What Interstellar Taught Me About An Accounting Career

November 21 2014

If you haven’t seen the new movie Interstellar, I highly recommend it. It was an incredible adventure film made by the same director that made The Dark Knight and Inception.

Click the image below to watch the trailer.

And there was one quote that while it seems unrelated to accounting, got me thinking:

“We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars,” Matthew McConaughey says in the first act of “Interstellar,” Christopher Nolan’s new epic adventure.

“Now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt.”

I gave a brief speech and moderated a panel this week at the University of Central Florida and I told the audience that I can’t stand whiners. There are so many whiners, I’m sure in every industry, but definitely in accounting.

I can’t pass the CPA exam
I work too many hours
My boss is too picky
I travel too much
I wasn’t promoted
Busy season sucks
I don’t get paid enough
I hate my job

I’ve heard it all.

When you were younger, were you like that? In your first week of the job? In college? What about as a child?

Then why now?

To be honest, you current employer won’t miss you. All the other complainers won’t either. Just quit. Move on. Start to wonder about your place in the stars again.

We have featured some incredible people on The Bean Counter. Take Michael Hsu for example. He started his own accounting firm from scratch in his mid-20’s! Or Ryan Watson who did the same and is now starting his own accounting technology firm, Sqrl! Don’t forget the 17 year old CPA license holder we featured last week! Or Caleb Newquist who was the founding editor of Going Concern.