BUBBLES, BUSINESS, AND TELLING THE TRUTH WITH SUZANNE WALKER
Every episode of What Are We Drinking? starts the same way, and for a reason. The drink tells a story long before the conversation does. It sets the tone, lowers the guard, and gives us permission to talk honestly about the stuff that usually stays behind closed doors.
This episode was always going to be bubbles.
Suzanne Walker is one of those women who carries sparkle without apology. The kind of person who brings warmth, depth, humour, and backbone into every room she walks into. She’s the founder of Clear Path Accounting, a business built on clarity, leadership, and doing things properly, but more than that, she’s someone who has lived a full, complex life and is brave enough to talk about it honestly.
So we poured Prosecco at ten in the morning, called it a champagne breakfast, and got to work.
PROSECCO ENERGY AND MAIN CHARACTER VIBES
Suzanne’s drink of choice is Prosecco, always has been. Light, bubbly, celebratory, and completely unapologetic. We joked that it says a lot about a person, and honestly, it does. Prosecco energy is fun but focused, joyful without being chaotic, and confident enough to celebrate the small wins as much as the big ones.
It’s the kind of drink you pour because it’s Tuesday and you survived Monday. The kind of drink that reminds you life doesn’t need a milestone to be worth celebrating. And that pretty much sums Suzanne up perfectly.
WALKING AWAY AT NINETEEN AND BUILDING ANYWAY
Suzanne’s story doesn’t start in accounting. It starts at nineteen, pregnant, and being told she would never be anything.
Raised in a strict household, becoming pregnant before marriage meant walking away from her family with nothing but a bag of clothes and a decision to survive. That choice came with deep rejection, a fractured relationship with her father that still hasn’t healed, and the kind of emotional weight most people carry quietly for decades.
But instead of shrinking, she built.
She stayed. She raised her children. She built a marriage that has lasted more than thirty years. She created a life grounded in resilience, grit, and a refusal to accept someone else’s limitation as her own.
And yes, maybe that sentence; you’ll never be anything, became fuel. Not in a loud, revenge-driven way, but in the quiet determination of a woman who simply decided she would prove it wrong by living well.
FROM QUIET CORNERS TO LEADERSHIP
Suzanne didn’t set out to be visible. She liked the quiet corner, the numbers, the certainty of getting things right behind the scenes. Accounting made sense to her, and she was good at it.
Clear Path Accounting was born when her children finished school, when she finally gave herself permission to put everything she had into building something of her own. But becoming a business owner forced her out of hiding. You can’t sit in the corner when you lead. You can’t avoid having an opinion. You can’t build impact without being seen.
What she built instead was a brand that wasn’t about her name, but about direction and clarity. Clear Path wasn’t accidental. It was intentional. It was about guiding people forward, not just balancing numbers.
BUSINESS WILL CRACK YOU OPEN IF YOU LET IT
One of the real truths of this conversation was how much business forces you to meet yourself.
Suzanne has worked with a business coach every fortnight for seven straight years, not because she needed fixing, but because growth demands reflection. Business is one of the most confronting personal development tools there is. It will expose your fear, your scarcity, your need to be needed, and your resistance to stillness faster than almost anything else.
We talked about imposter syndrome, about wanting to be the smartest person in the room, about delaying decisions because being needed feels safer than being free. These aren’t weaknesses. They’re human responses to growth.
And growth always asks for more honesty than comfort.
STILLNESS, HEALING, AND DOING THE WORK
Eventually, business growth led Suzanne somewhere deeper. To stillness. To healing. To an ashram in India.
Two weeks of silence, movement, release, and confronting what sits underneath success. It wasn’t about becoming someone else. It was about coming home to herself.
She returned from that experience changed. Calmer. Clearer. More at peace. And just days later, her mother passed away. Because of the work she had done, she was able to show up with grace instead of resentment, with closure instead of unfinished pain.
That’s the kind of growth we don’t talk about enough. The kind that doesn’t show up on balance sheets but changes everything.
THE NDIS, NUMBERS, AND UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTHS
We also went where this conversation needed to go, into the reality of the NDIS and the financial pressure providers are under right now.
Suzanne doesn’t sugarcoat it. The system is tight. Pricing isn’t keeping up with costs. Wages are rising. Expectations are high. And complaining won’t keep your doors open.
What will keep your business alive is understanding your numbers, especially your gross profit. If that line isn’t healthy, nothing else matters. Efficiency isn’t a dirty word. It’s survival. Optimising rosters, understanding employment structures, converting casuals to permanent roles where appropriate, tightening systems, and stopping financial leaks are not optional anymore.
This isn’t about cutting corners or compromising care. It’s about running a business that can actually continue to care.
The real takeaway
This episode wasn’t about Prosecco, accounting, or even the NDIS.
It was about choice.
The choice to grow.
The choice to face discomfort.
The choice to build something better than what you were told you deserved.
The choice to stop being busy and start being intentional.
The choice to lead with clarity instead of fear.
So yes, we drank bubbles at ten in the morning. And yes, we laughed. But we also told the truth.
And that’s what What Are We Drinking? is really about.
WATCH THE FULL EPISODE
You can watch my conversation with Suzanne Walker here:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/24IkiAy7G5zrwuux5t5lba?si=9abd7ad666294416
This episode will make you think differently about the way you show up in your relationships and the way you show up for yourself.
