How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Oh my dear, sweet CPA…
How much do you LOVE the financial service professionals in your life? Do you swoon for your CPA? Fall into reverie while extolling the virtues of your financial planner? Declare that you adore your bank at the drop of a hat? Does your broker transport you to a state of ecstatic bliss?
Do you even know what I’m talking about?
In this time of love — and taxes — let’s examine the love we feel for our financial professionals.
When I teach Spiritual Finance, when I have money conversations with people, when people just happen to mention financial service professionals, I am apt to fall into long-winded and heartfelt reverie regarding my CPA. I ADORE him. I can honestly declare that this man changed my life. When I met my CPA he brought me a kind of freedom and relief in my financial life that I had never experienced before, and I am eternally grateful. (In this moment I am feeling a twinge of remorse that I haven’t erected a shrine on his behalf. That’s how important his influence has been.)
Extreme? No, I don’t think so. In fact, in this realm of money — the intimate, vulnerable territory we dare share with few others — I feel it is imperative to love, love, love the people who provide us with financial services.
Before I met my CPA, I had avoided everything that had to do with taxes. That blind ignorance and denial landed me in a heap of tax debt. I had been working with a perfectly capable and lovely person who just did not understand me and who grossly overestimated my capacity for understanding what the hell I was and wasn’t doing. They weren’t bad at what they did, in fact I think they were very well qualified and proficient. They were just a dreadful “fit” for me. To be quite honest, they, and the whole process of being present with money scared me to a point of paralysis, so I just avoided dealing with it until I made an irreparable mess of everything. (I’m sure they were glad to be rid of me when I moved on.)
On the recommendation of a friend (after a particularly desperate phone call pleading begging for help) I was delivered onto the doorstep of my current CPA (the saint). And my life changed. Suddenly, I had someone who didn’t assume that I knew anything, was eager to help and guide me through with ridiculous baby steps, and who has never judged me, even whilst I heaped judgment upon myself.
I don’t believe that there is one perfect pie-in-the-sky financial professional that is a great fit for everyone. We are unique. Our financial service providers have to be a uniquely good fit with who we are as individuals. My guy wouldn’t be the perfect fit for everybody. But he’s a perfect fit for me. And I’m happy to share that I feel the same way about my bank. And banker. And brokerage. And so on down the list.
Because I no longer settle. I demand to have financial professionals in my life who I love. If I don’t adore them I can’t work with them. That’s all there is to it. I’ll keep looking until I find them. And when I do?
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…
