S4, E8 Flip the Switch

0:01 From Soccer to Accounting: Graham's Early Journey Hello, I'm Joanne Wood. 0:03 Speaker 2 And I'm Mark Cowan, welcome to Journeys of Accountancy. 0:10 Speaker 1 Today we speak with Graham Reed, Director of Finance and Investor Relations at Braintree Group. Graham, thank you for joining us today. 0:18 Speaker 3 Thank you guys for having me. 0:20 Speaker 2 So let's start by having you share with us your background. Where'd you grow up, and what led you to study accounting at first Seattle Pacific University and later at Northwest Nazarene? 0:31 Speaker 3 Yeah, so I was born in Montgomery, AL My family moved to Boise when I was three years old, lived in, lived in Boise all my life, grew up playing soccer and going to Boise High School soccer was really all I cared about. And, you know, ultimately that's what took me to to Seattle Pacific. 0:50 So, you know, my mom being ACPA and kind of seeing her, her career and I, I felt like studying accounting would give me the most options. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I just knew I needed to do something practical that would keep a lot of doors open. 1:07 And so, you know, there was a great accounting program at Seattle Pacific. A lot of my teammates were in the program and had success, you know, finding internships and jobs after. And so that was kind of the driver behind be studying accounting. 1:21 Speaker 2 So you played soccer at Seattle Pacific, Yes. And then what led you to transfer to Northwest Nazarene, which is in Nampa ID? 1:29 Speaker 3 Yeah, well, when you when you shape your your whole identity around a sport, right And, you know, have to deal with with setbacks, whether it's not playing, whether it's getting injured. You know, I, I kind of had to go through some growing pains in my personal life and ultimately decided to transfer with some friends to Northwest Nazarene, where I still played. 1:50 But it was closer to home and gave me a little bit of a fresh start. And so it was really just that fresh start. 1:56 Speaker 2 So what did your mother do in so? She was a CPA, So what did she do? Like was her job. 2:01 Speaker 3 She worked for a number of public accounting firms, just smaller local firms and some regional firms. And then she worked for the Idaho Education Association for most of my junior high and high school years. And so she, I think she was essentially their financial executive for a while and got the, you know, nonprofit experience and ultimately decided to step back a little bit from from that job. 2:26 At that point in time, I think she was just wanting to work a little bit less and went back to working in public accounting on a more like part time basis. And so that's kind of the work she's been doing. 2:36 Speaker 2 Which is something you can do do if you become ACPA and once you've got a lot of experience, you can kind of step back and do part time and you're, you're going to be still in demand even if you're different stages of your life. Sure. 2:46 Speaker 3 And the good thing too is you think about the seasonality of it. There are times a year where people just don't want to work. And that's usually the the nice months in the winter months. It's pretty common for it was common for my mom to ramp up her working during, you know, to coincide with tax season. 3:02 And so I think she she found a lot of balance in that schedule. 3:05 How Real-World Experience Flipped the Accounting Switch So you you had a good model for you can see what a when an accounting career could do for you for all the practical reasons that you noted. But then sometimes some people know it's a good career, but then they go to study it and it's like, so how did you find studying it at any of the universities you've been? 3:20 Speaker 3 Sure. I think the challenge is always pairing what you're learning to a real world experience. And so when I was younger, especially during undergrad, it was really difficult for me to kind of view it as more than just memorizing my books to pass tests and get some key foundational pieces there. 3:39 But I think the older I got and you know, doing the master's program at Boise State, I started to get exposed to more real world issues, right? More case studies, more examples. And I'd also, I had a little bit of work experience in between my undergrad and my master's program and that helped, that really helped me flip a switch and kind of understanding the why behind what I was studying. 4:02 And in hindsight, I wish I'd, I wish I had flipped that switch earlier because my undergrad would have been very beneficial that way. Because there was definitely even when I started working some catching up to do on some basic things where I just, I didn't have them down till I had to do them in the job. 4:20 So. 4:21 Speaker 1 But going back to your undergrad, your undergrad was about soccer, right? Sure. You stated that it was about soccer. So were you surprised that you had some basics to pick up an accounting or as you look on that back on that now you realize, OK, that makes sense because it's where my priority was? 4:38 Speaker 3 I was a path of least resistance student and so like I did what I needed. 4:43 Speaker 2 So you were a student? 4:44 Speaker 3 Yes. 4:47 Speaker 2 In other words. 4:48 Speaker 3 I did what I needed to do to get good enough grades to take me where I wanted to go, but I wasn't willing to do. I didn't want to have to do anything more than that. But as my soccer career began to dwindle, it became pretty clear I'm going to need something to fall back on. And so, you know, just having been a 20 year old whose brain is still very undeveloped, there's just a lot of, there are a lot of light switches that were not turned on at that time. 5:12 And so, you know, my, my junior and senior year and then my, my master's program experiences were really just me kind of figuring out who I was and understanding that, OK, I am smart. I can be good at some of these things. And whenever I'm when I'm good at them, I like them and I want to do more of it. 5:29 Speaker 1 So you have the normal college experience. 5:31 Speaker 3 It's very. 5:32 Speaker 1 And you were good at the the great game and the game of soccer. 5:35 Speaker 2 And now the game of life. Yes. So, yeah. 5:39 Navigating Internships and Early Career Choices So you mentioned that the switch flipping on when you had a little bit of real world experience. 5:44 Speaker 1 So that is a good point because when we get into our college degrees, we often don't realize that there's opportunities out there to find some of that real world experience to help us make the connections quicker in college. Did you know that? 5:59 Were there any internships? Could you have done an internship? 6:03 Speaker 3 Yeah, I think especially early on in school, I was training and this is this is me growing up too. It was like all my summers were spent like training and preparing for soccer. And so it was difficult to find anywhere that would pick me up for that short of a period of time. 6:19 It just, it wasn't really an option for me because of my schedule. So it was like finding a job was was difficult and then getting into into school, I mean, until I guess my senior year, an internship wasn't necessarily on the cards. I went through kind of the fall internship recruiting my, my junior year and it had some success there. 6:39 And you know, whether it was call it connections or call it nepotism, right, Had some opportunities to get a foot in at the BIG4 for an internship in the summer. And so that was really my first shot to take advantage of one of those internships. And so I think it worked out for me. 6:56 But in hindsight, it would have been a good decision I think for me to maybe after my sophomore year, even try to get a little bit more serious about finding some sort of work experience. But at the same time, I didn't want to pigeonholed and I didn't want to, I didn't know what I wanted to do at that point. 7:14 So I think there's a lot of hesitancy sometimes in students to, to make that leap because, you know, you get the classic, I don't know what I want to do. Well, I quickly have found out in my life that the best thing to do when you don't know what you want to do is to do something right. And so try something, get some experience, it'll be relevant no matter what you end up doing and see if you like it. 7:35 And if you don't like it, then you try something else. And so, you know, I wish I'd started that process a little earlier. 7:40 Speaker 1 So you did a great job right there just marketing one of the classes at Boise State that we have just kind of specialized and it's called Accounting 290. And it's a class you can take that doesn't commit you to the accounting program, but lets you try it out. And you could just see hands on what documents look like coming in into a company and you get to process those and then you get to see that on the software side of it. 8:03 So if you're listening to this and you're thinking, I feel the same way, I don't know what I want to do in life. I don't want to be pigeonholed into 1° or another degree. Try out that class because it is something that no matter what you do in business, it will definitely help you know if you like accounting or if you just like business. 8:21 Speaker 2 So you mentioned you were kind of the typical student trying to figure out what you wanted and trying to get through it, right? 8:26 MSAT Program: Connections and Career Advancement So after you graduated from Northwest Nazarene, you came to Boise State to do your Master of Accountancy and Taxation. So a lot of students I talked to were a little leery of getting a graduate degree because they think it's going to be pretty intense and it is, but worry about it. 8:42 So could you tell us about your experience in the MSAT program here at Boise State? 8:46 Speaker 3 Sure. Yeah. I think when I look back on it, that was a big, a big level up for me and a good opportunity not only to cut my teeth doing some more difficult coursework, but also to make some great connections and, and meet some people that, you know, it's benefited my career in a big way. 9:06 Some of those connections from, you know, that that year spent in the program. The other thing too, is when you get into, you know, whether mid or upper management roles, at some point, depending on whatever your career path is, there's often a box to check for a, a graduate degree. 9:23 And so it, it was, it was a good way to take care of that as well. And so you're young, you're just coming off the back of school. You're like, gosh, I don't want to do more school. Well, it's going to be a lot harder to go back later. And it's a lot more practical to just keep those wheels rolling for another year or, you know, to however long it takes you to, to do that and whatever fits for you. 9:47 But I think that ended up being one of the best decisions I made, made good value for my money, great friends, great professors. And you know, I look back on it and you know, I would, I wouldn't change. I wouldn't change that decision at all. 10:00 Speaker 2 Could you give us maybe an example of where the network has helped? 10:04 Speaker 3 Sure. After school, I in my internship with, you know, Ernst and Young, I went up to work in the Seattle office. Well, I had a great time there, but at a point in time it was, you know, my wife's work had taken her back to Boise, my now wife. 10:22 And so I decided to follow her back. And, you know, the first, first calls I I made were to some of my connections from the master's program who worked at local firms. And so it was a pretty easy process for me to kind of come back into the, you know, local, local business community and find a place because I had those connections already there. 10:43 And that stemmed directly from the master's program. 10:46 Speaker 1 I want to go into that a little bit because oftentimes I hear students say, man, we're going to graduate and wherever we get the job, we're going to get the job. And if my girlfriend goes one way and I have to go another way, we don't know if this is going to last. But you just made a point there that in the accounting industry, you knew where your girlfriend, now wife was headed and you had enough connections and enough opportunity that you were able to follow her. 11:12 So you didn't have to make that hard relationship choice. 11:15 Speaker 3 Sure, the the transferability of, of the set of skills is it's incredible and it's they're applicable and pretty much anywhere, not just in other public accounting settings. But if you're pivoting even to, you know, financial management and operations, whatever, right, there's that skill set has translated really well across the board and kind of anything I've had to dip my dip my toes in. 11:41 So it made it easy. 11:42 Learning and Growing in the BIG4 Environment I also want to point out that you've also been very good about giving back. For example, I remember when you worked for EY in Seattle, you came down here a couple of times, I think, and set up camp in one of our conference rooms on campus. And just we're happy to talk to anybody, any of our current students about careers at EY or careers in accounting in general. 12:02 And so is that something you continue to do in various settings and different settings or? 12:06 Speaker 3 Yeah, I think it's, I think it's less common when you when you move into the private sector. But as far as being a resource for people, I, I try to, I try to make myself available because I've been, I've been in their shoes. You know, my experience at EY was so good. 12:22 Like I loved it so much. I wanted other people to have that experience. And I still, and I still do. So I think to the extent there are individuals that are interested, interested in meeting people at a certain firm or learning about different less traditional career path, I've always been open to kind of being a resource. 12:41 Speaker 2 And I think that's generally true of a lot of accountants. They realize the journey they've been on and then. 12:47 Speaker 1 They come back, yeah, we get well. 12:48 Speaker 2 You're doing it right now. You're here talking to us. 12:50 Speaker 1 You're here and we get a lot of people that want to help us out and so much so sometimes we don't know how to take all the help. You know, you've talked about EY and you've talked about that you came back and you worked at Deloitte. 13:03 Speaker 2 Let's dive a little deeper into your BIG4 experience. You expressed such enthusiasm about, you know about it and you worked for two of the firms because you worked for EY in Seattle and EY didn't have an office here, but you worked for Deloitte. So kind of what what do you mean by that? Because you dive a little deeper into what you learned, or there's the atmosphere. 13:22 Speaker 3 I mean, I, I'm a sports guy, come from that background and there's something really cool about about a bunch of 20 something people coming together all at once in kind of the line of the line of fire, getting attached to a fire hose and being told to work and being told to learn. 13:40 And the environment, especially, especially at my in my first few years at UI was, was such that the level of teaming, the level of, you know, attention we were getting from our seniors and our managers and our senior managers. It was just an infectious learning environment where you're giving and what you ask for and what you go and get. 14:00 And so feeling like there was always something to keep work interesting and always something new to learn and always someone willing to teach me. And like collective suffering brings people together. And so the long hours, the, you know, the meals at the office late at night, yeah, there's some, there's some misery there. 14:19 But there's also an incredible amount of grit, determination, character building and relationship building. And you know, I think that at its core is the best learning environment, how certain people, especially people a lot more like me, where I think I did better playing the game, right. 14:36 I did, I did a lot better in that setting. And I think it allowed me to kind of unlock part of myself that I hadn't had access to before. I think just thinking about the differences between public and and private, I, I got a lot of experience doing a corporate tax and that was a lot of my late summer and fall. 14:56 We generally extend with all those corporate clients, but in the late fall and in kind of the Q4Q1 time frame, I was doing a lot of tax audits. 15:09 Speaker 2 EY or Delay was auditing the financial statements of a major corporation and you and part of that is there's a tax expense and tax items on the balance sheet and they call in the tax people like you to look at that. 15:22 Speaker 3 Yes. So you'll hear, you know, ASC 740, you'll hear tax provision, but there's so much that goes into that every transaction at the company is going to affect that line in one way or another. And so the lift to audit that is so significant. And I think my favorite part about going into tax specifically was that I had part of the year where I got to do compliance more traditional route. 15:45 But an another big chunk of my year was spent at audit sites digging into financials, learning about all sorts of things that you don't run into every day, especially working with, you know, Fortune 500 clients. They're just unique issues to to companies that are that big, but they're also there's run-of-the-mill depreciation or interest expense related items that that you're still going to test at those big at those big companies. 16:11 Speaker 2 You also have to look at, as part of that work, you have to look back many years and if the company, like a lot of big companies are under constant audit by the IRS. And so you have to go and assess all their tax risks and tax positions they've taken and figure out how that affects their books. 16:28 Speaker 3 Sure. You get to understand the practicality of of gap accounting and the importance of representation, but also right comparability. It really is there. And I think when you get to dive into whether it's a existing large company that has a more predictable tax provision or, you know, a company that's IP owing and they've got some really interesting tax characteristics, you're going to see some complex challenges at the end of the day. 16:55 So I can't state enough how important I felt that having both those experiences was to my my career. 17:03 Speaker 1 Just to clarify, IPO in his initial public offering when they're going out on the stock market, yes. 17:10 Speaker 2 Yes, I just want to say that some of the things you were saying earlier, you, you're bringing back a lot of memories for me and for once they're good memories usually. Usually people talk in these things and they're I'm going back to bad memories. I did not like doing tax provisions. I I did not find it fulfilling, but that whole idea is that's one of the advantages of going into work for an accounting firm that hires a lot of people. 17:31 Doesn't have to be big for it could be a more regional firm, but they hire you all at once. You're all around the same age. You just came out of college, you're going through this very trying but very interesting and learning experience and you're doing it together. And it's almost like, I don't know how to describe it. 17:48 It's kind of like you're you're going through the misery, but you're also learning a lot and developing a lot of great friendships. And I remember those early days. 17:55 Speaker 1 And so the the question I have is, are you still in contact with these people that you were down in the trenches with? 18:00 Speaker 3 Yeah, in one way or another. I think there's some I'm a lot closer with. But you know, I do have periodic check insurance with, in Group chats with, with, with certain people, especially the people that are in your, in your start class. I think, you know, the other side of all the great teaming and work that goes on is people leave and people leave all the time. 18:20 Having to deal with that is it's a great learning experience in itself because pretty quickly, you know, you're the, you're the experienced senior on a project, your manager leaves, well, who's Next up, right. And it's, it's opportunity to kind of step in and, and take that next step and build on your experience. 18:37 But at the same time, it's, it's commonplace in business, right, to have turnover and you're always going to see that. But getting to deal with that at a really early stage of my career, I think has benefited me a ton just in the willingness to lift heavy things and to not back down from difficult tasks and challenges. 18:54 It forces you into that really early on. 18:58 From Public to Private: Joining Braintree Group So you enjoyed working in public accounting, but what made you transition into private accounting and where are you currently working? 19:07 Speaker 3 Yeah. So I've always had, you know, an itch to get experience in the private sector. And so in Boise there's yes, there's a, I think there's kind of a, a sneaky variety of businesses. I think in some, in some ways you think a lot of it's just Agri business and healthcare, but there's, there's a lot more than that here. 19:29 And I think being from this community and wanting to see Boise grow, I really felt like I'd like to learn more about one of its businesses. And real estate is something that I'm just purse on a personal level very, very interested in. And so when there was an opportunity, it came up for a senior tax investor count and role at Braintree Group, all I could think was, OK, what's this? 19:55 What's this building that used to be the Macy's building? It's all renovated and why does it have a basketball court on the first level and a turf field? I know very little about it, but once I'd gotten into my interview and talked with some people there, it presented itself as a really complex, complicated, but exciting business and very, very real estate heavy oriented. 20:16 And you know, that's that's what Braintree Group is at its core. It's an entrepreneur's business and there's there's so much going on. I think it was a good fit for me. I keep I keep going back to this, but like my whole. Life I've been trying to avoid getting put into a box and this was an opportunity for me to do a lot of different things and so you know my day-to-day there it's it's different everyday. 20:45 It started with getting my arms around the tax compliance situation and some of the, the planning and structuring. But it, you know, it's quickly expanded into, into a broader role, getting to, you know, go through the experience of buying and selling assets, going refinancing, working with some of our partners and getting to interact with investors. 21:04 There's a whole world on the other end of all the, the learning and technical experience I got in public accounting. There's this whole world of business where you get to wear a lot of hats. And that was, that was what I wanted, right? I've always wanted that. And so, like I said, my day-to-day, it differs all the time, but there's always something exciting and challenging to wake up to, always something to pick myself up, you know, for right, I've got to, I've got to go in ready to, ready to work hard, ready to, to problem solve. 21:35 But I found that in that environment, I, I stay motivated and I do my best work. It's been a good a good switch for me. 21:42 Understanding Braintree Group's Diverse Real Estate Ventures So tell us what Braintree Group does, because you've talked a lot about it and you're talking about wearing hats and but we don't we need to let people that are listening know what this company does. Sure it's. 21:53 Speaker 3 It's kind of a combination between a family office and a real estate development slash. 21:58 Speaker 2 Investment. OK. You might want to and define where the family office is because that's not something that's commonly talked about. Sure. 22:04 Speaker 3 Sure. The the family office aspect is more just running the family, the financial aspect of the family business, right. You have business owners to need help running their lives because there's there's so many complexities that that come along with it. 22:21 I think that's probably the simplest way to describe that on the other side, right, Real estate development and investment, sometimes you're building something ground up, sometimes you're looking to acquire, sometimes someone is looking to to raise capital from you and you provide some of that capital. 22:37 And so that's on a more regular basis. That's what the company does is it's a lot more a lot heavier in, in kind of the real estate development side and you know. 22:46 Speaker 2 A family has acquired wealth in some way through business or otherwise, and so now they need to invest it in a variety of different ways. Exactly. And so they kind of have their own little company that's we would call the family office that would do that investing and advising and keeping track of everything. 23:04 And the focus of yours happened to be in real estate and specifically hotels, right? 23:09 Speaker 3 Yes. And so that's where that's where a lot of the activity has been recently. But you know, we're, we're present across, you know, a number of real estate asset classes, whether it's hospitality, industrial office, fairly diversified and inactive and the hotels themselves, right? 23:27 We have, we do have a management arm. And so there's a, there's a management company that is a whole another part of the business that I'm I'm a lot less involved in. But it's, it's a completely, you know, different animal and different kind of business. And even getting exposed to some of some of that has been, you know, great learning opportunity for me as well, getting to see that. 23:47 Managing Cash Flow in the Unpredictable Hotel Industry What's been the biggest challenge as you've entered that hospitality market because that's not a common when we get on our podcasts. 23:56 Speaker 3 Sure. I think the hardest part was like having very little experience in that asset class. Having no experience in the asset class, right? It's appreciating the complexity of it and the unpredictability of it. And so you're talking a lot of a lot more employees than a lot of other real estate classes. 24:15 You're getting less consistency in the consumer. The person staying at your hotel, you have no idea what they're going to do. You also have franchise agreements and standards you need to the reporting complexities for, you know, decision makers, right? 24:31 They're, they're pretty, it's pretty detailed stuff. And so being able to differentiate yourself as a, as a property or as a portfolio or as a company, right, is, is very, very difficult. It's a very competitive space. And so I think that's been the kind of the, the biggest challenge for me is just learning about something that I know I knew very little about. 24:52 And that was definitely the biggest challenge. 24:54 Speaker 2 Yeah. And that seems a little bit surprising because, you know, you drive, you drive around and you see a Hampton Inn or you see a Hilton or something and you think, oh, well, that's not a complicated business. They rent out the rooms every night and they clean the rooms. And yeah, there's somebody who has to keep track of everything. But, you know, is it that big of a deal? 25:10 But it's not, it's, it's there's a lot going on. You have to answer to a lot of different people. You have to answer not only to your investors, but your employees and say one of your brands is Hilton. You got to You have this complicated agreement with Hilton, right? 25:25 Speaker 3 Sure, Yeah. And, and fortunately, you know, a lot of the most difficult aspects of that are ones that, you know, our operations, our operations teams and management teams have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. It's you know, I do not envy them. 25:41 A lot of times it's it's very difficult to to manage all of that. And I think a lot of you know, where I come in is kind of on on the back end of that. And you're right, when you go past these hotels off the side of the Interstate, you, you roll off taking an accident, stay there. 25:57 You don't really appreciate everything that went in to making that happen, right? It's not Hilton just dropping a box out of the sky and starting a business right there, right? Someone had to raise capital, raise debt, go through the process of constructing it, meeting the brand standards, getting all the infrastructure set up. 26:16 It's, it's a whole business in itself, right? So scaling that is really difficult and really complex, but if you can get good at it, you can do really, really well. 26:25 Speaker 1 And everything you just mentioned there, it all related back to cash. So how hard is it to manage the cash because you've, you know, you've said operations has a lot going on, their labor can fluctuate from season to season and we don't talk a lot about cash much. 26:40 How hard is that? 26:42 Speaker 3 Sure. Yeah, that that's one of the more complex aspects of the asset classes. You have a lot of properties that are that are fairly seasonal. And so it's really important on the management side, we have a lot of really good people on our kind of managerial accounting team that have experience working in hotels and understand the micro complexities to them and understand the different product types. 27:08 Each hotel drives a little bit differently. Each market that it sits in drives a little bit differently. And so having those people in place on on the managerial accounting side is so, so critical there because you'll have, you know, you'll have a hotel in Las Vegas. 27:24 It does really, really well in January, February, March, April, but in the dead heat of summer, maybe there's a significant pullback there. So as this asset is cash flowing, it's important to be reserving cash for a rainy day and try and look ahead and understand. 27:41 Speaker 2 Sunny day or sunny in Las Vegas or sunny? 27:44 Speaker 3 Day, but it's important. 27:45 Speaker 2 To. 27:46 Speaker 3 It's important to look ahead and try and forecast what's going to happen and how much money you can take out of the investment to return to investors, how much money you need to reserve on the side for capital expenditures. Maybe you have a, you know, an elevator you need to replace. 28:03 And so a lot of where I've been involved is more at the kind of before you get to the investor level, it's how much cash can you kick out to the investors and how much do we need to leave in. And so it takes a village really to to manage those things. And it's pretty cool to see, you know, see a successful operation at those hotels, so. 28:22 Speaker 1 I'm just thinking elevators aren't cheap. You've also got to maintain everything else, you know, carpet, mattresses, whatever people break, Sure. So the expenditure is constant and get some bad, you know, hotel guests and that could cost you some money. 28:38 Speaker 3 Yeah. I mean, a really common practice in the hotel space is a CapEx reserve. And so, you know, generally it's going to be, call it, 4% of your gross revenues. And so that's a really standard practice because it's so unpredictable. 28:54 You never know when that heater is going to go out. You never know when Mick Jagger is going to smash a mirror, right? Like, yeah, it's very unpredictable. And so having that set, that reserve set aside is, is critical to having a sustainable investment structure. 29:08 Speaker 2 And I think those details are, you know, sometimes we, we don't emphasize them enough because I think a lot of students believe reasonably that oh, well, we get the cash in from the hotel guests and then as it comes in, we can spend it. But like you've just explained, there might be a lot coming in for a few months, but then you got the dry months. 29:27 So you have to really meticulously manage that. 29:30 Speaker 3 Save for a rainy day. 29:31 Speaker 2 Save for a rainy day. 29:32 Speaker 1 Or a sunny day. 29:33 Speaker 3 Or a sunny day. Sunny day is a good day. 29:37 Finding Balance: Hobbies, Boundaries, and Mental Health So our journeys are not all about accountancy. Tell us what keeps you busy outside of work. 29:42 Speaker 3 Yeah, so I didn't fully close the door on soccer coming out of school. You know, I didn't play for a long time. My body, my body was pretty broken down. I took a long break there. But I learned to kind of fall in love with, with running and, and mountain biking in recent years, especially kind of after, after feeling isolated a bit during COVID, I really want to get back into soccer because a lot of my community came from that. 30:07 A lot of my sense of belonging came from that. So you know, where I am now and where I live, right, is I live there so that I can go run by the river or in the hills or bike up the hill, take my dog out. But I'm, you know, very involved in playing soccer and coaching soccer. 30:25 And so a lot of my free time goes there. It helps me also set boundaries at work, which is an important, important thing to do. It's been pretty critical for my mental health. Just the exercise. Without it, I just, I'm a mess. 30:40 And you know, if I, if I get that quick run in, if I get to go out and play soccer, it's something for me to work for and something on the back end that always makes me feel so much better. That encompasses a lot of my personal life. 30:52 Speaker 1 That's a great and we're glad you found the way to find the balance and help your mental health at the same time. So thanks for sharing that with us. Thanks again for joining us today, Graham. 31:03 Speaker 3 Yeah, thanks for thanks for having me. This is a a great format and I just want to make myself available to to you and your students as a resource if you know they're interested in learning more about my experience or what options might be out there for them. 31:18 So thanks for having me. 31:20 Speaker 2 And for journeys of accountancy, I'm Mark Cowan. 31:22 Speaker 1 And I'm Joanne Wood, join us for our next episode.