The Road Runner's Guide to Breaking Barriers
A moment of becoming .. in my business
Beep beep.
If you grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons, you know the Road Runner never loses. She’s too fast, too clever, too innovative for Wile E. Coyote’s elaborate traps.
She also never asks permission to run.
The call that confirmed everything.
It was 1994. I’d been running my CPA firm for 12 years—built it from absolute scratch in 1982 when most women in business were secretaries or “working until they got married.”
By ‘94, I’d made the Business Courier’s list of largest CPA firms in Cincinnati. I was the only woman-led firm on that list. The only first-generation firm. Every other name? Second-gen owners. Sons managing what their fathers built.
Then the phone rang.
One of the guys—and they were all guys—had been deputized to call me with a message from the club:
“We have a pact here. We don’t take clients from one another.”
I remember the moment. The audacity of it shocked me. Made me deeply uncomfortable.
But as the words sank in, something else happened. Something clicked.
They wouldn’t be calling if I wasn’t taking territory. They wouldn’t be calling if what I was doing wasn’t working. They wouldn’t be calling if I wasn’t a threat to their comfortable arrangement.
And here’s the truth: I wasn’t trying to take anything from anyone. I was following my purpose—the same purpose that drives me today: expanding what’s possible for business owners when it comes to prosperity. Time freedom. Mind freedom. Money freedom.
My response?
“Well, my Daddy didn’t leave me a book of business—so that won’t work for me.”
The difference between managing and innovating.
Here’s what they were doing: maintaining. Preserving. Protecting inherited territory with gentleman’s agreements and backroom pacts.
Here’s what I was doing: innovating.
The 1980s brought PCs into every office, and suddenly small businesses could manage their own accounting with software—but they needed help setting up systems, training their people, and maintaining data integrity.
So I created fractional controller services. My team went into client offices, set up their systems, trained their staff, and returned monthly for clean month-end closes.
While the legacy firms were doing tax returns and audits—the same services their fathers had done—I was building something the market actually needed.
They dug in their heels. I charted new territory.
The Road Runner’s advantage.
The Road Runner wins because she doesn’t play by Wile E. Coyote’s rules. She doesn’t wait for him to approve her route. She doesn’t slow down to make him feel better about himself.
She just runs.
And that’s exactly what I did.
That call didn’t slow me down. It lit a fire.
What happened next.
At 39, I received one of the highest honors a woman can receive in Cincinnati—the YWCA Career Woman of the Year award. Then Business Courier 40 Under 40. I added my PFS designation. Launched The Prosperity People, an independent RIA, and created Prosper for Individuals.
Once that was running smoothly, I sold off most of my CPA firm, kept a core of clients, and started my next innovation: Prosper for Business, our fractional CFO coaching system.
We made the Inc. 5000 list.
And now? I’m teaching other CPAs how to do exactly what I did—transform from compliance-focused practices to coaching-based advisory relationships that AI can’t replicate.
The AI moment.
Here’s what I know: AI is today’s PC revolution.
In the 1980s, when PCs arrived, the firms that resisted either finally got on board or lost that work to other providers. But here’s what really happened: they were so focused on protecting the status quo that they stopped paying attention to what their clients actually needed. They failed their clients by choosing comfort over innovation.
Today, AI is automating compliance work at lightning speed. The CPAs who think they can protect their territory with “pacts” and legacy pricing models are making the same mistake—building elaborate defenses while the market runs right past them.
Will you choose to dig in your heels? Or will you move to new territory?
The Road Runners? They’re building coaching-based practices. Becoming strategic thinking partners instead of spreadsheet keepers. Expanding what’s possible for their clients—time freedom, mind freedom, money freedom.
Your permission slip.
If you’re reading this and thinking, “But I’m not sure I’m ready... What if I fail? What if the other firms judge me? What if clients don’t get it?”
Let me tell you something:
The Road Runner doesn’t need permission.
Those guys who called me in 1994? I have no idea what happened to their firms. I never looked back.
You don’t need anyone’s approval to innovate. You don’t need to wait for the market to be “ready.” You don’t need permission from the old guard to build something new.
You just need to decide: Are you managing what you inherited, or creating what comes next?
The Road Runner already knows the answer.
Beep Beep.
