really help us to identify areas that we can build on. If I’m, I am strong in an area, sometimes I wanna leave those alone.
Here’s the, here’s the thing that we don’t- Mm … usually say. We say, “Lean to your strengths and let somebody else do the weaknesses.” But I say, you need, you want to learn about your weaknesses. That’s right. What are the things that I’m weak in, and how can I build that up? Mm-hmm. See, you don’t just wanna hand that over, ’cause you’ll always be weak in that area.
At least that’s my philosophy. You will always be weak in that area. You want to kinda build up that area. I’m, if I’m strong in analysis, that’s my strength. That’s something I know that comes naturally to me. But if I’m weak in maybe, um, sales and talking to people, if my business suc- is to succeed, then I need to work on that.
And if my, if my personal finance is to increase, then I need to learn how to talk to my boss about getting a raise. Mm. So, uh, that’s an area I need to work on. So instead of saying, “Oh, I’m just gonna take care of the strengths and y- you know, I, I leave that alone,” why don’t we flip the script so we can start b- developing those muscles that are a little bit weak?
You know what’s really powerful about that as well? Normally, if you can put some energy behind that weakness, what happens is that that weakness makes that strength even stronger. Yes. Yes. Because the strength almost comes natural to you, but that weakness makes you uncomfortable. See, every aspect of a struggle makes you better.
So if you have to struggle a little bit with something to try to make you a little bit better at it, like I said before, it might be a little bit scary, but I promise you, that seed that you sowing, sowing in to, to make that weakness a little bit better, it’s gonna make that strength even stronger, and you’re gonna be a real, have a real superpower then.
Yeah. You know, diamonds are created under pressure. That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. And pearls are created from friction, you know? Yeah. You gotta have a little irritation now and then. That’s it. To create that pearl. And I’m telling you, you know, even Albert invited you to, all of us, to really walk the entrepreneurship journey at least once.
I’m telling you- Yes … that’s where you discover who you are- Who you really are … being an entrepreneur. Yes. I’m telling you, if you think you’re strong, go into entrepreneurship. Yes, yes. You- No, but- You’ll discover, you’ll discover some crooks and crannies and you’re like, “Ooh, ooh, where did that come from?” It was there.
It was there. It was always there. It’s funny because I, I, I’ll say this, and we, we can transition to the next topic, but I, I will say this. One of the, um, more complicated things in a entrepreneur journey is when you have people who rely on you for payroll. Oof. And you have to make payroll. Mm-hmm. That right there is, is, is such an, such a honor, obligation, and at the same time, you have a duty to perform.
I can remember being a younger, young- younger, and my, my mom, she had a home health agency. And I can remember the conversations when I would hear her and my dad talking about, “We have to make payroll. We gotta do what we have to do to make payroll.” And as a young kid, I’m like, “What are they talking about making payroll?”
But then as I got older and I be- started in, in the business a little too, I understood that they had that duty, that they hired these people, and they’re gonna go out and perform to try to get a margin on top of the work that’s being done, but their obligation is to these families, that they have to make this payroll because that payroll is part of that money cycle we talked about earlier.
Yeah. They have to make it because these people need that so they can feed their families. So it’s such a honor. At the same time, it is, it is, it is such an obligation that you have to perform. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. So a lot of people feel like they’re constantly chasing. Chasing money, chasing stability, chasing the moment when they finally get it right.
We’ll never get it right, okay? Let me just say that for now. We’ll, we’ll always, there’s always gonna be areas of improvement. Um, it, it’s better, uh, today than it was 10 years ago, but- Yes … there’s no getting it right. So there’s no perfection in our, in our lifetime. But anyway, what does it look like to shift from chasing wealth to designing it with intention?
Hmm. Yeah, I hope, hope everybody’s ready for this. Um, you should never chase money. Mm-hmm. You don’t have to chase wealth. What you have to do is identify purpose. Yeah. Because if you really wanna put, get, get, get really bare to it and understand that in every aspect of it, when you have your eyes set on your north star- You don’t have to worry about having hesitation about getting up the next day.
You don’t have to worry about having to focus on something for the next day. That is the one thing that’s gonna drive you. Because once you o- once you begin to chase purpose, money magically shows up with purpose. Here’s the reason why. Energy begets energy. Yeah. And if I have my l- my north star set on my purpose, my energy’s gonna start resonating outside of me, because everybody’s gonna see it.
I’m gonna walk it, I’m gonna talk it, I’m gonna move in it. And people are gonna be like, “Man, what’s going on with that guy? Why is he so moving like this? Why he so dialed in?” People wanna come find out. They wanna be a part of it. And it’s connections that start to happen, and then more energy begets more energy.
More energy begets more energy. It is a real, real powerful thing that I encourage you, don’t chase money. Always chase purpose. Because when you do, you’re gonna be hap- you, it’ll just make your life so, so, so much better, because that’s what’s gonna help you set up your legacy. Yes. I love it. I love it. And you’re shared so much with us today, if there was one thing you want someone, or one or more things that you want someone to walk away with when it comes to money and legacy, what would it be?
The biggest thing I will tell you is that life is turbulent. No matter how you look at it, no matter what’s go- you’re going to have ups and downs, left and rights, circles backwards and then forward again. Life is turbulent. But when you feel like you just can’t keep going and you feel like you just need a little bit more, I share a quote that I share with everybody.
It’s called, “I can because I will.” And if you think about that, I can because I will, I will because I can, I don’t say can’t because I can. Your willpower will help you push through whatever it is to push through. I know it sounds like motivation, but it’s not. This is a philosophy. And once you bake it inside of you, nobody can stop you but you.
Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that. Uh, what are you currently working on, and how can people go deeper into your work or frameworks? 100%. I, I just actually published a book. The name of the book is Life: Truth, Love, Loss, Success, and Failure. Everything we’re talking about on this, on, on, on the interview today is, is baked inside that book.
The book’s genesis was something that I wrote for my children that has scripture, it has quotes, it has what I call fatherly advice. It just tells my personal stories of where I am today. At the end of each chapter, it gives a final advice as a true takeaway, and everything we’ve, I’ve shared is inside of it.
So if anybody’s curious, they can find it on Amazon. It’s, it’s, it’s readily available. But also, if you really wanna dig a little bit deeper, you can just Google Albert Butler CPA. You’ll find me all over Instagrams and, and, and, and, and, um, YouTube, and my website, albertbutler.com. Yeah. Awesome. Albert, it’s been such a pleasure having you on the podcast today.
You’ve shared a lot with us, and I just want to remind everyone that you heard the conversation, and money is not just something you earn. It’s not just something you manage. It’s something you carry. And how you carry it, your mindset, your experiences, your sense of identity, it shapes every financial decision you make.
Think about it. There’s nothing in life that money doesn’t touch. So until next time, take care of yourself and your money.
