Hey, guess what? Accountants and financial planners are not perfect with their money.
I want to dispel one myth that is out there. If you believe that accountants, CPAs, financial planners, if you think that they are all perfect with their money, you are mistaken. We are human. We make mistakes, and we’re no different than anybody else, other than we might have more knowledge, obviously. But knowledge isn’t everything and I think it’s important that we recognize that CPAs, CFPs, financial planners, we’re not perfect and you’re not expected to be either, and that’s okay. We have families, we run businesses. We are busy just like everybody else. We deal with the relationships that come through our lives on a day to day basis. And as a result, we do crazy human things and we’re not always perfect, even with money.
The analogy that I’ll use is what makes us healthy? We hear this all the time. It’s diet and exercise. Well, no kidding, thanks. We all know this. We all know that if we eat right, if we exercise, we’ll probably be pretty healthy. But why don’t we do it? We know what we have to do, but we’re all human. We make bad choices. We make mistakes. We fall down and we get up. It’s okay, it’s not about necessarily just having the knowledge. It’s about managing all the things that make us human and trying to mitigate the mistakes that we make and allowing ourselves to be imperfect, but to do the best that we can and to keep striving to be better.
So to bring back to the money issue, yes, CPAs, financials planners, we all have the knowledge, but it’s more about managing those imperfections and focusing not on trying to be perfect. I wanted to bring that message to you so that you understand that if you are having some money challenges, if there financial issues in your life, it’s okay not be perfect. It doesn’t make you a bad person. It doesn’t make you dumb. It just means that there’s room for improvement and that’s fine. Even accountant’s, financial planners, whether you’re a CPA, CFP. I’ve been through about every financial education and test and decades of experience you could ever want. I’ll still make mistakes, as will you, and that’s okay. Let’s focus less on trying to be perfect and more on what’s important in life and on trying to do the basics. I mean the basics of finance. You know, live within your means. Don’t spend more than you make. Make sure you’re saving for the long-term, all those things that we know. It’s not new. I’m not inventing this or making this up today. We’ve all heard these things, we know them. Let’s focus on doing the best that we can, constantly improving. And then in the meantime, let’s give ourselves and each other the grace to make some mistakes and to be imperfect.
