Sheetal Sood

I attribute my success to my mom. She's the one that made me who I am. When I was 19 or 20, I was all over the place and my priorities were screwed up at times. I was struggling with my last CPA exam and wasn't studying too much because I had other things going on. My mom flew in from India and was here for 60 days. She locked me into a room for 45 days and made sure that I studied for this exam. It was just one more exam and I wasn't realizing what I could lose, but she made sure that I cracked it, and I owe her my life for that. My mom is my biggest inspiration. She's a very independent female. I've always seen her doing stuff that probably I wouldn't even say that a male would do. My mom is someone that has taken care of us. My dad was always traveling as a diplomat, always busy with his stuff, so my mom is the one that pretty much raised us. She taught me so many things, and I think I'm a shadow of her, and I owe her my life for who I am today.

The best career advice I ever received came from one of my accounting professors at George Mason University. While I was struggling as an international student trying to get my paperwork sorted out, this professor came to me and told me that I shouldn't be disappointed by what my present looks like. They said I should definitely focus on a better future, because they saw a bright future for me and they saw that I'm very capable. They told me they have not seen someone that cannot achieve things that I've achieved in such a short time. That professor was the biggest motivation in my life that pushed me into being who I am today. Their words helped me understand that my current struggles didn't define my potential, and that belief in me made all the difference.

I would definitely tell younger folks that the biggest thing I've seen, especially when I do a lot of interviews for interns and first-level associates, is that people take a lot of things personally. Kids these days especially take things personally. If you want to be in this profession, or any profession, you just cannot take things personally. You have to be with a mindset that you don't have relatives here, you're just in a professional environment, and you have to let things go. When you come for work, you have to come with a very open mind. You need to read your audience. You need to understand who you're dealing with. I think that's the biggest thing that I've seen young professionals lacking. You're going to come across harsh words at times, and nobody's perfect, but you have to let go of things and just think about why does this person say this to me. It's just because they want you to grow. They want to see you go up. It's not that they personally have a problem with you.

I feel there are more opportunities than challenges in my field right now. Not a lot of people are cracking the CPA, and the turnover rate is less than 1% in this field. There are a lot of opportunities out there and a lot of firms are hiring. I think sky is the limit. It just depends in which direction you want to go, but I definitely feel that more and more people should be in this profession, because it's a very secure profession. It's not like IT, where you're flipping jobs. This is a very secure profession. If you can manage the first 5 years in this career, sky is the limit for you. If you're really a go-getter, any opportunist, you'll get it. You'll get there. If I can get there when I was just an international student here, others can get there, too.

It's very important to have a good balance between your professional life and your personal life. I always tell people that no matter how hard you work, and you should work hard, but at the same time, you should not be neglecting your personal life, your loved ones. Because you can get another job, but you cannot replace your loved ones. So it's very, very important for you to have a personal life as well. When you jump from your professional life into your personal life, it gives you a breather. It changes your mindset. It refreshes your mind. So it's very important to have your loved ones around you and not neglect them. I'm not married, but I have two nieces, and I make sure that during the week, I go to them twice, because they're my stress busters. The love that you get from your family is very important for you. People just don't understand that your personal life reflects somehow into your professional life, and your personal life reflects into your professional life. You've got to have standards, even in your personal life, because you're not a machine where you have a button and you switch 365 degrees. They both overlap, so you gotta have some standards, some etiquette, in who you are as a person.