Kathryn, a professional bookkeeper, is the owner of Tonic Financials (also from Winnipeg) where she focuses on monthly bookkeeping essentials, tax prep, bookkeeping setup work, and financial consulting to artists and musicians.

All of them claim that they’re able to have a life/work balance that allows them to be full-time accountants as well as professionally touring and recording musicians. When they’re not behind the desk helping fellow musicians, artists and those involved in the music industry, they are playing some of the angriest and heaviest music around.

Seeing KEN Mode live or listening to songs like ‘Doesn’t Feel the Pain Like He Should’, ‘Your Heartwarming Story Makes Me Sick’, ‘The Ugliest Happy You’ve Ever Seen’ and ‘The Desperate Search for an Enemy’, the word ‘accountant’ would be the last thing you’d think of.

Here’s one of their latest videos to give you a good audio and visual representation of their ‘other’.

'A Love Letter' by KEN Mode

For Jesse, his ‘other’ came first. The band was always his passion and having a career in accounting, while essential, was more of a means to an end.

“Accounting is by far an ‘other thing’ for me,” he explains. “I only got a business degree in the first place because I knew I wouldn't be able to excel at anything because music will always be my number one.”

“So, I had to develop skills that could be applicable to the industry, and hopefully allow me to secure gainful employment. Somehow I knew, based on the genres I love, I would never make much money playing, so I [essentially] needed a side hustle to provide more security."

Kathryn, who joined the band in more recent history, also noted that her music career came well before accounting. But, it does allow her to have a career outside of music which, much like Jesse, is her passion and the whole point of having an ‘other’ in her professional life.

"For me, my bookkeeping career was born out of a necessity for a job that could support me, be flexible enough to tour, and be something that I enjoyed doing as a bonus,” she says. “Most of my clients are musicians, small businesses or entrepreneurs, so I still feel connected to the creative industry even when working. Finding a niche can be really important when starting a bookkeeping business and I was lucky enough to already be ingrained in one!"

From business planning to beats

While an accountant’s ‘other’ needn’t be music necessarily, it does seem to hit a chord with accounting professionals. Take Scott Scarano, a professional accountant who is also President of Padgett North Carolina.

His practice specializes in business and individual tax planning, IRS and local representation, full service payroll, and bookkeeping. He found his ‘other’ through rap.

Known as ‘OKR’ (short for ‘OK Rapper’), Scott regularly raps about what he knows: accounting. He has created raps and accompanying videos around the subject for his own accounting content hub, Accounting High, as well as for live events in the US including QuickBooks Connect, Scaling New Heights, and Tri-Merit Group’s ‘Bridging the Gap’ conference. You can see some of Scott’s videos on his YouTube channel.

In a recent interview, Scott defined why his ‘other’ exists: “It's harder to be agile if you have an established business. In my firm, I can't be as agile because there are a lot of moving parts, clients, and employees,” he said.

“As a business owner, I'm restarting again with this other brand [Accounting High]. I'm able to do different things with that because I've grown and evolved since I started my firm. I've talked a lot about it in my raps and everything. It's finding that intersection, but then always keeping the audience in mind. It's still hard to create unless you go with a specific intent.”

The power of an ‘other’

In the end, it’s not about having music, art or anything necessarily creative in your life as long as there is an ‘other’—something that helps keep you grounded, and maybe even helps you be a better accounting professional. Perhaps it’s that one thing that you look forward to at the end of a day or week, something that truly adds ‘life’ and balance to your life/work scenario.

So, be like, Scott, Shane, Jesse, Kathryn or Dawn…or don’t. As long as you have an ‘other’ in your life, you will more than likely connect with why you do what you do.